(and bad.)
I've been thinking more about Africa in general lately (as well as people suffering from AIDS worldwide), but that doesn't mean I've been forgetting about Karamoja! There's just not anything new I want to report. But after making some muffins with a recipe of Chrissie's tonight, I got out my 2005 journal and will post a couple excerpts...
May 1, 2005Well, I arrived safe and sound in Entebbe (though sans luggage) to be picked up by Craig and Kris and Albert & Laurie Tricarico. We went shopping, got stuck in traffic in Kampala - it was the beginning of a school holiday, so tons of kids going home - and made it to Karamoja around suppertime. There's been lots of development in Nakaale, but it's still the same ol' Karamoja I know and love.
The schoolboys are all home on vacation, and today Emmy became a member of the congregation at Nakaale and we all celebrated by having communion together. It was very cool!
The kids seem to get a kick out of repeating my name, and Segal's daughter Chippa asks me at least once every time she sees me what my name is...
May 8Yesterday morning Emily brought me a guava in bed. :) [I was sharing a room with the three Tricarico girls for the first couple weeks.] There's a guava tree out in the courtyard between the main house and the Eldeens'. Guavas, like passion fruit, are smaller than apples - I'm thinking apples here, which are little green ones from South Africa - so it must take a ton of them to make juice. But they're very good!
May 9Kris just stopped in tp see Laurie and ended up talking to me. It's not been an easy day at the clinic. A man brought in his little kid - Kris said he was about 4 - who was sick from getting drunk on
nagwai, the local beer. How did he get drunk? He was complaining of hunger so the family gave him enough beer to shut up. Apparently the father is very thankful the kid is alive, though; I think it's a good sign that he took him in at all. [It doesn't always happen.]
May 13Tonight Josephine and her family are coming over to Amy's for tacos. I'm looking forward to it since I haven't really seen much of J. yet. On Tuesday when I went to the clinic for a malaria smear I got to see her daughter Munyes; she looks about the same, but a little taller and a little more hair, plus she's talking now. She took my hand and led me around the yard a couple of times.