Uganda, pt. 1

My weekend in Uganda was easily one of my craziest and most fulfilling weekends in Africa.
I left Thursday afternoon with 7 of my fellow MSIDers for a Ugandan adventure. Our first obstacle was the bus. It was supposed to leave at 4pm, but we finally started moving a little before 5—only to go to the other side of town to have a side mirror welded on for an hour. After a quick stop back at the bus station, we finally made our way to Uganda about 6pm.
The next obstacle started at the border of Kisumu and Uganda, about 2 hours into the ride. We had to check out of Kenya and cross into Uganda at the border, which was easy if you possessed a valid visa to be staying in the country. However, since one of the students on the trip was the victim of a matatu hijacking almost 2 months ago, her passport was stolen. Thankfully she had a new passport by now, but unfortunately the US Embassy effed up and never gave her another copy of the visa for which she had already paid. When it was her turn to go to the window, the man behind the counter said, very matter-of-factly, “You are in this country illegally. I am going to have to arrest you.” Somehow she talked her way out of being arrested and the man let her buy the visa to Uganda, but this took a lot of persuading and tears. Once we finished with that line and crossed into Uganda, we had to go through one more immigration check. By this time, the bus conductor was getting very angry that we had not gone quickly through the first check, so he made us bud about 20 Kenyans to get into the line. It was white privilege at its best, and none of us fully wanted to skip everyone, but the conductor was angry, so we followed his orders. From the border, it was about a 3 hour drive to Kampala, and since we left so late, we got into the Akamba station around 11pm or so.
From here, our first decision in Uganda was to find some food. STAT. We ended up at a Cuban restaurant, after going to Nakumatt Oasis downtown, finding an ATM, and asking lots of people for directions. We ate some delicious foods, drank some beers, and surveyed the city, making plans for our bar-hopping day on Friday. By the time we finished, it was almost 3am and we still hadn’t found a place for the night (or remainder of it…). We found some piki pikis who could drive us to the hostel-Red Chili-and we got the hell out of dodge. Half way through the ride, it started raining hardcore (and I left my jacket on the bus), so by the time we got to the hostel, we were totally soaked. After talking to the grounds keeper, we found out that there were only 6 beds available, so Kyle and Tony decided they would adventure outside the hostel and find a hotel in town somewhere (don’t worry-Kyle is ROTC and Tony has a healthy, verging on obsessive, respect for knives). We woke up to Kyle calling Ben at 9am, relaying that he and Tony were in jail and we needed to bail them out—of course this WAS A JOKE, but nevertheless, the recipient did not think it was that funny. Friday morning, we showered (with a HOT shower!), ate some delicious breakfast, and got ready to meet up with the boys in town.
We went back to the Cuban restaurant for some drinks-Pina Colada Cuban style in Uganda was my first choice—and continued to hop around the city until lunch. We settled on a Japanese place that served Hibachi-some of the best food I have had since coming to Africa (and consequently some of the most expensive, it was about $8 to split with Teresa). The legacy of the Japanese place does not stop with the delicious food—Ben (who recently turned 20) discovered Blow Job shots for the first time in his life. He couldn’t even order it without giggling like a little girl—but we certainly enjoyed taking those all afternoon with our fantastic food. After Hibachi, we went back to the town center to hit up a casino for the afternoon. This was Ben’s first time in a casino, and he won $75US on the black jack table! Meanwhile, Kate and Jamie tried to get the band to let them sing on stage; one of the security guards got really annoyed by them and sent us upstairs to sing and the karaoke bar…which we did, even when it wasn’t our turn, all night. The whole MSID fam got up for “Sweet Caroline”, and this song will forever hold a special place in my heart 
Most of us made our way back to the hostel shortly after to find that the valuables we left in the office (passport, computers…and entire bags) were locked up and not retrievable until “sometime after 7:30 the next morning”. So I slept in my clothes and didn’t take my malaria meds until the next morning. Shoot.
In the middle of the night, 3 Indian guys came into the room (it was a hostel, so it was a huge open room) and drunkenly spoke to each other (not in English) for about 20 minutes until they decided to get into their beds. Again, at about 6:15 their alarms started to go off and they began to get up and wrestle around, making tons of noise. There was not reason for me to get up before 7:15, since that’s about when breakfast starts and there was no way for me to get my stuff out of the office. However, as time (and noise) continued, I got up, gave them an angry look, and went off to the main building to see what I could find. I went on fb, ate some delicious breakfast, and hung around until the rafting company came to pick us up…the office still wasn’t open. Thankfully, someone with keys finally showed up-we grabbed out stuff, put on our suits, and jumped into the shuttle for the hour and a half ride to Jinja.