A Trip Down Country Including Music, Movies, and More Gross Stuff

January 7^th-11^th: Thursday-Monday

Thursday morning I left with Martha and the kids for Mbale. The Wrights were going down to Kampala for the weekend in order to do some airport runs including dropping of Ben Smith. Ben and I were going to go rafting in Jinja on Saturday before he flew out Sunday morning.

Meanwhile this meant I got to spend the day in Mbale. On the drive down I sat up front with Martha and we talked about my time in Tanzania and everything else. We arrived in Mbale and after eating lunch at the Proctors’ we left the three youngest girls and went into town to run some errands. Martha took Bobby to see a therapist at CURE and Rachel and I descended into the market to try to buy some ingredients to concoct a fruit salad for dinner that night at the Protars’. We also tried unsuccessfully to buy some shorts for Bobby at a reasonable price.

The next day I was to spend the day in Mbale where I would meet Jim, Ben and the other singles and we would go rafting on Saturday. However the white land cruiser broke down and we were unable to procure another vehicle I just went down with the Wrights. That night we stayed at the ARA, the American Recreation Association. It is an extremely facility with the nicest rooms I have stayed in Africa and a swimming pool and tennis courts. That night was music night which is something put on by these two British guys which the Wrights have played in before. Unfortunately this time there was hardly anyone around and besides the Wrights only one other guy performed. Still it was fun.

The next day I awoke to the most delicious breakfast I have had in recent memory. Over easy eggs, bacon and sausage with a croissant or something. Then Bob, Bobby and I went into Industrial Kampala to pick up some parts. We stopped at several shops and bought various car parts, looked at toilets, and bought a mechanics creeper.

After we ran our errands we returned to the ARA and loaded everyone and everything up and then traveled down between Kampala and Entebbe to stay with a friend of the Wrights, Clark. We unloaded all our possessions into his extremely nice and comfortable house and then returned to Garden City. Garden City is the only real mall in Uganda and is rather amazing. We ate at the food court where I had Lebanese food. Then we wondered around and checked out all the shops. Bobby and I went exploring found a store that was exactly like America. It smelled like America, looked like America, it was freaky.

That night we went and saw Avatar. All in all I thought it was a pretty lousy movie. the special effect an action sequences were amazing as where the opening 15minutes when any originality slipped in. the rest of the movie was filled with card board cut out characters and plots strait out of any Disney movie. The plot was boring and predictable and the characters were about as shallow as puddles.

The next morning we went to church at New City a Presbyterian church after Bob had dropped Ben Smith off at the airport. The congregation was about half African and half ex-patriots. The singing was good as well as the message. After the service we went to a Tandoori restaurant called Khanna Kazana or something like that. The best food I have ever had. It is my favorite restaurant in Uganda.

That night after we returned to Clark’s I was put under the knife. For about a week I had had an infection in my arm. Saturday I had started taking anti-biotics and although I had tried to drain it of puss earlier nothing had occurred. Now though the time was ripe. Bob did some digging and prodding with a leather man and suddenly I was gushing black blood. Vast quantities of black blood and pus came out and the swelling went down from a golf ball sized bulge to almost nothing. It hurt. Thankfully Bob gave me some extra strong painkiller and as it turned out. That was the last I needed for my arm. I had been needing to take some so I could fall asleep for the past several nights.

That night Bob picked up Andrew Dickson who has been gone for the last couple of months to America and New Zealand. The next day we packed up and gave one of the vans we had driven down to Andrew While Bob and Bobby rode in the new Dina truck Bob had picked up from Chipper’s the night before.

In the Evening we ate dinner at the Landmark. The Landmark has changed a lot since I first ate there in June. The old owner Shameek (sp?) left for India and the new owners along with a new cook have also bought a pool table, DSTV, and are trying to cater to a more diverse group of people. the food Monday night was incredible. best food I have ever had at the landmark. The Wrights invited an Indian family I have never meet before but have been friends of the mission for years. They were a really interesting couple.

In Which We Celebrate a New Year, See Gross Stuff, and Are Offered a Goat

December 31^st-Januarey 2^nd: Thursday- Saturday

Thursday night the entire mission gathered in the main house to welcome in the New Year. The Myhre’s, another missionary family from south western Uganda visited on there way to Kenya to drop their kids of for boarding school.

About half way through the night Jim and I left for the clinic to go visit those of there. The clinic staff had been telling him about how they welcome in the New Year by burning things. Burn the old things, like Christmas trees. Jim and I arrived shortly before ten only to discover that everyone was asleep already. We managed to rouse Robert, Moses and Susan. We listened to the radio, the top 100 best songs of the year, and played Mexican train. All Ugandan DJ’s have a strange way of talking. They all sound like their constipated.

Just before midnight Jim and I walked back to the mission compound. The moon was nearly full and the fields and house stood out in stark relief against the shadows. At midnight we toasted in the New Year. I toasted with fanta passion soda.

Friday morning Jim, Ben, Leah and I left for Matany, a town several hours north of here, to visit Logiel Mark who is going to school at the Catholic hospital there. The land changes from Nakaale to Moroto. The vegetation thins out and trees become less and less common until they disappear almost entirely. Matany lies several kilometers from Moroto, at the base of Mt. Moroto. The entire village only exists because of the hospital. The hospital complex is huge with wards, and house staffing as well as gardens and a machine shop, plus places for patient’s families to stay and guests. A massive church dominates one corner of the compound.

We met Mark and his friend Abraham. He showed us a little around his school and stuff before we were caught in a rain storm that had followed us from Nakaale. That night while Robert visited his wife, who works at the hospital, and new born daughter we ate and slept at a little inn across the street from the hospital. It was relatively nice except they didn’t have enough food and the bathroom didn’t have a handle, just a hole in the door where a handle should have gone. You could kinda hold he door closed though with your foot. We fell asleep that night listening to Nigerian soup operas blaring away in the next room.

The next morning Jim, Mark and I got a chance to talk. He seems to be doing well here although it has been hard going to a catholic run school. We were able to pray and talk. Soon afterwards Jim, Ben, and I went to the hospital were Jim and Ben really wanted to follow along on the ward rounds. I went because I didn’t want to sit around all morning. We lucked out and managed to get assigned to the surgical ward were, due to lack of a surgeon present severe trauma cases had been stalking up for weeks. It was a virtual parade of infections, gunshot wounds, bloated and swollen limbs and burns. .it wouldn’t have been so bad if it wasn’t for the horrible smells that come with it all. After seeing more than twenty male patients I opted out of seeing the female patients and made what I hoped was a dignified retreat with my masculinity intact.

After a tour of the hospital the lack of adequate dinner the night before and no breakfast began to catch up to me. First though Robert wanted to show us the “lagoon”. What the heck? We hiked out behind hospital compound of into the scrub. After what seemed like hours we arrived at a walled compound. This we were informed was the “lagoon”. We peered through the gates and say some few plants and such like growing. We were informed that the sewage from the hospital came out here and fed the plants. Some lagoon. after a torturous walk back into town Robert informed us that the food was still not ready and we walked into town were I was rope into playing two humiliating games of pool before we were allowed to return and eat and Robert’s wife’s house.

We left shortly afterward. We stopped on the way back as we had on the way there and visited Mark’s family. Mark’s father was a little drunk this time then our first visit and wanted to give us a goat. We finally persuaded him to keep the goat and we would return and eat it together.

News

After some discussion the mission has decided to let me join as an Missionary Assisant which means for me I get to stay tell April hopefully. I have switched though from helping Bob and Craig and Craig being my missionary of oversight to being the Wrights teacher and having the Wrights as my missionaries of oversight.

I now spend the mornies and some of the afternoons teaching the Wright kids. I Do math and reading with Bobby, Science with Anna and Bobby and Science with Mary and Kipsy. It’s a pretty big change from what I have been doing but I enjoy spending more time with the Wright kids and after school I still help Bob and Craig so it has been working out really well.

Tis the Season For Rain?

December 24^th-25^th: Thursday and Friday

Christmas Eve dawned cool and cloudy. The air was misty and damp. That morning we put the ridge cap Jim’s house. We only worked a half day since we had a Christmas Eve service at the church at 4. We sung some Christmas songs converted to Na Karamojong.

After the service Jim and I drove back to Namalu to drop off the school boys and JB. We say Zachary Emeron the pastor for the Namalu church. He greeted us and said they were having a service tomorrow. Then we went to JB’s house were we say his wife, Joyce and his son Losike, who is pretty cute and has a huge head.

That night for dinner we ate nibbles. Kris made an incredible cheese ball. There were cookies and sweets. It was amazing food. My lemonole wasn’t a big hit. I tried to make guacamole but I added to much chili powder and lemon juice. So it first tasted like battery acid, then the heat hit, like a freight train. After we ate we sang a few Christmas carols and then got down to the white elephant gift exchange.

The presents were varied and interesting. Jim and I contributed a dozen eggs, or less, decorated with faces. We drew bandito, a uni-browed man, a Cyclops, Tin Tin, and Harry Potter just to name a few. Our other present was a flatus bag Jim had and some candies. The flatus bag was medical mystery to us. It had a plastic bag and a long tube connected to it. How exactly it was used we could imagine but why we couldn’t figure out.

After the gift exchange Jim and I returned to our house and talked for a bit and read A Cowboy Christmas; a short story my dad has read to our family on Christmas Eve for as long as I can remember.

Sunday morning I rolled out of bed a little after 8 or something and did my devotions and then wandered out into the kitchen to see what was cooking. Nothing was so I made coffee cake while Jim prepared the salad for Christmas dinner that night. After the coffee cake came out we made eggs (3 runny yokes, I non-runny yoke) and sat down to a lovely Christmas breakfast. Jim whips out my present (a tusker shirt) so I grabbed the bag and tissue paper and quickly wrapped his (a Tanzania jersey).

After breakfast we headed over to the Wrights where we met Leah and Ben and along with Martha and Rachel we set out in the van for Namalu. We stopped at the clinic first and picked up Moses and Susan. We pulled up to the tin clad church of Namalu which was blasting American songs out of a scratchy boom box. The church service began with praying and singing. As the time passed more and more people showed up. It reminded me so much of Tanzania. All the singing and the drums playing and the choirs coming up and singing and they way people dressed even. The service lasted well over two hours. After the service we were invited over to the pastors house for an amazing meal where we wee introduced to his family, all 11 of them.

We drove back to the mission. It had continued to rain off and on all morning and although the rain had stopped it remained cloudy and cooler. I put on my new Christmas cloths (Tusker shirt) and went with the Wrights over to the huge dance at the catholic mission/school just up the road. There were probably 300 or more people around. Everyone decked out in their Christmas best. However we had only been there a few minutes when the dancing broke up and everyone left because it looked like rain.

We went back and Jim and I had Moses, Susan, and Albert over to play Mexican train as it poured rain outside. We played until Jim and I had to go to Christmas dinner with the mission. We had delicious food and watched the Christmas caper with the penguins from Madagascar again. Then Jim and I came back and the clinic guys came over again and we played some more. And the rain continued.

In Which We Put On A Roof and Have Many Interruptions

December 21^st-23^rd:Monday-Wednesday

Monday we began to put the roof on Jim’s house. We had to be a bit careful though because of the wind during the dry season. It comes consistently from the NE, from Kenya so when we placed the sheets we had to be sure that the wind will not tear them off again. Bob bought sheets that are white, so as to reflect the sun and 7 meters long so we don’t have to cut them just put them up direct. We used self taping screws with rubber and metal gaskets. We drilled the screws direct into the pearling. We put the entire roof up in two days. The wind seems to have died down for a few days so we were able to work all day instead of just the morning.

Wednesday night at bible study we sang some songs to begin. However Al received an important phone call so we just continued to sing and sing. After nearly a half hour Al came back apologized and he began to just give a short message. However this did not last long as the dogs began to bark. Apparently the dogs have a distinctive bark for when they find a snake. We all went to the porch were we spied a large black cobra. The guards came running. As one approached the snake reared up and flattened its head into the distinctive hood of a cobra. I have only seen that on the discovery channel. After the guards had killed it we went out and measured the snake. It was over 6 feet long. After that we kinda gave up on bible study and just prayed.

That night the rain began.

OK Corral, Mangoes, And Who Is The President of Canada?

December 19^th-20^th: Saturday-Sunday

Saturday morning Bob and I began to make adjustments on Jim’s roof. While the basic structure is solid we needed to add and subtract some to get everything strait and plum. Around 9:30 we went inside and got some water. There Martha asked if I could be liberated from work and go with her and the girls to check out this thing down at oki-dud. The visitors were returning in order to have the kids make thank you cards to give to the people who donated the relief. After my liberation I sat around and talked with the Wrights for a while tell 11:00 when the visitors were finally ready to leave. Martha, Rachel, Anna, Mary, and Katrina piled into the van and I rode with Robin and Angelic. It was fun to ride with them and to get to talk and learn about them a bit. Robin has been a missionary for 28 yrs and has smuggled bibles into China dressed as a fat person and stuff. Pretty wild.

We arrived at Ok-dude ranch and were immediately surrounded by a large crowd. Someone had spotted the football inside the visitor’s car and all the kids were asking me for it. We spread a tarp on the ground and Rachel led everyone in a couple of songs. Then everyone began writing “thank you” cards. Actually mainly everyone just drew pictures of the exact same like 5 things. A hut, a chicken, cow, a school house, or a person. Then Angelic got out some rope and they took turns jumping over it as it got higher and higher. Then they pulled out two footballs from their car and wanted to organize a game of dodge ball. But they ended up leaving the footballs there.

After our adventure at oki-dud the wrights and I stopped in Namalu at a little restaurant and had a chapatti and soda. Then we went to the little general store deal which has gotten really big since I got back from Tanzania.

That evening we had a meal to welcome Jenny’s parents and her sister Heather. After dinner I went over to the Wrights house and we watched Chicken Run. It is just about the most morbid children’s movie ever. The entire plot centers on the main characters death and being baked into pies. I guess Hansel and Gretel wasn’t that much better though?

Sunday after church Jim and I went over to Moses’ for lunch. When I got there Robert was eating mangos and he gave me a couple. Just about the best mango I have ever had. Then he Moses, Jim and I played cards. Jim taught them Spades and Hearts. Susan, Moses’ wife made lunch. We had posho, sweat potatoes, beans, eggs, tomatoes and hot sauce. It was all really good. Jim hung out tell about 3:3o and then he headed back but I stuck around for a bit. Moses Robert and I had some interesting conversations. First they talked about how white I was. But I told them that I was getting darker so I wouldn’t burn as easily. Then I told them that in America being tan is considered very attractive and people go through a lot of trouble to get tan. Then they asked “even men?” I said yes and they said “so you want to go back looking good?” the new talked about America. Apparently they were both under the impression that Obama was president over all of America, not just the United States. So then I had to explain that Canada and Mexico and South America were al different countries and stuff. I wonder though if this is a common misconception about the US and America?

After that we went to prayers. That evening at the T’s we watched a White Christmas. It’s hard to believe that Christmas is in only a few days.