In the Village

Thursdays are village days. I only once this year; the other weeks I was sick or Al was sick or someone was sick, but finally I just decided to heck with this sick business. It was my last opportunity, and I didn't want to miss it. Thankfully, God kept me feeling somehow okay and I was able to enjoy myself.

Enjoy might be the wrong word, because Amy and I went visiting the sick at Lomo Peter's (his family has a grouping of huts separate from Joyce's, the main part of the village). The first woman we visited was so sick she was literally shaking with fever, while her skin was burning. She was lying down when we a couple of the old women brought us to see her; her baby was at her side so he could nurse. She seemed almost oblivious to everything. A couple times she shook him off and sat up leaning over her little fire, which was a foot away from her bed mat. Somehow she managed to take some snuff, though. I assume it couldn't make her feel any worse than she already was, though.




So we sat around, sitting on the dirt floor hugging our legs, much closer than new acquaintances usually sit in America, knee to knee and elbow to elbow. It was nice in a way I can't describe; just sitting there in the smoke, maybe doing some small talking, maybe just watching the poor woman (that part was not so nice. Amy said she should go the clinic in Namalu, but the woman's husband was gone and the family didn't want to spend the money yet). Then Amy asked if they wanted her to read, and they said yes, so she read from the Bible in Nakaramojong. One of the women helpfully tried to guess what she was going to say next, and tell her the correct way to say it before the words were out of her mouth. Only she wasn't a very good guesser. What to do?




Then we talked to a woman with chicken pox, apparently a rare disease there. She's the one who Amy's hired to do laundry for her; just a young wife. We saw her baby, the whites of whose eyes were literally green colored with infection. Then Amy held the niece of Lomo's wife, a new baby who is very fat and cute. She also peed all over Amy. Sorry for that! Then the kids complained because they wanted a Bible story, too, so Amy went to Lomo's and did one quickly with a group of about ten eager kids, while I held the baby, who was apparently done wetting for a while.

We walked back to Joyce's, where the kids' study was ending, but the singing was so loud we could hear it even as were approaching the village! There were jerricans being pounded, dancing, and much joy. Also several grownups who had had too much to drink but were enjoying the dancing anyway. (And I don't think it's easy to dance in Karamoja, especially drunk!) Joyce is the one with the yellow wrap around her waist. Perhaps I've said this before, but it can always be said again - she's one of my heroes.