Kampala Weekend

The weekend had me at Caitlin and Eddie’s house, which was so much fun and so relaxing. After an 8 hour ride from Kigali to Kampala on Saturday, they picked me up at the bus station and welcomed me to their home. They live in one of four flats that are located behind their landlord, with the housing being provided by the school that Caitlin works for as part of her contract with Rainbow School. They have the upstairs spot, so they have a great balcony, perfect for watching the African thunder storms that have began to occur in Uganda. (Love that!) We spent Saturday evening just hanging out, laughing and enjoying each other. They let me watch their wedding video and look at pictures, and then Caitlin showed me how to make some INCREDIBLE homemade spaghetti sauce in Africa. We feasted on spaghetti and garlic bread, and the two of them had me laughing the entire evening. I was incredibly blessed to be allowed a warm shower and comfortable bed, as well. We made our way to church the next morning after a delicious breakfast of coffee (thank you Ntezimana’s for my birthday gift! Love the Nescafe!), ground nut, honey and egg sandwiches. No, I didn’t have the groundnuts and honey with the eggs. Two separate sandwiches. :) Watoto church was where we attended, and it was amazing! We got there for 2nd service and the place was PACKED! I am bad at guessing, but I’d say at least 1000 people. The worship was phenomenal, with the worship team being backed up by a 60 person choir. And the word was right on point, being brought by a guest pastor who is pastoring now in Canada, but he and his wife had spent 25 years of their 50 years married pastoring in Africa. (I thought that was awesome, that I was sitting under the teaching of a long time missionary). After church we headed back to the Olara home, which is in Kasanga, a suburb of Kampala. We did this by boarding a mini-bus taxi, something I had never attempted in Rwanda. It was fine though, and on our way to the house we stopped at the open air market that is about a block away and purchased the food that we would need to make dinner that night. Caitlin and Eddie prepared an incredible meal of posho (a ‘bread’ made of maize flour), beef in sauce, and cooked cabbage. It was so delicious, especially accompanied with the FRESH passionfruit juice that Caitlin made. I’m telling you. If I stayed there for any length of time I would probably not fit into my clothes. Those two can cook! Eddie went to a crusade to sing that evening, but because I was preparing to come to Gulu and Caitlin needed to prepare for teaching the next day, she and I stayed home. It was really nice, for me at least, because it afforded us some wonderful time to talk and catch up on ‘girl things.’ I went to sleep that night with the plan of getting up around 5 to take a taxi to the post office, in order to catch the Post Bus to Gulu. My night didn’t quite include sleeping (I think I got 45 minutes) but only because God and I had some time together. It was a blessed time, as I listened to the awe-inspiring music of an African thunderstorm against the roof and sipped Ugandan tea while reading my Bible. I realized that sleep that night was overrated. 

I caught the right bus and headed off to Gulu yesterday morning after another wonderful breakfast prepared by none other than yours truly, Eddie Olara. Even at 5:30 am he was full of joy and laughter. And he and Caitlin are a beautiful couple with hearts hard after God. What a special time with them...