In Uganda

Hello all. After talking and planning for months now, we finally made it to Uganda. The flight (San Francisco to Seattle to Amsterdam to Entebbe) was LLLOOONNNGGG but we made it without too much incident. Ani was a real trouper and spent most of the time sleeping or playing with the in-flight entertainment remote controls. We spent last night (Tuesday) at a very nice bed and breakfast in Entebbe and this morning we went to the Entebbe botanical gardens where the first Tarzan movie was made and we saw Colobus monkeys and fishermen on the shores of Lake Victoria pulling in their nets of Tilapia. Tonight we are in the substantially larger and busier capital, Kampala.

Ben asked me if the sights and sounds of Uganda were how I imagined and I realized that I have been so focused on the health aspects of this trip (vaccinations, malarial meds, insurance, etc…) that I hadn’t even gotten around to putting a good picture of what I thought Uganda would look like. So, here I am trying to soak it all in. Since watching traffic is completely terrifying to me, I sit in the back seat with one eye on Ani and one eye out the window. So far, I guess it does fill some expectation of what “Africa” looks like -- people walking into town with heavy baskets balanced on their heads, motorcycles racing by loaded up with bananas, belching diesel vehicles (including our own) clouding up the air.

Part of me wishes that we had done this a few years earlier so I could enjoy the whole saturation of the senses that comes with travel to a different culture without being on edge about what Ani is putting in her mouth and whether she is flushed because it is warm out (we are at the equator, after all) or because she has a fever. I take each mosquito as a lethal threat even though we are well protected by drugs, bed nets, and bug spray. I’m giving myself a couple of weeks to linger in this fearful nervousness but am hoping I can relax after awhile once we get settled in and survive our first and inevitable bout of travelers’ diarrhea.

In the meantime, Ani is already the absolute star attraction. Everyone wants to hold her and while she is very open with smiles and blowing kisses, she is not too keen on being held by others yet, which I am somewhat grateful for and hope it continues for awhile. Our girl loves being the center of attention, though and I already fear it will become a substantial blow to her ego when we return to Berkeley and she is just one in a sea of other babies and toddlers.

That’s all for now…. In fact, that might be a bit much considering I have only been in Uganda for just over 24 hours now. Oh well, I guess you were warned in the previous post ;)