Hi again! Yesterday was apparently not nearly as exciting of a “happy Friday” as we thought it would be because it wasn’t the end of week. A lot people here work at least half days on Saturdays, so we’re up and at em bright and early again.

Today we ventured out to Kampala to buy materials for the first aid kits. Click here to see a clip from our morning drive in Mukono (@our parents, you may not want to watch this one).

Our (Haleigh and Amber’s) most popular form of transportation seem to be vans. We’ve began to notice a few similarities between the vans we’ve been in. The vans don’t have air conditioning, so the two of us bared the 3 hour drive to Kampala in a 95 degree van. One unique feature is that they have mini TV’s on the dashboard between the front seat and passenger seat. The interesting thing is that they always seem to be on- while we wonder if this a safety concern, we have enjoyed watching clips of the 10 Ugandan songs we’ve heard on repeat. We’ve even started recognizing some of them!

Kampala, Uganda’s capital city, is a little more developed than Mukono. We knew we were close when the dirt roads turned to asphalt and began seeing tall buildings around us. Even though the streets were paved, that didn’t stop them from being chaotic! See a video of the streets here. We noticed a lot of people come up to us and try to convince us to purchase goods or give them money, particularly kids. Somewhat ironically, we also passed a driving school.

The streets of Kampala were packed with a slew of cars, taxis, boda bodas, street markets and many many people. If Amber and Haleigh had any doubt about their ability to walk in sync before, we now plan on entering a three legged race upon our return to the US. We spent the whole day linking arms together to ensure we didn’t lose each other as we navigated the city.

Overall, though, Amber and Haleigh had a ball in Kampala. Between Amber’s bartering skills and Haleigh’s record keeping skills, we successfully obtained many of our items for the first aid kits at reasonable prices. Amber managed to get reflective vests that cost 3000 UGX (Ugandan shillings) down to 1800 UGX, and then went to go carry the box containing those items. Jacob immediately told her to stop because she wasn’t strong enough to carry the box (We guess he would rather make two trips?). She was then told it obvious she was “hangry” after these events transpired. It was at this point that Amber decided her new motto will be “do no harm, but take no shit” and proceeded to lift the box with ease… and set it on the counter after Jacob had placed it on the floor.

While Amber continues to be the “rebel,” Haleigh has adopted the role of “mom” on the trip. She always carries her bottomless backpack that contains things including not limited to hand sanitizer, bug spray, sunscreen, and raincoats. Amber suspects Haleigh only likes her backpack so much because she has easy access to all the water bottles.

Additionally, the only consistent nickname Haleigh seems to have is from people on the street. They call her mzungu (pronounced musunga), meaning “white person” or “foreigner”. Amber also partakes in this nickname occasionally, much to Haleigh’s chagrin, but Haleigh contends that Amber often forgets the second definition of this word. However, today we were upgraded from being called sisters to twins, so take that as you will. Someone also thought Haleigh was 14 years old…

The highlight of our day was our trip to KFC for lunch. Nobody except Haleigh appreciated Amber’s joke: does KFC here stand for Kentucky Fried Chicken or Kampala Fried Chicken? We never saw any proof in the restaurant that it wasn’t the latter….

We then went to buy cotton, gauze and alcohol wipes at a pharmacy and boxes to make splints. Unfortunately, most of the stores closed early so we weren’t able to complete the rest of our list and will have to come back next weekend. After a 45 minute walk searching for our van, we traversed back to Mukono with a two and a half hour drive (see a video of traffic here). We ended up getting having a 12 hour day today, but that’s okay- we brought home some extra KFC for dinner :)

While the prices here are much cheaper than the United States, buying locally sourced materials for the first aid kits still adds up pretty quickly. Here’s a sample of what we bought today after negotiating the prices:

11 rolls of gauze for 220,000 UGX ($59.20)

10 rolls of cotton for 80,000 UGX ($21.53)

10 cardboard boxes for 140,000 UGX ($37.67)

10 boxes of alcohol wipes for 40,000 UGX ($10.76)

285 personalized vests for 1,938,000 UGX ($521.46)

Furthermore, we still have to buy towels for spinal immobilization, a bunch of gloves, bandages, surgical blades for cutting the gauze, pocket masks, containers for each first aid kit, and the “mama kits” (OB kits).

If you are enjoying reading this blog and/or you want to help fund LFR’s work, please consider donating the price of a first aid kit for $10 on our website using this link. Any support would be much appreciated by our entire team!