Jinja!

This morning we left our hotel and headed for the Nile! The source of the Nile River starts in Jinja, Uganda and we were able to see it. We left this morning around 8:30, and we were able to drive through downtown Kampala. Kampala is the capitol of Uganda and has about 5 million people in the city. The city is packed! We can't figure out if the drivers here are the best drivers, or the worst drivers. Driving through the city there were 2 stoplights and maybe 1 stop sign, surprisingly people never have wrecks. While we are driving on the streets, we have people on bicycles and walkers just going through the traffic. There are people everywhere. The only thing that I can compare it to would be Chinatown. Imagine Chinatown with all Africans, and the only thing paved is a 2 laned street. The buildings, which are more like shacks, are all on dirt. The places that the people have are really trashy. All along the alley ways you will see wood shacks and lines of laundry because most people live right behind their store. Now keep in mind that we are in the middle of a city. It is almost like the block is outlined with business, but in the middle there are little shacks, kind of like little shanty towns. There are tons of children playing in the streets, not 4 feet from where the crazy drivers are. It really does look just like the commericals show when they ask for money for the kids in Africa. As we drove out of the city, it didn't get any better. Little villages would be farther apart, but they were all living in grass, mud, or wood huts. The drive to Jinja was totally different than the drive to Mbarara.

Our first stop of the day was to see the rapids in the Nile. We were able to see some people in rafts go down the rapids, and it was really fun to see. Hopefully we will be able to do that the next time that we come back. We all went down and put our feet in the water to say that we had touched the Nile! Holland was walking in the water, and she slipped and almost went down with the current, but Jordan grabbed her and was able to pull her back. That was our major event for the day! :) After that we went into downtown Jinja. It was really neat to be able to see the downtown area becuase it was so different than both Kampala and Mbarara. You could really tell that it had been a British colony because of the buildings. Some of the buildings had been built in 1934. We ate a little lunch place and it was actually good food! After lunch we went to see the source of the Nile. I didn't realize that the source was a underground spring in Lake Victoria. We took a boat ride over to the spring and we could see the water bubbling up. The boys were complaining about going today because they didn't want to be in the car again, but after we left Jordan looked and me and said, "That was so cool. I'm so glad that we came".

Tonight our team met and were shared with each other what we loved and didn't like about the trip. We all really want to come back next summer, and I pray that it will happen. We have all fallen in love with Africa, and I know that we are all taking a little bit of this beautiful country, and the awesome people back with us.

Well this will probably be my last post until I get home. Tomorrow we will go to the Marketplace and be able to buy some African goodies! After that we leave for home!!!!!!!!!! Our flight leaves out of here at 10:30 pm and we arrive back home at 4:35 pm on Wed. Prayerfully all of our flights will be on time, and we will have no delays.