Day One.

After roughly 26 hours of travel door to door, the JHU student group finally touched ground in Entebbe, Uganda.  Three stop-overs, countless movies, and an hour long bus ride we arrived at the Ndere Center in Kampala at 1 AM Ugandan time with a meal awaiting us.  Not knowing which way was up we settled down to our midnight feast and tried to beat the jet-lag.

In the morning, the Makerere and JHU students finally met in person in the dorms at the Ndere Center.  In order to merge the two groups, we did a bunch of team-building exercises that ranged from thought provoking discussions about what we wanted to gain from this trip, to flipping a group member upside down blindfolded. The team building helped us as we braved Owino Market for a scavenger hunt.

Team building

Owino Market

We were tasked with finding a variety of items including a funny t-shirt, fruit we have never seen before, and a large pair of shoes.  We even tried our hand at bargaining with the merchants, some faring better than others. Emerging from the bustling market after two hours we headed back to the Center.

Displaying our finds

Trying new types of fruit

At night we got to view the amazing drum show at the Ndere Center.  We sat down to 4 hours of dancing and performing, while educating us about the different regions in the country.  We even got to join the dancers on stage for a little traditional dancing. This first day was action packed and the entire group is looking forward to a good nights sleep before tomorrow's adventure remembering that we are 8 hours ahead of our parents and all prices must be divided by 2,700 shillings.

Jamming