Happy ChristmEaster!

So I’ve been a little absent from the blog… many apologies! Let me catch you up to speed…

Christmas: Amazing, incredible experience. The four of us left in Uganda (after Matt and Damian peaced back out to America) went to the Holy Cross Novitiate (the fourth year of formation in East Africa) in a beautiful place called Lake Saaka, Fort Portal, Uganda. It’s on the western side of Uganda (so I felt just THAT much closer to home!) where the rains come often and I actually got to wear a sweatshirt because I needed it. That doesn’t mean I wasn’t still wearing only a shirt and skirt for our outdoor Christmas party, but still. We got to hike around the surrounding mountains, pray in an amazingly faith-filled place, be around some incredible people doing some serious soul searching, go swimming and have meaningful conversations. Pretty much I had a typical Christmas day… had a Christmas eve mass set to African music and drumming after teaching East Africans how to make paper snowflakes (anyone who remembers my adventures in my section last year… apparently my calling in life is to teach people how to make paper snowflakes then almost immediately be shown up), have my Christmas morning mass at the local prison, twice, for both the men and the women,  my typical Christmas lake swim, my typical Christmas social filled with religious, my typical Christmas dinner of matooke (mashed banana), millet bread (not actually bread), rice, beans, chicken, pork, etc. etc. followed finally by my typical after Christmas dinner dance party. So… pretty not typical. But pretty amazing!

MOM VISITS EAST AFRICA!: My mom came out to East Africa with the wonderful Susan to check out Tanzania for a couple of weeks. We had an amazingly warm reception, being met at the airport by Sr. Sabina and friends with beautiful bouquets of roses. We had the incredible opportunity of driving all over the north part of Tanzania, visiting schools, families, churches, and game parks. For those people who are safari-wise, they say that the Serengeti is “the New York of game parks.” If that’s true, then the Ngoro Ngoro Crater is the food court for the lions that live inside. Seriously… there are SO many animals EVERYWHERE. It’s an amazing experience to go there—you drive down this beautiful slope that looks like Jurassic Park (or so I’ve heard… let’s face it, I’ve never ACTUALLY seen the movie), and then the trees break into this breathtaking panorama of the 19 kilometer wide caldera which holds literally THOUSANDS if not more, animals. Zebras, lions, wildebeest, buffalo, elephants, flamingos, ostrich, birds of ALL types, warthogs, and… RHINOS!!! The only place where rhinos are naturally still found in the wild without being tracked, or so I was told anyways. And also? Listening to Toto’s Africa while driving through the Serengeti? Not sure life gets much better than that (leaving aside the geographical incorrectness of the song… Can’t actually see Kilimanjaro rising like Olympus out of the Serengeti. Womp). Then visiting a parish in a place called Bunda, where the priest has at least 25 outstations he reaches in a rusty old pickup (inspiring, inspiring man) and being welcomed by all the altar boys singing and dancing and then being given a chicken by the house? The generosity, welcome, and love? My life is unreal… But it IS real, which continues to astound me.

Then mom came to Uganda, where we got to experience the beautiful Lake Bunyoni, a lake in the southwestern part of Uganda (near to where they track gorillas, but don’t worry, we didn’t have too many encounters with them… or any for that matter). It’s one of the only lakes in Uganda which is safe to swim in, so I got to go swimming on my birthday! Also, we perfected what the employees lovingly call “The Mzungu Corkscrew.” This is a highly sophisticated and impressive canoe move whereby mzungus take a canoe out in the lake and perform graceful spirals in the boat (read: cannot manage anything except going in circles). A stop in Jinja was a whirlwind of adventure and dust and good times, being able to catch up and have two of my worlds collide a bit. I have to say, it was truly eye opening to see my mom adapting to the life here, and understanding a bit of how far I’ve come in learning my way around both geographically and culturally.

The School Year Begins: And so the academic year began, with me fighting to get more classes than I had last year, as they didn’t totally trust me, since I don’t actually have a teaching degree. This quickly morphed into me taking a very large number of classes since two of our teachers have quit this term, without replacements. If this isn’t a blatant case of “Be careful what you wish for,” I don’t know what is. That’s ok though, I’m enjoying it!

Emily comes to visit!: A literally warp-speed paced week of safari, Jinja, Bugembe, St. Jude’s, Kimasa Crèche, Kakira, Sports Day, Nile Whitewater Rafting, and Holy Week all rolled into one was a once in a lifetime experience for us. It’s truly amazing for me to get to see people coming here and discovering this wonderful life which exists here. As Emily put it, “I just want to show this place to everyone.” Fact. That’s exactly what I want. I have to say though, it proved to me how different life can be here from America… I think I’ll need a full class on how to be American when I come back again. All this newfangled technology I’ve heard about… smart phones being so popular? Yeah, my phone doesn’t even have t9 capabilities.

Lent and Holy Week: People here take their fasting and their sacrifices seriously. This has been such a thought-provoking experience for me to see—to see the people with already so little, to see those who can barely scrape together enough food for one day, to intentionally fast away from their little food. I can’t say that I understand it, but I can say it’s impressive. Palm Sunday mass (although unfortunately I wasn’t here for it) apparently had a large procession which went all the way around the neighborhood and beyond, people waving their palm BRANCHES (because everyone has to bring their own, so why not just chop it off the nearest tree?) Then Holy Thursday grew a whole new meaning for me, as people were called to have their feet washed, and I looked down at my own filthy feet, covered in the dust from walking all day. It made me think of the potential discomfort and confusion felt among the disciples when Jesus said he was just going to wash people’s feet. Because let me tell you, feet can get GROSS, and in this culture at least, having dirty feet is embarrassing. So it showed me an entirely different idea of what Jesus was doing. Good Friday is a poignant day. (Duh, Anna). But seeing the responses of the people to the day, observing the way they looked at the cross, watching the procession for veneration last for at least an hour… It brings a whole new understanding to the idea of suffering, and then also compassion. I remember being taught in Peace and Justice in high school that “Compassion” literally means “to suffer with” and watching people here process the Passion, even in showing the film to the entire elementary school, nursery up to seventh grade, makes me feel like I’m on the edge of a new understanding of Jesus. If this place does anything, it certainly challenges my idea of faith and who I think God is. And then Easter? Could there BE a happier day in Uganda? Easter vigil night I was in a car heading down to Entebbe to take Emily to the airport, and the roadside was spotted everywhere with fires for the Vigil Mass. Then Sunday morning, everyone is decked out in their finest clothes, which include the traditional dress of the gomesse in shimmering colors like the really crinkly wrapping paper, and small children in dress suits wearing regular t-shirts underneath. The singing can be heard no matter where you are, in a car, walking, in your house, coming from ALL the Christian denomination churches. A true joy. Every emotion here just feels so unguarded and so vivacious. I wish I could share THAT with everybody!

Now, life is just kind of onto a bit of normal before the end of the school term and beginning of the first term holidays!

So, after this kinda long catch up, I hope that everyone is doing well, and had an incredibly merry Christmas and a blessed Easter! (Just kind of shoving all the holidays together here).

Miss all of you!

Love from Uganda.

I Bless the Rains Down in Africa

Hello everyone! Kuli Komwaka! (Happy New Year!)

I send my apologies for my lack of writing for the last while… unfortunately my keyboard decided to stop working, so anytime I tried to type anything, it came out like this: jivnrioanvra;jfkljd;saiovrioanhf// So I decided that either it was broken, or aliens were trying to contact me. And then my mom came to visit and we had AWESOME adventures involving new people, lions, tsetse flies, rogue elephants and electric showers! So I’ve been really busy over the last month, but having an amazingly fun time!

I have a lot to catch you all up on, but first, I have to tell you about what just happened.

Since a few weeks before Christmas, we’ve been living in what Ugandans affectionately call “the dry season.” The end of November going into December, the rain had been slowing down, not happening so often. At this point, the other teachers were laughing at me. I was complaining about how hot the weather was becoming and that the dust was picking up in the air every time a car passed, and they said, “Oh Anna, only you wait.”

By February 10^th, and I understood. The heat was intense like the hottest days of summer and the sun burned me if I didn’t put on sunscreen when I stepped out the door for five minutes. The dust was so bad that coming back from a weekend trip, I could write my name on my desk, and when a car passed, I had to step off the road and shield my face, because it was blinding. I likened it to the way it was in South Bend right after a dusting, when you’re driving and a car passes and you can’t see for a few seconds until the snow settles down. I arrived at school every day this strange orange tint like a spray on tan gone horribly wrong. All of the plants turned orangey-brown, not because they died (because surprisingly, they didn’t) but because the dust was so much that it settled on top of everything.

Throughout this time, the normal signs of rain would happen. The sky would get dark, the wind would pick up, lightning would light up the sky while thunder rumbled around it. And then, nothing. The storm would blow over.

But then two days ago, it didn’t blow over!

Right before a storm, there’s this high feeling of anticipation in the air. I remember sitting on a swing in my aunt’s yard in Atlanta right before a thunderstorm one summer, feeling this anticipation. Again, it’s like that, only moreso, because everyone is outside. For some reason, right before the heavens open, cars start honking, dogs start barking, kids are yelling louder than usual. It’s this sense of chaos with the background of a freakishly dark blue-gray sky.

And then, the rain. Anything good that’s ever been said about rain, if I didn’t understand it before, I think I certainly do now. (Cue background Toto music) After feeling constantly dirty for weeks and weeks, it gave a sense of cleanliness truer than a shower. Within seconds of the downpour, the world became green again, as the dust was washed off of the plants. The air felt cool for the first time in what felt like forever. And the drops of rain splattered against our tin roof, providing this deep sense of calm as it canceled out any of the other noises. Watching what children were still left outside running for cover of any overhang, the world became refreshed, renewed, and peaceful.

And then I realized I had just finished my laundry for the week, meaning it was all still hanging on the line. Fail.

But I didn’t care. Life is wonderful.

And then I was again humbled...

Sometimes things happen that just entirely shift my frame of reference while being here. Now my schools were all pretty competitive, and by no means do I think that’s a bad thing. St. Jude is also a pretty competitive school. and I think a fair number of schools in Uganda ARE really competitive. Class rank holds a really high significance for a TON of people, and it can make all the difference for if parents are proud of you or not. So a common conversation with a kid can go like this (after all the introductions):

Me: What class are you in?

Him/Her: Primary __ class.

Me: Ahh, and are you going into this class? You were promoted?

Him/Her: Yes, I was 5^th in my class. (or whatever number)

So it’s a pretty common conversation topic, particularly for highly motivated people, like a fair number of the poeple I interact with.

So anyways, these last two weeks, since school has been out, I’ve been volunteering with an NGO in Jinja called Adolescent Development Support Network (ADSN) (Shameless plug: like us on facebook and/or follow us on twitter!) and particularly working for one of their programs called the Child Headed Household Project. This is made up of kids (aged 12-22) who, for one reason or another, were forced into growing up more quickly than the average person. Sometimes their parents are really sick and they are forced into the parenting role to take care of them. A lot of them come from the northern regions of Uganda (particularly the Acholi and Karamajong regions—both areas which were devastated by the war), and tried to escape the highly dangerous situation by coming down south, either by working their way down as they gained enough money for transport along the way, or by sneaking onto a vehicle or something of the like. Many of these then ended up on the street, picking up metal scraps or charcoal to sell for some little money which could then get them a meal or maybe help pay the rent. Going to school is often WAY too expensive for these adolescents, so they try to exist on just getting by. ADSN then tries to find these kids as they are working on the streets and get them into better situations. So through external sponsors, they have 50 kids in the program who now have places to live with each other, they have rent paid, school fees paid, and they get food delivered to them once a month for the month. They also have the workings for some counseling and some other such help.

This week, they are having a holiday programme (as they spell it here), and I came along to help out. Typical Ugandan style though, things start late and slow. So I showed up and the kids were just watching some Nigerian movie, which was not in English, Luganda or Lusoga, so they weren’t really understanding most of the move. I had brought some colored paper and pens, and we made an “I am” poems. These are the poems that I made in elementary school and then again in Junior year English where the poem starts and ends with the person's name, then includes facts and information about the person in between. One of the questions I asked them to do was to write 3 things that they are proud of. This was a difficult question for them, because humility is a HIGHLY emphasized trait here. So I gave some examples, which included, “Winning such and such football match, being able to jump very high, being 5^th in my class, etc” or something along those lines. And I talked about which position a fair amount--maybe gave 3 examples of it, kind of lowering the number as I went, trying to be sensitive, so that I didn't make those who did not get as high of positions but were still very proud feel left out; "I'm proud I'm 21st in school," etc.

I get all of the poems back, and the majority of them say,

“I’m proud I’m in school.”

Ok, paradigm shifted. I’m humbled, and again blown away by the people I meet here.

Love from Uganda.

How do you say...?

I can’t believe I’ve been here 4 months already! So, I have spent the last 4 months becoming fluent in… Ugandan English. And I thought I would share a couple of these gems with you, that those in our house often laugh about.

The first one which I have to comment on is the use of the mm’s and eh’s that get used. “Mmm” can be used in response to ANYTHING. It can mean yes, no, maybe, somehow (see below), I don’t know, I agree, I’m looking, I’m listening, I can’t believe that!, I’m sorry, and the list goes on. I think it’s funny how many parents try to break their kids of the habit of using grunts/mm’s in America, in relation to the fact that it is the most common sound/word used here.

Another thing about the way of talking is that you HAVE to greet anyone you know on the street, otherwise you are considered really rude. And greeting consists of this conversation (either held in Lusoga or English) But my favorite part of this is the fact that you absolutely do not have to remember almost anything about the other person, other than that you know him or her (even sometimes this is not necessary) because you don’t EVER use specifics. Note the uses of there, here, and they.

“Good morning! How was the night?”

“The night was fair. How was the night?”

“The night was good. How is there?”

“There is somehow. How is here?”

“Here is ok. How are they?”

“They are good. Well done.”

“Thank you. Also well done.”

“Mmm”

“Mmm” 

 And then sometimes

"mmm"

"mmm"

Then you leave.

The lack of specifics can also come in really high usefulness when it comes to conversations with strangers who you don’t really want to know where you live, because a common question to ask is “where do you live?” Luckily, you can respond to this question by “Ah, just that side,” waving vaguely with your hand.

Also, any time a word ends with a hard sound or an s, they will add a “ee” sound to the end of the word. What becomes whatee, bright becomes brightee, beans become beansee, you get the idea.

“Somehow”—this is used so often that I think I have entirely forgotten how to use it appropriately in American English. In Uganda refers to anything pretty much which is neither good nor bad. “How did the test go?” “Somehow” “How are you feeling?” “Somehow”

“By the way” – I still haven’t entirely mastered how this one is used. But it’s definitely not used in the sense that “by the way” is usually used. I think it just means, I’m adding on to what you’re already saying. Most recent example of this: Me: “It’s hot today!” A teacher: “By the way, it IS hot today!” Are you as confused as I am?

Also, in conversation, they LOVE repeating what you’ve just said, particularly in speaking Lusoga. One of my most common phrases is “I’m learning Lusoga slowly by slowly” to which EVERYONE responds, looking at me, “Ah, she’s learning Lusoga, slowly by slowly.” At least I always know I’m heard!

“But” – as far as I can tell, this is kind of used in the same sense that Americans use “by the way”… but in terms of something that the other person wants you to do/ thinks you should do. You will be talking about something entirely different, and then they’ll say, “but should you board this taxi now?” or something along those lines.

“Smart” – well dressed. Has absolutely nothing to do with intelligence.

“Sure” – This does not mean yes. If I said this, people would not think I was agreeing with them. Found this one out the frustrating way. Instead, sure kinda means “really?” and is often used like this. “You are looking smart today!” “Sure!” to which you have to respond “Yes! Absolutely!”

“Sorry!” – used with the same intonation for anything from you dropped your waterbottle to someone in the family passing away.

“Be serious” – means act like an adult. Is a really good phrase to use to get the kids to stop horsing around in class.

“Short call” and “Long call” –they both mean using the bathroom, I’ll let you figure out what means what.

“He/she” – used interchangeably. Doesn’t matter if you’re a boy or a girl, you could get either descriptor. This makes stories incredibly confusing sometimes, but proves very useful in some cases because all the children here shave their heads and sometimes it’s really difficult to tell…

“We are understanding, but we are not hearing” – this one always makes me laugh, because it just doesn’t make sense. It just means they need you to repeat, because they have no idea what I just said.

“Tomorrow” – means tomorrow, but can also mean the day after tomorrow, two days after tomorrow, three days after tomorrow, a year after tomorrow, ten years from now, AND (this is the fun part) yesterday. Guess that explains a lot more about the African concept of time.

And my personal favorite, “what what” which basically means "etc". "We plant beans, casava, matoke bananas, sweet bananas, greens, sweet pepper, what what" In our house, we try to use this one as much as possible.

I know there are more, I just can’t think of them right now, so you can be assured I will add them as time goes on. (Tomorrow haha) But as for right now, I hope you are all enjoying your holiday season! I have to say, it’s very strange, there have been a few advertisements for Christmas, but I’ve only seen them in Kampala. Today in Jinja was the first time I’ve heard Christmas music coming from anywhere but Damian’s room, and I saw fake Christmas trees. This whole commercialization thing you all are dealing with in the US? Not so much here. It’s kinda nice. Also kinda nice because let’s face it, it doesn’t really feel like Christmas time when I’m putting on sunscreen every day and wearing skirts and t-shirts… and still sweating. Ironic song: “It’s Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas.”

Hope you all are doing well, and enjoying the Christmas cheer!

Sending love and prayers from Uganda.

The Rains Down in Africa...

So over the past month plus, it has sometimes been raining early in the morning, meaning I’m walking to school either in the rain or in the intense mud. This is more than what a lot of the teachers do... for many people, it "disorganizes" them, as they say here. Since cars, raincoats, and umbrellas are rare, walking to school while it's raining is a definite ticket for getting drenched, and a likely passport to sickness. I'm lucky because I have a rain jacket . But, when it rains, school is often a few hours late starting. It's the Ugandan version of a late start due to snow. Because, as the Toto song tells us, rain in Uganda is not a light drizzle. It’s an overwhelming, pounding, so-loud-it-drowns-out-any-other-noise, drops-so-big-a-single-one-could-drench-you kind of rain. This then means that walking to school results in a slip-sliding endeavor that I consider successful if I don’t end up facefirst in the mud. Also, this means that if a car or boda or bus goes past, it splashes all the standing water and mud up onto you. Luckily, today the cars were relatively considerate, and not going too fast, which meant that the splash only got below the knees (there have been times where I’ve shown up to school with my shirt covered in mud splatters… ah the joys of walking to schools on the romantic dirt roads of Uganda). Anyways, I arrived at school today (morning mass on Wednesdays) looking like a splatter paint drawing from the knees down.

Mass was great, lots of singing and clapping and kids squeezed into the church, and then as soon as it was over, I walked outside, to find that somehow, I had provided enough material for laughter that the teachers already standing outside the church were giggling. “Anna! You were digging in the garden this morning?” There are two things I should explain from this statement about Ugandans that I’ve realized (not to make overarching generalizations or anything like that). 1. The whole idea of embarrassment is just not a thing here. If you make a mistake, or something happens to which you’d be mega embarrassed in the states, here people just kind of laugh it off, and others around you will get a huge kick out of it, but in a truly loving way, not a malicious sense at all. 2. Ugandans like things being clean. Their roads are pure red dirt, there’s nothing which isn’t covered in the dirt after about 15 minutes of cleaning it, but they LOVE having clean things. You will see people washing their cars every single day, (if they have enough money for cars, they have enough money for that much water), washing their houses and porches multiple times a day, and even looking “smart” or very well put together is a high expectation. Granted, this looking well put together thing doesn’t have anything to do with matching… sorry JQ, I’m going to come back even less capable of matching… but that’s another blog post for later. But overall what I’m saying is that looking clean is a high priority for Ugandans. And, what’s clear is at this point, I was anything but clean. And, due to my skin color, mud seems to show up MUCH more obviously than it does on my colleagues.

So, one of the nuns called a girl who boards at Jude’s over and asked her to bring her basin and Gerry can (a tub for water, used by Germans during the war) full of water for me to wash. It was as if the whole school was mobilizing to get the mzungu teacher clean again. And then, it’s always funny for elementary school kids to see their teachers doing things that shows them more human and like them, and then especially to see a mzungu washing her feet in a basin just like they do… it was a true spectacle. So, with at least 25 kids staring at me in amazement, I washed off my feet and legs. Just another day at St. Jude’s, adventures with Madame Anna. And then of course, due to the hot equatorial sun, by the time I was walking home, you never would have known that it had rained.

The other big news of the day… sometimes I get a little frustrated with the whole teaching system. Calling it unorganized would be equivalent to calling chocolate cake "ok." Yesterday, I was teaching about how to find the area of triangles. ½ Base x Height. Ok, figured this was simple enough, especially after teaching finding the area of rectangles, and showing them that a triangle was half of a rectangle. As I was correcting their books this morning, I realized, they have NO idea what "half" means. They never learned fractions. That’s one of the problems with coming in during the third term of the year. Fractions are listed in the book before area, but I guess they never were taught. Makes sense right? Ugh. So then I re-taught it today just using divide by two, and all of the kids got the majority of the questions right, whereas yesterday, not a single one got any of them right. A frustrating thing, but an interesting lesson I think in learning to reframe things and ideas, and seeing how what might appear as stupidity actually is just misunderstandings of particular smartness. Oh teaching, you are always such an adventure.

Hope you all are doing well!

Love, from Uganda.

Little Moments of Love, Little Moments of God

Webale dear friends!

So, I just thought I would enlighten you with some of the wonderful things that make me smile every day here... for instance, one of my neighbors, named Jonah, is in kindergarten here, and every day when I come walking home, he comes running down the street, if I'm lucky, or at least just running from his house to meet me before my house, yelling, "NANA!" and then jumps into my arms. Then this is the common conversation that happens:

Jonah: "NANA!"
Me: "Jonah!"
Jonah: some words in Lusoga that I don't understand but he seems to think I do, because I do a good job of nodding and smiling.
Me: "How is the day?"
Jonah: "The day is good."
Me: "How was school?"
Jonah: "School is Monday." (No matter what day of the week it is, school is always Monday)
Me: "Noooo..."
Jonah: "School is, um, Saturday."
Me: "Noo..."
Jonah: "School is ... Friday?"
Me: "No... "
Jonah: "School is SUNDAY!"
Me: "No..."
Jonah: "School is cloudy day?"

So no matter what, he always seems to forget the actual day of the week it is... so I whisper it in his ear after all this, then he yells it proudly. But I'm pretty sure from now on for the rest of my life, whenever I hear someone ask how school was, my response will be, "School is Monday!"

Other than that, the day was good... I showed up to teach, and walked in for my hour, when I found out the half hour before me, the class didn't have a teacher (typical). Today's lesson was, "Join these two sentences using "...and..." When I finished that, it was break, then I was supposed to teach again, but another teacher decided to go in for an hour. After that hour, I asked the teacher next to me whether he wanted to teach the first or the second half hour next, to which he told me to just teach both. This kind of situation is pretty common here... but for the most part I don't mind. Especially because it's really hard to get any topic across in just an hour, to teach them and have them do exercises, which they have to do every day, otherwise they are very upset with me. Today was about finding the area of irregular shapes, so it was good to have the extra time. But the kids were being really frustrating today, and so I was about at the end of my rope when I was sitting outside, marking their books.

And here enters God: One of the children from baby class came up, and I was just too tired to say much more than, "Hi!" and then look back at my marking, entirely wrapped up in my frustrations and I'm not proud to say, not making too much of an effort, when the girl asked me, in a question I haven't heard my entire time I've been here, "Are you ok?" (It's just not a common Ugandan question). I looked up and my heart melted as the girl just pulled me into a hug, gave me the greatest hug in the history of all time, and then skipped off on her merry way. This is just one example of how when I'm tired/frustrated/homesick, God just steps in and tells me I'm so loved.

Sending all that love your way, hope you're all well! Praying for you!

Love, from Uganda.

Gas Crisis...

So I figure I can write long posts and wait for a long time in between them now...  or I can also write shorter ones that keep everyone up to date on a quicker fashion. So, sorry, fans, for being so MIA from the blogging nation... poor electricity and teaching means that internet time is generally limited, but I'm glad to at least know that whoever is following me now is for sure the real fans, right? Because you're still with me!

Anyways, all joking aside, the big thing right now (other than Gaddafi being killed, which is HUGE news over here, not sure what the sitch is in the US?) is that all of East Africa is in a gas crisis. Ok, in America, a gas crisis means that gas prices have risen to a ridiculous price. Here it means that there is literally no gas to buy. So, since we have a gas stove, this posed some... interesting predicaments... this last weekend, when we ran out of our last of two tanks of gas. We DO have a small charcoal cooker, about the size of a pot, so, we have had some interesting run in experiences with that. First of all, we have to boil all of our water so we don't get typhoid/other water borne illnesses. So... boiling water on a charcoal cooker? Less than easy. But we figured it out. Then Saturday, cooking dinner was an adventure. We decided that we would do our occasional Mexican night (surprisingly easy considering how far away we are from Mexico, due to the large amounts of rice, beans, and avocado in Uganda, plus there’s a fair number of tomatoes, hot chilis, green peppers, onions, and limes… what else do you need? Then we get some chapati and it’s ALMOST like they’re tortillas). So, Matt got some fresh beans and figured out how to start up the cooker and cook the beans, which took a lot longer than we expected. Then I started the rice, where the water wasn’t QUITE simmering, but it was hot? So it worked to a certain extent. Then Shane and I started the veggies, but realized that almost all the heat was gone from the cooker. Turns out apparently you’re supposed to keep adding charcoal. Who knew? Not us, that’s for sure. So, we added more charcoal. Which didn’t catch on fire or heat or whatever the correct terminology for that is. So then we added some paraffin (like lighter fluid? Is how it was described to me). Then cooked the green peppers and onions. Now I’m imagining that all of you who know how to use charcoal are laughing at us now… because APPARENTLY anyone who knows anything knows that you’re supposed to wait at least 20 minutes before cooking anything when you add charcoal and paraffin. A. We didn’t know that. And B. Dinner was already WAY late at this point because it had taken us so long, so we were a little impatient. So, we finished cooking, the veggies still a bit crunchy due to our impatience, and sat down to eat. Luckily we popped one of the veggies in our mouths before throwing them on our burritos… because it tasted exactly like lighter fluid. In an almost toxic sort of way. So… as one of the nuns who I told this story to said after she stopped laughing enough to get words out, you learn something new every day. So I hope you’ve all had a good chuckle at the things I learn while living in Uganda.

And since then, we’ve gotten an electric water boiler thing (my great way with words is coming out with this description), which we were actually talking about before, since we realized about 2/3 of our gas tank goes to boiling water, so we were thinking about pricing/conservation options, which has made having tea/coffee in the morning AMAZING, provided we have power. So, things are pretty good. And then gas is supposed to be back starting tomorrow (hopefully that’s real time and not Africa time), so my newfound knowledge will go latent for a little while. But I’m coming out of this experience wiser, and thinking that I might have been able to set my burp on fire.

I miss you all and am praying for you. Sending love from Uganda!