Random Pictures

Pictures all have stories of their own - here a few short ones.

Girls in the village of Lomo Peter. The girl on the right has some of the most beautiful beadwork I've seen on someone under about 15.

Craig and another guy hard at work on the foundation of a new house. (Jake helped work on this when he was there; I'll try to post a picture soon, as they got lots more built since I was there.)

Beans and posho in Nakapiripirit. You can use the posho to scoop up the beans. It was very tasty! Posho is finely-ground maize or sorgum flour, I think.


I had to take this picture for my friend Melodee - the middle girl's shirt says "It's all about baseball." This was at the hand-pump gas station outside of Nakapiripirit.

The living room in the main house. The couch is the perfect place to sit and copy recipes from Woman's Day and O magazine if you're sick...

Amy brought "Flat Stanley" to Agirowas' village. The kids enjoyed posing, if not quite sure why they were doing it. Amy even asked two warriors to pose, and they said yes! That was one of the funniest things I've ever seen, although I didn't laugh. Warriors are somehow scary. ;-) I bet the classroom in America who get these pictures are going to be quite excited!

Chrissie's new cat, Loru. The first day Chrissie had her, she stole dough while all the girls were making chapatis outside. A few days later, Kris' pregnant cat, Patches, chased Loru all the way up a tree. I haven't heard in a while how she's doing, but my guess is Loru is going to be quite a cat when she grows up.

Baby Bob

Last year I posted about my friend Rose, who had a miscarriage just after I visited the first time. Praise God, she was pregnant during my second visit and I came back this time to a fat, healthy baby...who is clearly the cutest baby in Nakaale. :)

Loduk Robert, aka Baby Bob

kire ejok Akuj - truly God is good!

Update

Apparently the peace talks aren't going very well yet...the government is fearing that if they agree to a ceasefire before other terms have been agreed to, the rebels will just use that to build up strength. Considering what this group has done in the past, I guess I'd be fearing too.

The news so often is bad; there really is no real hope without one who can change people's hearts and lives and bring lasting peace - with God as well as man...

Sausage Trees (A Karamoja Special)

If you watch this video, you might notice a tree with some things dangling from it. There are quite a few of these trees around Nakaale, and they are distinctly weird-looking. As we were driving up for the first time, I asked Bob what was hanging from the trees. He told me with a straight face that they were sausages, hung out to cure (or whatever is done to sausages).
I really thought they were, too, until I realized Mary and Kips had dolls they'd made out of these "sausages." They're really almost like a giant potato in texture; very firm insides and dirty, tough skin on the outside. Definitely not sausages, though. They actually grow from the tree, suspended by vines that look an awful lot like rope.

Cool, huh?

Ejok

Sorry for the lack of blogging, for those of you who check it regularly. I've been wanting to take up AmyLav's suggestion to post pictures/stories of Jake's visit - but I haven't really talked to him yet, and am lacking material to blog about. (This is sad. In Uganda, you don't just not see someone...I don't know if that makes sense, but everyone seems to be much more easily involved in each other's lives.) But hopefully I'll have something for you soon...

The LRA...

is pretty big in the news right now; President Museveni is offering amnesty to the leaders. Peace talks start this week, I think. Please pray that they go well! The LRA has been wreaking havoc in northern Uganda for many years - perhaps this could be the beginning of the end.

I just read a story online in the New Vision, one of Uganda's main newspapers. It's about one of the wives of the rebel leader, speaking about her 11 years in captivity. I expected it to be like other stories I've read, where woman who have escaped speak out against what was done to them. The chilling thing about this story is that the young woman sticks up for her captor. She didn't even know about the things the LRA was doing until she came back to Uganda. He might have been good to her as she says (although does beating someone for letting another wife's babies cry sound good?), but on his authority thousands of children have been kidnapped and forced to kill even their own family members. It shows why the LRA has managed to stick around so long, though; fear and power speak to people in a scary way.

Very Tasty

I got A Taste of Uganda for my birthday, imported direct from Kampala by Amazon.com! It has recipes that I'll never make, such as White Ant Relish or Grasshoppers I & II. (That reminds me of a little girl in one of the villages; she was carrying around a cup full of little winged ants, a tasty and probably nutritious (?) snack.) But it also has lots of rice and bean and pumpkin and sweet potato recipes that I'll make. And fried samosas and mandazis...mmm!

A guy from church just got back last week from a month in Karamoja. (People from Billings are ever going to Uganda!) It sounds like he had a good time, and Kris says he helped get a lot of work done. He brought back my beads that Lokwii had been stringing for me, which made me ridiculously happy. Also my Karamojong stool and recent pictures from Rachel, which was even better than the beads.

In Martha and Chrissie's last updates this week, they said they were starting a class in a few of the local schools, so hopefully that's going well.

Howah you?

This isn't my video, but it is too cute, completely. (And very true to life!)

In the village

May 13th

Yesterday we went to Kopetatum for Bible study, a whole truckload of us. It looked like a real African vehicle with 7-8 of us riding in the back. It was a fun ride although we got somehow besplatter with mud. I was even picking it out of my hair, and some of the kids tried to brush it off for me, giggling at the ecoto. There were more adults than usual, and a lot of teenage girls hanging around for the kids' story. There was a jerry can drum for the songs, so it was an enjoyable time. I'm discovering I like the dirty, smoky village smell quite a lot, so long as the ngagwe [beer]/defecation element isn't too strong.a


My favorite village picture!

(These pictures are from Loumo Peter's, not Kopetatum. But they somehow fit.)

Sunday, May 14th
This morning Emily woke me up at 6:40 so I could go to the early worship at Kopetatum with her. Rachel came along, too. We all rode in the back of the truck just for the fun of it. The morning was chilly already, but with the wind blowing against us on the road, I was COLD. We had to dodge a thorn tree when the back end fishtailed in a big mud puddle; all of us ended up thrown down on the truck bed.

The excitement didn't end there, because as Pastor was "aki-mobilizing," a woman started screaming and then we saw a small deer being chased toward the village. It veered off back the way it came, but a bunch of men and herd boys ran after it, armed with nothing more than a big stick. They were running fast but I suspect the deer got away.

Perhaps ten adults and a few more kids came for prayers. We sat on the ground; a few people crowded onto the small dead tree (hardly a log) that was handy. Al's sermon was on Simon the Sorcerer (in the book of Acts) and what the power of God truly is - to change hearts and lives.

Here's a not-G-rated picture from Loumo Peter's, but classic K'jong "toto" (mother), and the look on this woman's face gets to me very much.