A few days after I left the COS conference I again headed to the Entebbe airport, this time to pick up my third visitor in Africa! I'm completely blessed and spoiled to have such good friends as ones who would apply for their first passport and take their first international trip to come see me. Nora's plane landed at 10:20pm and by the time she came out of the arrivals area I had tears of joy in my eyes. We picked up like we hadn't been apart at all and made our way back to the hotel in the city. The next morning I had to run by the embassy to pick up my renewed passport and I dragged Nora along. She was amused by the fact that I just verbally agreed with the taxi driver that he'd wait and be around when we were done. I guess living here I've become used to the fact that things like that just work out. It never occurred to me that he would leave us stranded (we took our bags with us) and it probably never occurred to him that I'd screw him over and get a different taxi back to the other side of town. Things just work like that here. (I have to interject here that I'm super excited about my new passport. The new books you can get with either 26 or 52 pages. When I went to renew it, I'd just checked the standard 26 page book, but the lady behind the desk gave me a wink and said I needed the 52 page one. I was delighted that someone had that much faith in my future travel as to insist I get twice the number of visa pages.)
Anyway, Nora. After the embassy we had breakfast at a Dutch bakery and walked downtown to the bus park. She was completely amused by Mountain Dew in a glass bottle and drank one while we waited. It was neat seeing things through new eyes again, like when Jamie came. I pointed out odd things that I've come to take for granted, and made suggestions about personal safety that I've come to just do without thinking. The bus ride was hot and the men sitting next to us had no qualms about spreading out as much as they wanted, shoving us diagonal in our seats and into the aisle. Then a kid vomited on the man in front of us and it splashed on our feet. Welcome to Uganda!
The next few days we just hung out at my house, the weather was unseasonably cool and I felt like a prize idiot for having droned on and on about how hot it'd be when she got here. We watched chickens and roosters, ate roast pork on sticks, I taught her how to hand wash her clothes :) It was neat really showing someone from back home how I live, not just explaining it over the phone or in a letter. One vodka soaked night she decided she wants to do PC too. I have no idea how that will actually play out, but I already promised to visit at least twice wherever she ends up.
Her last few days here we visited Jinja and the Nile River (and drank plenty of Niles) and shopped for souvenirs. I had packed my big suitcase and sent that home with her, so I threw some things in too. We bought three bolts of cloth tht will eventually be made into bar stool seats, throw pillows, curtain ties, and skirts. The bag was 53lbs by the time she had to drag it through the airport, so I have to say thank you again :)
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