Things I See (Vol 10)

Welcome to "Things I See."  If you want to see the previous installments, you can click on:

 Volume 1 , Volume 2, Volume 3, Volume 4, Volume 5, Volume 6, Volume 7, Volume 8, Volume 9

It always amazes me that with all of the English speakers in this country, the businesses don't take advantage of them for spell-checking ads.

  

Life Water becomes Lefi Weter.

Some poor fellow named Henry is on sale.

Your guess is as good as mine.

I'm not sure this would be my first choice for a travel agency.

And just like Africa, we find some overloaded vehicles here, too.

I've told you before how each household washes the street in front of their house every day.

But what is new is that in the last year, the government has started "metering" water on houses for the first time.

I'm anxious to see if they will still think cleaning the street is important when they have to pay for it ;)

And let me leave you with this...the taste of Cardamom chewing gum in your mouth.  YUM!

Hog Rider and Heat

Well, Keira decided she would take a trip without me.

She went with her daddy...

on a motorcycle...

to run an errand.

READY!

SET!

GO!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I didn't think she'd do it, but she said she had a good time. 

I'm sure you remember how my other three children had many experiences on motorcycles ("pikis") in Uganda, so we figured this was a way to give her a little taste of what she missed in Uganda ;)



And in other news...later that day, Doug walked down to the main road and found a place to buy heaters.

Have I mentioned how cold I am all the time?

He bought an electric one for when we are fortunate enough to have power.

This thing can put off some heat!!

And somehow, he got that one, and THREE propane ones in a taxi to get home.

Check out the size of these things!

Caleb's hand is creeping around the side of the top box, so if you can spot it, you will see it's much taller than him.

A propane bottle fits in the back of it, and it will run on electricity or propane.

Now, we just have to wait for the "ice cream truck" to come down our street so we can buy propane.

**Do you remember how I told you the propane truck comes down our street twice a day playing the most pleasant ice-cream-truck-kind-of-music ever?

Anyway, unfortunately, we won't be hearing him for two days because tomorrow it's New Year's Day here.  The schools have been out for two weeks on holiday, and most schools have one more week before they have to return.  It's quite a big deal here.

HOLIDAY!

I look forward to filling you in on our Newroz (New Years) experience.

Through the windshield: part 1

I got a little camera-happy on the way home from Kampala this time.

What else am I going to do for 7 hours?

My thoughts were, “People can never really experience Africa just through pictures, but I should at least let them try to experience some of it.

(I email my pictures to my blog from a gmail account because they are easier to load that way, but I was having trouble emailing more than 10 at a time, so this will be a post in three parts.)

This is my life through the windshield...at high speeds.

Enjoy the pictures….

Yes, that is a motorcycle being carried by a motorcycle.

Brick making.

More school uniform colors: blue and white

Green (at high speeds)

Pink

Purple

Yellow

We took an off-road detour through the bush.

I don't know how that greyhound made it.

How do you find a detour through the bush?

Just follow the big truck in front of you.

And of course, more baboons....

Small things I notice every day, but I forget to mention

***Not only do we drive on the left side of the road here, the controls on the steering wheel are backward, too. I’ve only driven six times, but every one of those times when I wanted to turn my blinker on, I ended up turning on my windshield wipers.

Blinkers are another story altogether. When you are behind someone, they will put their left blinker on if it is safe to pass, and their right blinker if they advise against it (if you want to trust them).



***On the very hottest day, and any given time, there will be several young people in town with hoodies on. I cringe thinking about the heat they must be feeling, but I realize that since they only have a thin covering of hair on their heads (most of them), the hoodies protect them from the sun.

I never see them wearing sun glasses because the sun is absorbed into their skin instead of reflecting off of it. And babies are always tied to their mother’s backs with thick, wool blankets. They deal with heat in a very different way than me. I just sweat and sweat some more.



***If you break down on the road somewhere, the protocol is to break limbs off of a tree and put limbs several yards in front and behind your vehicle. You don’t have to try to pull off the road (most never even consider it). They just park right in your lane, and you come around a corner, and BOOM, there they are. I would love to know statistics on how many accidents occur because of stalled and broken vehicles on the road.



***When you are riding on a motorcycle and the road changes to a slope down, the driver will turn off his engine and coast…every time. When we start climbing again, he will crank back up and keep going. They assume it saves gas (because they don’t know it uses more gas to start up your engine than just coast in a lower gear).

As a fun side note (and I read this same thing takes place where my friends are in Nepal), drivers don’t run their lights at night on their vehicles because they believe leaving your lights on will run down the battery. Thankfully, sometimes when you are passing them, they will flash their lights to let you know they are there.

What do they think lights are for on a car? And can’t you imagine how silly they think we are for continually keeping them on?



***I helped Alice, my house worker, one day go collect some money from Western Union. She needed me to verify some amounts for the teller. She had her baby Sarah on her back, so she asked me to stand in line for her. I am not kidding, I was only four feet from the counter, and I counted 16 people in front of me. “Personal space” is not a concept here.
People here do not like a crying baby. When Sarah started crying on Alice’s back, they wanted her out of the bank so badly they let her ask for her money by sticking her arm in from the side in front of all those 16 people. I quickly got out of line.

People here expect the mother to “feed” it right away to get it to stop crying. Alice told me that her sister-in-law was beaten the other day in town because her baby wouldn’t stop crying. I don’t know if it’s true, but I do remember how anxious all those people were for Alice to go first and get out as fast as possible.



***I will forever be surprised at the kinds of things that are transported by motorcycle here. I have seen beds, tables, shelves, pigs, chickens, goats, mattresses, you name it. It is quite amazing what all they can carry on the back of those things.



***I smelled fresh cut grass the other day. It was such a blessing. I stood in the road for a while and just watched this man weed-eat a whole section of grass so I could smell it. My yard gets “cut” every week by a man with a hand slasher (and so does everyone elses), so it was a real treat to smell grass being cut by a motorized contraption. It really makes a difference for the smell. Go figure.

Piki ride #128, July 15

I really don’t know how many piki rides I have taken, but it seemed like a good title. And believe me, they look nothing like this.

On the way back from language the other day, I told my driver, Jack, I needed to go to town to the market. I asked him if he could drop me by the house, let me drop off my books, get a market bag, and then take me into town.

He said, “Yeah.”

I then said, “It looks a little like it might rain. Maybe I will wait until tomorrow.”

This same “weather forecaster” that predicted so wrongly the other day said, “You decide. But it will not rain until 6 or 7 tonight.”

He said it VERY confidently, and for some reason, I believed him.

I got my bag, and off we went. I needed to buy a LOT of tomatoes to make salsa because my garden has stopped producing for the moment.

I purchased some other things like bell peppers, onions, carrots, and garlic, and then, while I was buying 65 tomatoes for $2.50 (good price, huh?), the rain started.

I just smiled to myself and walked out of the market. Why, oh, why did I trust Jack again?

I stopped by a duka (a very small tin shed that sells a variety of items) to get bread and then I went to the chapatti stand (there are men who cook chapattis all day long, and they sell for cheap and are SO good) and got 15 chapattis from Lawrence (pretty sad, I know his name, right?).

Lawrence suggested I cross the street and wait under the awning of a better structure until the rain quit. I wasn’t afraid of getting wet, but as I looked around, I saw that the piki stop had been abandoned for the rain, and I couldn’t get a ride home anyway.

God had placed me right across the street from Moley’s store. I had met her July 4th at that “going away party” that we sat at for 6 hours. Remember? She is one of the “phone numbers” I had gotten, and I have visited her twice in town already.

She was delighted to see me, and went out of her way to make a seat for me. We talked while a lady next to me sifted through white ants (the termites with wings that they like to eat). It had rained the day before, and the nationals get so excited because the termites come out. She had just bought a kilo for herself and was picking out things that “didn’t belong.”

They have a different idea of what doesn’t belong. It’s funny, but I would have been picking out the white ants!

Let me cut out some of this story, and get to the point.

The rain stopped, and I walked back across the street to the piki stop, and a man approached me and asked me if I wanted a ride. I told him in Lugbara that I needed to go home, and I told him where I lived.

He was so pleased that I spoke Lugbara, that he laughed and laughed with joy. He became quite a talker after that. He was so proud of the fact that he has been a piki driver for 10 years!

After 2 minutes, it was raining again. He asked if I needed to stop, but I told him the rain didn’t bother me. Again, he said, “This is my job. Rain is my job. I can drive anytime. I’ve been doing this for 10 years.”

We were almost home when he said, “Next time you come to the market, you find me there. I will take you home and teach you more Lugbara while we ride.”

Then, three-fourths of a mile before my home, I heard a click in his engine. It went silent.

This is not really a big deal. This happens all the time. Really.

EVERY time you are on a piki, and you are going down a hill, the driver cuts off his motor and coasts to save fuel. When the hill levels out, they fire up the engine again.

But this time, the driver muttered something.

I finally heard it.

“No fuel.”

“What?”

“The fuel is finished.”

I wanted to scream, “Are you kidding me? You’ve been driving for TEN years, and you can’t remember when it’s time to put fuel in your motorcycle?”

He tried to start it again, and then he just laughed.

I said I would walk from there, and he started walking a different direction with his bike quite a ways to fuel station.

My market bag was heavy! If that guy EVER thinks I’m going to ask him for a ride just to practice language again, he is sorely mistaken.

There ends the saga of Piki ride #128 (or some number like that)!

What a power outage looks like

Earlier, I promised you a picture of Caleb when the power went out in the middle of his hair cut. Here it is.

















I also finally got a picture of a piki. Here is the piki I rode home from church with Karis and Caleb. I was sitting where Caleb is, side saddle, and Caleb was on my lap.














And here is Kylie, with Sandra (a journeyman) on the back.













Since I'm posting pictures, here is one of Awindiri Baptist Church, where Doug spent two nights last week.













And where the ladies cooked their meals.













Since I am already doing random photos - some of you asked about our dogs. They have arrived. The big one (that Doug has his arm around) is Lee. And the smaller girl is Hakuna Matata (Hakuna for short). They came not only with the names, but also well-trained. Our watchmen have commented on how helpful they are patrolling the compound at night.













I also hope to get a picture of the fabric market downtown. There are thousands of crazy patterns to choose from in stall after stall after stall. I picked out a few patterns and had some curtains made for the house. I also let the kids pick out patterns for each of their windows. I had no idea how beneficial the curtains would be on the west side of the house. It really helps cut down on the heat that comes in during the afternoon. It was well worth every shilling ($7 for the material and $2.50 to have them made). I guess I didn't need my mom's sewing machine after all.















My houseworker told me she went to textile school. I don't know what all she learned there, but she has a sewing machine, and she takes material one day and comes back with an item the next.

If any of you would like her to make you an apron, I'm sure I could arrange it :)

Well, that is enough random photos for tonight. I need to go study my Lubara.

A ni Lugbara ti muke ku. "I don't know Lugbara well."

I looked at a menu today

One of the journeygirls invited me to get a coke in town, so the kids stayed at the Wafler's house, and she and I started walking.

When we got to the piki stop, there was only one piki (motorcycle), but two bodas (bicycles). I offered to take a boda, so Kelli could have the piki.

Looking back, it was a hilarious episode (that's for you, Kyle)!!

Kelli took off on her motorcycle, and was out of sight.

I didn't realize it at the time, but our journey into town was completely up hill. I was trying to have a conversation with my driver (despite his strong body odor), when I finally had to say, "I will not talk, so you can breathe."

Poor guy.

I probably could have walked up that hill faster than he pumped me, but it was definitely an experience.

When we arrived at the "restaurant," he asked for more money than a boda usually is, and I was MORE than happy to give it to him. He definitely earned it.

I kept thinking to myself, "Why does he wait for riders at the BOTTOM OF A HILL?"

Oh well.

We entered in Christ the King Catholic Church's restaurant (yes, you read that correctly), and there were tables covered with plastic table cloths, plastic flower arrangements, and place mats. Boy, I never knew what a restaurant could do for the soul.

We ordered two Krest Bitter Lemon drinks (Coca-Cola distributes them, but I'm pretty sure they are not sold in the US). Yum! And I tried my first samosa. That is NOT a drink. It is a pastry of sorts. You can get beef, veggie, or potato and it will be wrapped inside the pastry before it is deep fried.

Also yummy!

People were coming in and ordering late lunches and watching soccer on the television, and I had to remind myself I was in Africa. It was quite the escape for me. I can't wait to take Doug and the kids.

Kelli assures me there are other places in town to go to escape, so I look forward to their discovery.

Thanks, Kelli, for two discoveries today: Christ the King Church and the Chinese supermarket.

Giardia (or something) strikes again

For those of you who only read the blog, I wanted to let you know that Caleb and Karis were correctly diagnosed as having Giardia. We went to the local pharmacy, and it only took two trips to get the right medication. Two bottles cost around $2.50 total!!

Anyway, within hours of taking the first dose, they were better. Praise the Lord!

A nurse in Kenya, upon hearing of our plight, has gotten a medical kit of sorts, together for us of things we might need here in Arua, and she is sending it by way of other people. Again, Praise God!

Two days after Caleb and Karis finished their medicine, Kylie woke in the middle of the night with a fever.

She was on the couch all day Friday, but with only a small fever. If the fever spiked, I was supposed to check for malaria, but it never did.

Saturday, she started vomiting a little, and by Sunday, she couldn't keep anything down.

Sunday night, we decided to start the treatment for Giardia, just in case, because it is so contagious (and travels in water). She threw up a few hours after taking it, but maybe some remained in her.

Today (Monday), she hasn't eaten much, but when she has, she has thrown it up. I put her to bed, and up came her tiny dinner. So, she is now in-between Doug and I until I can get her sheets cleaned and hung out in the sun tomorrow to dry.

Please pray that we will discover what she has, that it will go away, or that the medicine we are giving her will treat it.

Sorry for all the "sick" stories. Better ones are coming.


When I download my most recent pictures, I will show you a picture of Caleb with half a hair cut. Doug started using the electric clippers Saturday night on Caleb. He got the back and sides done, and he had just taken a swipe down the middle (reverse mohawk), when the electricity went out around 5pm. It was a fun evening eating dinner while looking at Caleb's hairdo.

Doug fixed it the next morning before church, but it would have been appropriate to leave it. Caleb went on his first motorcycle taxi, and he got to ride in the front. (A reverse mo-hawk would have been cool, right? :)

Doug took Caleb and Karis to church because I was home with Kylie. All three of them got on one "piki piki" (motorcycle taxi). Caleb was in front of the driver, and Karis sat between Doug and the driver.

I wish I had a picture of that.

I also wish I had a picture of the time Kylie and I took a piki to town to get the giardia medicine. Women ride side saddle on the back of the motorcycle, and Kylie was just on my lap holding on to me, while I had one hand on the back of the bike, and one hand gripping my market bag.

It's a wonder there aren't more accidents (or deaths).