Wow.
After three plane rides, three countries and two nights without hope of sleeping in a bed I have finally arrived in Uganda.
It's hot, busy, loud, colourful and I love it.
The first day was a blur to say the least, two nights of shut-eye crunched up in a ball on a plane, well doesn't really qualify as sleep. With the time change and skipping ahead a day it was a bit challenging to get my bearings, but after a big and delicious meal at and indian restaurant in Kampala, a shower and a full nights sleep in an actual bed, I felt like a new woman.
Two other journalist that I'm travelling with left this morning to Gulu, while the rest of us are trying to sort out our contacts here in Kampala.
Here in Africa we are all at the mercy of our contacts, and whether or not are plans work out are completely out of our control.
For example, Darcy and Nancy were supposed to be picked up at around 8 a.m. this morning to travel to Gulu, but when no one arrived they had to track down a contact who said, "I was waiting for your call to pick you up."
Without that call they would have been waiting for a very long time.
To make things easier we all either purchased phones, or bought local SIM cards.
Tara and I decided to share a phone and bought one at a shop just a block away from our hotel. The salesman was very friendly and wanted to know everything about Canada.
Before we left he used our phone to call his, just so we could confirm our phone number.
When we received a random phone call later that night we came to the cunclusion that he definitely had other ideas about acquiring our number.
"Helllooo Canada, hellooo," he said.
To which Tara replied.
"Wrong number!"
Well I'm off to try and track down my contact at the Mulago Hospital here in Kampala and if that doesn't work out I'll be hitting the road heading east to Jinja.
Molly McNulty is travelling to Uganda and Zambia on behalf of the Jack Webster Fellowship Seeing the World Through New Eyes which is funded by CIDA.
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