Week Three - the story continues

It's Sunday afternoon (the 27th) and I've come to Mukono to try the internet....went to Mass at 8 at the Sister's Chapel (I still haven't found the Anglican church - not trying very hard) then down to catch the matatu - had to wait 2 hours for it to fill up. I was about to give up but the girls from Holland showed up to come to the same place so we chatted and the time went faster! Some things that are so easy in the U.S. are more difficult here....but more of a victory when they actually work!! This will be long again - sorry - I still can't seem to shorten my story!

Last Saturday on the way back from Kampala I stopped in a little town (w. all my packages) for a PC "mixer"...fun time w. some PCVs - some from our class, some at one year and some who are at two years and on their way home! Got home early - travel is exhausting!! The parents of one of the girls from Holland are coming next week and they are riding the matatu from Kampala to Nkoko.....can't wait to hear their impressions!!!

Last Sunday after mass the PH brass band had a concert...yes, PH has a brass band. Some man in Germany donated the instruments, uniforms and pays the teacher...it's only been in operation 6 months, but isn't bad - lots of polka music!! There are three trumpets (and the director), three trombones, a tuba, a base drum, four snare drums and a cymbal. It's just amazing. They had learned the Star Spangled Banner for Christine and Theresa and the 3 of us - cannot describe hearing the SSB played by a brass band at PH!!! It was really very emotional and they were so proud. Int he afternoon we all (5 PCVs) went to a good-bye for Theresa (Holly is replacing her at the hospital). Great dinner and lots of speeches - Ugandans love speeches!! This whirlwind of social activities has got to end sometime I know...but it's been fun!

Settling down and doing some work. Monday Shari and I taught what we thought was an English class for the vocational students but because of break (till Oct. 25), it was all the PH kids who are still around - aged 5 - 30!!! It was amusing...many different levels of English. This week I think I'm going to split the class and Shari will teach the older kids "American" (their request) and I'll do ABCs with the little kids - they did VERY badly on their P-1 exams...Sister J was not happy. After May 25, they will go back to school and vocational will start up again. Communications sanfu - very common. I have to catch Sr. Juliet on the run and she talks fast - I really can't complain.

I will also supervise the Community Based Rehabilitation Program - people come to PH on Tuesdays for referrals to hospitals, etc. for rehab. Not much available in Uganda and it's expensive. The numbers coming have been dropping for several months because the Ortho Doctor who used to come stopped coming last fall. We just found out that he has also stopped paying for surgeries at the orthopedic hospital - rather abruptly, leaving PH with some bills! So not sure where that program will be going. There are two men who help and go out to see people one other day a week to do follow ups and get new clients but there are no funds to pay them or for transport so it's hard to get motivated. Technically, they are "volunteers" but do get a small stipend. It's not unusual for people in the towns (not Kampala) to not get paid for 3-6 months at a time...they keep hoping for something and jobs are really hard to find. I think I'd just stay home!!!!

There are an amazing number of disabled people in Uganda and few services...many could have been helped when they were young, but the attitude is bad - thought of as a result of a curse, hidden or rejected. We see cleft lips/palates, deformed limbs, blindness, deafness, epilepsy hydrocephalis, Cerebral Palsey, MS, you name it. They walk in and hope for help. Sometimes, we can get drugs for them....I have a LOT to learn to figure out the illnesses, resources etc., but the two CBR volunteers can help. If I get a bicycle I may go out for some home visits, too.

Sister also wants me to supervise the shoe making and tailoring classes (no tailoring teacher yet, tho - and I'm NOT doing that!). Unless they find a teacher in the next few weeks I'll also teach the slower vocational students Math and English two mornings a week...guess the teacher quit (not surprising). It will really be minimal but my theory is that it's more than they are getting now....really basic English - greetings, etc. and basic addition, subtraction, multiplication and keeping an account book (a notebook w. lines). I can do that!!! Maybe they'll even get a teacher.
China and Paul donated some money and sister paid some back salaries and is giving the shoe making teacher money to start making some school shoes for sale - we're pretty hopeful that we can sell them - everyone is supposed to have black shoes for school (many don't)....and he can make them and sell them at a small profit to the local school (we hope). Sisters don't want to make too much profit - they never forget that their first mission is charity!!!

Progress of any work here is frustrating. It's hard to get materials, hard to get transportation and every decision involves endless discussion!!! Like painting my apartment - I have to go to Kampala and haul four 4 liter cans of paint back on the matatu (plus rollers), and it has to be oil based because that's what's on there and that's what they always have used!! The ladder is somewhere(?), the painting supplies are locked somewhere and the person w. the key is gone - people are gone a lot - family members get sick and they have to nurse them at the hospital or at home, they get sick (malaria or typhoid flare ups), it rains...whatever. It's amazing that things work as well as they do. I'm really thinking more and more about hiring someone to paint - the 12 foot ceilings are intimidating. But that's a whole new adventure - bargaining, supervising, pushing....etc.

Wednesday I followed Sister Juliete around and I had to chronicle the day - it exhausted me, but was typical for her. We were supposed to meet at 9 a.m. to go meet the mayor, etc. so I was ready and meeting w. the shoemaker to get his quote for materials and she texted and said it would be later because they were at the "garden". He took me out there - she and some of the able bodied kids went out at 8:00 to dig holes to plant bananna shoots - holes were at least 3' deep done w. hoes! (before that she had to visit a resident who had a seizure, fallen and gotten injured). She finished there about 10, bathed and we started out to meet the mayor and police chief, but first she had to check on the prison gang who were digging the base for the sidewalks for the compound...donated by the Holland girls' families and others. It will connect the areas w. cement paths which will be such help for those with wheelchairs and who crawl - esp. during the rainy season. Anyway, there were about 20 prisioners there digging away!!! So, then, we walked down to town and got the introductions done, came back and ate lunch. Then she introduced me to the carpenter who will make my wardrobe and drop leaf table (another story), she taught a class in communications to the vocational students, took me and the carpenter to the big convent to show him a drop leave table done there in the 1920s by Mother Kevin who founded the order here - he was having trouble getting the idea from my sketches - then, we walked about a mile to Stella Maris, a really nice boarding skill (up hill naturally - expensive always means up hill) to try and rent their bus for Christine's party on Saturday - got a maybe - walked down the backside past the fields, she returned to make plans for Mass at PH at 6:00 and a baptism (21 year old man who resides there - is blind, hydrocephalic, has CP and serious seizures). While we're walking she fielded about 6 phone calls. After supper she was going up to the hospital at 9 to see a resident who was there - I went to bed!!

Note on furniture in Uganda...it's all hand made and there are hundreds of little shops along the roads, but all the furniture is exactly the same - couches, wardrobes, tables - identical!!. I told my carpenter that he could display my drop leaf table and sell all kinds of them, but he said "no one will buy one - they're different"!. Goes back to the traditional standards for life here. I think it maybe is a result of a very strict tribal structure w. absolute rule, then colonialism which kept the natives in very limited roles, the school system which dictates that children learn enormous amounts of selected information by rote memorization and repeat it to succeed and it's probably also affected by the poverty level and lack of exposure to new ideas or the money to try. Meals are very traditional (same foods), gender roles are very traditional, you need to express long greetings to everyone. How we (PCs and other muzungos) must shock people - it's amazing they are so friendly and accepting as we breeze by on the road w. a wave and a "HI". (find I'm substituting "amazing" for my previously overworked word "overwhelming"...will try to enlarge my vocabulary).

Decided to spruce up my apartment (encouraged by Maria) and paint, get new curtains and some new furniture. Christine lived very simply but I'm justifying it by thinking it will make my life a bit more comfortable and I'll be a happier and more productive person (I can justify just about anything). Plus the wardrobe - 5 1/2 ' high, 4 ' wide with shelves on one side and a pole on the other made of kivule (a hardwood) is only going to be about $90 and will keep my clothes organized and clean!!!

Had to move Friday to the sister's house because of a huge retreat at the convert the next two weeks - 90 nuns moving in!!!It will be cramped for a bit but I hope to be in my apt. (room) by mid May if painting gets done - I'm so impatient. It's small but will afford me some privacy and control over my life.

Thursday, Sister Veronica (just back from Holland), Sister Juliete and I went to Kampala to say goodbye to China and Paul and do some more planning. Sister Veronica drives!!! Long day - they are trying to get the bakery computer fixed so it can get internet - too many people use it and it got pretty messed up. I will use it to do some e-mailing maybe, but didn't want to tie it up for this novel. Tried to e-mail from the hospital Friday and got about 3 done and it stopped....it's just the way things work!!!

Saturday was Christine's party and it was SO much fun. I was at the sister's house and could hear them getting up at 5:30 - I avoided that because I was afraid they were butchering chickens but they'd been done on Thursday nite....Sister Benna's "off layers"...produce or you're food here!! The cook and the matrons were cooking - the kitchen has two huge charcoal stoves and they used some siguris - the older girls were helping. Everyone was SO excited!!! One of the girls who goes to boarding school but is home for the month was cooking and teaching the little kids a song she composed for Christine...and she walks on her hands with sandals - knees are all callouses!! How can you not be inspired by such determination - she has a beautiful voice, too. The older boys were making chipatis. Wish you could have seen the kids faces when they saw the chickens being cooked -- all they ever get is posho (white corn bread) and beans.

The bus came at 10 am and they were on it - old folks, disabled, everyone - had 60 people on a 40 passenger bus! (some couldn't come and some are home for the holidays). Went for about and hour and a half ride to Jinja to the park for the source of the Nile - they were singing and so excited. Last outing for many was Jan. 2007 for the business manager's funeral. They brought the food with the PH pick up and more people!!! They had rice, potatoes, chicken and chipati - and the kids got seconds - they ate SO much. Had soda and bananas, too. Later we had the program - great singing and dancing - and cake and pineapple. It was an amazing experience - there is no other word! A trip on a bus, all that food and playing on fields of grass!! Our kids have no idea!!! Trip home was quieter - we were all tired!! It's so hard to describe how the kids all help each other - the big boys carried the really disabled off the bus and put them on mats on the grass...many went on their own w. crutches.....really heartwarming!!! Everyone who could go went and was included! Had Sister Juliete and Veronica, me and Christine and the two Holland girls and the kids were great!

I'm done now - phew....could go on and on about the party but you get the idea. I had a few ideas for things to sent - people keep asking - very voluntary. Thinking about magazines - esp.about American farming and industries (everyone here "digs" little gardens, but they can't imagine American farming)....the girls love "girly" magazines, boys - cars, hunting...whatever you've got! Also, craft supplies - some of the girls have crocheted scarves and they are so special...so, yarn, crochet hooks, DIRECTIONS, hemp, beads, embroidery thread (and DIRECTIONS), sidewalk chalk (now that we'll have sidewalks - good reinforcement for ABCs), ...they always need food, but having some of those special things can really make life fun! Anything you can think of in that line. I'm so slow at crafts.

I'm doing great....sort of bummed this a.m. about the matatu wait but the Holland girls picked me up and this is working!!! Will now try e-mails.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BEN, DYLAN AND BERT - and anyone else I've forgotten.

Life is good here - I'm anxious to have my apartment fixed and move in - but then what will I obsess about! I know the teaching will be frustrating - problems with language and motivation, but that's nothing new. Thanks to everyone for your thoughts, prayers, packages....everything.
Will try to write again next weekend, but we'll see...may stretch this out and try to write less about each day! It's all so new and interesting to me now....hope you enjoy it.