Merry Christmas!

Kris says it's hot in Karamoja, and Kampala is suffering from Christmas-overload (Santa is apparently very popular there), but she sounds glad to be spending another Christmas in Uganda. Laurie says they're planning to have a big dinner today or tomorrow with the clinic staff, which sounds like a fun way to kick off their Christmas celebrations. It reminds me that it shouldn't seem strange for people to be celebrating Christmas in Karamoja - Christmas was meant to be for all sorts of people, whether shepherds in the Middle East or goatherds in Eastern Africa:

But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord....

Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests."

Fermented Fruit Salad

Last year Katie and I were going to make a fruit salad. We'd just gotten a bunch of fresh fruit from Kampala...or at least, we thought it was fresh. Unfortunately, Pastor Al got delayed an extra day in Kampala after he'd bought it, so it sat for quite a while in a container in the hot sun on top of the van roof.

I cut into a watermelon and juice started fizzing out of it. "Is that supposed to happen?" Katie and I asked each other, a little worried. We cut it all the way open and realized the foaming was due to fermentation. Yum!

The pineapple was the same way. In the end, we had to give up on the fruit salad idea and haul out a bunch of rotten fruit, which we had to stand on a log on tiptoe to throw over the wire fence into the garbage heap.

Kids

The older shepherd boy, on the right, had pretty effective sign language for asking me to take a picture. He'd hold an invisible camera up to his eye and "click" an invisible button with his finger.

 

Tongues

Thanks to Katie for this one; it's one of my favorite Karamoja pictures of all time. :) The girl in the plaid dress is Joyce's daughter Opie (Opee-ay)...I'm not sure who the others are, but they're cute!