reflections from a year, march ‘08
I’m a week past a quick weekend trip to Mbarara, south of FP. The trip going was 5 hours +, but enjoyable enough since I was with a co-teacher, his wife, and daughter Jeryn. We spent two nights with Moses’ mother at his homeplace. It was a good chance to see a new place, hear a new tribal language -Runyonkole- and get to know Moses better with extra shared time outside school.
While out for ‘evening walk’ Saturday night, we heard an extremely loud noise on Kabale Road, the main tarmac near the village we were in. A short sprint (since we knew right away it was an accident) brought us to the tarmac which gave us a sight for sore eyes. A pickup had made a 90 degree turn down into a banana plantation where it flipped on it’s side and was resting. Of course we went immediately to see if we could help. So did 30, then 40, then 50 others…all streaming towards excitement that would give them an hour or two away from idleness. The scene was horrible. One tremendously bloody man whose features I could not even make out. A conscious but still & solemn, un-bloody, woman was lying nearby. She wouldn’t speak when spoken to, but was moaning. The man was at once directing their bags to be collected and kept safe from aforementioned idle bag pickers that are likely to grab and run at the scene of an accident. So many people around, you know. They seemed to be overall ok…the crushed & shattered vehicle looking almost worse. What scared me is that the woman was silent. Though the bloody man is still a fresh image in my mind, not knowing what could have been wrong with her scared me more.
A witness to such a car crash (the first in my 27 years) was a reminder of the shortness of life & the faith we carry with us everywhere we go that generally we will be kept safe and free of accident. Perhaps life in Uganda bears witness to death on a larger scale than America, but potential lies in every nation. Now, how fortunate for me that my fate means a feast on the inheritance that my God freely gave!
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