LONG!

Wednesday consisted of two more field visits. We stayed our second night at the Continental and sampled more of the same food, horrific TV   and try-incredibly-hard service. 

 

We were due to be picked up at 9.30, so were in the foyer from 8.00. The guys from CFE finally arrive at 10.15 with a different vehicle as Pastor Paul needed the mini bus for some other duties. Our car was a complete shed and it turns out it had been hired. Avis it was not! 

 

 A Group C car!

Compelling Selling!

We headed off to see our Compassion sponsored children and after a short journey we were there. The school where they are has 400 children, 300 of whom belong to the CFE church. There are 283 children sponsored by Compassion, at least 120 of whom are sponsored by people from GX! We spent around 45 minutes with our children for whom we had brought some gifts of ‘scholastic materials’ with which they seemed chuffed. The Compassion/CFE partnership seems to be working very well and we talked about whether we could get the sponsored kids number up to the Comapassion threshold of 300. Anyone interested in taking on a child at the Mawagala Child Development Centre? 

 

Let Martin know. It was a great morning. One of the Davis Compassion kids had heard he was coming and had skipped school so Paul only met one of theirs! 

 

 

We went back to the hotel for a quick lunch while our host team did some bits and bobs in town. We studied the menu again…no change. 

After a good morning the afternoon turned out to somewhat excruciating. We went to visit one of the first ever CFE support communities which Martin has visited a number of times. We knew it was not that far away…except… the driver decided to go the long way round. Nearly an eternity in fact! The roads were horrendous; the car had ZERO suspension and the driver seemed to aim AT the pot holes. 

Sense of humour failure (Martin) and sleep (Paul) ensued. We arrived and many of the women were at a funeral but we had a very moving (for Martin) time there and clearly witnessed a huge change in their whole outlook and attitude. We could not stop them from telling us so many of their stories of transformation and change. Really very impressive.

 

Martin modelling some of the handiwork

 

 Making sure I actually left in the hire car

 

Life goes on

Onlookers

We returned to Pastor Paul’s house for supper which took about 20 minutes. Yet his house is only 30 minutes from town…WHY then had we gone SUCH a long way round? More sense of humour failure. Martin had been asked to do a little leadership teach-in for some pastors at the house which we did under the African night sky whilst being bitten to death by mosquitos! It was a lovely time and then we went inside for a delicious supper of rice, matoke, greens, pork, chicken, potatoes etc. 

We got back to the hotel after an incredibly long journey which the driver chose. He seemed to have some kind of death wish; Paul appeared to be on the verge of making it come true. We both thought that the journey in the hired shed would never end. TIA! Pastor Paul is a sheer delight and a man for whom we both have the deepest respect. It was really a great opportunity to spend time with him and his team as well as to see first hand the reality of the work he and his church are doing. 

 One for Charlie!

We had a quick beer and went to bed ready to set off for Masaka (50 miles from the Tanzania border) in the morning. 

Note to readers – the above has all been written by Martin. For Paul Tuesday represented 12 hours of his life that he would never get back. Enough said! 

Wednesday and we left around 9.00 but not before Bennett, our man Friday, suggested that Martin’s request for a boiled egg would take 30 minutes to prepare and therefore may not be deliverable. He offered an Spanish omlette instead.

We had had the bikes wonderfully cleaned for £1 each so set off on pristine bikes for the 150 mile leg to Masaka. The journey was mixed but we rode it well. Plenty of dust and mud as well as some tarmac. We arrived at the Zebra Hotel around 12.30 just in time for a cold beer and some lunch. Greens, matoke, chicken, pork and potato all on offer! 

We took a look at our plans for the next few days in the Tanzanian wilderness and have decided to take the ferry from Bukoba tomorrow night to Mwanza from where we will drive to Nzega. If it works it will save us riding a lot of boring miles….we will see! 

 Clean bikes

As usual the bikes have been admired by some of the guys here. We have parked them up in the shade and two of them obviously decided they needed a clean so they have given them a fantastic clean and have been happy to receive (as were the last guys in Iganga) 5,000 UGS per bike which is just over a pound. Yesterday Pastor Paul thought we had paid too much.

Relaxing at Zebra and updating the blog.

 View from Hotel Zebra