SEA! Safari East Africa Atlast comes to an end enroute Nairobi,
the SEA journey, started out tough with a bus breakdown at Jinja town, just a two hours drive from Kampala.
we spent alittle over 2 days in the antiquating town just after few verbal exchanges between the bus operators and the "abilias" passengers
after the long bus trek crossing boarders we at a long last touched the Moshi ground welcomed with another round of tansport cultural shock. The scandinavia company bus fellows decided to leave us part way before reaching our final destination making board the lastic Tanzanian matatus. these things never fill up whatever the number. We could grasp the idea of boarding an already full mini-bus till some kind Ugandan a resident of Moshi told us "it is the way taxis operate here", lucky an empty one came onto the scene and rescued the situation.
Our Moshi hosts came for us and we were distributed in different homes, for the first time in three days I had to sleep with my legs well streched. The party seemed to have just began, we started visiting from one home to another, one site to another, Charles, Phil, Mwalimu Dhudha, took us around moshi town, visited with the orphange, dined, and guys made a messy mural on the wall with all hands in it!
In all Moshi was simply a blessing.
Dont cRy FOR mE taNzAnia!
We had to leave town and head back home aboard the Akamba Bus Co. spend a few days in Nairobi and finally go to the city with numerous hills, calm and chaos. That was our plan but God intended otherwise; reaching Namanga boarder post of Kenya and Tanzania, we were told that we cannot go to Nairobi that night following the election violence in Kenya, Lord we were yet to spend another night in the stationery bus before we were finally allowed to move to Nairobi.
Just God's Grace
By the time we arrived in Nairobi the mood in the town was gloomy and the airs smoky, mean fellows in the name of GSU police foot patrolling and a few others on horses, kind of not minding our presence there, who cares anyway we quickly boarded a city Matatu out of the towerly streets, and headed for the outskirts in Nairobi west. Our confused faces about the the whole situation made folks there think we had lost the elections.
boy! we know where we put our ballot papers when the need comes.
our area was relatively calm, and business unsual we could still buy food and other supplies and also snooze like the world was ours, in the meantime TV pictures were all gloomy and shocking; news of burning properties, looters, and the looted kept on flashing the Kenyan TV stations minute by minute, but on our part it was business unsual, we still visited the animal park and different parts of the city, we also had the previlledge of having (BSF International) Bible Study Fellowship in Nairobi class.
We were certainly depressed by the fact that we could not cross back Uganda at our will since western part of Kenya was virtually burning up. our patience was readily tested kept on checking with our transporter on the possibilities of travel till finally all became calm. Nice the good news came one sunday afternoon that it was now safe for us to travel to "biblical promised land" but still had to wait for another two days. Just wait the reception at the bus terminal kept on echoing to the different inquiries; we did just that till that Wednesday morning when we sailed out smoky free from the ghostly city.
George my host and myself, braved to the city center to visit with the several Ugandans who were stranded at the bus terminal and to also try to get some assistance from the Ugandan embassy, we couldn't get any significant help, so on our back home we ran into a scuffle between the police and the rioters, it was like the climax of the party, as some policeman told us to raise our hands others were telling us to go back and others to God who knows. but gladly we found our way through the ghostly railway and the industrial area and finally made it back.
East or west!
It is no doubt Kampala is best, happy Boda Boda motor-cyclists were eager to receive us aboard Akamba Bus and take us anywhere we wished to go for a fee ofcourse! phew worried hearts settled. I could not wait to taste the Ugandan coffee and unskimmed millk and also lay down with all my legs outstreched.
Do still want to be on SEA! see you next time.
