Our first challenge and our first day

**I added a few pictures to the post “From Little Rock to Chicago. Pictures of our house will be posted in the next few days!**

We arrived in Entebbe around 2 in the morning on Thursday (we left America around 5 pm on Tuesday). By the time we got our visas and luggage and drove to Kampala it was around 5:40 am. Everyone was tired and a bit overwhelmed.

We got to our house (which is *very* nice and I promise to show pictures of SOON) and we had no clean water to drink....not even any water bottles in our bags. At this point I was kicking myself because I had a fleeting thought about water on the plane to Entebbe (and actually grabbed 4 little cups of water that came with our meal...but we drank those while waiting for visas)....but I thought we could just buy some in the Entebbe airport. I wasn’t thinking that (1) it was 2 in the morning when we got there and everything was closed or (2) Entebbe airport was NOT like O’Hare or Istanbul....it was very very small. So we had our first meltdown/argument. It wasn't too bad...very short-lived....and we apologized (to each other and the kids). We recognized it as an attack from Satan and prayed over the whole situation.

We searched through luggage to find sheets to make up the beds and Scott worked on getting everyone to calm down and go to sleep. We had some cans full of water in the house but I didn’t think they were full of clean water. I realized that I didn’t even have Cari’s number to call her and ask. So what did I do? I texted Eric (in America!) to ask him to call or text Cari so we could get help. :) He sent me Cari’s number, and I immediately texted her to ask about water. She said the water in the jerry cans was NOT clean (glad I trusted my instincts on that one) but suggested we give money to the security guard (more about him later) and ask him to go buy us water at the market. He told us the stores were still closed but he would be waiting at the door when they opened.

Around 7:15 he came with the glorious nectar of life....fresh, clean, cold water!! We all drank and drank and then fell FAST asleep!!

Cari was supposed to come over around noon to meet us, take us to get something to eat, and to the store - so we set our alarms for 11. We ended up hitting snooze until 11:40. We had JUST rolled out of bed when she showed up with Courtney (our fellow boot camper), Aunt Ruth (the school administrator), and Jackie and Yosam (Cari’s kiddos). We must have looked a mess. We had only been awake for 20 minutes....and before that only asleep for 4 hours!

We went to Oasis Garden (the name of the mall) to eat. It’s funny because as you walk into the food court people from all the different restaurants surround you and hand you menus. Then you sit down and they all reach around you pointing to items on their menu that you might like. We chose to get chicken strips and french fries. Our poor children were so tired and their bodies were so messed up that they hardly ate anything. It actually took about a week (Tuesday - Tuesday) before they started eating normally again.

After “eating” we went to the supermarket (yes, located inside the mall) to stock up on some things we needed. We got peanut butter, jelly, bread (in other words, the essentials!), washing soap (for clothes and dishes), salt, rice, juice, paper plates, water bottles, FANS (for noise at night and for a breeze!), toilet paper (we didn’t have any at the house), and maybe a few other things (I can’t remember!). Then we headed back home and forced ourselves to stay awake until 7:30 pm when we all CRASHED!!!

We realized that the outlet in the girls’ room didn’t work (to plug their fan into) so Scott slept on a mattress on the floor in the boys’ room and the girls slept in the master bedroom with me. Around 1:00 am most of us just randomly woke up and we were awake until about 4:30. We laid quietly in our beds and talked and read books until we got sleepy again.

So that’s our first full day in Uganda....a day that seems like a blur!!