Stuff you might like to know

So you might be wondering what it is I’m actually doing for Jenga in Uganda? Or maybe you’re not. I’m going to tell you anyway. Well I’m still in the early stages of working out the finer details, but at this point, I am keen to get involved in a couple of different areas. One is a new project for Jenga to do with legal rights, and in particular, land rights. I am in the process of following up some contacts we have with some legal organisations working in Uganda which deal with legal education and advocacy in poor communities. Poor people are often uneducated and have no concept of their national constitution and legal rights as a Ugandan citizen. Unfortunately, some people take advantage of this and often when a women’s husband passes away, other relatives will come and seize the widow’s property and everything on it, and basically kick her out. Educating people on their rights will help them to recognise when there has been a violation of the law, and putting them in contact with organisations that can provide practical legal assistance gives people a way forward towards justice.

A very exciting project I have become involved with is the food storage program. People in the communities here are by and large subsistence farmers, meaning that everyone grows food on their own property to meet their own needs. If there is any left over, it is sold at the market. The trouble is, everyone is growing similar crops and following the same cycles of both the weather and planting/harvesting. So if everyone has excess maize, the price of maize drops because there is highly supply than demand, so people get less for their crops. When drought hits or it’s the end of the season and no one has extra maize, they then have to buy it from the market at peak prices (usually from richer farmers) because now there is high demand but low supply. Part of the problem is there is not generally a culture of saving or setting aside here in Uganda, but a bigger chunk of the issue is that people just don’t have an appropriate place to store food securely. Houses are small to begin with, so there’s not a great deal of room, and furthermore, food stored in houses are subject to things like rodents and moisture where they can spoil easily. This is where the food storage project comes in. Two community storehouses have already been built and another is to begin construction next week in Mooni. Basically, these are a large room with sufficient ventilation and protection from weather and animals, with wooden pallets on the ground to lift the bags of grain off the cement floor to ensure proper air circulation. There is a small office attached to it, where records will be kept of what goes in and what goes out. Storing food not only means that communities have greater food security, but it protects them from fluctuating market prices. It is also an opportunity for income generation which goes back into the community.

In both the land rights and food storage projects, I will helping with some administrative tasks such as writing up reports and doing proposals for funding and so forth. I will also be involved at a grass roots level as well – I have already visited one storehouse that will begin operation in the coming week, and attended a meeting with representatives from Mooni about how the proposed storehouse will operate in their community. These storehouses are run and owned by the local communities and once built and filled with a base level of grains, will (hopefully!) be self-sufficient.  

Another project I’m quite excited about is the hospital ministry at Mbale hospital. This is the hospital I visited last week and is not a small local hospital, it is the major public hospital for not only Mbale but many surrounding districts. I was talking to an English guy yesterday who had an allergic reaction to a banana a little while ago and had to go to Mbale hospital for treatment. The hospital did not have the medication for allergic reactions (or the needles with which to administer it!), so he had to give them the money to go to the pharmacy, return with the necessary items and inject him. It may not seem a big deal for those of us that have the few dollars to pay for whatever medication we may need, but for many people who arrive at Mbale hospital, they simply don’t have the money for the medical attention they require, and unfortunately many people arrive with more serious complaints than food allergies. 

I visited the surgical ward again this week. I did drop in quickly last Sunday after my initial visit and gave some exercise books and crayons to the kids and some food to Stella and the lady next to her. You should have seen Ivan’s smile, it was the biggest, brightest thing I have ever seen. Some of the same patients were still there today but there were quite a few new people in the beds. One nasty injury had happened to a little boy , Mark, who was maybe two years old. He had fallen off a bike (I’m presuming motorbike given the wound) and a large chunk of one side of his head was missing, exposing pink skin, tissue and skull. Despite the visually disturbing wound, Mark seemed to be doing well and although I think he was scared of the strange muzungu in front of him, he didn’t seem too fussed about his injury and just carried on with it as children have the amazing capacity to do. We also went and prayed for another little boy, David, who had horrific burns on the front of his body from the chest down. Apparently a neighbour had chased him out of their house and knocked him into a fire bin. He is only three years old. I was with Jacinta, one of the Jenga staff, and she actually knew David’s mother because she is her hairdresser. David’s mum had to be in the hospital to look after not only poor little David but also her two and a half month old daughter. She is a single mum and her only source of income is hairdressing. She cannot work while David is in hospital. I looked at David and the sight was heart-breaking. His stomach looked like a Caucasian childs, but with a thin layer of light brown skin slowly forming a crust over the centre portion of his belly. His legs were pinkish white from the knee down, where there was a lot of swelling and shreds of dark skin hung loosely from around his knee caps where he regularly scratched with his fingernails. His legs and stomach were showing signs of healing but his groin area was a terrible weeping mess from where he had been lying with his legs crossed one over the other and the air hadn’t been able to dry out the burns. He would cry when we moved his hands away from his wounds to try and stop him scratching them. Jacinta spoke to the mother for some time about how best to look after David’s wounds (doctors don’t tend to give instructions to carers about how to actually care for patients) and we asked if he was on any medication to prevent infection. He was on antibiotic injections but had just used the last vial and she didn’t have any money to buy more. She was also supposed to clean his wounds with antibiotic soap, but she couldn’t afford that either. The hospital does not have the funding to provide these things. As we prayed for her and David, I knew that I was the answer to my own prayer. God didn’t need to send antibiotics from the sky, because he had already provided all the resources needed – they were just in the hands of someone else. I knew I had the means to help this lady and there was no way I could have just prayed that God would provide for her, then walked away. I told Jacinta that I wanted to buy the antibiotics that David so badly needed, so we met up with the rest of the Jenga team  - who had also encountered equally as desperate circumstances in other wards - and organised to go to the pharmacy and local market. For around AUS$16, we were able to buy 20 vials of antibiotics – enough for 10 days – 2 kilos of rice, 1 kilo of sugar, a bar of Detol soap and some sachets of oral rehydration salts. It’s disturbing how the few dollars we throw around without a second thought back home can literally be the dividing line between health and sickness, life and death here. 

Jacinta returned to the hospital after our shopping spree to give the medication and food to David’s mother. She had already taken Jacinta’s advice to tie David’s hands to stop him from scratching, and to also tie his legs apart to allow the air to begin healing his groin area (sounds horrible, I know but it really will be better in the long run!). His mother was understandably overjoyed to receive our gifts. I will revisit next Thursday and give you an update on how David is going.

There are a couple of other organisations working with Mbale hospital and Jenga has a vision to become much more involved here, so stay tuned for good news. Apparently Melissa Gates (as in Bill Gates’ wife) is visiting the hospital in the next week or so, so that could potentially be a huge source of much-needed funding. Comic Relief UK also recently did a short segment on Mbale hospital which has helped to put the public spotlight on the very great needs here. It seems like things are happening and even though the hospital is horribly under-resourced in terms of both staff and facilities, there have been recent renovations to wards that were formerly unfit to house sick people. I am hoping to be part of the team that expands the work that’s currently being done in the hospital, in whatever shape or form that may end up being. Jenga is not the only organisation currently working in Mbale hospital, and the wheels are currently in motion to unite and coordinate all the various groups so that we can pool resources and work together more effectively to meet the physical and spiritual needs of all the patients. It’s really all quite exciting!

So that’s basically what I’m doing at the moment, I will keep you updated with how things are progressing both with the projects I am personally involved with and the wider workings of Jenga. Thanks so much for reading, I know this has been a long entry but I wanted you all to get a clearer picture of what work I am involved with here and what’s going on. I hope this has helped! Please don’t hesitate to ask questions if you’re curious about anything or would like more information. Myself and the other volunteers are all going to Jinja next week for a conference titled ‘Transformation of the heart’, which from all accounts is going to be quite an impacting and full on week! We’re really looking forward to it, but I’m not sure that I’ll have internet over there so if you don’t hear from me for a few days, that’s why. Looking forward to updating you again upon my return! Until then,

Louise xox

Random Information

My feet are always dirty. Even after washing them.

The currency here is the Ugandan shilling. It's roughly $1 = 2,400 shillings. I am literally a millionare here. 3,500 shillings will get you a nice big plate of beans and rice at our local lunch spot. 500 shillings will get you a ride home on a picky (motorbike)...that's about 20 cents.

The wet season as begun...mostly. They had a very long and hot dry season this year, so the rain has been a very welcome sight. It is considerably cooler now than when I arrived. But still warm.

The price of beans doubled around the time I arrived. No, not because I ate an usually large portion, but because of the lack of rain. These people are very much at the mercy of the natural elements and seasons.

I try and walk to the office and back everyday rather than getting a picky. It takes about 12 minutes each way.

There is a hotel here with a swimming pool and grass area that has quite a breathtaking view of Mount Elgon. The food and drink costs about 3 times what you would pay at a local place, but is still very cheap compared to back home. They also show English soccer matches on their TV. We go there often.

There are three padlocks plus a normal door lock on our two front doors. There is also a padlock on the inside of our big metal gate, which you have to unlock by sticking your hand through a small square hole. I'm getting better at undoing it, but it's a pain in the butt.

We have three dogs and one cat living with us. We also have a "house girl", Martha, who does our washing and cleans the house, Peter, our gardener who works on the property mon-fri all day and another Peter, who is our night guard from 6pm to 6am. They are all lovely.

We have two avocado trees, a mango tree and a few banana "trees" (?) in our backyard.

The only fresh vegetables you can buy in Mbale at the moment are tomatoes, cabbage, potato, onion, green beans, zucchini, carrots, corn & green capsicum. I think that's about it. I try to be creative with my meals, but there's only so much you can do really! Ooh mum, can you send me your recipe for zucchini slice? Ta :)

It's considered very rude in Ugandan culture to not individually greet people you come into contact with. If you walk into a room of 20 people, you don't just wave and say hi to everyone at the same time, you go around and shake each persons' hand and greet them individually.

Everything happens in slow motion here. It took over 30 minutes to have two pieces of paper scanned and attached to an email at the post office this morning.

The power cuts out often. We have lots of candles in our house.

The matches here are the most pathetic things I have ever seen. The brand is called Krishna with that blue boy god thing on the front. The stems are made from a plastic-type material that bends when you strike the head along the side of the box. They are the bain of my life.

Our dogs love burnt ANZAC cookies.

That is all for now.

One week in...

Hello lovely followers! Well I've been in Mbale just over a week now and I'm very happy to tell you that I am now with all my luggage. It was like Christmas morning opening my bag and pulling all my goodies out! I had almost forgotten what I had packed.

So what have I been up to, you ask? Well this week, I have visited a couple of projects; a goat project, a women's 'savings and loans' group (micro-finance) and one of the literacy programs. I am happy to tell you that with all these projects, it is the local Ugandan people who are leading them. I went to visit the goats with just one other local Jenga staff and it was actually really nice to be the only white person/foreigner there! There's a part of me that wants to come into this community and do something really useful that no one else could do, but really that's just me being selfish and wanting to feel good about myself. The best thing I can really do in this community, is to support the local staff who live, eat, breathe, sleep, pray and share amongst the people here, day in, day out. The truth is, long after I've left this place, they are the ones who will still be here. They are the ones who will still be impacting the local community and making a difference, not me! Not that I don't have a part to play here, of course, but it's a sobering but happy realisation that this place doesn't NEED me (yet it welcomes me).

On Thursdays, Jenga staff and volunteers go to the local hospital to visit people, offer prayer and see if there's any immediate physical or financial needs we may be able to meet. This week was my first visit and it hit me hard. Within about 30 seconds of entering the surgical ward, I was fighting back tears. Not only because of the people suffering in their cramped beds, but because of the general lack of vaccinations, proper health care, trained doctors and emergency services that could have kept a lot of these people from needing to be there in the first place. The surgical ward is basically a long room with a row of beds down each side. There are no partitions between beds, food is not provided and must be brought in by family and friends, and the medical treatment that they receive here that is supposed to be free, is not. I was visiting the ward with one of the local staff members, Grace, and we stopped by two ladies in the two beds closest to the door on the right hand side. The both looked to be in some level of pain and one of them had her husband sitting on the bed with her. Grace spoke to them in the local language, then translated to me that they had both had stomach problems and had been operated on and were now in the process of healing. One of the ladies had a big scar down her belly where she had been cut open, which hadn't been sown up because they needed to check that her insides were healing properly before they closed her up again. I don't have a background in medicine, but I had a feeling that would not be the normal course of action taken in a hospital back home. The other lady, Stella, had already had two other stomach operations and was now in for her third. She was covered by a blanket, but you could tell from her outline that she was quite thin. She spoke English, so I prayed for her while Grace prayed for the other lady. I sat on the edge of her rickety bed and as I placed my hand on her shoulder, I was quite taken aback at how tiny it was under my hand. All I could feel was bones. I have seen many pictures of underweight, malnourished people but touching that reality with your own hand is just something else.

We moved further down the line of beds and met two young children, Esther and Ivan, who had both broken their legs. It was horrible to see young children bed-ridden while their legs were in the process of healing, but the joy in these two particular kids was amazing. They both gave us huge smiles when we approached their beds and chatted a little with their parents. Esther had a book on her lap and her dad told us she'd asked him to bring her books and homework from school because she didn't want to miss out. Ivan had already been in the hospital for 2 weeks and had 2 more weeks to go but he just wouldn't stop smiling. These kids are stuck in bed for weeks on end with no toys, no tv's, with sick people all around them, and they're happy! They're just getting on with it, no complaints, no whinging, no feeling sorry for themselves. I can learn a lot from these kids. Grace and I moved through the ward and everyone we offered prayer to, accepted it. We even had people approach us and ask us to come and pray for them at their beds further down in the room. It was quite an overwhelming and humbling experience. I saw kids suffering from typhoid-induced surgeries, people with metal pins going through their legs and attaching them to their beds, a man with a missing finger and a young child and a baby with horrific burns on their heads and faces. Probably their bodies too.


I left the ward feeling emotionally heavy but also convinced more than ever that small acts of kindness can make such a huge difference to people who are in dire circumstances. I promised myself I would return before the next scheduled visit, to give some colouring-in books to the kids and some food for Stella. It's insane how far the Australian dollar can go here. I might not bat an eyelid at spending $1 on a bunch of bananas (in fact, I would call that a major bargain at the moment), but for some, that might be their entire day's earnings. Something as basic and neccessary as antibiotics is simply out of financial reach for many people. I have a feeling these hospital visits are going to kill me emotionally and they are entirely optional, but I know that I need to return. I have the means to be able to give to those who are less fortunate than myself and the people filling the beds at Mbale hospital are certainly in need of a helping hand.

On a brighter note, though, things here are going well and I'm starting to find my feet and get a feel for what Jenga does and what areas I might best be suited for. The other volunteers are great - I should probably introduce them to you! Besides all the regular long-term Jenga staff (who I will try and introduce as I go along), there is myself and three other volunteers: Duncan, 19 from Glasgow, Grant, 21 from London and Phil, 22 also from London. They're a fun bunch of guys and we hang out a fair bit at the office and our homes and at the pool of one of the hotels here where we have swimming races and lounge around on deck chairs when we can! I went for my first run here this morning with Grant and we're hopefully going to make it a weekly event to try and keep up our fitness levels...or lack thereof in my case. The hotel where we swim also offers aerobics classes in the evenings and apparently they do pilates too. I may need to look into that...

I really miss broccoli.

Thanks again for reading, and please feel free to comment, ask questions, throw in your 2 cents or whatever else! It would be nice to know that I'm not just throwing words out randomly into cyberspace...

Until next time,

Louise :)

           Andrew, one of the Jenga staff, and a camera-shy goat from the goat project!

Life in Mbale

Hello again! I'm typing this on my laptap at the Jenga office in the main street of Mbale. I finally got on to the airport today and my bag is in Entebbe and will be sent to Kampala tomorrow. Kampala is a few hours drive away so we're trying to find someone who is already heading through there who would be able to pick up the bag. Hopefully I should have my stuff by the end of the week! Hooray! I also found an ATM that accepts mastercard here in Mbale which is a big relief.

I am settling in well here so far, although things have been pretty cruisy and I haven't gotten my hands dirty yet. Just my feet ;) I am living in a western style house with three other girls; Jo & Tiff who "work" for Jenga and Penny, who works for another organisation here. They're all British which is good cause they share my fondness for tea! None of the "mzungu's" (white people) at Jenga get paid, they all volunteer full time and live off donations and sponsorship back home which means that all the money goes straight to projects and the wages of local people here in Mbale. Living costs here are quite cheap compared to Australia, but we still have to deal with rent, house expenses, food, transportation and day to day needs. If would like to support me and the work I will be doing over here, my bank details are at the bottom of the blog, along with other contact details. Any amount would be greatly appreciated and the Aussie dollar can go a long way here!

On Saturday, we went to a wedding which was quite the experience! Weddings in Africa are basically open community events and everyone is invited. Being foreign guests, we were treated like royalty and at the reception, we were seated in the bridal tent, despite the fact that we had never met the bride and groom before! There was plenty of singing and dancing and boy do these guys know how to celebrate! We were treated to a musical marathon and got to enjoy food prepared by locals in the village - it's not easy eating rice with your hands, but I'm sure I will adjust to it! Everywhere we go, people have been incredibly hospitable and will make a big effort to come up and say hello and that you're welcome there.

We went to a local church on Sunday which was really great, it was amazing to be in the middle of Africa, singing songs that we sing back home in Australia! It's always refreshing to experience church in the wider context and break out of the familiar box we all too often get stuck in. The people there were so aware of the needs immediately around them and all around the world. We prayed for the people of Tokyo among other things, and I realised how infrequently I consider other people and places in the world cause I get so obsessed with my own little world that I almost forget there is a much bigger world out there! I have a long way to go...

Today I am in the office and am about to be taken on a tour of the local market with Rose, one of the local staff here which should be fun! The next few weeks will be a general taste-test of all the projects Jenga are involved with and if I feel a certain pull towards a certain area, I can get more involved in that project specifically. I'm excited to visit a community health project and and adult literacy project later in the week. They are giving out goats tomorrow in one of the villages which I think we are going along to as well! If you want to know more about all the projects Jenga are involved with, visit their website at www.jengauganda.org

It's going to take far too long to put photos up on here, so instead, I will put a link to my Facebook album which I will try and update as much as possible! http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=281990&id=506806975&l=0ba726bebe

Please keep in touch and thankyou for reading...

Signing off from Mbale,

Louise xox

On a much happier note...

I have arrived safely and on time in Mbale! I may be without all my clothes and belongings, but I somehow managed to get here in one piece. The trip from the airport was about 5 hours by car, with a lengthy stopover in Kampala to eat and do a bit of shopping to tie me over until my bag is returned to me. The drive from Entebbe was quite an eye-opener in terms of how underdeveloped Uganda is but the people are beautiful, the bottled water cheap and the roasted bananas we bought from a street-side vendor delicious. My driver, Sam, was awesome and we chatted a lot about his country and African politics, culture, Jenga and what it's like to live in Mbale. I have also met one of my 3 housemates, Jo, who is super lovely and even cooked me dinner. I will meet the other 2 when they return next week with the head honcho, Robby (whom I had already met in Melbourne). Uganda is VERY different to Australia in so many ways, but I have already been made to feel at home at the house here and I don't feel unsafe or nervous about being here at all. It's sleep time now (at last!) but thanks for reading and stay tuned for photos and more updates when my camera-to-computer cord arrives with my bag....fingers crossed! Goodnight all the way from Mbale,

Louise xox (more photos to come, I just don't have the time now sorry!)

The hellish downward spiral that was MEL-KUL-BOM-NBO-EBB...

Well it started off very nicely. I asked the lady at the Air Asia check-in counter if I could have a window seat towards the back of the plane. She commented that it was a fairly quiet flight and that I may have the whole row to myself. She was right. So up went the arm rests, down went my head and away went 8 hours and 50 minutes of cruising through the sky. I arrived in KL on time and found my way to the airport bus which took me to the central station via a one hour journey down a highway dotted with massive billboards and seas of identical houses in cream and terracotta. Checked in at the lovely hostel, had some food, looked around the shops, went to bed early, rose early and went up the Petronas towers, wandered around the city and got myself back to the airport with plenty of time to check in for my flight to Mumbai.

Here comes the fun bit.

I approach the check-in counter, put my bag on the conveyor belt and hand over my passport which the Air Asia guy flicks through thoroughly before looking up at me with a confused look and says five words that start a rather unpleasant string of events: "where is your Indian visa?". I look at him blankly. "Uhh, I don't have one. I'm not leaving the airport, I'm just in transit". The Air Asia guy shakes his head. "No, no, you're an Australian citizen. You can't enter India without a visa". I reiterate the point that I am flying onwards from Mumbai, without leaving the airport. He tells me that I will need to go through customs at the other end, pick up my  bag and check in for my flight with another carrier, which requires a visa. "If you arrive in India without a visa, they will put you on a plane back to Australia", he adds with a kind of laugh. I blink back at him. I am not laughing. He informs me that I will need to go to the Indian embassy in KL city to get the visa I need because he cannot let me on the flight. A wave of panic rises up in me. The flight is scheduled to depart in 2 hours and connects me to my next two flights onwards to Entebbe. The conversation continues back and forth until he tires of my arguing and waves dismissively towards a desk down the other end where his superior is, should I want to talk about it further. I take my bag with a huff and head over to my only hope.

I explain my predicament to a lady who looks about 5 years younger than myself and she gives me the same answer as her indifferent colleague down the other end. I'm not taking no for an answer this time though. I shove my papers for my next flight in front of her to prove that I won't be leaving the airport for my shoes to hit Indian soil. I think she realises that I'm going to keep at her til I get on that flight, so she picks up the phone and makes a call: "sakd asijas saf Australian asif asif sfisi shfiw Louise Kilgour iawo gadoihaaifa ais fi ahis visa a saisf asihw waiasf...". She asks how many check-in bags I have and I reply one. She relays this to the person on the other line, listens, says thank you then hangs up the phone. "You're very lucky", she says to me "they're going to let you on the flight". Hoo-fricking-ray. I check-in my bag, ask for a window seat near the back and head to Starbucks to calm my panic attack and shaking hands with an iced green tea latte.

I then spend the next five hours trying to sleep on the plane, but really thinking about being deported back to Australia by bureaucracy-loving Indian officials in Mumbai. My seat "near the back" is actually in row 11, next to a rather robust Indian woman who takes up the spot where my right shoulder should be, twisting me into a rather uncomfortable position that I hold for the entire flight, ignoring my urge to visit the toilet, lest I have to make two people vacate their seats so I can squeeze on out. I am so elated to even be on the flight that my twisty, bladder-popping stance doesn't even bother me. The thought of immigration at the other end does though.

I walk off the plane and am immediately greeted by three Air Asia staff, who ask me if I am travelling to Nairobi on Kenya Airways. Token white girl, I guess. I reply yes, and they take me aside along with a German girl, Micah, who is in a very similar boat to visa-less self. They are very friendly and I get the sense that this happens all the time and it's no big deal. And I'm right. They look at our passports and onward tickets, take them away for a bit and in about half an hour, they return with transit passes for us. The main guy tells me that they will transfer my bag to my next flight and to come back around 11:30pm-12am to get my boarding pass for my 3:10am flight. So Micah and I go off, have a drink and a chat, wander through the shops and return to where we were told. Midnight comes and no sight of the AA guys. I approach a security officer and tell him I need to speak to them. He shrugs me off and says there's plenty of time, they will come for me. More time passes and I explain that I need a boarding pass to another guard. He tells me just to go to the gate at boarding and they will have my pass there, though he doesn't sound convincing. I'm beginning to feel like no one really knows what's going on. Micah leaves to find a lounge and get some sleep. I am desperate to join her but don't want to miss the AA people. Another hour passes and I'm starting to get worried. I have no boarding pass, it's nearing 2am and I don't even know what gate my flight leaves from cause the departures screen doesn't seem to be refreshing with new flight details. I check again with another airport staff member. She tells me Kenya Airways will come for me, looking annoyed.

Just after 2am, I see some Kenya Airways staff walking down towards the departure gate. I follow them to the boarding desk and quickly tell them that I still don't have my boarding pass. The guy looks at me and tells me that check-in is closed and I won't be getting on the flight. I explain the situation that AA were "transiting" me and my bag over to them for my next flight so I didn't have to go through immigration, which of course requires a visa. They have not been contacted by Air Asia and had no idea I was waiting for them. They tell me I can't get on the flight. I try my last tactic of digging in my heels and ask why I should be punished for AA's mistake and explain that I HAVE to be on that flight to Nairobi. A whole lot of questioning then ensures and backwards and forwards as the rest of the flights passengers are boarding the plane. The last few are trickling through and the staff are still arguing amongst themselves as to whether I should be allowed on the flight. Eventually a lady tells me I can get on, but I have to go without my check-in bag. Great. I sign a document that could well have said I was going to sell my soul to the devil, and am getting ready to board when they ask me where my visa is for Uganda. Oh dear. I tell them you can apply on arrival which they know, but they want to see my onwards ticket from Entebbe. In the end, they decide I can get on the plane, so I have to literally run to security with one of the guys, have my carry on bag re-scanned, then run all the way back on to the plane. The entire plane is seated and waiting for me and their dagger eyes burn into me as I walk all the way to my seat in the second back row of the plane. To top it off, the window seat that was rightfully mine has been snatched by the man who SHOULD have been sitting in 37B, but I was too out of breathe and exhausted to care at this point. My stomach was in knots from fear of not getting on the plane and being stuck in Mumbai airport for God knows how long. I sank into my worn aisle seat and wanted to cry but decided it would require too much energy, so I just stared at my tray table instead.

Another 5 hour flight but no sleep later, I arrive in Nairobi, do I quick draw of money to change for US dollars, get on to my connecting flight and a mere 50 minutes later, I am in Entebbe! My stomach is still in knots because I'm not entirely sure I have enough US dollars on me, and I realise I forgot to write down the contact address for Jenga that I need to put on my visa application. I figure if I can get on two flights that I was orginally told I could not board, this would just work itself out too. As an address, I simply write 'Mbale'. I wait nervously in the line, before approaching the woman behind the glass. She looks over my form, pulls out the visa sticker, puts it in my passport, says about five words, stamps it and hands it to me. I give her a US$50 bill and I'm all done. Now, that wasn't so hard, was it?