Lesson 8: Climb Every Mountain



So, you know that cool mountain thing here in Mbale? Mt. Wanale? Yeah, I climbed that.  It was pretty awesome.  The not-so-awesome-part was waking up at 5:45 AM to get ready for our hike.  An early start time is very necessary, as this allowed us to ascend the mountain in the shade.  Otherwise, you’re climbing in the heat of the day on the equator. Not advisable. 

We followed a main road up quite a distance toward Mt. Wanale.  It was a little intimidating, marching towards this huge chunk of rock sticking seemingly straight up into the air.  There’s no switch-backing on the foot paths; you just go up.  The paths start sloping up gradually, so we stopped to take a breather on top of a large rock before the hiking got very intense.  Even from the base of Wanale, you can look west and see all of Mbale laid out before you.  The town of Mbale is at about 1161 meters (about 3700 feet); Mt. Wanale’s elevation is about 2320 meters (about 7300 feet). 

The paths go right by houses and through fields.  The people who live in these houses on the mountain are incredible.  While I was huffing and puffing to climb up the paths, they were passing me carrying huge loads of bananas or jackfruit balanced precariously on top of their heads.  Walking up the mountain is no problem for them.  Me…well, I was traveling “pole pole,” or “slowly, slowly” in Swahili.  No matter, I made it to the top, and we had a great time relaxing in the pools by the waterfalls in the shade of the eucalyptus trees.  We sat on a rock outcropping and took a bunch of pictures before beginning our descent.



I do not like coming back down.  When you’re going up, your goal is always in sight.  Even if you’re tired, you can pump yourself up by saying, “Every step I take brings me closer to the top!” Coming down means putting more distance between you and the awesomeness you just achieved.  Going up, you are not thinking about how far you could fall.  On the return trip, you’re constantly peering down the steep incline and pondering exactly how far down you could slide. Also, you encounter some interesting obstacles.

    This is a ladder.  It was made by cramming a bunch of sticks together in order to climb a twenty foot section of rock.  We climbed down slowly and nervously, one by one.  The Bugisu people climbed up two or three at a time, balancing matooke, sacks of onions and bundles of sticks on their heads. Very impressive to watch.

    The other fun part of the descent was sliding down paths covered by gravel and loose dirt.  Our approach was to sit down on our butts and alternate scootching and sliding down the paths, much to the amusement of the Bugisu onlookers. 

    Eventually we reached the bottom of the mountain and made it back home, where we enjoyed hot showers and a cold Coke.  A Friday morning well spent!



Lesson 7: Consider the Rats of the Kitchen

There is a rat in our kitchen.

It’s been hanging around for a while now.  One night I even heard it rustling around in my room, which resulted in the worst night of sleep EVER.  The next day, we didn’t have any poison on hand, so we made some of our own by crushing up some acetaminophen and mixing it with peanut butter, in hopes that the rat would consume enough of the drug to induce liver failure.  This was to no avail, as it’s still around as of this morning.



One night after an especially harrowing rat sighting, we decided to call in our askari (guard) Benard and ask him to catch it and kill it.  So Benard grabbed a pointy stick and proceeded to poke around in the kitchen, moving things around and searching for our unwelcome guest so he could impale it.  While Jennifer and Emily helped Benard search for the unwelcome rodent, I camped out in the living room, not really keen on watching what was going on.  After a few minutes of poking around, Benard gave up, saying that he was “failing the duty.” (I love Ugandan English.) We thanked him for trying, and expressed our desire that the stupid thing would just die.  This is when Benard gave a little impromptu sermon that went something like this:

You know in the Bible, it says “consider the lilies of the field” and “consider the birds of the air.”  These things, they do not work, but God, He provides for them.  Even this rat, it is not working, but you are to provide for it.

Although we appreciated his take on the situation and all had a good laugh together, we later replaced the acetaminophen-peanut butter mixture with actual rat poison.

The next morning, I traveled to Kitale, Kenya to visit the children’s home.  This was my first time crossing the border into Kenya.  If Jennifer and Linda hadn’t been there to tell me exactly what to do, I probably would have just drive right through it.  My favorite part of the border was standing in line with a bunch of Africans to get my Kenya visa.  Next to the window for the Department of Immigration was a box that read, “Suggestions, Compliments and Anti-Corruption Box.” 

Everyone else on the trip was going to do actual work; I was just along for the ride so I could play with the kids.  This made for a pretty enjoyable trip.  I even got a souvenir sunburn from Kenya to take home with me!  The kids were so sweet.  Eleven-year-old Josephine took my by the hand and gave me a grand tour of the 5+ acre compound, including a game of volleyball, basketball, and teaching me a few songs.  After a long day of work for everyone else, we had a fabulous dinner at Karibuni Lodge, which was concluded by some absolutely fabulous tiramisu.  A great time was had by all, and the peaceful election in Uganda allowed us to travel home safely on Sunday as planned.

    This is a picture of me and some of the girls at the children's home.  They did a great job of styling my hair, didn't they?



Lesson 6: How to Build a Church



This past Friday morning, I set my alarm to go off at 6:40, and in keeping with my morning habit of hitting the snooze more than I should, I was actually out the door for a run at around 7:15.  While I did not have to run through a herd of cows, I did pass a lot of children on their way to school.  Most smiled or acted shy, and some shouted “Mzungu, how are you?” as I ran past.  Today, I had a bunch of kids start running with me, which is new.  By the time we arrived at their school, I had 6 kids running behind me in their matching mint green school uniforms.

Once I got back home, I sat down to some breakfast and the Great Gatsby.  Jennifer let me know that Vince and Shawn were headed to the village in a few minutes and wondered if I’d like to come along.  Answer: of course! So I hopped in the shower and tagged along for the first viewing of an informative video on the ministries that the Mbale Mission Team supports in a town about 45 minutes from Mbale. 

Shawn Tyler is one of the team leaders of MMT, and was kind enough to teach me quite a lot during the village visit, especially about building construction, which I would now like to pass along to you!  When I first saw a church building out in the village, all I thought was “mud building with doors and glassless windows.”  After a little lesson from Shawn, I now understand that there is a lot more to buildings than that.

First off, the builders use poles cut from trees to make the framework for the walls of the building.  Then they make mud bricks from the surrounding area to set within the wooden poles.  When this first layer is finished, more mud is spread onto the bricks to fill in the cracks.  Then a third application of mud is used for the outer layer.  This mud is taken from a river, where the dirt is finer, and results in a smoother finish. 

The roof of this church was made of iron sheets, provided by New Testament Churches of Christ.  The advantage of iron roofs over grass roofs is they do not need to be replaced every four to six years like grass roofs.  However, they are a lot noisier during the rainy season.  There is a gap of about four to five inches between the roof and the wall; this is to allow the hot air inside the church to rise and leave the building, keeping the congregation much cooler.  Additionally, other vents can be built into the walls if necessary.  There were only two windows in this church, and they were small and high up on the walls.  This is both less expensive and more secure.  There are two doors into the church; one is at the back of the building, to be used by the congregation.  The other is on the side of the church near the front, for the church leaders, pastor, or special guests.  There were no doors on this building, just open doorways, so the location of the entrances are determined by the direction the rains come from.  Since the rain will come from the east (more or less), the congregation’s door faces west to keep the rain out.  The floor is made by mixing mud and cow manure and spreading it over the dirt floor.  While it’s rather smelly at first, over time it hardens and forms a sort of natural linoleum that can be swept up easily and prevents a perpetual dust cloud from residing within the building.

On Saturday, Emily and I took the opportunity to visit the Tyler’s compound to visit their new litter of puppies.  A grand time was had by all, especially the puppies who enjoyed chewing on whatever they could get their sharp little puppy-teeth on.  This weekend is our quarterly meeting, so there are multiple families from teams all over Uganda staying with us until Monday. In preparation for the dinner on Sunday, the teacher house grated 3 wheels of cheese and cooked six pounds of ground beef.  (That’s a lot of cow.)  We had a few friends over for dinner, and played some games in the dark, due to the lack of power.  The president was in town for a few days, and the power company was very careful about keeping the power on while he was here.  Now that he’s left…I doubt they care quite so much.

Anyway, now that we have power again, I can post this blog and show you a picture of the cool lizards we have here! Aren’t they awesome??? This one was probably about a foot long.  We also saw a dead snake that had been hacked to pieces that was over a meter long.  I didn’t take a picture of that.

 

This is a video of me playing with the kids in the village during the eyeglass clinic from a few weeks ago.  Bubbles are super fun, no matter what continent you're on!



Lesson 5: Uganda Grows Super-Onions

         

 So after a month here in Mbale, I’m starting to feel pretty comfortable.  I’m getting into a routine of setting my alarm really early, hitting snooze about three to four times, then rolling out of bed for my morning run.  It’s quite essential to run in the early morning, as it’s ridiculously hot here during the dry season.  So I do my 2ish mile loop of walking and running at about 7 AM.  My goal is to be back up to five miles of running by the end of my stay here and be ready for a 10k once I’m back in the states.  Of course, running here is quite different from running back home.  You share the road with bodas, pikis, cars, other pedestrians…and cows.  A few days ago I ran through the middle of a herd of 25 cows that were ambling along our road.  Not exactly a common occurrence in the States.

            I’m becoming more useful when it comes to planning meals and cooking, although I see no reason to bake anything sweet when our house-worker Irene produces such delicious banana bread.  I’ve learned to follow high altitude baking instructions, as when the air pressure decreases due to the 3800 ft elevation in Mbale, it takes less energy for water molecules to escape their liquid state and turn to water vapor, resulting in a drier baked product.  I’ve also discovered that the onions are much, much stronger here than any I’ve encountered at home.  Chopping for just under 20 seconds had me crying so hard I had to leave the house to get some fresh air.

            I’ve been to the village three times now; once for the eyeglass clinic, once for a funeral, and once to visit a local church on a Sunday.  I’ve eaten quite a lot of rice and beans, g-nut sauce and matooke, as well as goat, which is pretty good.  I’ve sat in on a Tuesday office meeting with the team, and helped our sweet bookkeeper Mary Beth with payday.  I’ve been to every single community Bible study so far, and actually led the discussion this Sunday night.  (I decided we should talk about friendship- this is the clip I showed at the beginning of our discussion. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_NmCh42hZM)  I’ve toured the Good News Productions International office, and this week I hope to sit in on the women’s sewing ministry and get a tour of CURE, which treats Ugandan children for hydrocephalus.  Next month I’ll be helping out with children’s worship at church and teaching a lesson on Jacob, and on Tuesday I’ll add another four students to my classes as the Proctor family returns from Texas to join the Mbale Mission School for the semester.  I guess you could say I’m keeping pretty busy!

            In my spare time, Emily has started to give me violin lessons, which is super tricky.  Now I understand why beginning string players sound so awful.  My hand starts to cramp up when I hold the bow for more than 30 seconds.  Once the container for the Northam family makes it through customs and gets to Mbale, (we’re praying it doesn’t get stuck there for a month) I plan on borrowing the trumpet inside the container and getting my chops back into shape.  I also like to sit around and read, which there’s plenty of titles to choose from in our MMS school library, including a bibliography on Charles Darwin, which I found particularly interesting.

            The photo is of Mt. Wanale, taken from across a field about a half mile from our house.



Lesson 4: Hello, My Name is Mzungu

Tomorrow marks my one-month anniversary of living in Uganda!  I’m happy to report that I love it here, although some parts are more enjoyable than others.  It’s pretty weird being one of the few white people, or mzungu, in the country.  To give you an idea of what it’s like, think about walking from your home to the downtown part of your city.  Imagine walking up and down all the streets.  If you’re lucky, you may see two or three other white people.  Maybe.  On the four hour drive from Kampala to Mbale, I saw one other white person.  It’s very different from anywhere that I’ve been before!

Because we mzungu are so few and far between, we get stared at a lot.  Or, if you go to the market, you receive a lot of attention from people selling things.  Most of the time, as you’re weaving your way through traffic and people’s wares, you’ll be accosted by frequent calls of “Mzungu! Mzungu!” to buy anything from shoes, to pots and pans, to padlocks.  Once, as Jennifer and I were making our way through the market, people guessed that we were from the US, from China, and from India.  What makes this even funnier is that Jennifer is blonde, has freckles, and super curly hair. China? I think not.

Mzungu are shown a great deal of respect here, which sometimes makes us Westerners feel pretty uncomfortable.  For example, during our visits to church out at the village, we are shown the place of honor, right at the front of the church where everyone can see our shining, bright-white faces.  I attended a funeral in the Bududa district with a friend as a cultural experience, and we were shown the places of honor- meaning the older women who were already sitting down near the casket stood up to give us their seat.  Women will also greet you by kneeling to shake your hand.  It’s a very humbling experience to be shown such a great deal of respect by women so much older and wiser than me, simply because I am white.  They live a life so different than mine, and so much more difficult.  I should be getting on my knees to greet them!

Greetings are a huge deal here!  To not greet someone is considered very rude.  The longer you spend greeting someone, the more polite you’re considered to be.  Asking them how they are is the bare minimum; asking about their health, their family, etc., is a nicer greeting.  Handshakes are important; two-handed greetings are more respectful than one-handed greetings.  For example, placing your left hand on your right arm as you shake someone’s hand is a good way to show respect, and waving hello with both hands is friendlier than waving with only one.  I’m getting used to coming to Sunday morning Bible class and shaking hands with everyone in the building!  Not exactly how we do things in the States, but I’m becoming a fan! It’s definitely helped me learn a lot of names.

Church service is similar to that in the states, but in more languages.  We sing songs in English, Swahili, Luganda, Lugisu, and I think in Atesso as well.  I don’t really understand a whole lot yet, but here is one of the songs we sing in Swahili:

Hakuna mungu kama wewe (3x)

Ee we mungu wangu

Na sema, “Asante!” (3x)

Ee we mungu wangu

Translation:

There is no God like you

Yes, you my God

I say, “Thank you!”

Yes, you my God

            Even the English here is different.  Ugandan English actually has its own Wikipedia entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ugandan_English).  Some important ones to remember: when giving directions, “turning” is replaced by “branching.”  Also, the word “trousers” is used instead of “pants,” as the latter means underwear.  This made for a hilariously awkward conversation between Jeanie and the tailor. Jeanie asked that her tunic be made a bit short, as she was going to wear pants under it.

            Of course, there are other things that just aren’t quite the same as they are back home.  For one thing, our power likes to go on and off as it pleases.  Our longest power outage since my arrival has been three days, enough to spoil all the food in our fridge and to induce the necessity of a few cold showers.  It’s not so bad though; we have dinner by candlelight and play Canasta.  The thing that drives me crazy about not having power is temporarily losing the ability to look stuff up online, like how much potassium is in a watermelon, the frequencies in Hertz of various music notes, or how to play the cello.

            Once the power came back on, I was able to access the necessary resources to teach science today.  We talked about the changing of the seasons, the tilt of the earth as it orbits the sun…and Groundhog Day!  Only two of the five kids in my science class had heard of Groundhog Day, which I could hardly believe.  We got out the globe, found the approximate location of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania and talked about how Phil would be crawling out of his hole in about four more hours (we’re ahead of Eastern time by 8 hours) and looking around for his shadow.  Then we took great care in creating our groundhog masks to celebrate this wonderful holiday.

A very Happy Groundhog Day from all of us at MMS!



Lesson 3: Eyeglasses + Bubbles - Millet Bread = Great Fun!



Today was my first day out in the village!  So far, I have only met people from town, or at the Mbale Church of Christ.  This morning I headed out to a village west of Mbale as a part of the eyeglasses ministry. With five of us in the cab, four more in the bed of the truck, some plastic chairs and two trunks full of eyeglasses, we all left from the church at 10 AM and drove about 45 minutes out to the village.  We were welcomed by our translators and were carefully observed by about 30 curious children.  After unloading our truck, we were given the place of honor at the front of the church, where everyone could see our shining, white faces, and were introduced to the congregation by William, who is in charge of the rural ministry portion of the Mbale Mission Team.  Everyone clapped and cheered for us, and we joined together in singing Luganda praise songs.  Though I couldn’t understand a word, I could appreciate the beautiful singing.  Later, five women who were a part of the church’s chorus sang another song about Jesus’ return and the end times, the melody of which I loved and have been humming to myself all day.  After this, William stood up and delivered an impromptu sermon, and worship was dismissed so that we could begin distributing eyeglasses.

After a quick lesson on eyeglass prescriptions (which I should have known already, seeing as I wear glasses) I was paired up with a translator and my first patient was sent in.  My instruments included two “glasses-on-a-stick,” which I was able to flip over and, with some assistance from my translator, determine which prescription produced the clearest results.  After encouraging the individual to read (or at least focus on) an article about a new BBC series entitled, “London From Above,” we would determine what strength prescription to hand out.  On the other side of the church, Peace, a wonderful Christian woman who works with the team and is our resident nurse, was helping far-sighted individuals receive the appropriate glasses.  Martin, who is in charge of the eyeglasses ministry, took inventory of how many glasses we had given out; today’s total was 140 pairs!

Helping people find the right pair of glasses was incredible.  Flipping through prescriptions and finally finding the pair that allowed them to see smiles that made translating unnecessary.  What we did today was by no means healing the blind, but to be able to provide these children of God with the ability to clearly see the world around them was such a joy!  It made me think of how Jesus healed the man born blind (John 9:6).  There was no mud made from saliva today; we try to keep things as sanitary as we can, but I hope when people share the story of how they got their glasses, many more will come know Christ.

After we helped those in need of reading glasses, I wandered outside to meet the dozens of kids milling around the building.  At first, they were very shy.  Only a few spoke English, and they didn’t really understand who this talkative mzungu (white person) was, or what she doing.  But after pulling out my bottle of bubbles, we got along just fine!  The kids crowded around me, all wanting to pop the bubbles as they floated loftily in the breeze.  I tried to give each kid a chance to try their hand at bubble blowing; even some of the adults gave it a try! 

I snapped a few pictures of the kids, handed the bottle of bubbles over to one of the older girls and went back inside for lunch.  We were served rice, goat, a sort of broth with tomatoes, and millet bread.  The rice, goat and broth were excellent; the millet bread was…interesting.  It’s more of a sticky, gelatinous mound of millet grain mixed with cassava (sort of like a potato) than bread.  I washed it down with a Coke.  After thanking our hosts for our delicious meal, we packed up our truck and drove back through the bush to town.  It was a perfect day, and I can’t wait to go out again next month!

The video is a snippet of worship service at the church in the village, and the pictures below are of the kids I befriended with bubbles, and Vince and his translator assisting a man find the right pair of glasses.



Lesson 2: Weekly Lesson Plans Are for the Weak.

          This Monday was my very first day of teaching!!! Even now, after succeeding in teaching the kids a couple lessons, I’m still pretty incredulous that anyone wants me to stand in front of their kids and teach them things.

            I teach at the Mbale Mission School, and if it had a motto, it would be “Go with the flow.”  It’s a beautifully laid-back blend of classes grouped by grade level and home schooling, which allows people without an education background or teaching license (like me) to hop on a plane and spend a year or so molding the minds of the missionary kids.  Things change a lot, so you’ve got to be flexible when one teacher leaves for two days to take her child to Kampala, another teacher leaves the next two days to drive her sister to the airport, and the new teacher (yours truly) gets sick and needs someone to cover her first class of the day…and all of this during the first week of school.  Following the lead of fellow teacher Emily, I read the chapter I would be teaching and constructed a lesson plan for science that involved writing the word “energy” for Monday’s lesson.  While this level of preparation wouldn’t necessarily fly in the States, it’s an appropriate approach for MMS.  My commute consists of opening the front door, walking about 15 feet to cross our driveway, and then entering the door of the school.  Most days traffic is light, and our guard dogs Kivu and Bandit are always outside to wish me a pleasant good morning.



            Currently, there are six kids at MMS, with four more joining us in February.  Right now, I’m the instructor for a first grade Bible and science class, a third grade math class, and a fifth grade math and science class.  So far, I enjoy my science classes the most, as I can decide to add in fun stuff like comparing the driving ranges of the Chevy Volt and Toyota Prius with my six year olds.  Math class can also be fun, once you trick your students into doing subtraction by asking them how much change they would receive back when purchasing a Star Wars Lego kit.  Of course, the kids themselves are a riot.  Exhibit A, Israel, who was adamant that I get his shoe in the picture.  His six-year old sister, Annalise, is especially adorable.  When I asked her to write something on her paper that she’d like to learn about in science class, she wrote down “God.”  God gets His very own class first thing in the morning, so I encouraged her to pick out something from God’s creation to study during science class.

            There’s never a dull moment around here. Even if you do start to get bored, chances are, the power could go out at any minute and send you scrambling to find candles and matches.  A general rule of thumb is that by the time you get the oven preheated and your leftover chicken spaghetti warmed up, the power will come on and make you wish you had waited a little longer so you could have used the microwave to prepare a less labor-intensive dinner.  Of course, you also share the house with some not-so-cuddly critters.  We use our bug zapper (which looks like an electric tennis racket) to get rid of any pesky mosquitoes.  A few days ago, I woke up to a gecko darting up my wall right by my face, and Emily’s visiting sister was slightly traumatized when she discovered a rat in our kitchen.  Unfortunately, the same rat decided it was a good idea to climb into a bucket of water I had used for a spirometer experiment in science class.  The next morning, the children were all very excited to show me said drowned rat.  (I decided against granting their requests to dissect it.)

            Pictures from this week include Israel showing off his shoe, and the younger children hard at work in language arts.