For the record...

I do try and update this thing more often. Sadly, fickle Internet connections continue to be my undoing. That being said, please bear with me as I attempt to catch up by offering another, somewhat longish post composed primarily of pictures of me on vacation.

Advent

The Christmas Preamble

Prior to the Christmas break I spent a lot of quality time with Microsoft Excel. Here I am losing my will to collate data and clearly looking for something to distract myself with.

Our last order of business in Kamwenge was planning the staff Christmas party. Here is a peek into the most intensely competitive game of Musical Chairs I have ever witnessed.

The Intern and the Stuka's Do Nairobi

Loved it, loved it, loved it.

This is one of my oldest and dearest friends. She and her husband Clayton are volunteering in Kenya for a few months and I took the bus to visit them for a few days prior to Christmas. Here we are at a market in Nairobi. She has some seriously impressive bartering skills. She was more or less my personal shopper.

Clayton, Esther and I decided to check out the restaurant Carnivore. Here we are surrendering our flag after eating our body weight in meat. We just couldn't handle any more!



Esther and I with a giraffe who posed so nicely for a picture.


He was so nice about the whole thing I let him give me a kiss.


Esther and I made a deal when we were in high school that when we were 50 we would travel to Africa together. Here we are celebrating that we kept our agreement 24 years ahead of schedule.

Sadly, all good things must come to an end. Here is Esther and I waiting for the bus to carry me away to Uganda.

Christmas Day!

Our homemade tree, stockings (imported from Canada by yours truly) and presents all handily tucked away in our room at the SP guesthouse in Kampala.

Zanzibar!
Our week long jaunt to the Spice Island


Shaquil, our faithful skipper who took us on his tiny boat to a little island for snorkeling, feeding giant tortoises, and laying on the beach. You can see a bit of the Stone Town ocean front in the background.

An old church in Stone Town. The town itself is a World Heritage Site. I loved meandering down all the little alleyways and streets and stumbling upon all sorts of charming things.

Snorkeling! This is a story in and of itself. One of many blog topics for another time. Let's just say our snorkeling destination turned out to be a little further from dry land that I had imagined (not evidenced by this photo, this is back on the beach. I can handle being in water up to my knees)

Midway through the first of my many sunburns.

Watching the sun go down at an outdoor cafe.

Stone Town's outdoor fish market. Every kind of fish your could imagine in kabob form. I don't even like seafood, but I thought this place was fantastic.

I really enjoy collecting shells. I find it so relaxing. I was always confused as a child as to how my mom could spend so much time patiently hunting for pebbles on the beach. I think I get it now, mom.

The view from the door of our cottage.

Our hotel's private beach. Gorgeous! My schedule for the day was totally dependent on the tides. Low tide...collect shells. Medium time...wander aimlessly in the water. High tide...frolic in the waves.

Maxin' and relaxin' in Zanzibar.

Home again. Tanned (er...burned to a crisp), bushy-haired (just realized I haven't been using conditioner for weeks. I should start reading the bottles) and apparently skeptical about life (except that I'm not skeptical, just curious).

We only have two weeks left in Uganda. Shocking. I feel like I have gained a lot from this internship and I am so glad that the Lord allowed me to have this experience. However, I am also so excited to see what is coming next. I would be glad to accept a more permanent position in East Africa but so far nothing is set in stone. It's so comforting to know that God has ordained my days and my seasons.

Right now I am in the process of finishing up our last few projects and figuring out how to say goodbye to our life and our friends here. I am also SO excited...to come back to winter! I never thought I would type those words, but it's true! I guess I am Canadian after all. I also can't wait to see all you dear ones. I am scheduled to arrive in Calgary the evening of Jan. 24 and will come home for a few days before I start my debriefing in Calgary with SP. Hope to see a lot of you...soon.

P.S.

I just changed my settings so that anyone can comment, spammers excluded (hopefully).

Poor, neglected blog...

Well, it's hard to know where begin after going through several rather eventful weeks without visiting my little blog site. Best to just dive right in...

After my terrifying trip down the Nile and before my birthday Melissa and I had the chance to head up to northern Uganda to the SP office in Lira. If the words Lord's Resistance Army, "night commuters", or Invisible Children ring a bell then you have heard about the situation up north. Over the last two decades the LRA has internally displaced massive amounts of Ugandans and gained a reputation for its routine practices of child abduction (often to be given as wives or trained as soldiers) and many other attrocities. SP began working in northern Uganda several years ago in partnership with the World Food Program in order to give food to people living in refugee camps. Around Lira the camps have pretty much diappeared as a measure of stability has allowed people to return to their homes. SP now works in resettlement and rebuilding activities. We visited a women's vocational program. I loved it. I love programs like that. I have more I could say about this, but maybe I'll save that for another time.

While in northen Uganda we joined forces with the American SP interns (a married couple about my age) and we headed to a game park for the weekend. We saw a LOT of giraffes and camped at the top of one of the world's most powerful waterfalls. There were a number of hippos about and I was afraid one of them would step on my tent while I was sleeping and I would become the owner of a very embarrasing eulogy. My fears were unfounded.

Then it was back to the capital and then back to the village. Our country director asked Melissa and I to do a survey of homes who received water filters in 2006/2007. This turned into a task that more or less consumed our lives for the past three weeks and involved a lot of trekking down little paths and plunging my arms in filters full of murky water in dark corners of mud hut homes. All in all, it was great. Wonderful to be working hands on with the filter again after doing office work for the past while, and great to see that the water project has been successful. Now all the data is in and the report is (almost...oh, so close!) done.

The water project is also wrapping up their current cycle and looking ahead to the next few years. Staff has been busy collecting survey data in possible operation areas and Melissa and I have been keeping the home fires burning. This has entailed drinking a lot of chai and entering thousands of surveys into spreadsheets. We are now in the process of writing a proposal for funding for the next several years. This, (together with the 2006/2007 survey and planning the staff Christmas party- pictures to come, I'm sure), has kept us rather busy for the last month. This is great. We have learned so much and we have loved it, but we are VERY excited for our upcoming Christmas holiday.

Oh! In the midst of all the data entry, etc, our lovely boss came all the way from Canada for a visit! It was lovely, and provided us with a great excuse to go back to our favorite national park. We miss you, Raiji!

We also had another Children's Hygiene Fair. It was great. Sorry to overuse the term "great" in this post, but, it's been a _____ month!

(As a note, only 10% of the thousands of homes we surveyed had an improved water source. This is awful and makes me feel sick at heart. The water project out here is so needed and it is a priviledge to be a part of it for this short time. When I was doing the 2006/2007 survey I was amazed to hear people talk about the difference the filter has made in their lives. One lady even did a little dance. It really does provide clean, safe drinking water in a user friendly and environmentally friendly way. It's wonderful technology and I think God for it. If you have thought about becoming a part of the Samaritan's Purse Turn On The Tap campaign to raise money for filter projects around the world, I would highly recommend that you get involved. Water is life, as we like to say around here.)

This week Melissa and I are headed to the capital city and won't be back out in the village until January. On Friday I am going solo all the way to Nairobi to see my dear, dear, dear to the point that I should capitalize "dear" friends, Clayton and Esther who are volunteering in Kenya for a few months. I am so excited to see them for a few days, and then it's back to Uganda in time for Christmas Day. Then...December 26, 2008. A day Melissa and I have been dreaming of for months...the day we fly to Zanzibar! We are going for a week's vacation to what we hear is a lovely island with white beaches and yummy seafood. We are so excited. Then, we are back to Uganda for our last 2 1/2 weeks! Can it be? Where did the time go?

I'm not thinking too much about leavning Uganda because it makes me quite sad. Instead, I am thinking about seeing so many dear people in Canada...and having a belated Thanksgiving dinner (mom, I am serious about that. I need, not want, need cranberry sauce).

Monica is doing so well. She has adapted beautifully to having only one hand- it is really remarkable. After talking with a surgeon here in Uganda and a physician in Canada who has a wealth of experience working in Nigeria, we have decided not to pursue a prosthetic for Monica. There are a lot of reasons, and it was a hard decision, but in the end I have a lot of peace about it. I talked things over with Monica's family the other day and I think we are all on the same page. Please pray for her grandfather, if you think of it. He has congestive heart failure and when I saw him last week he had really gone down hill. In addition to the heart, I suspect that something serious is going on with his liver and his lungs are full of fluid. I am thinking that we might try to get him to our local hospital this next week; he is so miserable right now and there is nothing that can be done for him out in his village. Hard stuff.

To close, here is a photo of two highlights of the last month:

My friend braided my hair, and we got a cat (not in that order).

Happy 26th...

My mom sent me a birthday e-mail today containing an exerpt from a book she has been reading. I thought I would post it here. It is one of my wishes as I blow out my proverbial candles today:

Let me (my mom) share some thoughts from a book I’ve just read called Wild Goose Chase. The Celtic Christians called the Holy Spirit the Wild Goose:

The promptings of the Holy Spirit can sometimes seem pretty pointless, but rest assured, God is working his plan. And if you chase the Wild Goose, he will take you places you never could have imagined going by paths you never knew existed…A part of us feels that something is spiritually wrong with us when we experience circumstantial uncertainty. But that’s precisely what Jesus promised us when we start following him. Most of us will have no idea where we are going most of the time. That is unsettling. But circumstantial uncertainty also goes by another name: adventure.

When God puts a passion in your heart, whether it be relieving starvation in Africa or educating children in the inner city or making movies with redemptive messages, that God ordained passion becomes your responsibility.

So what makes you cry? What makes you pound your fist on the table? What makes you smile? If you want to discover your God-ordained passions, then you need to identify what makes you sad, mad or glad…God-ordained passions sometimes break our hearts. And they can seem like an overwhelming burden to bear. But pursuing our passions is the key to living a fruitful and fulfilling life. It is the thing that wakes us up early in the morning and keeps us up late at night. It is the thing that turns a career into a calling. It is the thing that gives us goose bumps—Wild Goose bumps. And nothing will bring you greater joy.

Frederick Buechner once wrote: “The voice we should listen to most as we choose a vocation is the voice that we might think we should listen to least, and that is the voice of our own gladness. What can we do that makes us the gladdest? I believe that if it is a thing that makes us truly glad, then it is a good think and it is our thing.”

I can't wait...I just love it.

Two at a time...

I'm having one of those days where I'm not sure where I fit.

When I come back to Canada I will miss this.

Right now I miss all of you.

I can't say I felt totally at home in this picture.

But I can't say that I felt totally at home in this picture either.

Is this me?

Or is this me?





Loving two very different lives can make things a little confusing.

Or maybe I'm just really blessed.

A picture post...

I think I'd better do this by category. I am having trouble with my connection today so I might have to post several times over the next few days/weeks/months/when I get back to Canada. We'll see...

Moments

This is just a photo of a little guy getting a cup of water from his filter but his expression cracks me up. I don't think he expected to be photographed.

One weekend Melissa and I went to visit our friend's parents WAY out in their village. This is me and the mamma having breakfast one morning. Note my dress. I love that dress.

This is baby Owen and his mom Allen (which is a girl's name here). We were able to help provide them with transport costs so Owen could go to a free clinic and get braces to help correct his club feet.


This is our backyard glowing in the light after an evening storm. Beautiful.



The children's choir dancing up a storm in church.

Queen Elizabeth National Park

Melissa and I fit in a quick trip to Queen Elizabeth National Park. It was quite the feast for the senses.

Stopping at the "equator" on the trip down. I am not picking my nose in this picture.

Our hostel at the game park was infested with warthogs, which is far more desireable than our bat/mouse population back in the village.


Ugandan Kob. These little guys are just beautiful!

Hippos!! (Oh, and birds. Some people are interested in things like birds. People like my dad.)

My favorite! Elephants!!!

Things that made me sad and happy (mostly happy)

Sad...the day my stash of delicious Three Hills honey ran out.

Happy...riding on motorcycles everywhere.

Happy...this girls buck-toothed smile.


Happy...a beneficiary still using her filter after five years and enjoying good health.


Happy...my friend Saida and her mom. I met Saida in 2001 during my first trip to Uganda and we have stayed in touch ever since. Saida made this wall hanging for my family. We love each other.

Work

One project we worked on during the month of October was shallow well construction.

The first step was to go with some community leaders to assess their current water source and the select a site for the new well. This mud puddle was the current source. Hard to wrap your mind around, eh?

The well was dug by volunteers and then the mason came to finish off the project. The community not only dug the hole and carried blocks to the site (heavy!) but pounded rocks into gravel by hand. That is some seriously hard work.

Carrying the blocks with the ladies.

Kind of like a barn raising. I really loved this day.

These guys dug this perfectly round hole (about 15 feet deep) BY HAND in a few days. They worked so incredibly hard. The picture is of the mason down in the hole beginning the brick work.

Children's Hygiene Fair

We created a Children's Hygiene Fair to hold at local primary schools in an effort to teach kids about good hygiene and sanitations practices. This is a shot of an assortment of SP staff and teachers from the school. I look quite happy because I'm so relieved the day was a success!

Here's my favorite game: toss the poop colored bean bag into the latrine slab. Moral of the story? Always use the latrine and not the bush (seriously, this is important, don't get grossed out).

Kids had to touch the paper latrine, and then run and touch a giant bar of soap and then a water can before running and scooping a spoonfull of beans into a pot. The lesson in all this? Wash your hands with soap and water after using the latine and before handling food.

Monica

Monica has now been home from the hospital for several weeks and is doing great! The burn is still healing, but the wound from her surbery has healed excellently well. Last week we drove out to her village to check on her, and we will continue to do so until her burn is completley healed.

Monica and I

This is Monica's great-grandma and caregiver. I really like her. She was SO happy to see us, but after saying "thank you" she hugged me for a long time and said, "Praise Jesus! Praise Jesus!" Amen, sister.

Monica just home from the hospital! Her great-grandma was so glad to have her back safe and sound.

Monica in the hospital prior to surgery with her Auntie Peace. Peace came along to take care of Monica even though she is VERY pregnant and left several small children at home to be taken care of by neighbors. She really is a hero.

Monica before her surgery.

Big Water...

This weekend was…eventful, to say the least. I want to bring you all up to speed with the highlights from the last few weeks, but let me begin with the last few days.

Melissa and I came into the capital city last week. We attended some staff meetings, which gave us some great opportunities to learn a bit more about the financial/administrative side of SP’s work here in Uganda. We also immediately started eating all the delicious food we could get our hands on, the memories of which will hopefully sustain us for the next month once we return to our steady diet of rice, beans and rice and beans. Then, came the big day. November 8th. The day I have been dreading for quite some time.

I have a very irrational fear of water. I don’t even jump off diving boards. I especially fear water that is 1) dark, and 2) fast moving. Now, in case you didn’t know, Uganda is home to the source of the Nile River. I have visited the Nile on my last two trips to Uganda, but I just sat on the bank, trembled at the water as it churned past me, and tried not to think about how awful it would be to fall in. The river is pretty wild at its source, and so it is hailed as one of the best white water rafting sites in the world. Back in Canada one of the staff advised me (and I quote), “Don’t go rafting on the Nile. I thought I was going to die.” She didn’t have to convince me. I had no desire to go rafting. Apparently, my fellow intern felt differently…and she convinced me to come along.

The night before our trip I barely slept. I would dream about rafting for 20 minutes and then wake up with my heart racing. I cannot begin to tell you how terrified I was. The stretch of the Nile we were to raft down is full of Class 5 rapids, which, I have learned, is code for “very large and ridiculously crazy”. The trip began with some training on a flat stretch of water, which was the scariest part of the day for me. Our guide told us to jump out of the raft so we could practice climbing back in. Jump out!? Into the dark river?! I had no choice, so I jumped. It wasn’t so bad. Then, once we climbed back in, our guide flipped the raft on purpose! I almost panicked, but it wasn’t so bad. (Later in the day I was very glad that we had the flipping drill.) Then, our guide told up to jump out again and float down through a Class 2 rapid on our backs. “This is the last straw!” I thought, but I had no choice. It wasn’t so bad. Actually, it was rather fun. So, after facing a number of my worst fears all in a row, we were off. Let me tell you, it was crazy. We wore helmets for a reason!

For those of you who have traveled to Uganda, the first Class 5 rapid we went over was Bugagali Falls. Ironically, that turned out to be the tamest Class 5 of the day. We charged through some crazy rapids (thankfully without flipping) and on the quiet stretches we could jump out and swim. That was pretty cool, floating on my back down the Nile.

We stopped for quick lunch on a little island, and then were off again. The next Class 5 we went through involved going down a 4 meter waterfall! Ordinarilly I wouldn't do something like that unless I was being forced against my will, but as we teetered at the top of the falls I realized the time for backing out had definitely passed so…over we went! We didn’t flip, and I was so happy to be alive I started high fiving everyone in the raft. After the waterfall we all got a lollipop. It was nice.The very last rapid of the day was called The Bad Place. I have never in my life seen a stretch of water so white, so crazy, so everything. This rapid even had parts that were Class 6 (which is code for “don’t even think about it”). Our guide warned us that we would probably flip, and as soon as we hit the top of the rapid his prediction came true. Only, we didn’t just flip, we were chewed up and spit out, tossed around like a dish rag, etc, etc. During the horrifying flip drill we had earlier in the day, our guide told us that if we held on to the safety rope we would just pop right back up and be able to do fun things like breath air. So, I held onto that rope for dear life and clung to our raft as it kicked and tossed its way down the rest of the rapid. No power on earth (i.e. a rabid Nile crocodile chewing on my leg) could have separated me from the safety rope at that point in time. I have never been so scared in my life, but I have never had so much fun. I cheered and laughed the whole way down in between dousing after dousing of white water. I would definitely do it again, but the thought of it makes my land lubbing little heart beat faster.

The day was great, so great in fact that Melissa wanted to stay a second day. So, she remained and I came back to the city. This is when I made The Fatal Mistake. I forgot to get our room key from Melissa. We have been staying at the SP guesthouse, which, I have learned, does not have spare keys to its rooms. So, I was locked out. No prob. I borrowed some PJ’s and a toothbrush, no big deal. However, the next day came and there was no Melissa. My cell phone was locked in my room along with everything else, and so I borrowed a phone to try calling…and calling…and calling. I called the rafting company- no accidents, no information, no sign of Melissa.

As the night wore on I became more and more worried. I talked with the Deputy Country Director (DCD) and he told me to get into my room using whatever means possible so that I could check my phone for messages. Now, Ugandan doors are usually made of some pretty sturdy wood, and due to my lack of karate lessons as a child, there was no way I could break it down. I asked our night guard for help and he stepped right up, tossing his AK-47 onto a pile of clean sheets and trying to chip away at the lock. At some point he even produced a pick axe. Very impressive. We weren’t having much luck, though, so he resorted to a new tactic. BEATING ON THE LOCK WITH THE BUTT OF HIS GUN! This left the barrel pointing directly at me, and I admit, this made me a little nervous. I could just see the gun going off and me dying a ridiculous death. I ran away and hid in the bathroom until he gave up on the AK and went back to the pick axe. After some time, I thanked him and told him he could go. Shortly after the DCD arrived. We decided to break down the little panel above the door, because I thought I might be able to squeeze through. I am going to guess that the space was about 3 feet wide and 1 foot high. It was tight, but I managed to wriggle through and retrieve my cell phone. No messages from Melissa. Anxiety increases. It is around 2am at this point. The DCD and I were trying to find phone numbers for hospitals, and he was trying to decide if we should go right then to the rafting site or what.

Around 2:30 I got a text from Melissa telling me that she had to stay another night at the river. Hadn’t I received her other text? No, I hadn’t. All because of The Fatal Mistake which separated me from my phone. I was glad she was alright but felt a bit ridiculous about the whole thing. I needlessly tried to break down a door with a pick axe. Seriously. Make sure you have your keys, people.

When I was hiding from the guard who was beating on the lock with his gun, I thought to myself, “This is new. I don’t really deal with things like this back home.” For the most part, life just happens here and I roll with the punches. However, every now and then something ridiculous happens and I wake up with a jolt and realize that I’m not in Kansas anymore. Another good example was during our staff meeting last week. We were talking about Christmas and our director said, “Kamwenge people, you had an Ebola outbreak last year. Did you manage to have your Christmas party before that happened?” I laughed out loud. Did you manage to have your Christmas party before the Ebola outbreak? Wow…

This is a picture of The Bad Place, although it doesn't do much to capture the horror. This isn't our raft, but this is more or less how it went down...