At Africa Renewal University and our first bota-bota rides!
After two full and emotionally draining days at remote villages, we are back to civilization at ARU (Africa Renewal University). We landed here after five last night. We got a quick tour of the campus by the two tech guys that work here, Jonah and Bruce. Until 2006, the was a Muslim college. Due to bad management (or God's will- you decide), it went bankrupt. Africa Renewal Ministries was able to buy it and began renovating the buildings. It was built very poorly. For example, the concrete porch was really just an icing of cement over the red clay. It is cracked and disintegrating. But through the work of students and staff, they have made this an into a university. It is on a beautiful hillside. I am sitting in their computer lab with 30 PCs. And I am typing this on my iPad attached wirelessly. The two techs are dedicated and smart, but do not have a lot of resources. The Internet connection for for 150 students is 256k speed. For the non-techies reading, my home Internet connection, for Jan and me, is 48 times faster! They pay $208/month. We pay 19.99! So this really constricts what you can do.
This morning Dave and I spent an hour or so with Jeff Atherstone, the university president. Jeff is a Californian who has been in Uganda for seven years. His vision for ARU is to include a Christian world view in every class taught here, not just in Bible classes. He also advised us that grant monies from secular organizations such as the Gates Foundation would not award monies to universities with Christian values. I find this distasteful and prejudicial, but it is the reality. So any ideas we had about seeking grant funds from typical sources were pretty much dashed. Jeff took us on another tour, giving us his take. They require all students to work on the campus every Friday. They work several large gardens, for example and this helps defray food costs. He also showed us some examples of well-intentioned Westerners with specific projects in mind, that failed because they simply were not well conceived. And the Ugandan culture is such that they would not tell the Western person of his/her folly - it isn't acceptable to say no to a gift.
We had a rousing time of African worship and a Texan sermon, by another Mzungu (white person) here for a short visit. Then our adventure began!
The plan was for us to visit the Makarere University in Kampala. Our hosts were Stephen, the school's librarian, and Jonah, the IT manager. But what we didn't realize till this morning was we were taking public transportation! I've ridden my share of buses in the states, even used a taxi in D.C., but this was quite different. We walked to the bottom of the road leading to ARU. We then boarded a dilapidated looking van. This van has 17 seats, and it doesn't leave till all seats are filled! It was a hot humid day, and these vans have been used a lot. Your nose can imagine the odors. It has sliding windows, but not much air came in. After about a 30 minute ride, we arrived at what I struggle to describe. Imagine hundreds of beat-up, dirty white vans cramming into a small parking lot. Unfortunately, neither Dave or I had our cameras (we were told to leave valuables behind for this trip ). As we arrived men were shouting at the passengers as we got off. They were telling us where to catch the next taxi ( van). This was a transfer station! It was crazy!!
We walked from the transfer station to a local American restaurant and had, of all things, a cheeseburger with fries (called chips here) and a mocha shake! Pretty good approximation, but no Burgerville! I was so happy to have some familiar food, I even paid for our lunch. Then are hosts dropped the next surprise- We found out we were taking bota-botas to reach the university. If you have been reading our blogs, you have heard us tell of the crazy motorcycles that take passengers everywhere. They don't follow any traffic rules and are considered the fastest mode of travel by locals. But I never considered that I would put my 6'3", almost 60-year old frame on the back of one of these. I told our hosts, "noooooooooo wayyyyyyy! Not a bota-bota - surely you are kidding!" But they weren't. Richard told me we could both ride and I could hold on to him. But the drivers didn't want to do allow two riders, so...with great fear and trembling I climbed onto the back of on of these death machines BY MYSELF, and off we went!
I held on to the back of my seat with both hands and prayed that today was not my last on planet Earth! It is an amazing, life-changing experience to see the driver head upstream against traffic and cut in front of much bigger cars, vans and trucks. When we arrived at the university, I felt both relieved and exhilarated! And much closer to God!
This blog is getting long, so suffice to say the tour was informative. We saw probably the biggest computer lab on the earth - over 280 workstations. It was nearly full. It is because most students don't have access at home. We saw their network room and it was air-conditioned. We looked at several smaller labs and another stack of servers. The IT manager there was very proud. This is the best technical university in Uganda. Most of our community colleges and some high schools in the States would have better equipment. But that is typical.
We reversed the travel to return to ARU. And even took bota-botas at the end of our journey to get to the top of the hill. Dave and I decided we would have t-shirts made: "This Mzungu survived the bota-bota ride!" This day truly was an adventure.
(Sorry no pics- connection is too slow- but we do have pics to prove our bravery!)
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