Yesterday I had to find a student at his placement church in Namuwongo, a part of town I’ve only been through maybe twice, and Mary Jane was driving. Everything looks the same there, and your landmarks for where to turn are often signs or painted buildings, like “turn right at the Sadolin building across from the Peacock building (both being paint companies).” I assumed that my adventures getting there would make for a humorous post.
I’m sure they would, but what i found at the church impressed and humbled me greatly, so I’m going to write about that next.
All I will say about my journey is that I couldn’t easily discern how to get to the church on either of my Kampala maps, so I turned to Google maps. They can lie.
The top is the “easy” way to get there, but there are two turns after the roundabout, and I thought I’d get disoriented. The top right was a misfire. The real directions are at the bottom, and it’s worth noting that there are precious few road signs in Uganda, and the ones that exist will look different, e.g., they may be small signs that sit on the ground, or in rare instances, it might be on a pole like we’d expect. But generally, the way to go is landmarks, so my writing down street names was a bit hilarious, except that it’s helpful when asking directions because locals know the street names; they’re just not marked.
Since my handwriting is terrible, the big landmark from Namuwongo Road (once I went the proper direction) is a rather large sign for Cheap Prices Supermarket. It’s entirely possible that I would have driven past the church (there is a sign), but I was late because of all my driving around, and I heard them singing. Hallelujah!
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