Early to Bed

Phew, it's a lot of work when 10 new people decend upon one's guest house and there is no guesthouse manager and no cook. Jackie and I (and Grace, too!) have been doing most of the guesthouse managing. Jackie's been great at doing all the administrative stuff, making sure people know which accounts to charge for everything. We also did some meal planning together, so that we could make sure all these hungry mouths were fed. Then I also had to go to the market (for the fourth time in three days) to buy some food to feed the hungry mouths!

Just after I blogged this morning, I also took my turn as chauffer... driving a whole truck load (5 in the cab, two in the box in the back!) to church. That was kind of fun, but I felt really bad about bouncing the Africa Area director's wife around in the box of the truck! I should have been sitting back there, but I had been the designated driver...

Church was good, but we didn't get to stick around and chat because people were hungry. So off we went, and I immediately went to the kitchen to help Jackie and May make lunch for 14 of us. Phew. Then I cleaned up after lunch, made some lunch for Zane, and had a meeting with Grace (the Ugandan cook who almost got lost in the bus station yesterday!) to help her plan the meals.
Then the best part of the day - a round of Frisbee golf. I love that game! Grace took a photo of Jackie, the Bilingual Education Director and me, the Deputy Bilingual Education Director, posing with our birthday present hats :)

Of course, our Mennonite neighbor who joined us actually won. But I got under 30 this time! So we're improving, and we might even need to make the course a bit more challenging after a few more rounds...

Anyways, straightaway after that, Grace made me go to the market with her and Grace, on the aforementioned 4th market trip in three days. On the way home, I was trying to explain to the new Grace all about the money system here. The money system here is a blog in and of itself, so I'm not going to explain it all here! Let's just say it's less than straightforward. But I'm sure the new Grace will catch on. She seems pretty sharp :) It's going to fun to have her around this week, I think. But man, it sure will be a lot easier if the same cook would come again, rather than having new ones come in all the time. She also seemed rather shocked when she saw the state of our kitchen, and our utter lack of kitchen utensils. But we don't really have any other choice, and we're pretty much dependent on certain people in Uganda to send us stuff, so I shouldn't feel responsible for it...

So yeah, we ended up making another meal for everyone - of course, by the time I got through the line, there was only half a mug full of soup left, and poor Richard, who came about 5 minutes after me, didn't get any! But such is the lot of the cook...

I'm going to bed before I start complaining! I'm just feeling rather tired and not much rested. So I think I'd better go to sleep now and be nice and fresh for tomorrow. There's still a lot of work ahead to help this cook get up and running. I feel so bad for her, too, as she's sort of just been shipped up here without too much thought, and trying to get used to being here, too! She's never been in this country before, so I think she's having to make some serious adjustments, too... but we'll all make it through together, I'm sure! And we might even have some fun in the meantime!