Friday, July 31, 2009

Too much time on my hands this week!

I obviously have too much time on my hands. Here are a bunch of random observations and trivia
. . .Ugandan Military
People in Uganda are surprised to hear that the U.S. military stays in place even if there is a new president. In Uganda, each president must hire his own army. When I tell them that our military doesn’t change with the change of administration, they shake their heads and “tsk tsk tsk”. (The sound doesn’t imply judgment one way or the other. It means something close to ‘fancy that’.)

The ramifications of this seem interesting. Im no scholar on the subject but it seems that it greatly behooves soldiers to use whatever tactics necessary to protect their President, as he and his position is directly tied to their personal financial security. Secondly, insurgents would have to gather and have in place enough citizen soldiers (rebels) and money to pay the solders to hold their new government in the unlikely event of a successful overthrow. Finally, given the indecent level of poverty here it must be fairly easy to recruit rebels. These kids have nothing to lose, and the potential of a job to gain. I bet becoming a rebel has a whole lot more to do with hunger than with idiology.

. . .Taxi Lessons
You’ve read my rants and raves on the Ugandan taxi and taxi driver. Now envision the following: As a reminder, a taxi is an old 9 passenger van. I have counted as many as 26 in one I have been on.

In Uganda the driving is done on the left, so the sliding doors on the taxi vans open on the left rather than on the right as in the US. The seat directly behind the front seat passenger window is reserved for the conductor. The conductor rides with the door open in areas where people are gathered and as the driver slows down, the conductor yells out where the taxi is going. Mukono, Mbarara, Jinja, etc. As he does this he holds up however many fingers to indicate the number of spaces available on the vehicle. Often this is only a suggested number as he may be holding up two fingers, but if four people want a ride, he will often start making the existing passengers move around or squish together to accommodate the four.

Alternately, the taxi is parked on the street and sits until the conductor deems it full enough to make it worth going somewhere. This can take up to an hour and a half. It is better to find a taxi already moving. This is the same with large buses. There are no tickets and no ticket takers. When the vehicle is full, you go. And you sit there until it is at least full.

There are a couple of drawbacks to getting into an already traveling taxi. If I am traveling from Kampala to Mukono, I am looking for a moving vehicle with a conductor that is yelling, “Mukono” and holding up at least one finger. Assume that has happened and there is an actual seat for me. Now, envision the game Tetris. As passengers get off, everyone on the taxi changes seats, taking all of their bundles (children, chickens, bags of banana leaves) moving to towards the back so that the back seats remain full. The farther you travel, the more likely you will eventually wind up in the farthest right hand seat back. Now, you figure that you will no longer need to move since you are in the seat that must be vacated before anyone else moves. Not so.

It just may be that the taxi is actually going to Gomba, but since they travel TOWARDS Mukono they nabbed you as a passenger by saying they were going to Mukono. You get thrown off the taxi when they approach the Gomba turn off. But not before they charge you.

You stand on the road and pray for another taxi going to Mukono and when one comes, you repeat the process until you finally land in Mukono.

The alternative to this is to go to an actual taxi park. There, you search for a taxi with a cardboard placard that says “Mukono”. This taxi is actually going to Mukono, but you may sit there for 90 minutes while the vehicle fills. Still, you play the human Tetris game throughout your trip.

Now that I have figured out the system, I decided to thwart it. When I was asked to disembark because they were going to Gomba, I decided to go to Gomba. I had nothing better to do and haven’t yet been to Gomba. It didn’t work. The conductor assumed I was a Muzungu that didn’t understand, and kicked me off. (Actually it wasnt Gomba but I forget the name of the town they were dumping me for)


. . .On asking the Ugandan Government for land on which to build an orphanage, an orphan’s primary school, with a sustainable organic garden, room for a piggery, chickens and goats…and a Phase II vocational training center for the children as they age out of the orphanage…and an on-site community HIV/AIDS testing and referral counseling service, and more. I don’t want much:-) But then when was the last time you got something you never asked for?

I worked all day on the concept paper that the Minister of Gender and Social Something wants prior to submitting a full proposal. The facts alone drove the entire paper so it was fairly easy. One in 4 people who die this year will succumb to AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria or infections related to dirty water. Mukono already has over 77,000 orphans with very personal connections to the above deaths. Uganda has over 1,000,000. In every corner of the world intelligence and energy are evenly distributed, but opportunity, investment and effective governments and organizations are not. (all of this was given to me in one form or another) It is certainly not a level playing field here. And since I still believe that our common humanity is more important than our individual differences, I included a statement that our orphanage will accept children of both Christian and Muslim faiths, and Buganda and other tribes. I don’t know how well that will fly given the fact that most government officials are Christian and the churches have such strong influence on decision making. On the up side, both faiths live side by side here in total harmony. So…tomorrow I will put the finishing touches on this paper and move on to the next task.

Family
I took Scovia for coffee at the hotel today. I don’t know if she had ever been there or not. She has never been in a swimming pool but saw it and would like to try it. As a little girl she lived in Jinja with her aunt who would not let her get into the Nile because of crocs. She has wanted to try swimming ever since she was small. So next weekend I will take her and give her a lesson.

One of the greatest things about living with a local family is that you get to know them well enough to ask about and discuss cultural differences without any discomfort. She was shocked to hear of nursing homes. We discussed burial practices and I am shocked at theirs. We went on to discuss motherhood and decided that mothers are pretty much the same everywhere. We all want the same things for our children. I didn’t say so, but there is in fact a difference: In the USA the dreams we have for our children and those they have for themselves might actually happen.

Paul came home after working at the hospital today with feet blacker than our Ugandan hosts. He played soccer with the patients, barefoot, in the dirt. I had to take a picture of his feet. Later Alice, Scovia and Viola joined us on my floor as we had tea. They took one look at his feet and got the honking, snorting, crying, out of control, hysterical laughing fits.

Alice asked to see the picture of herself and her mother on my computer tonight. I have not yet found a place to get photos developed for her as I promised. She began by enjoying the pictures of that last visit but then homesickness took over. Paul and I offered to take her home on Sunday and she was worried about going without Scovia or Isaac because she can’t translate. We told her not to worry because she could visit with her mother and we will wander around the village and take some photos. That was good enough for her. She perked right up! I told Paul that we can each pack a loaf of bread in our backpacks to leave with her mother. I’m thinking we could carry some rice as well. My backpack is so good I could probably fit a goat in there if need be. We've put off going to Jinja until next weekend so that Katy can join us.

The “girls” (Scovia/Viola/Alice) want my hair and were pretty convinced it had something to do with my shampoo. Viola asked if she could try my shampoo. I told her that she could, but that our hair was different. She tried it and was disappointed. It is still not Muzungu hair. She thinks that maybe if she could use my conditioner… Then Paul asked to use my shampoo and loved it. He wants to know if he can buy it anywhere in London. I told him he could try the internet. I want a commission from Osmotics for international marketing. It will pay for more shampoo since everyone is using mine up. Paul by the way had his pocket picked in Kampala yesterday and lost everything but his passport. Oh man.

Tomorrow (Saturday) we are all going to the school in Seeta where the students from villages far and near are having a full day dancing and drumming competition. Alice said she couldn’t go but didn’t say why. It turns out that you must wear shoes when in school and she has none. Geez. I never noticed before, but I do think she is always barefoot. I was going to give her my sandals to wear but she must wear Size Huge. Huge. (I have often seen bare feet in some of the more remote village schools)

Met a charming new neighbor this evening. Her name is Diana and she is 13 years old. She is Buganda. She is also an incredibly bright kid. She disappeared and reappeared with a COLD beer for me and a Fanta orange for herself. Cold beer anywhere around here is like producing actual bunnies from magic hats. When I asked her where it came from, she said that her father gave it to her to give to me. I don’t know where this man found cold beer, but man…I LIKE Ugandans…anyway she had a thousand questions for me and then taught me much about the Buganda tribe. She has an uncle living in Boston who just finished his residency at some hospital there. He is coming back here to practice. Good deal. Bedtime...

Thursday, July 30, 2009

Two nights ago Paul and I sat outside and noticed Alice sitting in the dark crying. We both asked here why she was crying and she put her head down and refused to answer. After a while, we decided perhaps we should just leave her alone, and went to bed. At midnight Viola, who shares a bed with Alice, awoke Scovia to say that Alice had been crying for hours and wouldn’t say what was wrong. Scovia got up and tried to talk with Alice. Did I abuse you? Did Viola abuse you? Did the Paul or Melanie abuse you? Did Isaac abuse you? Alice simply shook her head and cried harder. Isaac got up from bed and tried comforting her and tried to determine the problem. Did someone die in your village? Has some bad man defiled you? FINALLY he asked Did you do something bad? Yes! Alice did something bad and was certain she would be sent home to her village. She finally choked out that she had burned the water heating pot! Isaac had purchased an electric pot to heat water for Paul and I because each time we wanted warm water to wash up in, or hot tea, Alice had previously had to light the charcoal stove, get water, heat it up, and it took forever. So he spent 40,000 Ush or about $20 US for this electric pot. Alice had forgotten and left the pot plugged in and it burned. Since she only earns 30,000 a month she was absolutely certain that Isaac and Scovia would send her away.

Isaac told her not to worry, that it was only a pot (although $20 US is a LOT of money for him!) The next day I went to Kampala and stopped on my way home to buy ice cream for Alice. (The ice cream here is an awful concoction, but Alice loves it.) When I handed it to her she said, You love me and I told her yes, I do love you. She smiled and said Scovia and Isaac too! Today my Sweet Alice-ee is all smiles once again, although her eyes are puffed out like the killer frog I found in my room last week.

It appears that hairdressing school is 6 months long and may cost as little as 400,000 Ush. I am feeling more hopeful. Alice can’t go to the school until she is 16 and will ask her mother when her birthday is. I hope her mother remembers!!!

All of the doors here are metal with a slide latch. Above the latch is a hole that is about 5” in diameter which you leave open if you are accepting guests. I had mine closed today because I was sick and had been unable to hold food or liquids. (Not to worry because I am starting to feel better). I was sleeping and Alice opened my door hole, stuck her eye in the space and started whispering my name. When I rolled over and told her to come in, she bounced in to tell me that one of her sisters had arrived and she wanted me to meet her. So I got up to meet her sister who I later learned is 17 years old. When we were introduced, her sister covered her head with her arms and giggled and wouldn’t look at me. Alice tried and tried to get her to look at me, but all she could do was laugh and cover her face. I THINK they look alike but I don’t know for certain. This is the sister she misses the most. She had another sister that died of AIDS. She doesn’t know why her father died. He just died in his sleep.

Tonight Paul came home from Bidibika—the state mental asylum in Kampala—where he is working this week with all sorts of people including children traumatized by being kidnapped from the LRA (and later escaped or recovered somehow). After an emotional day he pulls out his guitar to relax and more often than not the children from around here come to dance while he sings and plays. So we are all sitting outside when one of the tiny girls fell face down on the hard dirt and CRIES CRIES CRIES. She is not hurt except for a tiny scratch on her forehead but when they know that when they CRY around a muzungu, they generally get held and cuddled so they really CRY. I remembered that I brought from the USA a box of brightly colored fancy band aids and went and got one. Once this bright green band aid was on her little forehead she was suddenly well and thought herself very special. She was greatly admired by the other children. I hope this doesn’t cause a series of future disasters among the village children necessitating brightly colored band aids, but I predict it will!

We sat outside way after dark this evening with the children. They are trying to teach us a children’s song in Luganda that we will later use when working with little children around Uganda. Their mothers came to help. The village neighbors are now finding the muzungus pretty entertaining and no longer hesitate to come over themselves, nor do they worry when their children come over. And the children are here now whenever we are. They run to us as they see us heading home and escort us. Now that Paul has purchased a drum, he plays the guitar, I drum (badly), and the children dance. Every day.

I missed my meeting with the Minister of Gender this morning since I was ill. I hope he will see me tomorrow. I need information surrounding the need and best placement for a new orphanage. I have found only one official report—from 2007—indicating at that time this district had nearly 77,000 orphans. I know there are children on waiting lists to get into orphanages, some of whom will remain street children until additional orphanages are constructed. Still, I need updated figures so that I can put together the concept paper in preparation of a grant request for land for the orphanage. We now have a firm commitment of a few farm animals so that the orphanage can begin to be self sustaining as soon as we are built.’ We would like to get help as well beginning an organic farm on the orphanage premises.

I went back into Kampala yesterday to a “shopping mall” recommended by a travel book as THE place for westerners to shop. Like everything else here, it was a 1950 or 1960’s throwback, but there were Indian and Chinese and an attempt at a Western restaurant(s). I was excited to see hamburgers on the menu and ordered one. One bite and I had to remove the meat and just eat the bun. I don’t know what the hell kind of mystery meat they were using but it tasted like a salt lick and was wholly uncooked. Yuck! Still, there was a grocery store there that sold western items like Nivea lotion. I didn’t need any, but I bought it anyway. It now has a place of honor on my floor, along with my family photos…something to remind me of home! The trip was well worth the nasty travel (and ONCE AGAIN getting thrown out of the taxi half way home!!!) because I found small bags of whole bean African coffee. I have no way to grind beans or cook the coffee but I will when I get home! African coffee is pretty darned wonderful!

As always, trips to Kampala necessitate actual showers so I walked to the Crane Hotel and purchased one last night. In their lobby was an ancient tv playing an old American sit-com with Tom Hanks in it. I think this one was from the early 1970’s. It had all been dubbed in Lugandan. Living in Uganda is like living in a weird time warp where you can walk from the 1970s into the 1950s and in some villages, straight into the Dark Ages.

The walk home from the Golden Crane is long and dark and I couldnt find a boda. Finally one stopped and when I asked him "how much" the creep asked me for 7,000 Ush for what is normally a 1,000 Ush ride (for me. It is 500 Ush for non-muzungu). I told him I would rather walk home. He finally gave in and let me aboard his boda for 1,500 Ush. They all think they are great businessmen these boda boda guys:-)

Monday, July 27, 2009

Paul and I left in the morning for Jinja. We found a taxi at 930a but once again sat there until 1030a until the taxi was full. This “full” was only 16 people in the van—not full by Ugandan standards. This leaves room to pick up others along the way. We had been warned that the trip would take two or three hours but it was only about 90 minutes from the time we left Mukono. In true Ugandan transportation form, we were asked to get off the bus just outside Jinja because the taxi decided to go elsewhere. We arrived Jinja on Bus #2. (Two weeks ago we were coming from Kampala and there were five people on the bus who decided they wanted to go to somewhere other than Mukono, the taxi’s original destination. The driver decided to throw the rest of us out on the road so that he could accommodate the group with more money. We waited in the sun for fifteen minutes until another taxi came by that could take us the rest of the way into Mukono. You can get stranded virtually anywhere here!)

On the way there we passed through Lugazi, the last town in Uganda to have had a child found beheaded in human sacrifice in order to satisfy some witch doctor. I looked closely to see if mothers were keeping their children closer and YES! It is the first time I have not seen small children wandering the streets alone. They were all within eyesight of their mother or their father. There was a picture of this Lugazi child on the front page of the paper last week, his 6 year old head laying a few feet from the body, and the villagers standing around staring, horrified. The villagers tracked down the culprit, burned his house and belongings, and nearly beat him to death before police arrived. I think this guy is toast. As he should be.

Jinja is the second largest to town in Uganda although it is certainly not a metropolis by any standards. My purpose in wanting to go was to see the source of the Nile as it flows from Lake Victoria, but was thrilled to simply be in a town that had actual sidewalks! And the streets, although primarily dirt, weren’t pocked with pot hole after pot hole.

We were starving when we arrived and so went to an outdoor restaurant attached to a hotel, thinking that hotel food is generally safer to eat. The problem was that anything we tried to order, the waitress shook her head and said it was unavailable. It turned out that there was no electricity so everything was unavailable except coffee, chappata bread and old omelets. We were excited to have a real cup of brewed coffee so we ordered that. Forty minutes later we were delivered a thermos of hot milk and a tin of instant coffee. It was actually pretty good even though it wasn’t the brewed coffee we had hoped for. Paul bought corn cakes across the street.

Jinja suffered badly during the Amin years and subsequent period of economic and political turmoil. Still, you can see that it was once beautiful. There is some really nice colonial era Asian architecture, complimented by thick and lush tropical vegetation, and surrounded by jungle. The buildings, however beautiful from a distance, are upon closer inspection bordering on slums. Nothing has been painted or cleaned in 30 years, windows are broken or missing, frames rusted, interiors are gutted, etc. Much of Uganda is this way. Nearly all of Mukono is the same. But again, my ankles and hips appreciated the sidewalks made of bricks. In the town center there was a small patch of muddy garden. In order to keep pedestrians off of it as they cross the street, they had strung barbed wire.

This is where in 1858 Stanley and Livingston argued over the exact location of the source of the Nile. (Dr. Livingston I presume?)

We took a boda to the site which has been designated the actual source of the Nile. This is a major tourist destination, although most of the tourists were from other African countries. To enter, it costs 2,000 Ush if you were Ugandan (black) and 10,000 Ush if you were not Ugandan (muzungu). We had a nice laugh over that. We get the Special Muzungu price everywhere we go.

Once off the road there is a series of steep steps down to the river, lined with merchants charging double for all of their wares. Still, it was pretty fascinating and I picked up a small wooden bowl. Paul and I hiked down to the water and took a few photos of the river. We were approached by a young black man who had a boat and offered to take us to the “exact location of the source” where the lake and the river merge. After a bit of haggling over money we got in his boat and off we went to a very small island. The young man was a wealth of information, showing us the marker in the water which is supposed to be the demarcation line between the lake and the river, telling us that it took water 3.5 months to travel from our location to the Mediterranean Sea, etc. In the distance we could see another island which houses the Ugandan federal prison. He also told us that we can take a boat from Jinja to Tanzania and enter Tanzania without a visa. It is cheap and takes 18 hours so I may do that before I leave here.

There are no Nile Crocodiles or Hippos at the mouth of the river because there is also a spring there that causes a hard current and it is too much work for them. So these animals are all in town, along the river. I hope to go back next weekend and do a horseback safari for a few hours to see them.

We left the Nile and took a boda on a longish ride to Bujagali Falls, and a thrilling series of grade five rapids below the falls. Our boda driver dropped us about a mile from the falls. As we walked the muddy road in, we passed a grazing bull that was tied by some sort of vine to a nearby tree. I told Paul that if he kissed the bull I would pay for his trip back to Mukono. I was really only kidding, but Paul slowly approached the seemingly docile bull and as he got within a few feet of him, the bull reared his head up and decided to charge Paul. Paul jumped back and out of the way, but I got a photo which is pretty darned funny. We laughed the rest of the way in. (Thank goodness for strong vines attached to the bull!) Paul said I should remember that he is Scottish and they will do anything for moneyJ

The falls are also a tourist destination and there were a couple busloads of Muslim children who all wanted their pictures taken. I asked one boy what his name was and he told me “Michael Jackson”. I yelled, “HEY EVERYONE WE HAVE MICHAEL JACKSON HERE!! and asked him to dance. He got embarrassed and all of the children cracked up. Still, several of them tried to moonwalk for me.

The falls are wild and dangerous but you can get quite close. I was shocked to see two men go through the falls hanging on to only empty jerry cans. As they make it through they wave and everyone cheers. Paul has decided to go on a raft trip out of Jinja next weekend (while I horseback safari) and he wants to do the jerry can trip through the falls and subsequent rapids. Ive tried talking him out of it because of the danger of what is IN the water, not just the strength of it. Everywhere I go I am warned not to touch the sand or the water because of the parasites in it. Paul however, is 24 and still believes himself to be bullet proof.

Speaking of bullets, there were several soldiers there. I got brave and asked if I could take their picture (which is supposed to be off limits). They said yes, and struck their meanest looks. I took a picture and then told them I wanted another, but I wanted them to smile. They didn’t want to smile so I told them I wanted to show American women just how handsome Ugandan men were, but that in order to do that they would have to smile. So they let me take two more pictures and they all sort of posed like models (with rifles) with big smiles on their faces. I then showed them their photos and they were pleased. Pardon me guys, but I think that young men are the same around the world. Anything for women!

There is a grass hut there where you can buy beer AND there were toilets!!! So we each bought a beer, hit the toilets, and braved another boda back into Jinja. We found a taxi and took off for Mukono. Ten minutes later the radiator overheated, we pulled over, everyone poured out of the taxi and they bought a couple bottles of water to pour into the radiator. We were off again for another 10 minutes when the van totally died. Still, the driver’s assistant demanded that Paul and I each pay him 5,000 Ush. The entire trip was supposed to be only 4,000 Ush and we were still an hour from Mukono! We refused and each gave him 2,000. Again, a Special Muzungu price. The other passengers apologized to us. Ugandan taxi and boda drivers embarrass the general populace since they are chronic rip off artists. Again…we waited in the sun for another taxi…which didn’t take too long.

It was dark when we returned and we walked to the Colline Hotel (where I am today) to get adult beverages before we completed the walk home in the dark. I ordered a run and coke. I got a rum and hot coke. I forgot. No ice here. Gaaaak!

We have all of next week off as it is report week for Beacon of Hope Uganda and we don’t report. We met some young people working at a nearby orphanage with 850 children. They are leaving on Monday so we will go visit the orphanage next week and perhaps work there. This orphanage is served by a doctor from Denver, CO who comes down three times per year and he is supposed to be there now. Katy the deaf teacher, will come from Bushenyi to stay with us the following week so she may be able to help as well. If there is time at the end of the week I may also venture over to Entebbe via the dreaded Kampala and see if I can get a boat over to the Ssese Islands. I understand the boat and hotel (the boat leaves once a day so you must stay there) is very expensive for muzungus but Ill find out before I go. The following week I believe we work in Gomba at another orphanage BoHU had to place children when our orphanage had to close for lack of funding.

I am also writing a concept paper next week for the Minister of SOMETHING to ask for money for land. He actually asked for the paper! I think we may have another donor lined up to partially pay for the actual building construction of an orphanage for us. Then all of the children can come home to their own district where many of them have relatives, even though those relatives cant take care of them (very elderly, or too young. ) Following that, I will work on finding an engineering organization to perhaps set up a water purification system for us, beds, etc. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I need to find money to purchase some sort of a used car so we can reach the villages more cheaply, and the ever present need for school sponsorships for our orphans. What I need, is to win the lottery.

Outta here now. I came to the hotel today with my computer in hopes of being able to pull down some internet on my mobile modem but nada nada lemonada. It now appears that about 40 people are about to be baptized in the hotel swimming pool…

* *

It is now morning. Last night a man came slowly up the road in front of where I live with a bull horn, announcing something that sounded rather desperate. Scovia said that he lives in the neighboring village and is announcing that his 10 year old daughter has disappeared. With all of the kidnappings for human sacrifice that has been going on, I am sure he is terrified.

Once a week a truck drives by playing the loudest possible music. The truck sells things like charcoal and plantains that are difficult for women to carry from the market. (Sort of the Ugandan version of Schwanns). This morning I was out front watching my neighbor children—in this case all of them are boys—when the truck started down our road. Most of the children move to the road and dance to the music as the truck approaches. This morning they are all wearing just tee shirts and no pants. These little kids can really dance even though they are all very young. So there danced all of the little boys…their little dingles danglingJ
Alice I have learned, is only 15 years old. She has completed grade 5. She now considers herself too old to be with that age group, even if she had money for school. I pay her 30,000 Ush or about $15 US per month, and Isaac and Scovia give her free room and board. She works for all of us from sun up to sun down, washing clothes, babysitting, cleaning, cooking… Of her 30,000 she receives each month she is saving 20,000 per month to go to beauty school and sends 10,000 to her mother. It could take her all of her life at $10 per month to get into beauty school. Still, if she can be trained as a beautician she will someday be able to support herself and her mother. I wonder if Isaac and Scovia will be able to pay her anything after I leave. I worry about her all of the time.

Friday, July 24, 2009

the impromptu concert

On our last night Paul and I sat on the steps sneaking an adult beverage (Paul bought gin at the hotel last night because you could only purchase it by the bottle) and assumed the children were all in bed. With no electricity they go to bed prior to dark. As we sat there all of the children came and lined up in front of us in the dark, saying nothing. Then an older child arrived with an African drum. She started to bang the drum and the children sang to us. Then they started to dance and let me tell you...some of those little children can really bust the moves!!! They then tried teaching Paul and I to dance to no avail except their own personal amusement. They found us pretty funny. For the next 40 minutes they sang and danced and partied until one of the women came and tried to calm them all down for bed. I used my cell phone and dialed George, Don and the Bosadas and held it up as they sang and danced so that some of you could hear it. One of the adults told them their singing was being heard in America and they sang and whooped even louder. The next night when I called George to ask if he heard them he said he couldnt tell if it was singing or if I was being murdered. That was African Orphan singing. I cant tell you how much these children have changed in our three days. I wish there were more adults who could visit more often. It would help them so very much. SOoooo very much! They have been told that there are a lot of people in America and the UK who care about them and that made them very happy!

more on our orphanage visit

Our last day there, Paul went into town to purchase a ball and some art supplies (could only find a ball) and I was alone with Primah and Momma Africa. They had invited the women of the village to meet me and all arrived dressed to the African Nine's. Two elderly arrived in full headress and staffs about 1o feet tall to help them walk. I was interrogated with Primah interpretating. All cheered when asked if I had children and I responded that I did. All asked if I could stay for a month and stay with them. One of the elderly said that if it were earlier in the day she would dance for me to show me how much she appreciated my visit. I told her I wanted a dance anyway. Everyone laughed and she stood, dropped her walking stick, raised her arms and did a short traditional dance. I applauded. It was fun.

Momma Africa asked if I could come back and stay with her for a month or two. I told her my husband probably wouldnt allow it and she understood. In the evening she walked us down the road and up into the mountains to meet another family. The woman was awestruck having two white people in her home. She told Isaac that she felt she was sitting in the presence of God. Paul and I later laughed and decided that since all the photos in her house were of Jesus, who is white, she probably did:-)

Hope I told you of the children doing an impromptu song and dance for us in the evening. Ill check later and if not, Ill pass it along in another blog.

In the morning I watched the children pull branches from trees and sweep their sleeping/school quarters and pick up all of the twigs and rocks from the yard. Still, each was in the same outfit they had been wearing all week. Still dirty and vaguely hungry. We popped our heads into their classrooms as we left to say goodbye. They remembered how to blow kisses as we taught them. I left with a giant lump in my throat.

We stood on the highway and waited for a bus to come along. The one that stopped was circa about 1970 and still had some padding in the seats AND SCHOCKS!!! The ride back was so much better but longer as it stopped ih Mbarara and we sat there for over an hour waiting for the bus to fill up. In the process I had to pee and got off in search of a place in the market place to go. Finally found my first Ugandan public toilet. For 2oo Ush I got three squares of toilet paper, directions on where to go, and 6,000 Ugandans watching the muzungu head for the hole in the ground.

Got home last night, washed up in a bowl and hit the sack early. During the night I enjoyed hearing a long and heavy rain. Got up this morning, stepped outside, and sunk up to my ankles in mud! I lost my sandals in the mud and had to pull them out and squish up the hill to the loo.

Scovia has been off taking care of her sister that has gone mad and so there was no real breakfast--two ears of cold corn and a piece of bread. Her sister is pentacostal and so when she had a psychotic episode again her husband sent her to the church to have the demons exorcised. It hasnt worked and Scovia found her sister was still at the church--crazed and dirty--and has been there for a month. She spent two days trying to get her from the church and into a hospitqal and it didnt work. Scovia came home terribly upset last night.

Today i have come to the hotel and spent money on coffee and breakfast so that I can sit here and access internet. Ill now see if i can upload some photos. None will be forthcoming of the orphanage until I can get back into Kampala and try to purchase another card reader. My photos from the past five days are stuck in my camera:-(
There is no electricity for the next 5 days and my computer will run out of battery charge at some point. This is July 21.

Paul: Paul finally arrived a few days ago, having been stranded in Dubai for two days. He is from Scotland (via Wales and more often refers to himself as Welsh) and is an occupational therapist. He is 24, brought his guitar and harmonica and can sing and play anything. His first few days here all the village kids came to our area so that they could dance to his singing. Also…he brought far cooler kid stuff than I did. He out aces me by a mile in the child entertainment department. He just graduated from college and landed a pretty prestigious job at a hospital in London when he returns. He has introduced me to evening tea, which we take on my floor when the rest of the family has disappeared into their family core. He has also introduced me to whiskey which is done on the sly but certainly makes the evening pass more quickly.

On his second day here Isaac, Ronnie, Paul and I went to the Ugandan version of a nightclub. It was on the roof of a decrepit building in Mukono. The music was LOUD and everyone sat around tables…perhaps 15 tables. When one wants to dance you simply move your chairs back and dance at your table. Tables of women danced together. Tables of men dance together. I was the only woman dancing with men, and three at a time at that. I was the star of the show—everyone stared at the old muzungu with two young black man and a wild looking Scotsman. Paul and I had Nile beer and Isaac and Ronnie had Guinnes. I had to laugh at the turnabout in our international beers. We stayed a bit over an hour when jet lag hit Paul and he looked like he was physically folding. So…on to bodas in the dark. It was Paul’s first boda in the dark ride and he was clearly as frightened as I had been the first time. By the way, he was here all of four hours and he made the same observation I had made immediately upon arriving: “I feel so WHITE!”

Today we took the 7 hour bus ride to Bushenyi. The bus was circa 1950 and was filthy, packed with people and chickens. The ride was BUMPY. Most of the time we actually had to hold on to the handrails. I once bit my tongue badly as we hit one of a thousand potholes at 70 mph and Isaac actually flew out of his seat and hit the ceiling. And the dirt and dust and smoke was incredible!!! Add to that the smell of hot brakes. We stopped several times to let them cool down. The only tragedy however (besides my whiplash and broken butt) was that I lost my hat somewhere on the bus. Note: It is evidently legal here to pass on blind curves and drive on the wrong side of the road provided you blow your horn the entire time you do it.

Let me back up…In the morning we arrived in beautiful downtown Kampala (Yes, this is sarcasm) , population 6.5 million, at 9a.m. We walked to the bus park and were pulled this way and that by different bus drivers wanting us on their bus. Once we got on, we sat there in the heat for over an hour, breathing diesel fumes and praying to die. The ride was even worse. The constant smoke here no matter where you go is overwhelming. While we waited (I sat between Paul, another man, the guy with two big roosters, and in front of a man with 5 trays of baby chicks), We made 4 stops lasting perhaps 5 minutes each, and at each stop young vendors held up their wares to the bus windows selling: Mystery Meat on a stick, chapat tbread, corn cakes, roasted bananas, Fanta Orange drink, watches, flashlights, Preparation H, ointment for rashes, etc. Had I known the bus ride was going to be so terribly bouncy (NO SHOCKS ON THIS old bus!) I would have shelled out the 50 Ush for the Preparation H and Paul and I could have shared it! I had a large backpack that I had to carry on my lap which Paul graciously held on his lap for several hours.

Near the end of the trip we moved to the front of the bus as it was emptying to make the disembarking faster. I sat next to a man who, when he realized a muzungu was sitting next to him smiled and asked “German?” I said “No, U.S.A” With a huge grin he said “Obama!” Then he said it again with a question in his voice and with his thumb up, which I took to mean “Do you like Obama”? I returned with a nod of my head and a thumbs up. He stood and pointed to the muzungu and announced to everyone around us, “OBAMA GOOD! OBAMA GOOD!” I can’t tell you how profoundly grateful I am that George Bush is no longer president. I’d probably be dead by now.

The morning paper had reported that the Bwindi National Forest was on fire and the mountain gorilla have split into families…some of them migrating over into Rwanda and some farther south in Uganda. There was speculation that the fire also sent Rwandan rebels hiding in the forest into hiding in Uganda and the DRC. As our bus pressed farther and farther toward the Congo border I noticed a good number of Ugandan soldiers moving the highway with us. Last evening I asked Prima (the daughter of the woman who runs this orphanage) if she knew why there were so many soldiers. She told me that there was a big military base five miles from the border and that they moved constantly back and forth from the area. So…what we saw was normal movement. Makes sense to me.

There are a few additional difficulties in western Uganda starting with the language. They speak neither English nor Luganda so everything Id learned of Luganda is for naught. They are not Bugandan here.

This orphanage is run by an older woman named Ahnna but everyone in the district calls her Momma Africa. Until recently she had 350 orphans but has recently had to move several children to another location because of space. She and her husband used to run this orphanage together but he died in November. She is now on her own and determined to keep the orphanage going. She runs a school on the premises for the orphans. Actually the children’s sleeping areas double for classrooms. There are two rooms (dormitories)—one for boys and one for girls. Everything is a dirt floor. There are a couple of rough wood beds but mostly mats on the floor. Each morning the bed mats are picked up and the children bring in straw mats to sit on for the class. The children sleep in their clothes and then wear them again the next day. Ive taken pictures. To try to describe this unimaginable set up would be an exercise in futility. I will post the pictures when I return if I cant somehow get them up while I am here.

The orphans are also very different children. None of them smile or wave. If I smile or wave they return my overtures with dead stares. Paul tried playing soccer with them when we arrived and only one little boy went for the ball. All the others stood there expressionless and vaguely frightened. I don’t believe most if any of them have ever heard of or seen muzungus. One of the tinier boys of perhaps 3 years old was obviously frightened of us. He just cried. To break the ice, I pulled out my magic camera and took a photo of them and showed them. They were at least interested but not at all excited like the children of Mukono District. I learned later that since none of them had ever seen themselves, they only recognized the other children in the photo and I confused them.

It was fairly late in the evening by now. Momma Africa had prepared a nice spread of rice, greens, beans and pineapple for us (we were starving). Later Prima prepared tea and hot milk for Paul and I which we drank by lantern. As we drank our tea she heated some water and poured it in a bowl for us to clean up with (also by lantern. I was treated to an evening’s sleep on a real mattress. The mattress was quite old and sagged terribly but still, it felt wonderful to my ancient, tired old American ass and I slept like a log.

This morning we all slept in until about 7a.m. Prima had already set out breakfast (bread, margarine, hot milk and peanuts) and warmed some water for us to wash our faces with. This too was wonderful since Ive been cleaning my face with Baby Wipes that I purchased in Kampala. It struck me that since food for the children is so hard to come by, that Momma Africa and Primah had gone way out on a financial limb (especially for milk and beans!) to be hospitable to us in buying this food for our visit. They also offered us soap and toothpaste, but we had already brought our own.

Primah and Momma then took us to the dormitories/classrooms and introduced us to a young 21 year old woman who is their teacher. I have asked her name three times and still don’t understand but it sounds sort of like Esther. We then continued the tour with Esther going with us to view their two pigs and their endless plantain trees (which is what the kids primarily eat). Esther is a very sweet young woman. She asked if I could find a “pen” to write to her. Is anyone out there interested in writing her? Let me know!

We left the orphanage and walked up the road to a tea plantation that Esther proudly told us she had grown up on. It is owned by her grandfather who raised her after Esther’s father died. We asked about the mother and everyone went silent, so we don’t know why Esther was orphaned. At any rate she and her grandfather are very close and she wanted to take us to his house so that he could meet her muzungu friends.

As an aside, one always takes shoes off at the door in Africa because of the red dirt. Even if the interior floor of the house is dirt, it is usually well swept and walking on it in shoes pulverizes the hard dirt into dust. So…shoes always off. You may take them on and off 30 times each day. I just purchased a pair of zorries like they wear here to step into and out of the house. I tell you this because Esther’s grandfather was so happy to have us as guests he insisted that we leave our shoes on to visit inside his house.

Grandfather is a big man in the village. He is a reverend and his congregation sometimes offers food to Momma Africa’s children. Grandpa spoke on and on in his language and Paul and I sat there like two idiots grinning and nodding like a couple of bobble-head dolls. Esther knows a bit of English and translated when she could. I asked her to tell her grandfather that we were honored to be in his home. He grabbed my hands, looked into my eyes, smiled, and kept talking. I understood completely. Some conversations truly don’t need translation.

We left there and went to Momma Africa’s mother’s house. Her mother gave me the elderly’s version of the Ugandan Body Slam and again, we were not allowed to take off our shoes. We repeated the bobble head theme. Then we took a hike that incredibly beautiful though it was, I hope never to have to replicate…

Momma Africa’s orphanage has two fish ponds at the bottom of a very deep ravine that helps to feed the children. The fish ponds are actually two muddy water pits that she drags a net through and pulls out mud fish. The climb down is extremely steep and often dark and slippery with jungle foliage, and I noted Momma grinning every time she saw me struggle a bit. She wasn’t grinning because she thought it funny. She was embarrassed. These folks seem to embarrass easily and she didn’t want me to be uncomfortable. So I would struggle with the steepness, and she would grin. There were also goats strewn here and there, all tied by the leg to trees and vines. These are hers as well. I want to underscore that I am no weenie. And having climbed steep red dirt hills here since I arrived, I am probably stronger than I have been in a while. But all I could think of on the hot, wet, steep trek out, was that I would never again take a hike any more strenuous than the People Mover at the airport. And then it got tougher…

We arrived back at the top of the mountain, at Momma’s Momma’s house. MM had had someone cut a HUGE bunch of plantains and pulled a HUGE basked of avocados…as a gift for us!! We had to haul these things back to the orphanage and smile as we did it. Okay. I am grateful. I also confess to being more of a weenie than I like. I lasted about one block with those avocados as Paul struggled with the bananas across his shoulders. Once back up at the road Paul was huffing and puffing with the plantains, when we passed a man struggling to push a bicycle loaded down with plantains up a hill. He laughed at us weak, sweaty muzungus.

At about 4 we decided to go into Ishaka, about 10 miles east of here. Isaac said he wanted to meet a friend at the Crane Hotel there at 7pm. He said HIS name was Cat. We left early so that we could do some shopping. We stood on the road but no bodas came so we started to walk. Eventually a finally a taxi stopped. This was more like a real taxi, as it was a car and not a van. But there were 10 people in the car including us! There was a fat guy sitting on the drivers lap. The driver had his left hand on the steering wheel and the right side of his body was hanging out the door.

I bought a new hat in Ishaka and we found yet another slow internet spot. Isaac was still online when Paul and I decided to take a boda to the Crane Hotel—perhaps 5 miles west—to wait for him. We also figured a nice hotel may have a barJ As we got off the boda there was a young white woman also getting off a boda in the same place. We hit the bar and took our drinks outside to this wonderful stone plaza overlooking the most beautiful valley imaginable! In a few minutes this young white woman approached us saying that she had been alone in Bushenye for three weeks and was desperate to talk to someone…and did we speak English? We invited her to sit with us and told her we were waiting for someone. She said she was waiting for someone too, but would join us until one of our meeting partners showed up. Her name was Katy.

Katy is deaf but can speak. She came here to teach sign language to deaf children but the parents are angry that she could speak and accused her of not being deaf. (The deaf here are not taught to speak) Her organization has given her no support and she is just sort of stranded here. She is also teaching her first online college course (she teaches English at George Washington University) beginning in two weeks so she has passed the time preparing for that.

Isaac showed up and guess what???? It was KATY that he was there to meet! She had written him and explained her situation and had inquired if he needed anyone who could teach children sign language. (She had spent a month in Kampala learning Luganda and learning to sign in Luganda). So the four of us chatted it up far into the night. Katy drank away her boda money so I loaned her money to get home. Whether she joins us in Mukono or not, she will join Paul and I on our trip to Jinja and perhaps a raft trip on the Nile the weekend after next.

We decided that due to cold, distance and safety we needed a taxi home rather than a boda. We flagged down the first car out of the hotel parking lot, assuming it was a taxi. The man told us to get in. We did and there seemed to be some confusion as to where we were staying (since it is so far out). It turned out that the driver of the car was the owner of the very nice Crane Hotel and he knew Momma Africa. So he drove us all the way home…for free.

This morning (is this the 22 or 23?) I got up and the children were putting their mats away and sweeping their dormitories out with tree branches. One of the boys had a rather hard ball the size of a softball that had been made of plastic trash sacks. He was trying to play soccer with it. He purposely hit me with the ball and I kicked it back. This was the very first overture I had received from any of the children, although by late yesterday afternoon they laughed at me when I went to kick the orphanage’s real rubber ball and missed. Paul has done a bit better with ingratiating himself with a few of the children than I have because he is such a clown. But this morning’s ball-at-my-feet felt wonderful. Wonderful! It is slow but I am getting somewhere with at least a few of these dead-eyed children. There is one tiny boy of about 2 or 3 years who appears nearly catatonic. He doesn’t move his body nor his eyes, although he will silently follow the other children. The children in turn, seem to take special care of him. When I touch him there is no physical response. His muscles don’t move one iota. Paul is going to start doing some special therapy with him today while the older children are in class.

There is a man who comes here at night and serves as a night watchman for our house and the children’s dorms. He tries to talk to Paul and I each evening. I swear, Ugandans are the sweetest, most hospitable humans I have ever known. Anyway, he has offered to take us on a ride through the forest today on his motorcycle. I am uncertain what he wants us to see because of language differences, but I will find out later today.

We opted not to go to Queen Victoria National Park due to the expense. We could probably afford it, but not able to afford it and leave any kind of meaningful donation with Momma Africa. So we will do the motorcycle ride instead. I am just fine with this.

Success! On their class break—I guess our elementary school rendition of recess—Paul and I rounded up the children and taught them the Hokey Pokey although in Scotland it is called the Hokey Something Else, but close enough. They got that we were playing with them anyway and when it came to the “shake it all about” part, nearly all of them kicked in and behaved like children. They loved shaking it all about, and started smiling. From there I taught them how to play “duck, duck, goose” which they really loved. This game them.

We were interrupted at 1130 so that the children could eat breakfast which was one cup of porridge each. At this time we were joined by orphans who had been placed with guardians who come only to eat. Isaac had purchased a small book of paper and a pencil for each of them. I handed them out and about half of the children bowed to receive their paper and pencil. The first children to get them were the children who lived with guardians and who had school sponsorships. They were all in uniform and looking pretty clean. The last children to get them were the children who live here all of the time. I ran out of pencils for these children and we could tell how disappointed they were. Paul is gone now back into Bushenyi to buy more pencils. I gave him 10,000 Ush to purchase some art supplies (more paper, some crayons, etc) if possible. I hope he can find some art supplies.

Katy whom we met last night was supposed to visit us here this morning. She went to the wrong orphanage and it was so far out that there were no boda drivers to help her back this direction. We received a text message that she didn’t know where she was but that she was walking on a road somewhere, and would text again whenever a boda came along. We waited about a half hour and started worrying about her in the sun, alone, and decided to find a boda and start a search for her. As we made this plan, Katie walked in looking like just this side of being totally fried. She will join us in Mukono in August. She hopes to teach deaf children, but is also qualified to work with blind kids. I hope we can find those children before she arrives.

Im off in a few minutes with Esther whose grandfather has extended an invitation to tour a “tea factory” which must be where they process the tea he grows.

Thursday, July 16, 2009

New country!

Today Tony and I were on our own. Isaac and Ronnie went to Entebbe to pick up the new guy who, it turned out, never turned up. They waited all day. He likely got stuck in Dubai, which was his connection from London. I am happy I did not choose to go thru Dubai as I have heard nothing good about that connection...

Anyhoo, Tony and I took what was my longest trip ever. I am guessing it was 30-40 miles out into Neverland (I cant recall the village name). We took a boda, then a taxi, then another boda. The last boda was by far the longest stretch and was once again over badly washed out roads. This boda driver drove like a bat out of hell and I was pretty concerned, thinking that this guy had about a 12 month supply of confidence. The road narrowed, had sharp hills, gullys, etc. At one point he jumped from road center to so far right that my right leg was getting clobbered by roadside bushes. Then I realized that this guy had done this road so many times that he could have done it blindfolded. He knew exactly what he was doing' I relaxed and then...

We drove through a huge tea plantation that was absolutely gorgeous. The plantation was at the top of a plateau and off in the distance there were forested mountains all around us. This was a far cry from the parched, pocked, dusty, godforsaken, Mars-like land that Alice came from. Also in the distance there were people carrying huge harvests on their heads, across the fields. How do you describe breathtakingly beautiful? That part of the trip was all too short. We actually got lost in our rubbernecking and wound up at a school out in the middle of nowhere and had to turn around and go back about 5 minutes to re-do a wrong turn. We finally landed at the correct school.

At each school we are asked to sign a guest book 2hen we arrive, and we were asked to do it here as well. I am often struck at the size of the books versus the number of visitors. Today we were visitors nos. 8 and 9...and this school is 4 years old. The headmaster tells us that the school started with 128 students but the scourge of AIDS has increased the number of children attending because they get a small stipend for orphans. This headmaster introduced me as being from Colorado USA and asked the kids who else in the USA did they like? In unison the answer is OBAMA. When he asked me what I think of Mr. Obama, I gave him a two thumbs up. The kids cheered and thought the two thumbs up gesture to their headmaster was pretty funny.

This school had painted on the outside walls of one of the buildings things like AIDS KILLS and BOTH BOYS AND GIRLS SHOULD REMAIN VIRGINS and DONT ACCEPT GIFTS IN EXCHANGE FOR SEX. We also talked to the children about these things since the headmaster told us previously that he had a high drop out rate from the girls. The girls meet sugardaddys (exchanging gifts for sex) and find themselves HIV positive...and drop out.

After the school visit the headmaster walked us the first 2 miles back to that crazy road. As we passed the houses with grass roofs he told me that the homes with grass roofs stay so cool they can be used like refrigerators. Then he pointed to all of the homes that were missing their roofs. These are homes where the people have died of AIDS and the homes turn to ruin. There were too many of them.

I liked this headmaster a lot. This one obviously loves teaching and cares deeply about the kids in this village.

There are things I wont discuss in my blogs of a political nature until I am out of here. But there is a lot happening here. The best hope for information might be BBC.

On the crazy road, six men stopped their truck in the middle of the road and stood around the truck, essentially blocking the road. I thought perhaps they needed help. Our boda driver didnt trust them evidently. He gunned the bike, pulled over to a thin strip of dirt on the far left and threatened to run down anyone in the way. The men moved aside and we kept on truckin'.

Had a meeting with Isaac and his "board" (Scovia, Ronnie, Helen and Tonny). I had completed my needs assessment and told them I would like it if they could spend some time doing some initial prioritizing. It is going to take some time. The needs are so great and the decision tree here is so full of branches, twigs, sapsuckers and leaves, it is going to take some time to weed thruogh. I know, having spent a few weeks here, that transportation will likely be a number 1 or 2 need. In order to get anywhere one must spend money on a boda or a taxi...or spend an afternoon walking.

A visit to Alice's mother

After three aborted trips, we finally took Alice (they pronounce it Alice-say because there is an “e” at the end of her name and e’s are pronounced “a”) to visit her mother. This village was a fair distance from where we stay, on the outskirts of Mukono District and took us about a half hour by boda. Alice and Scovia took one boda and both rode sidesaddle (which I refuse to try again because I don’t want to die here). Isaac, Happiness and I were on a second boda—me riding again like a “man” and leaving little butt space for the guy riding farthest back. That being me, the half hour ride included my butt hanging off the back of the boda, banging and flopping each time we hit a wash out in the road (every 4 seconds) and praying I didn’t fall off the back.. As it turned out, the discomfort was a welcomed distraction from the sights we passed as we were entering Alice’s village.

The people in Alice’s village have Nothing. My definition of Nothing has drastically changed since arriving here. There is USA-nothing, and then there is Nothing. The people in Alice’s village have Nothing.

We arrived in and through the dirt to a dirt hut approximately 10’ x 14’. This is where Alice and her 10 brothers and sisters were raised and this is where her mother still lives since her father has died. Her mother was not home so she left to find her as the rest of us found a shady place to sit and wait. Within 20 minutes Alice returned with her mother who greeted us profusely, but spared us the Ugandan Body Slam. She of course spoke no English but was still very clear on some of what she was saying. She pointed to an area about 20 feet from the house where her husband and some of her children were buried and her sadness was palpable. She pointed to an area over the hill where she worked (and from where Alice had retrieved her) in the rock quarry. And she was thrilled that Alice was living somewhere safe.

I remembered that I had a loaf of bread in my backpack. She was overjoyed to receive it, but to me this single loaf of bread simply made the “Nothing” feel even larger. Nothing is a noun here and there is a lot of it.
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Two days ago when this visit was first scheduled and it appeared that I would be unable to go with her to visit her mother, I gave Alice 4,000 Ush (about $2.00) for her boda trip to and from her mother’s village. When we actually made the trip it included Scovia, baby, Isaac, Alice and me, and Isaac paid for all of us on the trip there. During our visit, I saw Alice quietly slip the 4,000 Ush into her mother’s hand. I was sorely tempted to give her the 25,000 Ush I had on me—just as I am tempted to give money away every day to the children and adults I meet as we work. I could give away everything I owned and it would make not one iota of difference. Still I am tempted.

We left and walked Alice’s mother back to the rock quarry. I quickly grasped why Scovia cries every time she speaks of someone she knows who works in a rock quarry. Now, like my new definition of the word “nothing”, I have a new definition for the word “Hell”. It is indescribable from the heat, to the faces—young and old—of the people working there, to the ancient starving ox that stands among them for some reason. In this case “hopelessness” and “acceptance” seem to be the same thing. Alice’s mother stands bent over at the waist all day long, with metal mallot, chipping away at rock to make gravel. For the rest of her life.

Alice and her mother shook hands as they parted. I guess it is okay to hug strangers but not people you know? Come to think of it, I have seen no shows of affection anywhere since arriving…

As is always the case there was no boda ride out of the village. Although we can usually find them to take us IN, they are never that far out to take us OUT. So we again walked a fair distance before we eventually find a boda and get ourselves back home…

Late last night Alice and I were sitting outside and she said “I want to go to America with you”. Her accent is so heavy that I hoped that I had misunderstood. I looked at her and asked her to repeat herself. I had not misunderstood. When I told her I could not take her back with me I could see the disappointment on her face but she tried to cover it. She didn’t cry until I left for my sleeping space and I could hear her then. Made me cry too. I can cry just re-thinking it. I cant even tell her how much I would LOVE to take her with me so that she understands that I am not rejecting her, because that would give her hope. Alice is the fourth person to ask me to take them to America, but Alice is the only one I feel truly badly about.

Yesterday as we left the village we passed a woman selling long stalks of sugar cane. Isaac bought one and chopped it into short stalks about 10 inches long. Today (just now!) Scovia came by with a full bowl of moist sugarcane for me. YUMMIE!!! I remember chewing sugar cane growing up in Florida. It used to grow down by the river where the Mallorys eventually built their house.

Life after Kampala...back to work

July 15.
Started back to work yesterday after 3 days off. Isaac went into Kampala (poor Isaac!) to get more internet information and Ronnie picked me up. We took a boda to Seeta and then walked a couple miles to a village where BoHU had previously dug a well so that the villagers had clean water. Tonny soon joined us. The well was far even from the village. The drainage for the well water had become overgrown with dense foliage, backing up the water and causing a muddy mess. While there, a little girl climbed down into the mud and stood there up to her thighs holding her little g-can partially in the mud in order to get to the clean water a bit higher. If left the way it was, it would be a matter of days before the muddy water reached the open spigot. It was a mess.

Tonny had thought that he organized villagers to come and help clean, but no one arrived. Tonny left and came back with two machetes and he and Ronny started hacking the roots and foliage out of the water themselves. Meanwhile, 12 school children arrived with cans to collect water for their teachers. There were three women and two men working in a distant field who could see us but didn’t know what we were doing with all of the children, so they came to check us out. Since they also had machetes, they took turns hacking the foliage and then pulling the muddy mess out as well. The entire process took about two hours, but it looked wonderful when we left.

Later in the afternoon we went to a very poor Muslim secondary school just outside of Mukono. We actually had to climb on a rock to enter the stone building housing the classroom. The classroom was huge and open-air with a dirt floor.

Mothers here don’t talk to their daughters about sex. In fact, the entire subject is a non-word. But Tonny works in AIDS prevention and also works with girls and women who have been “raped or defiled”. All three of our guys distrust the police and Tonny is the guy for miles around to call if you have been raped or are being molested at home. He picks the woman or girls (sometimes boys) up and takes them directly to the Kampala hospital. From there he takes the case to court, totally bypassing the police (whom he doesn’t trust to do anything without a payoff). And he asks the kids to call him if they need counseling of any kind.

So when the guys start gently talking about sex in this Muslim school there is classroom “twittering” but they sure have these older kids attention. The teachers are pretty darned interested too and ask the students for “Maximum Silence” when we speak. We don’t leave the classroom without the students seeing us leave as we have done with the rest. We hear a Muslim prayer and then the students queue up to thank us, bowing and each shaking our hands.

As we left the schoolyard there was an old woman with one leg laying against a building with a cane. She started yelling at me and banging her cane on the ground. I could not understand her so Isaac told me what to say to her. She angrily told Isaac to not give me answers. She seemed very angry that I didn’t speak the language. So she lay there and continued to pointedly yell at me. Isaac and the boys are standing back laughing now as are several other people. I took off my sunglasses and crouched down in front of her, took her hand, and looked her closely in the eye. I used one finger near her face and told her slowly in English “break it out for me” and she understood. She made her sentence in tiny increments and I repeated it back, ending with “Bulungi, Nnyabo” (Fine, Madam) She got a wide grin, took me by the hand, and let me know that I was excused.

My days as the only muzungu around are coming to an end on Thursday. We received word yesterday that a psychiatrist from Great Britain is coming to help us for awhile. I am overjoyed. I am looking forward to speaking with someone who speaks a form of English that I can understand. Even though many people speak English, it is still very, VERY difficult to understand and I welcome a conversation that is easy on the ears.

Yesterday was Isaac’s birthday. We had lots of small children over last night and they sang Happy Birthday to him in English. It was good fun. Viola cooked all day for the party and the food was finally served at 10PM. I was FLOORED when I saw how much those tiny kids ate. I thought Scovia was putting far too much food in the bowls for them as she prepared. She filled the bowls with more than even I could eat. But when the kids finished, the bowls were all clean. When someone offers you food here, you EAT.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

July 12

July 12
Scovia, Happiness, Viola and I went to Kampala yesterday. Scovia told me the night before that we would leave right after breakfast. In true Ugandan style however, she, Viola and Alica started washing clothes at about 9:30AM and finished at 1230PM. At 145PM they were dressed and ready to go. There seems to be no sense of time in this culture. There is certainly no sense of urgency.

The ride to Kampala was once again awful. The dust and dirt that came through the windows was overwhelming. At times I just closed my eyes and held my breath. Once in Kampala there is less dust and dirt, but the air is black/yellow. Even Scovia commented that she was “worried about her nose” and kept the baby’s head covered whenever possible.

Kampala is a giant stinking mass of humanity. A human gumball. A gum wad that smells of body odor, diesel fuel, pollution and dust. There were times that I literally could not move on the sidewalk. No stoplights, no street or traffic signs, gazillions of cars and bikes and motorcycles and humans. Once or twice I felt myself start to panic in the gridlock of humanity. In one place there was space 3 feet wide that ran for about a block. One side was lined with sheets of tin where a wall had once been. On the other side was a tall brick wall that looked as tho it could have crumbled any minute (and it was here that I thought of Isaac saying so many buildings in Kampala have fallen down!) We walked through this long, dusty passageway in the heat with people coming the other direction AND the ever present surprise 3-foot deep holes in the ground to jump over). I started to panic but got myself under control. There was no getting out of this human quagmire anywhere in Kampala. My backpack was opened twice (sorry fellas, the money is in a money belt ON me!). I was grabbed and pulled and screamed at by what Scovia referred to as “a mad woman”. Scovia finally grabbed my other arm and pulled me behind a truck until the woman wandered off (more likely she was pushed some direction).

There are posters on every telephone pole and building side. Two of my favorites were plentiful: “Get an American Sponsor (followed by a telephone number)” and “Shape Your Bum”.

To get back to Mukono one must go to the Taxi Park and find a taxi . The taxi park is 200+ vans parked in no particular order, in a tiny area, with little space between vehicles. The vans aren’t even parked in rows. They are just in there any way they can fit themselves. After squeezing ourselves between vehicles and rows for 20 minutes we found one going to Mukono. Once the van is at LEAST full, one sits there until the driver can pull out. The driver pulls out by honking, threatening, cutting off other vans and people between the vans. Our driver starts singing the Ugandan national anthem and everyone laughs.

Once on the road we see a military blockade ahead and the driver pulled a quick right to a detour around them. Whenever one sees a sign that says “No Stopping, No Parking, No Photographs” you know the military is nearby somewhere and steer clear. More dust and smoke on the long ride home. The scene on both sides of the road are an unending parade of babies, toddlers, smoke, poverty, dirt, trash, babies, toddlers, more toddlers, horrendous poverty…I blew my nose and it blew black snot.

The Catholic Church as big here, as is the Morman Church and about 20 others.. The Morman Church is in fact the only building around that has grass on the property rather than red dirt and mud. Here is my message for the Catholic and Morman churches (I don’t know what the Muslims are saying), and all other churches who come to Africa spread the Good Word: Until you are ready to commit to living here FOREVER, have yourselves entire litters of children, and live on a Ugandan’s salary, stop denouncing family planning and telling these people that children are a gift from God. Twelve children and no way to feed them is no gift. Of course missionaries will always be welcome everywhere that abject poverty is prevalent. If I were a Ugandan living in what can only be described as dehumanizing conditions, I too would embrace any concept that allowed me to believe that there was a better life waiting for me somewhere. In fact I would be in a hurry for it.

We got off the taxi in Mukono and I hired two boda bodas to take us to the village. Viola and I were on one, and Scovia and the baby on the other. Viola and I passed by a truck that had men standing on top throwing shovelfuls of oiled dirt to the street below, to fill potholes. As our boda drove alongside, we were treated to a shovel full of oily dirt over our heads. That truly capped off the day.

If I didn’t have to go back through Kampala to get to Entebbe and the airport tonight, I would go home.

* * *

By the way, it is morning now and I have bathed and blown the black snot out of my nose. My hair is still full of dirt but having had a rest, I am no longer ready to come homeJ

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.

Thursday, July 9, 2009

More photos

This is Scovia's kitchen. As you can see, we remove our shoes before we stand up in the area near the pots.
They all love to see themselves on the digital camera! These kids
are from the village where the well was built. We brought sugar and rice which made us pretty popular.

Uploading takes 9 minutes per pic. There's gotta be a better way!

Scovia and Happiness (age 3 months)

After a boda boda ride in the rain...
Alice

Mukono Town

Kids and getting around on my own!

July 6

This missive may or may not accompany pictures. I am having computer adventures when it comes to sending pictures.

Today I am working on setting up a fundraising plan for BoHU. I am altering what I would normally do in a plan in order to fit the cultural and country differences of which I am aware. Once complete it can be discussed between Isaac, Ronnie, Tony and Helen to make changes and decide upon. This alone is a real adventure for me, and I am enjoying it.

The more I know of Isaac and the more I HEAR about Isaac, the more impressed I become. I’ve heard several stories of how he has visited schools, medical clinics, etc., only to find that the services that are supposed to be free from the government become available to rural villagers only for a fee. Most villagers can’t afford services or medicine. For instance, there was to be money to repair school buildings that have not been repaired. There is supposed to be money for free AIDS medicine, doxycycline for malaria, etc., but the people are charged for it. Again, they have no money so receive no medicine. Corruption is rampant. So Isaac goes to these places occasionally and pretends to be a villager asking for a free service or medicine. He never confronts the individual asking him for the money. Instead he quietly leaves and then goes directly to the Minister of Health or the Minister of Education and asks why these things are not being done or why medications are no longer free. When the Ministers inquire down the line to the person who asked Isaac for the money, they of course deny having asked for a fee. It seems one of the people so identified by a Minister tracked Isaac down and asked why--if he already knew that asking for money was a scam--he didn’t just ask the scammer for “quiet money”. Isaac told him he was an NGO doing charitable work, not a criminal. People in this village and surrounding villages adore him. (Do we need to be reminded that he is only 22 years old?)

Hair. I need to wash my hair more than every 4th day, especially given the ever present red dust from the roads. I do not exaggerate when I say that my pillow has red dust on it each morning. So…my choices are going to the salon for a shampoo or going to a hotel to purchase a shower. Time being short today I went to the salon in Mukono only to find Hadisha, my earlier hairdresser gone, and a young woman I had never seen there. She agreed to shampoo my hair. I didn’t have my own shampoo and conditioner with me this time so she used her own. I knew I was in trouble as soon as she applied the conditioner. Clearly this conditioner belongs on African hair, not Muzungu hair. Still, I didn’t want to be rude so I said nothing. She wanted to do a nice job so she insisted on drying it and styling it. I told her no curlers (which they love!). So she dried my hair and before I knew what was happening, she had a fist full of the grease/oil they put on their own hair to hold it down. She rubbed it all over my head and then lovingly sculpted my hair into something resembling a plastic helmet. She was delighted with the outcome. I gave her a nice tip and left with more oil in my hair than I had arrived with.

Alice. Sixteen year old Alice is an Eating Machine. She has spent a lifetime not knowing when she gets to eat next so she is catching up now while she is living here. Alice FILLS her plate at least twice at each of our three daily meals and out eats all of us.

Each time I am in Mukono I stop at the grocery store and buy something Isaac and Scovia would never buy for themselves, like yogurt or biscuits. In the evenings I always share whatever I have purchased during the day with Isaac, Scovia, Alice, and Viola. Alice greets me at the road every time I return and slyly checks the bag to see what I have purchased. Last night Alice came to my house and sat down and ate a small bag of Chinese noodles and then hinted that she would like to try my bottled water. During this time we managed to piece together some information about her (remember she doesn’t speak much English and I don’t speak much Luganda). She told me that she has no money for school but that if she did she would want to become a nurse. She has no boyfriend (this makes her blush) and that she wants to be “happy with George someday”. She points at my wedding ring and says “George”. She means that she would like to be “happy with a marriage someday”. So George, if you are reading this, you are now a new American word to be used by hopeful young girls in Nassuuti VillageJ

Today I stopped and purchased Alice her very own roll of biscuits that have chocolate icing on the inside. When I gave them to her she squealed and grinned and held them to her chest as though someone had handed her a gold mine. The biscuits disappeared into the space she shares with Viola at night. I adore Alice and wish I could bottle her up and take her back home with me.

She wants to visit her mother and siblings but it costs more to get to her village even by boda boda than she will earn for a long time. She would like Scovia and I to go with her so that her mother can meet us. She has started calling Scovia “Auntie”. I remain Muzungu or May-Lan. I am certain that she knows that by inviting me, she will get there faster because the muzungu will pay for it.

I took my first and second boda boda ride side-saddle today because I was wearing a dress and could not ride like a man. YeeeeeHAAaaaaa! Side Saddle Motorcycle Woman!!! (I hope not to have to do that again any time soon. I have even higher admiration for all the women I see doing it side-saddle while carrying a baby and a bundle of banana leaves, flying over pot holes at 45MPH!!!) My driver started laughing as he heard me continuously say “Mpola mpola mpola mpola”. Finally, he reached back, took my right arm, wrapped it around his middle…and drove as carefully around pot holes as I ever could have asked for.

Schedule: I will be working in Bushenyi in Western Uganda from Monday July 20 through Friday July 24th, assisting with a needs assessment on an orphanage over there. Isaac had to close his orphanages due to lack of funds and has placed several of his children with an orphanage in Bushenyi. BoHU continues to pay for and support the orphans there and in Gomba until such time as we can build another facility here. Anyway, we are going over to do a needs assessment on the children. I suspect he also wants to make certain they are all being fed and treated well. I don’t know the state of phone or email communications in Bushenyi so don’t panic if Im not in contact that week.

We will be doing a similar trip August 10 through 14 to Gomba in Central Uganda.

We will do a third trip August 24 through 26th to Gulu. This trip we will be delivering food and clothing to the people in displacement camps. I may need to beg off of this trip depending on the situation at that time between the Uganda army and a supposed new rebel group based in Acholi called the Uganda People’s Front. The UG government recently found documents on Gulu’s Chairman indicating this new group (the UPF) plans to overthrow the Museveni government. President Museveni is still quietly assessing the threat and considering the response. Hopefully he will let it slide but if he decides to send in the Army to take care of the rebels, then I wont go. As a side note, one of the rebels captured--and one of the principal organizers--has a residence in San Diego. He is Ugandan, received a PhD in political science from the university, and appears to be one of the master minds.

Final quick story: One of my neighbor children returned home from school. He is I am guessing about 8 years old and is learning English and only knows very basic phrases like hello, thank you, good bye. Today I asked him what he learned in school and he gave me this sentence: Science is the study of everything human and all living things. Pretty big jump from hello, good bye, and thank you!

July 7, 2009

Hair again. I have washed it twice now since visiting the salon. It still looks and feels like I have polished my head with WD-40.

Village School. We went to Takajjunge Village for a presentation to the primary school. There were several signs placed in various places around the school yard saying things like “Warning! Anyone can sexually abuse you” and “Sex CAN wait until marriage”. The school yard is very nice with large trees and three school buildings. The school buildings are red clay brick with two large glassless windows on each side. Inside there are early 100 students in each building (we may put 25 in the same space) sitting shoulder to shoulder, feet crossed at the ankle, hands folded in front of them, posture perfect. The desks are about 11” wide and perhaps 5 feet long., each stamped “Hamburg Germany" and crowd 6-9 children to a desk. The kids were from 5th to 7th grade.

I am told that Uganda is in such desperate need for teachers that college is free for those becoming teachers. What this policy has produced are a lot of teachers who don’t like children or teaching, are bored, angry, or apathetic. All are highly regimented. Enter Isaac, Ronnie and Tony…all 22 to 24 years old…bent on teaching important subjects not available in the schools and making learning fun. Ronnie teaches personal hygiene, nutrition and malaria prevention—all in the space of about 40 minutes. Isaac teaches life skills--different skills for different age groups, and Ronnie teaches HIV/AIDS prevention.

As I am introduced to the class, they all clap—five hand claps all done in unison. As I stand to introduce myself, the entire class stands. It is difficult for them to stand given their crowded condition. All are in blue uniforms and all have their heads shaved making it difficult to tell girls from boys until they stand, exposing either trousers or skirt. I ask them to sit, talk to them about what I am doing with Beacon of Hope, and sit down. Again…five hand claps all in unison.

Ronnie begins his presentation and the students are all attentive, backs straight/hands folded/ankles crossed. Ronnie asks the class who knows what causes malaria. Obviously a few know but no one raises their hands out of shyness in front of these strangers. From the corner Tony (our AIDS prevention instructor) raises his hand, and Ronnie calls on him. Tony stands, pretends to be shy, and in a falsetto voice answers, “mosquitos”. The class giggles a bit. They loosened up slightly from there and interacted with Ronnie a bit more.

Next it is Isaac’s turn. If Isaac and Tony weren’t doing what they do now, they would have to be comedians. Although all was in Luganda with tiny bits of English thrown in, I could tell by his body language, the faces he made, voice intonations, etc. that he was making a lot of jokes as he taught. The kids are now all jumping up to answer questions and laughing out loud. Isaac tore a single piece of notebook paper into 20 small pieces and gave the pieces to 20 of the children. (That single sheet of paper at had to be accounted for at the BoHU office!) The kids were asked to write down something they would like to have someone else in the room to do for them, and then fold the paper and hand their request to Isaac. As he silently read through the requests he started to make faces and laugh, and the classroom laughed back because some knew what others had secretly written. He then called the authors up one by one to stand in the front of the class. The trick was on the kids…They had to do for the entire class what they had intended to ask someone to do for them. (This is Isaac’s lesson of the day…don’t ask anyone to do anything that you would not do yourself either in school or in work). What most of them had written was, “I want the muzungu to sing and dance for us.” With the tables turned, they had to sing and dance for me in front of the class and it was hysterical. Some just shook their bums at the class, some did their 12 year old version of rap music. The class was screaming and laughing. Very un-school like in Uganda and exactly what these three young men had intended.

Tony was third with his AIDS presentation talk which was also highly interactive. Isaac ended our visit with a group prayer and then instructed them all to stand and face away from us and concentrate on a spot on the roof. Once they were all looking the other way, the four of us ducked and ran from the classroom. When the kids saw us outside they realized they had been tricked and crowded to the windows to wave and yell goodbye.

There is an innocence here that would never be found in American schools or American children. Innocence, a deep regard for authority, and an overwhelming desire to learn. For the most part, American children are lacking those things on one level or another.

Girls stuff. Scovia came over yesterday to deliver my clean clothes and noticed all of the paraphernalia I have sitting on top of my suitcase. (I use my suitcase as a table for lack of any furniture). In truth, what is sitting out is my soap, toothbush, moisturizer, vitamins, etc. But Scovia asked, “your makeup?” I told her no, and pulled out the little bag of make up I brought with me but had not yet opened. Scovia sat down for a visit and asked to see what I have—eye shadow, eye pencil, lipstick, brushes, and face powder. We put the eye shadow on her and she liked it. Then she took the powder brush and ran it all over her face. I handed her the powder and told her it would be too light but that she was welcome to try it. The cover to the powder is clear plastic. Scovia proceeded to dab the brush on the plastic cover and then run the brush over her face. When I opened the cover for her she was slightly embarrassed. She said she would like to wear my makeup when the two of us go shopping in Kampala, and she would like to apply it herself. (I told her previously that she and I would go to Kampala and I will buy her a pair of sunglasses. She has so much trouble with dust in her eyes that I have already given her my eye wash and eye moisturizer. I think wearing glasses while on the road will help her a lot. Then we will have lunch in a restaurant.) Anyway, in coming weeks there will be a newly glamorized Scovia going to Kampala. I may even wear makeup myself


July 8

I am walking into Mukono by myself today…my first solo venture! Isaac is gone, Scovia has stomach pains, and Alice is afraid the boys will tease her if she is be seen with the Muzungu. I’ve made the trip often enough now that I know how to do this. So….Hasta la bye-bye amigos!

My solo flight: My first solo trip into town was uneventful with a couple of exceptions. The locals--especially the boda boda guys-- try to charge me double or triple because being white, I am obviously rich to them. When I am with Scovia I sometimes pay the higher fee so that there is no trouble. When I am with Isaac, they rarely try to charge more money. The one time a boda boda man tried charging too much, Isaac seemed to physically grow in size. Isaac told him no and when the man protested, he simply stared him down as if to say “don’t even think of causing trouble’” So after I did my shopping I decided to bargain with a driver before I hopped on. I knew that the trip should cost about 50 Ush, but the drivers all wanted 2,000. I started to walk home. Finally several started yelling “okay okay okay” which I assumed meant someone would take my 1,000 Ush offer. The driver was happy with his 1000 Ush rider. He should be. I still paid at least double.

I went to buy phone time and one of the young men in the store told me he was going to America. When I asked when, he said he didn’t know. When I asked him where in America he was visiting, he said he was going with me to wherever I live. I told him my husband would not be happy. He said he understood and asked for my husband’s telephone number. Don’t worry George, I didn’t give it to him.

I guess the moral of the story is that if a female muzungu is moving about alone in Uganda she should be prepared to stand her ground with boda boda drivers and telephone phone card salesmen.

Here is the best: I bought an old, used Danielle Steel book to read in the evenings. The others all get together and gossip in Luganda and I have nothing to do for several hours each evening. I am tired of the newspaper as it is all political threats and name calling. So tonight I will climb into bed with my headlamp and read my love story published in 1991J

We left at 2p to talk with a group of about 120 children at Nsambwe Village Primary School which was held in the Nsambwe Village Church of Uganda chapel—about 6 miles away. The team rewards the children for getting some of the answers right and since there is so little to reward them with…one of the children won a dinner with the Muzungu and another won attendance at Isaac’s birthday party next Wednesday. One little girl asked how she could get an American friend. I have her name (Nabitaka Jowanita), age (10), and village, but there is no mail delivery to the village. If I can match her with an American girl perhaps we can use BoHU postal address for delivery. Ill ask.

Each visit to a school concludes with our team sneaking out. This visit was difficult as we were in a chapel and the exit was at the back of the room. Isaac said a closing prayer with the kids and then told them to keep their eyes closed and send good thoughts to the family of Michael Jackson. All had their eyes closed and we nearly made it out of the church before we were caught. Mayhem! Once outside we met with some of the children who’s school fees are paid by BoHU.

We left the church and hiked low into the valley to deliver a bag containing some rice and sugar to a young mother with AIDS. This woman saw us coming and met us at the road in front of her hut. She gave us all a giant hug (Ugandan style) and then led us into her yard.. She went inside and brought out a small straw mat for us to sit on. My heart hurts for her and her children. She has six tiny children who were all cuter than Cute! Tony works to get her drugs and Isaac works to keep them in food, but there are never enough of either. Isaac chatted with her for awhile and then she walked with us to the water well that BoHU had dug for the village. Everyone walked slowly so that she could keep up…followed by her six little children. It was only about two blocks to the well but we were worried about her getting back home. Again, giant hugs from her as we left her.

The walk back home was all uphill out of the valley and long and dark. Arrived home truly tired. Alice brought me a cup of hot porridge and a dinner roll smeared with g-nut sauce, all topped with her ever present grin. After I ate she placed a small bowl of warmish water, complete with a cup so that I can pour the water over my head, at the top of the hill so that I could bathe. I can think of no better pick-me-up after a long day. Between the water and the breeze I was cooling down. My stomach was full of Scovia’s hot porridge, and I was standing naked in the dark somewhere in the middle of Africa with chickens at my feet. I felt like laughing out loud.

Tony won’t be with us tomorrow. One of his young AIDS clients died this afternoon. He will go retrieve the body, rent a car, and drive it to the young man’s village.