Roller coaster!

What a roller coaster we are all on! Shipping container is supposed to arrive tomorrow for sure....guaranteed. In a country where nothing is a sure thing. So we will hope for the best tomorrow. Hopefully I'll be able to blog tomorrow that the container is here! Hurray!!

  Colleen and Gisele are flying home today. They are a bundle of emotions and are finding it really hard to say goodbye. Samuel will drive them into town and drop them at Entebbe airport with Jim and Grace dropped before that for a rotary meeting. I'll be staying here as there won't be room in the car with baggage. So I'll have supper at the guesthouse and have quiet evening on my own. Hello Kobo!

I'm haunted by so many faces. A friend at the house, asked me to buy him a digital camera like mine....no. A new girl staying at the house who just passed her leaving exams to enter S1 or first year high school but didn't have the funds to pay tuition fees or books for high school. Then there is Kalisa who is 15 and who wants to finish high school and go on to nursing. Ada wants to learn tailoring in a vocational school. Maama Esau came to me yesterday and said she is worried about her future for her and 2 year old Esau. And I don't have any answers for her except to say it will be ok and that she knows God will keep looking after them and her faith will see her through and find the opportunities she needs. Maama Esau wants to do sewing for income.Maama Asa worries about paying for 6 year old Asa's school fees and he wants to go to university to be an engineer and "fix things". While Maama Asa dreams of opening her own gift shop and boutique and pay for Asa’s university fees. There was a little 3 year old girl named Kate, at the house on Sunday who is an albino black girl and cute as a button with almost blond hair and mottled skin because she is exposed to sun and sunburn. Gisele gave her extra sunscreen. She fell asleep in my arms as I softly sang to her "a la Claire de Lune" in French. She is seen as different from others and will likely have some difficulty finding acceptance in her community as she grows up. Chenzira wants to do 3D animation which will be expensive for anyone let alone someone with no resources. I want to cry as I write all this because the needs are so great and the expectations on us muzungo are so high. We have so much and they have so little.  The saddest reality is that we can't help them much.

I still don't know how I can help them or if we have ability and means to do so or even if we should. To fill what would be simple dreams at home. Dennis and I have decided to pay for Asa’s tuition and school fees. But l still feel sad today. This is one child and his mom; we have agreed to help with so many more who need it just as much as he does. And time is running out for us while we are here.

I'm happiest with Luweero's children surrounding me. They just want to touch my hand and hear me say hello. They greet me with a hug. Or they fall asleep in my arms when I sing to them. Now that is a lot of trust isn't it. How safe do you have to feel to asleep in the arms of a muzungo. They somehow trust me. What an honour and a responsibility at the same time. The whole team is affected...each of us in different ways.

There is so much need here and so few resources. While we sit in our homes, big screen TVs,, food in the freezer, vacations to plan, new car in the driveway... I will need some time to process all I have seen and think about how I can best contribute more than teaching the girls to quilt, make curtains for their rooms, and pay one child's school fees..... It feels so lame.

market day

Grrr....Computer didn't save my draft. lost 40 minutes of typing. Don't have time to redo or the heart. Will post tomorrow. Hope this one goes through....grrrr...... Good news I've figured out I think how to post myself. Thanks Jim for the lesson and Dennis my wonderful tech support guy who works for love. xoxoxo

The admin guy at the internet cafe has given me 22 minutes to redo the blog. He is good to me. So I will do what I can in this time.

Monday is market day. It is busy, congested with people on their little patch of dust selling anything you can imagine. Like used black shoes they polish with black polish to make them look like new. Or used clothes. Fabric for basutis or ladies formal dress, men who sell ladies bras and panties (can't get over that one), dishes, cooking pots, little dried fish that look like minnows and are smelly, fresh produce, meat, samosas, chapatis. Every available space is taken on the street of businesses and houses, right up to porches. I bought some handmade wooden ladels and scrubbies that are unique to Uganda. Tried to buy a jitengi or like a pareo but he wanted more shillings than I wanted to pay...muzungo prices I think!

I'm pleased I was able to buy 4 solar light bulbs for the house so that 4 more rooms will have light once the solar is installed (if container ever arrives....still no word today...maybe tomorrow is the common words). Jim is keeping costs down as the library project is already over-budget. He is really frustrated with each passing day. He knows he won't make his planned return flight on Thursday. He will likely be another week. I think he is also tired of make work projects and not much productive work to do.

Curtains were hung yesterday with electrical wire as that is what was available. The girls wanted the print side to be facing out and lining side on the inside so they can see the pretty floral print from the outside as that is where they spend most of their time. Hey...they aren't my rooms or curtains so I said okay. The nets were up yesterday and will help prevent more malaria. I paid for 4 of them. So I'm feeling like I'm doing something that matters. I'd really like to find a way to help Asa's mom pay for his school fees in Kampala. Asa wants to be an engineer and fix things he told me yesterday. And I so want to help make that happen. He is going on 7 and has still a lot of school before university. He is such a bright light and an amazing hambone! He loves the camera and tends to dominate picture taking if we let him.

Hopefully we will be able to have our nightly wine and card game under the stars. We got silly last night with a lot of laughter and kidding around. With Jim getting the brunt of it...being the only guy among 4 women. He has such broad shoulders. Laundry is done this morning despite water shortage. Washed in about 3 inches of gray water. Don't want to think about what shape my clothes will be in what I come home. Rubbish bin I think! anyway...at least I now have clean underwear to wear the rest of the week! Hurray! I think I've lost some weight judging how my capris are hanging on me...my appetite has been hit and miss with the heat. White t-shirts looking pretty grubby too. I know why would I bring white to Africa? Cause I could! Looking forward to cold shower tonight....no power and no hot water. But I love seeing clean feet to go to bed at night. Thank god for camp suds....does a great job on my hair an smells clean while biodegradable. Good for the environment. Ok....my extra minutes are running out. More tomorrow!

Making curtains!

Colleen didn't sleep well, with the disco music and then the rooster crowing. She looked she had been up at an all night party without any fun. She is funny when she is sleep deprived. The girls fly out Tuesday for home. So they are finishing up last minutes tasks before they pack tomorrow. We will miss them! They are both so outgoing and make everything they do look so easy which I am sure it isn't. But they make it look that way.

So today, Ada and I started the curtain factory in earnest. We have 4 panels in total to make. With one mostly done last night. As I said above...I have to adapt the process for the tools I have (dull rotary cutter and not so sharp scissors and a treadle sewing machine that keeps breaking needle and bobbin threads). And a language issue as Ada doesn't speak much English and my Lugandan is even worse. Lots of hand gestures and a lot of finger pointing. The treadle doesn't belong to the house but to a local tailor who stores it at the house. I gave him 10,000 shillings ($5) for Ada to use it for all 4 panels. He was surprised and seemed very appreciative.

So I left Ada finishing off the curtains to come to the internet cafe. I'm hoping we will get them hung before dark tonight.

Gisele and Colleen arranged for one of the girls, Chenzira to purchase 5 mosquito nets for the girls and the 2 kids at the house.   I asked if I could pay for them as my part of my contribution. We brought 2 nets with us from Kampala and our nets we are using here will stay here at the house when we leave. It boggles my mind that the girls don't have nets and they are at high risk for malaria. With Asa sick with it,  this is pressing. By the way....Asa went back to Kampala again on the weekend as his meds for malaria were not working.  He was back with fever, chills, headache and vomiting. Poor little guy. He seems on the mend.

School kids, including Asa start back to school Monday morning after an extended Christmas break. Maama Asa is heading into the city to take him back to boarding school and she will be back on Tuesday. I will miss her. She is the one I feel the closest too, maybe because she has totally embraced quilting and hand sewing. She is so happy with the biggest smile when she sews; it is beautiful to watch her. And I have something to do with making that possible.

I'm still working through what other role I can have here. Beyond the sewing. I love the children. They seem to be drawn to me. When the little ones cry because they are afraid of the white muzungu lady, I speak softly and slowly that it’s ok and I hold out my hand and talking quietly. Eventually curiosity wins out.   They slowly move towards me and often give me their hand. When they do....I know it will be ok. I've made friends with the neighbour kids and most of their names. Still have to get used to their surnames are given first and then their first names.  So with a different language, phonetics and they speak so fast....it is such a challenge for me. Samuel is going to Kampala tomorrow with Grace.  I've asked him if he would pick up a Luganda-Lnglish dictionary for me. If I can see how the words are spelled it is much easier for me to remember them. I have probably been spelling the words incorrectly as I tend to spell them phonetically the way they sound to me. And please forgive missing words and typos. There just isn't enough internet minutes to proofread and make corrections. So what you see is how I write from my head to the keyboard. Hopefully the blogs are still readable.

I still have at least two trips to Kampala to do. One to buy more fabric for me and for a friend at home, and some jitenzi's or batiks that they use as skirts here. Grace graciously gave us girls each one last night and they are beautiful. I have planned a meeting with the artists who do hand painted batiks for Maama Wakisa designs. Grace brought me some lovely new designs that I'm anxious to show off. And I want to get a few things for the house. One of them...a good sharp kitchen knife. The ones they have are awful. And took forever to dice veggies for the samosas as finely as Deborah wanted them. Deborah will take me whenever I'm ready. Depends on when library arrives.

Anyway my minutes are running out....gotta go....love to everyone...especiallymy brother and sister at home in Canada.

Making samosas!

Didn’t get to internet today. I was busy helping Grace’s sister Deborah make veggie samosas from scratch and it was an all day event. Internet closes at 2pm I am told.  The samosas were made with diced Irish potatoes, peas, onions, and carrots with an oyster mushroom sauce that Deborah grows herself. So I was busy dicing veggies, and helping Deborah stuff the pastry after she had made them and had lightly pan fried them. We had some for lunch with rice and cabbage and then I cooked the rest of them for supper in hot oil on a charcoal cooker. A very hot day in the sun to sit beside a hot cooker and not splatter hot oil on my feet. The samosas were yummy and a very welcome change from rice, potatoes, sweet potatoes, beet greens, and cabbage with the occasional meat that is our daily diet for both lunch and supper. I will not be eager to eat rice and potatoes for awhile when I get home. We are all craving a fresh, crisp salad and I would love a cold chocolate milkshake and then a cold margarita!  For the undecided!

Also yesterday, I was measuring 2 windows, a door and for a curtain partition between 2 rooms for the girls.  Ada is going to help me and I will teach her how. We measured and cut fabric and lining. I have to adapt methods to use the tools I have available and simplify because language is a problem for both of us. We got one panel sewn on a treadle singer sewing machine by dark and until no longer able to see and it was time to have supper.  Supper was sweet potato, peanut sauce, matoki (steamed mashed bananas). We walked back to our guesthouse....about a 15 minute walk in the dark and under brilliant stars. The power was out with only those with small generators having light. It is a bit daunting to walk in the dark, avoiding potholes at the side of the road and hope we can see people on bicycles. Boda-boda bikes have one headlight so we can see them. And still we are always mindful they drive on the other side of the road to us as in Britain. Often catch ourselves looking in the wrong direction and then see a car, bike or boda-boda bearing down on us just in time.

We got to our guesthouse. Had a welcome cold water shower and washed layers of grime and dirt. I lost my two camp towels at the hostel in Murchison falls rushing out for our 6am call for game safari on Monday. so I'm left with my facecloth and hand cloth I brought from home. Managed to get sunburned again today....even though I was out of the sun cooking for most of the day. Don't know how that happened. Yes...I know....forgot the damn sun block!

We sat outside our rooms on the porch at guesthouse drinking warm white wine and played rumoli on Gisele’s suitcase as a table. Cards kept falling off. Jim is a master strategist and seems to skunk us each hand. I finished last with only a deficit of -50 instead of -85 by hand number 2. So that was progress. Bed around 11:45 when disco music started to play that went all night.....sigh....

Still no library!

Good news and bad news. The good news is that Jim and Colleen went to speak to the guest house director and told him why we were not happy with our new accommodations. He was apologetic and charged us only for one night’s stay and breakfast and supper. And he would provide a driver and truck to move us to the other guest house where we got our old rooms back with a higher room rate than the one we were leaving which was half the price. The director gets brownie points because he dealt with the problem with a sincere apology. We think he wanted us to be able to recommend them to others or at least not turn others away. Good business! So we are settled into our old rooms with hot water (when the power works) and cold running water when it doesn't.  It beats lugging heavy plastic jerry cans to sponge bath and for the toilet.

Gisele and Colleen have interviews with a school headmistress across the street from our guesthouse (Susan’s old primary school when she was a kid) while brad and I walk back to the house. On the way, Grace calls and tells us the shipping container is stuck in bond in Kampala and will not arrive today. Another lost day. Jim is worried if is delayed another day, he will not make his flight home next Thursday. He still needs to get shelves and solar electrical system installed. The lumber for shelves is on the shipping container as are his tools. Oh well....good day to catch up on the internet, blogs, and news from home.

I helped Ada and Kalisa with hand washing laundry this morning. While we chatted and spent some time together. it felt good to be doing some busy. I treated them and little Esau to an ice-cream for 500 shillings each or about .25. They had the biggest smiles on their faces. It is hot and next to no breeze. It is getting hotter every day. Maama Esau is planning a special dinner tonight for us. Looking forward to hand-made chapattis....yum! Hoping I can teach Ada to make the curtains for their new bedrooms. She wants to be a tailor one day and I'm hoping we can get her set up to apprentice with a tailor who sews on his treadle singer sewing machine from our house where he stores it in return for access to his sewing machine to make the curtains. We have 3 sewing machines donated that are in the shipping container. But Jim needs to install the solar electrical in order to run 1 - 15amp machine with nothing else running on the system. Treadle machines are great because it doesn't run on electrical at all. We see the treadles all over town. Grace says the container may arrive tomorrow. Well...we are learning things happen slowly and in their own time here. Patience wins the day!

Gisele and Colleen are winding up their interviews as they fly out for home on Tuesday night and will be home on Wednesday night. We will be so sad to see them leave. I think I will be changing my flight to fly home with Jim whenever that happens. Just waiting to see when the container arrives and how long it takes to get the library up and running before I know. By for now!..............Chris

Getting caught up.

Hi all. You may have noticed silence on my end on the blog. That is because we went to Jinja about 2 hours east of Kampala for the day. Saturday was packing and laundry for our safari trip planned for Sunday. Didn't get to internet on Saturday before they closed at 2. And we only get back from safari yesterday and too late to blog then either.  So I will get you caught up and will likely do it in 2 installments today and tomorrow as there is much to tell you. Good thing I journaled while out of touch.