I'm here!

Peace! 

I made it here to Uganda Safe and sound. Today is the 1st day that I've had internet access for a good amount of time & I have a lot to fill you in on.   The Plane rides were very long however they were amazingly comfortable. The air transit was 17hrs in total. First Chicago to Amsterdam then from Amsterdam to Entebbe. I only had 50 minutes to get from one plane to the other @ the airport in Amsterdam so I was power walking through this HUGE place looking for any vegetarian food I could find ... which was no where to be found. I ended up getting a smoothie from this shop where one 12 ounce smoothie was 8.5 Euros! (About 13 dollars) I made it to the plane in the nick of time and sitting next to me on the second leg of the itinerary from Amsterdam to Entebbe was another traveler headed to Uganda from the U.S. She asked, "What brings you to Uganda?". I told her that I'm headed going to teach with Break Dance Project Uganda and it turns out that she'll be crossing paths with Breakdance Uganda too! I said,"word." & she was like "wurrd? What does that mean?" 
So I explained it to her & she started using it in our conversations over the next 7 hours. She's pretty cool especially now that she knows how to say "word" properly.

I arrived in Uganda around 10 pm & was greeted with a warm welcome by the Ugandan People at the Airport, cheering! I stopped, smiled, & waved back at them for a moment enjoying the love. Then they started playfully laughing and pointing; That's when I realized they were cheering for their family members around me. I started busting up! That was a good laugh and a wonderful way to start a visit to a new country. So I looked to my left & saw Grant & Branco also rolling, signaling for me to come. Grant is my friend who works with Project FOCUS and Bitone Troupe in Uganda. Project Focus is an arts based organization that works in Chicago & Uganda and Bitone Troupe is a Troupe of young Uganda Artists/Dancers/Musicians/Singers who Get DOWN! with the traditional Ugandan Music. Branco is the founder & director of Bitone Troupe (Bi-toe-nee) & a professor of Music at one of the Universities in Kampala. These guys are mad cool and gave me my intro to Uganda. 

Carrying my bags to the Hotel where we spent the 1st night in Kampala let me know how tired I was and I was ready to have some of the coolest sleep I've had in a loooong time. There was soooo much going through my mind. "What am I about to experience? Where's the bathroom? What in the world is this hole in the floor? Oh! Oh really..." Yo, now I think toilets should be like that in the U.S. for real! So be prepared when you visit my house in the future because I will have one. #SquattyPotty So after getting 8 hrs of scattered sleep over the past 2.5 days I was ready to lay it down and enjoy some refreshing rejuvenating rest and that's exactly what I did.

Read about the next Day in the next blog coming to you FRESH from the Mother Land. 

Inner & Outer PEACE!

Super InLight

aka 

Jonathan