Update On Life

Theo, Rihanna and Rett enjoyed the spaghetti we made
for Sunday night dinner

       Well friends, we apologize for our little hiatus from blogging.  The last two and half weeks our team has been fighting off flues, stomach bugs and strep throat.  As such we have spent most of our spare time napping, drinking cup of soup from home and doing as little as possible.  Healing seems to take longer here; perhaps it is the food, lack of proper medication or just our desire to be home in our own beds.  Either way, we are all on the mend and back to work.


We were helping to fix a broken pipe...
my hoeing skills need some work (lol)



       Much of our engineering work has shifted from construction to design as we await the approval of the CIDA funding to continue building.  Due to this lack of money, we have actually had to lay off 50% of our Ugandan work force, which has left camp quiet and less joyful.  Please join us in praying that the contracts and politics with CIDA  will be finished and that ACTS can continue the great work they are doing here.  The good part about designing is that we have the opportunity to explore the Ugandan country side, looking for needy communities who require a tap.  Just yesterday we took a 4 hour trek up a mountainside in Kigarama to explore possible extensions to an existing system.

 

Andrew on a hike with Dean in
the mountains above our camp

       In other news, Andrew has begun working part time with our data survey team, while Theo stays in camp with his nanny Winnie.  This team is working with the Mutual Benefits Society to interview prospective needy widows in Kigarama that could be lent 2 plots of land for 2 years.  With this land they are able to farm and create a steady form of income, in which they must save to purchase their own plot of land at the end of the 2 year period.  These widows range in age from 21 to 77 and most of their husbands have died from “malaria” (almost every sickness here the doctors call malaria) or liver problems.  God put one specific woman named Mellon on Andrew’s heart this week. When they arrived at her home she was doubled over in pain and could barely speak.  The team took her immediately to a doctor and later found out that she had severe ulcers and typhoid.  But by the grace of God, they were called to her home that day and she was able to receive the healing she so desperately needed.  Please pray for her continual healing.

We gave Theo a haircut...it took many
distractions to keep him still

       Well, aside from the earthquake we had yesterday (not too big), the grasshoppers they ate this weekend, & the hack job of a haircut we gave Theo, there really isn’t much else to tell.  We have all settled into life here and have no regrets in our decision to move to Uganda.  Some days we are sick of the same food over and over and over and over, but we are grateful for food as well.  We are building some lifelong friendships with the other Canadians and many of the Ugandans.  There are now a total of 11 children living in camp and Theo is having fun with them all.  Andrew has become great friends with a 12 year old boy named Dean, who was brought here to take care of his little 2 year old brother Dyson.  Together Andrew and Dean make a dynamite team, playing soccer, running, hiking mountains and scheming ways to take down the annoying birds’ nest.  All in all we are feeling quite at home here.

Our Ugandan team peeling the grasshoppers legs
and wings off...dead grasshoppers smell nasty!

The Church of Uganda we attend on Sundays. We also live on their land, right
behind the church. They only use a drum for worship, but they make more
joyful noises then most North American churches I've been to...we  could
learn a lot about God from these wonderful people.

The Children of Uganda

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

       Being a mother and living here in Uganda has been a challenge for me; the children of this country have been pulling so heavily on my heart strings.  Everywhere I turn there are toddlers without parents, babies without clothes and kids raising themselves.  Their shaved heads, protruding bellies and outstretched arms haunt me daily.  I suppose I was naïve in believing that the images we saw of Africa in the media were only a small number of the population, not the majority.  But as I come to see every day, Uganda is a poor country, rich in resources and hard-working people, but lacking in knowledge and training.

       Another hard part of being a mother here has been adjusting to the Ugandan style of parenting.  As you drive around you quickly notice that once a child can walk and feed themselves, they are free to do their own thing.  Every village you go through there are groups of toddlers playing together in the dirt unsupervised, little two year old boys in tattered shirts fetching water and four year old girls with their newborn siblings strapped to their backs.  The only glimpse of parenting you see is in church on Sunday or when a child has done something very wrong.  Just yesterday we were surveying in a village and a man with a stick and weeping young boy passed us.  They had only turned the corner and we heard the boy’s blood-curdling screams and the sound of the stick as it whipped across his skin.  Their ideas on discipline are so vastly different from mine and everything is done out in the open, regardless of who is around.  In the first week we were here, there was a baby about Theo’s age getting bathed and he did not like it.  Every time he stood up to try and get out the mother would backhand him across the face.

       I realize that I am new to this parenting thing and that spanking is still a widely accepted form of discipline in North America, but I believe there is a fine line between beating and disciplining.  Theo is getting to an age where he is starting to intentionally do things he shouldn`t and as such Andrew and I have been talking a lot about discipline.  We are still unsure of our plan of action, but we are continually praying for wisdom and God’s guidance as we choose what is right for our son.

       To offset my heartache, is the children`s great and abundant joy amongst all their sufferings.  They excitedly wave their hands at the sight of a “motor car” driving down their road and their imaginations are so colourful, making pieces of garbage into dolls or balls.  They work and play so well together, no parent having to tell them to share or be inclusive.  They take on responsibility without question, understanding that they too have an important role in their families` survival.  They understand school is a privilege that their parents sacrifice for and take on learning with open arms.  After seeing all their joy, I so strongly wish for my son that he will pick up on this same mentality.

Lions & Tigers & Bears Oh My!

       Well perhaps not tigers & bears, but we sure did see lions!  Our long weekend safari to Queen Elizabeth National Park was wonderful, frustrating and a great group adventure.

       We left camp Thursday afternoon and stayed at Canada House in Mbarara for the evening.  Jim & Karlee had left earlier in the day and had arranged a feast for us at the rotary club.  The food was so amazing...fried chicken, salad, french fries, rice and much more...but we're pretty sure the cook planted, grew & harvested the food before she cooked it, with the amount of time it took her to bring it all out, lol!  Just kidding, it does take a heck of a long time to prepare food here though, without all our North American gadgets.  Friday morning our friend Geoffrey came to pick us up in our ghetto minibus/safari truck.  I joke, but it actually was perfect for the weekend...some of us could stand up through the sunroof and others of us could sit on the roof rack.
       We took the afternoon/evening on Friday to settle in to our hostel and check out the Mweya Lodge and pool down the way.  The lodge was 5 star (in Ugandan ratings), which is about a 3 star back home.  It was clean, rustic and served amazing food...pizza, bacon cheeseburgers ...mmm my mouth is watering now!  I took Theo swimming while the rest of the group relaxed on the deck overlooking the Kazinga Channel, watching the hippos, elephants and buffalo swim.  It was so nice to just sit and put our feet up, drinking an ice cold drink with our new friends.

       Early Saturday morning we set out on our epic safari.  We were one of the lucky few to see the lions in the early morning, before they ran off and hid in the bushes.  We saw two females and four cubs, but none of our pictures do them justice as we were still a fair distance away.  The morning was filled with elephants, warthogs, water buck, buffalo, hippos, gazelles and so many birds.  Theo loved how the animals ran away each time we approached, but all the excitement eventually tuckered him out and he slept through the second half of the morning.

       The rest of the day we hung around, worked on our plans for the rest of the weekend and went to see the volcanic craters. Unfortunately the gentleman who appointed himself our guide, ended up being a pain in the butt.  We had only asked him to take us out on safari for the day, but instead he had started to try and plan our whole weekend and expected us to pay him for it.  We eventually got rid of him...but he did come back to haunt us later in the weekend...I will get to that soon.
       On Sunday we went chimp tracking, took Geoffrey out to try some Canadian food and then took a really neat boat tour.  On top of the many elephants and buffalo we were becoming accustomed to seeing, we saw crocodiles, chimpanzees, monkeys and the rear end of a hyena...so exciting!  We stayed up late that night, playing games and getting to know eachother better.  But after we had all gone to bed, our drunk and angry old guide showed up at our window, demanding money and to come check out all the rooms.  My family did not wake up, thank God, but the rest of the house was up arguing with him and telling him to leave.  He eventually left, but in the morning we spoke with management and they advised that he would be let go for his behaviour.
      Overall our trip was really nice and a great time to get to know eachother better.  We saw amazing and beautiful parts of God's great creation and had the chance to recover from a hard month of work and adjustments.

~A&M