35 hours of travel. (Post Arrival)

“Ladies and gentlemen, we have arrived a little bit later than expected to our destination. Welcome to Entebbe, Uganda. The local time is currently 2 P.M. Thank you for flying Qatar Airways…”

We were all exhausted. It was hour 35. Two days of traveling had really taken a toll on us but, as Peter (Mpoma’s manager) had told us on our last Skype call, we were finally home.

As we came out of the airport, we saw Peter, Ruth, and Mama Frieda (members of the Mpoma team) ready to greet us with huge smiles and an Mpoma sign. We also immediately saw the “greenness” of Africa. Everything was very green. We packed our luggage into the van and off we headed to Mukono from Entebbe.

The ride to Mukono was an experience. Motorcycles, also known as boda bodas, swerved past our van. People were walking along side the roads. There were no sidewalks. Once we arrived to the main town Kampala, it was a whole different world. Traffic jams in L.A. are not nearly as bad as rush hour in Kampala. Think of L.A. traffic during rush hours, but twice as bad. Ugandans walk around the traffic selling sugar canes, bananas, and soda. Peter bought some bananas off a local for us…

Let me tell you about the sweet bananas. They are AMAZING. Best bananas I’ve ever tasted. They’re the the perfect amount of ripeness and sweetness.

All of us fell asleep at some point during the ride to Mukono. It was longer than expected. It took about 3 or 4 hours to arrive to our new home from the airport. Once we arrived, we were instantly greeted by a sweet girl named, Angel and her friend Nora. She lived next door and we quickly learned she would be a frequent visitor. We were also greeted by the enormous bugs (HUGE cockroaches) and gecko in our living room.

We quickly figured out our room situation and crawled into our mosquito net beds. We knocked out by 9:30 P.M. Did I mention how exhausted we were?