Four pages to make up for my absense of communication......

Africa is called the dark continent. Why? Because people are too tired at the end of the day to write blogs about what happened. Many apologies... I wrote four pages to make up for it. ENJOY!

This is what I wrote about three weeks ago and completely forgot to post it:

My first weekend here happened to be the same one as the annual retreat of women’s bible study I am joining. So of course, I went. It was held at the very nice hotel just outside of Arua, White Castle. It has a swimming pool, a restaurant, a playground, meeting facilities, and rooms. We swam for a bit (which was a nice escape from the heat) and then got ready for dinner. Since they are studying the book of Esther, the ladies decided to have a “royal” evening and all dressed very formally. I just had my Sunday dress, so I wore that. After thousands of pictures (which felt very awkward seeing as how I had met these ladies only minutes before) we sat down for a delicious dinner. Everyone was EXTREMELY welcoming and very nice. My favorite part of the retreat was hearing where everyone was from, how they got here, and how long they were here for. There were ladies from Germany, UK, Ireland, Austria, Kenya, Canada, Florida, Virginia, Louisiana, and more. Some were here with IMB, YWAM (Youth with a Mission), and many others. I still didn’t get to talk to everyone. Some had been here for 20 years and others only a few months. However, they ALL had contracts that were usually about two years long. It makes my four months seem like a passing moment. Also interesting was that most were here with their families, including small children. Most are homeschooled or go to boarding school but apparently there are a couple who go to the public schools here. Can you imagine being 8 years old and growing up in Uganda? I can’t.  The retreat was very nice and well prepared. I had a lovely time delving into the Book of Esther.

After the retreat, we went back to Radio Pacis. I got to know my roommate, Maria, a little better. She is a lovely young lady (21) from Germany. Her English is very good but I have to slow down (many of you know how hard that is for me ;)) and explain the slang I use. She is also helping me with German! So far, I have the greetings throughout the day down. She is also an amazing mentor in helping me get accustomed to the Ugandan culture and language. Sunday afternoon, she took me to town for the first time. What a place that is! My first time there I was so overwhelmed with smells, sights, and the culture that I felt myself just going numb and following Maria around. I won’t describe it now because that would take many pages, but I will post about it later on. We got a little hungry so we went to a local Ethiopian restaurant. BIG MISTAKE. You’ll see why in a bit.

After we got home, I learned that Fr. David Baltz, the priest who basically helped set me up over here within Radio Pacis, was coming to visit Monday morning. So I was prepared a mixture of banana muffins to cook in the morning for when he was to be here. Only, we don’t have any measuring cups. So after much thinking, I finally figured out that an empty coke bottle is 500ml which is a little over two cups. So, we cleaned out an empty one and cut it in half. I then used that to guesstimate how much of everything to put in. Worked out alright, I guess, we never got to try them. Why? Oh, I got food poisoning from the Ethiopian food. 

Ten hours of running back and forth to the bathroom and two days in bed. A great welcome to Africa. ;) Maria was amazing and brought a Comboni Sister over (they are in charge of the health center) to figure out what was wrong. She also made some rice for me and even found me a sprite. I felt so bad that Fr. David had driven all the way from Lodonga to visit and I wasn’t even able to see him, much less give him some banana muffins. He was very nice about it though. Hopefully I can make it up to Lodonga to see him soon.

On Wednesday, I was finally able to get to work. Guess what. It was a public holiday. No work. It was the 25^th anniversary of the day when Muselini, the present president, took over the country. There is a whole slew of politics that goes along with that which I will sit and write down later. We went to town again that day and it was a little better than the first time. That afternoon, the weekly bible study  was held and I went along with Sherry. Fr. Gunther, Maria’s supervisor, also came into town that day. We made a supper of noodles with cheese sauce and salad for him that evening.

On Thursday, Sherry had some errands for me to run so I went with Philliam, one of the Radio Pacis drivers, who helped me navigate around town as well. By this time, I am getting used to how things run there and where to find things, which is nice. I still have so much to learn though. I then did some stamping in the printing press later that day. We made tuna melts with salad and pineapples that evening.

Friday. The big day. Since Fr. Gunther was in town visiting, Sherry arranged for them to go to Murchinson Park. They graciously invited me to go along with them and I, very excitedly, accepted. We left at 5:30am and drove (though the Ugandan sunrise I might add) two hours to the park. We then spent six hours driving through the park, spotting animals, and taking hundreds of pictures. I felt like a kid on Christmas, or an Olympic gold medalist. I had to keep from pinching myself.

Since then, I have mostly just settled into life here in Arua. A typical day goes like this:

I wake up and get ready for mass at 7:30am, then I run back to the house grab piece of toast to eat on my way to work, water bottle, and my book of the Lugbara language and head off to work. It is about a ten minute walk to the health center where I am working in the mornings. We says the opening prayers and I help register patients who are sick or need immunizations. I go home at 12:30 for lunch and rest and then around 2:00pm I go to a local primary boarding school to play with the kids there. It is kind of hard to teach them new games since they are just learning English and I am just learning Lugbara. But I am getting used to the language barrier and I am learning to use sings and a very basic simple English. Anyone have any suggestions for games? 

After the kids wear me out, I head home. Then I am free to go to rest, go to town, do dishes, check my email, and whatever else I need to do. Then, Maria and I prepare supper and eat (and usually end up saving the dishes for tomorrow). After dinner, we have gotten into the habit of watching a movie. I am having fun introducing here to the Disney movies and so far we have seen Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Little Mermaid, and Lion King. We can rent them here at Pacis, but they are all VHS tapes which makes it fun. I don’t remember the last time I watched a VHS in the States. After that, I head to bed and get ready for a new day.

Some notes:

·         Language

o   I am working on learning a little bit of the local language here, Lugbara. Awadio means thank you and when every you tell a Ugandan “Awadifo” their face lights up and they say something like “Ah! You already know our language!” or “Ah! She is learning fast!” Then when you greet someone, you say “Mi Ngoni” and then respond “Ma moke”. Whenever you greet or respond to someone like that, they break a huge smile and, if it is a group of women, will giggle to themselves after we have past. White people are called “Mundus” and I sometimes hear people, especially children, call out to us saying “Mundu! Mundu! Mundu!” and then we will wave at them and the children break into a fit of giggles.

·         Greeting

o   All of the Ugandans are SO nice. I am having a hard time keeping everyone’s names straight, since I have met about thirty so far, and they like to tease me about it.

        Michael: “What? You don’t remember MY name?”

        Me: “…… is it Ferdinand?”

Michael: “BAHAHA! No, Ferdinand is fat! My name is Michael. Don’t worry, you will get used to remembering everyone’s names.”

Whenever I tell them that my name is Meg the reaction is almost always the same. They say it will a puzzled expression and usually say “Mag?” Then I spell it out and then they understand. “That is a funny name,” they say.

Also, when Ugandan’s greet, they start by shaking your hand and don’t let go until they know your name, where you are from, how long you are staying, and how you like Uganda. Sometimes they will look like they are going to hug you but they actually just touch your temple to their temple and then again on the other side. Maria says it is like they are “transferring their thoughts to you”.

·         Water

o   Since the water from the faucet here has not gone through any sort of sanitation system, it is still not used as drinking water or water to brush your teeth with. A couple of years ago, Sherry received a gift of a water filtration kit from a man who makes them for FEMA. So every Monday, we take our empty yellow water containers (they probably hold about ten gallons each) and someone runs the faucet water through the kit (which has three different levels of filtration) and fills our containers.

·         Critters

o   Wasps and Bees: because there are so many beautiful flowers here, wasps and bees tend to fly around. Sherry has never heard of anyone being stun though. It is a good thing I have gotten over my pathological fear of them… *cough cough*

o   Little brown fuzzy spiders: I have only seen a couple since I have been here. At least they aren’t poisonous like in the Ozarks…..

o   Geckos: I guess you could call this my first fright of Uganda. My first night here, when I was unpacking my things alone in the house, I looked up to see a flesh colored Gecko, about the length from your wrist to your tallest finger, crawling on the wall close to the ceiling. About an hour later, I saw two more in the kitchen. I asked Sherry about them and she said that they are our friends because they eat all the bugs. Later on, during the retreat, there was one in our hotel room. My roommate for the night, Sandra, just said, “Oh, you will get used to them, they eat the bugs and don’t bother us.” I guess I will have to get used to them….

·         Background noises

o   Instead of lawn mowers, sirens, and the highway in the background, like in Arkansas. I hear roosters crowing in the morning, the Muslims chanting (especially in the morning or evenings, Sherry says they broadcast it throughout the town, it’s very pretty), occasional cars, singing and drums occasionally (especially when everyone is going home from work), and lots of unusual bird sounds.

·         Sun and Heat

o   Because we are so close to the equator, there is almost exactly twelve hours of sunlight and twelve hours of darkness. Usually the sun rises at 7:00am and sets at 7:00pm. When we walked to town the other day, I wore much sunscreen and my wide brimmed hat, but still, after just a couple of hours in the sun, my freckles are popping out like crazy. Whenever a Mundu gets tan here, the Ugandans say “Ah, she is becoming African!” I guess my freckles will have to make up for my lack of tanning.

o   The heat is about the same or less than the heat in the dead of summer in Arkansas. However, what I didn’t understand coming here is that there are no air conditioned houses or malls or gas stations. In fact, the only air conditioning I have felt since coming here was in the Radio Pacis car, and THAT was a treat. I used to think that showers were a necessary nuisance (yes, they made you clean and smell good, but there were so many other things I would rather be doing than showering). Now, I find that I look forward to cold showers everyday just to cool down. Even when I can get hot water, I have usually just chosen to keep it cool.

o   The White Castle is the hotel with the pool. They have told me that they charge 5,000 UGX (Ugandan Shillings) to swim which is about $2.50. Apparently it is the happening place to be on Fridays after the week’s work is done. I haven’t been so far.

There is still so much to tell. My plan is to do short anecdote blogs (like what blogs are supposed to be like) and more often ones. I will post about my day in the news room on election day tomorrow :)

Pictures. All are uploaded on facebook. I will try and post some on here later, but for all the pics, check facebook. 

God Bless and I PROMISE I will keep my promise of blogs more often (and not so long ones).