A long Beggining

So we made it to Africa.
But it took a long time. We set off from my home in Norfolk on the morning of the 2nd and headed for D.C. to catch our flight to London. Our flight started at 7 p.m. and we arrived at 7 a.m. London time. We flew Virgin Atlantic which I will highly recommend. they give you a little bag with a toothbrush, toothpaste and socks for your journey, very cool. We had a couple hour layover in London so we got our bags and found a spot to hang out in the airport before our Turkish airways flight began checking in. I used my new British cell phone charger that worked wonderfully. When checking in began we noticed that pretty much everyone was in a long discussion with the attendants, not looking too happy. When it was our turn they told us that Istanbul had been "snowballed" and our flight had been heavily delayed. But after some finagling they put us on a direct flight to Nairobi at 7 p.m that night on Kenyan Airways. They were actually very helpful people, we look forward to our return flight through Istanbul with them. But that left us with about ten hours to kill. We looked into taking the tube to the city but it was too expensive for the amount of time we had. So we walked around and found some comfortable chairs in this coffee shop and literally sat there for like six hours. London airport was basically no fun. We watched the sun rise into an apparently typical cloudy day in the U.K. and then watched it set, but really just noticed it wasn't there anymore, because we never actually saw the sun. We finally made it onto our last flight eight hours down to Nairobi. This was a good flight for sleep which we both got a lot of. We set down in Kenya.
This is the end of our planning. From here on out we are just hoping that things will work in our favor, or at least don't kill us. We find a cab (guys yelling at us to get in their cab, one guy yelled louder) and tell the man where we need to go. He falls asleep in traffic and I have to literally shake him to wake him. He takes us to the wrong place. I try again to tell him the name of the bus company and he shakes his head. We pay the man and thank him for his excellent service; our next mission is to get a bus ticket to Kampala, Uganda. There is a bus at 10 a.m. (its about 9 a.m.) which is perfect, but what isn't perfect is we didn't exchange enough money at the airport to pay the bus fare. The nice woman points in some obscure direction where we can change our American dollars to Kenyan shillings. We walk for a short bit and realize how lame we look with our confused expressions and giant packs strolling though the very busy downtown Nairobi (don't worry,everyone else realised it too). We see a sign with an American dollar symbol and it directs us up a narrow staircase to a woman sitting behind this little cage. She took our money and gave us the correct amount of Kenyan money all while this man kept poking Tyler and calling him friend. Yes it was really sketch but very memorable, so thats good right. So we made it on the bus and settled in for a 13 hour trip to Kampala. It was relatively comfortable and felt safe (which is quickly becoming a priority). The bus definitely broke down for a while though which made our trip 15 hours. We are learning how to roll with the punches. We get to Kampala at 1:30 a.m. where (thank God) our friends are waiting for us ( and had been waiting for us for three hours) and drive back to Brandie's house. We made it! It was soo nice to be around people I know and not have anything else to do for a while. We took some very rejuvenating showers and slept.
The next morning we had delicious french pressed African coffee and peanut butter toast ( our new staple). We then walked to the road and caught a matatu (very tight packed bus) to the slums where Brandie works throughout the week with street kids ( kids with no one looking after them). We hung out with kids, helped teach them how to use was and were in English, bandaged up wounds, and filmed them rapping for us (all African kids are in love with cameras). We then went to the park and played some frisbee and soccer with one of Brandie's Ugandan friends Jude, just as the sun was setting over Kampala. It was one of those settings where it is so easy to be thankful for where you are and how the Lord has brought you there. We left the park and stopped at the store for dinner preparations. We ate chicken and rice and had some Niles (Uganda's local beer). It was a great first day in Uganda.
We woke up today to rain which pretty much stops everything because everyone has to walk everywhere and have had a relaxing morning with more coffee and peanut butter toast. We are heading to Gulu (northern Uganda) tomorrow to check out some orphanages and see what the more rural side of Uganda is like. We're working on a video that should be up soon but we are on Africa time now so soon doesn't mean much.
Until Then,
E

side note: My phone works over here which is crazy and I have G chat on it so if you would like to talk to us for free get a gmail account and friend me (evanstory@gmail.com) and we can chat it up.