only in africa

so my friend alyse and i decided that we wanted to go into town the other day. suubi, the village that we are in is about an hour drive from kampala (the capital) and has very little to offer (other than amazing beauty). we wanted coffee, groceries and a change of pace! wanting to save money on a taxi, we decided to ride with the village van. watoto has hired a man by the name of michael to drive a van into town several times a week, allowing villagers to go to kampala who would not otherwise be able to. [he also does odd errands along the way-- stopping at random places, transporting gas jugs, propane tanks, huge bags of corn, random pieces of scrap metal, etc!!] the day before our trip, we called michael to inform him that we wanted to ride so that he would save a spot for us on the van and he told us that he was going to leave at 9am. Now african time is not at all like US time. You can expect people to generally be 1/2hr- 1hr late always. Thus, when I called him the morning of (around 9:15) and he said he was coming in a hour I was not the least bit surprised. Well, 10 rolled around and still no michael.... Finally, at 11 he made it to pick us up. Yay!!! But from there he proceeded to drive around the village for an hour, stopping at random huts for extended periods of time chatting with villagers, dropping off newspapers, getting food, etc. We finally left for town around 12, getting to kampala for 1pm. It was better than nothing and it was a free trip so neither alyse or I complained [too much anyway ;) ]......

When he dropped us off, we asked michael what time he wanted us to meet back up with him. He told us 7pm at the church downtown. We thanked him and proceeded to run our errands and drink awesome coffee. A little before 7pm, we hired a local taxi to take us to the church. On the way we were stuck in a MASSIVE traffic jam. They are really good at having those in kampala. It was a bit frustrating until we saw the presidential motorcade go by. Crazy!!! haha. We made it to the church a tiny bit late, in the dark, only to discover that michael was not there. We had his number and called to see where he was at. He said he was almost at the church, so alyse and i settled in to wait for his arrival. 10, 20, 45min go by and still no sign of him. We called him and his phone wasn't taking calls...., nor would our phones work to call any of our friends/coworkers..... So we are downtown a massive city that isn't really safe at night, waiting for a man who we cannot get in contact with; praying that we stay safe :)

Finally, he arrives, it is already after 8pm and we are exhausted from the day and way bored from waiting for half of it. We eagerly climb into the van which is half full of people to wait yet again. Over the next 10min others pile in as well and we figure we will take off at any time. Wrong! We wait, and wait and wait for over an hour in the church parking lot... the reason? we were unsure. Michael was gone, looking for someone we presumed. Well, eventually michael returns to the van. He peeks his head inside and sees a man in there with us. He laughs and says 'oh there you are, i was looking for you!'. We waited over an hour for a man to come who was with us the whole time!!! haha. Needless to say it was after 10pm when we finally arrived home and our lumpy, foam beds never felt so good!!!