Day 21: Kasese, Congo & park

Thursday, November 30th.
Our goal for Thursday was to visit the Congo boarder so that Joshua, Pastor Peterson, and Nickson could get a stamp in their new passports.

We left around 9:30am and traveled for over an hour in a packed car.  At one point there were four people in the front seats and four people in the back seat of a our 5 passenger car.  Nickson even had to sit underneath another guy in the front seat when they went pass a traffic cop because they aren't supposed to have more than two people in front. It was a riot! I was laughing so hard.  Once passed they re arranged until the next traffic check.  Uganda ha ha.  No use of seat belts either.

During our travel I took many photos of the landscape outside the car.  There was a national park on one side of the road and Pastor Peterson explained that one portion of the road is dangerous to travel at night because of the elephants crossing. Cool!  But I didn't see any.

When we got to the Congo boarder, we found the correct office and tried to get an hour or day pass for Joshua, Pastor Peterson, and Nickson. However, the Ugandan immigration officer refused to stamp their passports. The reason?  Because they were new passports and had no stamps in it yet! Which left us wondering how does one actually get stamps if you have to have stamps to get them? Sounds a bit like credit cards and credit scores if you asked me.  Nickson was going to ask that question but he told me later he was afraid of being locked up (arrested). I thought, "why? Just for asking a very logical question?" But the government here is different.

Nickson took a photo of Congo from the Ugandan side (see blue box car and mountain in the background) and we made our way back to Kasese.

After that disappointing experience, we decided to stop at Elizabeth National Park. It was expensive. I would have to pay for all of them, even the entry fee for the car and the driver, if I wanted to go. A total of 300,000 ugx or $85.71 USD. That's the thing about Ugandan. Because it's a group and relationship based culture it would be very hurtful to leave someone out and they didn't have that money.  (300,000 would be a high earnings for a month).

Knowing this might be a special occasion, I decided to pay it. To be honest, at first I regretted it.  Why should I be the one to cover everything all the time? I was already covering all the transport to the border.  But they God's like, "yeah but I gave you that money". Sometimes I get so caught up in being a good stewards and responsible, I forgot that it's God who gives me what I have.  He shares so I can share, at least sometimes.

We ended up having a good time at the park and saw wild pigs, ugly big birds, cute m, a monitor lizard  (not pictured), cool cactus tree, Ugandan Kob ("cob"), but no loins or elephants which we were hoping for.