This is part of a multi-post series on the week I spent in Uganda doing door to door evangelism. Click here to read all posts in this series.

Probably this most important thing that came out of the trip to Uganda fell under the category of "knowing myself".

Everyone was struggling with many of the same questions that I was and the strange culture did not help at all. Most people in my group were emotional wrecks. We would be grumpy, cagey, and depressed over our situation. The evenings and nights back at the hostel were desperate times. You wanted to leave, but you couldn't. You wanted to sleep, but you couldn't. We learned about ourselves by being pushed right to our limits.

The first nights were especially bad. Kampala had rolling brownouts at the time, so the evenings were spent sitting in the dorm with the lights flickering on and off.

One night I had an idea. I figured that if I set my digital camera on a tripod doing a long exposure, the flickering lights would be the same as doing a multiple exposure picture with film. Easy, in-camera trick photography.

Eventually the guys of the group wandered into the room and asked me what I was doing. I explained the technique to them and showed them a few dismal looking pictures. They thought it was interesting and wanted to join in. Eventually we started using flashlights for light and the results were excellent. This was a terrific mood lifter for all of us since we were able to forget about our situation for a little while and focus on something else.

After that night, we all started coping better. Generally we turned to absurdity to get us through the week. Justin bought a crucifix and attacked people with a bad southern evangelist impression as they walked by. We started dueling with patio chairs in our off time, wedgies were exchanged, and I have many pictures that I simply cannot explain. Basically we figured out how to have fun even when pushed to our limits.

An issue I struggled with was the expected attire. As I mentioned previously Christian were expected to wear collared shirts, nice pants and have a conservative haircut. I wasn't too pleased with this, but also after all we had been through in that week of evangelism, I didn't want to identify with that image of what a Christian was. My hair was getting long and I needed to get a haircut so I decided to get a mohawk.

I told the guys and they were pleased to help. The only cutting implement available was a battery operated beard trimmer from Joe, but it worked in a pinch. We were able to get half of my head done before the batteries died. When it came time to charge the batteries we plugged it into the wall and immediately smelled ozone. I guess we forgot about the difference between 240 volts and 120 volts.

Needless to say I wasn't happy since my hair looked rather odd. Luckily cooler heads prevailed and remembered hat there was a hair salon in the lower level of the building, which would likely have a hair trimmer. Thankfully they let us borrow it and my mohawk was completed. A couple days later it was time to leave Uganda.

When it was time to return to South Africa everyone was ecstatic. I found myself surprisingly happy to be re-entering South Africa and going through customs again. I never thought a foreign border would look as welcoming as it did that day, but it just felt so good to be back in a country I understood.

This story will be continued in two days time, stay tuned.