Home Sweet Home
I Spy With My Little Eye
Issue VI // March 2023
Happy birthday to you! 🎶 How old are you now? 🎶 "For me, I made 30." "I have 30 years now." This is the way I answer this question here; which is also a socially acceptable question to ask, as it should be. I don't understand why people want to hide their age in the western world... as if it changes anything. This year, my birthday came a week after a wisdom tooth removal, and was spent recovering from some complications. Not much celebrating went on that day, but it will come! Sam also had a tooth removed, along with other dental work, so we get to have some company in our misery.
With the start of the new year, we also passed into a new season: hot/dry. There was a very welcome blessing of mosquitos going away, and we finally put away our thicker blanket, but then dust was everywhere. That's the trade off for the rainy season's mud.
Feb 23: after nearly 2 months of excessive heat and dryness, we prayed for rain that night. The next morning, a huge black cloud suddenly came over the mountain and poured out sheets of rain.
February 28: rainy season has (un)officially started - we've been treated to lightening, thunder, downpours and storms.
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This past month, I've just been jotting down different situations I've been in that stand out to a foreigner. So here is my list:
Many gifts come in the form of food. I was recently gifted pineapples (one was for providing 6 weeks of childcare during a seminar), sugarcane, avocados, and bananas. As Sam's baking skills have expanded, so have his recipes. The pineapples have gone to good use in the delicious pineapple bars.
I had my first experience with trying a cocoa plant. I never knew you could eat it, or rather that you could suck on the gelatinous, tangy, coated seeds. I thought it was solely used in chocolate production.
We started using these growing "weeds" of dodo (greens) in cooking - this land is so abundant and fertile that we don't even need to plant some of our food! It just grows on its own.
Instead of yard or lawn, Ugandans call the land around the home a compound. Which is appropriate when you consider that we are surrounded by a high concrete wall, a huge metal gate with spikes on top, more spikes over the front section of the wall, and barbed wire in the back... yet the neighbor children still climb up their jackfruit tree to sit on the flat part to stare into our yard when we have guests over. Not to mention that all windows have bars over them. This is just standard protection measures. Most people also keep an askari (guard) or dogs to protect their property.
Unfortunately, our security wasn't enough. We had a break-in at the beginning of the year. It brought nervousness, fear, suspicion, and anger... but God taught us a few things afterwards: we needed to stop focusing on the things and put our faith and time in God, we realized that our generosity has decreased over time, and we could have stewarded our resources better. Also, we saw that we needed to take more care with the security measures. It obviously wasn't a good situation, but friends and family stepped in to help us. We're thankful for their support, and that the thieves didn't try to harm us in any way. And after some time, we realized the things carried less importance in our lives than we thought.
Speaking of the compound though, it does provide nice privacy. There are just a few parks or open land areas to relax in around Jinja, and when we do go, the stares make it a lot less comfortable to try to enjoy ourselves. So I generally just take my mat and lay on the lawn. It's also a different experience than the Pacific Northwest. I have herons and so many other bird species flying and squawking overhead, while often hearing a church worship practice going on (loudly, as there are no noise control regulations), and seeing the top branches of the guava tree shake as the neighborhood children try to get the fruit. I also get to play my daily game: is that a screaming goat or a crying child? It could be one just as likely as the other.
As you travel along the highway, you pass public taxi vans everywhere. This part of East Africa has two major religions, and as you go, you will alternately see sayings of "allah" versus "Yesu Yebaziwe" (praise Jesus) emblazoned on the back of the taxi windows, as well as on trucks and personal cars. You will also often pass by "God Will Provide hardware store", or "Jesus is my Savior barber shop", etc...
Football (soccer) season started again: we came to the field on game day to find the manager pouring posho (maize flour) on the ground to mark the lines. Then, a sudden outburst of rain and wind that blew the plaintains trees with such force that the leaves were bending down to touch the ground came out of nowhere, and erased the lines. After waiting about 20 minutes for the storm to pass, the manager was back out marking the lines.
The new school year also started, so I'm back in the accounts office, plus marketing/ graphic design for the preschool/primary school, plus teaching more art classes.
I also had a "fun" new experience of food poisoning versus stomach bug? I've never had any issues like this anywhere in the world, even when the entire rest of the traveling group of 8 had food poisoning, I was completely fine. After about half a week, I recovered though, and no more problems since then.
My final observation: In America, we often take electricity and water for granted. When you open the faucet, you don't even think "will the water flow this time?" And when you flip a lightswitch, you would be very surprised if the bulb doesn't turn on. Your first thought would be that the bulb is out, not that electricity is off. As you saw in my previous posts, it is common to go days without either electricity or water. Thankfully, we have a 2000 liter water tank as a backup when the water is turned off. This month though, we had another water problem. We had recently installed a water filter to have drinking water (after a year, YAY no more boiling water and waiting for it to cool!) The filter is clear, and we saw the sediment rapidly build up after installation. One day though, I also saw a little black something swimming in the filter. It was time to clean the tank. We first had to turn off the supply to the tank and use the water up. Then the men came to clean it. Unfortunately, the main water line was then off for 4 days, and we had a completely empty backup tank. For 4 days, we had to get water from outside and bring it home. I didn't realize how many times I wash my hands every day, but now I counted every drop. Drinking water, washing hands, doing the dishes, even wanting to flush the toilet; all of these simple daily activities were suddenly monitored for every bit of water. Finally though, we heard the water start gushing into the tank!
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We are now waiting for the next step of the visa process. The first form has taken 10 months so far, the second is supposed to take 4-6 weeks. Please pray with us that it all goes smoothly and well. And pray that God prepares our hearts to go, and that He prepares others to step into leading and continuing the ministries. We are approaching the end of our time here. We don't know when, but we want our transition out to be a good one for all involved. It will be a difficult time of leaving family and friends, but we want to be prepared for whatever the Lord has for us in the future.
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