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December part c

311207 Monday
HAPPY NEW YEARS EVE!
Hung at home,
went shopping in town,
rented another couple of dvds- including the 1st 6 episodes of Heroes.
Had a nice new years
walked up to the office at midnight. Boroboro is on a hill so we could see the fireworks from 2 hotels in lira. Was nice and a nice cool breeze. there was a worship thing going on in the cathedral behind us. maybe next year my Lwo will be good enough to go and understand something.
Stayed up until almost 4am watching dvds- a good new years :)

301207 Sunday
Magellan survived the night. i dont even think he went out, even tho it was his first day of offered freedom. He did come in our room about 6am and knocked stuff off the desk. hmm.

dale went to church this morning. I slept- well, i tried. but then the DS called asking to borrow our car, which i had to say no to because of MCC policy. Feel a bit bad about that. But what can i do?
Then i kept hearing noises & magellan was being noisy and then i fell asleep and had this quite 'real-like' dream which made me feel awake and then Dale came home. I really want to go check out All Nations in town next week. Need to find out what time they start.
Sitting in the living room and in walks a goat. It really is "their season". He just walked in the front and headed for the kitchen- which Magellan wasn't too happy about.
Dale is playing the guitar. i made chai.
I like the windy-ness of dry season- it is refreshing even though it is warm. Not like Varanasi where nothing moved and even exhalations fell straight to the floor.

291207 Saturday
Dug around my neem trees
Magellan chased the rabbits out of my greens
went for a run to Jolly's but she wasnt there. met her extended family tho who are here for teh holidays.
Made banana-coconut-peanut pancakes for dinner :)
Tonight is magellans first night of freedom- we are leaving the cat door open for him to go out
I figure he is now more predator than prey so i think he will be alright.

281207 Friday
went into town for errands. I keep forgetting friday is beggar day. i dont know why only friday, but they were out in force. Old women, crippled people, lepers. It is overwhelming. I have so many questions. Who are they? Where are they from? Are they receiving other aid? Why are they begging? etc
rented a dvd today : ) for just over a dollar we get a dvd with 6 movies on it for 3 days. pretty sweet. Of course they are really bad quality and some just don't work, but it is at least something!

UGANDA DIARIES

This is part of a special IRIN series: Uganda Diaries, in which a selection of ordinary people in northern Uganda talk about their lives in their own words. The "diaries" were gathered over several interviews in Uganda starting from July 2007. Each individual's diary will be updated from time to time over the coming weeks. Visit Living with the LRA - IRIN's rolling in-depth coverage of the situation in northern Uganda and southern Sudan.]

 

Esther Lalam, a teacher in northern Uganda - an Xmas feast and reunion

 

Monica Atto, 24, former LRA abductee - "Otti was ruthless"

 

Owiny Lakaragic, northern Uganda - "you can't live with hatred"

 

George Oringa, 27, is a paralegal at Pabbo camp, in Uganda

 

Dalson Oyo, organiser at Aloto resettlement site - "Things are changing"

 

some news

One hopes that the long running conflict in northern Uganda comes to a peaceful conclusion with the signing of a Comprehensive Peace Agreement. The President recently issued an ultimatum for the peace talks to yield results before the end of January, which is understandable given that they have been going on for far too long. However, we hope that in the end reason prevails on both sides to give people of northern Uganda not only a peaceful 2008, but permanent peace. On the economic front, Uganda and its East African Community partner states recently signed a preliminary Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA). If the final EPA is signed in 2008, the EAC states will be able to export tariff free to European Union markets. This is a controversial agreement opposed by many in Africa, but we believe that with good economic policies at home, it may be good for our economy.

Uganda 2007 in review

 

A Quiet 2007; Uncertain 2008

 

The Chinese government has donated US$100,000 to flood victims in the eastern and northern part of Uganda.

news

Thousands flee rebels in Uganda
Operating out of the Garamba national park, the Lord's Resistance Army attacked the town of Duru near the border of Sudan. Thousands flee as the rebels seize missionaries and their hospital.

Rebel Victims Unhappy With Planned Uganda Military Action
A reported meeting between defense ministers of Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo to allegedly flush out rebels of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) is generating controversy in Uganda. Tensions surfaced when victims of the LRA voiced concern that ongoing peace talks between the Uganda government and the rebels could be undermined. The victims contend that the government’s plan to attack the rebels if peace talks fail is not healthy for confidence building or finding a lasting peace after more than 20 years of a rebel insurgency in northern Uganda.
Congo promised that by the 31^st of January, if the LRA is still in Congo, then they would take action against them,” he said.

UPDF On High Alert in Northern Region
THE Uganda Peoples Defence Force in northern Uganda are on high alert as Internally Displaced Persons celebrate Christmas today, the army announced yesterday."We know northern Uganda has not had many peaceful festive seasons and this one being different, we take it as a priority to ensure that peace prevails."

RUKUNGIRI Woman MP Winifred Masiko (NRM) has tabled a Bill that seeks to prevent human trafficking. "The Bill seeks to prosecute traffickers and protect victims," she told Parliament on Tuesday.Masiko said the majority of the victims are women and children. According to the Bill, the offenders will either be jailed, fined or their operations wound up. The report said 7,000 to 12,000 children in the country were victims of commercial sexual exploitation. Of these, about 28% were assisted by third parties such as taxi drivers, bar and brothel owners. It said the cross-border trade between Uganda and the DR Congo had increased commercial sexual exploitation in Arua district.

Otti 'executed by Uganda rebels'

 

IDPs Accuse Soldiers of Sexual Abuse

End of terror brings Christmas cheer to Uganda Sister Mary Akello, the deputy headmistress, said: "If this continues, it will really be the most wonderful Christmas we have had in the last 21 years."

New Dawn Awaits Northern Region
As the clock ticks to the trickle of people back to their homes, 2008 will be the year of the greatest challenge to making peace in Uganda. Firstly, Ugandan and regional actors must allow for Kony to be relocated further away from the torched geography of this 21-year conflict. One way under the Juba process is for him to surrender to his former benefactors, the government of Omar El Bashir in Khartoum and be in a supervised in-country exile within Sudan. Whatever deal is done, the bigger task rests with the Ugandan government. If Kony was committed to resisting President Yoweri Museveni's National Resistance Movement throughout this period, the military backed politics of Kampala bears the bigger responsibility of letting him succeed in laying to waste the Northern countryside.

Doing Business With the Weak
 President Museveni has made two visits to Amuru District in Northern Uganda to sell to both the leaders and the population a proposal by the Madhvani Group to establish a sugar plantation and factory on 4,000 hectares or 40 square kilometres of land.  Amuru is both a new and remote district albeit with a high endowment of natural resources. Amuru was carved out of Gulu District in July 2006. It is located west of Gulu District and the southern border of the district hosts part of Murchison Falls National Park including the famous Paraa Lodge, which is being run by the Madhvani Group, while the northern part has the town of Bibia on the Uganda-Sudan border.

Many communities in Uganda would quickly welcome a proposal spearheaded by no less a person than President Museveni and from a company of the calibre of the Madhvani Group but the people of Amuru and the wider Acholi have been lukewarm to the idea. There are two main areas causing the lukewarm reaction. The first concern is about the contribution of the sugar industry to the economic wellbeing of the community where the industry is located. Given the high level of illiteracy in Amuru, the only hope of employment that Madhvani would offer to the people of the district is as manual labourers earning about Shs70,000 per month. "Literacy rate in the region stands at 54 percent compared to the national average of 68 percent." Fourteen percent of people between six and 25 years have not been formally educated.
A related matter is how the introduction of large scale sugar cane production will affect the production of other crops that provide food security and good income to small farmers. The second concern is that both the Madhivani Group and President Museveni seem to be pushing for a quick agreement from the leaders and people of Amuru to allow the establishment of the sugar plant with apparently little or no regard to the current vulnerability of the district.

There are many facets to Amuru's vulnerability, most of which are rooted in the 21-year long insurgency between the NRA/UPDF and anti-government forces, especially the Lord's Resistance Army rebels. The fact that there are vast uninhabited and unfarmed tracts of land in Amuru is testimony to the scale of displacement of the people of Amuru from their homes into Internally Displaced People (IDP) camps. According to the Inter Agency Standing Committee 453,223 people in Amuru District were living in IDP camps by the end of 2005 and by November 2007, only 5% had returned to their original villages; 77% of the people were still in the original camps and another 18% were in transit sites.

Ebola spreads panic better than it spreads itself
In Uganda -- where 100,000 people die of malaria each year -- an epidemic of a new Ebola strain has killed just 36 people and infected 135 others but is spreading widespread terror.

Food Scarcity and H.I.V. Interwoven in Uganda
Western donors have increased the distribution of antiretroviral drugs in sub-Saharan Africa. But they have done little to make sure that the recipients do not starve to death or have to choose between paying for transportation to the clinic and feeding their children. Studies like this one seek to demonstrate that packaging food aid with H.I.V. drugs or reimbursing patients for travel can actually improve health and save lives.

New Jet for President Museveni The new Gulf Stream 550 costs $48.2m. the Gulf Stream IV SP, which the Government bought in 2000, went out of production in 2003 and its warranty had expired.

Ugandan wildlife park threatened
the human population of this supposed haven for wildlife outnumbers the elephants by about 50 to one.

	Herdsmen tend their animals in Elizabeth National Park, Uganda. Their livestock are in competition with the wildlife for the grazing in the park

Eleven growing villages, with about 55,000 people in total, are dotted across the park. Their inhabitants, whose presence is technically illegal, live by fishing and herding cattle. They have nowhere else to go because almost every inch of fertile land in the surrounding area has been taken and cultivated.

Uganda's population, already exceeding 30 million, will triple in the next four decades. A United Nations forecast suggests that by 2050, the country will have 93 million people. If so, the park, which has carried the Queen's name after she opened its gates in 1954, risks being swamped. Some 165,000 people will live inside by 2050 - and millions more nearby.

 

December 2007 part C (15-27)

271207 Thursday

Chilling at home, eating the rest of the brownies, working on the relief proposal, digging my salsa garden, burning trash, etc

 

261207 Wednesday

Chilled at home today. Went for a run at the DOC field and played Frisbee with Dale. Otherwise working on stuff and chilling at home : ) Built some makeshift protectors for our banana trees as it is now officially goat season when everyone lets their goats roam free to try and find whatever greenery they can as it is dry season.

 

251207 Tuesday

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!

Woke up to my parent’s phone call- YAY! So good to talk to them.
Then Dale and I came out and exchanged presents. So Dale had been looking all over for the past month for a place to buy a milking goat for me! I love it! Sadly, despite many attempts he has not found one yet, but I got a “Goat Milk?” card with a gift certificate for one milking goat J

 

And he wrapped up our “Scramble” game which is a really cheap version of scrabble that we got in Kampala. I got him a shirt. We have other presents that we are hoping to get from the US at some point too for each other : ) 
I made banana pancakes and sarah had left us her maple syrup (thanks Sarah!) so we had yummy breakkie. Then we hung out all day watching movies or a bunch of episodes of Friends (we only have Season 10 so we watched to the sad end).
Then at dinner time we made calzones with salami that we brought from Kampala (on dale’s only) and olives and mushrooms and tomatoes, green peppers and onions, eggplant and garlic. They were super yummy and we only ate half so we get them again tomorrow!

And then Dale made coconut brownies with “Jesus” written in peanut M&Ms on top. We sang happy birthday to Jesus and ate them in thankfulness.

 

Boroboro was so quiet today. At night there was music playing nearby, but the day was very still.

A nice quiet Christmas. We even gave Magellan lots of fish and Buddy the rooster lots of corn as their presents : )

 

241207 Monday

This morning we got up around 8 and then went to Lira hotel for breakfast. They have a nice breakfast buffet there for 5000 ($3) and I had told dale I’d take him when he finished his practicum, so we finally went today. Coffee, fruit, cereal, juice, eggs, baked beans and toast. We were the only ones there so it was nice and chilled out and we just sat and read until about noon.

 

Then went into town and did shopping for food for Christmas and to try and find out what services were going on for Christmas.
Believe it or not, very little is happening. One church, All Nations, said tomorrow at 9, St Augustine, the Anglican cathedral in town said “It happened yesterday” meaning nothing else was going on for the week, and our church here in boroboro is doing sort of a normal church service at 7am English, 9am Lwo. So it seems no one is doing like a carol service or anything tonight, which is what I wanted. People all said I would find some place but surprisingly I couldn’t.
Town was SO hectic and busy with Christmas shoppers but amazingly our friend at Pari supermarket said it wasn’t nearly as busy as last year and that this is a “poor Christmas”. 

So we got our things and came home.

 

LIFE ON THE FARM

Magellan brought in a big lizard and is playing with it right now...ok he is now dead and Magellan is still kicking him around. Magellan is a mean kitten. At least I won’t be worried about mice in our house.
(half an hour later) ok Magellan just ate the lizard. He plopped it on my shoe then began to crack through all his bones. I had to leave the room it was making me so ill to listen to. I am amazed that little kitten could fit that whole lizard in his belly. Ew.

 

Buddy the rooster is still fighting his way to the top. He has a broken toe (from a long time ago seemingly) but he totally kicks butt. He now is walking around with his hen-friends.

 

I bought these mini-fish today and the ants attacked them. Thousands of ants. So I sank the bag in the middle of a pot of water hoping to drown them all. I hate being under attack!

 

231207 Sunday

Woke up at 9. I thought it was 7. No church going for me today I guess.

At 10, Dale & Dixon went off to Kacung for the day, where Dixon is from. Dixon told us he has plantains for Christmas for us there. To be honest the whole thing of a 3 hour journey of hitching a ride to the intersection, then hitching another ride down the road, then walking another mile to his house and then doing it all back carrying a bit stalk of plantains didn’t sound that great to me. And how do you say we really don’t want plantains? You can’t, right? I like plantains but they come with this really sticky tar in the skin that sticks to you, the knife and all over the kitchen. It is gross. Again, so thankful Brenda is here to cook them for us instead of me. If anyone has any amazing plantain recipes, let me know!  we mix them with tomatoes, onions and cabbage here.

 

So I am staying home with Magellan. I made him a little platform to try to help him get in and out of the house when we are not here. As long as he can jump onto the BBQ, he’ll be alright getting in. Getting out he jumps from the stove- a plan we know is going to backfire on him one day when he jumps onto a hot fire!

 

So now I am sitting here calling the modem people for the third time and waiting on hold for another half hour for them to answer. Twice this morning they have hung up on as just as they answer. Is this trainee day??

 

So I watched Eragon, and some other DVDs my dad sent me.

Dale came home at around 6ish bringing with him more groundnuts from Dixon’s house and our rooster that was given to us last time. They brought him with them in the taxi along with another chicken for someone else. We threw him some maize and cut the ropes off his legs which had made his legs all bloody- poor thing! He didn’t take much time before he went and got in a fight with the rooster next door. Ours whipped the other one and the other one was hiding beneath the car with his head in the wheel well. Then ours chased him into our HOUSE and tried to hide behind the gas canister. Ours is a mean and huge rooster. He better learn to play nicely with others or Magellan and Dale will be having a chicken dinner before long.

Magellan finds him quite interesting and chased him around a bit, but the rooster is still like 3 times his size.

 

we watched Surviving Christmas and I made rolex for dinner :)

 

221207 Saturday.

Got up around 8 and hung out. Around 11:30, Dale, Dixon and I got in the car. They dropped me at the post office in town where I went to look for packages and try to mail some coffee to christine in Guatemala as part of my new world wide coffee exchange program. : )Alas, no packages and no padded envelopes in which I could put the coffee. All they had were thin paper ones, so I’ll have to invent something.

So I walked further in to town, bought some sunglasses as it was super bright out, then tried to return my dress, but couldn’t find that woman that sold it to me. So I ended up buying another dress for 2000 shillings (just over a dollar). My new wardrobe just about complete. If only in had known I wouldn’t have to wear skirts!

So then I went looking for fireworks and was sent to the button house in the sewing part of the clothes market and all they had were sparkler candles. Thought as I left I should get these for our birthday cakes : )

I’ll be back!

 

So then defeated in all that I tried to accomplish today, I walked back to the end of town where the taxi-vans go from. There were vans going my way but wouldn’t take me because I wasn’t going far enough for them to give me a seat. So I was sent to a truck full of market goods that was also piling in people on top of them. It was a small pick up but they put almost 20 of us back there with 4 or 5 on the roof of the single cab on a rack. It was a bit squashed to say the least. I was very glad to have 2 other women back there too and I could understand some of the things being said about me. There was one nice boy of around 14 named Miriam (reminiscent of the song “a boy named Sue”). He was named after the bishops wife, my neighbour. Anyway, we went slowly but got to the Boroboro junction and the man said “My money” and I said “How much” and he said “1000.” I had asked Dixon on our way in what it should cost and he said 500, but said “But when they see you, they will say 1000”.  A woman next to me was saying in lwo it should be 500 and I said “what she says is right, and you are trying to cheat me just before Christmas which means you will get no presents”. So I handed him the 500 and he accepted.

Then I started the walk home. It is I think 2.5 kms down the road. But it was also 2pm so a bit hot so I was walking slowly. Then a man on a motorcycle came by and offered me a ride. His name is Isaac and he was the guy who translated for Dale last week at the ordination service and is a friend of our Lwo teacher, Christopher. I had already walked half the way, but a lift was nice for the rest!

 

Got home and Dale and Dixon were watching Narnia. I made chocolate chip cookies and we hung out.

When Dixon left Dale and I watched 24 and had quesadillas and then after that we watched King Arthur & Derailed as part of our Clive Owen marathon.

Then we went to bed and watched another episode of 24 J a good Saturday!

 

211207 Friday

Got up and went to work. Jacob didn’t make it until lunch time because the night before he had sent this lad out to get him more fuel and he brought back and poured in diesel, and of course, his bike takes petrol. So the bike didn’t run and had to be drained, cleaned etc.

Sadly by the time he arrived, Esther and Tonny had lifted, thinking he wasn’t coming. So after lunch Jacob, Dale & I met to talk over the relief plan, with input from Peter who was in the next room.

Looks like it is coming along... I hope J

 

MOTHERS UNION

Had a great chat with Betty, the Mothers Union worker, today. Talked about the difficulties of their work. She said they go to encourage women out in the villages and the women are asking for projects and physical help, but instead MU is there to encourage and actually takes dues. It was obvious she found that difficult.

 

I asked if the development office ever worked with or through MU and she said they didn’t, but instead work independently. I really hope I can help bridge the gap between these 2 offices and the women can find camaraderie in MU and aid through the DPDO (development) office working through the MU. Betty said the women give 1000 shillings a year. 100 goes to their parish, 100 to the archdeaconry, 300 somewhere else and then 500 to MU Uganda and from that they want to send some back to the main office in UK as a partnership gesture. MU in England helps fund transport for the MU staff to get out to these places, but it seems there is a real lack of development focus- not that they need to give the women projects, but they could do a lot more in education, networking, informing on rights, etc.

 

Was a great chat.

 

After work, came home, had leftovers and watched The Mummy J

 

201207 Thursday

Up at 6. Supposed to leave at 7. We planned to take the mothers union vehicle since we don’t have a spare tyre, but to use that we get a driver.

We waited at the Bishops house for mike (driver) until 7:40ish when the Bishop called him, then went and picked up the rest of our team (minus sarah) in town. We were in a landrover that sat 2 upfront and then has two facing benches in back that are meant for 2 people each, but we put three.

 

OLILIM

Our goal for the day is to go to Olilim and find out what the situation is there with the schools that the WFP said it isn’t feeding and how people are doing after the floods.

 

The roads were SO much better this time than the last time we headed that way during the middle of the floods when we got stuck. We crossed the same river we crossed then. Then it was almost at bridge level, now it was at least 15 feet lower!!!

 

Sadly there isn’t a direct road that would get us to Olilim so we had to go through Adwari and Orum then to Olilim. The road was very dusty, but smooth enough. We picked up the archdeacon in Adwari and he went with us to Olilim.

 

IKWEE

We went first to the Ikwee Primary School. The schools are all on break now, but we found a teacher there who talked to us. We all sat under the mango tree and tried to get a picture of what was going on. It seemed that people from an NGO (or more likely the WFP) had come to talk to them about food and they had the impression that they were coming back to bring food. they even built a kitchen shelter where they could cook. But no food ever came. He confirmed to us that the WFP was feeding 3 schools in Olilim, but 9 were left out. He said that many parents sent their kids to other schools, even long distances away if they offered food, so attendance dropped at this school.

He also said many people were continuing to return from camps and those who were newly returning were bringing children in need and enlisting them in schools.

 

Barkeo

After visiting Ikwee we drove to the parish priest’s house, but he had just left, so we kept going on to the farthest school, Barkeo, which is right next to mountains (hills?) that border Karamoja. Beautiful!  There is a beautiful school built out rock, which reminded me a lot of the stone buildings of England’s past. Action Against Hunger was also there repairing or digging a bore hole for the school. We waited for a while as someone went to fetch the manager of the school. Then when he came we sat and talked for a while. His observations were very similar to those of the man at Ikwee. This school serves 6 villages and students come from up to 3 miles around.

 

We left there and came back to the parish priest’s house and chatted with a group of leaders there about the situation in Olilim. We were also given lunch which was very kind.

 

We asked them to find us the school attendance numbers for last year and projected ones for next year and to give us estimations on how many extremely desperate families there are in the areas around the schools. While we were there we got a text from sarah saying we got another $10,000 for relief from a donor in the US. Praise God!

 

We drove back to Adwari and dropped of the AD then drove back to Lira. Jacob invited us to his place for dinner at his house. We picked up Sarah and Jonathan then went over there, had dinner, then came home.

 

Still no internet : (

 

191207 Wednesday

DOOR FIXED

Yay Finally someone came and chipped away at the door frame so the door can finally close again. of course that really isn’t fixing the problem of our house cracking in half! The floor, wall and ceiling are all showing cracks. Ummm, is this normal?

 

Everyone is here today. Had a meeting in office to try to figure out what to do with the new info we have on  our relief project. Sarah came in with her fiancé Jonathan who is here visiting for Christmas, and they hung out under the mango tree.

 

At 2 everyone left.  Dale went to town with peter looking for a present for me. Jacob, Esther and Tonny all left to go home.  Just me working in the office.

So after working for the afternoon Sarah, Jonathan and I came back to the house and hung out. When Dale came home, we all had enchiladas for dinner and papaya smoothies and hung out til 10 or so.  At one point Sarah saw a big roach under our coach. When Magellan found it he proceeded to play with it for a half an hour, batting it around the living room, flipping it on its back, then turning it over and letting it run only to pounce on it again, grab it in his teeth and run with it again across the room. It was gross. We were all watching it, somewhat entertained, then all the sudden the power went off and then at the thought of now not seeing where the roach is running, I yelled and jumped on the couch and called for dale to bring a lantern. Eventually Magellan ate the thing- one crunch at a time. Ew.

 

When we were taking them back home, Magellan got out unbeknown to us. Came home to a very quiet house. We looked for him then I looked outside and right outside our door were Jeff and Cindy, the bishops dogs. Thought Magellan had been eaten by them! We chased the dogs and went back inside then a few minutes later, Magellan was at the door. Good to know he is smart enough to avoid the dogs!

 

No internet again : (

 

181207 Tuesday

Got up early and went to the Mango tree guest house in town to meet up with Jacob at 8. Sadly, there was a miscommunication and Jacob came to the office to meet up with us. Ugh. But Dale and I had a nice breakfast though, think we will make this a habit before our cluster meetings : )

 

At 9 we went to OCHA for a Food security meeting, most didn’t show until 9:30 and then it was only a handful. Think most people are in holiday mode. Was a really good meeting for us, very informative and we learned more of the situation.

By the time we got back to work, Jacob had left again. ugh.

We are sort of stuck on the relief plan because we have things we need to talk over. Ugh ugh.

 

Everyone else left early again too. Hm.

 

So after getting our water tank priced yesterday we saw the bishop putting up his big new tank today which is now making us rethink getting a water tank. If the one we have now will be juts for us and the occasional visitors then I think we will do just fine. Hope.

 

After work, came home and made eggplant spaghetti sauce and bread. : )

 

171207 Monday

Went to work

Jacob didn’t come in today.

No power all day.

Everyone left.

Went to town for office supplies and other errands.

Got another quote on water tank.

Went to water company. Joel from there came with us to the house and quoted all the work to put in a new meter and all. basically the first 50 m of pipe and a new meter and all is 69,000, but then each additional meter is 2000/meter and we need another 30 meters.

The cost of the tank and a stand and all the parts and labour would cost about 800,000 then the water company stuff is about 200,000 so it is coming close to one million ($600). Hmmm.

 

161207 Sunday

So dale got up at 7 to go to the ordination, which meant I was up then too, but I was chilling at home. He left and came back 10 minutes later. Seems they cancelled the 7am service and were just having the one service at 9 in Lwo for the ordinations.

 

Seems they didn’t tell anyone actually that the 7am service was cancelled and a ton of people showed up to be turned away or told to wait for 2 hours. The ordinations have been planned for 3 months, but no one decided to let the church know. nice.

 

So around 10, dale went back to the cathedral. They were holding the ordinations outside and put up coverings for shade. Dale said tons of people from all over the Diocese came to support their pastor being ordained, so when they’d call them up that priest’s congregation would cheer and carry him/her up to the front.

The last one to be ordained used to be a priest, but fell away and has repented and come back and told his abbreviated story upfront. Brave.

 

Dale came home at 1ish, but the service was still going strong. He left as another sermon got under way. While Dale was gone Sam came by. He had also been to the 7am service and was a bit peeved that no one told them it was cancelled. He went back to the ordination for an hour but then left because he said “It was a bit boring”.  Quite a change from the church-police Sam I mentioned 2 weeks ago.

I saw people starting to walk home around 2:30. Yep 9-2:30. That is a long church service. And that isn’t even including the receptions afterwards!

 

We hung out all day mainly. Sam came over with his brother at 4pm. I think his brother gave him an avocado tree and he was giving it to us. So the three of us dug and planted the seedling and then Sam and his brother made one of those awesome goat-fences to keep the evil vermin from eating my tree. While we were away they destroyed ALL my banana trees again. I used to like goats.

 

151207 Saturday

Slept in until 10! It was so lovely! Think I would have slept longer but we got a call from Goodboy who wanted to come see us. I told him we were still waking up so to wait a couple hours.

Got up and snuggled with Magellan who I am glad still remembers us.

At 11:30 we went to the post office and picked up 2 packages: 1 from Dale’s Aunt Diana & Uncle Mark and 1 from Dale’s folks. It was definitely another early Christmas!

(Thanks soooo much!!!)

 

Dropped by the diocese in the morning to see if we could use the internet. Seems there has been a ‘retreat’ of meetings all week for a bunch of pastors who will be ordained tomorrow.

 

Then came home, strung Christmas lights, put our new lampshades up, and chilled.

Went for dinner at night to the Lillian to take Sarah out- our super wonderful house & cat sitter!!! Also ran into Susan and Brian from Samaritans Purse who were there with a friend who works in Sudan.
Had a pizza, but they use a different kind of cheese there that I am not so wild about. But yummy passion fruit juice : )

A nice Saturday!

 

December 2007 part B (6-14)

141207 Friday

A LONG DAY

So we got up before 7, grabbed some coffee and cereal from the dining room and then headed out at 7:30 for Kampala in the Carib- MCC’s other car. Got to Kampala before 9 and spent the morning shopping- but not for much as we didn’t want to carry it on the bus. But we did buy 3 new tyres for our car that Ben & Holly will bring up in their car when they come up in a few weeks.

 

We got back to drop the car at the MCC office around noon then walked down the hill towards garden city mall looking for a taxi, but didn’t see any and were told by the police that we should just take bodas (in kampala these are motorcycles). It was an experience. Imagine crazy hectic traffic times 50 and then put yourself on the back of a small motorcycle swaying in and out of it all. a number of times I pulled my knees in tight to miss smashing them against on coming vehicles or pushed/banged against a matatu (van taxi) as it was about to kill me. Yeah, an adventure.

This also the day after we heard Judith’s stories about her 2 boda accidents in kampala. Geez.

So glad we made it alive! It cost 3000 shillings each and it was definitely the fastest way to the bus station. 

 

So I hate the bus station. I hate most bus stations I think, but this one is one of the worst. Hectic crazy totally disorganised with no system of getting on or off busses etc. Crazy.

 

So we get there and ask where the bus to Lira is and were shown one where people are cramming and pushing to get in. I join the cram and eventually get myself on to then find out that you need to buy a ticket for this bus (this one particular bus) and that it is sold out. So now I have to get off the bus everyone is cramming into. Not easy at all and I swear I wanted to push this woman who refused to wait until I got out back down the stairs (in a peaceful and non-violent way, of course).

 

So I finally got off with the help of this mans hand on my butt (yeh, thanks buddy). 

 

Then we were shown to another bus. So I got on and sat to find out this bus goes to Gulu. I was irked. Hello, do people not know that Gulu isn’t lira and I don’t like being put on the wrong sodding bus?

 

Ugh. so bus #3 is going to Lira. It is boarding with people and we get 2 seats second row from the back together. And then we wait.

 

And wait.

 

And wait.

While waiting, I bought a $2 watch. Nice.

 

1:40 we finally left the bus park. My window doesn’t open. It is hot. Our bags are on our knees or crammed at our feet. No leg room. Dale has his knees up because there is no place to put his legs.

There is a girl of about 11 who was kicked out of her seat behind us so some man could sit down. She probably was let on free but still it was messed up to make her sit on the floor.

 

The bus is supposed to take like 5-6 hrs. Nope. Not ours.

A very very very long trip landed us in Lira at 9pm. Exhausted.

 

I tried to read on the bus, but just as I started to the bus man came and wanted to see our little tiny receipts for payment, which I by this point had lost. So I spent hours looking for the freaking things. And he never came back to check again. argh. I hate when I lose stuff. Not that the dude who sold me the tickets said I should hang on to them. Argh.

 

Anyway once we arrived, dale dropped me and the luggage at the white house restaurant across from the bus station and he took a bike boda to ben and hollys to pick up the car and then came back to get me. We finally got home at 10pm.

 

A very very long day. So so glad that the power is on, there is water, Brenda made us dinner and sarah took great care of the house and Magellan.  Glad too that Magellan remembers me.

 

Irked that our door still isn’t fixed and there is a crack now going across almost the entire house.

Glad that the house hasn’t fallen down yet.

Confused as to why it is so hard to get someone out to fix this.

Tired.

 

131207 Thursday

Had meetings/reflections in the morning.

Holly led us in Taize form of worship.

Then after Carolyn’s talk we had time to reflect, and then I went for a swim.
Had lunch by the pool then went back in for another swim.

Dale has funky belly, poor guy.

 

BOATRIDE

In the afternoon we took a boat ride on Lake Victoria out to where it branches to start the Nile River and got off on this little island at that spot. There used to be another set of ‘falls’ where we stood but since the dam, which was put in by the British, has been there the water level rose to the point of removing the falls. We were told the British put in 10 turbines to get power, and left plans for 5 more which the Ugandans then put in, but it drained the lake so quickly that they had to shut them down.  We saw a bunch of monkeys handing in the trees and had a chill boat ride on the Nile and then back again up to the lake and jumped off.

 

Back to the hotel, swam some more, and had pizza for dinner.

Then we went down and had an hour+ of carol singing out by the Lake. Really nice. very cool when we looked around and it was so surreal to see tons of lights on the lake from all the boats that go out and catch the little fish Magellan eats. The fish are attracted to the light. The lights shining on the lake where so beautiful!

 

121207 Wednesday

Had meetings/reflections in the morning.

The Sudan folk made a prayer labyrinth which was way cool for us to go through and reflect on our theme verses from Isaiah 9:1-7 and then in the middle you picked up one of four cards, either Prince of Peace, Mighty God, Wonderful Counsellor, or Everlasting Father depending on what you needed most at that time. Pretty cool! 

 

In the afternoon we went to Jinja and I bought Christmas lights, an extension cord and hair oil. The basics : )

Then we all met up at “2 Friends” for our Uganda meeting. I had a chocolate milkshake, which could have been vanilla even though I asked for extra chocolate. What can you do? Yummy still.

We said goodbye to Esther who is leaving in January having spent the last 4 years in Soroti. Strange to think about the end of term when we are at the beginning.

 

Then we came back to Kingfisher and had dinner and a group of us watched The Interpreter which was good. I liked it.

 

111207 Tuesday

Session in the morning

A big group of us went to mabira rainforest at 2 for a 3-hour walk. Was really nice.

This was the forest that the gov sold off to the Mehta group last year to turn into sugar cane fields. The people of Uganda rose up in protest (that sadly turned violent) that stopped the deal and saved the forest. It is a beautiful place. We went to the main entrance and paid 5000 each to hike there, btu it really is totally open and so could go without paying, but it felt good to contribute to the upkeep of the forest. They gave us maps and the trails are really really well marked. The only scary part is that you have to cross the Jinja-Kampala road to continue your walk. It is a scary road, lots of cars and psycho busses. And there is a big market there and we came out as a bus pulled up and we nearly got totally run over by a million vendors who rushed toward the bus. We were unfortunately between the two. It reminded me of the warnings to never get between a hippo and the water. I thought I’d be crushed!

 

Came back, had dinner, played Phase 10 while Dale and some others watched Eragon.

 

101207 Monday

Breakfast at Eden Rock, then went to town and sat at the source cafe and read for a few hours. Mochas for 2500- not bad : )

Met a Church of Uganda Reverend there and we talked to him on and off over a few hours.  

Bought some samosas and then when they came they were beef. I forget that samosas don’t mean the same thing here!
At 2p we drove over to Kingfisher back on west side of lake Victoria. Dale and I sat out by pool. They were cleaning it so it was a bit murky. Hung out, had tea. Dinner with the group at 7:30. The people coming from Sudan came late because their flight was cancelled.

 

 

091207 Sunday

Got up and had breakfast then went down to Bujagali Falls and waited for the rafters to come by. We watched a guy on a jerrycan go down the rapids. Crazy. There are lots of boat guys at the falls who will take you for a ride around the rapids (not through the rapids) but over to see where they are building the dam that they say will destroy the falls. Not sure what the right price is, but a group went for 20,000 a boat.

 

Around noon the rafts came by and all made the rapids without problem. Looks so fun!

Then we drove to town. Tried to go to Source, but it is closed on Sundays.  So after meandering around town we drove over to 2 friends around 3. We wanted to get pizza, but found out that they don’t start them until 6, so we decided to wait and have coffee and read until then. Read, watched a bit of the football match, ate our pizzas and hung until 7ish then went back to Bujagali. Had Banana dessert crepes back at Eden Rock and watched Narnia.

 

081207 Saturday

Woke up late and had a nice breakfast at the hotel. Really the place is a great deal for its location. No palace, but reasonable.

Drove over to the Airport around 11ish I guess, stopping off for some pix at Lake Victoria. After dropping David & Nico off then we drove to Jinja which took hours and hours because of really bad Kampala traffic and a couple overturned lorries on the road.

 

Saw a sign at a scrap yard that was partially covered so it looked like it said “Crap for Cash”.  Made me laugh for the rest of the day.

 

Got to Jinja and we went straight to the place where I had made reservations- Speke Campsite. They said they had bandas for $15. The location is really nice and for camping it’d be great being right on the rapids.  Well we waited for the ages until they showed us the room, and they definitely were not using that time to ‘prepare’ it. It was such a hole! Walking up there we saw a bunch of trash, the outhouses were a shambles, and then we got to our banda! The screens on the windows were torn open and the mosquito net on the bed had holes big enough for a cat to fit through. It was really trashed. So we decided to pass. We walked over to Eden Rock across the street and they had nice bandas and an absolutely beautiful campsite. Really well kept. We checked out Nile explorers too (which is where I camped when I was here in 2004) but the only available banda there was next to the bar and the screens were torn there too. So we went with eden rock. It cost 36,000 for just the banda or 45,000 for the banda and breakfast so we went with that. Took a walk around the area, sat by Bujagali Falls for a while. Had dinner at the nile river explorers campsite- veggie soup : )

 

071207 Friday

Got up at 4:30am with the goal to leave at 5. We left a bit after and began our drive to Kampala.  It was so nice having Ben and Holly’s car! Such a comparatively nice drive! And despite it being very early, it was nice not having any bikes to dodge on the roads.  Around 9:40 Hillary from Sasakawa called us. We were in Luwero so he left Kampala then and we agreed to meet in Wobulenzi. We got there a while before his people did so we got out and had rolex. It was hard not knowing how to say anything in whatever local language is spoken there. Really I understand wanting to keep your tribal language and the pride involved, but it so limits your mobility and accessibility to the rest of the country!

Some drunk guy was bothering dale and got oil on him. I think I mentioned this before but Uganda has the highest per person alcohol consumption in the world. It shows. And yet this seems totally unaddressed in development. There are programs I am sure, but I haven’t seen signs of any yet.

After about 40 minutes Hillary (who works in the Kampala office), Betty (head of the one-stop-shop in the area) and Okello the driver showed up. We took a drive out to the 1-stop-shop. We were all very tired. David isn’t feeling well, Nico slept in the office, rough way to end their trip. It was good for us to get an overview of what the org does and their focus on lasting sustainability once the NGO leaves.

Sadly for David it was the 2^nd time he was hearing all this . After showing us around they took us to a poultry project some 5kms away.

In general I am amazed how different the south is from the north. There are still poor areas but the poverty is a different level. All the houses down there were made of bricks with a metal roof and there were power lines everywhere, vs mud walls here with grass roofs and very few houses with electricity.

 

The poultry unit we visited had a big aviary.  It was funny to me that in the west we want free range chickens and here where everyone has free range chickens, this org was building aviaries. I can see the reasoning though. Their chickens were screened, tested and vaccinated etc and they want to keep them from dying off of chicken diseases and so on. And the aviary was quite large.

 

PAYBACK

So the way Sasakawa works is a matter of loans of sorts. They give you 20 chickens- 2 roosters, 18 hens. They you have to pay back 40 (4 & 36). Then that 40 gets split between 2 more farmers, etc. Or if they give you x amount of seed you have to pay back 2x.

They said they have a lot of problems with pay back but because they work with the ministry of agriculture and they make all their recipients sign very clear MOUs they are able to use the law to push people to repay. And they seem very understanding in times where crops simply don’t come or when chickens die off, etc. They are really into setting un sustainable community systems. They also have corn shellers and rice mills that they loan out to communities and then the loan is paid for in bags of rice or corn. If the farmer sells off all the produce then the loan has to be paid in cash.

 

DIRT

On the way to the one stop shop Betty came in our car so we could lead the way because the other car has air conditioning and so they were not eating dirt like we were. But on the drive to Kampala we were behind for an hour or two. It was so dusty!! We and the car were completely red-brown from the dirt and everything tasted of dirt.

 

We came into Kampala through some back way that they said was shorter but more rough. We came up and passed Gann & Dale’s house and drove over to the MCC office where we tried to clean off some of the layers of dirt.  Then we drove over to Garden City Mall and looked around there and then walked over to the big craft market at the National Theatre. I bought 3 lampshades for $6 :) and a couple of Christmas cards. It was fun just chilling there while David and Nico shopped. I liked just talking to the vendors without really wanting to buy anything.

 

From there we went back to Gann&Dale’s house and had dinner there. We were all exhausted though.
As we arrived there we came to discover that we didn’t have a hotel booked in Entebbe as we thought. There was some miscommunication where david thought I was booking it and I thought david had. Oops. So after dinner we started calling around some places, then we went to a place nearby to see if they had space but the whole place was shut down. And then we backed into a ditch. Ugh.

Got back to Gann & Dale’s house and we kept calling around and eventually found a place called the Ngatoro Guest House that was really nicely priced and quite close by. SO we got there and got our rooms. We were so tired! They brought us a mosquito net and our bathroom had no light so they tried to fix it but couldn’t. No toilet seat and a very cold shower, but at least it got some of the days grime off. Then sleep! Much needed sleep!

 

 

061207 Thursday

Got up at 6ish. Had a cup of coffee and grabbed our sacks of breakfast and 4 waters. Got down
to the ferry for 6:45am. We were told it is first come first serve and we were not sure how much of a race it was going to be. So we got in the queue and fortunately there was enough room for all except one big lorry that I think was going to get a private trip after us. So we planned to just get a guide when we crossed the river. We got over there and there were 3 guides waiting. One was david from yesterday. The other 2 were snagged quickly, but there were 3 cars still wanting a guide. While the other 2 went and got petrol, david found another guide and so then there were just 2 of us and so we decided to share David. It actually worked out perfectly for us as we really couldn’t fit him in the Suzuki that well and if he was in there he wouldn’t have been able to point anything out. So he went in the back of the red truck and they let us all take turns rotating back there as well to get a fresh air view. We also at some point took the back window out of the Suzuki so we could sit on the edge. A brilliant idea from my marvellous husband.

The game drive started off slow but not too long in David got a call about a lion so we zipped over and saw a mother lion with 3 cubs, but they were making tracks away from us so didn’t get any really good shots. Beyond that we saw elephants, antelopes, giraffes and lots of deer. Looked for a long time for a leopard, but didn’t see one.

 

I asked David if anyone has ever been killed by animals here. He said not tourists, but UWA workers had been killed. He carried a rifle with him as did the others (which also was a quandary for us if the guide was to come in our car, as MCC has a “no weapons in the vehicle” policy. Hmm.

 

Dale asked David what were the coolest things he has seen. He said a giraffe giving birth while walking and an elephant kill a hippo in defence of its baby.  Geez.

 

 Around 11:30 we got dropped off at the Western gate on the Arua rd. A guide costs $20 (3400 shillings), so we gave our half & tip and then drove off. The western gate was a lot further on that the gate where we had entered but drops you right at the road instead of the other one that leads you on a very long unclear path.

 

We passed about 5 more IDP camps on the way. So many people. Hard to tell what are official IDP camps and which ones are not.

I was driving home and probably 50 or so kilometres before we reached the Karuma junction our back left tyre blew completely. The burst rubber flung back and cracked the bumper and smashed in our back lights. I am very thankful to God that we didn’t go in the ditch at the side of the road! Also glad that Dale went and got the tyre fixed on Monday.

So we got the tyre changed and then we were on our way again and not 10 minutes later the new tyre blew as well! 

At that point we were screwed. Middle of nowhere, with no more tyres, we were stuck.

 

RESCUE

So I started to pray for rescue and just then the International Rescue Committee truck comes around the corner!

We flagged them down and they happily gave me, David and Nico a lift to get a tyre. Dale was to stay with the car. Just as we were leaving, I saw some guy walk out who said he was with the UWA but he wasn’t in a uniform so wasn’t sure. Anyway, the three of us took us, handing dale a couple of sandwiches and a couple bottles of water. We had to sign waiver forms in the car to drive with them! Wow, that is different.

REFUGEES vs IDPS

It was great chatting with Tonny who works with IRC. He worked in Sudan for a bit, then worked in Kitgum with the IDPs (internally displaced people) there. He said the conditions were terrible. He now works with Sudanese refugees in Northern Uganda. He says it is so different. Because they are international refugees and the attention on the situation in sudan has been vast, their conditions are incredibly better than for the IDPs in Uganda. He said because of the international interest in refugees, people are well taken care of, have land to garden, walled in compounds and so on, but for IDPs he said they take a school yard and put 10,000 people in it, and that for a decade!  I asked if it made him angry that the Sudanese were treated so much better in his country than the Ugandans were and he laughed one of those laughs you laugh when you know your words are not going to adequately express your feelings. Of course he was angry. Angry that the Sudanese are protected under international laws while his people simply for the fact that they hadn’t crossed a border were not protected at all.  And what borders could they cross? The Karamojong to the East, the LRA to the west and North and the government stopping them at the Nile from going south. And because they are not international refugees but internally displaced people they have gone unnoticed by international concern and hence little helped.

 

We drove back and headed south crossing the nile and going all the way to Bweyale which is the first place that sold tyres. I kept telling Nico that he had to come back and open some petrol stations with tyre changing services when he grows up. We got to a tyre place and we asked if they had the matching tyre and he said yes, so then the IRC left us there and I waited for the tyre guy to fix someone else’s tyre. Then he took me to another building up the street where he had 3 used tyres. Yes, his whole stock of tyres numbered three. And I needed a 205/70 15R, his closest  was 215, 80, 15R. But at that point I was stuck right? He said as long as the 15R matched it would work, so that sounded good enough to me- not like I had many other options at that point. So we go back carrying the tyre to his shop. Now we originally had tubeless tyres, but the two that blew both had had tubes put in them because they had been punctured in places where they couldn’t be plugged. (the tubes are most likely the reason that they blew, as we were on hot tarmac and the tubes over-expanded in the heat- that is our best guess anyway).  So then the guy wanted me to buy a tube as well which I was debating about . I told him I didn’t want another tube so he tried putting the tyre on without it, but it had a puncture. Then a friend of his had another tyre that was actually a closer fit so he put that one on and we were set to go. So we rolled the tyre over to where the taxi-vans staged. There are small vans that carry way too many people for their size. We put the tyre on the roof and then there were four of us to a bench. Nico as a child went free, but it meant he had to sit on davids lap making 5 to a bench with no room for a breath!

We got to Karuma and sat on the corner there waiting for a passerby who might give me a ride back to Dale. We decided that depending on who came by and how safe/dodgy it looked, David and Nico would come with me if needed, otherwise they would stay at Heritage Park at the intersection.

I texted Ben as my back up plan. Where the car broke down there was no signal, so I thought while I was at a place where I could use my mobile, I’d make a plan. So I told him that if he didn’t hear from me by 7pm, to come looking for us on the Arua Rd.

After about 10-15 minutes in hot sun, finally a truck came by. I flagged them and they agreed to give me a ride so I jumped in the back with the tyre. They drove like the wind and we were there in no time. Dale wasn’t around but I saw a note in the window, so I jumped out, thanked the guys in the truck, and went to read the note that said he was at the UWA office “over there” and had an arrow. And sure enough up the road I found a turn off to an outpost. They had heard the truck stop and so Dale and he new friends, Phillips and Edmond, were walking towards me.

The man who had walked up when we were driving off really did work for the UWA and he and his co-worker convinced Dale that the car would be fine and he should come sit with them in the shade at the outpost. He had a great time hanging out with them and chatting, exchanging ideas and stories, etc.

I was so glad to see he was ok. I had pictured him sitting baking in a hot car for the last 3 hours.

We got the tyre changed quickly and then got going again and were back to David and Nico in no time and then our drive back to Lira. I called Ben to let him know we were fine and we arranged to switch cars with them when we reached town as we are taking their car down to Kampala tomorrow. 

We were a bit embarrassed handing over our little car with a shredded tyre on the back, dirty and decrepit and they gave us a freshly cleaned, tuned up Vitara.

From there we came home, tired, dusty.

We packed up for our trip to Jinja and David and Nico packed up there stuff and we went to bed ready for a very early morning tomorrow.

headlines of note

Land Rover aims to join the greens
One of the offsetting schemes which Land Rover has signed up to in Uganda involves investing in the manufacture and promotion of energy efficient stoves, which burn less charcoal. The end result is lower emissions than conventional stoves and a 37% reduction in charcoal usage. It is claimed that if just two stoves are used the reduction in CO2 emissions is equivalent to running a Land Rover Discovery for one year. Use of the stoves also helps to reduce deforestation in Uganda which has seen half the country's trees cut down for charcoal.

Uganda, Congo Plan LRA Attack
Uganda and her vast neighbour DR Congo have started drawing military strategies against the rebel Lords Resistance Army group, a move that could chock the ongoing peace talks.

RCom (Reliance India) to invest Rs 800 cr in Uganda

Reliance Communications (RCom) will invest Rs 800 crore to roll out a telecom network - fixed and mobile - in Uganda. The company has bagged a licence to be the African nation’s sixth telecom operator. Once the network is in place, RCOM in Uganda, will compete against MTN, Uganda Telecom, Hits Telecom, Celtel and Warid Telecom. The company plans to launch services in Uganda by Q3 in 2008. According to sources, RCom has bagged two licences - Public Infrastructure Provider (PIP) and Public Service Provider (PSP) - which will allow the company to offer mobile, fixed, internet, national and international long distance services, in addition to WiMax and Wifi services in Uganda. In the first phase, RCOM will launch mobile services on the GSM platform and then expand to the services to other communication related services, sources added.

December 2007 (part a)

061207 Thursday

Got up at 6ish. Had a cup of coffee and grabbed our sacks of breakfast and 4 waters. Got down to the ferry for 6:45am. We were told it is first come first serve and we were not sure how much of a race it was going to be. So we got in the queue and fortunately there was enough room for all except one big lorry that I think was going to get a private trip after us. So we planned to just get a guide when we crossed the river. We got over there and there were 3 guides waiting. One was david from yesterday. The other 2 were snagged quickly, but there were 3 cars still wanting a guide. While the other 2 went and got petrol, david found another guide and so then there were just 2 of us and so we decided to share David. It actually worked out perfectly for us as we really couldn’t fit him in the Suzuki that well and if he was in there he wouldn’t have been able to point anything out. So he went in the back of the red truck and they let us all take turns rotating back there as well to get a fresh air view. We also at some point took the back window out of the Suzuki so we could sit on the edge. A brilliant idea from my marvellous husband.

The game drive started off slow but not too long in david got a call about a lion so we zipped over and saw a mother lion with 3 cubs, but they were making tracks away from us so didn’t get any really good shots. Beyond that we saw elephants, antelopes, giraffes and lots of deer. Looked for a long time for a leopard, but didn’t see one.

 

I asked David if anyone has ever been killed by animals here. He said not tourists, but UWA workers had been killed. He carried a rifle with him as did the others (which also was a quandary for us if the guide was to come in our car, as MCC has a “no weapons in the vehicle” policy. Hmm.

 

Dale asked David what were the coolest things he has seen. He said a giraffe giving birth while walking and an elephant kill a hippo in defence of its baby.  Geez.

 

 

 

*******

 

051207 Wednesday

MURCHISON FALLS

Left at 7 to head our to Murchison Falls! Ben & Holly gave us a map so off we went. Went down to Kamdini and then toward Kampala and then turned right on the really NICE Arua Road.  Wow really it is beautiful! Was pretty sad that our car’s wheels are unbalanced and so the car shakes like crazy if you go over 60kms/hr. So we are FINALLY on a road we could go 120 on, and we are stuck at maxing at 80. :-S

 

At the third IDP camp you turn left off the beautiful road and drive right through a still-active IDP camp. Yes, a bit hard to think about driving to a safari park through an IDP camp. Then it is a long windy drive on small paths up to a gate in the middle of nowhere. It cost us $15 each entrance ($5 for Nico) plus 20,000 shillings for the car. It is usually $25 each, but we get the resident rate and the dude applied that to our whole group. Nice.

On the drive in we saw TONS of giraffes, antelope, and deer of all sorts (i.e. jacksons hartbeast), warthogs, and when we pulled up to the Paraa Lodge, there was a hippo right in front!

Seriously I thought it was a statue until I realised it was grazing! So crazy.

So we drove right down to the shell station right there by the nile and they told us that we had to pay for gas at the paraa lodge (where we had just past). They also told us the boat was leaving right then (noon). Ugh.

So we went up, paid for petrol (which is cheaper here in the middle of nowhere than in lira!! 2400 vs 2440/litre!)

Paraa lodge is beautiful with gorgeous overlooks at the nile! Wow. I can’t even imagine how much it costs to stay here a night.

 

So we went down, showed Moses – the Shell petrol pump guy- our receipt and he cranked away at the petrol pump for the petrol to go into our car. Then the ferry man said he waited for us for 20 mins (tho he didn’t say he was going to wait for us earlier) but he said he’d take us now, even tho the next scheduled ferry was supposed to be 2pm. Yay ferry man!  I can take a scolding for taking too long if I still get across the river!

 

So to put the car on the ferry one-way is 20,000 which includes the driver, then it is 2000 each additional person.

 

Once we had crossed we went up to the office on the other side and paid for the ferry ride we just had and for the cruise up to the falls that we wanted to take at 2. That cost $15 each (regardless of whether you are foreign or resident).

Then we went up to the Red Chilli Lodge where I made reservations. Nice double bandas (30,000 a night for a double). The restaurant is nice, spacious and has a good selection, pricey compared to Ugandan lunch “hotels” but normal compared to actual nice hotels.

 

So once we checked in and had had lunch we went down to catch the boat cruise up the Nile to Murchison falls. Here is a bit from the Paraa lodge website:

 

The 40 metre wide River Nile, on it's journey from its source at Lake Victoria to join Lake Albert, is suddenly compressed into a gorge only six meters wide, and cascades into a boiling pot 43 metres below. The earth literally trembles at Murchison Falls, one of the world's most powerful flows of natural water.

 

So the cruise is 3 hours long. On the way we saw LOTS of hippos, tons of kinds of birds, a huge family of crocodiles, elephants, warthogs, deer, and a monitor lizard. The cruise was really nice and the people aboard were all kind too which was nice. David- the Ugandan Wildlife Authority man- was our guide and really nice. At one point he came up on the roof and chatted with us for a while about the war. He’s been a ranger here for 11.5 years. The whole time through the war the park stayed open. Even when the owner of red chilli, Steve Willis, was killed by a group of LRA on the 8^th of November 2005.  When asked if he was much affected by the war, he had a very distant look in his eye and said yes. Hard to imagine what he has seen or his family has been through. He is from Gulu.  When asked about the IDP camps we drove by or through he said many of the park staff lived there which made me wonder what is camp, what has been de-gazetted, and what is temporary housing.

 

So the 1^st half of the cruise we were going up river so that it is actually like the first 2/3rds of the trip, and I took a nap for part of it. So relaxing and nice! Then we got to the falls. Obviously we can’t get right up to the falls in a boat, but we stopped in the middle of the Nile and took pictures of it, and then David told us we could climb on to the rock in the middle of the river so out I went and a number of people followed. It was so nice!

 

Came back faster with the current. Got off the boat, showered at red chilli, chilled in the restaurant and then had dinner (veg curry). I had a bit of a headache from the lack of coffee so I ordered a French press which kept me not sleeping so well. We also ordered a pack breakfast to grab and go in the morning.

It was quite hot when we went to bed too and they turn off the power at 11 I think. The camp ground is full of warthogs, so pity the fool who forgets their torch and has to go to the loo in the night.

 

*******

 

041207 Tuesday

At 10am we left for Bata Health Centre in Dokolo. Took a lot longer to reach than we had thought, but we got there in the end at around 11:30 or 12. We had to ask a lot of people on the way where Bata was and fortunately it is pretty straight forward and people are helpful.

One hilarious moment on our way there was when we came around a corner and there were 2 teenage lads coming up the street on a bike with a plate of papayas. I am not sure if it was because they were scared of white people, or the car, or because they had stolen the papayas, or because we were in a diocese vehicle and they hadn’t been to church in a while, but they looked petrified. They dropped the bike and took off running into the bush like they were being chased. It was pretty funny really and david kept hoping for a repeat when he had his camera out.

 

ACDI/VOCA is an NGO that does food distributions out there to those with HIV who were also flood affected and are poor. Of 55 eligible families, 53 came, but then there were many more people hoping to be added to the list or those who have been assessed and thought they would be on the list by now but haven’t been verified yet. There was a sign up time in October, but not everyone has been verified yet. Sad because some walked a long way here and have a long way to walk back without their food.

Paul said we were in the middle of the area with people coming from about 25kms on either side of us.

 

One thing that instantly surprised me was to see how calm it was. Everyone was sitting on the grass waiting very patiently. I guess I had images from films where people are mobbing a food aid truck. But this was all very calm. People’s names were called, then they would go and show their ration cards, they would get their allotted amount of CSB) and oil.

 

CSB

Sent by USAID. Corn flour+ soy flour+ vitamins& minerals. Can be used for mandazi (doughnut thingys), posho (a staple wet bread type thing), etc

 

AMOUNTS

They would get 7.5 kilos of  CSB per person per month (max of 45 kilos per family) and .518 litres of oil per person per month (max 3.108/family). But when you register you put on your card how many family members you have and so they give you enough for your family.

ACDI/VOCA is supported in this by World Vision, Catholic Relief Services, Africare, TASO (The Aids Support Organisation) as implementing partners (I am not sure exactly what that means though).

 

ACDI/VOCA & BATA

ACDI/VOCA has 15 Final Distribution Points (FDPs) where they distribute each month in Lira, Dokolo and Amolatar with 1055 total beneficiaries. A man named Paul from ACDI/VOCA was our contact for the day and he was so helpful in answering questions & sharing wisdom.  He used to work with World Vision posted in Pader but wanted to return to Lira because his mom was put into an IDP camp and he wanted to  be able to help her.

 

Bata has a population of 29,000. Of those, 400 people have tested positive for HIV but only 100 have applied to ACDI/VOCA to receive food and 55 are now registered.

 

Of those who are registered, 80% are women.  They are the ones who go for testing. Paul said that when women get tested and find they are positive, it often leads to violence, divorce, etc because men don’t want to know or be blamed or want to blame their wives.

 

They give people ID cards with their photograph, info, # in household, and thumbprint/signature on the front and then the information of a secondary beneficiary on the back. That person is the only one who can come in lieu of the first to collect the food. Then they also have ration cards with slots for CSB and Oil and then each month down the side and people thumbprint/sign on each space each month to show they received it.

 

When I asked Paul how many people thumb-printed because they couldn’t sign their name, he guessed somewhere around 90%. Wow.

 

ACDI/VOCA also work with TASO (The AIDS Support Organisation) who is supposed to give ARVs and counselling to the HIV infected at the same time as food distribution, but this is now jut beginning and today TASO are not here.

 

The nearest place to get ARVs is the Dokolo Health Centre 18kms away.

There is a TASO office in Lira hospital supposedly. It would be good to check out. I think they are part gov’t and part NGO. Not exactly sure.

 

Paul said there is an AIDS info centre at the village level that does testing and has support services.

 

Usually 2 NGO staff come from ACDI/VOCA and then they bring support staff that do distribution/weighing/loading/etc

 

Paul said that he’s seen a lot of health improvement since they were out here in June. They food is all from the US and the supply is constant. They provide the people with a plastic jug and bag at the beginning that they bring back each month to refill with CSB and oil.

Paul said that they encourage people not to list a child as the alternative collector, but still there were a number of children here today (and hence not in school). He said some are brought to help carry or are not in school or whatever.

 

THOUGHTS

So Paul told us that some people complain of not being given sugar to mix with the CSB to make porridge. It makes me a little irked to think about it actually. Like when do you say look we are providing for your needs if you want it to taste sweeter, that is for you to work on? My irkedness though is because this is one of so many pleas for things that weigh on me. Like people ask us for money for sugar all the time. I tell them to look for better healthier things to be investing in! Like 2000 shillings for a kilo of sugar vs 500 for a kilo of amaranth.

 

 

We also met a man named Coxen who is the director of the health clinic. We got to see his office and the centre- which seem to be like other centres we have seen- functional but dilapidated.

 

Also, a number of people stayed behind after receiving their food for ‘post-test club’ meetings. These are support groups for those living with AIDS. Very cool.

 

 

MONKEY FOR SALE

On a totally other note...

Shortly after we turned up to the health centre, a man turned up on his bike with a monkey attached to it! Yes, a monkey. And a big one. He tore off pieces of corn and gave them to us to feed him. The monkey’s name was Leo and it just chilled on the bicycle eating the corn.  One of the distribution guys came over and translated between Dale and the monkey’s owner. He said he would sell Dale the monkey for 150,000 shillings ($90). Well, if it wasn’t such a big monkey and if we knew all the laws about monkey ownership, dale might very well have left that day with a monkey, but seeing as we don’t want to be a part of wildlife trapping, we declined- even though he halved his price.  It was hilarious though that every time the monkey made a sudden movement toward dale, he leapt back and the crowd absolutely erupted in laughter. Thought it was the funniest thing ever!  Dale even tried to get the monkey to climb on his shoulder but when it made a sudden leap he leapt and everyone about wet themselves laughing. It was fun to watch the kids all run when the monkey would come in their direction.

 

After we left we stopped at the intersection a few kms away and had lunch- beans and sweet potato.

 

FLAT TYRE

After that we started the drive home and sadly got a flat on the way. Fortunately we have our new jack and so we were able to get going pretty quickly.

 

CORNERSTONE GRADUATION

So we got back to Boroboro and then went to the Cornerstone graduation. It is a private primary school where the DS’s girls go. It was said to start at 12 and have all sorts of dances and so on. We got there at 4- just in time for speeches : (  so that went on a bit. We were given drinks though, which was nice. And we did see a couple of dances that were cool.

Then it was time for food. having eaten not that long before, we were looking for a way to escape. Dale had left earlier to go and get the spare fixed before our trip tomorrow. so when people were ushering us to the table, we said ‘we’ll wait for dale’. Then when we had waited enough we left. Dale actually took a lot longer than expected as he had to get a new tube put in the tyre not just fix a puncture and he got the back latch welded on again.

So we walked home and I started making dinner a bit later- leftovers- trying to empty the fridge before we go away.

 

*******

 

031207 Monday

WFP MEETING

Had a 9:30 meeting with Solomon at the world food program which was great. he gave us the list of all the schools where they are doing feeding programmes and then we scheduled another meeting for later in the afternoon for us to get a list of all the schools in areas from the District Education Office (so we could cross check and see who is left) and then also to meet with a guy from Samaritans Purse and learn about the distribution and so on. SP is the implementing partner of the WFP who do distribution.

 

Went home and saw the diocese and so on. Then at 2 we went to Concerned Parents Association to meet with  Ben & Holly and to learn what MCC does through them and what CPA does and so on.

 

Then at 3 we met up again with Solomon and Deo from Samaritans purse.

Really good and very informative meeting. They asked good questions of us and were encouraging. I felt a bit small with the size of our project, but they were very kind and telling us to try and see what works. I was very impressed.

We were told that when we reach an area to talk to the sub-county chief who would have a list of people in need. And we were also advised to do ration cards/ID cards to ensure no double-enlisting and so on.

 

WFP INFO

WFP has 4 programmes going in Lango:
Food for Life in Lira & Dokolo (330,000 people supported under this in Lira)

During the time of insecurity and camps, they had general food distributions called “Food for Life” where they gave out food monthly. When people left the camps they were given a 3 months supply of food to get them on their feet and hopefully give them time to plant and grow their own food.

Not they have stopped doing monthly food distributions, but are doing flood emergency food in Lango. The flood emergency operation is from Sept through early Nov this year and they are still surveying the exact #s and will re-evaluate who still is in need and so on.

 

Food for Education in Lira (55,000)

                Outside of Lango: Gulu. Kitgum, Pader, Arua and West Nile.

 

Food for Health in Amolatar , Dokolo & Lira

                for those with HIV- specifically at health centres and hospitals for pregnant mothers, nursing mothers, kids under 2, etc.

 

Food for Assets in Dokolo, Lira & Amolatar

Returnees are given food in exchange for their work opening roads, digging fish ponds, seeds/cuttings, etc

 

WHERE’S THE FOOD FROM?

50-60% of WFP food aid is locally grown- the maize, sorghum & rice.

The US sends oil and CSB (Corn-soy-blend), sometimes as a donation and sometimes it is purchased.

 

WHO GETS WHAT?

They classify people as EVIs and Non-EVIs. EVI= Extremely Vulnerable Individuals (the aged, crippled, child-headed households, the ill, etc)

EVIs get 100% daily food needs met while non EVIs get 50% and are meant to work/grow for the other 50%.

Per person, per month, Non-EVIs get:

-4.5kg of cereals,

-1.5kg pulses (beans/peas),

-1.8kg CSB, &

-0.33litres of oil.

EVI get two times all that.

 

I wonder what it would be like to try to live on this myself for a month. Maybe a great youth group experiment to do together one day! I am missing fruits & veggies just thinking about it.

 

GOOD PRACTICE

Have ration cards with all the family members names on it so you know who and how many people are receiving

 

OBSTACLES

Broken vehicles, roads, double registration of people trying to get more, “food loss” (read theft) when distributing through gov’t agencies and so on.

 

 

Came back to the Diocese and met with the DPDO staff under the mango tree to hear about what the DPDO is doing. Tomorrow is the big amaranth demo at the lira hospital. Some amaranth experts have come in from Kenya. Everyone is getting ready and will be there early tomorrow cooking samples and so on.  Also there was an arch-deacon meeting going on today through Wednesday and we are trying to get pix of everyone and all the names of the archdeacons, parish priests, catechists, etc.

An actual list!

Came home and made enchiladas while the others played in the yard with Tony.  He is back around. Says he is staying at someone’s house, but the details are so unclear because we don’t speak Lwo. Really hoping we can get him in school in January.

 

021207 Sunday

Saw a big green snake in the yard near my tomato patch. Very pretty but it slithered away before I could get a pic. Think there will be more coming. Hope Magellan doesn’t get eaten.

went to church. i shouldn't have. i just don't have a good attitude about it. i went cuz sam asked me yesterday where i was going to pray. he is the church police. we watched Chocolat last night and it reminded me of that- the church police. yeah, i just shouldn't go cuz i end up irritated. Sam said we came late. i like Sam, but he doesn't make me want to come to church.

we did come late. the cathedral only has half a roof cuz it is being redone at the moment so the church is meeting at canon lawrence. CL usually has church at 8, so we went thinking they'd meet at 8, but no, they met at 7. so we were late (blissfully so).

anyway, i miss going being part of a church that in my heart language. i missed it when i lived in So Cal too. i loved the people of the church we were part of in Pasadena, but the style was different that what i click best with. what to do? it is life. i feel like in some ways i'd rather go to a pentecostal church in town, but that means driving to town which is a costly thing and also i like their music and style but it seems there is a LOT of focus on giving money which just doesn't rest well with me- especially when the money isn't going to the poor, but to a better sound system or whatever. wouldn't it be great if a church's financial message was all about giving to the poor? I'd like that.

we were talking about wills the other day and helping people make them and encouraging charitable contributions to the church in them. i feel like this is partly why God had me in my last job with the Presbyterian foundation- learning about endowments and helping people plan their charitable contributions after death and so on. like if the church had an endowment and spent only the interest on development stuff and let the principle grow it would be an amazing step toward lasting revenue for development.
the possibilities are endless. things we are thinking about...

going in town now to wait for the arrival of our guests! so excited! David and Nico from PMC are coming and will be here soon! Wahoo

--part b—

Went at 12:30 to pick up David and Nico. We were told it would be another hour or 2 so we went walking around, bought a new jack and spanner set for the car, priced out some couches, did some shopping, etc.

D&N arrived around 1:30ish I think. We took them to the Mango Tree for lunch, then swung by Pari supermarket to get cheese that is finally back in stock and then headed home to boroboro. Nico and Magellan bonded quickly, aided by the new toys Nico brought for him! They then started bringing out all the things that they brought for us from the US. Some from our families, some from the church, and some from them. It was totally Christmas! we were inundated and I think I gained 20 pounds just looking at all the chocolate chips and so on! Feeling very blessed!

Then in the afternoon we went down to the DOC (Doctor Obote College) field and played with the nerf American football. A few other kids joined in and it kind of morphed into something between football (soccer) and us football. Was fun.

Came home and had stirfry and hung out. Yay a good day!

Ugandan headlines of note

Aid Focus Shifts to Recovery

India Donates Sh440m to Flood Victims

 

The Stove That Can Save Your Grandmother

 

Museveni tells Ebola-hit Uganda don't shake hands

 

Crisis in Uganda As Ebola Spreads

 

Kampala to Spray Buses From Ebola Area

 

President Museveni Wants New Jet

 

Country to Get Cheap Computers

 

Joseph Kony's Brother Joins Him in the Bush

 

 

021207 Sunday
went to church. i shouldn't have. i just don't have a good attitude about it. i went cuz sam asked me yesterday where i was going to pray. he is the church police. we watched Chocolat last night and it reminded me of that- the church police. yeah, i just shouldn't go cuz i end up irritated. sam said we came late. i like sam, but he doesn't make me want to come to church.

we did come late. the cathedral only has half a roof cuz it is being redone at the moment so the church is meeting at canon lawrence. CL usually has church at 8, so we went thinking they'd meet at 8, but no, they met at 7. so we were late (blissfully so).

anyway, i miss going being part of a church that in my heart language. i missed it when i lived in So Cal too. i loved the people of the church we were part of in Pasadena, but the style was different that what i click best with. what to do? it is life. i feel like in some ways i'd rather go to a pentecostal church in town, but that means driving to town which is a costly thing and also i like their music and style but it seems there is a LOT of focus on giving money which just doesn't rest well with me- especially when the money isn't going to the poor, but to a better sound system or whatever. wouldn't it be great if a church's financial message was all about giving to the poor? I'd like that.

we were talking about wills the other day and helping people make them and encouraging charitable contributions to the church in them. i feel like this is partly why God had me in my last job with the Presbyterian foundation- learning about endowments and helping people plan their charitible contributions after death and so on. like if the church had an endowment and spent only the interest on development stuff and let the principle grow it would be an amazing step toward lasting revenue for development.
the possibilities are endless. things we are thinking about...

going in town now to wait for the arrival of our guests! so excited! David and Nico from PMC are coming and will be here soon! wahoo

jobs with MCC

Medical Health Care Worker (nurse - doctor - physical therapist - drug & alcohol specialist) - Vom, Nigeria
MCC East Coast Human Resources Coordinator - Akron, PA
Peace Resource Person - Vientiane, Laos
Promoter/Technician for Water Resources and Appropriate Technology - Dodoma, Tanzania
Director Assistant: Esmirna After School Program - Miami, FL
Donor Support Assistant - Akron, PA
Connecting Peoples Coordinator - Santa Cruz, Bolivia

011207 Saturday

DECEMBER!!!

Today we were woken up at 7:20 by Lakana at our window. He’d been sent by the DS to pick up the modem so he could use it. Ugh. we told him we’d bring it but just after I had dropped it off at the diocese the power went out and he has a desktop, so he could not use it anyway and now, I was awake for good.

Can’t complain, we are VERY blessed to be able to bring the Internet home with us!!!!

Jolly (previously referred to as Jolie, but I just came to learn that it is actually spelt “Jolly” and pronounced “Jolie”)and Solomon were supposed to come at 10 so I was waiting around. At noon Solomon came. Jolly was waiting for her grandmother, Constance, to return from Kampala where she has been the last month for health reasons.
So Solomon trussed my hair. Overall it was fine, but the middle bit hurt like crazy. Aah.

It took about 4.5 hours to do my hair. I like it though : )

Then had lunch, played with the cat who now really likes playing in Sam’s tree across the road, and hung out.

A nice Saturday until...

so we barricaded the front door and put a towel across the gap and covered the porch in kerosene so as to keep the spiders off. then the little &*(&^&## came through the back! seriously! i hate them! so we were out stomping again and trying to block the gap in that door as well. are we cursed? i am glad this didn't happen in the first few months of being here. this is really bad.

301107 Friday

Spiders again last night, spiders again tonight. Bad. Very bad.

Today we met to look at the longer 3 yr picture, which was cool. Nice to think and dream and put our heads together a bit which felt rewarding.

Then in the evening went to town to do some shopping (like 5 cans of Bop bug killer for our enemies the spiders). Met up with sarah and went to the used clothing market and got some new trousers- yay. And had my first ‘ROLEX’ which is a chapatti with an egg cooked on top with cabbage and tomatoes. Nice. Fun shopping with sarah : )

The vendors at that market are a little delusional though. Like they say ‘you give me money’. Hello? You are a shop keeper. You sell things. I don’t just give you money. Despite the strangeness of being asked for money, it is mainly done with a glint of humour and the best response is a joke, so it actually makes for a fun shopping experience, if I am in the right mood. Today when we’d walk away because prices were too high or whatever, they’d say “you are leaving me with no money” to which I would reply “you are leaving me with no trousers” and everyone would laugh. I had to bargain crazy hard for this one pair of cute green trousers that when I got home ended up being too small. Dude said I could exchange them if they didn’t fit, but I bargained so hard for them, I feel a bit bad now going back. So I either where them under a long top (lest anyone see the strain on the buttons!) or get malaria again so I can fit into them! Ha!

Then went to Holly’s house for Bible study. Was just Holly, Brian, Susan and I tonight. Good stuff. Hebrews.

Our car is scaring the heck out of me. The steering wheel has started shaking a lot if you go over 60 kms/hr (like 35 mph). Driving home late is ok, but driving at around 7 or 8pm is absolutely terrible. You have to dodge everyone and every genius on the road keeps their brights on so you can’t see or they have no lights at all and it is just bad. At least driving home late there are only 1/100th of the number there was before so there is much less to have to dodge!

So when i got home i found all our furniture in the living room overturned and Dale hunkered down killing spiders. He'd been killing for about half an hour. why are we under attack? top theory is that the ants are attacking the spiders and chasing them in. i hate spiders. so we stomped for another hour or two.

this is really bad.

291107 Thursday
Office
bible study- galatians 2
sarah stayed the night

SPIDERS ATTACK AGAIN!!!
yes at 11:30pm the spiders came back again. i was sitting on the chair and all the sudden noticed we had been infultrated. and so began the war. Dale went out and was front line defense again taking out hundreds and hundreds of spiders. we were out of Bop (NO!!!) and so it was all stomping. Sarah & I took second line defense. smash smash smash. Magellan was the weak link only useful in that he would notice the ones that got past. how do i teach my cat to be a better killer?

we killed for about an hour or more then the ants came up to carry off the bodies and the crickets came to feast as well. Then I waited a while longer to see how many more i had to kill. then we went to bed around 1am. Why God why???

281107 Wednesday
still coughing. went to a cluster meeting at the district health office with dale and peter. it was a cluster focused on Nutrition and HIV/AIDS. unlike the other meetings we've been to, this lacked the other NGOs and mainly was the WHO, UNICEF and the gov health people. were able to find out that there is a list of where and who has ARVs that we are hoping to get for our extension workers so they can let their clients know. So many people miss treatment because of ARV shortages (which are usually not because of shortages really, but bad stock management or 'diversion' of meds to other clinics or black markets.)
been scanning stuff today. miss my old scanning software that was so nice. what to do.
*******

271107 Tuesday
still coughing. driving me crazy.
Sarah and i made amaranth pancakes for our staff for lunch which was fun. they were amazed at how full they felt after. welcome to muno food.

traditional marriage

261107 Monday

Back to work. Working on drawing up an Internet Usage Policy (IUP) for the Diocese. The wires are strung for a network and we are just waiting on an extension cord then everyone can start hooking up, so we thought an IUP should be in place before we send everyone live.

Also been looking at sample employee handbooks since I have a bad feeling the one that used to be here may actually be gone for good.

Had a meeting with Jacob to try to discuss some things which was good.

TRADITIONAL MARRIAGE

In the afternoon, Sarah, Lakana, Miriam the DS’s daughter, Dale and I piled in the car and went our to Amac to our first traditional wedding which really is not a wedding, but just a dowry discussion. The DS’s son was the groom and the bride was not there. The DS said it was “an abomination” to have the bride at her dowry discussion. The couple met somewhere and fell in love and they then went to their families and express that they want to be married. Then the two families come together, discuss how much the grooms side will pay for the bride, and then a couple of days later they send the bride to his house. Done. No vows or promises or solemn ceremonies. Just a dowry discussion.

Then there is the church wedding which people tend to do when they are a lot older and can afford all the pomp and expense that goes with it. That one looks a lot more like western-style weddings.

I guess it seems strange to me that there is no sort of ‘vows’ in the traditional marriage, but I also don’t think that people should be denied communion until they have a church wedding. Why can’t some sort of middle ground sacred vow exchange between bride and groom and their families take place at a small level. Promises to God and each other of faithfulness and respect.

If I were chief... or arch-bishop...

There are lots of other things to say about my thoughts on dowry, but i think sarah expressed them well on her blog which i will paste here

Value Assessment
So I went to a dowry exchange today, a traditional Lango marriage. ...while I enjoyed some parts of the ceremony- the welcoming of one family into another- I was also uncomfortable with a lot of it. To begin with, the bride wasn’t even at her own marriage ceremony. That’s right. Apparently it would be an “abomination” (in the words of the father-in-law) for the woman to be at the dowry exchange for whatever reasons. As he was explaining this I was thinking, “Yes, it would be an abomination for the poor girl to be here and watch you haggle over how many cows she’s worth.” I also just can’t wrap my head around the idea of assigning someone material value (apparently women with a gap between their front teeth are worth more cows). Don’t get me wrong, this wasn’t a pre-arranged marriage- this was two consenting adults making this commitment. Yet the fact that the groom’s family had to pay the bride’s family for their loss of human “capital” bothers me to the core.Dowry also complicates things if an abusive marital situation does arise, particularly when there are children involved. While the woman can leave her abusive husband, traditionally she has no rights to the children because the man has paid dowry for his wife, and by default their offspring, and so he can lay claim to the children no matter how terrible a father he might be. I don’t think the Ugandan judicial system recognizes this, but tribal courts often do.I want to be sensitive to traditions and their symbolic worth and what they (can) do for strengthening community. At the same time, I think that some of the fundamental values embodied by these traditions need to be questioned if they don’t do justice to all involved.

Roach

So there is a roach in the office toilet and it wont flush down. He is a fighter. Dale is in there talking to him right now.

Oh, he just came out. Roach is dead. Yay!

 

spider bodies

Too scared to get up in the night lest I should meet more spiders.

This morning thankfully there weren’t any, but the chickens were eating all the bodies from last night’s massacre.  Seriously there were hundreds and hundreds of squished spiders all over the place. It was seriously disgusting. Hope the chickens don’t get sick from the Bop we sprayed out there.

 

the worst thing ever

Ok slight exaggeration, but not by much

So we were sitting in the living room typing emails etc when I look down and see a spider, then a few spiders then look around and see like a hundred spiders and many more pouring in. It was the worst thing ever. If you know me, you know I have an admittedly irrational fear of spiders and this was like all those nightmares that Arachnophobia gave me come true.

We started stomping. Then we got our can of bop and started spraying then when we had killed the ones we could see inside, we went outside to find millions climbing onto our porch, making their way to the door.  Dale (my absolute hero!!!!) went out there on a killing spree, taking out the entire army of killer spiders.

 

Seriously what if we had gone to bed early?

What if we woke up to thousands of spiders in our house? I’d be staying at Sarah’s for the rest of the week and telling Brenda to douced kerosene on the walls and set it a light!

 

This was terrible. I had to shower. My legs still itch. And my eyes continually are scanning the floor and walls and ceiling. The house smells of Bop. The cat is locked in the guest (BAM killed another) room until the fumes subside.

 

Seriously I’d take malaria over this ANY DAY!!

Nov 1-25, 2007

251107 Sunday
woke up at 8:20 with no headache! Praise God!
hoping that is the end of that! found out that magellan really likes papaya. weird.
Sam came by after church noting that he hadn't seen us there and bringing some peanut butter from his mom as a gift for us. very sweet.
Chilling at home...
*******

241107 Saturday
today my voice is at least there, though low. woke up with the "hit in the back of the head with a cricket bat " feeling again- as i have most days this week.

went in the afternoon to a cultural dance competition put on by an NGO called War Child. went with Ben, Holly and Sarah. It had been going since 8 at the Lango Cultural centre which is where an IDP camp was.
War child had trained kids in different schools in 10 areas (i think) to do cultural dances, songs etc and then they came together today here in lira to perform and compete. We met at 1:15 and drove over there, but then with the loudness of it all and general fatigue i was feeling bad so around 4ish Sarah and i started walking back to the Lira hotel where i'd left the car. Then headed to the shops for some water and came home to take some more panadol.

I hope the malaria is all gone, cuz today is the last day of meds.
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231107 Friday
AT HOME
Woke up this morning and went to call Magellan to find that I had no voice. It would come and go, but at the best moments, I sound like Selma from the Simpsons. And I am coughing a lot.

Had a headache until I drugged it away. Yay panadol.

Spent the day at home which was really nice. Weeded a little in the shade with Magellan, typed up this blog, and chilled. Really really nice

WATER
The water tank builder guy came by and quoted us some prices- for a 500 litre tank is 165K ($100) and then you have to buy a tower for it which is the expensive part. It is a few steel beams and a platform but for the 500L tank it costs 210,000 ($125). Not cheap. But considering the hours we have spent hassling and the days not bathing or flushing because of our inconsistent water, I say it is worth it!

Anyway, hope this gets taken care of before dry season when there is no other way of getting water than joining the queues at the well and hauling it back. Not the end of the world, but still a huge time taker.

SOO happy we have another 2 days of weekend left!
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221107 Thursday
YAY CHOGM
Now I have lots to say against chogm- like how they took all the road money that could have gone to fixing the really atrocious roads up here and repaved streets in Kampala so the queen would have a smooth ride from the airport and how they built tons of new fancy hotels, even tearing down schools for hotels!! And how it is all for a ridiculous few days and then it will all be left to decay, but today I am thankful because the president has decided to close a bunch of roads in Kampala for CHOGM lest his guests should have to be in traffic (he doesn’t seem to care that his citizens are always in traffic because of poor road planning and construction), and since he closed the roads, he called today and tomorrow national holidays! So we have the days off too. Not bad. Nice that is just happens to be thanksgiving as well!

So I got up and again felt ok for the morning.

MALARIA TEST ATTEMPT #3

We went over at around noon to the health centre again and this time got a test. I am sure as I was relaying my symptoms the doctors was like “geez why even check?” as I basically went down the list of malaria symptoms. I got the blood test then dale and I walked for 20 mins while we waited for the results. Came back to the centre and yes, I have malaria. The consultation, test and medicine was all 1000 shillings (like 60 cents).

Crazy.

So took my first dose and then we went to holly & ben’s for thanksgiving.

THANKSGIVING

What I am thankful for:
salvation through Christ

A wonderful husband

My family in California and world-wide

Friends

Being in Uganda

My cat Magellan

Went to B&H’s at around 2 and helped chop stuff for dinner. I felt fine as long as I was sitting down and I kept on a steady dose of panadol for my headaches. Altitude change (aka getting out of my chair) was where my head would hurt, so I stayed sitting.

I was impressed and overwhelmed with the enormity of the task set before them – cooking thanksgiving dinner for a completely unspecified amount of people, being unsure if rain would come and if that rain would keep everyone away, being unsure of who was bringing whom and everything.

Ben and his co-worker killed the turkey in the morning. His co-worker is muslim and so he wanted to kill it so he’d be able to eat it. Ironic that it mattered to him what meat he ate along with his alcohol. Anyway...

So lots to do, 6 people helping out (holly, ben, Sandra- their house-keeper and her sister Jackie, dale, me). I told dale that we are not doing this. Ben and Holly have done this for 3 years in a row. They are either really cool or really crazy. I think crazy. Haha. Seriously a lot of work. So the rain stayed away which was good and around 40 or so people ended coming for dinner. Holly explained thanksgiving and told a story then we went around and did intros and said what we are thankful for. Some were good, some were sad- like “I’m thankful for my beer” which is sad when that’s all you can think to be thank God for or “I’m thankful for my beautiful body”, etc.

Being mostly men there some of them were pretty crude and perverted towards the women, which definitely stole from the thanksgiving spirit. It did however make me thankful for the people we work with. Definitely a different crowd.

It is also hard integrating too as everyone spoke Lwo to each other, making it hard to join in a conversation so I ended up mainly talking to Rinska from war child who is from Holland and really nice. I don’t like segregating off with other foreigners, but when everyone is speaking Lwo what to do?

Did chat with a guy who was up for the day from Kampala who came along with his brother. he works there with the carter centre which works on fighting river blindness, hydro-cel, and something else I can’t remember.

So for dinner they had made: two turkeys, salad, rolls, pork, mashed potatoes, roasted cassava,

And for dessert:

Pumpkin pie, apple crisp, Rinska brought apple pie and fruit salad

It was a feast. Sucks that I don’t have much of an appetite.

I can feel like eating, fill my plate, start eating and then there will be one particular bite that says “last one” and then I have to stop.

Amazingly I lasted until 10pm (which is like 2 hours past my normal bedtime for this week) and then we came home as dancing was getting underway.

Well fed, not having a fever, feeling pretty good, went to bed.

To holly and ben: Thanks for a great thanksgiving!

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211107 Wednesday

Woke up and felt ok. Went to work. Not much I can do without having met with jacob and not much I could do feeling pretty close to death. Sarah and I did take a walk to Jolies house (via a lost detour) but she wasn’t home.

MALARIA TEST ATTEMPT #2

In the afternoon, Dale and I walked over to the health centre to get a malaria test but the doctor was gone for the afternoon at a burial. Not good. I lasted until about 3 when I was so tired I think I was drooling on the desk so then I went home and took a nap with the cat purring and chewing on my head. I feel like I have been hit by a truck. I hurt. I have a fever, then I’m very cold, sweating. Our shower usually feels too hot for me, but since I have been so cold I’ve turned it even to the second level the last 2 days. Ugh.

Went to bed at 7 or 8 again. I wake up in the night so thirsty (probably cuz I’m burning up and sweating out a gallon an hour) so I keep drinking and go from freezing to boiling.

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201107 Tuesday

Feeling ok this morning. Headache, but feeling ok.

Went in the morning with dale & sarah to the OCHA office to a food security meeting. It was really good to be there and hear what others are doing and to try to coordinate our efforts. In many ways the things we are trying to plan are so small comparatively, and it is sad that even what we are trying to plan has yet to happen because we can’t get a meeting together and solid answers on who exactly we are going to feed, which springs specifically we want to protect and so on. We were all definitely convinced of the need to go to these meetings faithfully as it was invaluable. For example, we found out that 7 of the 8 schools mentioned in the relief proposal for school feeding were already getting food from the world food programme. Back to the drawing board. I want a lot more details now.

So I am frustrated.

After the meeting we went and tried to find the otino wa office in town but didn’t, so came back to Boroboro. Came by the house. Made coffee then went over to the office. Sadly our staff didn’t know that tim wasn’t coming until noon so they’d been sitting around waiting since 9. Oops.

And since Jacob wasn’t there, we all got the time management seminar meant for him. So moses, benard, and the 6 of our DPDO staff went through it. It was good, but it was incredibly evident that Jacob needed to be there as the issues that came up were ones that he needed to be there to address.

Like the fact that our staff do not yet have appointment letters which would detail their salaries, benefits etc. They still haven’t received any more money and the tension is building. Also, it was pointless to talk about being ‘on task’ or prioritising when they still haven’t seen a job description or really had any clarity on what they are supposed to be doing. And there are many days they show up and Jacob doesn’t and so they literally just sit all day, having wasted whatever it cost them to get here, let alone the waste of a day.

I feel their frustration and I fear we are going to lose them because the buck keeps getting passed and people keep giving these lame excuses and what we really need is everyone in the same room so we can all figure out where these letters are, get whatever signature we need and be done with it.

Discouraged.

By the end of the meeting I was feeling really tired again and body achy all over so I went home.

MALARIA TEST ATTEMPT #1

Tonight Dale busted out the first aid kit. We have 2 rapid test malaria kits. So dale opens one. Takes out the dagger (ok the small stabber thing) and stabs my finger. He think it wasn’t enough so stabs me again. I hope this doesn’t become a habit. So I put my blood on the thing and then we go to pour on the magic-solution thing and the bottle is empty. Both kits’ bottles are empty. So there are bleeding for nothing. Twice stabbed for nothing. Tragic.

Went to bed around 7 or 8.

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191107 Monday

Working in the office. Didn’t see Jacob until he came to say that the Bishop was sending him to Kampala to a meeting of church leaders who had issues with the PRDP (Peace, recovery & development plan for Northern Uganda), and he had to leave right now. Bad timing since he will be gone through Wednesday and Thursday and Friday are national holidays. So there is the week gone. Hmm. And on top of that Tim from CRWRC was driving up from Kampala today to conduct a time-management seminar with Jacob tomorrow. So Sarah called him but he was already in Luwero and decided to come anyway and give the seminar to other staff. Frustrating really. There are things to finish, questions I need answers, meetings we need to have, things to iron out, but no Jacob. Ugh.

Feeling sick today. Body aches. Tonight had a 101.6 fever, then chills, etc.

Wondering if it is malaria.

Been taking a primaquine a day, but might not have been enough as you are supposed to take two, but holly was told by a doctor she could take one, so I went to one as well...

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181107 Sunday

Got up at 9:30 (YAY!!) it is cloudy today so it was much darker in our room than normal which helps sleeping in! At 9:45 Sam came by to ask where we prayed today (meaning where did we go to church). I told him we prayed at home. I am sure he wonders about us. Really though, as I have said before, church is not a worshipping experience and while I could go for the sake of going (meaning for the sake of appearances really) I don’t think God or I would be very happy with that. So my neighbours are probably going to spend their time wondering about my faith in that I am not going to church, but I pray that those who know me would see my faith in my LIFE vs in my church attendance.

KARUMA FALLS PICNIC

At noon I met up with Holly&Ben and Jodi & Chris at B&H’s house. Ben and Chris were digging up some cassava tubers from Ben’s garden. We packed up the car and then headed out to Karuma Falls about 75kms away where the Nile divides North from South. We found this great picnic spot having pulled off on a side path that took us down to the river. We sat under a big tree on some rocks. It was great!

There were a lot of ants, but we poured some paraffin on there at set a good number of them on fire.

We placed a grate over a couple of rocks and set the charcoal on fire and while it was heating up Holly and I went and stood in the Nile. Nice!

Then came time to cook food. Someone had brought skewers of pork and pineapple so we cooked those first. Then we put on veggie skewers with green peppers, onions, & tomatoes. Then we threw on cassava from Ben’s garden. It was great!

And peanut butter cookies. Yay!

Some guys were spear fishing on the other side of the river.

It was a great day. Stayed until about 5 or so then drove back to Lira.

There was an LRA forum or something going on that B&H invited me to with them to, but I was a bit tired and driving home at night is never fun (though I must say it is better now that Dale fixed the headlights!

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171107 Saturday

Up at 8:30, hung with the cat, carpenter came over at 9:30.

Water is off.

I made pancakes for Dale, Sarah and I. Hung out, watched west wing extras from season 2. Water came back on- yay! Filling tubs back up now.

Magellan got chased by the turkey today and then by Ken. A bit like Of Mice and Men- he can be sweet with Magellan, but I think he could just as easily twist his head off.

Carpenter got the screens on our bedroom window now- yay! Has to come back again Monday to do the bathroom and pantry. Almost there.

Off to town... hoping for propane and petrol to both be in stock! That would be great!

-

Yep they had both! Hung out with sarah and she bought me samosas at the Lira Hotel. She is cool. Went there to read but mostly chatted and got some good clarity on some things which was good.

Came home via picking up some charcoal at the bar near our house. Not a place I like to get out of the car at night really.

FRUSTRATIONS

Yep, so we are in frustrations over confusion on budgets. We are trying to plan our travel down to retreat in Jinja and it has become an issue since we are being told now that the Lira people should only take one car. Well that is difficult as we had planned a while back to go down a few days early. And then Ben & Holly are coming back 3 weeks later after going home to the US. So all of us would have to bus one way- which really sucks for B&H since they will have their US luggage both ways. And it is frustrating. I think I’d rather take the bus than drive but then we have to figure how to get back to our car then drive back to Boroboro. It just adds hours and hassle to an already bad trip. Hopefully though our bus driver won’t drive us off a bridge and will leave on time and the bus won’t break down and we will arrive while it is still light. That would be wonderful (and rare).

Finances in general have been a big frustration here. We are not sure ever what things will be approved and what will not. In many ways I envy the set budgets of X amount per month for X,Y, and Z or a certain amount per diem so we could eat cheap some nights and go out to a restaurant on others. But the arbitrariness of our situation makes it very difficult to know what is covered and what is not. Like a drip-irrigation system for our house? Like maple syrup at $4 a bottle? Like banana flavouring. Like a rain-water collection tank? Like an outdoor faucet? I don’t know. A per diem sounds really nice though. It is hard to have to think through each and everything we purchase and figure out if it is personal (out of pocket) or part of our food and household. So we get $66 a month in our personal drawing account (PDA) to spend on whatever and then we have a food & household budget that is unspecified but is supposed to cover basic food etc. But it is often a question of what is ‘basic food’- like is salad dressing a basic food or a personal luxury item? Is juice? Is lotion? Etc etc. Really I thought $66 sounded like plenty but I have been shocked at the prices here and anything not grown in a field here is incredibly expensive- because there is no industry and so it is all imported and then added with a big import tax and a big mark up because getting it up here is so difficult because the roads are so bad and someone let the train system become defunct.

Anyway, all that to say a set ‘per diem’ amount would make things less stressful and allow us to pinch some days and splurge on others without having to debate every single purchase.

We are surprised about what things are approved and what is not. We just don’t know and we fear to ask.

`

I guess I am frustrated because as people asked if they could support us financially before we left we told everyone “No” because our org covers our costs in country and we didn’t think outside support was necessary (esp since our org didn’t give us guidelines to let us know that they likely would be needed). So then to find out things like driving anywhere not work or shopping related (like someone’s wedding or a funeral or to visit a friend) is out of PDA or if we come to Kampala a few nights early before retreat we will have to stay in a hotel PDA, (and as I said PDA doesn’t go so far.) etc makes it frustrating. Really frustrating.

And then there is the Diocese- and I wonder what we will accomplish in the next few years and what a resettlement programme will really look like and if we have the capacity to pull it off.

ISSUES

So we have 3 field workers who were hired either before we got here or just as we arrived and it seems they were hired with no letter of service or contract or agreed upon wage. So month #1 goes by, no pay check. Month #2 goes by no pay check. They recently received 100,000 each which is ‘something’ but not much. And isn’t even enough to cover the boda (bike taxi) fees out to Boroboro.

So we are unsure what to do.

Questions

1) Who decided to hire them with no plan for payment?

2) Is there money there?

3) If so, has it really just been held up by people out of the office and broken computers?

4) Were they hired with the hope that an NGO (our org or CRWRC) would pick up the tab?

5) At whom does the buck stop?

Round and round we go and they are all still without a letter of agreement and just getting chucked enough to appease temporarily. But really, there is insecurity and I wouldn’t blame any of them if they told me they were looking elsewhere for employment and it makes me sad because I think the money is there, but it is just clogged on someone’s desk. Bishop’s office? DS’s office?Finance? DPDO? That is the question.

I have this terrible tendency to jump to bad assumptions like that someone put the cart before the horse and wanted to appear like we had greater capacity as evidenced by three new field staff and hence we are more able to receive and manage donations. And one of those needed donations is the salary for said field staff.

Hmmm. But maybe not. Maybe it is just that there are no good structures in place to hire or pay someone and that is why people leave.

BIKE

Then there is the motorcycle that is around that is used regularly but is not legally registered. X says the money was given to register it. Y says they gave the money to Z to register is. Z says they were never given money for it.

You’d think they’d be a pretty easy paper trail to figure out if 300,000 shillings was budgeted for registration or not. But, for some reason, that paper trail isn’t there or can’t be traced or no one wants to embarrass anyone etc.

Ugh.

There are more frustrations but I’ll stop there for now...

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161107 Friday

POWER OUT

Power has been very bad all day. No internet. Scanned some things while the power was on, typed up a letter to the health minister, etc. Dale crimped all the network wires so we are now completely wired together! So exciting! He is my hero!

Found out today that we have caps on our relief budget. It would have been good to know that before we made our relief plan, but anyway, now we are going back again to re-allocate funds, try to find other donors, etc. So our org has capped us at 20K and CRWRC capped us at 10K. So we cut the spring protection in 8 communities in 3 areas that all have 2/3 or more of their population drinking unclean water. We hope to find funding for them elsewhere though.

KEN

Came home to talk to Brenda who let us know that today “Ken disturbed me a lot really”- while she was weeding in the garden the bishop’s son Ken, who is mentally challenged, had come into the house (despite that the door was closed) and turned on the radio and got into the groundnuts that she had just roasted. Argh. I feel bad that I always make his stay outside but I am sure one of these days I am going to step out of the shower and find him in the house! Ugh.

Sarah stayed the night with us again cuz Jacob didn’t make it to work today and he was her ride home. So we watched more Westwing and we made her serenade us again, which I LOVE!

Carpenter came back today AT LAST! Didn’t finish completely, but we have one attic door now so people can’t live up there.

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151107 Thursday

Dale and Lakana have been wiring the offices today to network all the offices. Lakana (who is super skinny) was the rafter man running the wires in the attic.

I surfed the internet for different things today.

LUNCH TIME DISCUSSION

Wow had an interesting discussion today at the office over lunch about dowry, women’s rights, clans, etc. Got pretty fired up actually. Coming home last night

TONY

So tony is a kid that hangs around our office a lot. I asked him once where he went to school and he gave me the name of a school. But then the last few days I have seen him in the morning when he should be in school. So I started asking questions- and it turns out that his story is as follows-

His mom got pregnant by one of the boys at Doctor Obote College (high school next door to the Diocese), but it doesn’t seem he ever knew about Tony. When she gave birth she “threw him away”. I am not sure what that means literally, but the idea is she didn’t want him and abandoned him and went to Kampala. So he stayed with his mothers brother for a while. Sadly, the uncle died and he had two wives, neither of which wanted Tony so he was thrown out again. Since then he has been scavaging. Not sure how long that has been but literally eating scraps and just scraping by and was sleeping in the field bear us. But then Lakana sort of took him under his wing and he now stays with the workers at the diocese and lakana will prepare water for him to bathe and people share food with him. He is the sweetest kid. He comes and sits in our office and listens to music with us and dances with me.

Really heart breaking to find out his story is so very hard.

So there is another brother to his mother that they are trying to track now to see if he will take him in. If he doesn’t we need to come up with alternative solutions. He is 10 yrs old and has never been to school.

This is where the idea that “we take care of our people here” breaks down. The other week we were talking to a woman who works at COSBEL about discouraging people who are HIV+ from having children and she said “Oh no, we take care of our family children here.” I said that was bull. I have seen many family who ‘take care’ of their siblings kids and all, but it is not at the same level as they care for their own. Those kids won’t have their secondary school fees paid. Those kids are the ones who are forced to work around the house. They are fed, but they are not cared for. I am speaking in grand generalities, but this is what I have seen as the norm.

And here we have Tony. Left. A ten year old with absolutely no one willing to take care of him, so he lives at the diocese. There was talk about getting the tribal elders to talk to the uncle’s co-wives and make them take him in, but that breaks my heart too to think of what that life would be like for him. I can’t imagine he’d find that much better than hanging at the Diocese.

Please please pray for Tony. Pray that we can find a home of love for him. There is an orphanage here that puts kids in families of 8 and we are thinking if the other uncle doesn’t work out, to look into that and see what tony wants.

I feel bad. I feel guilty. I feel torn. What can I do for tony? What would be best?

I don’t know.

BIBLE STUDY

Had bible study tonight with Sarah, Peter, the DS and us. Decided to look at Galatians. Good stuff. Good to talk about legalism vs the Gospel of faith and what it means when Paul so zealously and emphatically tells people to hold on to their faith in that Gospel of freedom and not to choose shackles of law. Good stuff.
Sarah stayed the night and we watched half of Fahrenheit 911 then I started falling asleep. No offence Mr. Moore.

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141007 Wednesday

Had Lwo lesson today. Christopher even gave us a quiz!

Went to town in the afternoon for a new tyre inner tube, grinding amaranth, groceries etc.

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131107 Tuesday

Continued to rework the relief budget. Finally got through it and began to clean it up.

YOGA&BIBLE STUDY

Met up at Holly’s for yoga and then had dinner with them. Then headed over to Jodi’s house for Bible study. Hebrews 5 and hummus!

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121107 Monday

Started to rework our relief proposal at last today. Good to tackle the questions.

Got a letter back from our CRs today saying my answers to my annual report were too short. I was frustrated when I wrote it and am frustrated that there is frustration with my answers. It was due Oct 1^st, at which time (not all that much unlike now) we had very little direction on what we were doing and what our role is. And so I got sent back some ideas of what I should have included which would have been nice to know before I started writing it. I guess for some things they wanted a one page reduction of my blog- like issues in gender discrimination, frustrations at slowness or disorganisation, how I’, feeling etc. In some ways I feel weird sending off these deep thoughts emails as reports to people who knows where to be compiled into who knows what. I have another one due in 3 weeks. They are meant to be bench-markers it seems to track progress, which I think is great, but I guess for where we are right now- where progress is questionable at best- it is frustrating. Things are happening, but the speed is underwhelming.

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111107 Sunday

Our Country Reps (CRs) stayed the night last night and left just after 8 this morning, which meant we got up early. Sleeeeepy.

We need to plant some coffee trees. How cool would that be!?

Had breakfast and said goodbye.
hung out the rest of the day reading etc.

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101107 Saturday
Got up at 8ish and went out and started digging and planting more live fence since the old ones have mostly died out. worked until 10 when the others woke up.
Then we came to sarahs house for pancakes with SYRUP! yum!!!!!
Sitting in sarah's house now using the wireless for the office next door :) rain falling outside. Nice chilling on her comfy couch. i want a comfy couch. one day maybe.

-went shopping for irrigation pipes etc and then came back home to get ready for our Country Reps coming over. Had dinner with them and hung out. good to chat. a bit rushed, but good to chat.
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091107 Friday
Not much to do today. Gathered Amaranth recipes off the internet. If you have any other recipes for amaranth send them along!

BIBLE STUDY
At 5pm had bible study at our house, but while we were waiting for someone to show, Sarah and I went digging. Then Jolie came, so Dale, me, Sarah and Jolie studied Philippians 4. good study. challenging butt-kicking stuff in that chapter.

Sarah stayed the night so we watched chicago and an episode of west wing then she serenaded us on the guitar which was AWESOME! Yay- the weekend is here!
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081107 Thursday
SOROTI
got up at 6 and drove over to Soroti for a consotium meeting of 4 denominations that are trying to work together to put together a relief proposal. We were there as the face of our organisation. Pretty good meeting but slow going. Irritating that we drove 3hours from lira to get there for 9 but the person who was coming from 2 minutes away was 2 HOURS late. so we sat and waited and waited. SO annoying. Anyway the day went on.

ACCIDENTAL LUNCH BREAK
At one point we breaked for lunch and were just leaving the PAG church where we were meeting and as we pulled out a motorcycle hit a bicycle and the bicyclist hit his head. the motor dude took off running leaving his motorbike behind. Mob justice is crazy here, so if you hit someone your best bet is to get to a police station ASAP. So likely thats what dude did.
The PAG'ers we were with took the injured man to hospital before joining us at lunch. they said his head injury was swelling while they drove. Pray for that man.

We had lunch at a place called Paradise. It is funny not being able to read the menu because this is no longer Lango/Lwo territory. they speak Tesso here.
Then back to the church and not two seconds after we stepped in we hear a loud and long screech outside- right where the last accident was. Seems the hood/bonnet of truck flipped up while the truck was cruising through town. Driver slammed on his breaks and (Praise God!) didn't hit anyone.

Then back to the meeting. got a few things accomplished but not as much as was hoped for. then dale and i left just after 4 to try to get home before dark. The road to soroti is hellish. it is the same road i skidded out on the other week and we skidded out a few times today but not as bad. I drove there and Dale drove back. I very nearly was launched into a bike with a bunch of sugarcane on the back and Dale was nearly launched under the huge tires of a lorry. Yeah, not looking forward to driving to soroti again!!!
The drive is beautiful tho and on the way home we saw an amazing full double-rainbow. So beautiful!
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071107 Wednesday
Went to the Water-Sanitation Cluster meeting at the UNICEF office from 9-11. pretty cool. Came back and the archdeacon meeting was going on. I asked Jacob to come and get us if there was a time we were needed and the meeting was in english. I decided to save us all from a fate of sitting staring blankly for a few hours.
So we kept working and just got called in for a brief few minutes where we got introduced and had lunch with them, but otherwise sarah & I sat and worked on a rewrite of our relief proposal.

Went to Jodis at 6 for yoga and then had Bible study/community time afterwards. really good night.
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061107 Tuesday
Happy birthday dad!
met and planned out the course of the month. We'll see how well it matches up at the end!
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051107 Monday
Got up and went to the pauline hotel for a meeting said to start at 8:15. We found out on the way we were to pick up Sarah, so we swung by there and got some directions and made it there by 8:30, and were among the first to arrive. Meeting began after 9. Shoulda stayed in bed. :-S
So then we had a meeting with the “heads of department” but really it wasn’t. I mean if you were talking heads of departments, you’d have all the heads there not just 2 right? Hmm.

So the youth guy and jacob would really be the only heads. Then 2 finance guys, the DS, Sarah, Dale and I. No mother’s union and no Ugandan woman’s voice. Hmmm.

Meeting is all about making a strategic plan for the diocese. I had a month long training a few years ago for being a strategic coordinator, but I am realising this is something new as there are about 12 different levels of decision making bodies that are out there somewhere in the diocesan stratosphere that any plan has to filter through and I fear that any paper that gets sent there gets burnt up along the way. Hmm. Not to be pessimistic....

Really I know I work for a denomination and am seconded to another denomination, but really I have issues with denominations. I always have had issues, but before I could have my objections from the outside, and now I have my objections from the inside. The whole hierarchy thing, these huge decision making bodies that instead of being there to help local voices be heard and make decisions well, seems to kill decisions and remove the local voice...especially the female voice. Why are there no Ugandan women in this meeting? Why are women always grouped with children? Why is the only women’s group in the church “Mother’s Union” and their focus seems to be on making women better housewives. Where is the group for single women? Non-child-bearing women? Working women? Women clergy? Not there. Not here. I am irritated and I know I am here to be the voice that keeps asking the questions, but I seriously hope to God that at the end of these 3 years I don’t have to keep asking.

Had lunch at 1 and then came back to Boroboro and worked from home with the cat on my arm :) Jolie is coming soon to help me replant my carrots, tomatoes and eggplants. : )
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041107 Sunday
OBIM (in Apala)
Got up at 6!! AHHH
Drove over to Sarah’s where we all supposed to meet at 7. Waited in the car until 7:45 when Jacob & Joshua showed up. Then we drove over to Obim in Apala to go to church, about an hour away on a terrible road.

CHURCH
Showed up at St. James church in Obim and there were women waiting there for us holding flowers and singing welcome songs. Wow. Had they been there since 7:30 or 8 waiting for us? It was now 9. So we went through the church as people ululated for us. Seriously it is humbling to be greeted like we were rock starts. Humbling and weird. Went to the back room behind the stage to be welcomed by the priest and then he offered to let us preach. We went ahead and said Jacob could do it!

Then we went out to the waiting church and got our seats- on the stage of course. What proceeded from there was hours and hours of church, which I read my Irresistible Revolution book. It was baptism day so there were about 10 women with infants at the front of the church who were prayed for then taken to the back of the church where the babies were baptised. The baptismal are at the back, I was told, to ‘welcome’ the new baby into the church with baptism. Some of the mothers looked SO young!So the baptisms took over an hour, then Jacob preached, then there was offering and auctions. There was even a goat brought to the front and sold for 23,000 shillings. This church (like all the others) is also building a brick structure next to itself to be a permanent building.

Church ended at 12:30. Already a very long day. I think I have fulfilled my quota on church this year!
Then we were taken behind the church and we and the rest of the church were all fed and there were some speeches etc. It was really humbling. They had cooked this huge lunch for us. Wow.

OBIM CAMPS
What is even more humbling about all this is that up until 7 months ago everyone in this church was in a camp. The hill just near the church was covered in make-shift huts. They moved everyone up on this hill so the UPDF (army) could protect them as the LRA would come through the village. They were put on the hill so at night anything the army saw moving they would just shoot at. During the day they were ok, but at night the LRA would come through. The man who did the translating for us in the service had been taken by the LRA but escaped after a few hours- praise God! He was badly beaten though. It is so amazing to see these people now as they have resettled and are going back to life. It was impacting to think that all the infants who were being baptised had been conceived in camps, but born in freedom.

I gave a little thank you speech particularly to the women, we prayed and then we went with a large group from the church up Obim hill.

CLIMBING OBIM
It was a big rock and there were tons of rock circles where shelters had been. Like not even 6’ in diameter. You had to sleep curled up with who knows how many others and the ground was rocky slopes! They would level the ground with dirt and thatch the walls and roof over themselves. During the day they would go and get water and food and farm but at night had to sleep on the hill. There were lots of remnants of life, like a campsite after campers have left. An old tooth brush, a cup, discarded woven mats, etc.

We climbed to the top and walked along the ridge and to the back side. There was an awesome drop off where some guy used to hang-glide off down to the village below. Great views and a beautiful hill and yet for so many this was the place of their suffering. Praise God, it is now once again a place to play.
Walked around and back down.
Loaded up the car and headed back to Lira.

BIBLE STUDY
Got home, made spaghetti and garlic bread and then Holly and Ben came and Holly and I did yoga and at 7 the SPers showed up and we had community group/Bible study time for a few hours. A long day. But overall a good day.
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031107 Saturday
hung out most of day then went to town and had dinner with ben and holly at Lira hotel. good times :)
*********

021107 Friday
Not sure if work is happening today or not. Hmm. We are still at the house and it is almost 10. Brenda came about 9:30 because we said we weren’t going to be here and I think she figured she could finish her work in less time. That’s what I’d do too.

Got up and found the fridge guard had burnt out, so I need to go to town and pick up a new one. Really glad the power didn’t spike into our computers! Or anywhere else. Really weird. I like fire but I don’t understand electrical fires so they scare me a bit more. Electricity in general really. Like what to touch and what not to, and what is live, etc
Ugh
*********

011107 Thursday
ABER
Got up this morning sleepy. Dale asked Lakana to have the office open early, so I ran over there and printed out my notes for the 2 day training that starts today. Then we left to go and pick up sarah and jacob for 8. It seemed our leaving plans had gone awry somewhere and tony and peter were still in town and not in Aber already. So we then had to put 5 in our can and send peter on the bike. A bumpy hour+ ride to Aber.

FRUSTRATING
We got at 10:30, there hoping to see a number of people there already, but there were just a handful. Jacob went in to talk to the archdeacon and see what was going on. Sadly, it seems that the people he was supposed to call were not called and there was some lack of understanding of what exactly he was supposed to do. On top of that somebody’s brother somewhere died and ‘everyone’ is out at the burial and he (the archdeacon) too had to leave. Ridiculous.

Not like he doesn’t have a phone and couldn’t have saved us the journey out there. Not like we didn’t call him a number of times over the last fortnight and not like 3 different people didn’t visit him during that time also.

So we had a little meeting between all of us and the 5 participants to discuss what to do. As we had expected 30+ people, it seemed a total waste to keep the 6 of us staff there for 2 days to teach 5 people. The archdeacon said he’d have a meeting with his parish priests on the 5th and could talk to them then about a meeting. We said that was fine. Another reverend said he wouldn’t come unless he was given a letter! Yep, he wanted an actual written invitation to come to a meeting for the development of HIS parish. Hello? What the $@#@#? The archdeacon also said “It is hard to meet on market days, and around here that is Monday through Saturday.” So basically, we got the finger.

So much for the aber archdeaconry planning and development committee. We decided we are going to go to the parish level instead (there are 10 in aber) and work where we are welcome and where people are motivated. It is good talking to jacob and getting his perspective. He says many people are still stuck in relief and not in development- meaning with relief you just keep getting handouts to keep you going, but in development you need to start building and doing something with what is being supplied. I think that is true.
So we started back home with a bit of venting and a bit of laughter. I like that about our team. I like that we can laugh when things go wrong. Thank You God for them.

TROUBLING THEOLOGY
So we swung by a piece of land that Tonny’s father owns to look at and there was this large group of kids that followed us around, crying out “muno, muno!” When we stopped I said in Lwo, “where is the muno?” and as they pointed to me, I pretended to look around to see who they were pointing at. Then I asked if they were pointing at the Ugandan man next to me. Then Jacob said, “are we muno?” they said no. Then Jacob said “who are we?” and they said “people (human beings)”. Then he asked who we were and they said something like gods. SERIOUSLY DISTURBING.
We instantly set about a little theology lesson- explaining that we are all people and not gods. Then I asked what colour is God and tonny translated who does God look like and they all pointed at us. ALL the kids pointed at us! I could have wept at the evilness in that. Who the hell told these kids that God is white? (and yes, I do think hell has a LOT to do with it!)So I told them that God is a colour they have never seen and they can’t even imagine. Then I asked if God was a man or a woman and they all said “a man”.
Again I said “No.” And explained that God isn’t black or white, God is God. God isn’t a man or a woman, God is God.I felt it so deeply. Tonny said in the pamphlets the Jehovah’s witnesses hang out that God/Jesus is white and satan is black. Seriously screwed up. I hope it isn’t true.

It is funny that there are many people focused on sharing the Bible to those who have never been to church, and here I am feeling so deeply that I need to go and RE-share the Bible to those who have gone to church every Sunday but have been given the wrong view of God- be it through sermons, the MAN they see at the pulpit, or in our terribly sexist and mono-ethnic Sunday school materials that we have exported around the world.

I am angry but hopeful that those kids will remember what we told them today. But I am sad that Sunday after Sunday someone is telling something else.

We dropped by sarahs house to get her sick computer and then came home. Dale is getting a cold, so we had some grapefruit and watched west wing and chilled. Glad to be home and playing with Magellan. I really really like our cat!

BRUSH WITH DEATH- take 2
So after dinner Dale was playing solitaire and I went for a shower. Now I have mentioned before that our shower is a death trap. If you touch the taps or pipe while the heater is turned on you get electrocuted. Just a few days ago in fact I backed into the tap by accident and zapped my bum. Yep, that was a shocking experience! Anyway tonight I went in the bathroom and turned on the showerhead heater thing and then it just started sizzling and then the wires in the wall (exposed) all caught on fire. So I started yelling “fire! Fire!” and quickly ran out of the bathroom. Time to buy a fire extinguisher I think. The fire burnt the wires and burnt itself out. Thankfully our house is all concrete so it can’t burn much more down. So a cold shower.

Really glad I just live with Dale though. My fire reaction was just to run and if I was glad that when I escaped naked that there were not others around!
Not happy with the flaky electrician who said he’d be back in the afternoon 2 weeks ago and as yet has not returned. ARGH. -

ADDENDUM
Found out the next morning that the fridge guard also had caught on fire and burnt out at the same time but we weren’t in the kitchen so didn’t notice. Fridge is ok though. Glad we had the fridge guard which is meant to protect the fridge from surges and all. Ugh

**********

interesting

According to Ugandan law, sexual responsibility for males is at age 14 and for women, age 18 (note the difference between genders!). This means if a teenage girl becomes pregnant and is under the age of 18, her partner, if over the age of 14, is arrested, fined, and imprisoned.

(taken from megan’s blog)

A new movie about Northern Uganda, coming soon

Hey all, just an fyi, there is a new movie coming out called war dance (www.wardance.org) and there are a few places it will be showing in the next month or so, so I put them down here below. You can watch a 7 min trailer on the website.

Just thought I’d pass it along, esp as all the proceeds go to charity – I like stuff like that J

SHOWING:
16-Nov
Pasadena
Playhouse 7; 673 E Colorado Blvd.; Pasadena, CA

14-Dec
San Francisco
Lumiere 3 Theater; 1572 California Street; San Francisco, CA

News

Brutal Ugandan rebels ask for forgiveness — and get it

 

Uganda's LRA Rebels to Begin Consultations Round Two

MCC new service opportunities

mcc.org/serve

EFL Teacher - Cairo, Egypt
Teacher Trainer - Tanta, Egypt
Regional Low German Program Networker for MCC Ontario - Kitchener, ON
English Teachers - People's Republic of China
Teacher Trainer - Assiut, Egypt
Immigration Legal Services Advisor - Reedley, CA

We and They, by Rudyard Kipling

FATHER, Mother, and Me, Sister and Auntie say All the people like us are We, And every one else is They. And They live over the sea, While We live over the way, But—would you believe it?—They look upon We As only a sort of They! We eat pork and beef With cow-horn-handled knives. They who gobble Their rice off a leaf Are horrified out of Their lives; And They who live up a tree, And feast on grubs and clay, (Isn’t it scandalous?) look upon We As a simply disgusting They! We shoot birds with a gun. They stick lions with spears. Their full-dress is un—. We dress up to Our ears. They like Their friends for tea. We like Our friends to stay; And, after all that, They look upon We As an utterly ignorant They We eat kitcheny food. We have doors that latch. They drink milk or blood, Under an open thatch. We have Doctors to fee. They have Wizards to pay. And (impudent heathen!) They look upon We As a quite impossible They! All good people agree, And all good people say, All nice people, like Us, are We And every one else is They But if you cross over the sea, Instead of over the way, You may end by (think of it!) looking on We As only a sort of They!

27-311007

311007 Wednesday
Left Magellan home today with Brenda. Spent the day typing up a report that I think used to be on Jacob’s computer but was lost when it crashed. 30+ pages. Finally finished. Yay. Made stir fry and some cookie dough - :-)
Sad to have to leave our cat for 2 days. Brenda is going to come on Friday though so at least someone will be around. But still it is 24hours alone :0(

MEALS
so it is weird- at the Diocese lunch is not provided, but then there are days where someone asks for them to be there and I think someone picks up the tab for it. I think there is this feeling that we are guests and so should be given food. We are cool bringing our own but we are never quite sure when someone will say “lunch is ready, come,” so it is a bit hard to plan. So yesterday and today, jacob has been in kampala so no lunch was called for. So we came home, but then there is this huge guilt because our co-workers all live in town and can’t just run home for lunch. On the other hand there is Koporope’s restaurant which sells lunch at 500 shillings, so they could go there. I don’t know why they don’t, but it makes it a bit awkward. Hmm. I’m gonna pack a couple PB&Js next week.
Came home from work and played with Magellan for a while. Today he discovered flies and the unending fun that can be found chasing them. He also got a lot braver with the chickens today, actually beginning his offensive taking steps toward them in the lion prowling kind of way. And then when he saw the rabbits he just climbed onto my lap and stared for a long time. So cute. He also learned to jump today as opposed to climbing. Growing so fast :-)

301007 Tuesday
Went to work without Magellan today. Pretty slow day. Seems that the internet is always off when I want to use it. Ugh. worked at the office then in the afternoon came home to work on my devotions for the training this week.

Went to the bus station to pick up sarah and all our tech-goodies that she brought from Kampala.

Had dinner at the White House- malakwan and chips (malakwan being the only veg thing on the menu, and chips being a treat- though really chips without vinegar seems like a waste of a junkfood allowance!) Cute place. I like the curtains and the fact that they write out the menu of exactly what they have. I SO appreciate that.
Dropped Sarah off and got home just before the rain came. Yay.
*******
News
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dhn2c9s7_67fpggz8
http://allafrica.com/stories/200710261301.html
Unfortunately, there seem to not be many leaders who want to copy the Chissano way. For every Mozambique, there is a Uganda. It should be noted that both Mr Chissano and Mr Museveni assumed power in the same year: 1986. For every Zambia there is a Gabon. For every Senegal, there is an Ethiopia. For every Botswana, there is a Zimbabwe. For every Tanzania, there is a Burkina Faso - where Mr Chissano spoke on Wednesday. For every Namibia, there is a Guinea. And the list goes on.

Uganda Rains Affect Conflict's Displaced So far 204,000 of the 300,000 people affected by the floods have received food by land, water and air. Tens of thousands remain unreachable. Many, like Ayaa, are those who had been displaced by the conflict, one of Africa's longest, in the nation of 30 million. "We had begun to start thinking of restarting our lives but the rain has taken us back to the time before there was peace," he told The Associated Press.Only after Uganda's rural residents return to their countryside homes and harvest a season's crops can they begin to end their reliance on charity. Schools can reopen, communities can rebuild — and the youth can find occupations that make them less susceptible to rebel recruiters.

: Kony Rebels Arrive At Entebbe

America's Cockroaches & Museveni's Investors
*******
2901007 Monday
Hot day. No air. We need a fan in our office before dry season comes!
Finalised out plans for our training this week, typed stuff up.
Off to grind g-nuts now and maybe to town to grind our amaranth. Yay
*******

281007 Sunday
Got up early, even before the alarm, which is weird. Dale went to church, but I stayed behind and read Blue Like Jazz and bathed Magellan. A very nice and chill morning.
Dale came home and we had banana pancakes and just hung out all day. Really really nice.
Finished the book in the evening. Nothing new per se, but a good read in a very simple narrative style.
I love having Magellan around- very thankful for my new cat!
*******

271007 Saturday
chill day
went to lira in the afternoon and marketed, got paint etc to paint the loo. I got bitten to death by mozzies or something and it driving me crazy! AHHHH.

261007 Magellan!

261007 Friday

went to work with magellan today! so fun! everyone liked him and he just slept either in my lap or in my skirt pocket all day. he is SOO cute! Today we planned out our training-workshop for next week. I am excited that i am signed up to lead devotions both days.
After work i came home and Brenda and i worked on the garden, replanting some flowers and planting the dward sunflowers that Dale's mom sent seeds for.
then in the evening Dale and i went to Farm View for dinner. We were the ONLY ones there and the power was out. after a while they turned the generator on so we at least had light beyond the latern on our table which was bringing in all the bugs. we were sitting outside which didn't exactly help. It is a nice quiet place, but the food took literally hours to make. I had veg curry and dale had pork chops. It was a bit ridiculous as to how long it took, esp considering we were the only ones there. but we had a really nice time hanging out and talking. then came home, made brownies, watched a really sketchy movie that we borrowed, and an episode of 24 :)

261007 Our new kitten!

Meet Magellan!! Our new cat given to us by Jolie last night. YAY!!!

251007 Thursday

Went to work. dale is doing field reports from his visits this week. I am typing up a long doc. the copiers/scanner/printer we just got doesn't have drivers for vista and the file is to huge to download here, so my dreams of OCR scanning this 30 pg doc have evaporated. Ugh.

Had our language lesson at 2 with Christopher.

so Bible study tonight was kind of cancelled due to CRAZY rain and HAIL (in my hand in pic)! yep, we are a stones throw from the equator and still we have hail. weird. this is my rose bed filled with rain (and our new gate in the background)

Peter came at 5:40 (we are scheduled to begin at 5) but he had to be somewhere at six, so hung out a bit then left. after he left Sam came at 6 and he hung out with Dale the rest of the night. Jolie came over a bit later and we hung out in the garden and then we walked to her house and i got to pick out a kitten! YAY! i got a gray and white one. then we walked back in the dark and mud carrying this crying kitten in a waste paper bin. Finally got it home and it was scared but settled in fast, falling asleep on Dale's chair. SOOO sweet.

241007 Wednesday

Yay the internet is back on. Was off again last night. We share a connection with Jacob. Actually we don’t have a connection ourselves, but we have been allowed to take their modem home at night, which is awesome. But if Jacob is on, then we can’t be. So we share. But we are SOOO glad to have even some access at night! Wahoo!!

Got a table cloth for our desk today and Dale now has a chair. Things are coming together!

 

231007 Tuesday

Quiet day. Dale spent the day in Iceme and Otwal, meeting with pastors there.

Around 9 the DS came with the electrician who he caught and brought to try to fix our shower again. Unfortunately he didn’t have any tools. Also the switch for the shower broke too this morning that we hope he will fix. He said he’d come back later with his tools, but alas, he didn’t.

 

I was in the office by myself all day- meaning without anyone else from the development staff. Sarah and Peter are off with Sid and Audrey from CRWRC looking at Amaranth projects. Dale and Tonny are out. Esther and Jacob are MIA. And here I sit uploading stuff onto our new blog site http://DPDOLango.blogspot.com

And uploading pix.

All in all a very quiet day in my big office. At first we were a bit humbled by the big office we were given, but now that I have sat here I am noticing that our ‘location’ isn’t as ideal as we 1^st thought. Outside my window is the outdoor fly-filled latrine and right behind me on the other side of my wall is the indoor (but not working) toilets. The smell is ok unless I get westerly wind :0(

 

We were also given a desk which is cool, but it has red ants in it somewhere and now I have about 20 bites on my arms where they were resting on the desk. So those are the downers, but overall, a nice big clean office : )

Lakana also gave us a table for our new copier today so I set that up.  Supposedly I am supposed to be the monitor for who uses it. Great. I get to be the copier witch.

 

Went home around 5:30 and weeded our sort of drive area. Thinking I am going to square off another patch to be weed-free. Happy that my other trees and all are doing well.

MUNO

So there is this word here- Muno- that means European/Whitie/etc and isn’t supposed to be derogatory. Wherever we drive we hear a cacophony of children’s voices calling out “Muno, muno!!” as we pass, and most days it doesn’t bother me. But I must say, I still have a strong distaste to being called out specifically for my race. So while weeding today these 2 kids stood at the fence yelling Muno muno for about 10 minutes. When they would ask a question, I’d answer. Otherwise, I was intent on ignoring them. Ugh.

 

221007 Monday

Dale left at 8 today to hit the post office to mail off a DVD to Lincoln Glen of some video posts we did on the refugee situation here. Then he picked up Tonny Fred and went to Aber and the Archdeaconry in Acaba and then to Loro, meeting with pastors, extension workers and an archdeacon. They were taking around the Oxen Traction Form I made last week to try to get some idea of where the animals are, how they are doing, how they are being used, etc.

 

I stayed here and half the day I was on line in the DS’s office working on the diocese blog but then the internet just up and died. So there went that. So I spent the rest of the day adding flesh to a grant proposal we hope to submit soon. I was also given a DESK for our office so I finally moved in! How long have I been here squatting? Now I have a desk! 

Then this crazy storm came in. It sounded like a hurricane (not that I have ever been in a hurricane) as sheets of water came pouring down. It felt so nice, cooling everything down. So I stayed holed up in my office working for the rest of the day.  Eggs and potatoes for dinner with fresh bread – YUM.

Uganda flood victims look to the sky for food aid

http://africa.reuters.com/wire/news/usnL1979985.html

191007 OLINIM, Uganda, Oct 19 (Reuters) - Ugandan flood victims stared up at the sky on Friday to witness U.N planes start dropping bags of aid, the first food some had seen in months. Surrounded by rotting crops, some lined up eagerly and others took to the shade under sparse trees as an Antonov cargo plane droned past, dumping sacks full of beans and sorghum to the ground with a repetitive thud -- 26 tonnes in total.

 

Uganda: Top LRA Commanders Surrender in Sudan

http://allafrica.com/stories/200710210034.html

211007

THREE senior commanders of the Lord's Resistance Army surrendered yesterday to the Sudan People's Liberation Army, lending credence to reports that there has been a major split within the ranks of the rebel group....

 

211007 Sunday

Had a call just before 7. It was peter finding out what time we were leaving.
told him 7:30. Had our coffee and a tangerine and then we picked up peter, went to the total station for petrol and to fix our flat spare tyre and then met up with Jacob and crew at the Lira hotel and then we drove off to Akea, a couple miles away.
We went to St Marks church which is right at the base of Akea the hill/mountain.

Church was ok. In Lwo without translation, so I just read my Bible and Irresistible Revolution book.

Geez, part of offering today, someone brought a huge sack of groundnuts that went for 41,000 shillings! Woah!

 

After church we signed the ever-present visitors’ book and then set off with a large crowd of people to climb Akea. It was awesome! All the kids from church and an adult or two went up with us. The kids were amazing. Strong and fearless!

It was a harder climb than Ngeta, but much faster. A lot of scrabbling. Really fun! Then the kids, Sarah and I went over to the next peak of Akea and decided to descend from there, which looked easy, but was a bit steeper than it looked. It was so much fun! We all made it down safe and sound. The kids are so amazing and fearless though! Wow!

 Click here for an album of todays pix http://picasaweb.google.com/marikachristy/ClimbingAkea

 

Left akea and we all went to lunch at “new Lango hotel” by the market, then bought some fruit and came home. Crazy that the few people who are selling veggies etc in market today charge way higher. Less competition makes them think they can charge more. Really though, they lost my sale and I’ll just come back in the week!

 

Impressing my new friends

171007-201007

201007 Saturday

Sarah came at 10, then she and I went off to AMAC Market about 5 kms south of us.

Today was also the BIG visit day. Some MP was coming to the diocese for a big fundraiser for the cathedral and bishops house. So they resurfaced the road, slashed down the bushes, had all the kids out at the corner with the tarmac for whenever she might arrive. Even a brass band. Pretty crazy. I don’t understand really. But it must have worked because they raised 38million shillings in one day. Yep, raised that’s over $20,000 all raised locally. And after a fundraiser last month that brought in a few more million. Slightly adds to the frustration in the ‘lack of funds available’ for relief projects and so on. Reminiscent of the money that was present in aboke to buy an electric keyboard, generator and speakers, but NOT present to buy a new bore hole so the school could have water.

Brush with death

Geez so on the drive to Amac we were going on nice and fine and the road was bumpy but not the huge holes that swallow the car. That was the problem. Seems enough of those small bumps might be worse. We were going and then the bumps got the car right and sent the car flying across the other side of the road, skidding through the ditch, back up on to the road and back across the other side. I was somehow ok in the midst- meaning I didn’t slam on our always-locking breaks and I tried to control the wheel for what it was worth. There was a poor guy coming back from the market with a huge stalk of plantains on his bike who threw his bike down and leapt into the bushes seeing that our car had lost control. Sorry dude.

Yeah, after that I went about 10 miles an hour to the market. There went my nerve for the day.

Amac market is really huge and sprawling, slightly organised but not much. There is sort of a butcher section, a live cattle coral section, new clothes section, used clothes section, sort of a tomatoes and onions section and we never found the fruit section. There are no lines of stalls just hundreds of stalls/mats scattered everywhere that you just have to manoeuvre through.

New (Pre-loved) Clothes

I was on the hunt for a pair of jeans and maybe some long tops and YAY I found some. A pair of jeans for 2500 (less than $2) and a dress that I will use as a top for 2000. Not bad! Bought some veggies as well and a hoe handle (at last!) Then came home.

Had lunch at house with Sarah and hung out. Just when she was going to go home, the rains came so she stayed :-) yay. Dale(my hero) fixed the hoe head onto the handle so now I have that too.

Sarah and I made pizza and around 6, B&H came over and well all ate and hung out together. YAY a great day!

191007 Friday

Today we sat and had a Planning meeting- our first as a planning department (read in the irony). We planned out the week ahead and even a bit beyond which for me- the western organiser/planner- was really nice.

Dale will be out driving Monday and Tuesday next week and I’ll be working on the blog (which really is a huge assignment of faith- faith in power AND internet at the same time!) Sid & Audrey from CRWRC will be here next week overseeing some Amaranth projects, so Peter and Sarah will be out doing that. The meeting took a very long time. I think I am overly-task oriented. Dale is a lot more jokey and can take the time which I think does really well here. I get frustrated at the long derailments and really want to get the calendar planned and get on with it. I think we are a good team in that way- Dale can be personable, I can push the job done.

181007 Thursday

171007 Wednesday

ADUKU

(Liz’s blog on today)

Today we headed out for Aduku- about an hour away. We went to the church we had visited last time and met with a huge group of people there- home based care providers, HIV+ clients, etc. Got to hear different stories about getting people to test and getting them on medications and so on. Was really good, but alas, almost everyone who had been tested was a woman. How do you make men value testing AND take responsibility for their health and the lives of their family? This will be a question I think I’ll be asking for a while.

We went and visited Patrick who is head of the Home based care providers in Aduku, but is also HIV+ and is feeling ill right now. He has an amazing plot of amaranth growing as a demonstration plot. It is just about harvest time.

After him, we visited a man named Joel and his wife and elderly parents. Joel just found out 2 months ago that he is HIV+ but then had some Baptist pastors/evangelists come by and preached to him and told him to get off his ARVs so then he got very sick.

Neither his wife or children have been tested. I just sat there looking at them wondering if she or this baby in her arms was going to live long at all.

His very elderly parents were also there. His dad was handicapped and his mom came and sat with us. She was talking about the hopes she had that her soon would be looking after them now, but it is the opposite and they are having to still take care of him in his illness.

Liz had some prophetic words to share with him, which peter translated which seemed to speak to the hearts of the family. I love when God does stuff like that.

From there we had lunch at our favourite place in Aduku- a place owned by the wife of the pastor there I think. Had a grubbin lunch at a fraction of the costs of the rip off meal we had yesterday!

Came back and were told to come back to the Diocese to meet with the Bishop at 5. So we were here, but Jacob and Bishop were both gone. Bishop came 5:30ish and Jacob at 6ish and we had dinner sometime later. Everyone was so tired and I could tell they were itching to go home, but had to stay. I didn’t even know we were having dinner. Ugh. We hung out and actually had a really good chat time, then the power went out and people started loading up to go home. It was now dark. Then, just then, I realised I didn’t have my keys. Crap. Crap. Crap.

So then we had to try to figure out what to do. Fortunately the Bishop had a spare key to one of our doors and we were able to get in.
However, on the way to his house Miriam his wife, said “Hurry hurry! These ants are all over”

No kidding. All over their ground were these biting ants. All over. It was insane. So there the three of us are at our front door trying to get in and we are swatting and slapping and scratching. I swear I was so close to tearing off my trousers right there, they were hurting so bad.

Yep, that would have made history.

We got in, said goodnight and then stripped and started killing ants. I hate them. Why ants God, why???

171007 Wednesday

Went to Aduku

Met with Patrick who is the Chairman of the AAPCD- AIDS project

He is a Home based care provider, and also positive

Today he is ill. Vomiting, weak.

Went to see his amaranth demonstration plot, just about to be harvested.

Visited Joel and his wife, Joel’s very aged parents

He tested 2 months ago

Baptists

Very sick

Wife hasn’t tested.

5 kids including one nursing baby.

Woman with foot ulcer

Back to diocese

Dinner at Diocese

Heard tonny’s story

Locked out of house

Broke in with bishop

Ants eating us alive

numb

So this is a different kind of blog post. I find it easy to post about the day to day doings and what we have been up to and the power being off etc. But in the midst of keeping up with that I take much less time to reflect. So here is one for reflection....

 

In so many ways Uganda feels normal to me. It doesn’t irritate me or feel foreign really. I think people in general seem similar and we all like to laugh and usually at the same things. When I was in india I swear I never quite got the joke. Bureaucracy and the lack of development and infrastructure due to corruption irritate and anger me just as they do in every country I have lived in.  Our house feels like home now, I like being in the garden, and we can cook everything we used to eat in Pasadena basically. Dale misses his carne asada, but me, the veg, doesn’t really miss much food-wise at all. (maybe cilantro and olives and bacos). The bugs are bad, but I could always be more vigilant about using deet right?

 

So life feels normal and I kind of wonder, “should it?”

We are surrounded by people who have horrific stories to tell. Neighbours who have seen death, war, great loss and pain. And yet, when I hear their stories, I don’t feel the pain I thought I would. Is it because I have read so much and been immersed in the study of this pain for so long? Is it because I know I can’t feel all of it, so I feel none of it?

 

It is funny the things I react to instead. Like when I see 10 live goats strapped on to the back of a bike with their heads hanging down and I feel so sad. Or when I got so incredibly angry the day when the dog that hangs around our office came limping up because someone had beat it. Or when I cry a lot watching a stupid movie (like last night- Sisterhood of the travelling pants). The times I have cried here have been for reasons not at all related to Uganda per se, but I wonder if I sub-consciously store up little bits of sadness that then come out when it is safe.

 

I don’t know. All in all though, I feel numb. I feel like my foot feels when I have sat on it for too long. Like a dead foot listening to parents tell of their children being stolen from them, raped, impregnated, discarded, mutilated, abandoned. Maybe it is because I have no answers. What can I say? Maybe I don’t think there is a point in feeling their pain. It would just add to the gross amount of pain here. Maybe I want to just bring what I can in comfort, in aid, in prayer.

 

Maybe I am looking for some confirmation/consolation for my numbness. I just look through the window while those around me are connecting with the pain, like when you walk through a hospital’s corridor and look in the rooms of the dying and their loved ones grieving.

 

I feel like there are many times in my life where God has come and given me the choice as to whether I want to feel and cry or not. Depending on the time and circumstance, I have chosen. I have gone years without crying; without being able to cry. Then there are times when I choose to feel that depth of pain and the tears have flowed. I am not sure what I want to choose here. I’m not sure if I want to choose to feel the pain of those around me. Not sure I even want God to give me the choice. Not sure if I want to be un-numbed.

frustrated

No water

No internet

No reasons

 

Why don’t things work? Why don’t we have water AGAIN? Why can I never get my internet connected? Why? Why ? why?

Why?

 

161007 Tuesday

Today we went with the CRWRC group to visit Cosbel: Community seeking better living. They are a group that focuses on working with people living with aids, getting them nutritional food, home based care etc. Usually when someone comes to them they are very sick, and once in the Cosbel programme they are able to get WFP food for a year to help them get strong again (coupled with ARVs/Septrim). There are home based care providers who keep an eye out on them too and help them as needed.

We were greeted at Cosbel by a welcome choir singing welcome songs- all HIV+ women.

Then we sat and listened to the history of Cosbel and so on, then we went west on the road to Kampala Rd. Visited one person. Then back to Teso bar, which is our Slum. Really so different than the rest of time and VERY different from our village. Can’t understand why people want to stay there. Filthy. Almost everyone was brewing alcohol and there were tons of nasty smelly sludge pits from the alcohol. Everything stank. Everything was gross. So many kids not in school. Why? They COULD go to school, but they aren’t there.

I found myself angry at the women who brewed the alcohol. Alcohol which mainly the men drink, get drunk, then often turns into rape and abuse of women. I felt towards these women the way I feel to those who pose for porn- they are traitors to my gender. They are at the root of this disease that is ending up destroying their own kind. They say it is for money. They say they need to buy soap and salt and selling alcohol gives them money to do that. I say I know enough women who have left that and found some other way to make a living.

Vile crowded sad hopeless

We visited a couple of patients there. One was our Cosbel guide’s 6 year old son. Our Cosbel guide, Kasim, is negative. His son is positive. His wife died a couple years ago without ever having been tested. A good reminder to me to not just be angry at men for bringing AIDS home.

Bible study at Ben and Hollys tonight. I made Espresso coconut brownies : )

Really good to hang out with them and the SPers. Yay!

Dinner with Liz at the Lillian

Like Dale's new glasses?

Caxton (one of the Home Based Care Providers) & Liz (from San Jose on tour with CRWRC) visiting the home of one of our HIV+ clients.
This pig was like a dog sleeping at this little girls feet and even licking her feet! One confused pig!

151007 Monday

{For more details read Liz’s blog on the week}

Wahoo the CRWRC group is coming to Boroboro today

Had an interesting morning... while we were having breakfast, a man we know came to the door asking for some money to help with medicine. When we asked what he needed medicine for, he said for AIDS. What is interesting is that this guy is about 70 and looks healthy. Doesn’t fit the demographic here really. I am glad we are with this group this week learning where we can refer people to for help and how to hook them up with home based care providers and so on.

Went over to the office in time for devotions- that of course weren’t happening today. Seems everyone practically is out of office for the burial of the big VIP guy who’s funeral we walked in on yesterday.

The group arrived and we gave them the introduction and tour. My friend Liz is in the group and it is sooo good to see her!

Today, the group was taken around with a couple of home based care providers to see the work going on around boroboro.

We were with a few HBC providers who took us to meet their clients. It was a very long and tiring day. I must have climbed in and out of the back of the Suzuki about 40 times. We were supposed to have had lunch and be done by 3, but we didn’t return to the church for lunch until almost 5.

Most people we visited were doing well on ARVs, were glad for HBC providers help, and were active in encouraging others to go for testing also. Almost all the people we visited were women. There was one man at the end. Both he and his wife had aids.

Men almost never go for testing here. And men are often the main spreaders- between polygamy, adultery and promiscuity. There is a real fear to be tested and very very few will accept.

Had “lunch” at around 5 at the church then went home to chill for a bit then went down to the Pan Afric where the group were staying, met Liz and then the three of us went to Lillian Towers for dinner. I was pretty amazed Dale wanted to go back there after the last time, but fortunately this time they did have pizza. It wasn’t great pizza to be honest, but the company was fantastic! It was really good to get a catch up from Liz on things back in CA and news etc. Yay friends!!!

Dinner at Mango Tree with Sarah

141007 Sunday

Skipped church

When we were in aboke this week we ran into Isaac and some others who said they were going to be at st. Augustine in lira around midday. Not knowing what time the service started or finished, we showed up around 12:30 but by then there was a funeral going on for some VIP guy. So then we went and tried to get paint in town but nothing was open. Went to bank. Got petrol. Came home.

At around 7, we had dinner with sarah at the mango tree J we are working our way through the few restaurants here. Mango tree, like all the rest, has a very extensive menu but actually nothing on hand. They have all these pizzas listed but never have pizza. So I made the kind suggestion that they just take a black marker to the menu and not have to deal with frustrated customers any more. Just leave the things you even occasionally do have!

It was a great time hanging out with sarah though. She’s way cool and I thank God for sending her here!

131007 Saturday

Got up at 7:40 with a phone call. Who calls at 7:40 on a Saturday? Ugh

So I was up then. Power is still out. 40 hours since it went off. Ugh.

 

Had some bread for breakkie and chai. Hung out then at 9 Dale went over to work of the computers at the diocese as the guy who had installed the stuff before is here this weekend so they can figure out what went wrong.  The power is out, but they are going to buy fuel for the generator to get the comps working.

It seems interesting to me that the office will shut down for days because there is no power, and there is a generator that could be used. So I am trying to figure out if it just seems like fuel is more costly than lack of productivity in the office? How much is the labour worth in comparison to fuel costs?

Anyway...

While dale was at the office, I was digging, re-setting my flower garden. The flowers we planted look so so good. I am really amazed at how beautiful they are  Yay!

So we are making room for more and even for a path from our new gate to the porch.

today we were going to go to town and get paint for the bathroom and spend some time reading at lira hotel, but plans have changed.

 

Around lunch time the generator stopped working, so dale came home and ate the rest of the bacon that was in the fridge since it was all going to go bad since the fridge is now just a stink box. And we both had the 3-day old rice. Brenda made a LOAD of rice on Thursday and we have been trying not to waste it. Mixed with all the other left overs (spaghetti sauce, beans, &eggs) though it has been quite nice.

 

After lunch the power came back! WAHOOOOOOO!

So just as we were getting set to go to town, plans all changed and dale has gone back to the office and since I already showered, I didn’t go back to digging.

I did however want to plant my avocado seed in the back, so I went out with the spade and BAM hit right into the water pipe that (sometimes) brings water to the house. Sprung a leak. ARGH. Went to the bishops and two of his guys came over and wrapped the hose in a plastic bag and then wrapped that in strips of rubber. It is awesome to see the ‘McGyver spirit’ (sp?) in people!

 

So now it is 1:44 and the power is on, so it is back to enjoying my laptop. Yay.

 

 

 

121007 Friday

No power still. Sad.

Got up and tried to go to devotions and of course there was nothing going on and no one there. Think that was my last time of trying.

So we sat around and waited. Talked with reverend Dick for a while and found out some AWESOME NEWS

Turns out they are having a big fundraised next Saturday (20^th) and for it they are paving the road!!! Yes, our bumpy-nasty-I-hate-to-drive-it road! So they are bringing in 6 lorry-fulls of maram (red stones/dirt) at 25,000 a load and they are paying something like 450,000 in fuel to run the grader. So the whole thing is 600,000 (around $350) which seems like a reasonable amount to me. The 3 big schools, the diocese and the police station are all chipping in to pay for it. It seems to me businesses should also contribute since it is their cars that are being thrashed on the road coming down here. Anyway, we are so so excited!

Eventually our office congregated. We had planned to go over the government’s development plan for the north but since we all had no power, we hadn’t been able to read it. So the day was changed. We came up with our shopping list for town then Tony, Peter, Esther, Sarah and I went to Lira to price stuff out for our relief plan.

First stop was the mill shop. We are looking for a mill to be able to grind Amaranth and maize as part of our food aid program. The normal Indian guy who runs the shop is away, so another man who lives in Mbale is there sitting in for a month. I was taken along as the hindi speaker and it was really cool. He was so over-joyed that I spoke Hindi. He invited us to come behind the counter, sit on the couch, gave us sodas, and was so kind. His prices were good and he was willing to do whatever he could to get it to us quickly. It was a great time to chat. He has been in Uganda for 5 years and he kept saying I was the first person (he meant non-indian) he had met that spoke Hindi. He is actually Sikh.

It was a bit of a cross cultural moment when he gave us sodas. So here, Ugandans always pray before drinking and eating (a practice I love!) and so I asked the man if I could pray, and told him I would pray in hindi. He asked me why and I said because I wanted to thank God for bringing us to his place and for the gift of the drink. He seemed a bit weirded out by it, but accepted. I haven’t prayed in hindi for a long time so it wasn’t as fluid as I’d like, but I know God got the idea : )

After we hung out at the shop and saw the store room and where he lived, we said good bye and then went to try to find the craft shop that is no longer there, then went to price grains in town for our proposal.

Then went to look at iron roofing sheets.

And then rushed back to try to catch Jacob before he left for kampala, but unfortunately missed him by 5 minutes. Ugh. On the way to town and back, we saw the construction on the road. It is funny because step one is to put huge boulders in all the potholes and eventually they will come and crush them down. In the mean time however the road is now almost completely blocked by these boulders. And our “Lake Peace” (the part of the road that has been a lake ever since we arrived) is gone.

So then the work day was over.

I planted a couple more avocado seeds. Read a bit. Then this kid andrew came over with a letter he wanted us to give to someone in California. We tried to explain to him that 1)we were not going to California for 3 yrs and 2)giving us a letter with only the guys name on it, was not going to help us find him in California. Sweet kid. His letter was asking for 2 million shillings to go and study in California. He must be about 13, so you have to admire his boldness in asking for $1200 to go study. The letter was a jumble of words that actually didn’t make sense at all, but he seemed so genuine in wanting this letter to get to his friend, it was sweet.

From there I dug more holes to transplant mango trees into. I think 5 or 6 more. So many bugs live underneath our plot of land. It is gross really. But I am adjusting : ) Got them all planted then had a cold shower. Digging with a hoe instead of a shovel is much faster, but I always end up throwing dirt in my hair on the upswing. ugh

So then we hung out. Without power and once it is dark, there is a real lack of things to do. I tried reading by candle light but it just adds to the heat and gets tiring leaning toward a candle. We played backgammon for a bit. Tried to get the battery pack to charge the laptop one more time but it didn’t. Just sort of passing the time.

GREAT NEWS!

Then we got a phone call from Gann who was calling to say we could get an inverter AND a water tank! It was time to dance! Water AND power! So exciting!!!!!

I think I went to bed at like 8 and fell asleep.

This week I have been eaten alive by bugs and so I find my safe haven inside my mosquito net.

111007 Thursday

Got up at 7.

At 8, took Michelle to the bus station in town but found out the mini-bus doesn’t go until 11:30 so she came back with me to Boroboro.

While I was gone Brenda had come. I am really liking having her work here! It makes life much easier!

On our way back to Boroboro we had followed Gann Dale and Ron on the road. We have a meeting today.
so at 8:30 we went over there for devotions, which actually happened today. I just need to find out when they happen and when they don’t. Everyone else seems to be in the know. Is it just when the Bishop is in? Or is there a rhyme and reason for when there are devos and when there are not?

I knew they were happening today though because our distinguished guests said they were coming. We were few to start but everyone trickled in by the end. The bishop led the devotions and we prayed.

Then we went to the bishop’s office and met. We were: Ron, Gann, Dale, Michelle, Dale and I, Jacob, Tonny, Esther, the DS (Diocesan Secretary), the bishop, & the treasurer. (Peter and Sarah are in Aduku today).

We had a good meeting and some good questions were asked.

Then the group left around 11, taking Michelle back to catch her bus.

“For I know the PLANS I have for you”, says the Lord.

So then we, the development people, had a good meeting talking about the plan for our secondment. Seems MCC has been waiting for it for a while and it was supposed to be done before we came, but it is done now. There are no specifics (which I inwardly long for), but really that is the nature of the game. Like, who would have thought everything would have been put on hold to deal with floods? And who knows what else will spring up that will alter our course?

Had lunch. Came home and changed out the propane tank that had run out.

Then came home after lunch.

Bible Study

Not sure what to make of it, but we were just 3 today. Sam is in Pader. Dixon, we think, is in Kacung. Jolie didn’t show up. So it was just William, Dale and I. A great study with the 3 of us, but I miss the rest of our group too.

We studied through Philippians 2, but then ended abruptly when the rain started to fall. William was on his motorcycle so we shared prayer requests and said we would all pray at home and he left in a rush so as not to get soaked. It hasn’t rained all week, so we are thankful for the water (I am anyway as I have to water all my trees by jerry can otherwise!)

Power went out at 5:30pm. Stayed off all night.

Glad to have food cooked. Yay Brenda!

101007 Wednesday

Got up at 8ish and had breakkie with Michelle

Then met up with Sarah, Gann, Dale and Ron at Hotel Pan Afric and then we all drove off (in 2 cars- not all crammed in our Suzuki!) to Aboke. We stopped at our host parents’ home and picked up JB to come to the prayers with us. Rose was going to come, but has malaria.

So we went over to St. Mary’s College in Aboke.

PRAYERS & the ABOKE GIRLS

If you want a great book to read about the war in Northern Uganda, read “Aboke Girls” by Els de Temmerman. It is the story of St Mary’s College. On October 10, 1996, the LRA came to the school (it is a secondary school) and kidnapped 139 girls, between the ages of 12 and 15. They had been in their dorm room and the LRA knocked down the wall and got the girls out. The head mistress, Sister Rachele actually followed them out into the bush and negotiated with the LRA and was able to get 109 of them released. The book tells their story and the story of the other 30 who had to stay behind. Some escaped, some were killed, 2 still remain in captivity. Every year on this date, there are prayers for those who have come out and prayers that this will be the year that those still being kept, will be set free. It was really a moving ceremony and it ended with everyone walking the path that the girls were led out on, singing and praying as we went. The songs that were sung through out were so powerful. The voices of all the school girls at the school now calling out for God to intervene. It was amazing. And there was a time for prayers in some 8 or so different Ugandan languages. It was really good to be a part of. Calling on God as a community for complete freedom of those who are enslaved.

After the prayers we went back to JB’s for a bit then left. Sarah got a ride back to Lira with Mr. Frazier from Radio Wa and Michelle, Dale and I stopped at aboke corner for lunch, then went back to Boroboro.

At 7 we met up with D&G&R and a group from concerned parents association for dinner at Pan afric. It was amazing talking to Angelina (head of CPA) and hearing her speak. Her daughter was one of the 30 kept for a number of years and later escaped. Another man was there whose daughter got away after some 3 months. It was so powerful hearing their stories. So humbling. Like being in the presence of people who have experienced great pain and loss and have come out still with joy and faith.

091007 Tuesday

Apoya Kati Owuru!!!

Happy independence day!

Yep, today is Uganda’s 45^th year of independence!

But we still have no water :-(

We were going to go down and watch the parade with Jacob, his family and Sarah, but we had 2 flat tires and so dale took the car in to be fixed and I went to the market and by the time that was all done, we headed back home.

had a nice chilled afternoon and day off. Though dale made 2 trips today to the bore hole for water. It is his time to make up for missing push-ups!

Then at 6 our Country Reps, dale & gann came over with the MCC international programs director, Ron Flamming. We made spaghetti and garlic bread and fruit salad. The garlic bread & fruit were great, but I put these squash things in the sp. sauce and the skin was like bones- too hard to chew. Live and learn.

I just hope I did poison them.

:-S

As I took our dishes away I screamed with delight when I came to discover we again had water! WAHOOOOOOOO

New UN movie online about Northern Uganda

UGANDA: Picking up the Pieces

Click here to watch

Picking up the pieces : After two decades of war and displacement, it is dawning on the people of northern Uganda that they have a chance to go home. After two decades of war and displacement, ongoing talks between the government and rebels of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) could finally bring peace to the people of northern Uganda.

But how will people settle the past – with forgiveness or retribution? And what challenges does the future hold?

In keeping with its long-standing commitment to address the humanitarian crises of northern Uganda, IRIN Film’s latest production, Picking up the Pieces, explores these issues.

Should the rebels be tried before the International Criminal Court in The Hague, or face a system of local justice? How will the issue of land ownership be addressed now that hundreds of thousands of the displaced are returning home? How will communities restore traditional values eroded by more than a decade of camp life?

Case study Alice Ayot survived a rebel massacre in 2004, and was beaten almost to death by child soldiers. She only survived because her husband looked for her, thinking she was dead. For her, forgiveness is a bitter pill to swallow. “I think in their hearts, people really do not want to forgive these people. But the government wants it, because they need to talk peace. Myself, I would jail them,” she says. Opinions are sharply divided. And not just among communities but families as well. Ayot’s husband, Peter, believes that forgiveness is the only way forward. He thinks traditional justice should be used – a ceremony that persuades communities to accept the past for the sake of the future. “I can forgive them. Because if I don’t, this thing will just remain a trauma to my family and to my children.”

Background After the LRA launched a brutal rebellion in 1986, two million people were displaced. Many were forced to live in government-controlled camps, as the LRA launched a violent campaign against its own community. There were massacres and mutilations – about 20,000 children were abducted or killed. Life in the camps was tortuous - death and poverty rates were high, and family structures broke down. People lost livelihoods because they were denied access to their fields, and struggled with basic survival, penned into the camps by strict curfews. Now the camps are closing and people are beginning to return home but many still depend on food aid, so they keep one foot in the camp and one in the village. If they leave the camp, they may no longer be registered for assistance – a risk they cannot afford to take. The young and vulnerable still need support while the family prepares to move back to the village. People need hoes, household items and seeds, as well as money to re-build abandoned structures. But in some of the less affected areas, such as Lira district, the move out has been more decisive. Markets are developing along the main roads and next to the newly settled sites. Old trade routes are being opened up again.

People are getting back on their feet economically, selling produce from the homesteads and making charcoal from the newly accessed fields and forests.

Current problems
There are problems, however. Says Galdino Opalo: “The transition from the camp is really difficult. Sometimes we go without food, and we have no household items. The children just sleep on the floor without blankets or mattresses. And I don’t have the strength or the money to put up a good building.”
In addition to these difficulties, Opalo is HIV-positive. The camps had some of the highest HIV/AIDS rates in the world and his wife Santa died just before the camp closed. As a consequence, he was forced to pull his 16-year-old daughter Juliette out of school to run the house.
“I do not know when I will die, but by the time it happens, Juliette will be mature enough. Pulling Juliette out of school was not our wish, but when her mother was ill, she could not do anything – and the children would come back home to nothing.”
Juliette has effectively become head of household.
“I have to cook for them. It is not good because I am being denied an education. I don’t know how my life will be here. When you go to school you learn good things that change your life and future.”
Issues of justice certainly preoccupy Opalo – but they are ones of land rights, health and the future of his children.
“My greatest fear is that tomorrow when I die, people will come and grab the land away from my children. If I had money, I would get a lawyer to write my will and make sure my children get this land.”

-------------

UGANDA: Picking up the pieces (Northern Uganda)- transcript

081007 Monday

Work- excited about my new task- to start a diocese blog site! Stay tuned!

Update 081007

Hello everyone!

Well in case you haven’t been meticulously reading our blog (smirk), here is a quick update on the last couple of weeks...

We have been doing a lot of travelling around to see different areas of the lango diocese. One highlight was a week ago when we were stuck completely in the mud, nearly flipping our car when we fell in a huge mud hole. It took an hour or so of all of us barefoot in the mud and rain, and it took the kindness of 7 passersby who also dove in with us but eventually we actually LIFTED half the car out while dale accelerated and got the two tires that weren’t in the hole to roll us out. It was a good bonding experience!

Then we also had our first drive to kampala and back, which was terrible as the roads and oncoming buses are shockingly bad, but we survived.

We have also been a part of two 3-day trainings- one for extension workers in Otwal and the other here at the diocese for home based care providers. Been good to be a part. We both tried our hands at oxen plowing and have both taught a bit also. Working our way in.

 

Things to pray for:

-direction in what our work will actually look like

-good communication

-patience: with each other, with work, with the things that don’t work, etc

-the flood victims: the rain has lightened (Praise God!) but the effects are still severe. Please pray that we would know how to create the best relief plans. Pray that people would hold on to their faith. Pray that they would not want to go back to the “Egypt” of the camps, but that they would be able to find their way into the ‘promise land’ of freedom. Even though that promise land is flooded.

 

Praises- had a great hike yesterday with some of our co-workers. It was really great!

we love our Bible study group, and friends.

 

Lots more I could write but I’ll save that for the blog (you are intrigued, I can tell!)

Thanks so much for your prayers!! We rely so much on those of you around the world who support us daily with your prayers!!  Thank you!!

 

Blessings,

     Marika

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Please do not send emails over 100Kbs as we only have slow dial-up here. Thanks!

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http://marikandale.blogspot.com

 

071007 Sunday

Wahoo, a great day!

Got up at 6:45 (no thats not the great part). Went and picked up sarah and went to St James church in Lira, where Jacob prays. We were told to be there at 7:30, so like Westerners, we were.

The first service was still going on, so we waited outside and met up with Tony Fred. Next thing you know, first service wants us to come in and introduce ourselves. Ugh. so we went right up to the front and sat on the stage. My favourite.

So we were introduced, then people shuffled out and in and second service began and Jacob and Dorcas came. The service was in Lwo but Tony was great in translating for us.

It was good. Then the time for offering-auction came. And one woman bought a bag full of sweet potatoes and then gave it to us! Then another person bought the beans that were being auctioned and also gave them to us! If anyone has sweet potato recipes, I need some! Constance gave us a bag-full yesterday too! Yikes.

So after 2^nd service we went to this small square room at the back of the church and were given sodas and like doughnut things. Then Jacob began telling us that the 3^rd service people want us to worship with them too. So back into church and we were there for another service. It was much shorter than the others, but still I wasn’t hearing much at that point.

TEA
Then after the service we all went back to Jacob’s house and had breakfast together. His wife, Dorcas, gave us potatoes, some beef, pineapple, bananas, bread and tea. Then after tea, we got ready and then the 7 of us (Tony, Sarah, Jacob, Dorcas, their 8 year old son Joshua, Dale and I) loaded up and headed off to climb Ngeta. Which is a volcano of sorts but not with a crater.

NGETA

The road there was dodgy and I was driving. It was really nice that I could follow Jacob in his truck and see how deep the lake-puddles were before diving us in. The base is 5 kms outside Lira. We parked and got some direction from a guard there. The place is a military outpost and is guarded, and has a tower on top.

We set off climbing and it was just incredible. A great climb almost all on rock and the most amazing view. We pushed on to the very top and had a 360 view of everything around us. It was incredibly beautiful! We hung out at the top for a while, making the military guards nervous. They kept a close watch on us the whole time. Then we went down and sat in the shade of a cave for a while which was nice. Fortunately I put sunscreen on before we started climbing as it was very sunny. The guards kept watch on us until we were off the rock. Found a tortoise on the way down and watched a herd of cows climbing the mountain. So incredibly amazing.

We headed down and got to the car around 3:30pm and then went to a restaurant in the market in Lira. I had nakati and matoke (plantains) and sweet potato, but we were between meal times so we had to wait a while. Then headed back to boroboro. There was a huge concert going on and we watched about a minute of it. I was exhausted and had a headache from all the sun, so we came home and boiled up some shower water, cleaned up, and chilled. A really great day!

Still no water, but I hear thunder, so we’ll be back out with the buckets tonight.

061007 Saturday

Well Sarah, Esther and I got up at 5am, packed up and then headed to the bus station in town. We were told Esther could get a bus back to Soroti at 6 so we waited and waited but once it was quite light and it seemed the bus would come soon, sarah and I left. I dropped her off back home, then come home again to sleep for an hour. Then got up with dale and I made bread dough while he went over to the office but it seemed breakfast hadn’t even come yet, so though he was supposed to speak at 9, it was held up a bit. I came over at 9 and we waited. Eventually they decided he should just start, so he did then 15 mins in, tea came so he stopped and people get their tea and then had a ‘working tea’ listening while they drank.

Dale did a great job, though it is still a bit hard to know when people are understanding what you are saying though. But people were encouraging afterwards.

So then we came home for a while and the dough I had left to rise had way over-risen since we were at the training longer than suspected. But I got it in the over and it turned out ok in the end. Dale went with a man named Charles to the spring to wash the car (which is quite a fruitless venture here, since we are right back in the mud afterward!) but it was nice and shiny and the inside was all swept out. Very nice.

Brenda spent most of the day shelling g-nuts. So glad! Then when dale came back he made bacon (from kampala!) and I made scrambled eggs and we had our fresh bread, then the 3 of us ate together. Don’t think Brenda was a fan of my eggs. I think I use too many spices for the Ugandan palette.

Then dale and I headed back over to the office for the closing ceremonies which were to start at 2, but didn’t until 3 or so.

Came home at 5, Brenda left, we still have no water.

Then Jolie came over. Dale had run into her at the spring. It was SOOOO good to see her! I missed her a lot! She is funny, she was talking about making a nursery bed then said, “come! lets dig.” So we had a good catch up talk while we were digging, sawing and making a roof for the nursery area of the garden. We hung out there until it started raining and she went home. Then dale and I put the buckets out for water. Hope it comes back on in the house soon.

And that was our Saturday.

051007 friday

We all got up and headed over to the office for the 3 day training going on for home based care providers. We got there at 8 when it was supposed to start, but it didn’t.

So it was a lot of hanging around. The goals for the day besides the training were for Dale to teach Esther how to use Access and for Esther to help Sarah start a quarterly diocese newsletter.

Well all the goals were met but with a lot of hanging around in between. There was a great nurse that came over and led the first half of the day. She is a nutritionist and was talking about counselling and nutrition when it comes to HIV+ clients.

Then in the afternoon Sarah gave her talk on the Biblical basis for home based care, and Dale’s talk was postponed.

We left around 5 though the talks were still going on. Sarah and Esther both spent the night, so we came back to the house and had enchiladas and watched evan almighty. A fun night. The bishop stopped by too and gave us a package receipt for us to go and collect it from the post office- wahoo!

No water : (

041007 Thursday

So we got up at 7ish to make the 8:30am devotions, but when we got there, we waited around with a bunch of unknown people, only find out devotions were cancelled for the Home based care provider training. So we waited a while for Jacob and Sarah to arrive. Everything all seemed a bit hectic and I felt bad for the people in the conference room who had been waiting since 8. But we had our meeting then and there. Jacob explained more about the diocese for Kathy’s knowledge. What was funny was that he was telling her stuff that was totally new to us.

Then after our meeting we went and took a tour of the health centre and teachers training college (Canon Lawrence). Both also firsts for us.

The health centre was functional, but not in any way flashy or a place you really want to be sick in. There were a few women getting HIV tests, a few women who had just recently given birth, and one woman who was sick, but I don’t know what from. The clinic is small, but if the case is severe, they will send you to Lira hospital, so it is totally functional.

Then we went to Canon Lawrence and had a good chat with the assistant principle and had a tour.

We found out teacher training colleges are free (tuition is free, but books and uniforms still cost). Their maximum capacity is 450 students, and they have over 1000 applicants a year. There are something like 39 training colleges in Uganda and all but 2 are free.

Of the 450 students only 110 are women because they say they lack dorm space. So on our tour I suggested they could just give one of the extra male dorms to women, but I was told that women couldn’t be on the men’s side of the street in case they ‘mixed’. In my opinion, if you are going to ‘mix’, you are going to ‘mix’, and I can’t imagine people’s top choice of a place to ‘mix’ would be in a dorm with 50 other people around. Anyway...

Then we headed back to the diocese then loaded up and drove over to CPA. Unfortunately at this point Kathy wasn’t feeling well. She was feeling ill and then when lunch was served Ben took her back to their house to rest. So we all had lunch at CPA (malakwan and sweet potatoes) and then from there dale and I went to town for some shopping and internetting.

BIBLE STUDY

Then rushed home to let Brenda go. Then at 5 our Bible study was supposed to start. Dixon called to say he couldn’t make it. We hadn’t got a hold of Jolie. And the DS said he was coming late. So it was Sam, Dale and I for a bit and Sam had heard this wacko preacher on Voice of America who was saying that women having to have their head covered all time (out of a verse in 1 Cor 11). So we discussed it for a while and looked at the passage and history, etc. Then William (the DS) came with his daughter Miriam. They were coming from the hospital as Miriam has typhoid fever and had been getting an IV. She is really sweet but the quietest kid ever! So they stayed a while discussing with us and I was colouring with Miriam while continuing with the discussion. We came to see that the verse is actually prefixed with Paul telling the reader to ‘judge for yourself’ and then to say it is their custom. It seemed clear to us that Paul was writing on account of what was shameful in his culture, but telling his reader to judge for her/himself as to what is appropriate.

Sarah also showed up at the end and joined in too which was cool.

Then William, Miriam, and Dixon left and Sarah, Dale and I then headed back to town. We dropped Sarah off and then went to meet the MCC group at the Lillian Hotel.

THE LILLIAN

Wow. How to describe the Lillian? Well this was our first time and maybe we shouldn’t base our opinions on one visit, but really, it sucked.

When our group arrived they asked what was available, as Ben and Holly are used to their extensive menu but only a couple of things being available. The waiter said things were there.

So Holly and Kathy ordered fish. Well a long time later the waiter came to say they had only one fish. I ordered pizza. Also a LONG time later he came to tell me there was no cheese. So then I ordered spring rolls. A long time later he came to tell me there were no spring rolls. So then I just ordered French fries. Then I decided to have a milkshake as well. Ok, then a long long time later he came out with hot chocolate. Ugh. Then I said I wanted a milkshake. He went back then a long time later came back basically clueless as to what a milkshake is. It is only the menu written “Milkshake (chocolate, vanilla, strawberry)”. I asked for chocolate, but he seemed to think a milk shake was milk mixed with chocolate, vanilla and strawberry. I cancelled my order.

Kathy got the one fish but it came with the wrong side orders and came with head intact.
Dale had ordered pizza as well and so his was cancelled also, so he just drank soda. He was pretty irritated at the place so he decided not to contribute in anyway it. Though he later said Esther’s burger looked good. He came home and had eggplant and potato. Crazy night. Good company, but I think next time we’ll be going to the Lira Hotel instead!

Esther stayed the night with us. Dale is working on his presentation in the workshop going on. He will be speaking on trauma healing tomorrow, but was only told about it today. Hmmm.

021002 Tuesday

Up at 5:30. Went to bed after 1, so I am tired.

 

ANTS

Went out to the kitchen to find our kitchen had been swallowed up by quadzillions of ants. Everywhere. It was insane. I think part of my problem is that I put papaya seeds outside on the window still and I think the ants like that. Then they came in and were over the whole sink, around the fridge, under the propane. Everywhere. It was crazy.
That is why we like bug spray. I try really hard not to think about how bad the Doom or Bop is for the world. Instead I try to think about how happy I am that millions of ants can die quickly.

 

So I squigeed the heaps of bodies and tried to push them out the door, then boiled some water for coffee, but couldn’t find my lid for my cup. So I put the thermos on the back seat but it rolled off and smashed. Whatever.

 

So we left at 6:30, about 30 mins late and headed out.  Funny enough, we didn’t notice coming in last night that the poles for our gate have been cemented in. Guess the theft made the bishop want to secure our place a bit more. Wonder what it will look like when we return.

 

Met up with Joseph on the way. He came to us last week asking for a ride. He is 69 years old and is going to try to claim on some pension funds or something from Kampala.  Poor guy must have just been waiting out there. We had no idea where he lived, he just said “I’ll meet you on the way” and he did, but that meant he had to wait for us.

 

DRIVING TO KAMPALA

So then we drove. I drove the first have which is the much nicer half to be honest. I think I ran over a big snake when we crossed the Nile though.

It was pretty smooth sailing except for one horrendous patch. Then we stopped at Kafu at my favourite total station- it is my favourite because it has nice latrines and TP.

From there, dale drove. He got the rough patch. Slow, holey, bad.

 

The buses are really the scariest thing in Uganda. Probably have killed more people than the LRA, but that’s just a guess. They go SO fast right down the middle and if you don’t move, they will move you in a way that will make you never move again.

 

I am seriously thinking of trying to get myself a meeting with the transport minister and asking why s/he doesn’t reinstate the railway or privatise it. It would be such a money maker if it was well managed and it would make every ugandan’s life easier!

OR allow private companies to build toll roads. Again, people (NGOs and businesses) would pay well for a good fast road.

 

Spent the time listening to mp3s or reading Irresistible Revolution out loud to Dale or a bit of my gender and development book.

 

KAMPALA

We reached the office in Kampala at 1:30 and Joseph set off on his mission.

Then we got some paper work together and then went down with Judith to the Face Technology place where you get your driver’s licence processed. It wasn’t as I expected at all.

First you go to the Form counter and turn in your form that says you have paid your licence fees. Then you sit on a bench until they call your name. Then you go in and have a live scan of your index fingers and your picture taken.

Having been up since 5am and having no mirror, I was quite appauled at the pix that came out. I actually looked like I had a shaved head. Always wondered how I’d look with one. Now I know.  And my eyes were so red. Ugh. so I pleaded for them to take another and let me put my hair down. They objected saying it would darken my face. A bit of irony since I think I am one of the palest whitest faces that has been in there today. At last they agreed and it came out much better, and thankfully they print it in black and white so my red eyes won’t be scaring anyone.

Then you go to one line to get your next form. Then another line to check that form. Then another line to pay for their 20,000 fees. Then you have to come back next Wednesday to pick it up.

OK seriously we are doing it because we are an NGO and all that. But if I were Joe Ugandan and I lived in Lira and I had to make 4 or 5 trips to either Gulu or Kampala, and pay for the petrol to drive there (and of course driving illegally unless you take the bus) and go through all the waiting, I think I too might be inclined to just do what others do and just avoid the police checks. We were told yesterday that the radio will even announce when police checks are going on and no one ventures out. Pretty funny.

 

Now sitting back in the MCC office and in an hour and half or so we are taking off for the airport to pick up Kathy Jackson- head of HR at MCC Akron.

With traffic it is said to take 2 hours to reach the airport. Then 2 hours back.

It is going to be a LONG day.

 

Thinking we might not schedule an early leave tomorrow.

 

300907 Sunday

No I did not want to get up this morning, but I seem to not be able to fall back asleep when the alarm goes off, especially since Dale was getting up.  But today, church actually wasn’t bad.

 

GOODIE-BAG

I have found the secret to me not being grouchy in church is to take my own goodie bag, filled with my journal, a couple good books, the Bible, and ideally my coffee cup.

The other secret is getting there 45 minutes late.

So truthfully I have no idea what the service was about, but I had a great time reading “Irresistible Revolution” and journaling my thoughts about it.

 

Then came home.  Had spoiling beans and rice with tortillas and eggs. Pretty good regardless.

 

POWER & WATER OUT

Sadly the power is still out. Day #2. The salsa and beans and rice that were in the fridge from yesterday now all stink and taste fermented. And there is no water.

We prayed and prayed and I tried to cook food together to get it at least hot to stop fermenting in the fridge. Hopefully I won’t kill or intoxify anyone.

 

 LITHUANIAN THANKSGIVING

The rest of the day I spent cooking. Now, somehow in my head Oct 1^st or 2^nd was Canadian Thanksgiving. So I thought I’d be cool and invite B&H and Sarah over to have Canadian thanksgiving at our house. Well Saturday night Sarah (who is Canadian) texts me and says she found out it isn’t Can-Thanksgiving for another week or two. Ugh.

So now we are celebrating Lithuanian Thanksgiving. No one could prove to me it wasn’t Lithuanian Thanksgiving, so it must be.

 

I made enchiladas with beans, rice and cooked veggies, spiced potatoes, boiled maize, fruit salad and pumpkin pie and Dale made roasted pumpkin.

Amazingly it all turned out quite well actually.

 

Around 2ish the power came back on and I couldn’t have been happier! Fridge started cooling and all was well in the world again. dale went out to get the tires fixed. We had one 4” nail that had pierced the tread of one tire and one small tack nail that actually pierced the innertube of another. So those got fixed.

We also have this rattle that turned out to be a bolt that keeps unscrewing itself with every bump that holds the cab to the suspension. Hmm. So we tightened it, but it still keeps coming loose.

 

B&H&Sarah came over at 5. B&H brought the makings for apple cider and Sarah brought ice cream.  It was great having friends over. A bit awkward that we had a number of visitors show up in the midst, but Dale was the hero and was the intermediary.

Lakana came to find out more details on the solar panel theft.
Sam came to talk about business ideas.

Then the guy next door who has downs-syndrome showed up at the door again. Not sure if he is lost, curious, or what. But Dale helped him get home.

 

After stuffing ourselves in true thanksgiving fashion, we watched Surf’s Up a cute penguin movie. Pretty crummy copy unfortunately and it was quite funny when the screen went black because clearly someone was patrolling the theatre for hidden cameras. Geez.

 

A good night made even better by not having to do dishes. Yeah Brenda!

 

 

290907 SATURDAY

Got up and tried to make French toast from the bread that was molding the other day and that I toasted so as to “save” it. Yeah, no, it wasn’t great. whatever.

 

Brenda came at 9 and was there through the day doing more laundry and cooking beans for tomorrows enchiladas.

 

DALE LOCKED UP BEHIND BARS

With Brenda being in the house, Dale felt it was safer to lock the bathroom door while he did his business. But there is no latch, so you have to lock it with the key. So he did, but then couldn’t get out. I was in the garden and eventually came in the house and heard, “Hey Sweets, I am locked in”.

So we took the lock apart and tried to get it out, but in the end it came through some hard hard turning of the key until it moved and he was free. We were only a couple minutes though from giving up and shouldering the door down!

 

LIRA

Then we headed off to town to get food and try to do email and get that stupid form sent off for Fuller’s insurance waiver.
Thank God we found out the form’s deadline had been extended from yesterday to next Wednesday- SUCH a blessing!

 

Came home, made salsa for tomorrow with the idea that the more I make before Brenda leaves, the less dishes will be there tomorrow!

 There is no power or water, but I am hoping it will return soon.

 

BIBLE STUDY

At 5 our Bible study was meant to start and it got going around 5:30.

Jolie didn’t come which makes me wonder if she got my note earlier this week that I left at the Diocese. Also William couldn’t make it, so Peter came in his stead. So we were: Peter, Dixon, Samuel, Dale and I. And we read through Philippians 1.
it was a great great study. So much to look at and discuss. Everyone is in slightly different places in life and faith and it is such a great group. I am SO thankful to God for it!

 

THEFT

Sadly while we were all meeting there, someone came up to the porch and stole our solar panel that charges our lantern. It was plugged in but they pulled the plug and took it. Really sad. Stuff like that makes you lose your sense of security and also makes me look at people walking through with more suspicion which is sad.

Dale went to take someone home and the power was off when I realised it had been taken which made me all the sudden feel less safe or secure in my village. I hate thievery. It is so evil.

 

Dale discovered a nail in the tire today. Ugh.

 

250907 Tuesday part b

 Amaranth in Aduku  Jacob explaining amaranth

 Peter & amaranthTreasurer, Peter, Jacob, Esther, Sarah
Dale, Tony, ?

210907 part b

Mattress & luggage salesman. Who knew so much could fit on a bike?  

 

The church in Acaba. Jacob, dale, Archdeacon, ?  All the stoens in the middle are because the walls were built once and then all collapsed in.

 

driving...

031007 Wednesday

Woke up and had a chilled breakfast together. Then I drove us down to Uchumi and we did grocery shopping for an hour, stocking up!

Then around 10, we left and I started driving us out of Kampala. It was not fun. There is so much traffic and construction going on for CHOGM. Think next time I want to leave at 6! Ugh.

Anyway got on the road, and of course, it was terrible. Beyond terrible. I was actually finding myself being furious. Internally, but really mad. Mad at the government who doesn’t fix these roads, mad at the busses that come at twice the speed limit and will NOT move off your side of the lane but force you off the road instead, mad that the trains are not working, mad that my body and back were hurting so much, etc.

Needless to say, I will avoid travelling to Kampala as much as possible. Not even the bagels and lattes make this kind of trip worth it!

So I drove us up to Katumba this time and then we switched there, and Dale drove the rest.

It took us 6 and a half hours returning (an hour more than going) because we were stuck in Kampala so long. So we got home around 4 or 5pm. Unpacked, showered. Then went over to Ben and Holly’s for dinner.

SHOCKING

So we had beans and rice which were delicious. But believe it or not, that was the first time Kathy had ever had beans in her life. Totally shocked me. Never met anyone who has never had beans before. Trippy.

So we hung out a bit and then came home. Thankfully the power and water were both running. Yay.

021007 Tuesday part B

Yep took a LONG time to get out to the airport as expected. We had a friend named Joseph with us though to show us the way, and he knew some back streets which cut off a good section. They are redoing the road to Entebbe (airport) for CHOGM (commonwealth heads of gov meeting) in November. There is a TON of construction going on around kampala for this stupid 3 day meeting. Half the roads are closed at a time to lay tarmac or whatever and traffic is insane. I am not complaining about people fixing the roads, but because the deadlines are November and it is being rushed work is going on all the time, rather than at ‘slow traffic’ times. Also there have been a few incidents of hotels crumbling in because they haven’t let the cement dry because of deadlines, etc.

Anyway... we also got to see lake Victoria in the light, which was very pretty. (This is the best shot I got. Sorry. )

It was slow, but we made it on time. Airports are funny. I always find myself