We left Bundibugyo on Monday Nov. 5th at around 7:30 am headed to Hoima. The drive around and up the mountain to Fort Portal is a beautiful drive, especially early in the morning. The road is fairly new and still in really good shape so, other than the speed bumps, it’s a nice drive.

I left Bundibugyo with Bishop Iraka, a man name David, and David’s driver in a Toyota 4 wheel drive extend cab pickup that was a long way from new but all in all in pretty good shape. Since there were 4 of us with luggage, me having the most, we had to buy a tarp and wrap everything up.  It is rainy season and it looked like the bottom was fixing to drop out, which it has been doing every day. Now even with the tarp, I figured that, if it rained like it did on Sunday, everything thing would still get wet; maybe not soaked but wet.  So, I casually ask the Lord to not let it become a frog strangling down pour. I felt like the Lord said that He would keep us out of the rain. Oh course, I said, uh, do what. But I felt very strongly that I was really hearing from the Lord and that I was supposed to tell Bishop and David what I was hearing. Now this kind of thing is out of my comfort zone but I figured that, if we run into a frog drowning rain, that I’d just look foolish, which I do most of the time anyway, so I said, “Guys I’ve prayed (I didn’t tell them it was an off handed casually kind of prayer) and I feel like the Lord is going to keep us out of any heavy rain.” I kind of hedged my bet and left room for a little rain.  I got that look, you know the look, well maybe not, it’s the “you are a crazy white guy” look, as they looked around at the clouds which were thick and dark. You couldn’t even see the mountains. We get to Fort Portal and no rain. I’m like thank you Jesus.

Now the road out of Fort Portal is a road in name only. They are working on the road, which means that first they tear what’s there up and see how bad they can make it so that when they get the road in you’ll really appreciate it and think how great of a job they’ve done, that’s of course if they ever get done. It’s a lot like road work in Alabama, only a million, well maybe a trillion, times worst. They tear up almost all of the paved parts of the old road leaving just enough, a small strip down the middle, to tease you, The rest is just big ol’ holes, mud holes in rainy season, and it’s rainy season.

With them doing work, a very loose term, you’ll have places where there is just one lane of mud holes and ruts. This is where is it becomes ever man for himself. If you don’t follow the rules of the game, somebody is going to get hurt and the boda boda guys never follow the rules. The rule is simple the big vehicle has the right away. You see very few old boda boda drivers. They all seem to have the little man thinking that they have to prove how brave they are; in my case it would be proving how stupid I am. Somehow we managed to not kill any of them, although we did come close a couple of times.

We finally get off the main road, mud holes, and turn off onto an even worse mud road. Well at least it’s not raining. Remember the song that I had in my head on the way to Mbala, slip sliding away, well it’s back, except now it’s the whole vehicle. We finally drive out of the mud and now we just have torn up, from big trucks, dirt road. You’ve heard this story before; an old vehicle and really bad dirt roads, same old story, although this truck still has a little bit of shocks still working, well kind of.

I know that you haven’t been keeping track but I have. I’ve been in SIX different vehicles going on trips and only one of the six would be allowed on the roads back home. Only one of the other five would anybody really even drive as a farm vehicle. I’m pretty sure that the sides of my knees, elbows and my head have permanent bruising from all the beating and banging around.

Two more trips to go; next to Masinda and then back to Kampala.