Moving to Gulu! Oh my...

Whoo…this past week has been crazy! We’ve moved from Kampala to Gulu (which is a 4-5 hour drive..) Which doesn’t sound so bad, except for the fact that half way to Gulu you begin to drive on this road that probably came from the moon! The potholes on that thing could literally kill someone..they’re HUGE! But it gets worse…I’m gonna start from the beginning..then let my dad take over :) (this should be fun!)

All was going well, we had a moving truck that was coming the night before we left so we could pack It up, we had almost everything packed, we were all super excited to move! We said all of our goodbyes. Then, as Annie puts it, Satan attacked. Our friend who found the guy with the moving truck said that the guy (who was going to be driving EVERYTHING we owned to Gulu) had disappeared, and turned his phone off. So my dad frantically began calling all of our Ugandan friends asking if they knew ANYONE who could drive our things for a dissent price. Finally after many phone calls, at 7pm we found a truck!

So the truck arrived and we packed in up, with no power, in the dark, by candle light..At last around 10pm we went to bed thanking Jesus! Not knowing what else Satan had in store for us…

We all woke up around 6am, ready to leave! The driver was here the truck was packed, the driver was here! We were set to go! And so at 7:27 we had finished packing the last minute stuff and had locked our doors to the house and all packed into the car, until we found out that the driver had to tie down the tarp (which took 20 minutes) then get the engine ready (which took around 15 minutes) so we all got out of the car, played with the neighbor’s kids for the last time, said goodbye around, prayed for one another, then got back into the car.

We all sang and laughed at funny memories! And about an hour and a half of the way into the trip our moving truck broke down..about 30 minutes outside of a little town. Dad got out, and the rest of us sat in the car praying that God would fix the car so we could continue driving. But as 2 hours ran by we had to come up with some options..the best one we thought of was for my dad to wait with the things while mom drove us the rest of the way to Gulu (now let me just let you know that my mother has only driven ½ of a mile (1km) in Uganda..ever! And that was in a nice part of Uganda)  And now..she was going to drive us to Gulu..on the road of death…Oh Jesus please help!!! The whole time we were driving I kept hearing in my head the Carrie Underwood song ‘Jesus Take the Wheel’ that soung has a whole new meaning to me :P

Thankfully Jesus did take the wheel, and we had a safe journey! We sang and talked and prayed for Daddy. Every so often we’d get a call from him asking how we were doing, then we’d ask how he was doing, and there was always worse news…It broke our hearts that we were on our way to our new home while Dad had to wait in the 91 degree sun (33c). My mom handled driving so well though! She stayed on the right side of the road, and was perfectly calm! I was super proud of her! Oh and did I mention that there are these GIANT  buses that enjoy driving in the middle of the road…and Ugandans favorite hobby is passing people (especially when fuel trucks are coming on the other lane) Oh my..

Well we got to Gulu safely. Went to our new house, our wonderful friends brought over mattresses and pillows and blankets (because everything we owned was with Dad in the middle of Uganda somewhere..) And at around 8pm the power went out..But we still didn’t complain because we thought of Dad, wherever he was..

We woke up to the driver and Dad unpacking the truck at 5:45am :)

Know I think it’s time for Daddy to take over! This is the adventure of Scott Abandoned in Uganda!

I have moved a few times in the U.S. the steps are usually pretty simple after you have you stuff ready to move.

Step 1. go online and hire a moving company, give them the addresses you are moving to and from.

Step 2. supervise as they load your stuff.

Step 3. Drive to your new address and wait for your stuff and supervise it being unloaded.

(there is also the U-haul move, just insert yourself in the place of the movers)

Here are the steps to a move in Uganda:

Step 1. start a few months before you move and find "the man" that owns a big truck

Step 2. argue and eventually agree on a price

Step 3. have the price change a few days before because fuel prices have gone up since you agreed on the price.

Step 4. argue some more to make "the man" honor his original price

Step 5. the day before the move "the man" with the truck, be told that he has gone back to "the village" and is no longer in town. He will not answer his phone

Step 6. Go find another man with a big truck and argue and agree on a price and tell him you need the truck right away, to which he agrees and is on his way

Step 7. Wait 2 hours then remember that "on my way" in Uganda means "I might be there in 1 hour or 5 days"

Step 8. find another truck

Step 9. start the price negotiating all over again and agree on a price.

Step 10. truck arrives after dark , load the truck yourself (along with wife and children) by candlelight

Step 11. have someone guard the truck overnight so no one comes and steals everything off of it

Step 12. Pay the owner of the truck half of the agreed price to pay for the fuel to your new place of residence

Step 13. after the owner of the truck leaves the driver arrives to tell you that he needs to borrow money to buy fuel for the trip because he spent the money the owner of the truck gave him to buy fuel on a family problem.

Step 14. refuse to pay the drive and call the owner of the truck to complain about his driver asking for money

Step 15. get all info of the driver and truck and follow the truck closely because everyone has told you to not let the truck out of your sight because the driver will disappear with the truck sell your stuff and claimed he was robbed.

Step 16. the truck, if you’re counting that’s truck number three since we started, breaks down.

Step 17. its 9:30 and you’re in the middle of nowhere on a Uganda highway and the driver says he is going to get a mechanic

Step 18. an hour later the driver arrives on a motorcycle with two mechanics.

Step 19 Ugandan police pass by to ask why you are on the side of the road with  family, you explain we are moving and the broken down truck in front of you has your things on it. The police says you should have them fix the truck and get it off of the side of the road

Step 20. agree with the policemans brilliant idea to have the truck repaired

Step 21. have driver tell you the truck cannot easily be fixed and he needs to go and find parts to make repairs but will be back in less than one hour.

Step 22. the police from step 19 drives back by to ask where the driver went and says not to leave the truck because the people from nearby villages will come and steal everything if its left unattended

Step 23. send wife and kids on without you, remain with your belongings

Step 24. pray for wife and kids because wife has never driven in Uganda, but you have now sent her on a 5 hour drive on Ugandan roads (details on that in later steps)

Step 25. wait 2 hours and call the driver who won't answer his phone,

Step 26. begin calling the owner of the truck, who tells you he has another truck he is sending and will be there in 30 minutes

Step 27. after the 30 minutes turns into 2 hours call owner of the truck several times

Step 28. driver and owner of the truck turn off their phones

Step 29. the friendly and helpful policeman mentioned in steps 19 and 22 comes back by to say it is getting dark soon and if the truck is left overnight it will be robbed of everything and I would be beaten and or killed if I tried to defend it

Step 30. wet yourself slightly

Step 31 pay someone to go into the nearest town to try and hire another truck to complete the move

Step 32. receive a call from the person you paid to tell you he has found a truck, that would be truck number 4

Step 33. realize all you own is in a truck broken down on a road in the middle of Uganda and are desperate and any chance of negotiating does not exist

Step 34. truck number 4 arrives and you begin unloading what took 4 hours to load the night before in 30 minutes and begin to load truck number 4 in record time as the sun gets low on the horizon

Step 35. A different mechanic arrives and begins to work on truck number 3, but driver and owner still have phones turned off

Step 36. after a 5 hour absence the driver of truck number 3 arrives and the scene to see his truck unloaded and a large sweaty, hungry, thirsty, and irritated white man loading another truck.

Step 37. driver becomes enraged and demands full payment for the move

Step 38. decline to make full payment and demand deposit back

Step 39. driver of truck number 3 disappears again

Step 40. driver of truck number 3 reappears with 5 Ugandan policemen to have me arrested

Step 41. take a nice drive back to police station with the afore mentioned policemen, while one remains to look after truck number 4 that is now loaded

Step 42. arrive at police station and appear before the head of that particular police department to plead my case

Step 43. have driver of truck number 3 lie about being absent all day and assure them that he was with the truck and me all day working on the truck and has not been paid a deposit.

Step 44. have the frequent passerby policeman from steps 19, 22 and 29 show up at just the right time at police headquarters to inform his captain of the drivers deceit.

Step 45. watch as the driver of truck number 3 is arrested for lying to the police and truck number 3 impounded until the deposit is fully refunded.

Step 46. grin slightly

Step 47. have truck number 4 pick up at police station and continue journey

Step 48. wonder why headlights are not used until 3 hours after sunset.

Step 49. assume that Ugandan roads have been involved in an asphalt erosion test since the Nixon administration and have allowed testing for land mines on the parts that aren't eroded yet.

Step 50. fantasize about having and extra stick of deodorant to give to your new best friend, the driver of truck number 4

Step 51. have truck number 4 begin to squeal like a banshee and pull over

Step 52 have stinky (new nickname for driver of truck number 4) say that the U joint that has been giving him problems for some time has finally gone out

Step 53. consider murder after having a single tear roll down cheek

Step 54. wait an hour while stinky has a friend bring one of the U joints off of one their other trucks

Step 55. rejoice as repairs are made in less than 20 minutes

Step 56. after driving for an hour the driver pulls over again, the reason....."to take tea"

Step 57. recite 4 letter words learned in Junior High quietly to self

Step 58. after a 30 minute "tea time" back on the road

Step 59. go through 3 police checkpoints and give them a small payoff each time to avoid being fully inspected

Step 60. cringe while Stinky is forced to make the road his personal slalom course avoiding a small percentage of the potholes while convinced you have heard everything in the back of the truck either fall off or break

Step 61. if Stinky was a boxer his name would be Gaseous Clay because apparently b.o. was not enough of an assault on the world of odors

Step 62. imitate a dog and hang head out of the window of truck number 4 to maintain consciousness while Stinky continues his assault on my olfactory system

Step 63. compare the ordeal to those of the S.S. Minnow

Step 64. what was supposed to be a 5 hour tour ends in just over 18 hours.

Step 65. Ask God for forgiveness for a day filled fantasies of verbal abuse, murder, dismemberment, hygenic insults, military invasion, pushing a certain driver from a moving truck (#4) and driving it myself. I will miss you and remember you always Stinky, all my love Scott

Annie underneath our beautiful tree :)
I think I'm in love <3

So thankful that God got us here safely! And I can’t wait to see what God has in store for us here :)