Uganda part 3

David Friday November 27,2009
Today was to be our last day in Kampala, Uganda and we had to wake up at the ripe time of 5:00 in the morning. Our Bus would leave at 6:30 so we got ourselves packed and ate breakfast then we got driven to the bus station. This time I made sure I was not sitting at the back of the bus because last time I felt every speed bump and pothole to the tenth degree. I sat alone for the first 30 minutes or so until a young Muslim lady around my age came on board and sat next to me. She sat down said hello, I said hello back, and then she put one of those Muslim veils over her face and put on some black cloves. I’ve always been a little spooked by these veils and I wasn’t sure if it meant that she didn’t want to be talked too as well as be looked at. I turned up my Michael Jackson on my IPod and looked out the window as if I was looking at something very interesting.

Around ten minutes latter or so, the girl tapped me on the shoulder and offered me some home made snacks out of a big plastic bag I accepted and then she removed her veil and cloves. She introduced her self has Sophia and from there we got talking about how she had all this food because it was a Muslim Holiday and she was travelling back to Nairobi Kenya to see her family because school was out. Only hearing about Muslims in the media I figured now was my best chance to really get first hand information on what their beliefs are and about their religious practices. She cleared up allot of misconceptions for me like that having the long back robes and veils (she said they were called Ninja’s) that the girls wear doesn’t mean they want to be completely ignored but that its manly for safety and modesty reasons. She also said she and her friends wear “ninjas” because their fun. It didn’t take long before she found out I was a Christian, so I asked her what the main difference is between our religions. She told me that in Islam Jesus was just a prophet and that he never died on a cross for our sins. The person was died on the cross was just someone that was mistaken for Jesus. So basically their way of getting into Heaven is by doing good deeds and keeping their religious practices like praying 5 times a day. So we just continued talking, she asking me questions and me asking her questions in a none threatening way, it was actually quite a pleasure.

We eventually moved away from the topic of religion and just talked about normal things like music and movies and the differences between the Kenyan life and the Canadian life. It really helped time pass and in no time we were in elderit getting a Kangaroo back to Kitale to make it in time for the monthly missionary bbq that night. We made it in time and we enjoyed eating western food again!