Day One -- Settling In

After a long and typically exhausting journey, we arrived safe and sound in Kampala. Most of the day was spent organizing the details of our life here. Erika and Corey went with our marvelous local contact Dennis to a money exchange bureau to trade USD for Ugandan Shillings.

After a wonderful first meal of fried chicken, beans with vegetables and boiled rice, the team divided up all the suitcases of donated materials with piles ready to go to Nateete Living Hope Children's Centre, Sanyu Babies Home, Kawanda Secondary, Kabojja International, King's Daughters and Jinja Welcome Home Orphanage. We have piles and bags and boxes of things ready to go. Team Member Lauren Sharpe was unable to make our initial packing party back in Kelowna, and upon seeing all the things we brought she commented that she was in awe and overwhelmed by the generosity of the donors.

After we finished separating materials, the team piled into our van and Robert, our capable driver, took us downtown to the Shoprite (a very famous and very familiar-feeling supermarket) where team members stocked up with lunch items for the next two weeks. After a quick trip to a well-known souvenir store (and a coffee break for certain team members...) we headed downtown for dinner at Fang Fangs, the most famous Chinese restaurant in Kampala. We sat in a beautiful open-air dining room at a huge table and enjoyed course after course of excellent dishes. Betty and Sam joined us for our first dinner in Uganda and so we felt complete.

We finally made it back to the resource centre at 10 pm and, after a few amusing moments with wall-clinging geckos and overly-friendly 3" cockroaches, all fell asleep soon after.

We all commented that it seemed that day one was actually two or three days' long - a combination of jet lag, general exhaustion and excitement. Our first full day begins tomorrow! So far, though, everyone is healthy and in good spirits.

(currently, photos are not loading-- dunno why. I'll try again later!)