6/7/09 – MBARARA TO QUEEN ELIZABETH NATIONAL PARK, UGANDA

Drove from Mbarara to Queen Elizabeth this morning. We will spend the last day or two of our time in Uganda as tourists. For a moment or two, this bothered me. Despite the many “resort” type places we passed on the way to our own destination, the streets are still lined with half-clad children and the wandering goat. Is it okay for me to be “living the good life” for two days when children a block away may or may not go to bed hungry tonight? Is this not what I do everyday in the United States? I am excited to relax and to spend time with our group for another day but parts of me still want the assurance that is okay. I don’t know that it is an easy question to answer. (Good, another one!)

But I don’t want to miss out the opportunity I am in, regardless. So, on any account, we are at a remarkably beautiful resort in West Uganda. The view is incredible and the accommodations more than just “ok”. Our game drive and boat ride to see the hippos and other wildlife today was an added treat. The animal lovers in our group are having a hay-day. Uganda has a wonderful array of wildlife and we were privy to much. We spent the majority of our trip with people and for me, at least, it was easy to forget that for as much as Uganda’s most intense beauty has been in the faces, Uganda is that much more. There is something breathtaking and incredible about watching elephants cross in incredible majesty in front of you. Something amusing about having to close windows to keep baboons which are indeed “that” close from jumping in. Something dumbstrucking about watching a hippopotamus open his mouth and realizing it is big enough for you yourself to fit inside. Something perfect about the symbiotic relationship between the water buffalo and the bird. Something fantastic about watching as some of God’s most impressive creativity is being unveiled before your eyes. Something humbling about realizing, again, for the millionth time, that God is so much bigger than the box I try to fit in him in. Including the box which says my questions for and from Uganda must have answers...