When I first stepped out of the airport and onto Uganda soil i was reminded of the train station in Livorno, Italy. The familiarity is because the surrounding area of Entebe airport was very lush and green against Lake Victoria and the air was humid and hot.
Kampala is almost directly on the equator, and at the market yesterday when I asked the woman at he counter how she celebrates Christmas she said church in the morning, then beach.
Sanyu Babies Home is on a small hill above a section of town called Mengo. It feels very separate and protected up here. We are our own home, away from the rest of the streets and buildings, but you can hear the constant stream of honking cars day and night, and the landlord's roosters crowing in the early morning, along with the call to prayer from the mosque a ways down the hill.
The traffic laws here are interesting, and by interesting I mean essentially non-existant. In an idealistic way I think it's almost a better system, but one that would never pass in the U.S., like the idea of lowering the drinking age from 21.
Sanyu Babies Home is on a small hill above a section of town called Mengo. It feels very separate and protected up here. We are our own home, away from the rest of the streets and buildings, but you can hear the constant stream of honking cars day and night, and the landlord's roosters crowing in the early morning, along with the call to prayer from the mosque a ways down the hill.
Sanyu Babies Home from the front
(taken from over the railing infront of my room)
the wall painted in shapes is the blocked off entry to Sanyu
standing in the doorway of my room
The rooster I hear every morning outside our kitchen door
The traffic laws here are interesting, and by interesting I mean essentially non-existant. In an idealistic way I think it's almost a better system, but one that would never pass in the U.S., like the idea of lowering the drinking age from 21.
A lot of roads are paved with the typical yellow dashed line through the center, but a lot are just packed red dirt (with a battle field's worth of pot holes) and no dividing line. I have yet to see a stop sign, or a stop light, or a street light, or a crosswalk. Pedestrians, cars, vans, and moterbikes ("bodas") do what they want, moving around each other and crossing all lanes of the road at any given time, and this is achieved by honking their horn any time someone is in their way, or is thinking about getting in their way. It sounds crazy but it works, and the more I'm around it the more I get it. No one ever drives above 40mph or so, and drivers seem to be very aware of where they are in relation to where everyone else around them is. And theres never any impracticalities like being stuck waiting at a red light when no one else around, etc.
I don't know what exactly is different about the fuel used to run the cars here but the smell of the exhaust gives me really bad motion sickness, and it's a smell that on hot dusty afternoon fills the streets.
It didn't help that I was obviously dehydrated my first 2 days- I had a headache, felt faint and nauseous all day, and was recovering from jetlag while wearing my sweaty, spit-up-on clothes.
These were my basic first-impression notes.
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