The equator, and beyond
Queen Elizabeth National Park was quite an adventure. It was so interesting how quickly the landscape shifted from lush, green, banana-tree cluttered mountains to flat grasslands, dotted with cactus and acacia trees. On the way there, we crossed over the equator into the southern hemisphere-- not a glamorous pit stop, but an exciting one nonetheless.
Queen Elizabeth National Park was quite an adventure. It was so interesting how quickly the landscape shifted from lush, green, banana-tree cluttered mountains to flat grasslands, dotted with cactus and acacia trees. On the way there, we crossed over the equator into the southern hemisphere-- not a glamorous pit stop, but an exciting one nonetheless.
We went on a couple of game drives through the park, and even got to ride up top. We saw a hippo on land, right along with cape buffalo and kob (type of antelope). I couldn’t remember ever seeing a hippo on land like that, so far from water. It looked so prehistoric, roaming the Savannah. We also saw a lioness in a tree, a learned behavior of some of the lions in that area of Uganda. Birds of all shapes and sizes, from malibu storks and great white egrets to Egyptian geese and pink-backed pelican to pied kingfishers and white-throated bee eaters. The saddle-billed stork’s beak proudly displays the colors of the Ugandan flag.
Sickness, etc.
Travis got very sick for many days when they were in Fort Portal (never really pinned down what exactly it was), and Aidan got malaria. Some others of us had some stomach issues, but I thankfully only got a cold (and aches for a day).
The house that the Johnsons stayed in while in Fort Portal (and that Olvie and I stayed in when we were babysitting the kids) burned to the ground a couple nights ago. Pat, the missionary who lives in that house, is currently in the States but was planning to return to that house to live in about 3 weeks. Please keep her in your prayers.
The hike
While we were at Carol Adams’ YES hostel, I met an American guy who was there with the Peace Corps group, and he told me about this great hike they had been on down close to Queen Elizabeth, since we were headed there.
These were his directions:
Go to Buraruma, about 30 mi south of Queen Elizabeth (you can take a boda)
Walk about 200 m S and go L
Will seem like you’re going through someone’s yard at first, but keep going up toward cell phone tower
About 40 min up
Beautiful view
Upon leaving the lodge we stayed at, we decided to ask there if they were familiar with this hike and to maybe get some more details for the directions.
These were the Ugandan staff’s directions:
After Nkugute
Sign post: Kashwoha-Kifomi
Stone querrying (aka quarry)
Sign post: Rubirizi District
Branch off- left here
Euclyptus (eucalyptus) trees
Dirt road
Don’t pass gov. Posters
Once we neared what we thought might be the spot to begin our hike, we stopped to ask some gov’t official where to find Buraruma.
These were his directions:
It’s the trading center, just right there
(me: the 1st one?)
Not that one, but the next one, the one with the yellow bananas
(me: how many minutes?)
It’s right there, about 5 min by car
I found the diversity of direction-giving styles quite interesting. It turns out that we found the spot and made it up to the cell phone tower in just under 40 min. The view was spectacular-- huge flowering field, crater lakes, eucalyptus trees, and green mountainsides dotted with banana trees.
Back to Obukukuni Land
The obukukuni seem to have been eagerly awaiting our return and are back in biting action.
Church & pineapple
Last weekend we went to church (“Church of Uganda”-- very specific) with Gladys, our housekeeper. It was nice to see so many familiar faces there. It was more liturgical than other services we’ve been to thus far, and it was in English! Toward the end, they had a time of giving offerings. There were four different boxes, each collecting money for a different purpose. Not everyone contributes monetarily-- some just bring what they have, whether that be a pair of lollipops, an avocado, a pineapple, or a few plastic cups. After the offering is collected, someone is designated to auction off the items to the congregation. Depending on the auctioneer and the mood of the congregation, it can get pretty exciting. The person with the highest bid wins the item, and all of their money goes to whichever offering cause chosen by the giver of the item. Sometimes items are auctioned for prices well above their value, as the buyer is ultimately giving to a cause. That particular week, someone had contributed a huge, juicy pineapple, one that may sell at the market for about 2000 Ugandan shillings (a bit less than a dollar). I considered bidding for it, but the bid quickly skyrocketed to more than I had on me. The price climbed to 25,000 (~ $10!), bought by our friend Baguma Charles. We clapped along with everyone else at the ridiculous price the pineapple had fetched, only to be surprised once more when the $10 pineapple was handed to us as a gift from Baguma. What a sweet gift (and it was sweet!)
Baking
The past week has been a busy one.
We have several visitors/ groups coming through in the next few weeks. This means a lot of welcoming, preparing breakfast foods for them, and planning group meals. All in one morning, in addition to finishing rolling out and cooking the rest of our tortillas (left-over from the batch we had made the night before), Olvie and I made:
3 batches of banana bread
Carrot bread
3 different batches of cookie dough
Between all of that and running back and forth between our kitchen and the one next door to use their oven (ours is quite miniscule), we had a full morning.
We also tried our hand at scones-- cranberry orange and chocolate cherry almond-- so yummy.
Health center, UNICEF, & CME meeting
Baby Moreen, the one I wrote about in a past post who was wasting away and absolutely pitiful, passed away last week. Life is so fragile, especially here where over 1 in 5 kids die before age 5.
As we make our way through the ped ward rounding with Travis and Jess, bare-bottomed toddlers sitting on the floor and little kids carrying their younger siblings on their backs are common sights. One mother was there with her child who was younger than her grandchild, who she also had with her. A 10-12 year old girl was both an aunt and a great aunt to 2 babies, and carried one on each hip around the ward.
Though Nyahuka Health Center sees just about as many people as Bundibugyo Hospital (level 5; about 30 min away), NHC only receives 1/10th the funding because it is only a level 4 institution. There can only be one level 5 per district.
We have been working the past few weeks to fill out the reports for UNICEF to get more formula for the severely malnourished kids at the health center. As the record-keeping has been very incomplete and unorganized, we have been working to create a more thorough, organized, and straightforward system to make filling out the reports easier and possible in the future. Through this process, we have met almost all the staff at the hospital and have been introduced to many of the ins and outs of the system. After talking to many staff and being redirected over and over, we finally found the original admission forms for the malnourished kids (well, actually for all the kids-- we had to sort through, of course). There were just piles of forms in a dark closet, some just on the floor. We carefully sorted through each form, whether splattered with lizard poop, gnawed on by a rat, or discolored by who knows what bodily fluids.
Friday, we helped lead the CME (continuing medical education) session. It was supposed to start at 9 and end at 10, but, as is not abnormal here, it did not even start until 10. Olupah had a lot of good things to say, and it seemed as though the CME went fairly well, other than the fact that most of the staff were not from the pediatric ward, the target staff group. They all enjoyed the sorghum porridge and mandazis (fried dough balls) though. At least that was a definite success. The CME opened up a larger discussion on the importance of good record-keeping in general. The head record keeper was fed up with the rest of the staff not recording things accurately. And finally, the meeting ended with a heated discussion among the staff about how they could get the patients to stop defecating around the hospital compound. That was an amusing conversation to say the least.
Granola has been another thing I have enjoyed making while we’ve been here. There aren’t a whole lot of breakfast options, so I like to have some on hand. Recently, we ran out of oats, and when we asked where we could get some more, we got mixed reports, most telling us the closest place is Fort Portal, but one telling us they had been spotted in Bundibugyo town, about 30 minutes away.
Needing to do several errands in Bundi town, Jess, Olvie, and I decided to make the trip on Saturday. One of the main reasons we wanted to go -- other than stocking up on medical supplies from the pharmacy there, filling up our jerry cans with kerosine for our fridges, and going to the post office (no post office in Nyahuka) -- was to have some things made by Madina, the good seamstress there that Amy recommended. As we were pulling out of the Johnsons’ driveway, there was Madina. She had come to Nyahuka for Saturday market day. Well, so much for visiting her shop in Bundi town that day! Oh well, we will try again soon.
Our first stop in Bundibuygo town was the post office. And it was closed. Strike two for the day.
As I mentioned, part of my mission in town was to find more oats for granola. We found only one box at Caltex, the main “supermarket” in town. The next couple of stores I went in suggested I check at Caltex for oats, and when I told them I already had, they were out of suggestions. While Olvie and Jess stocked up at the pharmacy, I embarked on a determined hunt for oats, going off Anna’s testimony to having seen them in at least a couple of different stores. The first several dukas (little shops) that I went in had no idea what I was talking about until I painstakingly explained about these “white oats used in porridge.” I soon realized that I would improve my chances of finding them and reduce my own frustration if I just took the box that I had already bought around with me on my search to show the shopkeepers. I was redirected here and there around that area of town, reaching duka after duka, only to be diappointed, time and time again. Finally, I took a reprieve from my hunt and made my way with Olvie through the produce market, stocking up for the week ahead-- ground nuts, tomatoes, carrots, ginger, busukali (tiny bananas), onions, green peppers, eggplant, sugar, papaya, etc. I then began a new hunt, for pineapple. After getting vague, ambiguous directions to another market that might have pineapple, we came across a man who spoke English well and who decided to help us in our quest. He asked around to many different people, and each time we would reach the described location, someone there would redirect us somewhere else or even back the way we had come. Despite all of this effort, pineapple was nowhere to be found. However, along the way, we came across yellow posho (for cornbread!) and oranges (which are, oddly enough, green here, even when ripe) for our fruit salad that night. While we were at it, I decided it wouldn’t hurt to show our volunteer guide the kind of oats we were searching for. And, sure enough, after some more asking around, he finally was able to lead us to a duka with oats! They only had one box in stock, of course, but were happy to go fetch us as many more boxes as we wanted! We even had a place to sit across the street while we waited. Finally, my long and arduous search had paid off!
Day to day
Language lessons continue to be a fun part of our week. Lubwisi-learning is definitely a slow process, but things are slowly coming together-- “Buke, buke” (slowly, slowly), as they say here. We have a very sweet instructor, Vincent, who is a teacher at a primary school in the area.
Cow milking
I milked a cow for the first time the other night. It was very exciting, but hard work! It was much more rewarding than the time Hannah and I tried to milk goats in Namibia on study abroad. Baligi, the cow caretaker, is so fast-- he put me to shame.
Visitors
This past weekend was full with preparing for and welcoming visitors. We went to Bundimalinga church again this morning. It was nice seeing some familiar faces and going to a service at a church that we have been to before (every week up till now we have gone to a new church). One of the first songs this morning was none other than “Father Abraham,” a remix of sorts:
Fatha Abraham had-a many sons
I am one of them; you are one of them
Light hand, left hand; light leg, left leg
Shake your bah-dee
We joined the children when they went outside for their little service with Vincent. The kid songs, such as “Jesus Pow-ah, Sup-ah Pow-ah,” were so fun!
After lunch, Olvie, Lilli, and I led the visitors on a walking tour around the mission and part of town. We took them to sign in with the LC-I of Bundimalinga. He was not there, but his “secretary” and half-brother, who happens to be Vincent, got the visitor book for them to sign. On our outing, I was so delighted to see how many people I knew that we passed. It is encouraging to be able to go almost anywhere around here and run into one if not dozens of people I now know and can greet.
Buke, buke throws efficiency out the window
One of the hardest things to adjust to here is the amount of time and effort even the smallest task can take. I had been so used to getting so many things done in one day, but here, it just never seems to work out that way. While the slow pace can be refreshing and freeing, it can also drive you mad at times. Amy said to me, “If you get one thing accomplished in a day-- great; two things-- that’s a bonus; if you try to accomplish three things-- you’re crazy.” I was reading in one of the books we’ve been reading as a team (Love Walked Among Us, by Paul E. Miller), and part of it really spoke to this:
“Jesus’ tenderness suggested to me a new, less ‘efficient,’ way of relating. Love, I realized, is not efficient… Jesus has shown us how to love: Look, feel, and then help. If we help someone but don’t take the time to look at the person and feel what he or she is feeling, our love is cold. And if we look and feel, but don’t do what we can to help, our love is cheap. Love does both.”
Reading this helped ease my frustration at the often overwhelming inefficiency of life here. If nothing else, I have been immersed in an inescapable opportunity to learn that efficiency 1) is not a supreme value in many parts of the world, and 2) should not be the all-consuming goal in everything we do. Love trumps efficiency. Human life, no matter how efficient, would be stark and void without love. A life lacking in efficiency but illuminated by love would still be a life worth living, and has no less of a chance at being a full life.
One thing I have been able to do here is to meet and get to know many people. Greeting and visiting are huge in the culture here. But, keep in mind, even the greetings are not “efficient”-- and maybe that is why they are so valuable. So, in light of all this and by the grace of Christ, I am aiming to pursue the higher values and love well, while life saunters on, buke, buke.
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