Somehow a brave child can usually be found in a crowd of curious onlookers and Patience was one of them. The four year old girl simply walked up and grabbed hold of my fingers and stood with me as I looked up and down the strip of road. Luganda not being the common language in Soronko – that place we were tricked into stopping “on the way” to Nakapiritpirit – I was grateful for the...
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Adventures to Nakapiritpirit
Our 4-hour journey from Kampala to Mbale was rather uneventful. The bus was comfortable (for
Asian or Ugandan size bodies), the sun was tucked behind the clouds, and the roads were less traveled that early Sunday morning. Finding Pastor Patrick in the bustling city, or rather Pastor Patrick finding me, was no problem. He met us in Mbale and escorted us to the far-away Nakapiritpirit where the pastors’...
Friday, May 25, 2012
I Am My Father's Daughter
I am the third child of my father. Although he sometimes suggests that I was found under a rock – perhaps my behavior has on occasion caused him to wish for some disassociation – there is an undeniable resemblance between us. Not only do I look like him, but that questionable behavior is more like him than he may care to admit. Nothing will ever convince me that I am anything less than my father’s daughter. There is surety in that knowledge, confidence, a sense of place, identity. I’m not talking...
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Konoweka Ladies Need More than Tailoring Skills
Jackie at the machine.
The space that signals the place to stop looks somehow different. The rusted green slide is gone. Yet the children who come running when I appear are exactly the same. I found three of the Konoweka ladies working on a bedcover in a tiny dirt-floored room. Pieces of orange, purple, and flowered fabric patched into the top of what will eventually be a single size bed cover.
Pastor...
Meet Grace
Uganda Martyrs High School is tucked into the Kampala hillside and almost hidden from interference from outsiders. Twas quite a chore finding the place but once we identified someone who knew exactly where, we made an easy time of locating the school. A few questions posed to students enjoying their lunch break resulted in finding a smiling girl who was expecting our visit.
Grace is a young lady...
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Kakria Prison Launches Skills Development Training
Word traveled fast and Kakira Prison leaders are asking for a training program like that of Bugembe Prison. We’ve visited there a few times and each time I came away feeling as though we ought to start this program. Although I did not visit Kakira this time, I did leave funds with Carpenter John to purchase a sewing machine and the supplies needed as well as money for the supplies needed to begin...
Bugembe Prison: No Photos Allowed
Bugembe Prison remains unchanged. The brick and plaster structure with its raised courtyard serves the men well enough. As we enter the doorway, the dark-skinned men can be seen pulling their bright yellow shirts over their heads. Big white smiles mark their faces as recognition comes. I was surprised to see almost double the number of people there (81 this time) and there was no way of fitting into the small chapel. The women file in after the men are seated, no babies wit maamas this time.
I...
Monday, May 21, 2012
A Dolly for Seeta from Susan
After seeing the two other girls receive a dolly, young Seeta braved her way into Augustine and Joel’s sitting area/church and stood before me not saying a word. She looked up at me with big eyes and just stood there. I took her hand until I sensed she felt comfortable with me and then hoisted her to my lap where she was swallowed up in hugs…and continued to stare. A dolly for this adorable girl,...
A Dolly for Praise from Jean
She cautiously approached, with her tiny hydra-like hair braids and big eyes, to shake my hand and kneel. Women and children kneel as a sign of respect in various situations and when children kneel for me I always think how adorable they are with their very good manners. After this first encounter, and her “I am fine” response to my inquiry about her well-being, Praise was more than happy to chitter-chat...
Sunday, May 20, 2012
A Dolly for Fina From the Manchester Family
Fina had her hands full with her younger sister riding on her back. She kept leaning forward to keep this girl from falling and it was obvious her burden was heavy for young Fina. Fina is the first to receive a dolly and that dolly is from the Manchester Family. During my last trip the Manchester dolly seemed to have escaped, perhaps with the Christmas dollies, and so this newly assigned dolly...
Skills Training and Evangelism
After two very stressful hours of dodging holes large enough to swallow a car, we found ourselves in Kamuli. The newly rented home of Augustine and Joel, and now Joel’s wife Rose too, was a small but nice structure with a large sitting area. This is the area where the two men are building a home church – Calvary Chapel Kamuli. Having moved here after their work in Paidha, where I brought teaching...
Saturday, May 19, 2012
Bear Sighting
Sleeping in the shade of the Shared Hope for Orphans school structure, the bear rested that early morning. I was so surprised to see him there that I pulled out my camera to capture the moment. Although not torn to shreds like the dolly who went to live on the farm, the bear was definitely in need of a bath. Livingstone thought he ought to pose for the photo and carefully set the bear up in the sunlight....
Shared Hope for Orphans Update
Eight of us crowed into the small school office in Buwenge. The dim light shone through the single window and was enough to meet our needs. I always appreciate Alone’s sense of accountability for the learning the group receives. Each time we meet he provides an update on the action the group has taken to further their mission. This time he described their new maize project added to the existing poultry, goat, pineapple, matoke, and brick-making projects.
When we were last together, I suggested...
They Don't Get You Well
School begins next week for the children of Buwenge, but several gathered to welcome me to Shared Hope for Orphans anyhow. They spoke a lovely welcome greeting in English and did so well that I forgot that the rest of their English may not be as well developed…so I began chatting with them. The looks of struggle on their faces and a prompt by Alone, the president of the organization, reminded me...
Friday, May 18, 2012
Carpenter John Arrested!
Just beyond the railroad tracks leading into Jinja town was a boda-boda sting. Traffic police stopped each and every boda driver not wearing a helmet. Passengers walked, bodas were loaded into big trucks, and drivers stood waiting for instructions…Carpenter John among them. The capture of all these boda drivers was under the guise of identifying stolen bodas. It’s true, boda-boda drivers are stabbed...
Bare-footed Boys
Five bare-footed boys sat on the sunny stoop of the take-away restaurant owned by Alex’s brother. A sixth boy exited with the butt slice of a loaf of bread and divided that slice among the others. Each boy must have had less than a mouthful. Another boy emerged from the shop, and another, until eleven boys positioned themselves outside waiting for their bite. Upon discovering my presence, they filled...
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Driveover or Rollover
Big semi tractors sway from side to side as they inch down the improvised road of soft-earthed bean fields. Hope reigns as tractors passing in opposite directions wobble in opposite directions thus potentially smunching one another from the top. Vehicles heading in both directions vie for right of way on the narrow strip of earth now destroyed by hundreds of trucks and cars. I fret over this loss...
Green Fuzzy Thing
What is green and fuzzy all over, besides the bread in Uganda? Did you love making handcrafts as a child in the same way I did? Doll clothes were my favorites. My maama taught me to sew and to this day I cannot sew button holes…and neither can she. Brianna is another young lady who enjoys learning a variety of handcrafts and just before I left her South Carolina home state, she offered up her precious...
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
How's Your Memory?
Snap, snap, snap. The children had so much fun punching the Memory cards from their original holders and then playing with the remaining frame that I almost didn’t tell them about the rest of the game. Yet, once we set that game up, they found some fun. I LOVED watching them learn to play as the game progressed. Once they got the hang of the goal to match cards, the girls really excelled. The boys...
She's Living on a Farm Now
The sleepy little things who occupy one bedroom are barely distinguishable under their mosquito nets. Each carved a small hole and emerged from their hideaway like butterflies from their cocoons. The two littlest, Lohir being one of them, feared the mzungu and in her stupor found the wall to be a comfortable pillow. I asked where her baby doll was and was informed that she went to live on a farm...
This is Africa
The seats were filled that first morning of the project management class. Everyone arrived at a generally on-time hour, the first of many major feats. One man’s phone rang and off he went, never to return. “He was called to Kampala,” I was later informed. As our time together progressed, the student population thinned to the degree where there was little value in continuing to hold the class.
I did take a shower. Everyone seemed engaged with the content and the teaching style. Lots of questions...
Monday, May 14, 2012
Jinja Art Studio
The broken street blocks catch the edge of my dirty flip flop as I edge my way past the iron sheets that have been blocking the corner for some years. Traffic whizzes by as I scurry to get out of the way. Just beyond those corrugated sheets, hiding who knows what, is the Jinja Art Studio. The first time I visited this city, I admired the work of the artist and then as I came to stay, learned that...
Sunday, May 13, 2012
Projector Flea
“Where did you go?” friends ask as I gaze into the distance lost in another world. If mainframe computers could become desktop computers, console stereos could become digital audio players (you really must check out the iPod Flea), tabletop telephones could become palm size…why does my projector need to be so giant? I realize even these have become smaller over time, but they’re still not small enough...
Friday, May 11, 2012
French Fry Frenzy
I lay perched on my twin-size foam mattress in the space hollowed out by the weight of my body after almost two years of intermittent use. The mosquito tent is tucked snugly into the edges of the frame protecting me from vicious predators in the black of night. The 3 a.m. rains begin and I think about that sound. Frosty French fries dunked in hot oil…that first frenzied dip soon settles into a lower pitched boil. The rain sounds like that…that frenzy. The corrugated iron sheets send the liquid...
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Egypt is in Africa
“Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve diverted our flight to Cairo. Our third fuel tank is not functioning properly and we cannot make it all the way to Entebbe on the two tanks that remain.” I wondered if this was the kind of announcement made by all pilots before planes crashed. Really, though, what I worried about most was that my friends would be waiting at the airport for hours not knowing where I was. Communication systems here aren’t what they are in the U.S. We landed uneventfully and watch the...
The Earth Blocked Their View
A giant globe stands on a wooden pedestal just outside the Giraffe – a restaurant on the second level of British Airways terminal inside London’s Heathrow airport. Just beyond the globe with peeling water is a glass rail preventing onlookers from falling to the first floor. But in between that globe and that railing is a tile-covered space just large enough for me to stretch out on.
Whoever designed the airport seating did so in such a way as to prevent travelers from lying across the chairs....
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