We started our first day in Uganda with a team meeting led by Pastor John Bunjo and discussed, with excitement, the next two weeks ahead. It was wonderful to be reunited with the Ugandan team again (although I know we were reunited with some on arrival at the airport, I was rather too sleep deprived due to being awake for around 40 hours). After a warm welcome and helpful meeting, we went to exchange our money and became millionaires due to there being 4827.20 Ugandan shillings to the Pound!
In order to exchange money, you have to wait in a long queue in a small kiosk, built onto the side of a hotel. Within the kiosk are several Ugandans frantically counting money, typing into calculators and trying to work out which one of us provided them with the money in the first place. Watching all the money go through the counting machines really made me think about how much we have compared to so many, and I wondered if the Ugandan people counting the money considered this also – It must rub salt into the wound if you are struggling to provide for your family but count money from other people all day long. Nevertheless, the currency exchange team were very helpful and honest, providing us with large wodges of cash, which we briskly tried to hide and keep safe.
We then visited Café Javas as our stomachs were rumbling and we felt it better not to shop on an empty stomach. Here, we had free WiFi, which we tried to make the most of as the Hotel’s internet has been very intermittent. This made us all seem very antisocial – however it wasn’t enough time for me to properly set this blog up! My frustration continued to build about this!
With very large Ugandan portions of wonderful food in our now full to bursting bellies, we waddled to the Supermarket and bought provisions for the clinics, such as water, crackers and biscuits. After this, we returned to the Hotel and a few of the team members met with Ugandan team to discuss plans for Saturday.