WEEK 8

Friday - March 2

My final class at Smile Africa was cancelled once again because Pastor Ruth wanted a meeting with all of the women. So as I was sitting there waiting for my ride, I observed the 4:00 exodus from the enclosure. There were no parents to meet the children. There were 7 and 8 year olds carrying infants on their backs. There were 2 and 3 year olds leaving on their own. What a half hour earlier had been raucous, noisy children at play, now became a solemn, subdued exit to spend the night who knows where, with no food for dinner in raggedy, dirty clothes that hardly deserved that designation. There were some welll-used pillowcase dresses among the departing. Some children walked with arms around each other in quiet mutual support. It was a procession which could only be watched with teary eyes.

Saturday - March 3

Right now it is 8:00 in the evening and I am sitting here in the dark (no power) and through my windows am hearing such lovely singing of children, sweet voices and charming melodies. What a delight AND contrast to the sounds we usually hear of crying, loud electronic and repetitious "music" and drunken laughter and conversation,

We are awaiting Stevie's (another teacher) arrival. Peter wnt to meet her plane in Kampala. They called - it took her forever because 2 of her bags were missing so a claim had to be made, etc.

I spent the morning, 4 plus hours, thoroughly cleaning the house, scrubbing all of the floors on my hands and knees. I was hot and exhausted.

Went to Juba to teach which went well though I cut my second class short as Pastor Alex is ill and I wanted to get him into Tororo for medical care. We accomplished this though I don't know what the diagnosis is but he is on 4 medications and is to return in 2 weeks if he is not cured.

One other little annoyance - I can't get my email to work. Yahoo instituted some new security measures and now I can't send any emails. Have been trying for the last 2 days, but no luck.

Sunday - March 4

Still no luck sending emails on Yahoo. We three were all up early and were the first ones to arrive for church in Juba. The boarding school kids were just getting their morning porridge (kind of like very thin grits). Pastor Peter preached. The subject of his sermon was faith and preparation. The part I remembered most is when one door closes, look for a new door God will open. At the end a group of about 10 children did a skit vreated by them and one of the teachers. The theme was pastors who are charlatans. The it was presented had the whole congregation in stitches. When it was over, Pstr. Peter added his two cents worth of another aspect to watch out for with charlatan pastors.

Pstr. Lawrence dropped me off at the TLT restaurant so I could meet another Ugandan friend for lunch. It was a pleasant lunch, The woman I was with has such a big heart, is very creative with so many good ideas and it is so sad because she does not currently have a good outlet for the special gifts she has.

Monday - March 5

My sister, Bette, would have been 68 today.

We all went to True Vine, Stevie to meet with Pstr. Wilber and the headmaster and Sue to follow her appointed schedule. I stopped in at the orphan office to greet everyone and check with Joseph's field officer who said he saw Joseph on Friday and so far is feeling positive about him and his progress.

I had 2 people show up for Bible study and one stayed on for his tutoring in Reading. I wish I were better trainedm better qualified in order to have a better plan to work with him. I am beginning to wonder if he has dyslexia. I feel so terribly inadequate but we struggle on.

No Rita there to arrange a visit to Jaja Andera. She, Rita, is out on a mission. This is what happened last time I was here - the activities of the church conflicted with what I was doing so it just didn't work well at True Vine.

Tuesday - March 6

Hooray!!!! I was finally able to send an email via my Yahoo account!

Peter went to Kampala to get Kent, my son, and to retrieve Stevie's lost bags. All accomplished.

I went to Wikus and started the theme of Money Management for the Reading and Writing classes. The English class continues as normal. We started with a Bible lesson from Proverbs 21:20 and then to saving for the drought times (school fees, illness, etc.) and finally to personal budgets. Their homework is to determine how much they are currently spending and earning.

Now that they have the micro-finance system underway, it seemed a good time to discuss, teach and learn money management,

Wednesday - March 7

First thing this am I "picked beans". When one buys dry beans here for cooking beans and rice, the beans are scooped out of a large bag. I naively thought it was like buying beans in bulk at a health food store at home. The first time I put some beans on to soak, I just put them in a pot with water and saw all this debris rising to the top. So dumped out the water and started over. I "picked beans" to remove the dried plant residue, the pebbles, the bits of dried dirt and the shriveled beans. This is certainly a different process from what I do at home. At Smile Africa one day, I helped "pick rice". This was the same process but a more painstaking job and for 400 kids rather than 3 adults.

Thursday - March 8

Today is International Women's Day and for the Ugandans we associate withm it is an important day. Many of the pastors we know are cooking for their wives and serving them Here, in what is still a very patriarchal society, this is a really big deal.

At True Vine Stevie and Sue found classrooms filled with children with no teachers, The teachers had taken off for Women's Day and the children showed up anyway. So they did their best to do the teaching with the language barrier.

Kent went to Busowa with me. I taught my classes on Money Management while Kent did video tape interviews with people of Busowa who have taken advantage of the micro-finance program his chuch has contributed to.

Before I forget, I wanted to note how Stevie's bed got delivered to our house. Peter and I went to the carpenter shop to pick out a bed, we paid and then went back to the city center to find a bicycle "driver" to deliver the bed. He followed us back to the carpenter, they tied the bed on the bicycle and then the "driver" followed us to our house. For this service the driver got paid 2,000 shillings, roughly $1.00.