Finally finally finally we made it to Sudan!! It was one heck of a journey though. I won’t go into the absolutely horrible time we spent in the major cities of Uganda, Kampala and Entebbe, getting our travel documents. Let it suffice to say that our nicknames for these cities are the pit of despair, the heart of darkness, and the horcrux cities. I prefer not to reflect on those days. Then we drove something like 16 hours over the course of two days over bumpy dirt roads, crammed into a land rover that was NOT made to fit that many people. With no air conditioning and windows that don’t go all the way down. If you hate small spaces and get carsick easily (like me), I would not recommend this type of transportation. Thank you Dwight D. Eisenhower for your gift of an awesome road and highway system in the states. I miss it.
All in all, from day one flying out of JFK to finally arriving at St. Bart’s Orphanage, the journey took two weeks exactly. Some of these days were awesome, (see: Hakuna Matata post) and some were most definitely not, (see: above paragraph). It was one of our first days at the orphanage that we realized that the internet modem which we had been assured would work in Sudan… didn’t. And so we have a lot of catching up to do. There will be a separate blog post dedicated to the orphanage but for now let’s focus on what happened a few days after arriving.
We moved into our tukul! For those of you who don’t know, a tukul is a mud hut with a thatched roof. Ours is a bit on the fancier side though. It has a higher roof so my dad isn’t always hitting his head, and it has two rooms. One for an eating and living space and one for sleeping. Our tukul is located in a large family compound. The land was given to us by Mogga, who kind of adopted my dad after he and Mogga’s son, Ezbon had been good friends for many years. Having a family of Mzungus (white people) move in seems to be the most entertaining thing that has happened here in a long time. The community mango grove (equivalent to large living room) is next to our house, which means that people routinely gather there to watch us. Everyone just takes a seat on a convenient log or rock and settles in for the show. Mzungu TV seems to have become a particular favorite of the local kids. They sit, staring at us, and laugh or comment at the appropriate times. It’s become a running joke for us… “Tonight! On Mzungu TV… the small mzungu gets a bath! Observe as the mother drags him towards the watering hole…” Insert a ridiculous accent of your choice.
For the first day or two of our staying here, we attempted to cook for ourselves. Anyone care to take bets on how well that went? Day 1 was the worst. We tried to make pasta in our solar oven. The pasta itself was overcooked and our attempt at homemade sauce only made it worse. It was edible… barely. Day 2 was significantly better. We made homemade guacamole and ate it with chapatti, an African flat bread. Personally, I’ve always been a fan of peanut butter crackers in situations like that… Whenever our friends like Ezbon and Lasu visited they seemed genuinely concerned about our cooking situation. They were not convinced our solar oven was going to work, and none of us knew how to cook with a charcoal cooker. We were planning on hiring a cook but Mama Susan from the orphanage beat us to it. They took pity on us and sent Betty. Betty is AMAZING. She is a fantastic cook, not only with traditional African food but with western food like French toast too. I’m so so happy she’s here :)
One more thing I’ve noticed since moving in, or even since coming to Africa for that matter… HOLY RAINY SEASON STORMS!!! I was under the impression that the rainy season meant nice, steady, rainy days like we have at home. Wrong, false, erroneous! Most of the time the weather is beautiful- pleasant temperatures, blue skies, fluffy white cloud adorn the heavens... Then BAM!!! Suddenly, out of nowhere the world becomes an underwater electrical storm. Rain slams into the earth in a deluge and the thunder and lightning never seem to stop. I have also discovered the reason for lightning rods. When you don’t have them, not only is it a fire hazard, but the lightning will hit your house, run down through the walls, into the foundation and up through your feet. This is a very unpleasant experience. At first I didn’t even realized what happened because I hadn’t seen the light-I connected the dots when the thunder seemed the shake the entire world a millisecond later. Its magnificent, it’s beautiful, it’s awe-inspiring, and frankly it’s a little bit intimidating. But then again I suppose that holds for all of Africa.
P.S: Now that we are getting settled in, my first visit to the leper colony will be tomorrow...
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