All about Fort Portal (Part 2- Kahuna)

Week 8- Kahuna

In Kahuna we stayed at the house of the Bishop. It was much bigger, but the hospitality was less, I always felt like an intruder and in the way. The water situation there was much worse.. it too was about 1/4 of a mile away, but this was just a nasty pool of water coming out of the ground, and the water was so bad that even if we boiled it, we couldn't drink it. Water had to be fetched from a different, farther waterhole for drinking... and it wasn't often. We had two jerry cans of drinking water per day.. for 24 people. It suffices to say that it was nowhere near enough and we all got dehydrated.

For Easter, I went to Pastor Willie's church (we stayed at his house the first week) where I was not only the only white person there, but the only person who did not speak Luganda or Lutoro (the local language) and there was no translator. The two people I was with did their best to translate, but they didn't translate too much of it. [INSERT REST OF STORY FROM EMAIL HERE]

what can I say, Kahuna was difficult, we were all already worn out from the week of ministry in Kijura... and tensions were running high in our group. Finally, near the end of the week, a meeting was called, and we all sat around and talked about what our problems with each other were. Then we asked for forgiveness... and finally at 12:30 am we finished by sharing hugs with everyone and heading to bed. From that point on, we were finally unified as a team! Praise the Lord!

Our prayer and fasting day was really cool. We went for a prayer walk... which was also just so cool, God spoke so much to me! Kahuna is home to the largest tea plantation in Uganda, and quite possibly all of east africa. It's huge and GORGEOUS. there are rolling green hills everywhere covered in tea bushes! So we walked down to the tea plantation and prayed there. Both Kahuna & Kijura have a major problem with drinking. There were these little packets of alcohol everywhere in the streets (the size of those ketchup packets from fast food restaurants) but they are 40% alcohol and there are thousands of them just all over the street. So after our prayer walk, we spent about 45 minutes picking up trash. Then as we walked back to the house we kept picking up trash until we could literally hold no more in our hands... and there was still tons left.

our last night in Kahuna we were invited to the house of the Engineer of the tea company for dinner. It was very late 10:30 by the time I ate... but an amazing feast! Then the roads were muddy and the bus & two taxis got stuck in the mud.. but the Engineer lent us his pickup so we didn't have to walk & carry our things 2k in the mud. Thank you Lord! Then the boys used the truck to get the taxis out of the mud.

Finally, we were on our way back to Hopeland! We left at 7am. We were all SO excited to head back home. To me it was just about as good as going home to America.... or as close as it could come.. the whole going back to America is still 5 months away. The excitement mounted when we reached Jinja. The taxi couldn't drive fast enough. Soon we were back at Hopeland... screaming.. and shouting for joy! The team from Wairaka was back already and they greeted us all with joy. We got all reorganized and then the Iganga team came back. WE could hear them shouting too. WE ran out and waited for their taxi.. and then we all began to share our stories, after many hugs and shouting! The DTS family was finally back together again. I don't know what main outreach will be like. Hopefully some of my closest friends will be on that team.. though I did get to know the other American girls on my team more.. and they would also be great to have for main outreach.

And then, as a happy family, we all ate chapattis together!

More good news about fort portal... there were no mosquitos.. so my feet began to heal!! And we didn't have to sleep with nets either! YAHOO!

Saturday and Sunday were long days... but good. We watched Coneheads and MIB II. Both funny alien movies. The boys (Tim & Ryan) and I went to town.. and I bought some shampoo & Teddy Grams. We also had rolexs (chapatti with scrambled egg (that had onion, carrots & cabbage mixed in) rolled up inside, which one can purchase for 600 shillings.. which is the equivalent of $0.36 us. So tasty!