From the Archives: COME BAAAACK!!!

The very first year we went, when we traveled to the game park for our day of rest, AMG hired a bus driver to take us (this was before AMG had their own bus). Almost everything that could possibly go wrong with that bus went wrong on our trip.

Now you have to understand some things about the roads in Uganda. They are nothing like the roads in the US. They are filled with potholes the size of Oklahoma, and sometimes the potholes have potholes in them.

But we were able to travel on a newly fixed road. There were no potholes, but about every 30 feet or so there was a speed bump. So as we rode we'd get up to normal speed and then slow down real suddenly to go over a speed bump, then speed up and slow down...For hours on end.



The morning after our bat incident we left before dawn to head out on our safari in the hopes of finding some lions. Along the way we bump, bump, bumped along when what should come tumbling off the back of our bus but one of our shocks. We were like:

We had shocks?!?!?!



After a few hours of animal finding, we were on our way back to Kampala. At one point we had to stop and pull off the road because the engine overheated, and then we stopped again at a gas station to fill a few buckets of water so we could pour them on the engine along the way.

Not long after we were back on the road did we have to make another stop. I was sitting near the front of the bus with my roommate, Madie, and one of the pastors on our team was sitting across the aisle right near the door. As we hit a pothole, we hear a popping noise and smoke starts coming out from under his legs, causing mass panic among our 16 member team. All I remember was hearing, "Get off the bus!" And everyone running for cover.

So here we were, 16 white people, and a few AMG staffers standing on the side of the road with no idea of where we were. Our bus driver, whose brother was also along with us, was trying to fix the battery and get the bus started again and did so by pushing the bus down the road.

So now, we're really panicking. We've evacuated with nothing more than the clothes we had on and our luggage is on a bus that's being pushed down the road.

Now it comes as no surprise that as white people, it doesn't take a whole lot for people to notice when we're around. So a crowd of villagers is formed, watching as a bunch of crazy white people start running after a bus yelling, "Waaaaait! Come Baaaack!"



I mean even we were laughing at ourselves because we looked so ridiculous. And as we waited behind the bus for the ok to get back on, one of the villagers came up to an AMG worker and started offering cows (as a dowry) for one of the girls on our team.

Had this man been a mechanic...or a car salesman...we may have come back with one less team member...

- Aly