A little town called “Jinja”

4 AM. Wow, it should be illegal to be up that early! Since we were the ones that booked ourselves on the 5 AM bus I guess we put ourselves in that situation...but it's still way too early! By 4:45 AM on Monday morning (Mar 2) Mandy and I were settled in our front row seats on the bus. Whenever we travel to Kampala we use a bus company called the GaaGaa Coach. The word “gaagaa” in Lugbara means “crow” and that is a very appropriate name for a bus company here because they literally fly down the road! Mandy and I were a little adventurous this round so we decided to book the 2 front seats of the bus. I thought for sure we would be nervously holding onto our seats the entire way but our driver this time was actually very reasonable – we only freaked out once when we were passing three semi-trucks going 120 km/hr while 2 wheels were on the tarmac and 2 wheels were on the gravel shoulder. No big deal.
We saw a couple of hippos hanging out in the Nile as we crossed over a bridge but other than that the trip was fairly normal. Eventually we made it through the traffic in Kampala and were dropped off at a gas station near the taxi park – our next destination. We weaved in and out of traffic, around puddles, through the crowds of people and into the park. I know that “park” to many of us would imply a calm, quiet atmosphere but the taxi park is the complete opposite. There are thousands of matatus (sort of like 14 seater VW vans) that travel around the city as “local transport” and this park is their main stage. It's incredible. When you are in the middle of the park it just looks like utter chaos but if you see it from above there is some rhyme and reason to it. We knew we had to get to the middle of the park to catch the “coaster” to Jinja so off we went through the mud. We got stuck a couple of times because our bags were too big to fit between the closely parked buses and matatus but we got to the right bus! Woo hoo! That was exciting – if you have ever been to one of these taxi parks, you would understand what sort of feat we had just accomplished! Getting settled on the bus was another accomplishment but soon we were on our way out of the city again, towards Jinja. A couple of hot, tiring hours later we arrived in Jinja and met up with Emmanuel – our guide for our first few days here. We are sort of in between dry season and wet season right now and just as we got off the bus and met Emma it started to pour. We hung out under an overhang for a little while until the rain came down to a drizzle and then it was off to our guesthouse – Busoga Trust.
By the time we got to Busoga we were exhausted. Emma showed us around a bit and then we were free to get settled and rest up a bit which was wonderful. We had warm SHOWERS! That was exciting for us. Up in Arua we have what we call “a wash” out of a little green basin and we have to boil a kettle if we want the water to be warm – so being able to stand under a warm shower is sort of a big deal for us at this point. Emma came back to get us around 6pm and we headed out for dinner with a team of Canadian nurses who had arrived in the country that day. There are lots of young people around who are doing different things in town so I think we will make some great friends throughout our time here. We got home around 10pm and both of us fell asleep as soon as our heads hit the pillow. I love getting to sleep after a tiring day – I sleep like a rock!
Well, Jinja will be “home” for us for about 3 weeks. In a very round-about, friend-of-a-friend sort of way, we got connected with an orphanage here called Welcome Home. We are here to volunteer there for a couple of weeks and we love it! We basically go to the orphanage as often as we want and for as long as we want...all we are required to do is love the kids. So great!

Welcome Home has room for 65 kids and I think there are 64 right now. The kids range from a few months old to 6 years old and they are adorable. Not all of the kids are necessarily orphans but all are in need of love and care because their families are either unable or unwilling to do so. The staff at Welcome Home do an excellent job of giving the kids what they need to have a healthy life – it's such a blessing to be involved here.
We are free to just play with the kids and hang out with them, helping wherever we can. In the mornings about 15 of the kids head off to school and the rest hang out at the home. We do a bit of a Bible class with the little kids at home and other than that just run around outside with them. We pretty much turn into human jungle-jims as soon as we walk in the gate...what more could a person want than 4 or 5 little African babies crawling all over you??
I got peed on about four times on my first day but I didn't even care – it's inevitable with 64 kids and no absorbant diapers! In the afternoons I like to go play with the “droolies”, aka babies. There are 9 little ones in the 'baby house' so I help feed them and take the wobbly ones for walks, hoping to get them running around soon. We come home absolutely exhausted but I love it. My heart has always been to love and care for orphans so I feel so blessed to be in Jinja. I am truly living my dream.