July 9??

July Something. Maybe the 9th.

I left early this morning for the Golden Crane Hotel (Read: six rooms) to purchase a shower. The sky was overcast but I could never have imagined it held the amount of moisture I was to witness later.

I have a new advertisement for Osmotics Shampoo that the company should consider marketing to western women traveling in third world nations:
“Ladies, has your hair recently been treated with a fistful of axel grease intended for African hair and you find it less than appealing? After 8 days and four washings, does your hair still catch thoughtless insects in its waxy web? Does your hair feel like the floor looks after a tent revival? Then try Osmotics Shampoo! Osmotics Shampoo leaves your hair looking and feeling vaguely like it did before you left home. A bargain at any price!!!”

Every time I am at the Golden Crane Hotel I wish I had been placed there instead of my current abode. Even though it is rudimentary by most anyone’s standards, it has a shower and it is quiet. It also has a small “office” where I can buy a coke….which is what I did after my shower. When I turned off the shower water I heard a tremendous noise that turned out to be Biblical Style Rain pounding down on the tin roof. I got dressed and stood on the veranda and watched absolute sheets of rain pour for the next 40 minutes. I hot footed it through the rain to the “office” and asked if they had coffee. Nope. Coke? Always. Did I want my Coke warm or cold?



This picture above is the outcome of the combination of Biblical Rain and Hellish Heat.


This is Nabitaka Jowanita who attends Nsambwe Village Primary School. She is 10 years old and asked if I could find an American girl friend to write to her. Nabitake has no paper so any new friend will need to send both paper and self addressed stamped envelope.


This is Happiness being bathed by Scovia. The beaded belt around her center was put on her shortly after birth and is intended to make her grow a waist. If it works I am going to make a beaded belt for myself and hope my waist returns…

This evening (evening means anything after about 2PM) we went to Lwanyonyi Primary School. These children are among the poorest, their parents being “peasant farmers.” We first walked enough uphill miles that I wished I hadn’t wasted my highly infrequent shower at the Golden Crane on this particular day. We then waited in the sun for a taxi for 15 minutes, followed by some hard bargaining with two boda boda drivers for the last 3 miles of the trip which were too rough for a car. FINALLY, I rode one boda boda with Ronnie, and Isaac and Tony were on the other. Our particular driver was, I think, bent on bouncing me off the back. He never once braked for pot holes or deep ruts. Debbie Sorenson, if you are reading this take heed: I will not only ride your dirt bike when I get back, I’ll race you and I’ll beat you!

We lost Isaac and Tony only to find out later that their boda boda couldn’t climb the hill with three of them so Tony had to run up the hill next to the motorcycle. He got back on at the top of the hill, but the driver gave them no discount for the inconvenience. This place cracks me up.

This school is so far out that the parents hand-built this schools themselves with a small bit of government money. They are trying now to raise money to build facilities for the teachers to sleep in during the week. It is difficult and expensive for teachers to get to the school and therefore difficult to find teachers able and willing to teach out there.

Once at school we met Headmaster Wilson Bokenya. With Michael Jackson safely buried, the question I am always asked now is “How is Mr. Obama doing?” and Mr. Bokenya asked immediately. Later he wanted to know if George Bush knew how many innocent people his wars cost, and if I thought he cared. (I laughingly think that now I am truly among my people). After a brief discussion I told him that next to my husband, Obama was my man. Wilson grinned and high-fived me.

In the classroom Isaac asked how everyone was doing and got little response. Further questioning led to the admission that many of the children didn’t feel well because they hadn’t eaten in a full day. Interestingly, Ugandan children must bring food to feed the teachers even when some of them haven’t eaten. (As terrible as this is, it isn’t nearly as bad as in northern and eastern Uganda where there is now famine, whether the government wants to formally admit it or not. Floods two years ago followed by drought has killed all crops. People are dying of starvation and pictures of the starving and the dead are often on the front pages of newspapers here).
This little girl answered the question of the day correctly and won our 25,000 Ush school scholarship. We give one to each school we visit. This equates to $10 US and pays for 1/3 of the school year. It does not pay for uniform, shoes, food or supplies. She was thrilled. She was also hungry.

Making bricks in Lwanyonyi

We were far enough out that there were no boda bodas to help us get back to the road. When we finally reached the road, police were everywhere even though we were quite far out of town. Isaac said we needed to be invisible because on Friday nights the police “made the weekend”. “Making the weekend” means stopping drivers and pedestrians and extorting money from them. If you don’t pay them off, or don’t have enough money to pay them off, you can go to jail on trumped up charges. I was told that the police chief often sends his officers out on Friday afternoon and tells them how much money to bring back. I read recently that Kenya is more corrupt than Uganda. Uganda is proud not to be number 1.

Sure enough, the police were stopping people and vehicles. We knew we would have trouble getting a ride back to town because all taxis and cars and boda bodas were afraid to stop near the police and we needed to be sort of invisible. We had to get past the police and down the road to a point that a taxi would stop for us. FINALLY a taxi that was completely full slowed down and the side man held up one finger, indicating they could take one person. Isaac waived him down and talked him into taking all four of us. Picture a nine passenger taxi with 16 people in it. I was in the middle somewhere with a huge bag of something that smelled like hay or grass sharing my lap. Luckily it was only about a 15 minute rideJ

(As I’m writing this Isaac is singing “Billy Sheans Tha’s My Son”, his own version of Michael Jackson’s song “Billy Jean”. George, you and Isaac should get together on your creative musical renditions.)

A house in Lwanyonyi

My old travel hairdryer died several days ago. I put it in a grocery sack and later put other trash on top of it. Yesterday I tied the bag shut and tossed the bag into the bucket where we put all of our trash. This morning Viola told me she was sorry that my hair dryer broke. Now I know the women of this family check all of my trash to see if there is anything salvageable that they can use. I find this a bit disconcerting but I don’t know why it should be. Again, cultural differences.