African adventures

Wow, we had a crazy day today!
We left Gulu and decided to take a de-tour instead of going direct to Kampala; we've come back to Masindi for the afternoon/night to surprise everyone at Masindi Family Spirit Orphanage. We had the BEST surprise reunion! We took motorbikes to the orphanage, and as soon as we came, before we had even got off the motorbike, some kids had run up to us and clung onto us; they were so so excited to see us!

Then we got off and went around the corner and everyone came running; they were so surprised to see us! The beautiful thing was that some of the kids that run up to hug me and not let go were kids that when I first came were very unresponsive. One girl was very shy and intimidated I think. She only came to the orphanage last year; she's 10 years old and HIV positive and her parents have both died from AIDS. She stayed with her uncle who forced her to work in the fields all day every day, from early in the morning until late at night. She grew very weak and sick.

When we left two weeks ago I opened up my arms to hug her but she turned away. Now today when she saw me she ran up and hugged me, it was awesome! Even some girls that hardly talked to me were so responsive today.

We spent the afternoon catching up with everyone, playing with the kids, even teaching them some songs. It was so good to be back! It almost felt like we were coming home :)

Suzan said that after we left everyone was really sad, and all the kids kept asking them "Where are our muzungus?" (muzungus means white people). They were really thankful for us coming and that just shows how powerful love is. When you reach out to others you don't always see immediate results, but you can never under-estimate the power of it.

One of the staff there is sick in hospital; he has HIV/AIDS and has been in hospital a week now. They said he was slowly improving. We decided to go visit him on the way back to town. We came into the hospital and said hello, but he really did not look good. He seriously looked like he didn't have to long to live, which is so so sad. His mum was there looking after him. Here at the hospitals the family are responsible for providing all the food and anything else the patients need. The hospitals don't provide that. So we didn't stay long but we're really hoping and praying he will improve. He didn't look good at all.

This morning we went to Gulu town to catch the bus to Masindi. When we came they put our luggage into the bus and said it would leave in one and a half hours. So we thought we would walk around town a bit, take some pictures and then go back to the bus.

We came back an hour later and the bus had left! With our luggage! The people at the bus park waved at us and shouted, "The bus has left!! Quick, take a boda!" So we quickly hopped on motorbikes thinking oh CRAP! The motorbikes absolutly SPED out of town and down the main road trying to catch up to the bus. That was probably the scariest boda ride I have had; they must have gone about 70kph on a tarmac road with no helmet!

So after ages we still couldn't see the bus, and finally saw it in the distance on a hill. It had stopped. So our motorbike drivers sped even faster, I was like 'come on bus, stay where you are!' We caught up and signalled to the conductors and quickly got on, just in time. Maaaan that was a close call, and also quite a dangerous adventure :P Afterwards we couldn't stop laughing. We couldn't believe the bus had left with all our luggage and not us...especially after they told us it would be an hour and a half until it leaves!

That wasn't the end of our adventures though. The bus ride was also psycho, and then we got off in one town to take a matatu to Masindi town. That was also a psycho ride along dirt road, a few scary moments of 'oh my gosh we're going to tip sideways'. The matatu always tilted on the side I was sitting on, so I did a lot of digging into Kate's shoulders trying to lean the other way. But we survived and are now back in Masindi town! woo...thank uuuu God :)