Going back...

So, I got an email from Kris on Sunday, telling me if I want to come visit then April 19 is my arrival date. Lord willing, I'll get to spend about five weeks in Karamoja then. I've been considering this for a long time (well, since last summer), but kept thinking of reasons why it wouldn't work out. Now I'm going back and forth between fearing that things will just be different and weird for some reason (irrational) and just being really, really excited and thankful. I guess I'm just worried because I don't really know what I'll be doing...but that's unreasonable because there'll be plenty to do, and I'll be quite happy doing whatever! And guess how many lists I've already made for this trip? It's sad. Anyway, I'd be grateful for your prayers that God be preparing me now...especially to trust his strength in my weakness and to have a heart and head to serve.

Here's some excerpts from Martha's general email of what to expect in Karamoja:

Nakaale is the name of a little townland just outside the trading center/town of Namalu. If you're looking at a map, Nakaale is roughly halfway between Mbale city (3rd largest city in Uganda) & Moroto town, in Nakapiripirit District, South Karamoja. (You will probably not see the name 'Karamoja' itself on any modern maps, as it was the name given to the entire region under the British, but now the country is broken up into districts, so you have to look for Nakapiripirit to find the modern district name.)

Most people in rural Africa like to greet others & appreciate being greeted. As you are walking along, you may pass people who will say a quick 'ejok' or 'ejok nooi' (hello/good/very good - all meaning basically 'hi'). You may shake hands or not, depending on if you want to stop & say hello, or if they appear to want to. Otherwise you can raise a hand in a 'hi' sort of gesture & just say ejok (pronounced roughly 'eh-JAWK'). (There are many greetings in Karimojong, but that one is adequate.)

WHAT ABOUT CRITTERS & VARMINTS?
You probably won't be sorry to hear it, but gone are the days when the missionaries in Nakaale played rat hockey in the living room...The little lizards you see climbing walls & windows are mostly geckos & skinks & are not only harmless but actually probably helpful in that they eat insects.

The word for 'snake' in Karimojong is "emun" (pronounced like "eh-moon"), but most everyone understands the English name too. Usually if you shout "snake!" every Karimojong within earshot will come running and pulverize it before you can even get close to it.

Chrissie

Melodee here.

Chrissie's been keeping the e-mails busy since she arrived in Karamoja. I love it! She's already started teaching, and is getting "classroom discipline" figured out. (And it isn't that easy, even when you only have a few students! Don't I know it... sigh...)

She says she expects to have malaria in ten days. Why don't we all pray that it holds off a little longer than that? (Or a lot longer?)

Amanda says...
It's really been great getting daily updates; I hope she can keep it up. Chrissie's got some creative solutions up her sleeve, like making Sudoku puzzles to keep the kids busy when they get their homework done early...

Also, she says she and Amy are going to soon have their own brick bandas (round houses), complete with thatched roofs and solar power! Sounds like fun.

And the President is...

Yoweri Museveni. Not really much of a surprise. I'm surprised Besigye got 37% of the votes, actually; that seems more of a sign that elections were somehow fair than that they were rigged. Anyway, thankfully there hasn't been much violence since the elections started on Thursday.

Gunshots and Waterfalls

This is going to be a long post...but if I broke them up, the first one would be rather disheartening, IMO.

June 16th, 2004
There was a serious AK incident last night. A young man, perhaps 19 years old, got drunk and for whatever reason (one story is that he wanted to kill someone who owed him cows for a sister and wasn't paying up, and another is that his in-laws were pressuring him to go raiding and were giving him and his wife such a bad time that he was just going to end his life), he was going to do some shooting. His wife got involved somehow, maybe trying to stop him, and they both got shot. The boy died pretty much immediately, shot through the abdomen; the girl got a neck/shoulder wound and was eventually taken to Mbale. Bob saw her and said he'll be surprised if she lives. Apparently her trachea got torn into, because she was actually breathing through the wound from the bullet.

This week has really been fraught with troubles: illness, conflict, death.

[It was also a good week in other ways, but this gives a picture of the hazardous life some people live there, and how easy it must be to discouraged in Karamoja sometimes...]

July 4th
Yesterday we went to Sipi Falls. On the way I sat with Rita Hayworth & Goldie Hawn, alias Jay & Lila Cooper, alias Mary and Kipsy.


Sipi Falls

At Sipi, I was going to wimp out and go on just the short hike because I didn't think I could make it for 3-4 hours without lunch. THankfully, Rachel talked me into it. We went to two incredible waterfalls, and also got to crawl around in a cave with crystals and bat poop, as well as see coffee and banana plants, so was very worthwhile. The only bad part is that had accidentally put dead batteries in my camera to replace dying ones, so I have no pictures.


Up close (from Kris & Craig's pictures)

Africa pictures

I just found these A Day in the Life of Africa pictures...it's interesting seeing other parts than Uganda.

Brrr

It's finally above zero here, and very sunny...perfect weather to be flying to Uganda, huh? My friend Chrissie left early this morning and tomorrow night (US time) should arrive at the Entebbe airport, where it's been in 100s I think. It hasn't quite sunk in yet that she's going to be there for a year (helping teach), but I'm glad she got off all right!

I forgot to share the news I heard from Kris last Thursday. She says she and Craig are really enjoying their new Land Cruiser - it's nice to have a vehicle that they can actually fit all their supplies (and more than a couple people) in!

She also shared a prayer request. Things didn't go so well with handling the meningitis epidemic; the clinic wasn't allowed enough vaccinations to really get the job done, so there's still some danger of it happening again.

We finished the vaccine campaign today. It was a big disappointment, with only 2500 to 2800 getting shots. There should have been at least twice that number. This means we could have another epidemic on our hands in a few months. So pray for that and being able to quickly attack it if it happens again, not waiting 8 weeks.

Also, if you think of it, please pray for the Ugandan elections coming up on the 23rd. And here's a somewhat humorous article about the silent canidates.

Kampala

The capital of Uganda is Kampala, a noisy crowded city where traffic is insane. I couldn't figure out any of the driving rules, but thankfully Bob (who was driving) did. I'd hate to live there, but it was fun visiting!

Eating pizza in the outdoor Italian restaurant in Kampala, where I ordered a beer for the first time (a bit surreal that it was an italian beer). This is from my first trip, in 2004.

Kampala, on a not-very-busy street

One of my favorite pictures/memories from this Kampala trip...hanging out at the mall before going to see The Prisoner of Azkaban. I haven't posted it before because it's such a nerdy picture, but we were having a really good time. :) Rachel, Bobby, and I also got ice cream, which wasn't really the texture of American ice cream, but tasted good just the same. This is the only theater I've ever been to where you can buy popcorn and two glass bottles of pop for around $2!

Elections

Uganda's elections are coming up next week. Apparently the Human Rights Watch is very pessimistic about how fair it will be. Museveni does seem extremely likely to win, but there's also the fact that the elections are likely (I hope!) to be somehow peaceful. Please pray that things go well...

Sisters

This is an amazing story about three Ugandan sisters who've just been reunited; two of them were captured and raped by rebels from the DR Congo eight years ago and just were returned home.

This is one of my favorite village pictures; these kids are half naked and have swollen bellies from malnutrition, and I've seen them looking sad, but they have the best smiles.

All men are created equal

Our library here doesn't have the Chinua Achebe book Ashleigh recommened, but it does have Another Africa, a collection of poems by Achebe and photographs of Africa, of people and still lifes, basically. It's worth finding just for the essay at the end, about The Heart of Darkness view vs. seeing all men as having human dignity. I'd like to post some of it here, but it'll be hard to pare down to just a few best parts.

This is the first poem in the book.

A Mother in a Refugee Camp
No Madonna and Child could touch
Her tenderness for a son
She soon would have to forget...
The air was heavy with odors of diarrhea,
Of unwashed children with washed-out ribs
And dried-up bottoms waddling in labored steps
Behind blown empty bellies. Other mothers there
Had long ceased to care, but not this one;
She held a ghost-smile between her teeth,
And in her eyes the memory
Of a mother's pride....She had bathed him
And rubbed him down with her bare palms.
She took from their bundle of possessions
A broken comb and combed
The rust-colored hair left on his skull
And then - humming in her eyes - began to part it.
In their former life this was perhaps
A little daily act of no consquence
Before his breakfast and school; now she did it
Like putting flowers on a tiny grave.

Reading list

I'm tired of reading depressing things about Africa...or only depressing things, rather. I want to know about Rwanda, famine, AIDS, corruption, and there are stories of hope mixed up in that, but there's also more to it. This year I want to make the effort to read more "good stuff."

So here's the short list.

- finish A Distant Grief (which is an amazing story about a Ugandan church during Idi Amin's dictorship, but for some reason over Christmas I got distracted from it and haven't picked it up again yet)

- a book about Nelson Mandela/South Africa (like this one Marvin Olasky mentions, Beyond the Miracle: Inside the New South Africa )

- finish Ceremony, because Nigel Barley isn't depressing even when bad things happen in the book

- find 1-2 books about what's going on now - the "success" stories, I guess, especially from an African view

- books about the Church in Africa, books by African Christians (this includes finishing The Man with the Key Has Gone!.)

- also, a good geography book. Because where is Guinea Bissou? (Or am I making that up?)

- and the last two books in the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series.

Do you guys have any good Africa book suggestion?