Arrived in Mwanza this afternoon and have to trek 2-3 hours to Bariadi where we will hold our first medical clinic in the Misi village. Our vans arrived to pick us up at the airport and after going through Customs, we are on our way. Bishop Ngussa who has been working with our mission trip for a number of years now also meet us at the airport. Down the road we go …
LATER that afternoon: apparently our “bumpy” 3 hour drive has turned into a 6 hour drive! Down in the bush, driving in the complete darkness and trying to figure out how far we really are (every time we ask the driver we always get the same response, either ‘one hour’ or ‘only 30 km away’ but it has been ‘one hour’ and ‘only 30 km away’ for a while now!) and when I say bumpy, I mean bumpy. These are unpaved dirt roads with huge potholes and rocks in them … so I will leave the rest to your imagination!
on the road we go …
EVEN later that afternoon: Apparently, we are almost there (again ’30 km away’) but the window in our van popped out. YES! I am not joking, our window was completely out of the frame. So we stopped in the middle of nowhere in the bush so Gene and the other guys could duct tape the window. I feel like this is only the beginning of a very interesting night. We will see …
YES, I was exactly right. About an hour later, we stopped for a much needed bathroom break (and by this I mean bathroom on the side of the ride in the bush!) and “sizzling bacon” (sorry, inside joke between me and the team.) Off we go again. Another 30 minutes down the road, the Bishop’s Land Rover suddenly breaks down, we all stop again in the middle of nowhere in the bush and try to see what is going on. Gene and Fred are working on the car when they suddenly ask for another flashlight. I volunteered mine since it was in the van and knew exactly where it was. Little did I know that when I reached for that van door and yanked to open it, it would fall completely off the hinges! This is just a night of unfortunate events that you just have to kind of laugh it off and get along down the road again. So we did just do exactly that!
FINALLY! We arrived in Bariadi and checked into our hotel. We have to be up at 7:00 am for church at St. Paul’s and it’s already 1am. Such a long and eventful night!
FINALLY! We arrived in Bariadi and checked into our hotel. We have to be up at 7:00 am for church at St. Paul’s and it’s already 1am. Such a long and eventful night!
