HAVING A GREAT TIME... WISH YOU WERE HERE!!

October 3, 2009

The opening says two things… we know there are some who truly wish they were here but also, this week was a bit of a lonesome week and we also wish you were here.

Well as you can see it is Saturday again.  And nope, didn’t get a post up in the middle of this week as planned but from some of the comments, I know you understand this.  The best laid plans of mice and men… you know how it goes but we actually had tried to get our own internet set up this week.  It eventually did happen but too late for a mid-week post.  The first day I had access through the week (Thursday) I was online chatting until nearly 11:00 am…so silly but enjoyed it so much.  So, here I am on Saturday again with so much to tell you. 

I spent considerably more time with Production Tailoring girls this week.  We are getting to know each other better and I am enjoying that.  Some nice exchanges this week between the girls and myself.  Chad has spent more time in the classroom with the Vocational boys.  He seems to be getting along well with them.  For the first time ever, the boys in this class will be taking home a small project that he will have them make.  All hand tools of course.  Chad and I are already having the sense that our time here is getting very short although we just passed the halfway point this week.  As some of you have said, it seems we are just settling in but already it is nearly time to go home.  Some folks here have said some nice things this week wanting us to come back.  We just have to respond to them that for now we will wait to see what the Lord will say but that we hope to come back at some point.  Speaking for myself with some blatantly honest thoughts here, this week has been a bit of a questioning time of sorts; wondering if we are really accomplishing that much by being here whether it be for a month or a year.  I believe now that this is part of the process of settling in and grasping what daily living in the life of a missionary really is… how it sometimes feels like things are moving very slowly, even backwards; how it is not looking for an event or a big accomplishment but just daily living and building relationships little by little.  The Lord has helped me in my thinking regarding this… I think perhaps these negative thoughts this week may also be as a result of the old fellow getting at me when I was at a low point.  Still I don’t discount the value in accessing and evaluation.  This stuff happened mostly in the middle of the week shall we say around Wednesday.  My birthday started off as a rough day.  We had purchased a modem early in the week… that was an excursion to remember but I’ll get back to that… so we had the modem on Tuesday night.  I can’t tell you how disappointed I was that we were not able to get it to work either Tuesday or Wednesday.  I hadn’t realized to what extent I was counting on getting online on my birthday just to be able to chat and whatnot with family and friends.  It seems that was the case though and by Wednesday am when I realized the modem was not going to work that day I was pretty homesick.  I was tired as well so that didn’t help.  I spent the morning doing quiet things related to work here and sleeping a little extra and eventually started to create a list of the things I was thankful for.  I eventually went to work at the Production Tailoring Department and stayed there until Chad came to get me at 3:30 pm.  Thankfully the sadness had shaken off for the most part.  Apparently Chad had been working with Donna since before we came to Uganda to make plans for my birthday celebration. Besides what I will tell you about below, he had the forethought and also brought along a little hummingbird necklace (I love it!) and a birthday card.  Pretty great guy he is! So, between Chad and Donna they had made arrangements to have the Catering Class of the Vocational School prepare a meal for us.  WELL! We walked in to the dining area to a beautifully set table complete with flowers.  Shortly they brought out the buffet dishes… coleslaw garnished with cucumber and tomatoes; samosas and a yummy Ugandan dish called Katoga (pronounced just how it looks, accent on the middle, but I don’t know if I have spelled it correctly).  It is made with beans and cassava and is totally delicious.   Cassava is a root crop much the consistency of potato but they do so much more than we do with the potato… well, now that I think about it, our humble potato is pretty versatile too.  Anyway, they boil it, chunk it, deep fry it and I think also make flour out of it.  It was cut up in cubes for this dish.  For dessert the class, along with one of their teachers had made a BEAUTIFUL cake.  Of course, since this was a surprise for me, I did not bring my camera along… should have known better.  But it is a wonderful memory.  The cake was chocolate with light brown icing… “Happy Birthday Nancy” on the top.  So, absolutely so delicious!  Hip hip hurrah for Teacher David, Teacher Daisy and their class!  Then to top the evening off, Gerry and Donna’s cell group was going on a prayer walk through parts of Suubi Mountain and invited us along.  There were 8 of us and it was a wonderful time.  What I hadn’t mentioned here before was that there were some recent thefts from the Production Unit of fairly major dollar value considering the location.  This prayer walk was in response to that – pretty powerful and an amazing way to end the day.  God and my husband were both patient with my temporary homesickness and the whole day was a lovely celebration.  And then we arrived home and there was yet another pleasant surprise in store… we heard from our family members via email and one even phoned us!!  So great to hear a voice from home.  I went to sleep smiling and content.

Back to my earlier reference of our shopping trip to Kampala when we got the computer modem …  on Tuesday we left early in the am to go in to the city for some major grocery shopping, to get a phone and a modem and some other stops that Gerry had to make.  About 1/3 of the way in Gerry’s car started giving trouble.  We pulled into a petrol station and realized the radiator was steaming away.  The head of the rad was cracked (it is plastic in this neck of the woods) so that was it for taking the trip to town with this vehicle.  One of the foreman from the shop, Frank, was with us and he needed to get to town.  So, the 4 of us hopped on a local taxi [team: yes, the blue and white crowded buses that drive like crazy!] and continued on our way.  As we got closer to Kampala, due to the now lateness of the hour, the traffic was the usual insanity.  It got more congested the further we got along.  Eventually, we came to a complete standstill so we got out and started to walk.  Frank guided us along down into the heart of the city where the markets are and the taxi stands.  We walked through the new taxi park and then back up to the Watoto Church which was our first destination.  On the way through Frank took us through the part of the market where hardware is sold.  They seem to have a little of EVERYTHING in there!  It was just a quick walk through as we were already late for Frank’s appointment at the church but an eye-opening one for sure.  Quite the experience but I was so thankful for Frank (he went on my list of thankful things/people the next day!)  Frank is just a wonderful man.  He and Haduljah, his wife both work at Production Shop.  Just a young couple perhaps in their late 20’s.  He has become Gerry’s right hand man, one whom he depends on greatly.  There are several guys in the shop who would also be considered very dependable, smart and are such an asset to the operation.  One of them is Kato Alex.  We met him the last time.  Other names I hear a lot with a lot of respect attached are Fred, Charles and Francis.  Great guys. Anyway, I digress.  The shopping day was long and tiring.  We were able to get a ride home with someone from Watoto who was heading to Bbira (30 minutes from Suubi) so that was fantastic as it would have been nigh to impossible to get the groceries and other shopping home in a taxi.  Besides which the taxis may never have stopped to pick up Mzungu’s!  It was such an interesting day but a little taxing.

On to other things…Chad had his first experience driving a right handed vehicle this week.  That was interesting! It was just here around the mountain but he said he had to continually remind himself what side to drive on, how quick to turn, just the awareness of where you were on the road…a brain shift for sure.

This week I am teaching the Vocational girls how to crochet Granny Squares… very interesting but it went pretty well.  Most of the girls like to be shown rather than follow the instructions.  For the most part they do not use patterns for anything in Uganda.  It seems they would prefer to take something apart, make the first one from that and then use the new one to make whatever other ones you have to make.  That is amazing when it comes to tailoring as they have learned to build clothes by designing your own pattern from scratch – Karyn, you would be totally impressed with the way their skills, though you might have a few shortcuts for them.  This habit of not having a pattern though is not so amazing when you are trying to teach that it is necessary to make dozens of something, like pairs of pants. The employees want to make each one custom to fit the individual rather than make 20 pair of size 34 waist pants and 10 size 32 waist using a pattern.  There are times they are required to make dozens or even hundreds of some things so it is a challenge to explain the finer points of this.  We have lots to learn from them and vice versa.

Chad has been helping Gerry build and install some cabinets in their bathroom and we both tried to help Kris lay tile in his bathroom but we came to a standstill when we realized there was no tile or glass cutter to fit smaller pieces.  Donna has someone in to do the laundry every Saturday but then it is a full time job the rest of the day checking to see what is dry and running to grab stuff off the line to reshuffle if a rain shower comes.  We both enjoy it though I wasn’t able to be much help today as I was helping Gerry with an Excel file he was working on for Production Shop.

We saw a couple of amazing things this week… one was the “shedding of wings” day.  That’s what we were calling it.  You know how we see all the flying ants at a certain time at home, well here a certain kind of flying ant sheds their wings on the same night.  The next morning we saw hundreds of thousands of wings everywhere on the ground.  Apparently these ants are a bit of a sought after food source as well.  Ugandans will deep fry ‘em and carry them around as a snack.  Grasshopper days are anticipated as well… they come around for a few days each year and are caught and eaten live or cooked.  Kids will be seen with a little bag tied at their waist that contains this treat.  Sort of glad we won’t be here for that one.  Didn’t get to try the ants either but that’s okay with us.  We gather that they are not enjoyed by everyone.  Another amazing thing was the effect of a day when the rain poured down in a big way.  It was the day we were in the city.  We saw the rain but it seemed to be heavier on the mountain than in town.  There were gullies cut everywhere around the property, some quite deep.  Though the rain did not last for hours, the effect was quite dramatic.   Oh and one other thing was Chad getting to go to the market.  We did not end up going to Mpigi market (mentioned last time) as there were too many things happening on Saturday as it was.  But Chad, Gerry and one of the Ugandan men went down to the market that is found just at the base of the mountain.  It is along the roadside and when I say along the roadside, it is exactly that… like about 1 foot from the edge of the pavement.  Chad said it was like shopping in the MIDDLE of the 401.  Cars, trucks and buses were whizzing by so that if you stuck out your elbow too far it would get knocked off!  Kids were running around dashing in and out under you feet but you couldn’t do what you would normally do  at home… step sideways to make room… you would be road kill! Anyway, they all survived and brought home some fresh pineapple, tomatoes, garlic, onions, and then stopped at Kris’ garden and picked some carrots.  Man, it is nice to have this stuff so fresh.  Have to be careful to clean it carefully but it is great food.

So, I’ll start to draw to a close now with our experience from last Sunday.  In the morning we attended the Suubi 8:00 am service (they have one at 8:00 am and one at 10:00 am) and we finally got down to visit Suubi Village.  I explained generally last time where the village is on the mountain but we did not realize the steepness of the climb.  We headed over the top of the mountain through the maze of buildings for high school and vocational classrooms, administration, then primary and kindergarten classrooms and started down the other side of the mountain.  The walkways are made from cement and following them took us to the village itself.  I’ll try to post some photos of the walk but not sure you will be able to appreciate the perspective from the picture.   It was bad enough going down but definitely a challenge to be taken in stages coming back up.  The kids climb this every day to come to school.  Guess their young lungs and legs take it just fine but you certainly would not want to get up and realize that you had forgotten an important piece of homework!  We were just about down when we connected with some children who introduced us to a woman going down herself who guided us right to the door of the first house we wanted to visit.  Dorothy will remember going to the house where we had our traditional meal.  That is where we were heading.  We had seen Rhona and Jenifer in church in the morning (what a nice worship time that was!)  There had been some changes in the family but we had a nice visit and left some things with them and went on our way.  Justine looks a lot healthier than she did during our last visit. Cindy and Jamie will be pleased to know that the girls in that home just loved the clothing and creams, etc. you sent along! The next house we visited was of the home where two of the four boys who stayed with us last April, lived.  Stephen and Marie will remember them.  James and Tadeo weren’t sure they remembered us first but then we mentioned the 4-wheeler rides and they were right back there with us. They live in a home with 8 children all between 4 & 14… 7 boys and one 4 year old girl!  And the final stop was to the home of one of the boys (Ivan) who stayed at our home in 2006.  Rhona acted as a tour guide to make sure we got to each home and then at the last home, Ivan made sure we found our way back to the path back up the hill.  By the time we arrived back home we were pretty well played out but it had been a great afternoon.  Tomorrow we are hoping to get to Bbira for a quick visit… we’ll have to see what the day brings.

Just some tidbits:  You will notice some references above to “up” and “down”.  Here at Suubi everything at the top of the mountain is “up” which includes classrooms and other buildings mentioned above.  Our place, Kris, Donna & Gerry’s, etc. are “down”, unless of course you are at Production Shop which would mean our places are still “up”.  Everything is “up” from Production Shop.  This probably just makes common sense but it is still different when you hear it… they don’t say they are going up to the classroom, or Production Tailoring, they just say they are “ going up”.  Up is actually a place. 

We had Kris, Donna and Gerry over for supper last night.  Nice visit.  I made some Eat More Bars with some slight changes in ingredients (couldn’t get all the stuff here I usually use) but they were a big hit.  Thanks to our kids for sending the recipe.

Tonight we had movie night at Kris’ place.  Donna had us all for a great supper and after we went to Kris’ where he has a projection set up for his videos.  We watched a movie called “Faith Like Potatoes” that was based on a true story out of Zambia and South Africa.  Now we are more than ready for bed and will go to sleep with a full moon overhead and the sound of crickets chirping and a new bird voice calling in the night.  ‘night all!  We’ll try to catch some of the service  at LC tomorrow and will be home to see all of you in less than two weeks.