Rains Down in Africa (Thank you Toto!)

I miss the seasons. My uncle recently sent me a photo of the family cottage in Ontario and I was struck by the lack of leaves on the trees. I love fall! I love the colors of the leaves and the rain; those drizzly days when you can curl up with a good book or watch a movie. In Uganda there are two season, the wet season and the dry season. We are currently in the wet season. There has been so much rain in the North that it has caused massive flooding. President Museveni has declared it a National Disaster, his first ever declaration during his 20 years as President. (He did not declare a National Disaster at any point during the worst years of LRA terror in the North) The flood has devastated entire communities, caused several deaths, closed schools and clinics and now poses health risks due to flooded latrines. I read in the paper the other day that there are some communities that have been cut off for over 2 months without any assistance with food or supplies. FH Uganda has been working with other aid agencies and the UN to provide basic supplies like jerry cans, bedding, mosquito nets, etc. Please pray for the rains to stop, the floods to recede and for assistance to flow into the affected areas.

Coming from Vancouver, I love the rain. I really love storms and watching the God's awesome power. And I have seem some good rain storms in my life, both in Vancouver and at the cottage in Ontario. But they are nothing compared to some of the rain storms we have been having in Kampala. The thunder rolls for hours sometimes. From the window of my office I watch the clouds roll in, dark and ominous. When the rain comes, it comes down HARD. One day the wind was blowing the rain so hard it drenched my computer and desk through the open window. Another time I awoke early in the am to the beating of the rain on the roof and the garden. My favorite, though, is the thunder and lightning. Sometimes at night, the lightning pierces the black sky; it's beautiful. And the thunder. The other night I was awoken suddenly at about 4 am by the loudest crack of thunder I have ever heard. I bolted from bed I was so spooked; I'm sure it cracked right over my house. Then last night, I was woken again at 4am, this time by wind so loud I thought I was in a wind tunnel or the edges of a tornado. This morning, the sun was shining bright and the rains started. I was sure there would be a rainbow, but I was running behind and had to get ready for work. Sure enough, Bruce said it was the most beautiful rainbow he had ever seen.

The weather in Uganda is not always kind. Rain comes and comes and comes then goes; scorching heat takes over. But through it all, God's power and the beauty of His creation are showcased for me here everyday.

Facade

I'm glad everyone has had a chance to see my house here in Kampala. I absolutely love it; it already feels like home. It is my oasis from the stares, the comments, the drivers, the dirtiness, the culture stress. But like many things, what you see on the surface is not always what it appears.

The house is old. It has bad plumbing, crumbling walls. Since I moved in the toilet has leaked (luckily with the clean water not the dirty stuff!). It was "fixed" once; it still leaked. I came home Monday night to find a flood in my kitchen. The water draining from the sink wasn't leaving the house, it was staying in the house! I have now had both toilet and sink fixed properly and hope that this is the end of the problems for now.

As for the crumbling wall...I wanted a towel rod installed in my bathroom. I bought the rod and hired a young man to install it. BIG MISTAKE. When I came home to the flooding kitchen on Monday I also came home to gigantic holes in the bathroom wall. The house is old; the concrete dry and crumbly. Thus when trying to install the rod, the wall crumbled. So I come home and Juma is bringing a piece of wood to install the rod on then attach the wood to the wall. Not covering the holes of course and up way to high. ARGHHHHH

Monday was definitely the first time the culture stress hit me like a brick. All I wanted to do was prepare my dinner, eat and relax. Instead I have a stranger banging an ugly piece of wood into my know hole filled bathroom wall and a flood in my kitchen. Not the best night I've ever had. However, Juma did do a fantastic job fixing the leak in the kitchen, and it's not really his fault the wall was in such bad shape.Although placing the rod so high up I do blame him for. This seems to be a Ugandan thing putting things high up, which is kinda odd cause they aren't all that tall.

In case you are wondering, the plan is to pull the wood off the wall, the rod off the wood, fill the holes, paint the wall and attach the rod properly at the height I want it at. At my expense of course! Lesson learned.

Did You Know?

1. Kampala is hosting CHOGM (The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting) in November. It is a big deal here in Kampala. The first stop lights in the city have been installed, roads are being paved, new hotels have gone up and the city is being beautified. This also means that street vendors have been pushed out of the city and are loosing their livelihoods. It reminds me of the issues Vancouver is dealing with in regards to the Olympics.
2. That if you hang your clothes to dry on a line outside then they have to be ironed before you wear them. This is because mango flies will lay their eggs in your clothes and potentially hatch and burrow into your skin causing you to have to have them removed by a doctor. Yuck!
3. That one can easily get used to being sweaty all the time.
4. That everyone in Uganda carries a cell phone and practices flashing. This is when you phone someone and let it ring once so your number appears as a missed call. People will flash you to tell you they are at your gate, or ready to pick you up, or because they want you to call them so they don't waste air time.
5. That it is possible to ignore the daily stares and comments of "Muzungu! Muzungu!" You would think it would be hard, coming from a place where we say hi to everyone we meet, but it is possible to just walk right by people and pretend you didn't notice the stare.
6. That it rains in Kampala just like it rains in Vancouver. Not the amount, but the intensity. And Kampala gets wonderful thunder and lightning storms. Beautiful

Random Thoughts From the Week

This post is going to be a cornucopia (Happy Thanksgiving!) of information. I had a very busy week last week. On Monday I moved into my new house with nothing but a mattress, fridge and stove with no gas. Nothing really changed during the week. I was the victim of Canadian banking rules which state I can only withdraw a certain amount of money from my account in a week; since I had to pay $2400 US for my 6 months rent as well as $775 US for my fridge and stove I hit that weekly limit very quickly. In fact I was unable to pay the entire six months rent and had to wait 5 days before I was able to get another Ugandan shilling from the bank. But I am blessed to say that I have amazing friends here in Kampala who all offered to lend me money. I borrowed a little to pay my house help and to get a gas tank and hose, but managed with only 100,000 shillings for the week. That's actually quite a bit here in Uganda.

The other big thing that took up most of my week was preparing to train about 15 field staff on how to navigate through the new Microsoft Vista operating system and the basics on how to use Microsoft Excel. You see Food for the Hungry International has moved from a dos based Sun Systems platform to a new Windows based Sun Systems housed on the server in Phoenix, AZ. What this means is that all our files will now be entered into Excel and directly uploaded to the server in Phoenix. No more manual entry of each transactions. To give you an idea, I worked all day Monday manually entering 2 of about 20 journals. And I mean all day!!!! This new system will cut down on the amount of accounting work that is done, both in the field and here in Kampala. But there is a huge learning curve for the field staff, most of whom are entirely unfamiliar with technology and are now expected to use laptops, Excel and scanners. I am directly responsible for all the CDP (Child Development Program) centers as well as the HIV/Aids program and the GO-Ed program. I have an even bigger learning curve than the field staff as I have to learn the old way as well as the new way. Not to mention that there are a lot of zeros in Ugandan shillings (1000, 5000, 10000, 50000, 100000 notes) and the way Ugandans write zeros, sixes and eights can be very hard to decipher. Let's just say it is an adventure in accounting.

The best thing about last week was that it was my birthday on Saturday. I had probably one of my best birthdays ever. This is because people I have only known for 3 weeks went out of their way to throw a party for me, with cake, candles and presents. Sonya and Bruce and their children hosted and Luke and his mom came too. It was truly special; a birthday I won't forget in a long time. Then on Sunday after church, Luke, his mom and Brooke (Sonya and Bruce's daughter) went to Speke Resort. It is a very large resort right beside Lake Victoria. We swam in the biggest pool I have ever been in and went horseback riding. Then back to Bruce and Sonya's for waffles. It was a wonderful weekend.

The start of my week, yesterday, was of course Thanksgiving. I was very blessed to have been invited to attend a Canadian Thanksgiving dinner. There were around 30 people there, mostly Canadian, but with a few token Brits. There was turkey and stuffing and pumpkin pie. It was amazing.

On the church front, I am loving Kampala International Church. The worship is fantastic although there are lots of songs I don't know. (But it is fun learning the new ones) The head pastor, John is awesome. He has such character. Very different from Mike and Paddy at Cap Church. I have thoroughly enjoyed his sermons. I even found a home group to attend starting in November; it is only two gates down from the FH office and only an 8 minute walk from my house. God has been guiding and blessing me through this entire journey and He continues to amaze me with his steadfast love.

The New House

I moved into my new house yesterday! While I only had 5 suitecases and a fridge and stove, it took until after 6 to finally move in. This being because as always, I had to wait. The morning started off with a bang...literally! I awoke to the sounds of thunder and lightening and rain much like we get at home in the fall. It was a downpour! (Which I had been wanting since it had been 2 weeks without rain - but not on moving day) I got to the office and luckily, Jimmy the driver was able to take me to the guest house to pick up my bags and check out.

Side note...I have a lovely lady named Angela coming to live in my "boys quarters." The boys quarters is three rooms at back of the garage. The first room has a sink, toilet and shower; the other two are empty rooms. Angela and her 3 children are moving in on Wednesday. Angela will work 3 days for me doing some cooking, cleaning and laundry and will work the other two days for Sonya and Bruce. She is a lovely Catholic lady who has been out of work and is trying to support her children since her husband left her. I am very happy to be able to provide her with a job and a home for the next three years.

Back to the story...Angela came by the office right on time, and we agreed on a monthly amount and when she would start. (I thought Wednesday and she wanted to start right away!) Sam the driver, took us to the market to pick up supplies then down to the house so Angela could start cleaning. The plan was for Sam and I to drop her off, then go on to Game to return a kettle and to Uchumi to pick up my fridge and stove. But in Ugandan fashion, my friend Vincent in logistics called and Sam had to go back to the office to take Jane to the bank. So, instead of sitting around moping, I tagged along on the trip to the bank. I like driving around town and getting my bearings. I also get to have interesting chats with the drivers. We got back to the office, waited around for a while, then I went off again with Sam and Simon. This time we took Elsa to a meeting with the World Health Organization. While she was in the meeting we headed over to Game to get the kettle fixed and to Uchumi to pick up the fridge and stove. Success!!!

By the time we picked up Elsa and got through Kampala's rush hour traffic, it was around 5:30. (I forgot to mention that I didn't have time to eat lunch. I was running on the eggs and cereal I had at 8:00 am for breakfast!) We loaded up the truck with some of my bags and headed down to the house where Angela had been cleaning all day. Sam, Simon, Angela and I unpacked the truck, the boys drove Angela home then they went back to the office to get the rest of my bags and the bed that I will be borrowing from FH. By the time they came back and unloaded the rest of the stuff, it was well after 6pm.

Now I was all alone on my fairly large property. I locked the gates tight as well as the front door. I put on some music and started the process of unpacking. I discovered that there was no light bulb in the bathroom light and that there was no water in the kitchen sink (I learned this morning that this is affecting the whole area) But I had my headlamp and I plugged along unpacking suitcases. There was a screw missing for the bed, so I set up the mattress on the floor. Due to an issue with not being able to take any further money from the bank right now, I haven't been able to make any of the basic purchases for my house. So I have a stove with no gas tank or pots and pans and a fridge with no food. I have no furniture, no light bulbs, or even a mop and broom (I had to borrow that from the Go-Ed guest house). It sort of feels like camping in your own house! But my friends are supporting me and I am so happy to have started putting together my new life.

It was very weird to be all alone last night. There were new sounds and the problem of cars beeping at gates and not knowing if they were beeping at mine. I enjoyed a dinner of cheese crackers and Australian Shiraz while I unpacked. I brushed my teeth and washed my face with the light of my headlamp, then lay down to sleep. I was worried I wasn't going to be able to sleep, worrying about every noise. But God kept me save and let me have my sleep. And today is a new day. Still no money, but I love my house!

HOT!!!!

Before I came to Kampala, I looked at different web sites showing the average temperature in the city. Both the websites and the Brandt Travel Guide for Uganda stated that the temperature in Kampala was quite mild, between 20 and 28 degrees Celsius. I thought, well that can't be that bad. Well it is! It was the hottest it has been since I arrived 11 days ago. And of course, yesterday was the day that I decided I wanted to go for a walk (at 1:30pm) up a large hill and down to the Italian Restaurant Cafe Roma for lunch. I was a sopping mess by the time I got there. Then once I had cooled off, I had to do the walk all over again. Every time I go out walking I am always passing everyone on the street. I finally realize why Ugandans walk so slowly:so as not to over heat! It is my natural inclination to walk fast. To get somewhere quickly, for exercise, or because walking slow doesn't seem to accomplish anything. But here, it is the only way to get around without looking like a mess when you get to your destination. Ugandan lesson #1 learned!!

House Hunting

My most frustrating experience so far in Kampala has been finding a home. Being a single women with no means of transportation presents a particular problem both for me and for the logistics team here at FH/Uganda. The area that the office is located in is called Muyenga. It is the second most populated neighborhood with Muzungus (white person). It is a very safe area and one where I can walk at night provided the house is near the main road (Tank Hill Road). Now in order to find a house you have to work with a broker. And when you work with a broker you have to pay them a finding fee to have them start looking for you. A landlord only works with one broker. So as you can see, that makes it a difficult process. In order to look at a variety of places you need to use several different brokers and you have to pay each of them a finders fee. This can get a little ridiculous. In the past week I have looked at at least 10 places. Most of them have been too far from the office for me to travel to both during the day or the night if I am on foot or on bicycle. The only other way is to travel by Matatu (public taxi - more like a small bus). I have found a few locations that are close for the day time, but would not be safe to travel alone at night unless I took a special hire (what we think of as a taxi). The reality is I should have had a car in my budget. That would widen the area I could look at. I've actually found the most perfect apartment. It is brand new, spacious and has views of lake Victoria. It is in lower Muyenga and is perfectly safe to walk during the day time, but not at night. Having a car would allow me to take the apartment right now. Not having a car means I have to wait. But I am trying to remember that God has a plan and that He is working on finding me the perfect place, and that it will be in His time not mine. I read this verse today in daily devotions and it seems to have a special meaning for me as I keep looking:

Trust in the LORD with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
in all your ways submit to him,
and he will make your paths straight. (Proverbs 3:5-6)

Moses

For all those who have been to Bufukhula, you will understand how excited I was to see Moses yesterday. He was in Kampala for two days of training. He knew I had arrived and came to find me as I was checking emails at the GoEd guesthouse (which is on the same property as the office). I was overjoyed to see him. He brought news that our friends in Bufukhula remember me and are waiting for me to come visit. He also told me that work on the clinic is progressing. But most of all he brought news of Peace and I have been diligently passing that information along to Angela. Peace is doing great. She recognizes all the FH staff and smiles and tries to talk to them when she sees them. Sylviah and Andrew are in charge of her care and they have made sure her grandparents are getting trained on the proper nutrition for her and for her regular medications. She has undertaken some tests to see if more than just malnutrition is a factor, and plans are in motion for her to stay some time with the FH staff to ensure feeding and medication is administered appropriately. But Moses assured me she is doing better than great.

I was able to send Moses back with some Christian books and a bible, as well as my old mosquito net and some CFHI T-shirts that were too big for me. I know he and the Mbale staff will be able to use these items. I am anxiously waiting for the chance to visit my old friends in Bufukhula and to answer again to Mwanguisi.

Meeting New Friends

I have been very lucky here in Kampala. There is a SIS (Seconded International Staff - that's me) from the US named Luke Runyon. He had been in Kampala for about a year. Also, FH US runs a semester abroad program called GoEd. The program in Uganda is run by Bruce Nicely and the students are managed by Julia and Kenny. Bruce is married to Sonya and they have three children. These people have been absolutely amazing and have made the transition here so much easier than if I was the only SIS at the office. Julia and Kenny, of course, picked me up at the airport, but Luke has been helping me find a place to stay. There are also 13 GoEd students here for their semester abroad, all ladies. I've had dinner at the guest house with the students, at a great Indian Restaurant with Julia and Kenny, a grilled cheese and Settlers of Cattan night with Julia, Kenny and Luke, and an evening of making pizza and chocolate chip cookies with the GoEd students at Bruce and Sonya's house. Then there have been trips to the American Recreation Club (an ex-pat country club - although not super posh), shopping trips with the ladies and a BBQ at the church with members who live in the Muyenga district (this is the area the office is located). It always seems strange to me when there are a lot of Muzungus (white people) congregated in one place. But it was neat to meet other people with a passion for missions here in Uganada. And such a range of people. There were Brits and Aussies and Kiwis and Americans. And everyone has such facinating reasons to be in Uganda. I made some great contacts among the ladies. The BBQ was held at the Heritage School. It is an ex-pat school and also the location of Kampala International Church. This is the church I will be attending (I'll post more on that later). But one of my favorite new friends is Janet Shaver, I had met her at Cap Church on her last trip home, but she is down from Kitgum right now and we are getting to know each other better. In fact we had a girls night last night and I slept over. It was like a little holiday for me and a chance to tap into her knowledge of being a single Canadian Girl in Uganda. So as you can see I have been keeping busy and starting to form a social circle. I am looking forward to meeting more of the ex-pat community here in Kampala. While it is important to make Ugandan friends and experience Ugandan life and culture, it is also important to surround yourself with a group of people who understand your frustrations and concerns and with whom you can just be yourself.

Arriving in Uganda

I'm on day 5 of 1095 days in Kampala...and so far so good. God has provided in every way since I left Vancouver, actually before I even left Vancouver. If you have ever had to pack up your life and move it for three years then you may understand the difficulty. My new life in Kampala turned out to five suitcases! However, since I was only allowed three by British Airways, I had to pay for the extra two to a tune of $512 dollars. But God had anticipated this problem and provided a last minute donor who's donation covered this unexpected cost. I was also a little anxious about the travelling to Uganda, the flights and layover as well as getting through customs in Entebbe. Again God anticipated and provided the company of a family of four from Mission travelling to Uganda for a three year mission. I was overjoyed with God's gracious provisions. These two instances combined with my smooth sailing through customs made for a great start to my trip. But it only gets better. I was met at the airport by Julia and Kenny (Americans working for the Go-Ed program run by FH US), not Jimmy the driver as I was aticipating. It turned out that there was some confusion as to the date I was arriving so there was no FH driver available to pick me up at the airport. There plan was to send a random taxi driver to pick me up. Julia and Kenny, bless their hearts, felt that this was not the best impression to make on a single women arriving scared and unsure, so they volunteered to pick me up. Again God provides. We came straight to the office and broke into morning devotions for introductions. I met most of the office staff and sat down with Sang Hoon Lee the country director and Jung Jin the new Finance Minister. Then it was off to the Guest House with my five very heavy bags. Of course my room is at the top of two flights of stairs. It is comfortable enough if a little small. I had no hot water for the first few days, but that was only because the power was off and the generator does not heat the water, just keeps the lights going. Such is the problem in Uganda. Power is a luxury and is not a very reliable one at that.