Emirates Airlines has its own terminal as Dubai is its home. It turns out it is the largest terminal in the world. It is bigger and more extravagant than all others. Dubai's Emirates terminal is glossy, shiny, clean and new, efficient and super controlled right down to the temperature.
Entebbe is the main international airport of Uganda located on the shores of Lake Victoria. Situated at the equator and between the rift valleys where our species learned to crawl, walk and climb; one might surmise that Entebbe's location is the prime real estate of Africa. On the edge of the largest lake on the continent in land so fertile you worry about throwing a pit away too close to the runway for fear it may be a tree by the time the next plane lands, the startling juxtapositions of my travels surfaced.
It was to become the beginning of a web of thinking and analyzing that would mark this amazing journey for my family.
Simple questions rolled around my head as the hot African sun warmed me on the tarmac. Why did a desert nothingness, a place that could sustain very little indigenous life and had to import all things necessary to sustain its 4.5 million people, have the largest terminal for airplanes in the world? Conversely, why did the airport at the epicenter of humanity, surrounded by natural beauty so glowing it hurt my eyes, have such a modest sized airstrip?
Money? Oil? Power? Government?
Of course all of these things are major factors and an easy pattern to see played out around the world. And of course all of these thoughts boggle my mind throughout my travels around the globe. Guilt when journeying to underdeveloped or exploited parts of the world is part of travel. But when it comes to Africa, all the ills of inequity and remnants of imperialism seem bigger, exposed and cruelly wrapped in the very fabric of everyday living. And when your vacation is a service learning project where you are heading to help the next generation by working at an impoverished school, then your mind cannot help but juxtapose your own fortunes with the people you are coming to help.
If the airport comparison did not set our minds spinning and analyzing, then the ride to Kampala would correct that. The greenery gave way to urban sprawl.
Our group of American School families and teachers watched it all, transfixed by the colors and sights. If Dubai was brown and tan, Uganda was all of the rest of the colors stretched across the canvas with green at its core.
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In the photo below, the "At Obama Butchery"
Their genuine happiness and vitality foreshadowed what was to be a memorable second day. As we arrived at our hotel, we readied ourselves to meet the schoolchildren and teachers of the Masooli School.
We set expectations and organized the plan for the following morning. We fed the kids and talked with them about concerns and etiquette. We were ready for the next day.
But the day we would have would exceed all expectations in every way.
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