Porches are for People

Blog Post About May 2021

Our front porch area doesn't have a ton of room for activities to take place, but Keira does manage to go around in circles on her scooter, Doug grills some amazing meals for us, and visitors greet us at our gate.

Sometimes a beggar knocks asking for money; sometimes our neighbors bring over some of their food to share with us; sometimes a man representing the water company or the generator comes by asking for payment (there is no mail system here - it's door-to-door); and sometimes a salesman will try to sell books, soap, beauty products, etc. (remember door-to-door encyclopedia salesmen)??

Anyway, one night, daughters, nieces and cousins from a house down the street came knocking for Keira. 

The girls don't know English except a few phrases: 

How are you?

What's your name?

Where's Keira?

Most of the time, during the day, my answer is, "Keira la muxtapa" (She's at school), but this night, she went out to see them, and they were so excited. 

May 27, 2021

It makes me very aware that I have never seen any of these girls in a school uniform, and I have never seen any of them coming from or going to a school. 

I don't know how they are educated or even if they are, but it is a good conversation topic for Keira and I about how appreciative we should be that she is allowed an education.

It's the little things.

One day, Caleb was washing the porch for us, and he and Keira decided to play in the water after the porch was clean.

I don't know how Keira's knees could handle it, but she would run and slide across the tile. Ouch!

Caleb would spray her as she went, and she loved it. 

I stopped cutting up a watermelon to video her, and then they both wanted watermelon.

Caleb suggested I video Keira in slow-motion sliding across the tile, eating her watermelon.

I took some still shots to show you, but the video is so much better (and I have no idea what Caleb's hands are doing). Maybe he's praying she didn't get hurt as she slid into the wall each time.

I wish you could see the videos :)

May 29, 2021

I like that they find fun things to do even though we don't have a yard or grass.

Life is what you make it :)

Side notes, if you're curious: the propane bottles to the right are what we use to run our oven and heat rooms with individual propane heaters. 

And across the way, is a house to the right and an empty lot to the left. Our neighbors have a pick-up truck they use to drive around to neighborhoods and sell fruits and vegetables out of the back. This lot is where they store their empty crates until they can haul them off.

*Karis took some of her senior photos this year in front of the crates, and they turned out so good ;)

I was so thankful Kylie said she could take Karis' senior photos. 

These were taken two weeks ago when she was here:)

January 5, 2022

Americans and their storage

Our crates arrived back in June, but we weren't sure if we had any projects around the house that needed the wood from them, so they remained on the carport intact.

Doug decided we could make them into storage. They were already half built, right?

He built two piano dollies (that project alone took a whole day because he had to find wood and wheels in town), and then he bought cinder blocks. I only assisted him a little, and my strong man moved the crates and put them up on blocks. That all took place in August.

Last week, he bought materials for framing, a door, a covering, etc.

He attached three of our crates together, and cut doors in the two walls. You can see the doors right here, if you know what you are looking at. Kylie's head is "in" one.

Once our inverter gets here from the States, we will be able to put the final wall on.

That seems funny, but the wood for the walls is on top of the roof covering the solar panels. We were told it's not good for the panels to be getting full sun when they aren't able to charge the batteries.

The crazy thing is that we don't have that much stuff, but yet, storage is needed. Why do Americans always seem to have more than enough - us included?

We are going to put suitcases, bicycles, and empty boxes from unpacking out here so that our "garage" that was originally going to be a school room can be an office, of sorts. The kids prefer to do school in the living room.

So here we are, in Africa, representing America well with our "storage shed."

Arriving late one night...

Underneath those tarps are all our worldly possessions, but to tell you the truth, we could have done without a lot of them. It's just hard to know when you are packing for a place you have never been to before.

Caleb is doing the "happy dance." He was so excited to see his guitar, drum, and toy dinosaur. He'd been talking about them since we arrived.

More happy dancing.

There they all are. An amazing crane hooked to the truck would lift each one off, and set it down.

I have already started a box labeld "USA." In it, are things that need to go back with relatives or friends when they return, because I don't need them here.

Who would have known that I would only have one drawer in my kitchen? I brought three drawer organizers, and none of them fit in the one drawer I have!

Who needs grilling utensils when they don't make grills here?

Who needs winter clothes when there is no winter?

Who needs socks when all you wear is flip flops?

There are also a few items that have found their way to the shelves in Kampala since we packed our crates. I did find some sunscreen in Kampala for a high price, but it is there. But no worries, I have a three-year supply for now. There is also the real-deal Tabasco here, but we brought enough to make it awhile. Thank goodness for re-stocking opportunities, though.

But some items that are NOT on the shelves in Kampala, I was so glad to see in my crate: Velveeta and Rotel! I made tacos the night after the crate arrived JUST so I could have an excuse to make queso. Yum!

Crates

We received an email awhile back saying that the boat our crates were on would arrive in Kenya on March 23rd. I’ve been tracking the ship on a ship-tracking website, and the last time the ship “checked in” was on March 11th, north of Morocco. So, I don’t know where it is, but at least it left the US.

I have also heard the customs agents will want to unpack every item in our crate in front of us and attempt to re-pack them before letting them travel to Arua. I have no idea how that will work unless much prayer is involved. It took 7 hours to get all that stuff in the first time, and I think it only fits one way.

Did I mention?

**Did I mention we get “2 days away” each month, but I don’t know where we would go. Congo? Sudan? The nearest decent city in Uganda is 8 hours away.

We are planning our first “2 days away” for next week. We are going to Murchison Falls Game Reserve. It is only 2 hours away, but it can be very expensive. It caters to tourists who have the money to spend on safaris. Anyway, we figured that while we are in Africa, we should see some animals, so we are going to bite the bullet this time, and then next month, we might just stay at our home and tell people we are “away.”

**Did I mention that our crate is officially in-route. This is good news, although I don’t know if that means “Atlantic Ocean in-route” or “Houston ship channel in-route.” I’ll keep you updated.

**Did I mention that on April 20th, we will be leaving Arua and not returning until June 7th. It is really going to hurt our language training process, but it is unavoidable.

We will be attending a safari-type training called 40/40 in Lusaka, Zambia, for 30 something of those days. Then we will take a quick 3 or 4-day jaunt down to Victoria Falls. We figured since we were close, we should see it before flying back to Uganda.

Once we return to Uganda, we have some medical appointments in Kampala for Caleb (his four-year old shots) and some immunization updates for Doug and me plus we will re-stock for Arua.

But wait…there’s more. We will stay in Kampala until June 3rd, which is when our sub-cluster’s prayer retreat starts in Jinja.

All of that is to say, if you need communication during that time, it will be nearly impossible until I return to Kampala, and more than likely, I will not be able to facebook or tell anyone “Happy Birthday” or “Happy Anniversary” during that time except my daughter, who will be with me on her special day.

**Did I mention we got a package?