Life with MK: Leaving Uganda

Such a bittersweet day. I am excited for the vacation I have planned, both in Africa and in California, but saying goodbye to Tororo and all of the people there who have become so close over the past six weeks was very challenging. After the drama of last night as well it felt a bit off. I woke up and finished packing everything together and then ate breakfast as usual. I left everything in the guest house so I could come back and say goodbye later and went into the office.

Once in the office I worked as usual, finishing as much as I could get done on the screening log and completing and emailing off my final report. Besides that I just used the Internet when it wasn't thoroughly angering me with its inherent slowness. Once Phidelis got back from the field we went to go pick up the car from Dr. Tom and then got my things from Pecos. I said goodbye to the staff there, which was really sad too since they have been incredibly helpful to me and then went back towards the office. I stopped to say goodbye to the testers in the house they are using this months due to the noise of the roof repair and then went back to main GHU Tororo.

Once in the office I delayed saying goodbye until the last possible second. I thought we would leave straight away but we ended up delaying quite a bit. Around 12:40 we went to lunch and I ate with some of the guys at Nankoma's and then finally got to saying my goodbyes. I wasn't able to say goodbye to everyone since a few people left for lunch and a few were on leave today that I didn't know about. It was hard, but I mostly kept it together. After the goodbyes we were off.

Before leaving town we stopped to take a few pictures and fuel the car and then we got to Jinja-Kampala road. We had an uneventful ride (although we did pick up a hitchhiker, but it's normal here and they pay) and stopped in Jinja to see his friend who is Dr. Tom's relative. Ate Jinja we went to Mukono outside of Kampala to pick up Phidelis's shoes and ended up staying there for a while. I wasn't too happy at first until the tea we had. Been waiting for was accompanied by super delicious bread rolls! After we finished eating and drinking our tea we were off once again. Our final detour was to see the Univeristy in Mukono where Ethan went to university and then we headed to Kampala.

We avoided a lot of traffic by not going through the city center, but we still hit some pretty significant traffic through Kampala and on Entebbe road. It took forever, but I was singing to my music and we got through it. We finally reached Entebbe Backpakers around 10pm and I checked into my room before going out to get some food since we hadn't eaten since Nankoma's. we tried to go to a hotel called The Gately, but the kitchen was closed so we went to a place called Nicky's Pizza which turned out to be pretty good (albeit expensive by Ugandan standards). I bought Phidelis dinner for taking me on such a long journey and we ate and it was delicious.

Phidelis couldn't drive all the way back to Tororo since it was already almost midnight by the time we were done eating, so he decided to stay in Entebbe and drive me to the airport in the morning. This proved to be very good since I ran out of money after dinner and there was no way I could pay for the shuttle to the airport!

All in all I have really loved my time in Uganda and I hope to come back to see my friends again someday, hopefully in the not to distant future. It has been a great experience and I'm sad to have it come to an end.

The things I will miss most about Uganda:

- the people

- the incredible hospitality

- the g nut sauce

- the laid back mentality

- baby animals everywhere

- my celebrity status as a Muzungo (who will wave to me/be excited to see me when I walk down the street at home?)

- probably much much more!

Things I will NOT miss about Uganda:

- the Internet speed

- the speed of service for food (1.5-2 hours for French fries at the guest house?)

- the ants, though they have been absent for the last few weeks yay!

- young children crying when I try to say hello to them

- the Internet speed (did I mention that already? Ugh)

There are probably more things that should be added to those lists, but it's hard to think of everything at once. Here's to the great times I have had here and to the great times to come as I move on to Southern Africa.