SMOi

Hello everyone.
I hope you look forward to reading these emails. Again, if they are too
burdensome for you let me know and I can easily remove your name. I will
not think of you as any less of a person.
I started my first official day at work on Monday. I normally get up
at around 6:30am to have some quiet time with God and then work starts
at around 8am but we always have office prayer at 8:30am. It is so
incredible working with a Christian ministry. Having God as your
focus everyday makes work enjoyable because you know it is for His
sake and nothing else.
Our first assignment was to go to a city and retrieve bus tickets for
our trip to Rwanda next Monday (at that time I will be unable to send
emails) and also get a color cartridge for the printer. Well we have
never been to this city before but we had a map so we figured we could
make it. Also, nobody told us where the bus station was. We just
knew what it was close to. There is no mapquest here so you have to
figure it out. We ended up getting lost in this city and wondering
around for hours. Ugandans are not very good with directions and
haven't learned how to read maps either. If you approach a Ugandan
and ask him or her for directions to a place they will give you
directions even if they have no clue how to get there (they do not
like disappointing bazungus or white people). So we would ask one
person who did not know English very well and he would tell us the bus
station is south, the next person we asked after walking south for .25
of a mile told us the station was north. Then we asked some more
people and nobody ever pointed in the right direction. It was
frustrating at the time but looking back at it, it was funny. The
staff at eMi told us that next time you are lost ask people in the
same area and then take the average direction of what they told you.
If you have money you can go to a boda driver (scooter driver) because
they know their way around but they will not tell you unless you pay
them. We call these guys "boda-quest" because they are our maps
around Kampala.
Another interesting event was that we had to hand wash our own
boxers/underwear because it is an insult if we ask the cleaning lady
to do it. So my roommate washed his and left it out to dry but when
he came back he knew that one of his boxers was missing. He looked
all around and could not find it until some blue caught his eye in a
herd of goats in our courtyard. It turns out that one of the goats
snatched his boxers from the line. My roommate did not want to fight
a goat for what was left of his boxers so he let him have it. The
goat seemed to like the strong detergent taste.
I got my first taste of Ugandan basketball last night. I played with
some missionaries from the village. We played on a court that was as
level and smooth as my Aunt and Uncles gravel road but the game turned
out alright. You had to compensate for the wind gusts and the
slightly bent rim.
We have dinner with a man today named Peter. We were warned that he
"falls in love with buzungus" so we will have to be careful. He text
messaged me at least 8 times EARLY this morning (I wish I was
exaggerating) to make sure that we will be there.
There are numerous species of plant and bird life here in Uganda. I
will try to take pictures or sketches of as many as I can but there
are close to 30 species, if not more, of birds that I have yet to
identify. The plants thus far are sugar cane, banana trees, corn, and
several wildflowers. I shall try to capture them all for your
enjoyment.

Much love.

John

P.S. - please pray that the relationships here will be authentic. we
are having trouble with selfish reasons to befriend us.