Charity Trip To Uganda. How To Make the Best When Everything Goes Wrong.

Uganda is new to me. Even Africa is. I went to Africa 17 years ago for six months, but I was a soldier, and it was a different world. This is the first time that I came to the black continent as a “normal” person.

Finally I found him! Hanging out with Batman.

My amazing buddy Libor opened a fully sponsored soccer academy for kids in Kampala (capital of Uganda), a year ago. It was a last minute decision, but I decided to go with him and give him a hand. We brought 8 huge hockey bags filled with soccer shoes with us, which were donated by lovely people in Vancouver. Libor made an amazing job fundraising this time. 5 hours before our flight from Vancouver Libor called me to announce that he can’t find his passport. I was contemplating the possibility of going alone with 8 massive bags (plus one mine) to a country I don’t know to teach a sport I suck at, but he called me last minute that he found it. If I knew it was just a start of one bloody crusade of flights, I’d probably stay in my studio painting happily ever after.

This is right after we found out that we missed our first flight from Vancouver only by 10 hours. Best ground staff ever though, I love YVR!

We got to the airport at 8pm (our first flight to Toronto flight was at 10:30pm) and found out that our flight was 10 hours ago, at 10:30am. I wasn’t going to cash out another 2-3k for a flight, so my heart sank at the prospect of not embarking on this anticipated adventure. Fortunately the round staff at Air Canada was stellar and agreed with us that it was a mistake of the flight centre agent who booked our flight, and got us on the night flight for only $150 extra each. After bit of hassling they even waved the full charge on all the checked in charity bags, and that’s no small feat (we talking over $1000 here).

Half of our load

We had a beer to shake off the stress, and got on board, only to get into a mini-argument with totally paranoid air hostess who insinuated that we’re drunk (excuse me madam but it takes more than 1 beer to get a Czech guy drunk), almost got reported to cops (for no reason honestly, I’d admit it wholeheartedly, they just didn’t like that I challenged their misjudgement), finally settled all in peace and with zero sleep landed in Toronto at 6am, where we were supposed to check into our flight to Ethiopia. Thanks to the same agent we had to check in our luggage twice, which was no small feat considering the load.

Before our second check in at Toronto airport, after a red-eye overnight flight.

We waited for an hour at the counter of Ethiopian airlines until we finally got an answer from some shmuck in the office in Addis Ababa that they are giving us 0% discount on the bags filled with shoes for African kids. Later I found out that Ethiopian airlines are owned by the government and they don’t give a damn about charity. They would rip off a dying old man if they could. They actually jumped at the opportunity that Air Canada waved the charges fully, cause they are supposed to split whatever they collect on extra luggage with them. And so we ended up paying $1324 extra ($265 per bag!!!) to those losers. Ground staff in Toronto could do nothing, EA gave them no decision power for a reason. I find it shameful that a Canadian private airline supported charity for kids in Uganda and an African airline owned by government cashed on it. Karma is a relentless bitch, so I’m not sweating it.

In the heart of Kampala with Silas Babaluku, a famous public figure and artist, who supports the soccer foundation.

The 13hours flight from Toronto to Addis Ababa was quite a trip. The inside of the airplane looked like from 80ies, with funky smelling fabric seats and weird color combinations that matched the not exactly pretty uniforms of air hostesses. They were super nice though, and I never saw whiter teeth on human being. They didn’t flash them too often thanks God, otherwise I’d get blind. We got the penultimate row of seats in what seemed like million rows of seats and spent the first 2 hours of flight praying to all angels (particularly Raphael) while we were passing through a never ending turbulence. People occasionally cried out the name of Jesus when we dropped too much. We eventually found a solution. We crawled to the service area at the back (around 1 meter behind our seat) and somehow charmed the air hostess enough to show us the beer fridge. To be honest she didn’t care at all; they were the most easy going air staff ever (compared to bitchy Air Canada). We formed a pack with another gentleman from Ethiopia and put our hands in the magic coolbox. 3 beers later (each) we could not care less about turbulences. We were all ready to die with glory and silly smiles on our faces.

We even experienced rain. Once:)

13 hours flight is long though, and we had 2 more hours to kill in the not exactly fancy Addis Ababa airport before our last 2 hours flight to Kampala. At least we didn’t have to check in the luggage again, so we dropped another beer in our tired system and almost missed our flight, because nobody really knew where it is leaving from, or more precisely everyone was 100% sure that it’s from THIS GATE, but it wasn’t the case (boarding in Addis Ababa is quite an experience…).

Libor and our driver Ivan. Finally out of the last aiport, but not really for me...

Immigration at EBB (Kampala) airport was slow but kind. Our driver waited for us with an extra van for the bags and after 1 hour of drive in diesel fumes and dust we finally reached our hotel. I collapsed my smelly corpse on the bed to drain my swollen legs. That’s when I realized that I left my carry-on luggage standing next to the conveyor belt at EBB. I was so focused on fetching our numerous oversized bags that it skipped my tired mind. I admit, I cried. I had my way too many precious possessions in that bag to let it go easy. Passports, all cash, computer, crypto, my girlfriend’s pictures ( no please not those!!…) And so we shot like astronauts back of the road to the airport. I must give credit to our driver Ivan, he would put Schumacher to shame. I was so busy picturing my life without that bag that I wasn’t even scared that he’ll drive us to head collision with a truck, which seemed almost inevitable every minute.

Ivan in his Schumacher mode

Ivan in his recharge mode

When we finally reached EBB, security would not let me in, because they said it was the lady in the office who has to give me the green light, but that lady kept on saying that it is security’s job, and vice versa for a long ass ping pong time before I lost my shit and they finally let me in. That was one of the first lessons from Uganda- people don’t really care, so don’t take no for an answer if you know that it’s your right. They are not bad, they are just paid next to nothing, so our troubles are totally uninteresting to them. I don’t blame them one least bit.
To my immense joy (I almost cried again), I actually found my luggage, 3 hours after I left it there. Nothing was missing. When the staff saw my excitement, they immediately asked for a bribe, which I gave them in moderate amounts, not to spoil their habits.
This journey from Vancouver to Kampala was 48 hours of trials and no sleep, but from the next day a new life in Africa started and I realized that it was all worth it.
I’ll write about it in the next blog.

Much Love to all and thank you for reading!

Jan
follow @jankasparec

One more coach arrived from Czech republic 2 days after us, our team is complete!

A little teaser for my next post!