Traveling to a foreign country is an exciting and
nerve-wracking experience. However, what
I seem to always forget is that the physical traveling part is exhausting. The
flight from Philly to Doha, Qatar was the worst in that sense. It was a 13 hour flight and being 6 inches
from people on either side of you doesn’t make it an ideal situation for
getting any sleep. However, Qatar
Airways was one of the best experiences I’ve had as far as in flight
accommodations. There were more
opportunities where we were offered food and drink than any airline I’ve ever
been on. We even got Ben & Jerry’s!
There were also over 200 movies to chose from and a wide variety of TV shows to
keep one occupied. Nevertheless, twenty-four
hours on planes and in airports really does a number on you so by the time I
arrived in Entebbe, a city in the South of Uganda, I was zombie like. That first night we stayed in a backpackers
hostel and thankfully we had the entire afternoon and evening to simply relax
and get accommodated. I decided to try
to kick the jet lag early. I fought the desire to sleep all afternoon and
instead I took a nice walk around the area with Austyn, one of the other
students on this trip. We got a feel for what housing and schooling is like in
Entebbe. Most of the houses are simple
and the yards (or compounds as they are called here) are full of
livestock. Chickens, goats, small cows
all roam in the compounds and on the sides of the road. There were many schools
in the area and most of them were both day and boarding schools. I have never seen so many children so excited
to see white people. Children of various
ages would all shriek and wave as they ran to the road to say hello. The would run behind us for awhile before
yelling good-bye as many times as possible before we were too far away. The feeling of being a minority is still
taking some getting used to, as is the attention you receive specifically as a
white woman. (There will be more on this later.) There were many people
outside, doing work, walking and playing sports. We wandered back around the time the sun was
going down, relaxed with a Ugandan beer, (tasting similar to Yeungling) had a
light dinner, a shower and went to bed.
