This morning I woke up at 7:45am, which was earlier than I had planned. However, the birds here always seem to have other plans for me. Breakfast was at Red Chili this morning, and I had pancakes and bacon. Absolutely delicious! Their pancakes more closely resemble crepes than actual pancakes, but they were scrumptious!
At 9:00, just about everyone opted to go shopping. By shopping, I mean we went to a craft market pretty much geared for tourists in downtown Kampala. It was a lot of fun, and I always enjoy going through their shops. Once again though, each shop tends to have very similar items, so I really question how profitable their store can be for them.
We finished shopping around 11am, and we went back to Red Chili. I was amazed at how much traffic there was already. There is always traffic in Kampala, always, and you’re extremely lucky if you don’t get in at least a small traffic jam. However, today’s traffic was completely different. This was a huge traffic jam all because of the soccer game that started at 4pm!
We left Red Chili for lunch at MUBS shortly after 12pm, and the trip that usually takes 15 minutes max, took over 35 minutes. I knew I loved small town Iowa for a reason J Lunch today consisted of chapatti, rice and fish.
A little after 1:30pm, we left MUBS for the soccer game. Once again, traffic was ridiculous, and I was really beginning to question if we would make it to the soccer game on time, if at all. We did, about an hour and a half later. Of course the area around the stadium was packed! We were all told to keep our belongings close to us and to make sure we stuck with our group. It was insane! Almost everyone was wearing their Uganda Cranes jerseys, hats, or carrying vuevuelas, which are horns they blow into and are really loud.
Once we finally had managed to weave our way close to a gate, we waited and waited and…you get the idea. After waiting for a while, the line finally started moving. Apparently some people at the front of the line started pushing or something too aggressive because the next thing we knew the crowd was moving back, really fast, and policeman had gotten out their night sticks and were beating people! Yeah, it was scary. Yes, I was worried I was going to fall and be trampled to death. Obviously I wasn’t, or I wouldn’t be posting this. However, I definitely owe a big thank you to the MUBS students who made sure we all made it through that mess alive.
Shortly after the pushing, the police saw the huge group of muzungos (white people), and they let us pass through. We quickly found what was left of the VIP seats. The only difference between VIP and regular seating? We had a little bit of a plastic seat instead of sitting on just cement. Definitely special treatment ;)
Once we had taken our seats everything seemed to move rather quickly and smoothly. They game started right on time. I frequently asked questions to make sure I understood the game or to make sure I had understood what was happening correctly. I usually had to ask my questions multiple times though because the stadium was so loud. It was literally packed full of people, and it was definitely over capacity. There were people standing in the back and sitting in the aisles. In the first half the Cranes managed to score, and they added another goal in the second half to secure the 2-0 win over Guinea Bissau.
I can’t believe how united the crowd had been. They were constantly breaking out in the infamous Cranes’ chant, “We go, we go! Uganda Cranes, we go!” There are more lines to it too, but only they seemed to know when they were suppose to be inserted and when they weren’t. It was fun though. After the game, the crowd didn’t immediately disperse, which really shocked me.
We decided to remain seating after our experience earlier. It took us over 3 hours after the game ended to get back to Red Chili, where we ate supper. Tonight I had a BLT, minus the lettuce and tomato…so a bacon sandwich. It wasn’t bad, but I’m definitely starting to miss “American” food, a lot!
After supper, it was time to pack since we’re headed to Jinja tomorrow and won’t be back at Red Chili. I was extremely proud of the fact that I have one suitcase that is full, and the other one is half empty...okay, maybe more like a quarter empty. My biggest concern now? Hoping nothing breaks on the way home and that my suitcases are under the 50 lbs limit. Right now, I think I’m okay. Hopefully the scale says the same thing when I get a chance to weigh them before we leave.
Today I realized that while lines can seem like a huge pain in the United States, I love them! It causes a lot less confusion, and they tend to lessen the amount of pushing and shoving I experienced today. I will never complain about having to wait in a line again (well, at least for a while anyway) because I’d rather stand in a line than be scared of getting trampled in a crowd.
So on that light note, tomorrow we leave for Jinja, which is the second largest city in Kampala. What’s in Jinja? Well, I’m told there are tea and sugar cane plantations. We also have a microfinance lecture to attend, and we are supposed to have lunch at the President Chairman of MUBS’ family home.
So until then, I leave you with this…
No comments:
Post a Comment