Passports Please!

Earlier this week, I got to go on another short trip for one of the small projects that eMi has right now. I spent Tuesday and Wednesday out in Kasese, which is in western Uganda, near the border of the Congo. It is up in the Rwenzori Mountains. It is such a gorgeous area of the country. Among the foothills of the mountains are these large craters that just seem to come out of nowhere. During the eight hour car ride we got out a couple different times to take some photos and just experience the landscape. It was really cool because the hills are covered in so many different tea plantations. We even stopped and bought some fresh tea.

The project is for the Western Uganda Baptist Theological College. We are designing a two-story guesthouse for the college so that visiting missionaries don’t have to stay in tents when they come. We were only on the site for a couple hours talking with the college about what exactly they want in the guesthouse, where they want it to go on the site and did a short land survey to supplement the existing survey. It was a long way to travel (8 hrs each way) just for a couple hours of work, but it was still a neat experience.

I think the highlight of the trip came on the way up to the site. One thing that is unique about Uganda is that police simply stand on the side of the road and flag down cars whenever they please to check for driver’s license, etc. We were about 15 minutes from reaching our destination when we got pulled over by two police officers. The asked to see our passports and visas, but we have been told that we don’t need to carry them with us unless we plan on crossing any borders. They quickly got very angry because we didn’t have them on us and couldn’t prove that we were in the country legally. We assured them that we were, but they still had us pull off the road so that they could lecture us and figure out what we were doing in the country. Eventually, realizing that there was nothing they could do about it, they just let us go on our way. It was another experience that I don’t think I will ever forget.

Here are a few photos of the incredible sights we saw:

Many of the craters had lakes that formed in the bottom of them.

This was actually a salt lake. Locals use it to farm the salt and sell it in the market.

A view of the plain looking west at Congo.

One of the ridges around the crater with the mountains in the background. I wish it had been less cloudy because it was truly an amazing view. The picture just does not do it justice.