Holiday! Celebrate!

(You're supposed to sing that in your best Madonna impression...)

Yes, today was a holiday! Actually, the "real" holiday ended up being on Friday, as the Eid came a bit earlier than everyone around here had predicted. But since we were in the middle of a workshop, we didn't want to take the day off. So we took today off instead.

Jackie and I ended up going on a swimming safari. We braved the wilds of the Jb roads to get all the way out to the Mountain, where the lodge was waiting with a swimming pool! The lodge itself is a collection of pre-fabricated "cabins", but they have a lovely swimming pool in the middle of it all. Because normal people were working today, we basically had the pool and restaurant to ourselves!

But first we had to get there. It's only 8 km or so from the compound, but it takes a good 30 minutes in the car to make it there. Here's a few scenes from the drive.

First, we come from our dirt track out onto the new tarmac road. It's been dubbed "the narrow road" by the local folks, as it's one of three tarmac-ed roads in the city, and is by far the narrowist. As you can see, the crew is working on cementing the gutters. I'm just waiting to see how many cars/landcruisers/pick-ups get stuck in those gutters... but it sure is nice to have tarmac only 2 blocks from our driveway!
Once you go a few blocks on this road, you come to the second tarmac-ed road in town, referred to as "the one that goes past the Ministries" (the gov't buildings). First, you have to stop at the t-intersection, making sure to not hit the fancy roundabout which sits in the middle of the road:
After about 1 km, the tarmac ends. Then you hold on so you don't get bounced out of the car for the rest of the 6 km!

You stop by the Syrian bakery (which is also run by Eritreans... lucky for me, I got a bit of a marriage proposal from the handsome Eritrean inside while I waited for a piece of cake!), then you drive past the furniture shop:
Then you pass the auto-parts store:
And of course, you pass by all sorts of other various shops and huts:
You go down meandering dirt roads through some pretty interesting neighborhoods and dodging the usual Jb traffic:

Just a little farther...
And finally, you've made it to the lodge and can jump in the pool!
After enjoying the pool and reading your book all afternoon, you get to do the whole safari in reverse :)

But it's so worth it to get out of the compound and take a real break!

In the driveway

One never knows what one might see when driving out our gate.

Generally, in the evening, we see our neighbors bathing in our driveway. You see, there's a bore hole (water pump) right outside our gate. So it makes sense that folks would want to bathe as close to the water source as possible. And, well, quite honestly, because people have such dark skin here, you don't really see them in the dark if they're naked. They don't exactly glow in the dark like us white folk, that is, until you come 'round the corner in the truck with the high beams on.

I also find it quite interesting that the men like to bathe together. They fill up one bucket of water, put it in the middle of the circle, and then 4 or 5 of them stand in a circle around the bucket and start lathering up. Maybe it's a guy thing to bathe together, but as a girl, I certainly wouldn't want to stand around with my friends and scrub! And quite honestly, I don't really want to see these guys lathering up in my driveway, either! But it seems to be their favourite bathing place.

I do feel for them, though, because our neighbours around here don't have private bathrooms at all - most of the "facilities" that people have consist of a few metal sheets of iron or a few flimsy sheets cobbled together to create a little bit of a screen. And that's where they do everything from bathing to... well... everything else you do in a bathroom! So I guess our driveway is as good as any place to bathe, especially since there's not that many of us going in and out of the compound on any given night.

Anyways, yes, the bathers are a regular sight when coming and going in our driveway. But the other day as we drove out the gate, we got a little acrobatics show, all lit up by the headlights of Jackie's little Sukuki! Right before our eyes, a guy started doing a whole "floor routine", complete with cartwheels, round-offs and a couple of backflips! Right there in our driveway.

I just hope he didn't land in a squishy spot because, um, well, people use our driveway for yet another purpose... refer above to the state of the neighbours' bathrooms... but I won't go into any more details...

On that note, I'm off to watch an episode of the "West Wing". I'm deterimined to finish Season 7 before I go home in... get this... TWO WEEKS! Am I excited? Well... only a little :)

Threadbare Thanksgiving

As I was taking my undies off the line and folding them, I realized just exactly what "threadbare" means. I don't think any of my clothes have ever become threadbare before I moved to this place. Now, I actually throw clothes away because there is literally nothing left of them after a while! Between the dust, the sweat, the sun, the hard water... not a good combination for any clothes - undergarment or outergarmet! I will refrain from posting photos of the aforementioned unmentionables.

After I folded my threadbare clothes, I wandered over to the American neighbor's house where they were celebrating Thanksgiving! I had already eaten my own fried chicken and chips at the restaurant around the corner, but I was invited for dessert after the Americans had finished their main course (no turkey - but I think they had roasted chickens). And wow, what a dessert spread it was! Carrot cake with icing, apple pie and pumpkin pie! Complete with whipped cream! There's a new store in town where you can buy some imported stuff from Uganda now. They have real cream, some yogurt, frozen meats of all kinds, and I even saw broccoli there once! The broccoli was about $15/kg, but it was broccoli!

But I'm digressing from my Thanksgiving dessert story. Actually, it's not much of a story. We had dessert, we chatted and laughed and drank coffee, and then I came home! It was delicious dessert, though, and was a lot of fun to just sit and chat and be invited into someone else's home for a change. I guess that's what Thanksgiving is all about :)

Taking Elegance to New Heights

Never one to miss an opportunity to look cute... I dressed up for the clean up day. I just got these photos from my friend here, and looking at them, I realized that I may have been a bit overdressed for the occasion!

And here are a few more from the day, just so you get a good glimpse of what we accomplished!

Photos, as promised

Here are a few photos of the "Big Clean". We did our part, and filled 90 garbage bags from the outside of the fence of our compound! I was so impressed that the workshop participants and all the staff here pitched in and were really willing to do a really disgusting job. I mean, it was seriously disgusting - trash around here isn't just empty water bottles and a few bits of paper... but I will refrain from saying any more about that, as this is a family-friendly blog!

Anyways, here are a few photos of the crew picking the trash from outside our fence.

I love this next one because it had this local guy who was just wandering by who just started picking up the trash with us! It was such good PR for the "keep the town clean" day. We got so many odd stares from the neighbors and people walking by - obviously, picking up the trash isn't something people are used to doing here.

Now rather unfortunately, the truck that was promised by the UN (who was organizing the whole day) has not yet shown up to pick up our 90 bags of trash. So I still have time to go take a photo of that heap :) Anyways, we've done our part to clean up a bit, and hopefully it will stay that way for a while...

A hot day.

No, that was not a hot "date". It was just a hot day. Apparently, it got up to 40C in the shade today! Phew, no wonder I had the little rivulets of sweat running down the backs of my legs this afternoon! It was just plain hot. And I completely ran out of energy this afternoon. Probably because it was hot.

But the workshop is going well. We actually participated in the city-wide clean up day today. I have a bunch of photos of the group of us picking up 90 bags of garbage around the outside fence of our compound! Pretty good for an hour's work, eh? 90 bags of garbage. Pretty ridiculous, if I do say so myself. That just gives you an indication of how much garbage is around this town!

The aforementioned photos, however, are still on my camera, which I think I must have left in the office. And it's too hot to walk all the way over there to fetch it. So you'll just have to wait until tomorrow for the photos!

But I'm glad that folks are promoting the cleaning up of this town. I overheard one of the guys who works with us today, who was diligently picking up the garbage outside, telling one of the neighbours that we were doing this work for the "health of the children". And it's true. We're trying to keep disease at bay! But it just shows how odd it was to be seen picking up garbage - the nieghbours all came out to try to figure out what we were all doing with bags and gloves. They couldn't figure out why we were picking up the garbage! But hopefully seeing a bit group of office workers cleaning up will help motivate them to keep the area clean, as well.

Staying up late

Have I ever mentioned how much I love to stay up late? I love the wee hours of the morning, when everyone else is sleeping, and all I hear are the crickets, the frogs and the blaring music from the cultural centre nearby. It's cool, it's relatively quiet (that is, there are no cars or trucks rumbling by outside, no people wandering around or playing dominos on the other side of the fence...). It's just nice. Some people like the cool quiet-ness of the early morning. I like the cool quietness of the early, early morning. However, since we've had a workshop, and since I've been a bit on the sick side, I haven't really been able to stay up late lately. So tonight... I'm loving it!

I had quite a nice day today, actually. We had half-day work for the workshop, which was fairly low-stress for me. Everyone is just drafting stories in their languages to go with each lesson in the primer, so there's not much I can do to help, beyond making sure they're keeping the stories short and simple!

After lunch, I helped Richard fix our toilet and sink - both of which have sprung leaks again. Good thing I did a lot of light holding and fetching of stuff for my dad when he was fixing things around the house. All that practice is coming in handy around here, as I'm still doing my fair share of holding the light, balancing heavy objects and just in general being an extra pair of hands when Mr. Fix-it Richard comes around! Unfortunately, his solution to the toilet leak wasn't a very good solution, so we'll have another go at it tomorrow. But our sink is better than new :)

After working on our plumbing, Richard wanted to work on another idea that he had yesterday. We were complaining about these mobile phones (um, I mean, cell phones) that they sell in the market here. They all have these "made in China" batteries, which last for about, oh, an hour, before you have to charge them again. So Richard, being the comedian that he is, thought of the perfect editorial cartoon for the BBC's "Only in Africa" section. Here's his solution to the bad mobile phone battery problem:

Then this afternoon I went to the market with a couple of friends to buy some fabric. We found some really nice stuff. Of course, I couldn't get out of the market without buying a piece myself. Annamarie and I have too much of the same taste - so we decided to get one piece and split it between us. I want a dress made from it, and she wants a top, so between the 6 yards that are there, we should be ok! Anyway, the cloth only costs about $7 for 6 yards, so you can't really go wrong! I know that I have a few too many outfits already, but when a piece of cloth speaks to me like this one did... I just had to have it!

Following the shopping expidition and a shower, we had yet another amazing dinner party in our house! This time, we imported a chef from Belgium, and he made us a huge pot of delicious risotto! This is something I love to see - my kitchen full of OTHER people cooking dinner for ME!
We had a wonderful time all together, as usual! Good friends and good food... what more could a girl ask for on a Saturday night?

Just a quick update

Since I'm getting sick again, I'll keep this short. I should attempt to sleep early tonight.

But someone was taking photos during our first day at the workshop yesterday, so I thought ya'll might enjoy the view from here:
This is me being teacherly. I'm working with the participants to help them identify and label the different parts of the primer example so they know all the elements that need to be there when they do their own primers during this workshop.

And this is a view of the room, with some of the participants, so you can see where I'm spending my days this week!I'm just praying that I don't have to spend tomorrow in my bed, like I did last Friday! I'm having too much fun seeing these primers get made to want to spend the day in bed...

An odd day once again

Woke up this morning to yet another fire in our generator shed. Not a good start to the day. But thankfully, the guard and Matt were on top of it, and again were able to put it out before any damage was done. But you can pray that they find the cause of these fires (this one was the same place as the last one), and that nothing will go up in flames before the guys get it all sorted out!

Then there was a big container moving on the compound! Our container city has one less container now.
I'm gonna miss the old container :( But it might be happier in his new home.

After that was done, I somehow got pulled in several different directions - not sure how or why, but I ended up doing an awful lot of admin work today, and then there were some computers to take care of... When really, I needed to be preparing for the workshop that starts tomorrow! I also had the bright idea of completely changing around the layout of the workshop room, which necessitated getting Richard to drill some holes in the wall so I could put the white board on a different wall. It just felt like the workshop room needed a bit of changing up - something fresh and exciting :) Hopefully a completely new set up will put some life into the workshop tomorrow morning!

I don't feel completely ready, though I did my best and did as much as I could to prepare! Anyway, I hope things will go ok. I'm really looking forward to the workshop - it's a primer development workshop. Which means by the end of next week, we'll hopefully have a good start on primers (beginning reading books) for 4 languages! That is, um, er, if all goes well :)

We've also been seeing some really cool bugs around here these days. We found a beautiful praying mantis on the office window screen yesterday, and then in the evening, Jackie saw a beetle which was the most amazing gold colour! It looked exactly like a bit of shiny gold wandering around on the table in our verandah! I've never seen anything like it, but of course, I didn't get a picture of it. I'm just wondering what kind of creatures we'll find tomorrow!

A sucker for a field trip

Yeah, I realize I said I would continue to lay low today, in order to allow the antibiotics to continue to do their thing in my body. But I'm a sucker for a field trip! Especially when it involves going a little farther afield than my usual forays.

This one started off with a fairly easy trip to the airport - someone was taking off for Uganda, which is a fairly straightforward process. Of course, as soon as we got near the airport, it started to pour down rain. It was raining like cats and dogs (this late rainy season is fodder for a whole other blog - very unusual that it's still raining like this here). So we got to the parking lot at the airport and just sat in the truck for a while as the rain fell. Eventually it stopped, and we managed to get our guy off to the departures lounge with no difficulties.

Then the real adventure began! We have a 40 ft. shipping container on our compound at the moment which needs to be moved to make way for some other construction work that they want to do on the compound. So tomorrow is the big moving day... however, Richard wanted to go do a bit of a foray into the neighborhood of the land where we want to move the container to. So off I went, along for the ride.

And what a ride it was! Because of the rain, the roads were, well, less than dry, to say the least. And when I say, "roads", I'm giving a very generous description of some of the tracks that we were following today.

This is the main road out from the airport, going in the direction that we wanted to go:
Now, to understand this mission, you need to understand that this area where we want to move the container to is a rapidly changing area. People here are desperately trying to get plots of land, and quickly putting up houses and fences in order to "secure" a little bit of land to call their own. The city is expanding so rapidly, no one has done any proper survey in this area, and there are, therefor, no proper roads or anything resembling any sort of city planning. And everything is changing so quickly. If you take one route one week, the next week, someone may have built their house in the middle of the road that you took last week.

So before Richard sent this 40 ft container and crane out there, he wanted to make sure there was a way to get through.

These are the sorts of tracks we encountered on the way:
(by the way, the blue-ish tarp on the side of the road is someone's bathroom).

And these are just a few of the photos I took as we drove around little twisting and turning tracks, which seemed to go right through people's front yards. We did rather a lot of turn-arounds, as came to a lot of dead ends. And we used a lot of 4WD as we bogged our way through some seriously slippery mud holes! I didn't want to take too many photos of the surrounding houses, since it was already an attraction enough having a white girl in a pick-up truck driving through their front yards!

After nearly two hours of driving around the area near our piece of land out there, we finally gave up and decided there was no way a crane and a 4o ft shipping container would make it through to the land. And this isn't out in the boonies or anything - this is only about 10 km from the airport and 15 km from the center of town! I must admit, though, it was really a great way to spend an afternoon - driving around in 4WD in the mud!

Once we admitted defeat, Richard had some of his own personal business to attend to - so I also tagged along for the ride, since we were in the nieghbourhood. First, we went to check on his grandfather, who has built a little mud brick house on a tiny plot of land he's trying to claim from the local chief. What a wonderful old man this grandfather is!
Such a character. He's probably 80-something years old, and lives on his own in a little one room mud brick house, which he built with his own hands over the past year. He was doddering around, serving his grandson tea and asking me why I don't have any babies yet. He kept saying how my time for child-bearing is short, so I'd better get going! He was thinking that since white people don't usually have too many children, we must be scared of them, or think they will annoy us or something! It was quite funny, actually, and so much fun to just chat with an old grandfather ("yaba" in the local language). I could understand some of his Arabic, but not all, so Richard was acting as the translator -- so actually, who knows what else he said about me since I don't have any babies yet!

"Yaba" didn't want us to drive back in the dark, so we left him and then stopped at the chief's house on the way. Richard is still working on securing a plot of land for himself in a particular area, so he has to keep up his relationship with the chief of the area. This means going to visit once in a while and making sure the chief knows he's still around and would be a good neighbour. A visit to the chief basically means shaking hands with all the men gathered around the chief, then sitting in a plastic chair for a little while and chit chatting about the local news. My Arabic has gotten worse in the past little while, rather than better, so I didn't catch much of what was being discussed. But at least I can still make out some of the words... just can't quite put them all together to comprehend any of it in a normal speed conversation :(

But it was ok, I was just there to sit and look pretty, not to conduct any business. Of course, I was offered a plot again, on which to build my own fancy house, and was asked why I didn't help the chief rebuild his house which was pushed down to make room for a road. I hope my answers didn't hurt poor Richard's efforts to endear himself to the chief!

One of the best parts of the day was this sign that I saw in the middle of our drive around the 'hood.
(I photo-shopped out the location of the "Bio-Pit" in order to protect the innocent).
But doesn't this look like exactly the type of place you'd go for medical research and computer training? I also saw a sign in front of a broken down tent which said, "Polytech Institute"! I couldn't manage to get a photo of it, though.

So there are still some adventures to have in this town - it's not all paved roads and smooth sailing, I'm happy to admit! I did have a bit of culture shock for a moment, this afternoon, though. In the middle of all this driving around, I really had to pee. Now, I probably could have hopped out of the truck and just squatted anywhere, as, well, um, that's what most people do around here. But, like I said, the white girl in the truck was already attracting a bit of attention... so when we happened to drive past one of the fanciest hotels in the city, I popped in to use the facilities. What an odd thing. You have to drive through not one, but two razor-wire topped security gates.

Then you're in what seems to almost be a paradise - a swimming pool, deck chairs, a bar with almost any kind of food or drink you might want, and white people everywhere! And the place was packed today! I don't ever go there because it's a bit far away, plus it costs $25 per day to use the swimming pool. But it seems that hasn't deterred many people from hanging out there. It was really a bit crazy, and just such an amazing contrast from the mud and thatch tukels we were driving around all afternoon.

Such contrasts, and it's hard to know how to hold those two completely different worlds together in my mind... especially when one is literally across the mud track from the other. In some ways, I hope I never quite figure out how to hold those two contrasting worlds together, because I don't want my eyes to be closed or veiled to the way "normal" people live in this city. I don't want to become callous to the everyday struggles of the everyday people here. And yet I can't help the fact that I'm from the other world. So I still have to fit into my "own" world, while remaining soft and compassionate to the other - the one that I will never truly be a part of, but which God has allowed me to live at least on the edge of, for the time being.

Right, I could probably wax on much more eloquently about this whole topic, but I didn't mean to start thinking tonight :) I'm much too tired for such things... so I think I'll just sleep on it and see if I can discuss it more intelligently tomorrow!

Laying Low

Yup, after the adventures of Thursday evening, I got a little sick. Woke up on Friday morning and couldn't leave the house. Haven't gone too far from a bathroom ever since! I will spare you the details. I think my immune system must be a little on the weak side or something these days, since this is the second time in two weeks that I've needed some serious antibiotics to clear up some sort of funky infection. And I've lived in this place for three years now without too much difficulty! Is it possible that a place just wears you down after a while?!

Anyways, yesterday, since I didn't leave the house, I ended up having a really relaxing day, just hanging out on facebook (love the fact that I get wireless internet from my bed!), and watching episodes of the West Wing. I'm almost finished up through Season 7 - that's as far as I have. I guess it's still on in the normal outside world? Which season does it go up to? It did feel rather odd knowing that the rest of the compound was carrying on their normal business whilest I layed on my bed, sweated through a fever and took numerous trips to the bathroom.

In the evening, I managed to make it to the dinner table, since my housemates and nieghbors had put on quite the spread - a pancake feast, along with a beautifully presented platter of avocado and tomato salad. It was lovely, but I must admit, I wasn't great company. I knew I must have been pretty sick yesterday because I wasn't hungry the entire day. All I ate from sun up to sun down was a few biscuits (sorta like arrowroot cookies), a slice of avocado, and a tiny finger banana. For dinner, all I had was a pancake - the dutch kind - with a bit of syrup, some more avocado (man, I think I could live on those things, sick or not!), and a slice of orange. Richard has just returned from Uganda, bearing huge baskets of fruit (so yummy and fresh!) and has been making fresh juice for the past few days, so I've been drinking amazing amounts of that, as well!

I was meant to go shopping today and then to the tailor with a friend today. It's one of my most favourite-ist hobbies here. I just love fabric shopping, enjoying all the beautiful colours and patterns of the fabrics- real eye candy! And then choosing a design and style for a new dress... especially if it's for someone else, I can have a bit more fun with it :)

But I decided the market probably wasn't the best place for me (not exactly a plethora of bathrooms over there!) today. So I had to cancel :( But I was well enough to go and enjoy the lantern festival that my German friends had prepared for this evening. Apparently, in Germany, around this time of year, all the children make lanterns and then wander through the streets singing lantern songs as the dark of the winter decends upon them. My German friends have three little children, and they have Swedish friends here who have a 2 year old daughter, and then I brought Becka, our 11 year old American neighbor, so it was a bit of a children's event tonight!

It turned out great - though, as usual, not according to plan! Just as we were setting the table to have a nice lantern-lit meal outside... it started to rain! It's not supposed to rain at this time of year! But rain it did. So we quickly moved everything inside. Unfortunately, the rain also meant we couldn't play the planned outdoor games (like flashlight tag!), but we did still get to play some indoor games, learn some German lantern songs, and then just before it was time to leave, the rain stopped and we were able to wander around the compound, carrying the lanterns and singing the songs.

It was really fun to be surrounded by real "families" with children again. There are so few expatriate families here, and even the local folks that I work with have chosen to keep their families in neighboring countries, because the schools are better there. So there just aren't any families around that I can hang out with. It was so much fun to hold a little baby and read stories to the other children tonight! So I definitely felt special that I was included in such a lovely evening. I'm also glad my antibiotics have kicked in fast enough so I could go along! It's also just a lot of fun to be together with people from different cultures, even within the African culture in which I live, I've really learned so much about other Western cultures - Germans, British, Swedish, New Zealander, South African... the list goes on and on! And I love it!

We just wanted to go eat!

Everything becomes a bit of an adventure around here, even just going to try out the new local restaurant becomes fodder for the blog!

I must admit, the roads around these parts are getting SO much better. The main road near our house now has pavement (or, as they call it around here, "tarmac"). Unfortunately, it's becoming known in the town as "the narrow tarmac" road. So you can imagine what it's like - a bit frightening, actually, as there's hardly space for two SUVs to pass, not to mention all the shops and motorbikes on the edges. And then when someone decides to stop the car to pick up something in the shop, or to say hello to his buddy drinking tea on the side of the road... well... it causes a bit of difficulty. But I digress.

Anyways, Annamarie, Richard and I were off to meet some other friends at a new restaurant called "Panache". It's always an adventure going somewhere completely new - never sure what you're going to get and how much it's going to cost! The challenge today, though, was just getting there!

We all knew where it was - right on the main road to the airport. Unfortunately, this main road to the airport has literally been under construction since I arrived here. 3 years ago. Yes, it's been in various stages of construction for over 3 years. Continually. But normally you can do some fancy driving and somehow make your way through. Tonight, however... no can do.

So we went around the back way. In the dark. Fortunately, on the way, we got a teensy-bit stuck going down and up through a ditch, so while backing up and choosing a new path through the ditch, we realized that the Landcruiser on the other side of the ditch waiting for us to pass was our friends who we were meant to meet at the restaurant. We informed them of the closed road, and they decided to follow us along the back streets of town.

I only did a teensy-bit of backseat driving (mostly because, I have to admit, my sense of direction is pretty darn good - I don't easily get lost, and I normally just follow my nose and I know that I'm heading in the right direction!). But I did defer to the driver, who happens to have grown up in this town, so he, too, knows his way around - however, there are a few extra challenges when navigating the backstreets... especially in the dark. For one, the backstreets certainly aren't paved! And they're not even graded, most of them. So they are literally dirt tracks - many of which have had some seriously huge trucks making some seriously huge ruts and ditches in the mud. You never quite know if a road is going to end up in an impassible mud pit, in an insurmountable ditch, or just a dead-end into someone's compound.

With not too much effort, though, we found the road we wanted to be on... but when we surveyed the way ahead, we decided that perhaps 4WD was in order. Since we were leading the way, Richard jumped out, locked the hubs, and away we went through some deliciously creamy mud holes.

Our friends followed right behind us in their Landcruiser. Unfortunately, just before passing through the last of the mud, their Landcruiser got a bit hung up in a hole. Luckily enough, we had a tow rope in the truck (never before used!), so I learned how to attach a tow-rope to a Landcruiser and our Nissan. And we pulled. And pulled. And without too much effort, got the Landcruiser out of the hole. And I got a lesson in attaching tow ropes to vehicles!

The rest of our evening was pretty non-eventful, which is generally a good thing around these parts!

Just a wee fire.

Just when I thought things were getting a little "normal" around here, we had a tiny adventure last night. We had just finished eating our supper when the lights suddenly went out. Normally, when the lights go out, the guard (or someone close to the generator shed) will wander over to the generator shed and switch on the generator (that is, if it happens to be during the prescribed hours of electricity).

Last evening, when the lights went out, I made my way to my bedroom to get my solar lamp, which was still on the bedside table from the previous night, when the electricity was also off. Once in my bedroom, I happened to see an odd orange glow coming from the direction of the generator shed - only about 30 feet away from my bedroom window. I also heard something more alarming, "Fire"!

Yup, that's right. Our generator shed was on fire!

Well, thankfully, it wasn't all as dramatic as that - one of the meters that measures the incoming city electricity had caught fire and was starting to spread to the surrounding meters (um, don't ask why we have so many meters!).

Thankfully, too, Matt happened to see the fire pretty much as soon as it started and had the quick thinking abilities to switch off the electricity and put out the fire before the shed itself caught fire. On the other side of that little plywood wall, by the way, is our compound generator, with it's 200L diesel tank, as well as 3 barrels full of extra diesel fuel!

I'm really thankful the whole thing happened before 8pm, rather than, say, at 3am, when we would all have been tucked in our beds, and wouldn't have known anything was on fire until we started hearing the fireworks! So really, the Lord was protecting us last night.

I'm also really thankful that this happened when Matt is around, as he rigged something up so we could still have electricity today, even though bits of the whole system are rather melted and burned beyond repair.

So that was a little excitement last night.

Today, though, was honestly mind-numbingly boring! I was at a meeting, stuck in a room for the WHOLE day, with a bunch of people who were saying the same things over and over again that they've been saying for the last few years. One of the challenges with some of the work that I do here is the face that there's a very, very high turnover rate in personnel... both in government departments, in NGOs and in the UN agencies. So someone comes, sees the situation, talks about the situation... and then they go. Then someone else comes to take their place. They see the situation, they talk about the situation... and then they go. And so on. So I feel like very few people stay long enough to actually DO anything about the situation. They just come and make some pronouncements, thinking they've seen something new, because it's new to them, and then they go before they understand the situation well enough to do anything useful about it.

So I was a little frustrated at this meeting today. But I did get the opportunity to stand on my soapbox for a few minutes, and there was one woman from USAID who we've been talking to for the last several months on and off... and something that she said actually did give me a glimmer of hope for something in our area to take off. So I just need to keep looking at those little glimmers of hope, those little carrots that get waved at me through all the rest of the proclamations that get made!

Plus, they had some really good chicken wings during tea time! Chicken wings in Jb! Honestly, we've come a long way in the past three years. However, I was starting to wonder if I'm turning into some weird cat-lady, because all I could think about while seeing all those people eating all those chicken wings was, "I wonder how many bones I can stuff in my purse for Zane..."

Nice eats

I sure am glad that antibiotic worked quickly in my belly, because I had a full schedule of good eating today :)

Our neighbour (a good friend who loves to cook, but has very limited facilities in her own little house) decided to cook a proper Sunday lunch today. So from about 10:30 this morning, the aroma of roasting leg of lamb was wafting through our house! We ended up having an amazing Sunday lunch. Leg of lamb, roasted potatoes, pumpkin tarts, stir fry veggies, beautiful salad with avocado (that was my contribution :) ) and dessert of honey cake with custard.
It was truly one of the nicest meals I've had in this country, and all prepared right in our own kitchen and consumed on our very own verandah :) Good food, great company... made for a really nice Sunday afternoon.

After napping off our lunch, we had a good Bible study. I really enjoy that group of people - it's a great way to do church here! After our "church", I continued the "fellowship" part of the "Jb International Fellowship" by going out for Chinese food with a group of folks. I love my Sundays, partly because it's one of the only days I really get to spend much time with many of my friends. And somehow, when my belly isn't doing odd things, it's that much more enjoyable :)

Someone on our compound forgot to buy more credit for our electricity meter last week, so even though there is city power tonight, we don't have any. So... I guess I'd better go to sleep, since I'm just sitting here in the dark. At least we have the internet access point hooked up with stays on all the time now - thanks Andy :)

Ahhh...

This evening we had the necessary Spa Event at our house! The Spa Event is a regularly occurring event here in Jb, as everyone has terribly sweaty, dusty, stinky, and yes, even crunchy, feet. Our pores are full of dust and sweat. Our eyes are gritty and swollen from the dust and the sun.

So once in a while, a girl just has to spend some time taking care of herself! And it's always much more fun to do it together :) In fact, we have a whole bag full of spa event lotions and potions and wonderful masks and hydrations and polishes, which gets lovingly pulled out of the cupboard for such events. We had a good turn out tonight, though I forgot to take many photos. Here's just one corner of our living room, complete with Kristina's newly exfoliated and moisturized foot:
Look how clean those toes are!
I was busy sitting back and relaxing. The label on my hydrating mask promised "bouncy skin". Not being one to miss out on bouncy skin, I had to try it. And indeed, my skin feels soft and bouncy, like a baby's freshly bathed bottom :)
Truly amazing, if you knew how my face started out feeling! You're supposed to discard the mask after you use it... but man, what a waste! There was still lots of hydration left in that mask - but, well, I haven't lived in Africa for THAT long, so I did not stick it in one of my old ziplock bags to save for another day :)

So now that we've all been scrubbed and polished and cleansed, I think we can make it through another week!

On another happy note, have I ever mentioned how much I appreciate the person who invented antibiotics? I've been feeling rather rotten for the past several days. So I took myself to the clinic, run by Ugandan doctors. First time I've ever been to the doctor in this town - quite an achievment in and of itself, I'd say. And I was more curious than anything to see what kinds of tests they'd do and what they might find in my digestive track, because, well, because I've lived here for three years and never been thoroughly checked or treated for anything crazy. The doctor was amazed that I've lived here for 3 years and haven't yet had malaria! I'm somewhat amazed, as well. Today I had my first malaria test ever - it's just normal practice here to do a malaria test on anyone who complains of anything. Have a toothache? - do a malaria test. Sprained your ankle? - do a malaria test. Of course, as I expected, the malaria test came back negative.

They did, however, find some generic "infection". Not quite sure what that means. And the doctor wasn't too forthcoming with information, either. He just gave me a prescription for some antibiotics and sent me on my way. I went to the pharmacy and spent $4 on some antibiotics to last me for the week. I could have gotten the brand that was made in Switzerland for $25, but opted for the more local brand and saved a good deal of money! I've eaten two antibiotic tablets so far today and already, I feel loads better. It's truly amazing how quickly those things work.

I probably could have "prescribed" the same antibiotics for myself (you don't actually need a prescription to get drugs here - you just walk into the pharmacy and tell them what you want and how many!), but I was sorta curious about what the doctor would say and what the tests would tell me! And all in all, it wasn't a bad experience at all... but next time I feel rotten, I'll probably just start taking the antibiotics and skip the doctor altogether!

A little checking

I've never been one to pass up the opportunity for a field trip! So when one of the teams here asked me to go along to one of their translation checking sessions to help take some photos for them, I jumped at the chance!

For the past week or so, they've been gathering with a small group in their local church to read a draft of the translation that the team's been working on. Once they read a section of it, the team asks the group some questions, to make sure the translation was clear, to make sure it's being understood in the right way, to make sure the language is accurate and natural, and to see if there are suggestions for how it might be improved. I've not really been a part of very much of this sort of work, since I'm involved in the literacy work. So it was really interesting for me to go along and see this sort of "community check".

The checking was happening in a local church, just about a 10 minute walk from the compound. Unfortunately, it was a HOT day today, and we were all just dripping from the effort of walking in the mid-afternoon sun! But it wasn't too far to go, and by the time we got there, a bit of a breeze was blowing into the church, so it wasn't too bad. The church is a simple building, made from mud walls with a tin roof.
Inside, it's just a few plain wooden benches for the congregation to sit on, but lovingly decorated with a few sparkly garnishes!
Churches here always have a few brightly coloured soft chairs up in the front for the "guests of honour" to occupy. Of course, we got to occupy them today - no refusing hospitality around here!
I went with my three DkC colleagues, along with Jennie, a new colleague from Taiwan who's with us for 10 months. She took a bunch of photos with me in them, but I don't have those yet! While waiting for everyone to arrive, the DkC team spread out their tools:
And we got to work. Once all twelve members of the checking committee were there, the team leader started with a short devotion from the New Testament, which they have had published since the 1930s.
What fun it was to see these guys get out their battered little New Testaments and read along with him!
I must admit, I just get such a kick out of seeing people here reading! I see it so rarely, that I have to take photos anytime I see someone reading... especially if they're reading the Bible in their own language! Does my little heart good to see folks with books in their hands.

The devotion was taken from... um... hmmm... now I forget. Somewhere in the Gospels where Jesus heals the lepers and only the one comes back to thank him. That section was chosen as the devotion because the section that we were checking today was from Leviticus 13, where God gives all those commandments about some rather gruesome skin diseases!

But the people were really into the whole checking thing! I was so pleased to see them really paying attention, interacting with the team, answering questions, asking questions, and having some really animated dialogue about... well... it was all in DkC, so I'm not sure exactly what it was about, but they kept pointing to the text that the leader was reading, so I think most of it was fairly on topic!

I just loved watching the animated discussion! I find people from this particular community such characters - they have so much expression in their faces, and aren't afraid to just speak their mind, even the women!
So even though I sat there for a couple of hours, pretty much having no idea what they were talking about (except that I could follow along the text from the English Bible I'd brought along), I wasn't at all bored, because the discussion as so animated! I even picked up a few of the words in the language - the word for "mold" and "Lord", to be exact. I'm not sure when those words might come in handy, but I have added it to my repetoire of "fire", "good morning", "it's all good" in that particular language!

It's also been really interesting talking to this team about their Old Testament translation work. The DkC community seems to have some very strong ties to the ancient Hebrew culture, actually. In their own origin stories, they worked alongside the Hebrews, building the pharoah's pyramids. And crazily enough, so many of their traditions are almost exactly the same as those of the OT. They have so many of the same kinds of feasts, they do their animal sacrifices in the same way, they even have a lot of the same laws, as set out in books like Leviticus.

It will be wonderful to see how God uses those cultural similarities to lead this community to Christ, just as he led the Jews to Christ in the New Testament.

Of course, a field trip anywhere wouldn't be complete without a random guy declaring his undying love for the "tall one". I think Jennie will continue to go out with me, so the "tall one" gets the attention, rather than her!

A little unusual

I'm just back from the neighbour's place where I enjoyed three back-to-back episodes of "The Cosby Show"! Remember that show? They sure don't make TV like they used to!

The fashion, the humour... it's just great! And so amazingly clean.

Now Zane is having another round with my mossy net on my bed - I'm really going to have to get a new net next year, I think, if I want to keep the mossies out of my bed. Once he settles down, I'll type out the story of my rather unusual phone call today.

We have this phone in our office - it's sorta like a cell phone (no landlines here!) but looks like a "real" phone that you'd have sitting on your desk. It's quite useful, but no one ever, ever uses it, since most of us have our own personal cell phones which are just easier to use. Plus the office phone uses a network which is always terrible - you can hardly hear anything when you use it.

Being the extrovert that I am, I love it when that phone rings! It rings maybe like, once every month or two. And often, it's a wrong number, or just a text message from the phone network telling us about some special offer (which is usually in Arabic, so I can't read it anyways!). So you can imagine my surprise when there was a real person on the other end. I put on my polite "office receptionist" voice and proceeded to try to figure out who this guy was and what in the world he would want and why on earth he was calling on this office phone.

Well, you believe it, it was someone from the office of a rather high-up person in the Ministry of Education (like, um, the second in command - the guy just below the Minister himself - the guy who signs all the letters and gets everything done). He told me to stay by the phone, because this VIP was going to call back in a few minutes. At least, that's what I think he said. It all caught me a bit off-guard, and plus, the network was pretty terrible, so it was a bit difficult to decipher what the guy meant.

Anyways, I said goodbye to this chap, and just waited for the phone to ring again. Sure enough, after about 20 minutes, the phone rang again, and it was the office manager again. All he said was, "Here's the [name of position] for you".

And sure enough again, it was this guy on the phone. "Hello, Tanya," he said, "this is MM [using his first name to identify himself]." He inquired about how things were going, and how Jackie's doing. Then he proceeded to quite effusively thank me and appreciate me for working on his computer last week! I had installed the software and fonts so that he can type his language on his computer, as well as cleaning it of several nasty viruses etc. He was so appreciative of the work we'd done for him!

He then asked if he could bring his computers over to our office to use the Internet sometime. Sure, I said. If the guy wants to hang out at our compound and use our Internet, who am I to stop him!? I tried to give him some directions, and told him about someone that we work with in the Ministry who could come with him to show him the way to our office (it's rather difficult to find our place, since we're not on any main roads and there's not exactly any street names around these parts!).

Again, he thanked me for all we do to help, and said he would come 'round the office. We said goodbye and that was that. My personal phone call from the Big-wig. Imagine. I work in a place where the Second-in-command (at the National Ministry of Education) calls us personally to thank us for a job well done. How do I get myself into these things?! I mean, can you just imagine that happening in our own country? Somehow, I just don't think I rank at home like I do here. Scary stuff, I tell you.

But I'm thanking the Lord for this new guy in this position. I've already talked to the new guy more in the few weeks he's been in office than I talked to the old guy in the previous three years! This new one is so friendly and personable. Hopefully this means he'll also read some of the documents and policy guidelines we've been working on, and will be on our side when we start planning some more activities with the Ministry!

Grumpiness is good!

Not that I was grumpy today or anything (though I was super hot - we've had a few 37 - 38C afternoons in the office already this week!), but I read on BBC that it can actually be GOOD to be grumpy :)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8339647.stm

At the risk of oversharing...

I'll just take a few moments to blog about my day.

Started out with the realization that someone from my "group" was meant to lead the weekly devotions this morning. Ooops. I didn't remind anyone about it. Nor, for that matter, did anyone else remind anyone about it! But Jackie stepped up to the plate and had a really nice devotional on the whole idea of putting on a garment, clothing oneself (and being clothed by the Lord) in good and beautiful things. Don't know if you've happened to notice lately, but I've been enjoying wearing some lovely new frocks. When I'm dressed in a pretty dress, I feel like a beautiful girl - just walking down the path in a pretty, swingy skirt puts a little skip in my step.

I won't go into all the verses in the Bible about clothing and garments, but it would be something worthwhile to study further. This morning, it was just a good reminder of the fact that we often do have to actually "clothe" ourselves in praise when we wake up in the morning; just as we have to decide what clothes to put on our physical bodies in the morning, we also have to decide what sort of attitudes and thoughts to put on in the morning. Am I going to go through the day as a grump, complaining about the heat and the dust and the broken computers? Or am I going to try to get through the day with thankfulness and a willing spirit?

It also reminded me of the fact that God clothes us in beautiful garments. I can almost see him in the shops, picking out a lovely frock in a colour that will look just perfect on me. It might not be exactly what I would have picked out for myself... but He's God! He knows what looks good. Sorta like how Stacey and Clinton can pick out stuff that looks great on those poor folks on "What not to Wear"... whereas if they depended on themselves to pick out their outfits, they'd continue to walk around looking quite messy!

I know, I'm probably making this whole idea a bit superficial - comparing God to Stacey and Clinton. Maybe I'm just missing TV! Or maybe God is trying to help me think a bit less about the physical things of this world (like my pretty frocks!) and think more about the eternal things of this world (like my spirit and my attitudes)?!

Anyways, after that lovely bit of "food for thought" this morning, it was pretty much a normal day! Did some computer work. Answered some emails. Worked on some plans for a couple of workshops (a Scripture Use workshop as well as a literacy Primer workshop) and even got a bit of exercize in the form of a few rounds of badminton in the yard. It was rather hot, even at 6pm, so I was a bit on the sweaty side during that game. Ain't no cute frocks on that court, I tell you! (by "court", I mean our dusty little field outside the guesthouse :) ). I have a feeling I might be a bit sore tomorrow from all the lunging. Might have to wear an extra cute frock to make sure the keep the spring in my step :)

Oversharing

I just learned a new word tonight, which happens to have been Webster's New World Dictionary's word of the year last year:

• overshare (verb): to divulge excessive personal information, as in a blog or broadcast interview, prompting reactions rang¬ing from alarmed discomfort to approval

Just thought I'd share that with you tonight.