Strange and Wonderful Entebbe

This morning in the middle of school, guess who came to our gate? Two CAMELS. They were grazing the hedges growing on the walls up and down our street. They had their shepherd (camelherd?) and his dog along with them. Apparently these are camels who work the beach selling rides, but in their off-time they cruise the neighborhoods snacking. Fortunately they did not care for our bougainvillea.

So, after being here two months, we still are enjoying the differences between our old town of Musoma, Tanzania and Entebbe, Uganda. Here are some other oddities, and I say "oddities" because they seem odd compared to what we used to experience.

-swimming pools. There are a few here where we can pay to swim so our kids can now really learn the critical life-skill of swimming.

-pavement, lots of pavement. There are also dirt roads, but it is sure nice to drive in a town where the main roads are paved.

-international airport. We live close enough to it that we hear planes all the time, and we are already enjoying the visitors the planes bring. Come on over! This also means we meet a lot of people employed in the flight industry.

-rain. Even though Musoma is just across Lake Victoria from us, we get a lot more rain, so our garden is greener.

-access to Kampala. The capitol is only an hour away, so that means medical care and shopping are close as well. It took us between 8-10 hours to get to Nairobi from Musoma.

-restaurants. When cooking another meal overwhelms me, we can choose to go for Italian/pizza, Chinese, fish & chips, continental, or Indian. Musoma had 2 restaurants where we occasionally ate, but it took about an hour between ordering and receiving food.

-expats, tourists, and short-term workers everywhere. "Expats" are expatriates, or people living outside their home country like us. The UN for the surrounding countries is based here beside the airport, and several safari companies and missions are here too.

-English! Although almost everyone here speaks it as a second or third language, it is still so nice to be able to communicate perfectly well in our first language. This is not to say that Bible translation isn't needed - many non-urban people in Uganda don't speak English, and they are the ones who need their languages written and the Bible in their languages.

So, that's why we're here, in this wonderfully strange town!