Mission Accomplished

Tackle a dubious plate of Mexican refried beans?

Check.

Finish the mural in the classroom?

Check.

Meet Mrs. Orr again, Christmas shop for the babies, relish matooke one last time at a send-off lunch, go to Quality to get one last batch of jackfruit to eat on the roof, learn Ugandan craft skill, attend Sunday School party and face paint for hours on end, try to pack up for departure somewhere in between...

Check, check, check.

So the last three days in Uganda had come. They weren't about to go without every single minute being used to the fullest! For tales of the last adventures this time in Uganda, please click Read More...

A Fire-Seared Market and a Giant Banana Suit

 

"Muzungu!" "Sister!" "China!"

 

No matter which way I turned while walking along the blackened ground of the market deep in the belly of Kampala, I'd feel a sharp tug at my arm and hear myself being addressed in one of these three ways.

 

"Do I look Chinese to you?" I asked Precious, a friend who had interpreted for me back at children's ministry with the team from Seattle in October. "No," she shook her head, "they are just calling you that to make fun." Ok then. This was definitely not your average tourist-trap market. In fact, unlike at the larger western grocery stores and malls, here not another muzungu could be seen--nor could I imagine seeing one. No, this place was the real deal: chicken crates, strings of gourds, livers and kidneys hanging up in the butchery booths, surges of people pushing in from every direction... And here I found myself standing smack in the middle of it all!

 

(Don't miss the rest! Please click "Read More.")

 

The Last Week Begins

Between decorating for a wedding, standing behind a serving table dishing out chipatis (flat bread), getting stuck in a Kampala traffic jam after a five-hour church function, painting wall-sized murals in the Baby House classroom, spelunking through the most extraordinary market I've ever experienced and finding banana costumes quite unexpectedly... Wow. The first few days of my last week in Africa have been so full, I won't be able to document them all on one post, will I?

Let's start with the first items on that list...

(Please click "Read More" to continue)

Life in Africa

 

 



Reading Psalms, drinking tea and chatting on the roof
with Alyssa one last time

A feeling of change is coming over the flow of life here. With the end of the Bible School semester came the end of some key elements in the routine of my African life: things like sitting in world religions class, walking to morning prayer at the church, and going on adventures with the Albertan students.

They left for Canada a few days ago--but not before getting in a few last experiences such as riding a boda to Quality or eating jackfruit on the roof at sunrise! Before they left we had one last dinner together with them and some of our Ugandan friends. We had great fun introducing them to such activities as making s'mores with candles, eating Canadian food - like meatballs and cheese, and generally consuming large amounts of sugar.





Edith teaching me how to prepare a jackfruit
I bought on the way home from Bugono on Sunday



The little yellow things that look like
 suction cups on an octopus's tentacles
(or at least they look like that to ME) are
 what you eat, after removing a seed inside.













Now the Ugandan students are beginning to go home to their villages for the holidays one by one as well, but I'm enjoying spending as much time as possible with them in the meantime! One of the ways I've found to spend time with friends from the school is by making friendship bracelets around the lunch table after posho. (At least back before lunch stopped being served yesterday. That's one more thing missing from the way of life I've grown to love!)

I always have to grin at the fun on people's faces as they start weaving, and their triumph as they master a new pattern! They can use the bracelets as a way to remember their Canadian friend, as a skill to teach to others, or even as a source of extra income. Meanwhile, I enjoy hanging out with and learning from them as I'm able to sit there and ask all sorts of questions about Ugandan culture. It's a great set-up!

One of my best bracelet-making friends, Adella, let me in on a grand excursion into Kampala with another friend, Charity, on Friday. When we stepped off the taxi and onto the street, that same wonderful feeling of entering the living, breathing, urban cacophony sent a spark of adrenaline through my veins. Here I was again, squeezing between bumpers, ducking under taxi mirrors, side-stepping bodas...I don't think I'll ever get bored of navigating the maze with moving walls that makes up a Kampala street!



A slice of the view overlooking
the taxi park we walked through

Clothes shopping in Kampala: still an adventure!

We ducked into the upper room of a restaurant, where we waited, weaving bracelets until Adella's family came to meet us. They bought us all lunch, prayed together with us, and exhibited such warmth that by the time we stepped back out onto the street my heart felt full and blessed for their friendship.

 

After saying goodbye to them, we continued walking through a beautiful part of town among huge new hotels, high-rises and government buildings. Adela showed me all the best little cafes to eat at, which made me wish I had a whole day to spend just restaurant hopping among all the tiny hidden gems in town. Continuing back towards the taxi park, we came into the busier part of the city to search for some clothing items. As we turned a corner and stepped onto the downtown street, the scene I saw spread before me just about knocked the wind out of me! There, stretching into the distance ahead of us, the road sloped down into an incredible sea of people. It filled the entire valley--just this pulsating mass of traffic and humanity and merchandise all tangled up together on the street; a billion different heads bobbing in a haze of dust, exhaust and light from the lowering sun. It was a breathtaking sight, and I was walking into it!



Return to the Nile

“Four and ½ hours of sleep,” I thought, glancing at the green glow of my digital watch as we arose while the moon still hung above Kampala’s night-lit hills. Yet having come in from the Introduction Ceremony at midnight only a few hours before, and now getting up at 5:00 AM to head off to ministry for 6:00, I felt thankful for every snore I’d managed to breathe in between.

 

As we hiked downhill in time for an unfamiliar van to pull into the parking lot, I saw more on the horizon than the orange streaks of light which now stretched above us. I could see the edge of a new adventure dawning too.

 

 

(To continue, please click "Read More.")

The Introduction Ceremony: as Cultural as it Gets!

It was 5:00AM when two phone alarms vanquished the silence in our dorm room and thrust us into one of the most intriguingly African days I’ve experienced yet. What was on today’s agenda? Drive to a district beyond Jinja (where I spent 15 hours connected to an IV for malaria treatment, remember?) and participate in a traditional Ugandan introduction ceremony—the ceremony where a soon-to-be groom brings a dowry to the bride’s side of the family. Traditional costumes, music and dancing, mountains of food, and processions involving goats, cows and chickens are all part of the day’s package.

What role we were supposed to play in the event we had no idea, which is probably a good thing for me! If I had known beforehand what participation in such an occasion would entail I would have taken more pains to panic thoroughly enough ahead of time. But let me start at the beginning…

(To access the whole story, a good deal of cultural notes, and a pile of pictures,

please be sure to click "Read More.")

An African Roadtrip in Pictures

Mitooma Ministry Excursion Photo Album


 

A roadside village scene (notice the birds on the roof.)

A bridge of "three sticks" near the hotsprings

 

(Please click "Read More" to view all)

Mitooma Ministry Excursion (Part 2)

 “They need to be encouraged to live in a consistently Godly way despite peer pressure,” the pastor’s wife explained to me as we all leaned over our plates of goat Saturday night, “and to keep using their God-given talents.”
 

We were each going to be speaking to a different group the next morning, Sunday, during a first session. Out of the groups--men, married women, youth and kids, I had been delegated to be with the kids.  We were now discussing the needs of the audiences to learn what issues we were supposed to speak about. My topics? Godly living and using your talents. These are the things I would need to be prepared to preach on for two full sessions of Sunday school teaching…in just over twelve hours! I remember asking God one thing that night: help!

(For the whole story, plus pictures of Sunday school teaching, equator crossing and zebra watching, please click "Read More.")

Mitooma Ministry Excursion (Part 1)

Mitooma Ministry Excursion - to western Uganda

Dinner by Lantern Light

“This is a night to remember,” commented Mr. Guthrie as a group of eight of us sat in the dark, lantern-lit guesthouse at Masaka. Over there in the kitchen a few people stood frying chapattis for supper, over here at the table Andrea and I bent over our reading and homework by headlamp, and nearby at the counter another person worked to light more kerosene lamps to compensate for the night’s power-out.

All around the shadowy room grasshoppers flitted through the air, clattering against the walls and furniture. The noise of their crunchy little bodies thumping along the roof as they flew sounded much like the music of snapping fingers. Occasionally another noise would contribute to the evening’s atmosphere: the piercing cry of one surprised to feel a grasshopper becoming tangled in one's hair.

Cruising Kampala and Feasting by Flashlight

Trying to shop for clothes in Canada is bad enough, but trying to find clothes among the congestion of people and merchandise in the belly of a central Kampala merchant plaza...now that's downright terrifying!

A Fruit Market

A Shopping Centre Scene

Dewinging Grasshoppers

(For the whole story, plus lots more pictures of market hopping in Kampala and the tale of a very unusual dinner, please click "Read More.")

Play-Dough Manicures

And other elements of fun in day-to-day living

“Jjaaja Rita, you see my mani-killer!” squealed one young charge, holding up two sets of purple-pointed fingernails. It’s play-dough time at the Baby House, and the creativity is flowing. After days like these, I only have to look in the mirror to remember what I did all day:

(Please click "Read More" to continue)

I Can't Believe I Actually Did That!

Link to video footage now posted at the end!

From getting up to speak in front of hundreds of youth, to perfecting the art of eating without silverware, to trying fried grasshoppers bought off the street, today was one of those “nonstop adventure” kinds of Saturdays…

(For the whole story, a lot of pictures, a video clip of downtown Kampala, PLUS video documentation of our grasshopper eating experience, please do click “Read More”.)

At the End of the Eland's Tongue

When I woke up Monday morning, I never suspected that in the late afternoon I’d be standing in the sun with one of Africa’s largest antelopes licking my hand. But let me backtrack…

 (Please click "Read More" to continue...)

Spontaneous Adventure

 

 "...So even if I can't contact you again before then," I wrote to the stranger I'd been trying all day to get a hold of, "I can have a bag packed and ready by tonight in case someone shows up to get me!"

 

Not that I had any idea where I was going. Or exactly who I'd be staying with.

But let me start at the beginning...

(Yep--"Read More" to continue!)

Kampala, on Foot

 

Hold on to your bag, run when the group runs and don't lose sight of the person ahead of you!

 

This is the survival strategy I quickly adopted while navigating downtown Kampala on foot behind Edith and Alyssa today. Viewing the city from out of a taxi window is one thing, but being caught up in the exhilarating cacophony of swirling crowds, honking horns and pushing, pulsating traffic that engulfs you as soon as you step off the taxi is an entirely different experience! And a far more interesting one.

 

 

Nothing beats the impactful "this is where I really am"
feeling of stepping off a taxi and into the raw reality
of the living, breathing urban streets.

We weren't actually in one of the downtown taxi parks, as it may have sounded from the video, but from the sheer volume of taxis we wove among while crossing the streets we may as well have been! At times the traffic flowed quickly enough that you had to wait for gaps to cross. At other times, however, the congestion was so much that weaving in and out between the many bumpers and grills was more like walking through a very crowded parking lot...except with more vehicular motion involved.

So what was I doing here, dodging taxis and boda bodas on a quest through the middle of Uganda's capital city?

 

Good question.

 

(To keep riding along for the day's whole intriguing journey, please click "Read More.")

Notes on Goats

 

"I have to order the entrée?!" I asked Isabella, the glow from the lantern on the table no doubt reflected eerily on my wide eyeballs, "but I can't even PRONOUNCE 'goat pilau.'"

 



 

Pilau and Passionfruit Juice
(I don't think either of us used
the yogurt sauce pictured here.)

A group of us were sitting around a couple of umbrella-shrouded tables pushed together on a balcony overlooking Lake Victoria, squinting at the menus before us. The family that had been staying with us this week took us out here to a restaurant in Entebbe before they left earlier this week, so that night lent me my first opportunity to order goat for dinner. Only one problem existed: I couldn't pronounce the dish that Isabella and I were going to be splitting! 

The mysterious pilau turned out to be a plate of "fragrant rice" featuring several pieces of roast beef-like meat. Ironically, because the spice--tasty though it was--covered up any distinctly "goat-like" flavour in the meat, I still have no idea what goat actually tastes like!

 

But I  have learned..

 

- That the Lugandan word for goat is "embuzi" (em-BOO-zee)

- That goat skin is great for making everything from shoes and wallets to knife sheaths and musical  instruments--all of which you can buy at your local craft market

-That goats can run down staircases. I know I was surprised!

Church, Where Least Expected

"Here we are," Mr. Guthrie said as he turned the land cruiser down a long dirt road and stopped abruptly at the bottom of the hill in front of a pile of garbage.

 

Climbing out from the backseat, I stepped up onto a surface carved out of the garbage pile and stood still. Beside me a small tin building, maybe 12 x 15 feet, awaited our entrance. Before me a group of grey-and-white speckled ducks, holes in their feet, stood placidly outside the doorway. Beyond me stretched the dump and road, meandering down to where a maze of mud brick houses comprised the village below.

Mr.Guthrie had said that we were going to be speaking at a church in the ghetto today, but I hadn't quite expected this.

(To continue, please click "Read More.")

Equatorial Tobogganing

Saturday, November 2


Slicing off the leaf...

"We used to slide down hills in those things when I was a kid," Esther, my friend from the baby house, explained. We paused, standing over a huge palm leaf that had been shed from a tree outside the guesthouse the previous night, and looked down at the great husk attached. I had seen kids riding in these things before...

The remaining husk (where the leaf had been attached to the tree)
becomes "the boat" for sledding.

Elijah, the gardener, came and sliced the husk from the rest of the leaf using his loooong work knife. Then we carried the piece--nicknamed "the boat"--like a thick, green, rolled up mat over to a grassy slope. And the rest was easy!

My first sledding experience at the equator!

After lunchtime, when the kids were napping, I remained at the Baby House to spend the afternoon making friendship bracelets with the caregivers. Esther and I sat on the floor working on ours for nearly two hours!

Lastly, to cap the day off, I returned to the guest house where Alyssa and I finally enjoyed the "jungle slushies" we've been planning on making. Ingredients: frozen tropical juice boxes + one Swiss Army knife.







Success!

Up until then Alyssa had been mentioning nearly every day how good a slushie would be. (And I thought my cravings for Tim Hortons had been bad!) But I have to agree: at the time they seemed to be about the best slushies I'd ever tasted.

So now that we've hit upon a good substitute for Canadian slushies in Uganda, now the trouble will be finding a substitute for the jungle slushies in Canada. After all, where at home will I find the ingredients for the new delicacy I discovered today of jackfruit pieces filled with guava ice?

Enjoyment in Ordinary Life

This Morning's Sunrise
You can practically set your watch by the light's activity in the equatorial sky, from 6:00 AM at the crack of dawn to 6:15, when the colours of the sunrise are at their most intense point, until 6:30 when the actual sun begins to climb over the horizon.

Fun at the Baby House

 "No really, it's actually pretty good," I insisted, grinning as persuasively as I could at the two mildly unconvinced faces before me. The faces belonged to the lovely new roommates (they're even fellow homeschoolers to boot!) who came to bunk with Alyssa and me a few days ago. We've been having a blast so far, sharing with them all the wonders of life in Uganda from teaching at the baby house to eating posho at the school. And that's where the convincing came in...

Alyssa and the two girls, Isabella and Ariel, ended up splitting a heaped plate of posho and beans three ways. Yet curiously, I had completely finished mine before the three of them had put a dent in theirs! Then somehow more suddenly appeared on my plate while I wasn't looking. Suspicious. I don't know when I started to like posho and beans this much, but it's surprising how one's tastes can change in another country.

First Impressions of Posho!

In the afternoon, after sitting in on the Bible School modular class taught by the girls' dad, a group of us took off on a hike to Quality Shopping Plaza.

We ended up compiling quite a trekking team, between Isabella and Ariel, me, the Albertan students - Alyssa and Jordan, and two Ugandan students.

During our brief poke around the grocery store I picked up some sugarcane and jackfruit (here's the Wikipedia link if you're curious as to what it is), and then the girls among us went down to the café.



Walking Scenes

But as fun as all of this has been, some of the greatest moments the four of us roomies have had have been during the prayer sessions we've started in the dorm at night. I'm learning that you don't have to be an older person sitting in a circle above a church carpet somewhere to enjoy being part of a prayer group.





You can be one of a few kids sitting a dorm floor in Africa and experience the joy of coming together as one group in agreement before God. And I do mean joy! I'm getting to see God work in people's lives like I've never seen before. We're at that age when we're able to watch God's plan for each others' lives take shape, and witnessing that is a privilege like I've never known before.

--It even beats the privilege of eating posho together.

A Day for New Experiences

I can't remember the last time I sang along to Sunday School songs performed on a goat skin drum.

 

 

Nor can I remember the last time I've enjoyed a traditional plate heaping with rice, matooke and ground nut sauce without the assistance of any silverware.

 

Yeah--Sunday was a day for new adventures.

 

(To access the story of the full day's events, please click Read More.)



Public Transport

Saturday, Oct 26

Saturday's particularly striking sunrise moment

Our "Jungle Cookies," as we called them,
 have a slightly different flavour due to the
course pure cane sugar we used. But they're good!

Saturday didn't actually start with the taxi trip to Entebbe. It started with cookies.

The journey via public transport to the beach came later, after a morning of baking followed by an hour or so of helping with lunch at the Baby House. But 1:20 PM (or so) found me, Alyssa and Edith playing musical chairs in a loaded taxi van headed toward "Sports Beach" at Lake Victoria. Here's how the transit works:

How to Ride a Taxi:

1) Hike downhill to the main road. Attempt crossing, depending on which direction you're headed, and stand waiting for a van with enough seats to come by. There are so many taxis it should only take a few seconds...

2) A horn will beep and a hand will wave out the window if a van comes past with an empty seat. Nod your head (or at least your eyebrows) if you want to hop on.

3) Climb into the van and go as far to the back as possible. On the end of each row of seats is a jump seat folded up to make a walkway--you may need to flip one down to complete a row.

4) Sit back and enjoy the ride! There are no seatbelts, so hang on tight! Also, keep in mind that you may very well end up in a completely different seat in a few minutes, as you'll shuffle around a bit as the people beside you get on and off. Finally, be ready to squish! Especially if you're sitting by the door, it's not unusual to end up as one of four or five people packed into a row of seats built for three. (The most I've seen in so far in one row is six people, including two kids, plus a stack of five pillows someone was carrying.)

It takes at least two people to work a taxi: one to drive and one to sit by the door, communicate to potential customers outside, let people in and out and collect money from everybody at some point during the ride. (Usually a fare costs between 1-2500 shillings, or up to the equivalent of $1. The time is not metered; it's more like a bus system.)

Our van finally stopped at a little gravel pull out in Entebbe, but the fun wasn't over yet. Three boda bodas (motorcycle taxis) stood waiting by the roadside, and to my utter surprise I discovered that I would have to ride one.

"You're sitting in front!" I told Alyssa, who grinningly complied. I'd heard stories about these things. In fact, the missionary ladies here had already shared with me their single strategy for riding bodas: hang on tight and pray!

After an exhilarating, if prayerful, ride, we landed at a fenced-in section of sand overlooking Lake Victoria. Time to sit back, kick off the shoes, and eat some of those cookies.

Back to Normal





There must have been at least eight of them banded together there, their shrill battle chants pounding through the open air as they prepared to charge at me.

I looked up, squinting against the sun, and braced myself for the onslaught. The chanting drew nearer. It sounded suspiciously like my name. Suddenly I found myself being rammed into by a half-dozen little preschoolers excited for a group hug. I had come back to the Baby House after my "sick-leave" absence!

Crossing the roads here reminds me distinctly
of a certain old video game involving a frog.
Which is why it's a good idea to cross with a
Ugandan who knows what they're doing.  

Having finally recovered from the repercussions of the weekend's adventure (so to speak), these past couple of days have been for sliding back into action for Baby House work and Bible School activities. Besides helping again with the PK class today, I also enjoyed a particularly nice batch of posho and beans at the school--the first I've had there in over a week! It was good to be back.

















Right afterwards, Alyssa and I walked with Edith, a third-year student, down the hill, across the street, and up and down a series of roadways to Quality Shopping Village. There, we stocked up on snack supplies at the grocery store before sitting down at a café/coffee shop area to rest our feet. Between the three of us we ordered ice cream, ''Afergado's" (ice cream poured over with espresso) and (my selection), a "queen cake"--a sort of pastry resembling a muffin. Edith is an awesome tour guide--tomorrow we're planning a Saturday trip to the "beach" at Lake Victoria with her and possibly the two new room mates who are supposed to be arriving tonight.

As an update to the request for prayer about our visas, I'm happy to report that it's all working out just fine. Apparently the rules have changed about needing to pay to extend a visa, so there's nothing to worry about anymore. Alyssa had to pay about 24$ because hers was only a few days from expiring, but the rest of us should (should) get away for free. I'll let you know if anything changes. So THANK YOU for your prayers over the past few days. I know I say that a lot, but they're all very much appreciated and they're all being answered.