You Know You’re Living in Central Uganda When…..

I’ll probably add to this as I go, but here are some fun tidbits about life here :) The bottom few are from a status I posted on Facebook nearly a month ago. All of these are from my personal experience, and are not meant to make any blanket statement about Ugandan/African culture. I’ll try to be sure these are fair & balanced ;-)

~~You’ve gone through a can of DOOM in each of the two months you’ve been here. The first was mostly on roaches, this second has been mostly on ants…..
~~You get to hear it easily when your neighbors are singing praise & worship in the evening—and be encouraged by it!
~~Seeing lizards of at least four different types is a nearly daily occurrence! And tons of new bird species, all beautiful :D And bats, sometimes even during the daytime.
~~You witness thousands of ants “migrating” (at least moving houses), and notice how many different sizes & types there are! {I got a video of it – I’ll have to try to post it so y’all can see. Pretty fascinating, but I’m kind of scared I’m going to dream of ants tonight….}
~~Rain suddenly becomes a whole lot more important than it ever did in the States! {See this blog post by the family I’m here with. I’ve got one rolling around in my head too, but it has yet to be composed.}
~~You’re happy when laundry “only” takes two solid hours of constant involvement.
~~You realize that you’re getting used to showering by cup & basin—so thankful for our electric kettle to heat water (when the power is on)! Morning showers (BRR!) call for two!
~~Trees along the road wear makeup during the dry season (the roads are dirt out here in the bush, and the red soil ends up coating the plants!)
~~Your blister count in a month and a half is up to four. (This is simply because I have soft American hands – three came from helping with shelling/slashing at the family I’m connected to.)
~~You catch yourself staring at your reflection in a shop mirror for several seconds…..because it’s the most you’ve seen of yourself in the past week! (we only have a small round hand mirror in our hut…)
~~You’re surrounded by people who love & care about you – and who will check in with you and pray for you. I am so blessed by the intentionality & community here!

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~~The smallest things make you sweat. Like making your bed. Or sitting on the couch (especially with a computer in your lap). Even a couple hours after dark, with the windows open!
~~You get excited about a car ride, because it might be the one point you get to feel the AC. And when the daily weather is a broken record "hot & sunny" most of the time, that's important. {Rainy season will be here soon, and then the weather will not be as dry/hot.}
~~You have a slight sunburn/fresh tan on your shoulders from a mid-day walk {and a few times of doing laundry} when it's JANUARY, and your new friends from MN & SD are talking about -36 degree weather and huge snow drifts.
~~Your bed time is sometimes determined by what time the Internet decides to quit working. {ie, the night when I copied this off of FB and was going to post it on my blog. Internet quit, so I’m just going to go to bed and do this another time!}
~~You're learning to be thankful for a result when you flip the light switch....because it seems like often as not over the past week, the power has been out. {On Sunday, power went out at about 3:30 and stayed out until Tuesday night. Even the solar-powered battery for the dining hall ran out of juice!}
~~You go to dinner and get "attacked" by an adorable 2-year-old whose smile stands out in his dark face. And where you are greeted by a handshake or hug from nearly every person in the room.
~~When you know, deep down inside, that you are where you're supposed to be. No matter how rough the day has been, no matter how tempting it is to go back to the easier life.
~~When you're learning to pray in and walk by faith. When you're reminded that God didn't bring you here for nothing. That He's got a purpose & a plan, and that He's going to teach you AND use you. No matter what.

{I needed the reminder of those last couple. God is good, ALWAYS :)}

Harvest Time

One of the main dietary staples in central Uganda is posho. It is made from ground maize (similar to cornmeal) and cooked in water to create a stiff mush. We frequently have it for lunch here at the Institute, always with a soup or sauce of some sort to put over it. In the past six weeks, I’ve had the opportunity to witness/help with the gathering of the maize.

Here at Kasana, the children who have been placed in New Hope’s care are part of family groups. A Ugandan father (and often mother) are in charge of each family group, which has between 15 and 20 children. These family groups provide a home for those who come in as orphans, emphasizing NHU’s focus on bringing the Fatherhood of God to the fatherless.

Each family group has land to grow maize and for a garden. The dry season is beginning to come to an end, so the past couple weeks have seen many maize fields harvested and re-plowed for the new crop that will be planted when the rains come. I pitched in on two maize harvesting days, one with Ebenezer family and one with Worcester (pronounced Wooster) family.

Everyone who is a staff member at NHU, and all the Institute students, are placed with one of the family group as “associates.” The family I teach for and I are both part of the Worcester family for while we are here. A couple weeks back, the kids and I went to join the family in harvesting their maize, which is all done by hand. I was proud of how hard the kids worked!

In the maize fields are lots of weeds with tagalong seeds, leaving scores of prickles in one’s clothes. Harvesters grab the ear of maize (which has been allowed dry on the stalk) and pick it off the stalk, either before or after shucking the husks. Then the ear is chucked to one of the growing piles of harvested maize. Sometimes termites have taken down a stalk and eaten out the cob of an ear – but if the maize is still good, it’s still good.

Both times, we started early in the morning. But it warms up quick here, and soon it is hot work. Most stalks only have one ear of maize, and sometimes that ear is tiny and underdeveloped. After retrieving the ear, the stalk is broken down to mark it as completed. The team of harvesters work their way from one end of the field to the other, with at least some degree of regularity. And when you finish, there’s thanks and celebration.

One evening last week, I went over to my family group because the father had told me they often garden at that time. Instead, the mother and the four girls in the family were shelling the corn. Two girls worked a hand-crank shelling machine, while the others shelled by hand. Already they had three big bags of maize kernels as well as a large, ever-growing pile on the floor. I helped shell some by hand, though the mother gave me the easier ears. And I got a big blister on my thumb, even with wearing work gloves!

Now there are four big bags of maize sitting in the family’s living room/dining room/circular “hut” with a thatched roof but open to the breeze. They are waiting to be taken and ground into meal which the family will eat as posho. I thoroughly enjoyed learning a bit about the harvesting and getting to help out with it :)

Catching Up - Finally!

Well, I have had another long hiatus on here. Sorry for the lack of posting – the fall/winter months did not go as I had expected, and I sometimes felt like I didn’t have anything worth talking about on my blog. Especially after the crazy/exciting three-to-four months after graduation!

This fall was really important for me though. I was reminded again and again that “My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways” (Is. 55:8). I had plans, plenty of them….But God’s plan was different than anything I had expected. While the changes and unmet expectations this fall were certainly challenging at times, I am thankful for the assurance I have that God has brought me where I am for His purposes and glory alone. Because of that, I can say that there is nowhere else I would truly rather be during this time.

The beginning of October dropped a new door in my path after the three doors I had wanted to work out closed instead. There was an opportunity to assist a new missionary family by helping homeschool their five kids. I didn’t feel qualified…it felt out of my league…but I sensed God’s direction and so I (a bit hesitantly) offered my availability. A month later, I was officially accepted and knew for sure: I would be spending January through May in Uganda! God provided in a really big way for me to come here—even when my faith was weak. He certainly deserves all the praise for that.

So the past five weeks I have been adjusting to living in the African bush. A friend last night asked me if I’d had culture shock, or how I liked it so far. There are, of course, differences in lifestyle. While some things are more challenging here (no running water at my hut, intermittent electricity and Internet), I can honestly say that I like it here just as much as in the U.S. Different can sometimes mean better :D

One of the many things college taught me is that I’ve always been a small-town girl at heart—and so spending four months mostly in the mega-tropolis of DFW was not always easy….especially having spent the three months previous in places where I could easily walk a short distance and be by myself surrounded by trees or open country. Going to a city park (which I did sometimes) is just not the same as walking out one’s back door and straight up a deserted mountain…or leaving one’s dorm and shortly later arriving at a hidden little hollow in the woods. Here in Uganda, I’ve already find a couple spots at our mission’s compound that I’ve visited for the same purpose. And it’s nice to have that chance again.

I’m also loving the opportunity to spend a lot of time with kids here. In addition to the five I came to work with (who are mostly teens/pre-teens), there are five kids all under the age of 9 who live right around my hut. Their parents are attending the same Institute training that the parents I came with are in. Just this morning, two of the little girls – ages 3 and 5, I think – were just hanging around my hut. They’re pretty fun and mostly sweet – though sometimes rambunctious and crazy of course :) The other three “Institute kids” are siblings, ages 9, 6, and 2. I love indulging my inner childhood spirit playing with them all :D

The adults have also made the experience an enjoyable one. Ugandan culture places a high priority on relationships, and it certainly shows. There are about a dozen adults (plus the five younger kids) who eat all of our meals together, and as we gather we greet one another with handshakes or hugs. It’s just been a great blessing to be in a small community like this, as part of the larger New Hope Uganda community at Kasana.

Do I miss JBU and my college friends, and my family, and the places/people where I left parts of my heart this summer? Of course I do. It’s hard for me to believe how long it’s been already since those places were my current home. I’ll always be thankful for them and jump at any chance to visit. And I’ve been grateful for the opportunities I’ve had to use Skype, Facebook, email, the phone, etc. to keep in touch with folks over the past nine months (WOW) since graduation. But life goes on, and this is where God has me for now—and I am blessed :)