1. Every night you come home from ministry and the electricity is out so you have to do everything by candle light and headlamp. Your landlord has originally told you that power only goes out once a week, but by night three…you know better, and enjoy a romantic candle-lit team feedback session along with team time playing Monopoly Deal and/or Continental Rum (WR favorite) with everyone wearing their headlamps. 4. Little children either kneel at your feet out of admiration/respect or shriek and cry at your sight because, as our contact’s church members say, “They fear your color.” However the children feel about you, they will mostly likely yell, “MUZUNGU!!” which means, “THE WHITES!!” and stare at you like you’re an alien. 6. If you think traffic is bad in Nairobi (which it most definitely is) then you will be pleased to discover that the traffic is even worse in Kampala. There are just as many, if not more boda boda’s (Ugandan motorcycles) on the roads as their are taxi vans, trucks and cars and since they have the ability to weave in and out of traffic they cause an even greater “jam” as the locals call it, especially between the hours of 8 and 10:30 pm. If you’re coming home at that time, it’s best to put on your patience pants and suck it up. 8. You discover an amazing Ugandan meal: an omelete with tomatoes and vegetables rolled up in flat chapati, which is a dish the Ugandans call “roll eggs.” That’s right, they’re called “roll eggs,” not “egg rolls…” We had to ask our contact, Pastor Joseph for clarification on that a few times this month. 9. You know you need to get your “hair did” in the traditional African way, even though it will take a minimum of five hours for the “hair saloon” women to do and since you’ll want a lot of artificial human hair incorporated in the braids and the weave, you’ll have to pay 40,000 Ugandan Shillings. Remember though, that roughly estimates to be about 20 US dollars. If you have a hard head, aren’t allergic to artifical human hair (like my team mate, Angela Grit) and don’t become easily bored with just sitting on the ground and listening to women talk in Lugandan, it’s totally worth getting done.
2. There is trash everywhere…literally everywhere. And if you’re a clean freak or OCD with dirt at all, you are forced to change so that you can survive. Your standards of hygeine drastically go down because the kids you love on have been playing in trash, you’ve been walking in trash with a lot of it sticking to you and you end up smelling like trash at the end of the day. As my wise team member, Paul Bell says, “You’re not sure if it’s mud or poop…”
photo by: Mac Mitchell
3. You can’t tell the difference between a 5 year old girl and a 5 year old boy especially because both genders usually have very short hair or shaved heads. It gets very awkward when you’re asking the parents about their child, not knowing if you should refer to them as a little girl or a little boy. The only sure-fire way to tell the gender of the kid is if they are wearing the standard Ugandan child outfit of a t-shirt and nothing else…then, and only then, is the mystery solved.
5. There are times when you don’t really understand what your contact or the contact’s church members are saying and their version of the English language. For example, the phrase “The Lord is sleepy…” is translated to, “The road is slippery…” or the statement “Everywhere you go, you leave droppings…” is translated to, “Everywhere you go you leave an impact on the place and the people…”
7. You will immediately notice a shift in the spiritual climate when crossing over to Uganda from the other East African countries. This is both good and bad, because while God is fiercely moving and transforming lives here in Uganda, witchdoctors and demonic activity is prevailant here. If you doubt you’ll ever have to deal with a demonic manifestation or deliverance service, think again if you’re planning on serving the Lord in Uganda. That kind of thing is normal and frequent here, and just so you know…GOD ALWAYS DOMINATES AND PREVAILS AGAINST THE ATTACKS OF THE DEVIL. Boo-yeah, Satan.
10. You use the phrase “T.I.A.” which means “This Is Africa,” very often, especially when you’re constantly on “African time” and not “American time” like in certain other countries. Let me explain, “African time” means that sometimes your contact or local friends will say, “I’ll be there at 9am,” but they won’t show up until 12 noon. However, if you tell them, “Can we make it American time?” then they will understand completely and comply by showing up at 9am when they told you they would.
