Boma and the Walk Home- Tuesday, June 30

Group 2 is tired of Acholi food. Let me just tell you that it gets old. The food is VERY different from American food, and most of us just reach a point at which we can eat no more. We decided to go to Boma, which is a restaurant in Gulu that serves Americanized food. It was delicious. There were 11 of us there, and 9 of us ordered the steak with French fries. However, they only had enough steaks for 8, so I volunteered to order something else. I ended up getting the spaghetti neopolitan, which is basically spaghetti with 6 pieces of vegetables and a little red sauce.
As usual, the food took a long time to come out, but as we were waiting, we noticed a LARGE group of high school munos come in. They were excited to see other munos and quickly surrounded our table peppering us with questions. They were a group from all over the US performing mission work in Kampala and Gulu. Our food finally came, and it was very good and a nice break from Acholi food from Katherina’s. We had a wonderful time as conversation with Group 2 is always amazing.
As we were walking back looking for boda bodas, we walked down a street headed towards town. Matt said he knew the way, so trusting that he had been here before, we followed him… right into a dead end. Keep in mind that it is pitch black dark as the power is out again. Fortunately I have started carrying my head lamp with me every where I go, so I was able to see where I was walking. We backtracked a little, and Wendy, another veteran, told us to follow her. She led us right into… the town dump. As we walked through mounds of trash, bad food, and God only knows what else, we cracked up completely because we realized that we were the stupid munos who were lost. We finally cleared the dump only to walk into… what can only be described as the Gulu ghetto. I don’t know who was more surprised: us or the neighborhood we were traipsing through. We finally recognized the back side of Café Larem, our Internet hangout, so at that point, we were able to make it home safely. I think that had I not been with the others, I would have freaked out completely. I told everyone we needed to act like zebras and stay close together so no one would be able to separate us and cull the herd. Looking back, I honestly don’t think that we were in any danger, but a dark night in northern Uganda, a war torn 3rd world country, and you get the picture.