We arrived in Kampala today, and were picked up at the airport by Dr. Michael Kasiime, with whom we will be staying. We got to meet his wife Pamela, his 2 children, Esther and Moses, and Michaels orphaned Cousin Nimrod. Pamela is pregnant with their third child and is due in December. Michael reminds mom of her employer DuWayne he has so many projects going. He works as a professor at the vet school, is running the newly establish AFRISA, has a couple of private businesses on the side and is trying to start a large scale cattle ranch in the Congo with several other investors as a model for others to imitate. There are not large tracts of land available in Uganda any more but the Congo is much less developed and they are trying to lease about 20 square miles from the government for the project. He is building wealth, but has a Christian desire to use it to help others. He always seems to have someone in need living with him.
One of our packages, for some reason, didnt get put on the plane from London but should be getting in tomorrow morning. At least it was the box with all the supplies that we wont need until Thursday, and not the one with all of our cloths! On our drive to Dr. Kasiimes house we were very surprised by how green Kampala was but they are apparently at the beginning of their short rainy season so everything is very lush.
We had to tell Michael about all of Lizs dietary restrictions and he decided to take us to the market to get something she could eat! The currency here is very interesting, 2100 shilling per 1 American Dollar. Its king of weird to see all these things labeled 5000 or 20500.
When we got to the house, we got to take our first shower in 3 days! That was so nice! They fed us some nice fruit for breakfast (though it felt like evening to us!) and asked Julia if she thought about getting married in Uganda. Ummm No? Liz said the bride price would be about 100 cows (Later we were told that Heidi (Vals intern vet student) was offered 200 cows so we should up it to 300 J ). We spent the rest of the day mostly catching up on sleep and resting. We gave the children some chocolate which we had brought with us. We are their best friends now! At about 8:30, we had a nice dinner of boiled rice and beef, beans cooked with onions, greens, roast sweet potatoes and watermelon.
We got to show Pamela and Michael some family photos after dinner and they wanted to see more of Lukes wedding! Afterwards mom and I decided to turn in for bed.
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