Accosted At the Food Court

That title got your attention huh? Rest assured it is not what you think, just an over stimulating guilt producing experience in Uganda.

So here we are in beautiful Kampala Uganda, we have made our stop over at our lawyer's office and have taken care of business. We are tired, stinky, anxious, and hungry. So our faithful driver, William, takes us to Garden City for a bite to eat. Garden city is mall, like a real mall, in Kampala. I personally believe this place exists solely for tourists. It was so expensive, I couldn't even afford to shop there. Most of the people we saw there were either clearly foreigners or locals with foreigners. Although they did have two things going for them. A decent food court and an AWESOME coffee shop. This is where we spent many an afternoon, while waiting for someone to come pick us up and bring us back to the guest house. It would have been horrible, were it not for that coffee.

Anyway, so William takes up to the food court. This is a pretty spectacular place, with various choices of ethnic cuisine. Italian, Chinese, Indian, American....you got a hankering for food from your homeland, you can probably find it here. Not to mention is has a wonderful view. It is on the second floor, overlooking lush green grass and gorgeous trees. I am starved but hoping this isn't going to take too long, because I am beyond ready to get to Jinja. This would be my first experience in Uganda, teaching me that in Uganda, there is no such thing as something that doesn't take too long:) So we, being the Americans that we are proceed to walk up to the counter we want to order from. William quickly tells us to have a seat. All rightly then. We pick a table and have a seat. IMMEDIATELY we are accosted with waiters and menus from every restaurant in the place. All of them standing over us, pointing out the various and yummy fares on their menus. There they all stood over us, five or six people, waiting for us to decide what we wanted. Each of them trying to convince us to order from them. Now under normal circumstances I have a difficult time deciding what to eat. Under these it was nearly impossible. I knew what I wanted, but dare I say and send the others away with out an order? How could I? I didn't want them to think I thought their food was ant less appetizing. Should we order something from each of them...that would make it easier right? Finally I whispered to my faithful beloved "I want Chinese, order for me, I have to go pee." Whew, got out of that one by the skin of my teeth. This is how it was each time we ate there, but after that I was prepared. By the time we left Uganda, I was able to say to them "I will be having Chinese today."

Over an hour later we were full and on our way to Jinja. We asked how long it took to get from Kampala to Jinja. "It depends" was the reply we got. We soon found out it could take about an hour and a half, or well over three hours. This trip, in the afternoon when traffic was at it's worst...well over three hours. It seemed like an eternity. It didn't matter though, every mile brought us closer to meeting our children. I have never been so excited and panic stricken in my life. What on earth do you say to children, that are yours, that you have never met before? Do I hug and kiss them or will that over whelm them? If I cry will that freak them out? How on earth am I NOT going to cry? I did the only thing I could do, I prayed for grace.