TRAGIC! -- Day 7 July 12

TRAGEDY! What a sad night for Uganda! I love this country and the people. In all the times we have been coming, the country has been peaceful, the people are loving, and there is not a threat of sudden death from violence very often.

I walked into town last night. It’s probably over 3 miles and there are some HUGE hills. It takes over 45 minutes to get to Angella’s but it’s pretty much a perfect walk. I love being able to really take in the country (literally, if you count all the dust that I breathed in). It’s one thing to drive by, but it’s another to walk by and smell the fires burning garbage and food cooking on the coals, to hear people speaking or pounding tools, and to see more than just a person standing near a building. Lots of Boda Boda drivers holler out for a ride, but I just shook my head and kept going. Occasionally little kids call out Mzungu to hear you say hello and then they run away. If you didn’t know better, you might thing that people don’t like you very much because they stare with stoic expressions. Then if you say hello, they break out into a grin and reply with “I’m fine, how are you?” Sometimes I say hello just to make sure people aren’t mad!!

I got to Angella’s just before dark and we hopped on a Mtatu to get to the game. I got to meet Angella’s best guy friend, Pat. He’s a very funny guy, always telling all sorts of jokes. He’s quite short because the tribe that he is from in Rwenzori are all not that tall. He made a lot of jokes about marrying taller women that were pretty amazing. If only I remembered all of them! We also met his father, who is back in Uganda for his daughter’s wedding. He has to live in England for a while to go through therapy after he had a stroke earlier this year. Later, we met another of Angella’s friends, Richard, who runs all of the audio-visual stuff at Watoto. It’s funny that I always end up meeting people that run that stuff in church. Maybe those are just the most outgoing and fun people at churches?!

At the very end of the REALLY long game, the pastor got up and thanked everybody for coming and then said to be careful on the way home because there had been a bomb in Kabalagala. Then he just walked away. I was slightly confused at how little was said and how nobody really reacted loudly. When I turned to Pat, he looked very worried. He said things like this normally don’t happen and it is very strange. We tried to listen to the news on the way home but nothing was being said. It wasn’t until this morning that we got to see what was really going on.

We turned on the news and found that three bombs had gone off, all by suicide bombers from a group called Al Shabaab. They are a group in Somalia that are the same type of terrorist group as Al Qaida in Iraq and Afghanistan. They had made threats earlier this year because Uganda has sent troops to Somalia and they want them out. One of the bombs was at half time at an Ethiopian restaurant where there are usually a lot of tourists. I believe this is where the American man died. The other went off at the Rugby Stadium at nearly the end of the game. It was right where the screen was. When the first one went off some people moved closer to see what was wrong with the screen and then the second bomb exploded. The newspapers and TV news are very graphic here. There were bodies scattered on the ground and sitting in chairs full of blood on every newspaper as we walked by. My mom bought one just to bring home so my dad can have a copy of the news from that day. It’s just such a shock. Every time I hear about bombs in the Middle East killing innocent people, I am sad, but not totally affected. This time, the bombs were only a few miles from where we were and it’s really quite shocking.

We had to go to Watoto offices to check about sponsoring some of the Woolies. There was significantly less people fewer cars around town because many people wanted to stay home and away from crowds. The internet was completely down everywhere in the city, so I couldn’t get a message to people at home. Near the end of the day, we went to Garden City and I was able to update my facebook status, but it took almost a half hour to just do that. We were able to find out some information about sponsorship. It turns out you get a lot more help when you say the word “sponsor” at the office at Watoto. It looks like all of the kids are sponsored, but we will be able to give money directly to each of the kids and write to them from home. The money will go towards a fund that they will be able to access when they finish University. That means that when they are done, they will have some money to be able to start their lives.

We walked and stopped at a bookstore. I filled my backpack with books and bibles for the Woolies because they don’t have any books in their homes. It was a good idea, except that we walked everywhere for the rest of the day, and they go pretty heavy, especially when the temperature rose really quickly!! It was not even hot in the morning, but in a matter of 15 minutes, it seemed the sun came out and started scorching all of us! I should just always assume that it’s going to be hot no matter what the morning looks like!

I got a call from Troy at 11:00. It turns out he had been called to the ER at Mulago at 2:00 in the morning to help with the victims. He was there all morning taking care of what he described as a “blood bath”. I can’t imagine what it would be like at Mulago during a crisis. It’s hard enough to get supplies and people moving when there is not an emergency, but one of that magnitude at that time of night is a nearly impossible to handle. At night, the only people around are a limited number or nurses, some interns, and medical students so there is not a large staff to help with traumas. It takes quite a while to get any attendings to the hospital. So I am sure there was mass chaos for the first few hours. Troy said there were at least 66 bodies in the morgue and more would probably be added with the limited resources to care for the critically injured.

We came home kind of early and decided not to go to many of the public places for the next couple of days to see what happens. Angella decided to come over after dinner to play some card games and get in a better mood after all the depressing news. We ended up watching the news, which was even more depressing. The news showed hundreds of people lined up outside the Mulago hospital trying to find their loved ones. It’s very strange to see a place that I have frequented so many times being a place mass sadness. The hospital is often a place where people are somber because so many people die in the hospital, but I’ve never seen such a great number of people there at once. The worst thing I heard was that the terrorists claimed they “succeeding in their mission of killing a lot of Christians”. It made me wonder why people follow a religion that is so focused on hate. I don't want to react with hate or judgment on any groups of people, but it's a popular thought here. In the past day I have heard cab drivers and workers comment on Somali people, Muslims, and other groups of different people that they think might be dangerous. I just pray that Ugandans will respond without hatred toward people that were not responsible for these terrible acts.