Malcolm and Irene Crawford

'God bless us, Every One'

2011-12-31T02:57:00.000-08:00

This is just a few photos taken over the Christmas festivities.

We had a wonderful time with Stephen and Lara in Plymouth, with several other members of our family

It was our first Christmas with our eldest grandson, Jonah

We wish you all a very happy new year

Around and about

2011-12-17T10:12:00.000-08:00

We’ve been spending our timetouring Cyprusin the last week.

Some of the highlights are:

- visiting North Cyprus,illegally occupied by Turkeysince 1974. This included the Monastery on the site said to be the burial placeof one of the first Missionaries to Cyprus,Barnabus.

- Malcolm visited the ‘Baths of Aphrodite’, wheremyth has it the Goddess used to bathe during her love affair with Adonis

- Visits to the sites which were central to thelife of the first President of Cyprus, Archbishop Makarios – his birth place(Panagia), where he was first trained as a priest (Kykkos Monastery), where hewas Archbishop (Nicosia) and his grave, which has become a national shrine

And, just to remind us of winter, even though thetemperatures have been about 20 deg C, up in the mountains there has been snow,and the ski slopes should open in January. (What? Ski slopes in the Mediterranean!)

Doing our bit to solve the Eurozone Crisis?

2011-12-09T10:48:00.001-08:00

Having done a lot of travelling since our return to Britain,we have now flown to Cyprusfor a two week holiday, and to find some warmer weather.

We are staying in Paphos on the west coast, and doing lotsof touristy things.

For Irene it’s a pleasure to have a break from cooking andcleaning. For both of us it’s a chance to visit the country for the first time.So far we have visited:

- the remains of Roman Villas with remarkablepreserved mosaic floors.

- catacombs used by early Christian Churches

- where, it is said, St Paulwas tied to a stone pillar to be flogged

- the last local craftsman making chairs withseats made from rushes

Throwing parties, stones and leaves

2011-12-02T03:36:00.001-08:00

As we get closer to Christmas, we are deep in the birthdayseason.

And on Sunday there were 2 for the price of one!!!

And they covered two extremes.

At one end it was Mark’s first birthday. Because he is so young he probably won't remember too much about it!! However, he did enjoy opening his presents, and eating some cake

At the other extreme it was Malcolm's 60th. Because he is so old he can't remember much about his previous birthdays, and seems to think he is only 25!!! Bless!

He (and Irene) thought he was being taken out for a quiet lunch with Rachel and family - to discover that the restaurant was full of a host of familiar faces. If Irene had known she would have made sure he was smartly dressed - just as well one gift was a new tee-shirt!!

Because Irene had to go out for the day on Tuesday, TJ kindly offered to look after grandad. They went for a nice walk to see the trains and go along the river, where TJ cleaned up the footpath by throwing stones, leaves and branches into the water.

From Three to Tree

2011-11-27T06:42:00.001-08:00

The Birthday theme continues.

This week it was our second grandson’s turn. Thomas (or TJ)was 3 on Thursday, though he seems to have decided that now every day is hisbirthday. This may be because last Sunday he had a joint ‘Soft-play’ ‘officialbirthday’ party with two friends, inviting about 35 guests and eating lots offood.

The birthday theme continued on Thursday (real birthday)with a day out in Cambridge, morecake and more presents.

And why shouldn’t we celebrate our birthdays every day????

It is also the official start of Christmas in Ely this week,with the ceremony to turn on the town’s lights. Of course, as far as the shopsare concerned Christmas started about 3 months ago!!! This is a stark contrastwith our experience last year in Kisoro when the only Christmas tree was put upin the Diocese offices on Christmas Eve!!!

Watch your wait!!!

2011-11-19T09:20:00.001-08:00

One of the problems we have returning from Africais that any weight we may have lost is quickly regained!!!!!

Having ate far too much food with our son, David and hiswife, Sarah we are now visiting our daughter Rachel’s family. Before leaving Milton Keynes we went to their local Vineyard church where we picked upabout 20 knitted dolls that Marilyn has made for the babies at Potters Village. Each comes with a freecuddle!!!!

In Ely we have been enjoying more food!!!

However, we have to find time to catch up with our ‘grandparenting’ duties. Thomas (TJ) is almost 3 and full of energy. He has been taking grand-dad out for walks toshow him the river, the play areas and especially the trains, which there arelots!!!! It is particularly exciting to have to wait at a railway crossing especially when 3 trains come!.

This has left time for Irene to catch up with his almost 1year old brother, Mark.

In the meantime Malcolm has been catching up with culture. Having gone the previous week to the New Vic Theatre in Newcastle under Lyme to see the play about the Bronte sisters (We are Three Sisters) this week in Cambridge he went to a concert by the singer / song writer Martyn Joseph. Not that Malcolm is a fan - he's only been going to martyn's concerts for the last 25 years, and gets regular newsletters from the supporters' club!!!!!

Winter Tour 2011/12 - a lot of 'young' and some older ladies

2011-11-11T09:26:00.001-08:00

In the past week we have travelled from:
- Plymouth to Newcastle under Lyme
- to Birmingham
- to Milton Keynes

with Malcolm taking a couple of diversions to Amersham in order to get the car's brakes repaired.

In Newcastle we went to the sunday service at our old church. Malcolm already knew tht one church member had done her 'elective' year at Mvumi Hospital in Tanzanis where we worked in 2008 and 2009, but we then discovered that another member had done his elective at Kisiizi Hospital in Uganda, where Malcolm had done some work in July and August - a small world indeed. Andy had been a bit bolder as he had gone to Uganda during Idi Amin's dictatorship of terror, and we have heard abouthow soldiers had visited the Hosital to try and intimidate the staff into not holding services in the hospital chapel.

While in Newcastle we:
- took our youngest daughter, Pamela, out for a meal.
- had lunch with malcolm's 'old' Management Team from the Borough Council.

Then off to Birmingham to see Irene's mother and sister Betty.

Next stop - Milton Keynes, and pick up the car from Amersham

Winter Tour 2011/12 - A bunch of pirates?

2011-11-06T01:49:00.000-07:00

24 hours flight, 24 hours driving, 1 birthday party, 3 different beds and a brokn car!!!!!

It seems more than a week since we arrived back in the UK. the flight was not as bad as expected despite a 5 hour stop-over in Addis Ababa and we spent a pleasant weekend recovering in Chesham and meeting friends from our church. And then more travelling.

Briefly:

- we had Sunday lunch with our son, David with his wife Sarah and her parents in Smallford, Herts

- we spent 6 nights in Plymouth with our other son, Staphen, wife Lara and grandson Jonah where we celebrated Jonah's 4th birthday, and witnessed Stephen dressing up as a pirate for a Halloween day at the Infant School he is teacher training at

- we have arrived in Newcastle under Lyme to see our youngest daughter Pamela and meet friends from Malcolm's work here.

The one drama is that within 5 miles of leaving Plymouth the brakes on our car seized up with clouds of smoke coming from our front wheel (despite a new brake caliper being fitted 23 months ago) so a 5 hour journey became 10 hours - thank goodness for Recovery services. The silver lining was that because of a major accident on the M5 no-one could tow as on to Newcastle so we have been given a courtesy car.

After couple off days here, Birmingaham, Amersham (to get brakes repaired) and Milto Keynes!!!

Ready for the off?

2011-10-26T22:36:00.000-07:00

It has been our last week in Kisoro, and a last chance to experience the way of live here for 3 months.

People are very relaxed. We cant think of many places in England where you can be walking through town for Sunday lunch when you meet a young woman in curlers – reminds us of Ena Sharples in Coronation Street about 50 years ago – but she didn't look so good.

Very few people have cars and cant afford taxis, so a popular way to move about is to hire a boda-boda – a motor-cycle taxi. And here seems no limit to the number of passengers you can squeeze on board. It is common to see 3 adults with a baby, such as on the way back from church. We think the law requires crash helmets, but...............

Of course, there was still plenty of room for more, as it is common to see a young child sat in front of the driver on the petrol tank – so he at least has the handle bars to hold onto,

Unfortunately we understand there are a lot of injuries on boda-bodas. You know why when you see the state of most of the roads!!!!

As matter of policy we have never hired a boda- boda!!!!!

Wednesday we had our last lunch or the year at the Coffee Pot cafe. We were able to say goodbye to Doris who returns to Canada after working for over 30 years in Africa (see blog of 14 October) and a farewell to Val from Germany who owns the cafe and has lived in Uganda a long time since she married a Ugandan.

And then its time to pack up!!! We fly today and arrive at Heathrow tomorrow for our month UK Christmas Tour.

Bon Voyage

Closing down - growing up

2011-10-21T11:24:00.000-07:00

With less than a week to go before our return to the UK, we need to 'close down' a few matters.

Malcolm has spent most of the week at Potters Village Home for Vulnerable children. He has been helping to 'close down' the accounts for the past few years, and to carry out an audit (actually an 'Independent Examination') of the Financial Statements.

The Village project began in 2005/6. In the past 6 years a significant cluster of buildings has been built with finances raised mainly by a UK Trust created for the purpose. The Village cares for more than 30 children under 2 years old , with a further 60 supported in the community. Many of the children would not have survived without the Village as most of their mothers had died giving birth.

One such baby is Doree (not Doreen!!!), who we mentioned in our blog of 1st July. Sadly both her mother and twin sister died at the birth and with no other female in the family able to care for her she was immediately brought into the Village. She is now almost 4 months old and doing very well, and is being sponsored by our son and daughter in law so he future is bright. Hopefully she will return to her family to be cared for when she is about 2 years old

The latest project is to build a new Babies Unit so that their current 'home' can revert to its original purpose of a Medical centre to care for premature babies and sick children. The structure of the new unit is close to completion with interior plumbing and fitting out in progress.

Another youngster you is growing up is the guard dog, Otis. He is only a few months old – he will welcome you during the daytime, but at night, if anyone comes into the Village site, he will do his job and start barking.

To findout more about Potters Village go to:
http://www.pottersvillage.org.uk/

And what now - time to start packing up

No. This is Not a war-zone!!!!

2011-10-14T12:57:00.000-07:00

A friend of ours, Doris has worked in Africa as a language teacher for over 30 years. However, when she left the previous two countries she worked in, Ivory Coast and Liberia, each time she had to do so in a bit of a hurry as war had broken out, and she needed to abandon all her possessions. This time she (and we) hopes to be more lucky!!!

She is now retiring and returning to her native Canada next month. However, last weekend was the last occasion when many of us will be around to say farewell, so we had a little get together in the Coffee Pot Cafe. It was a 'Bring your Own and Share' (and help yourself!!!!!) food event!!!!!

Coincidentally, and keeping to the military theme, Sunday was the 49th anniversary celebration for the Independence of Uganda. We went to enjoy a celebratory parade at the local sports ground, attended by thousands of residents .

In addition to soldiers and police, most of the schools joined in.

There were displays put on by local dance groups.

We are beginning to think about packing up to return to England in two weeks time for our Christmas break. And who knows, we might return next year, when the 50th Independence Anniversary should be even more spectacular and celebrated!!!!

Time for a Ball?

2011-10-08T00:14:00.000-07:00

Last weekend the students at the Diocese Vocational Training Centre arranged their conference at the Cathedral. It was themed 'Come let us reason together' based on a verse from Isaiah chapter 1,

As is usual with such events in Africa the opening, though planned for 8.30 am, took place just before 11. Because the Bishop had a prior commitment. (See note at bottom) he asked Irene to open the conference.

The conference went very well.

Lunch was served late in the afternoon. The Centre's kitchen is in one of the out- buildings. All the cooking is done using firewood or charcoal and can be a bit of a smokey experience.

When ready the food was served in one of the classrooms.

One of the activities enjoyed by the students is volley ball.

Many children here enjoy football but cant afford to buy a ball. Most seem to make their own footballs from string and plastic bags. In case this is of interest to anyone else the following is a item from last weeks newspapers explaining how to make a ball. You may struggle to find banana fibre in England, though.

Note about weddings

One of the problems here is that there is a culture that when you get married you have to:

- pay a large sum of money to the brides family to compensate them for their daughter

- put on an expensive 'Going Away' party just before the wedding at the brides house, inviting lots of friends

-arrange a lavish reception and invite 100's of people to the wedding

The costs of these matters is just too much for poor peasants and they usually get themselves into serious debt. To avoid this many don't actually get married despite this being contrary to their religious beliefs. In order to try and address this the Bishop, when preaching at a remote village church in Mwumba some weeks ago, challenged the congregation by saying he would return to marry anyone without charge. 9 couples took up the offer, including one couple who decided to do so at the start of the wedding service. The Bishop's wife took with them two wedding cakes for the congregation to enjoy

Free Gifts????

2011-09-30T08:10:00.000-07:00

1.Sewing machines from 'Tools with a Mission'

A batch of about 30 sewing machines and kitchen equipment have been received from England through 'Tools with a Mission”. This is a charity which collects tools, sewing machines and similar items that are no longer needed in the UK but are highly valued in Africa. Most of the sewing machines were donated for a woman's project organised by the Bishop's wife so that women in rural villages can set up a small business. Some of the machines will be used by students at the Training Centre, especially the electric ones as there is no electricity in village. Irene helped the Mother's Union Coordinator, Zeridah, to check through the machines 9and Malcolm was persuaded into mend one or two of the broken cases).

2.Choccies from England

Post from the UK can take anything from 3 weeks to 3 months to arrive here. This is a bit of a problem, but can also be a benefit!!! David and Sarah were desperately waiting in vain for 3 parcels of treats to arrive. The first came as soon as they left. We would of course have taken the contents back to England for David and Sarah, but we don't think they would survive the journey!!!!!! Not wanting to see the goodies go to waste we opened the packet (which came from our other daughter in law) and shared the sweets with Jenny, Rosie, Jojo and Kristen.

3.??????

There was an article in this weeks national newspaper in the Health and Beauty section, which we think you may have missed in England. Are you concerned about the high cost of cosmetics and health products? The answer is a regular dose of Urine!! Apparently this cures a range of ailments including acne, eczema, allergies, heart disease, arthritis etc. and is generally good for the skin. It is apparently best to drink it in the morning when it is still fresh and warm or to apply it to your face. And its totally Free!!! (Though we are not too sure if the perfume is to everyone's taste). And we're really not taking the p**s!

"We have a small challenge"

2011-09-23T09:46:00.001-07:00

Ugandans never seem to have a problem. We have never heard them use the word 'problem' – but instead they often mention 'small challenges'

On Saturday morning Irene feared the worse when Malcolm said she had a 'small challenge'. As it turned out she was probably right to be worried! In this case the challenge was that she had 45 minutes to get packed ready for a taxi to take us away for 2 nights to celebrate her birthday.

We enjoyed the weekend at Nkuringo Safari Lodge on the far shore of Lake Mutanda.

The Lodge is about 10 miles away accessed by an unmade road which winds its way around the mountains and along the shore of the lake. The driver warned that the road is 'bad' but other than avoiding one or two piles of earth and a few rut-holes we arrived safely.

The Lodge is situated on a promontory jutting out into the lake, and has stunning views of the Virunga mountains beyond Kisoro. The accommodation was in luxury tent style 'bandas' which are common in such sites, and the food was excellent. When we arrived the Lake was as still as a 'mill-pond'.

And than the rains came. After all, it is the rainy season.

After dinner one of the German guests came into the dining room, absolutely sodden and covered in mud. He has been out in a hired car during the day, and on the way back had been stopped by a landslide covering the road. When the car tried to turn around, a second land-slide had blocked it in.

The next morning, on Irene's birthday, we woke to find we had been cut-off as many land-slides had blocked the road back to Kisoro. As we were staying a second night this would not have mattered too much to us, except it stopped our son, daughter in law and friends joining us for a birthday lunch. The sadness was that several off the houses built in the banana plantations on the hill above the road had been washed away and we were told about 13 people had been killed.

And then the 'small challenge' of how do we get back to Kisoro on Monday?

Answer – we cross the Lake to the Kisoro side by boat. A much more relaxing way to travel, and a much more reliable option than waiting in the hope that a tractor from Kisoro would clear the road.

We also celebrated Irene's birthday with a buffet 'help yourself' meal at Traveller's Rest Hotel. The Hotel should have been full, but it too had been affected by the land-slides as no guests had travelled to Kisoro. Still – that meant more food for us!!!!!

Sadly (for us) , on Thursday, David and Sarah flew back to England having spent 3 months volunteering at Potter's Village home for Vulnerable Children. They had a safe journey – except for the 'small challenge' of a puncture on the way to the airport.

As for Malcolm..... he went to the border crossing to Rwanda to see David and Sarah off. After they had crossed the border and were transferring their luggage to the Rwandan taxi he stood at the barrier chatting to the armed guards. Naturally, he leant across the barrier to give David a fatherly hug goodbye, and was a bit confused when a guard came across to say something. As the taxi moved away he found out that it is a criminal offence to touch someone across the barrier, and that he would have been arrested if he was Ugandan.

Now that would have been a big challenge!!

Spot the Progress - Onwards and Upwards

2011-09-16T09:51:00.000-07:00

Last week Rosie Brown, a nurse from Homer Green, Buckinghamshire, came to work at Potter's Village for about 2 years. Its not her first time in Uganda. As well as visiting Kisoro before she has also worked at Kisiizi Hospital for 4 months. So we have helped to introduce her to the sights in Kisoro.

On Sunday we went to the service at the Cathedral – where David and Sarah stand head and shoulders above everybody else!!!! It was the first week of term so the service was packed with children from several surrounding schools. This makes it a bit of a challenge for the Sunday school teachers. The two teachers normally have about 25 church children who go out part way through the service for their lessons. On this Sunday there must have been about 200 children joining them. It makes lessons difficult to plan!!!

After that we took Rosie for lunch at the Travellers Rest Hotel, The manager has two dogs, one of which is little more than a puppy, called Sushi (on the basis that the older dog, Simba, sometimes looks as if he fancies a bit of a snack).

The new babies unit at Potters Village Home for Vulnerable Children is progressing. The roof has been finished and the builders have started to render. This will be the new flat for Rosie. The new babies unit will mean that their current bedroom can become the medical suite that Rosie has come to help set up. This means that any premature babies, or those who become ill, can be cared for at the Home rather than being transferred to the local hospital.

And, after a year in Kisoro, Irene has at last found some more of her drawers!!!!!

Some weeks ago we mentioned we had got our first drawer in the kitchen unit we bought. This week Irene got 4 more!!! This means that at long last she can put her clothes away.

That is progress!!!!

First Time for Everything

2011-09-10T01:24:00.000-07:00

It was the first week of term at the Vocational Training Centre. When the Principal announced proudly that the Centre had its first ever bell that would be rung to announce meal times, Irene imagined it would be a shiny brass hand bell with a polished wooden handle. In Uganda, the cost of a proper bell would be too expensive, and in this case the 'bell' is a lorry wheel hanging from a simple wooden frame. However, when it is struck with a large stone it does make a very creditable and loud bell sound. And what a good example of recycling. We have also seen that a car brake drum also makes a very effective church bell.

It has been the first time that Malcolm has driven a car in Africa. On Saturday, whilst Jenny and Ezra, the Potters Village Administrator, were away, someone needed to drive to the carpenters to pick up some new wooden bunk beds for the toddlers. As Malcolm has an International Driving Permit he took the Village's pick-up with 3 passengers. It was only a short trip, but unfortunately nobody realised that the rear passenger door had a habit of swinging open when the car was driven around a corner.

Not to be beaten Malcolm also took Nurse Jovia, and a new baby, Iragaba, to the Hospital for an immunisation 'jab' on Monday. Iragaba was born on the previous Friday, and within 2 hours was brought to the Village for care because his mother is severely mentally disabled. It may have been Iragaba's first trip in a car, but he is an old hand at motorised transport. He had been brought to the Village on the back of a motor bike!!!!

One of the Diocese's building projects is a new hotel, called Faith House. It has been built slowly over many years, and the first floor is still a building site. However, the bedrooms on the ground floor are more or less ready.

The first guests arrived on Friday evening – a team from a church in Nailsea, near Bristol. After their long journey from Kampala they were greeted to one of our regular heavy thunderstorms, followed by a power cut. What a welcome for your first visit to Kisoro!

Snip, Clicketty, Snap, Off!

2011-09-02T09:50:00.000-07:00

The Team from Marple, Manchester have had a varied week. In addition to running two Leadership courses, preaching at the Cathedral and helping at the Potters Village Home for Vulnerable Babies:

Wendy gave Irene's hair a trim

Brenda and Lorna taught some of the local women to knit

The Team returned to Marple on Tuesday.

In the meantime we were looking after Jenny's son, Jojo, during the morning service at the Cathedral. For some reason Malcolm thought it would be a good idea to entertain Jojo by letting him use his camera. Not necessarily the best idea he's had!!

Also leaving this week was Jenny's daughter, Hannah, On Friday she left to start at St Andrew's Boarding School in Turi, Kenya. We had a farewell meal and irene gave her a small bag as a farewell gift.

Revenge of the Tomato Seedlings

2011-08-26T07:57:00.000-07:00

Irene had been doing some gardening.

For several weeks she had been trying to grow some tomato plants from seeds saved from a local tomato. She had even made a ‘gro-bag’ out of one of the old ‘Tile Cement’ bags Malcolm had left from tiling the kitchen, and used an old pottery charcoal stove for a pot. And she had successfully nurtured several seedlings to the point when she was about to plant then out in the garden.

And then the cockerel came.

It wasn’t entirely his fault. He were on the menu for dinner for some visitors to the Diocese from Manchester. He should have been a bit grateful as the meal had been postponed 24 hours and so he had the run of the garden. (Except to restrain him his legs were tied together, in African fashion, with a length of string so that he could walk around but should have been unable to run – a bit like a convicts ‘ball and chain’. This did not prevent him, who we shall call Houdini, as he managed to untie the string and at one point was running down the road with Irene and several others chasing after him. She never had this problem getting hold of chicken in Tescos!!)

Later Houdini, maybe to recover from his exertion, found the tempting gro-bag and decided what would be his last meal. All the seedlings were scoffed. Maybe he thought he needed some seasoning?

But Revenge is best served cold – or, in this case, hot!!

That night we sat down with the visitors and tucked into chicken stew, with rice, potatoes, matoke (cooked green plantain bananas) and cabbage. This had been cooked by Alan over a traditional charcoal stove. Irene in particular relished the meal – though, to be honest, she couldn’t taste the tomato seasoning!!!!

A 'Groundhog' week?

2011-08-19T09:00:00.000-07:00

Its been one of those weeks where we’ve been quite busy, but not much that is ‘blog worthy’.

It’s the end of term for the Vocational Training Centre, so it has been a chance for Irene to catch up on herself. Not that she has been idle. Several of the teachers at the Centre have been asking about having some basic, very basic, computer training so for 3 mornings Irene has been showing them how to use a computer, with simple word processing.

There has been a bit of a clear out at the Diocese Offices. Over the years the store rooms have filled to overflowing with a load of rubbish. One of the problems of not having a waste collection service, or anywhere to take rubbish to, is that anything that can’t be burnt becomes a disposal problem. The easy solution has been to dump it in the corner of a store room. However, the corner soon becomes a whole room. This week was clear out time and a lot of old car and motor cycle parts, empty paint tins, tyres, rotten doors etc were brought out for disposal. Fortunately there was enough scrap metal collected to make it worthwhile for someone to buy it. The tyres may also be ‘recycled’ as there are small traders who make a number of objects from them, such as sandals or floor covers for the back of pick-up trucks.

But work continues at the new babies unit at Potters Village. This week the roof timbers were completed and the installation of smart, green, corrugated iron roofing panels began.

Children. Children. Children!!!

2011-08-12T10:07:00.000-07:00

Children 1.
It has been a busy week on Potters Village. On Thursday the first clinic was held for disabled children. A Christian medical charity in Mbarara (150 miles away), the ‘Organised Useful Rehabilitation Service (OURS), had been looking for a location to hold an occasional clinic in the Kisoro area and were pleased when the medical centre at Potters Village was offered.

Notices had been circulated through the churches to the villages around and about 140 children had been registered. Many of these had been an embarrassment to their parents as the local culture is to assume the children had been cursed or the victims of witchcraft, and had been ‘hidden away’ at their homes. Some parents assumed that theirs were the only children to suffer such problems as there are not the counselling and medical facilities that we are used to in England. The day was therefore not only an important day to medically assess the children, maybe for the first time, but also a chance for the parents to receive some consolation that they were not alone.

Although it was suggested that 5 of the children should immediately go into hospital in Mbarara for treatment for their club feet and other conditions only 2 have gone, as 2 of the parents did not have the money for fares and one father refused as the 7 year old daughter with cerebral palsy is too useful at home helping to carry around her baby sister. Although this may seem harsh, the realities are that families of peasant farmers are struggling to survive and every able member, no matter how handicapped, is important to that survival.

Children 2.
Malcolm spent a third week at Kisiizi Hospital to help finalise last years accounts. The most poignant moment was a memorial service held for a 4 year old child held on the same day as his funeral in Wales. James Devaney had come to Kisiizi 4 weeks earlier to support with his mother, (a nursing director who had helped at Kisiizi before), his father who was part of a team doing a sponsored cycle ride to the Hospital from Kampala. Unfortunately by the time he arrived at Kisiizi he was already suffering from an infection which soon overwhelmed him and despite being flown to Nairobi for specialist treatment he died from organ failure. Malcolm understands it was similar to the type of infection that was recently reported in Germany and resulted in the destruction of vegetables following some deaths.

For more details go to:
http://www.flintshirechronicle.co.uk/flintshire-news/featured-stories/2011/08/08/flintshire-parents-devastated-after-death-of-son-four-in-kenya-51352-29197355/
Children 3.
The journeys to Kisiizi are always interesting. This time the first leg of the journey back to Kabale was by Ambulance – Malcolm was a bit disappointed that the siren was not used!

Normally he likes to travel from Kabale to Kisoro on one of the long distant coaches from Kampala. After waiting for an hour he found out that the coaches would not continue to Kisoro, so he chose the second best option – one of the small minibuses.

Half way to Kisoro, in a remote part of the country, some young boys hailed the bus. After the driver had spoken to them, one of the boys brought out of hiding a jerry can of petrol, which was then poured into the mini bus’s tank. Malcolm is certain that the petrol was not exactly legally obtained!!!!!

And finally.

Last week we mentioned David and jenny’s birthday. However, we did not mention the cake that Malcolm made for it – or in fact two cakes!! The reason is that both cakes were disasters, having sunk deeply in the middle. It would have needed a ton of icing to produce a nice, flat topped cake from either of them.
However, they did look the perfect shape for a flan case. So over the weekend the conversion was made into a banana flan with raspberry jelly (courtesy of a leaving gift from Ellie). Talk about making a silk purse out of a sows ear!!!! It can be done.

Time to Celebrate, again and again

2011-08-05T10:42:00.000-07:00

It has been a week of many events to celebrate

Sunday was the closing Mission Service at Mbuga parish where Irene ad been working for 3 days, visiting peoples homes to speak and pray with them, and visiting schools. We knew the Sunday Service could be long, and we have mentioned before about the strong constitution of Africans, so we had thought it might last 4 hours. However, with.....:

- 3 full length sermons
- choirs singing
- an altar call where about 50 came forward, and 10 gave a testimony
- another visitor being invited to speak

...the service lasted ‘just’ 5 hours. Towards the end Malcolm was also invited to say something – but kept it short!!!! And as we sat down for food the other two local Missioners were counselling and praying for people, for matters ranging from healing and repentance for such things as repentance for keeping spirit charms in their houses to accepting Christ for the first time.

On Wednesday we had a triple celebration.

1. It was our eldest sons birthday
2. It was Ellie’s last night in Kisoro, returning to the UK after 6 months volunteer work at Potters Village Home for Vulnerable Babies
3. It would be Jenny’s birthday on Thursday

So we all went out for an excellent 4 course meal at the Travellers Rest Hotel. Total cost with a bottle of wine and other drinks - £55 for 6. As usual Malcolm said he would pay so long as next time we are in England David, or Jenny, take us out for a meal – very droll!!!

It was a sad day on Thursday for most of us, but Ellie was delighted to be able to return to England. 6 months is a long time to be away from home and she was looking forward to catching up with everything, including the latest fashions, in the UK.

And our kitchen is, at long last finished!!!! Malcolm completed the tiling and painting and all that was needed was for Irene to clear up his mess!!!!

We also had a couple of visitors. A Cockerel and hen have decided to forage in the compound around our house. We have named them Stewart (or Stew for short) and Cassie.

Our week - from an Examination to a Mission

2011-07-29T11:43:00.000-07:00

Irene has had a very busy week.

It is exam week for the Vocational Training Centre, and so an exam has had to be set for the Computer Students. This is always an ‘exciting’ time as to complete the exam there needs to be electricity, and most days there is usually at least one power cut – fortunately not during the morning of the exam.

Irene is also preparing a leaflet to advertise the Training Centre. She needed to get some photos for the leaflet, so persuaded some of the carpentry students to move a podium which has been sat in front of the centre ever since the Fund raising day a month ago. Being students, they took every opportunity to fool around for a group photo.

On Friday Irene went to Mubuga Parish to help with a Mission. Unusually for this area the church has its own steeple. Unfortunately, as is the case for most church buildings, there is no glass in the windows, and the iron sheet roof has gone rusty, which means it looks to our eyes to be derelict. In fact, the church has a large congregation and is being extended to give more room.

The church is also part of a complex with a Children's Centre run by the charity, Compassion, which is much more decorative.

Malcolm has also been busy. There was the first meeting to consider a training manual he has drafted for Church Treasurers, which is hoped to be used for a series of training courses next month. He has also been continuing to tile our kitchen – but more of that another week

Apart, but not alone.

2011-07-21T21:03:00.000-07:00

Malcolm has spent the past week working at Kisiizi Hospital again. (see blogs of 6 May and 8 July).

Although the distance to Kisiizi is only about 100 miles, it does take about 10 hours. He choices for travel to the town half way, Kabale, is:

By Private Hire car – expensive

By ‘taxi’ – meaning sharing a saloon car with 13 other people – much cheaper, but uncomfortable / dangerous?

By coach – cheapest, more comfortable, but leaves at 6am.

So Malcolm takes the coach. The only problem is that he then waits until the afternoon (in a local hotel having breakfast, lunc, Coffee, reading and watching the news on satellite tv) until a hospital vehicle has arrived, and the driver has completed his work in Kabale. Arrival Kisiizi, 5pm.

Poor, old Malcolm – all alone?

Don’t believe it. He is lucky to have borrowed the house of the Mission partner, Ann Moore, who is on furlough in England. This means

Ann’s house keeper does the cooking, cleaning, shopping etc. Peace has worked for staff at the Hospital for over 20 years. She is a very cheerful woman who speaks very good English, but most importantly, is an excellent cook! In addition to lunches she has also cooked Malcolm a chocolate cake, which has now ‘disappeared’ even though he claims he doesn't like chocolate cakes!.

Parsley and Heidi, who are Ann’s two cats. They really own the house and are not too sure about this strange man who keeps on coming back, sitting on their chairs, and sleeping in their bed!!! However, they have given Malcolm a good welcome, with gifts of a bird (dead) and a mouse (dead, and eaten)

The hospital is in a picturesque location, next to a local ‘tourist attraction’ of a tall waterfall – not that many tourists would come so far to see it. The Hospital is said to have the most reliable supply of electricity in Uganda, because it has its own hydro-electric generator. However, this does not mean there are no power cuts – water levels are low in the dry season and power has to be conserved, so there have been about one ‘outage’ each day, but for no more than 5 minutes each time. We understand a previous use of the waterfall used to be to throw pregnant, unmarried women off the top - a practice which happily has stopped

And what about Irene? She continues to be busy in Kisoro at the Vocational Training Centre. She also has the company of our son, David and his wife, Sarah and has had one or two visits to our favourite café, the Coffee Pot.

Making Progress?

2011-07-15T12:39:00.000-07:00

This week there are a number of developments to report.

Earlier this month the American Peace Corp volunteer (similar to VSO), Josh, returned home for a wedding with samples of tailoring done by students of the Vocational Tailoring Centre. He wanted to see if any of the shops near his home would be interested in ordering items made here as this would be one way of generating income for the Centre and to assist the students with their school fees. He took with him samples of dresses, trousers, bags and embroidery. Irene was involved in explaining to the teachers and students the type of samples required. This week Josh emailed to say that one shop may be interested in ordering 20 pairs of trousers.

The construction of a new baby unit at Potters Village continues to move on. This week the roofing timbers were put in place, and the shape of the new build ing, consisting of circular units linked together, become clearer.

There has also been a big astep forward in completing our kitchen. We originally oredered a cupboard last November and this week it was eventually ready to be delivered and installed. The time taken has been frustrating as the unit was almost completely built last year, just needing a new worktop and drawer to complete it. It is not quite finished yet, but does mean that we have our very first drawer in our house!!! What an innovation!! (The fact that the drawer did not have a bottom when it came is neither here nor there, of course.) Being competent at tiling Malcolm was keen to start getting the unit fitted and tiling completed. Unfortunately, whereas in England you can buy tubs of ready mixed tiling adhesive / grout combined, here you can only get tiling cement powder, which requires a very different technique to mix and use, plus separate grouting. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. The good news is that tiles are remarkably cheap, so it is less critical if Malcolm learns by his misteaks! (Warning for Irene. The last time Malcolm installed units and tiled a kitchen he started when his daughter was born, and finished on her first birthday!!)

Finally, a possible happy development to the sad saga of coffee cakes. In previous blogs Malcolm has admitted to some disastrous attempts to bake a British coffee cake. Not to be beaten he has tried again, with a different recipe, and there has been progress!!! The only problem is that it was so attractive that visitors were keen to make too much progress eating it leaving less for us. Well, that proves that sometimes progress brings its own problems.

If you need a toilet, find Malcolm.

2011-07-08T10:50:00.000-07:00

We knew we stand out here, but this is ridiculous!

On Saturday we went to the wedding reception of Jovan, an officer of the Diocese Planning and Development Department, to Annet. During the various announcements in Rufumbira we were suddenly aware that Malcolm, who was standing beside one of the tents, was being talked about and everybody was laughing. We realised why when someone translated that the MC was explaining that if people needed to find the toilet then they should walk past the white man. We never realised before that we were some sort of landmark.

The reception, after the service in the Cathedral, was a very happy occasion with about 300 to 400 guests. Unlike English receptions we all ate as soon as we arrived and had finished before the bride, groom, their families and wedding entourage arrived. They had been elsewhere having photos taken and refreshments and got to the reception over an hour later.

Malcolm particularly enjoyed the cake cutting ceremony where the bride traditionally kneels before the groom to feed him a piece of wedding cake. We are not sure how well that would have gone down with our children’s weddings – the grooms might have enjoyed it?

The main entertainment was given by a youth dance group with what we think is traditional Ugandan dancing. The most spectacular featured two men wearing long blond wigs taking up hunting poses and jumping to make their hair swirl around.

Talking of hair, it’s been over 5 months since we had a hair cut – and does Malcolm need one!! The choice of hair cuts for men here is either shaved, or extremely short (a number 1). Malcolm considered getting his hair braided, but decided it wouldn't look as good on him as Ugandan women. Fortunately David and Sarah had brought out some hair clippers so Irene had a go with them on Sunday – she thinks a vast improvement. (a number 6).

Malcolm needed to look his best as he spent the week working in the Finance Department at Kisiizi Hospital, about 70 miles from Kisoro. Since the previous Finance Manager left the Hospital chaplain has been doing a very competent job acting as Finance Manager, but it was felt useful if Malcolm helped prepare the Financial Statements for the year ending June 2011. Malcolm will return to Kisiizi in 2 weeks time to hopefully finish this job.

In the meantime Irene has been living it up in Kisoro, including an invitation from Jan (pronounced Yan), manager of the Travellers Rest Hotel, to the 80th birthday party of his mother, Miriam who is currently on holiday from Holland. It was a good opportunity for a celebration.

Malcolm returned to Kisoro from Kisiizi on Friday. To round off a good week, whilst waiting for a bus in Kabale, he got ‘splattered’ by bird mess, not once, not twice but 3 times within 1 hour– and each time he was in a different location! And the last time he had even taken shelter under the awning of a kiosk!!!! Falling bird mess here can go around corners. (Incidentally, one of the style of toilets here is called 'a Long Drop' being a basic toilet built above either a deep hole or over a tall base, where solids can collect, compost and be recycled. Malcolm just suffered from a different form of 'Long Drop'!)

Some people may call this lucky. Malcolm waits to find out, but the bus did break down on the way to Kisoro. (For those interested the birds were large, grey cranes roosting in tall trees around the bus / car park – and their mess stinks!).

Welcome to the Zoo

2011-07-01T11:11:00.000-07:00

We have got used to be some sort of exhibit in a zoo. We stick out when we walk through town to the glee of all the children “Mzungu! Mzungu!”. On occasions it can happen whilst in our house. Here only a few, more expensive houses have gardens or walls as most homes are next to footpaths. There is not the same sense of private space here as there is in England, which means that children see no problem in coming up to our windows sometimes and see what a strange way we live, even though our house is surrounded by a stone wall and a 10 foot high gate. Last Sunday was one such occasion when 4 children persisted in coming up to our window to watch Irene playing a computer game, and Malcolm reading.

They are not the only ones. This week a stray cockerel has wandered into our garden and spends a lot of time looking at our French windows – though we suspect he is more interested in his own reflection than what we are doing.

The Cathedral's vicar, Rev Habert and his wife Immaculate who live next door have also recently bought a small herd of 4 goats. The two young kids seem to prefer the grass on our side of the dividing wall, and have found a big enough gap to get through.

This is on top of the usual range of Ugandan wild life, which often seems to be on the larger than life size.

David and Sarah are settling into their role at Potter’s Village Home for Vulnerable Children. Last Sunday we introduced them to the Traveller’s Rest Hotel for lunch. Typically, even though this is meant to be the dry season there was one of the heavier, African thunderstorms which turned the garden into a lake, and forced, yes forced us to spend longer drinking in the bar.

To make sure they feel welcomed to the world of child-care they have been sharing with Ellie the full time care of a baby born last weekend. Doreen is the surviving twin of a couple who had been trying for 8 years to have children. Sadly not only did the twin die, but also the mother. There are no other women in the immediate family to care for Doreen and so on Monday, the day of the funerals, her Uncle brought her for admission to the Village. Fortunately she is a very healthy and contented baby which means that apart from 3 hourly feeds she sleeps peaceably during the night. However, David and Sarah are looking a little tired.

But, it's the wrong sort of rain........

2011-06-24T08:11:00.000-07:00

We were told some weeks ago that the dry season would start in May – but it still rains heavily almost every other day. Malcolm told a local that he was surprised that it was still raining, and he replied ‘But, it’s the wrong sort of rain for the rainy season’.

Malcolm looked surprised. Memories came back about the statement given by the senior rail manager when challenged about why the trains had broken down in the first snow of the winter in England some years ago: ‘We were prepared, but it’s the wrong sort of snow!’.

Our friend pointed to the large mountain nearby, Muhabura, which was covered in mist and reminded Malcolm that the clouds around the mountain are different in the rainy season, being at the top of the mountain rather than covering it.

So, when we get soaked in another heavy thunderstorm, we remind ourselves that it’s the dry season, with the wrong sort of rain. It makes all the difference.

Not that Malcolm needs a thunderstorm as the excuse for getting a soaking. Last Saturday was Fund raising day for Faith House hotel the Diocese is building with the purpose of generating income. To provide cover to those attending the fund raising canvas shelters were erected in the grounds of the Diocese Offices. Overnight it had rained and the roofs of the shelters had filled with water. This became obvious when a gust of wind billowed the roof and the collected water came down and drenched some of those waiting. Malcolm then tried to empty all the roofs of water but managed to drench himself (and one or two others), in the process.

The Fund Raising day was a mixture of Children in Need and a charity auction. Representatives of each of the Parishes stood to announce how much they had collected and gave their money. This was followed by an auction of a range of produce and products. As an example 2 hens eggs sold for over £25, about 200 times their local market price.

Rather than run the risk of actually spending money Malcolm accepted the request to sit in a back room to do his favourite thing – count the money. Over 15 million Ugandan shillings was raised on the day (about £4,000).

You don’t often get much notice to preach here. On the way to the Friday evening Fund raising dinner mentioned last week Irene was asked to preach at both the English and Rufimbera services at the cathedral on Sunday. Not only was the time-scale challenging, but the subject was The Trinity – a topic which has split the church on several occasions down the centuries To demonstrate how difficult it is for us to understand how one God can be 3, she called a toddler to the front and told him all about the CPU, RAM and graphics card of her laptop computer. He (and most of the congregation) didn’t understand at all.

On this Friday Jenny returned from the UK and reclaimed her 2 children, returning us to our own home. She brought with her our eldest son, David and his wife Sarah who will be helping at Potter’s Village for the next 3 months. When she arrived at Kigali airport Jenny rang to say they would be delayed to change clothes to something more suitable for Africa, as it is the dry season.

They arrived in a chilly Kisoro to a heavy thunderstorm – but as we all know, it was the wrong sort of rain, again!

Goodbye Ruth

2011-06-17T11:54:00.000-07:00

Another sad farewell this week – but more food!!!

Ruth has been working as a volunteer at Potters Village Home for Vulnerable Children for the past 4 months. Unfortunately she had to return to the UK this week with one of her priorities to find a job that will make use of her qualifications in nutrition.

What a good excuse for a meal!!

And as Jenny is away, what a good excuse to use her house (and staff) to cook it!

On the menu:
Ugandan Chinese – Eve cooked stir fry vegetable and chicken with rice
English Ugandan – Malcolm made a banana crumble with custard
Simply British – Ellie baked a cake

Now – what is there next to commiserate - or celebrate – with a meal?

We continue to stay at Jenny’s house to look after her children Hannah and Jojo while she is in the UK – with the help of 4 or 5 other friends and staff. We think they are surviving OK, though they (and we) are looking forward to their mother coming home next week.

We finished the week with a meal as well. The Diocese is part way through building a 20+ room hotel (Faith House) overlooking Kisoro and this weekend are holding a Fund raising event to complete and furnish the ground floor. On Friday tents were erected to protect people at the event from the sun (or despite the dry season, the rain and thunder). Malcolm took the opportunity to take a couple of pictures. Unfortunately one of the contractors thought this was a good time to ask for money for his picture. Following some friendly banter (well, we think it was friendly – its difficult to tell when one person speaks no English and the other almost no local language). Malcolm printed a copy of the photo for him – to his great delight.

To kick off the fund raising a special dinner was held on Friday night. This was a special Ugandan meal.

Ugandans are always careful about hygiene before a meal and the custom is that everyone is helped to have their hands washed before being served.

One of the main reasons for this is that traditionally people eat with their hands. To be honest, we usually try and find a fork from somewhere but on this occasion it was not possible. At least it saves on the washing up. We were pleased to sit next to Amos, the manager of the Vocational Training Centre, and he was able to translate the speeches.

The highlight of the evening was the specially made cake. At first people were invited to come up to pay the Bishop for a piece of the cake. Trust Malcolm to wait until the remaining pieces were brought round for no payment!!!!! Over £300 was raised from the sale of the cake – which is more than a year’s salary for many people.

Up to our necks in...........

2011-06-10T10:20:00.000-07:00

…..Water
As we are looking after Jenny’s children, Hannah and Jojo, we are staying in their house. Fortunately we still pop into our home each day as on Friday we discovered that a flexible water pipe in our shower room had broken and we were in danger of being flooded from a major leak from one end. At least the floor has now been washed and was quickly dried up!!

…..Paint
One of the projects Irene is doing with the children is to make a dolls house and garage out of cardboard boxes. For some reason Jojo thought it would be good to get as much paint on himself as on the box – time for an early bath!!

…..Birthday cake
It was Rev Haberts birthday on Sunday and we were invited by his wife, Immaculate, to a surprise birthday dinner along with Ruth and Ellie from Potter’s Village. The only present we had to give Habert was a birthday card, which he got very excited about because Ugandans don’t normally receive presents or cards or cakes on their birthdays.

…..Bishops
Thursday was another public holiday – this time for ‘Heroes Day’ to celebrate the military overthrow 25 years ago of the previous dictator, Oboto, by the current President Museveni. It was also a visit by a group from Britain led by Bishop Ken Barham. Ken’s father, Reverend Lawrence Barham, was one of the early missionaries to SW Uganda and Rwanda, arriving in 1930. Ken was born and grew up in Uganda and has formed a Trust to raise funds for projects, such as the Christian University in Kabale.

…..Bricks
The new babies unit at Potters Village is growing very quickly and the walls are already above head / window height. If Jenny is not careful the unit will open before she gets back from the UK.

…. Diar***** and Vom**
It has been a demanding week for Ruth and Ellie. They have been collecting Hannah and Jojo from school each day. However, on Monday they rang to ask if someone else could do so because the babies at Potters Village had gone down with a contagious stomach bug, and were leaking at both ends!!! The difficulty here is that local people are not brought up to worry about hygiene and the need to wash your hands after changing a nappy so any infection is easily passed from child to child. Fortunately, the problem ‘dried up’ during the week.

Beating the Changes

2011-06-03T09:52:00.000-07:00

The Missions we helped with continued over the weekend. On Saturday we went with teams to visit people’s homes, particularly those unable to get to church, in order to tell them about the Mission and to pray for them. For Malcolm in Busozi this meant climbing up steep, muddy, ‘mountain goat’ paths which would have made a challenging ramble in England. Part way up would be small homesteads where an elderly woman might live with her family. The old ladies, unsteady on their feet, are totally unable to get down or up the hillside and are therefore captive in their own home. There aren’t any facilities, like cars, to take them out and even if there were there are no roads anywhere near their homes.

On Sunday we each spoke at our different churches. Here the tradition is that the congregation is summoned by the beating of drums instead of church bells. Occasionally we have seen a brake drum of a car being used which, when hanging from a tree and struck, makes a fairly reasonable bell sound.

There have been some changes at Potters Village Home for Vulnerable Children. Because the home is designed for babies up to about 2 years old there comes a time when they need to move on. For many this means moving back to their families or to foster parents. However, some need to be transferred to homes for older children. This week five children under the care of the Local Authority, including Pius who is about 3 years old, were driven to their new home for older children at Fort Portal. Unfortunately there are fewer children homes in Uganda than in the UK so the choice is limited. Fort Portal is over 150 miles and a day’s drive away, which means the children are moved away from any family they might have. What is more difficult is that the language spoken in the new area is completely different to the tribal language here so they will need to learn another language.

The landscape in Potters Village is changing as progress is being made to the new babies’ unit. In Uganda there are as many women working on building projects as men, and they often seem to do the heavy lifting and moving of materials around the site.

In order to complete the babies’ unit Jenny Green has gone to the UK for fund raising visits to a number of churches. This means someone has to look after her children, Hannah and Jojo – Guess who!!!!

We have therefore moved up the hill to Jenny’s house. Fortunately we are not the only ones here has Jenny has a number of staff to cook and care for the children and the 2 toddlers who are ‘baby sat’ during the day for a working couple. We are more or less live-in grandparents, trying to relearn how to look after a 5 and 11 year old. So far, so good; 3 days gone – 3 weeks to go!!

"... and once you've done the impossible, a miracle will do!"

2011-05-27T11:36:00.001-07:00

On Friday we went to an Arch Deaconry called Gisorora for our second 3 day Mission.

In England we would expect such an event to be planned, worried and prayed over for several weeks in advance so everyone can be prepared. We did have some warning that there would be some sort of meeting at a school, but it was a bit of a surprise for Irene when she arrived in the morning and was given an hour’s notice that she would be the main speaker at the school. Fair enough:

- How many pupils will there be? 50? 100? – about 1,400!!!
- How old are they ? – From 3 years to 19 years old
- How long should I speak for? – about 2 hours!

Oh, and by the way, before the close can you do an altar call?

You will be pleased to know she managed well. She spent about 45 minutes teaching them a song. Another 45 minutes giving a talk. When she asked those who wanted to commit their lives to Christ to come forward about half the pupils did. In truth she thinks many did so that they could try and touch a Mzungu to see if they feel different. However she was told later that about 30 had made some real commitment.

As for Malcolm he was with a different church, and different school. He was one of 2 presenters at 2 sessions of about 100 pupils each, each session lasting about 40 minutes in total – quite tame really. What was a bit of a surprise is that he decided to speak at one of the sessions about a largely unknown 1970’s American, Christian Rock singer, Larry Norman. It takes all sorts.

We will see what we are asked to do tomorrow.

The other event this week was the Lasagne Party (and not the end of the world party) that we mentioned last week. Why Lasagne? Because it is such a treat here. The only place nearby that sometimes sells lasagne pasta is in Kabale, about 50 miles away, which requires a special journey along a partially unmade road just to see if there is any for sale.

PS to find out about Larry Norman http://www.larrynorman.com/

"So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish"

2011-05-20T09:24:00.000-07:00

We understand (according to an American Christian Broadcaster) that tomorrow is the end of the world. So if you are reading this, and about 200 million Christians have disappeared, oh dear...

To be honest, we aren’t taking this prediction too seriously – so we might be in for a surprise. Its going to happen sometime, though no-one knows the hour or the day.

Last weekend we continued to help with the Mission at two separate parishes. Malcolm attended and spoke briefly at two more outside services on Saturday at Mabungo (Mabungo was the first church to be built in Kisoro). The settings for these were almost idyllic. We walked along narrow footpaths to houses set amongst banana trees where the services were hold. About 60 adults, plus the same number of children attended each service, and seemed to have a good time. The sadness was that between the services many went to the funerals of two teenage brothers who died within a few days of each other from an undiagnosed illness.

Irene did more home visiting to talk with church members from Kabindi, and then lead a leadership training session with church and group leaders in the afternoon.

At our respective Sunday morning services each of the 3 Missioners preached (though Malcolm only spoke for about 10 minutes - however he did apologise that the last time he was at the church he was wearing odd shoes (blog of 19th November)). Apparently the congregation are disappointed if only 1 or 2 of the Missioners give a sermon – the services started before the first service at our church in Chesham, England, and finished about 4 hours later, after the second service at Chesham finished. And even the children sat through this fairly quietly.

We have commented before that the only English many children seem to know is "Mzungu! Mzungu! Give me my money". To get to the church on Sunday Malcolm decided to walk as it was only about 40 minutes away. The last 500 yards was up a steep, unmade road and Malcolm passed a teenage boy struggling to push a bicycle with 2 large jerry cans of water tied to it up the hill. Malcolm helped the boy to push the bike up to the top of the hill where the church is. It amused him, however, that just as he was starting to help push the bike at the bottom of the hill, the boy said 'Give me my money'. Malcolm decided that the boy simply said it out of habit - see a white man = ask for money.

Following the Mission we have been pretty weary!!!!!

Some weeks ago we wrote about the potholes in Kisoro town centre (24th December). Since then there has been some work to fill them in, though when it rains some of them get full of water and attract ducks. Birds here are a lot tamer than in Britain. We are not sure why. It may be because there are very few cats so there is less need for them to be nervous. If we leave one of our house doors open we often find some cheeky birds come in to search out any titbits.

If you hadn’t realised, the title of the blog is taken from ‘The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy”, and is what the dolphins say as they escape just before the destruction of earth (to make way for an inter-galactic highway, of course). Another scene from the book is the party held at the end of the Universe. On Saturday we happen to be going to a lasagne party arranged by Ruth and Ellie. This is purely coincidental. Next week we will tell you all about it – if you are still here, of course!

'The Potters' and 'The Citizens'

2011-05-13T11:45:00.001-07:00

The Potters.
A new major building project has begun at Potters Village Home for Vulnerable babies. This is to build a new baby unit to accommodate more children and to release the Medical Centre for its intended function to look after sick babies and provide an isolation ward. The work has been able to start as several of the supporting churches in the UK have pledged some of the money required for the project.

What is noticeable here is how many women get involved in heavy building work. They are usually employed to help break rocks, or to move heavy items around. As there are few wheelbarrows this usually means carrying rocks or piles of bricks on their heads!

Andrew from High Wycombe has been working as a carpenter at the Potters Village for 3 weeks, and last Saturday Malcolm took him with a group up the nearby viewpoint overlooking Mutanda Lake. It was a very hot day (a sign that the dry season is approaching) so it was a rather tiring climb. We all had a welcome break at the top.

The Citizens
We have had the chance of meeting several citizens here. We have been asked to help with a 3 day Mission, starting Friday, in one of the Arch Deaconries. There are 35 Parishes involved and each one has its own team from the Parish plus 2 Assistant Missioners from outside, like us. Irene was sent to the main Arch Deaconry Centre and found that she was heavily involved on the first day, being the main speaker of a team visiting the homes of church members who had not been attending recently. This was followed in the afternoon being one of the speakers at a Mission meeting in the church. What is quite unnerving is that the custom here seems to be to tell you what you are doing, and what you are expected to speak on just before the meeting.

Malcolm had it a lot easier. The Parish he helped held an outdoor meeting in the morning in the courtyards of 4 houses set amongst fields of banana trees and beans.

Following lunch a second meeting was held on a roadside attended by a similar number of people and a host of children. As there was a main speaker Malcolm was asked simply to introduce himself, and to make some brief remarks. The morning meeting was the most sad as during the week one of the 12 year old children of the families living in the houses had died following an operation on his throat (for a goitre caused by iodine deficiency?) carried out by a witch doctor. The treatment was to force a stick down the throat until it bled. Apparently it sometimes seems to work (or maybe the goitre clears up on is own), but in this case so damaged the boys throat that he died.

The Mission continues over the weekend.

And talking about Citizens, we have now received our Work Permits - which sort of makes us Citizens or residents of Uganda till April 2014.

Two interesting Ugandan residents that Malcolm met when walking across the local football pitch were a pair of chameleons. Fortunately no-one was plaing football at the time as they would probably have trouble chanking to the colour of the shirts!

We hope that similar creatures aren’t found at Wembley when Stoke City (The Potters) play Manchester City (The Citizens) in the Cup Final this weekend!

Top Guns

2011-05-06T11:11:00.000-07:00

Jenny Green is a now a Canon.

This has made Malcolm very confused as he is not sure:

- he thought you had to be dead to be Canonised

- why she is now named after a Japanese manufacturer of digital cameras? Have they sponsored her? (If only!!!!)

Fortunately during the service last Sunday it was explained that a Canon is responsible for running the Cathedral (the name Canon is based on the old name for the Canon of Law) and ‘keeping the Bishop in order’! (And has nothing to do with being canonised i.e. made a saint!). Jenny is one of 4 new Canons to be appointed and we celebrated afterwards with a reception including delicious cakes.

The other significant event this week was that we visited Kisiizi Hospital for 3 days.

Kisiizi is about 80 miles from Kisoro, but takes about 6 hours to get there by public transport and Hospital car. Malcolm was asked to visit the Hospital to discuss the possibility of helping with some of their financial work later this year.

The Hospital is set in a remote rural area of Uganda. It is located at the end of a picturesque mountainous valley at the end of a long, unmade, bumpy road. Because it has its own water driven power station it is said to have the most reliable electricity supply in Uganda. It was founded in 1958, is owned by the Diocese of North Kagezi, has 250 beds with about 300 staff. It provides a wide range of general medical services including maternity, surgical, orthopaedic, paediatric, HIV treatment, psychiatric care, dentistry and eye clinics. Irene was fascinated to see a 2 hour old premature baby weighing just 0.8 kg

Coincidentally, whilst we were there various ‘Top Guns’ came to open the new Operating Theatre. This was funded by St Pauls Anglican Parish, Glenageary in Southern Ireland, so there were visitors from there as well as the Diocese Bishop, a representative of the Irish Ambassador, the Regional District Commissioner (with her personal guard with gun), representative of the Minister of Health and the District Police Commissioner (who had his own gun).

The Irish parish had previously funded the new Maternity and Childrens' wards, and as well as the Theatre they are paying for the training of a new surgeon. Unfortunately, because Ireland has suffered worse financial problems than the UK as a result of the banking crisis it is unlikely that the parish will be able to afford to provide further financial support to the Hospital for the time being. This is an example of the problems that many developing countries will be facing as a result of the financial difficulties of the developed world.

And we all had a piece of cake to celebrate the opening of the theatre!

A Wedding, Umpteen Baptisms and a Funeral

2011-04-29T10:42:00.000-07:00

The Royal Wedding has not passed us by completely here. It has been rather nice not having all the palaver that has been in England. Malcolm for one did not miss any of that (although he can still remember what he was doing and wearing when Charles and Diana got married – and it wasn’t watching it!!) Sadly there was one of our regular power cuts during the ceremony. But as soon as the power was restored the computer at Potters Village was turned on so that the English women (Ruth and Ellie) could catch up on most important matters, such as the wedding dress Kate was wearing, and what the bridesmaids looked like. Malcolm concentrated on doing the month’s accounts.

Easter in Uganda is a traditional time for baptising children. On Monday the Rev Victor invited us to the baptism of one of his grandchildren at the Cathedral. Malcolm went (as Irene was continuing her computer training course). The service was in Rufumbira which meant Malcolm did not really understand what was going on (so he spent time ‘entertaining’ a young child, who also did not seem to know what was happening). There were at least 15 babies being baptised, as well as several older children and some adults, so he is still not sure which one was Victor’s grandson. After the ceremony we were invited with about 60 others to a meal in Victor’s pleasant and picturesque garden, which is like a little bit of England.

Unfortunately there has been another murder in Kisoro – the second since we have been here. The Chairman of the Village Council was killed one evening. Apparently he was known as a bit of a drinker and it must have happened while he was out ‘on the Town’. From what we understand he had received threats on his life previously and the police have arrested a number of people for what sounds like a ritualistic killing. The Funeral was held in the Cathedral on Thursday and was well attended (to overflowing), and seemed to last for about 4 hours with many speeches.

The week began and ended with special meals. On Easter Monday the German / Dutch couple working at a local Secondary school, Dieter and Bea, invited us for a special breakfast with home baked bread, jam and cheese – plus some chocolate Easter eggs which went down particularly well with Irene, Ruth and Ellie.

And because there are visitors from High Wycombe the Diocese arranged a special welcome meal. On Saturday Andrew arrived to do some building work at Potters Village for the next 3 weeks. On Thursday his vicar, Simon arrived with Matt to run some training courses for priests for 8 days. As hospitality is very important here they were welcomed with a traditional Ugandan meal on Thursday night with Diocese staff, including us.

So that’s one wedding, umpteen baptisms, a funeral – and 3 special meals. Not bad for a weeks work!

It's a steal - in fact it's a piece of cake!

2011-04-22T05:04:00.000-07:00

‘I don’t believe it’ (Victor Meldrew)

In Britain we’d heard of people stealing items of ‘intimate’ clothing from washing lines. This week, it happened to Malcolm. He’d only hung up a pair of socks and some underwear, and when he came back at lunch-time, someone had taken the socks! They had kindly left the clothes pegs. Irene thought that Malcolm had sensibly thrown the socks away as they had holes in. To some people here even old socks are worth taking (but clearly, not an old pair of Malcolm’s pants – surprise, surprise)

Last Sunday was Palm Sunday and the tradition here is that people take a branch of some sort to church to celebrate Jesus’s entry into Jerusalem. Most managed to find a palm leaf or banana tree leaf – all Malcolm could find were some large leaves from some sort of weed. At the correct point in the service the congregation stood to wave their branches (or in Irene’s case, weed).

Because of Easter it’s been a short working week for Malcolm. Irene however, was asked by the Diocese Secretary (the chief Administrator in the office) to arrange on the mornings of Thursday, Saturday and Easter Monday a basic computer skills course for some of the office staff. So, with the assistance of Ruth, one of the short term Volunteers currently at Potters Village, the short course began on Thursday. It went well (which means the almost daily power cut here happened in the afternoon once the training finished).

Malcolm continues to try and bake cakes. Readers may recall his previous failed attempts at coffee cake (see blog of 17th September 2010). This week he was a lot more successful, although it’s amazing what icing will cover up. The only problem is it was good enough to share, which means this time we only had one slice each rather than half a cake. Maybe in future he shouldn’t try so hard!

Riotous Living

2011-04-15T10:16:00.000-07:00

On Thursday, the Riot Police came to the Cathedral. About 15 police complete with helmets, shields and batons lined up outside our offices. What had we done? Are Irene’s students revolting? Has Malcolm become violent over a missing paper clip? There has been violence in Kampala. Because of problems in Egypt, Yemen, Libya etc the Government has banned groups of people forming to protest. This has angered the opposition parties. They therefore arranged, on Monday and Thursday, a ‘Walk to Work’ day to protest about rising prices, such as petrol. The argument being that they are not breaking the law as they are not meeting but moving. However, the police have taken a firm line, including the use of rubber bullets, managing to ‘shoot’ the main opposition leader, Dr Besigye, in the hand. (Photo from Daily Monitor,Uganda).

So why Riot Police in Kisoro? Our guess is that because young people tend to support the opposition to the Government, the Police wanted to show the neighbouring (all girl) secondary school that they are prepared to take serious action if necessary.

The week had its own tragedy here. Sadly another baby died at Potters Village. Last week we mentioned that one of the babies may go for eye surgery in a month’s time. It would have actually been Moses, a 9 month old baby. However, he had been poorly and on Saturday he deteriorated rapidly and was diagnosed with a hole in the heart. He died that night. To make it even more traumatic for Jenny, when she took the body to a distant village for burial alongside his mother, the grandparents wanted to include pagan ritual within a Christian Service, which is not acceptable. As the child was legally in the care of the Potters Village eventually it was agreed that the pagan rituals would not be carried out. Meanwhile, we looked after her children, taking them out for lunch and then teaching Hannah how to play chess.

Malcolm made his last visit to audit Parish churches when he went to Kabindi, at the foot of the tallest nearby volcano, Muhabura (after which the Diocese is named) and next to the local secondary school. Irene set an end of year test for her computer students who have now gone home for Easter to recover.

PS. Readers will realise how deprived we are here in the wilds of darkest Africa, suffering hardships beyond description!!! We have become accustomed to daily eating fresh scones (which Malcolm makes) with clotted cream (which Irene skims from the top of our milk). No chance of losing weight then!!!

PPS We had a bit of excitement on Friday – 3 parcels from England. 2 were posted at the start of March, and 1 on 24th January – so that only took almost 3 months. Irene has received her Mother’s Day cards – and we have some Easter cards!!!!!

The High Life

2011-04-08T09:36:00.000-07:00

Charity Ball at the British High Commission? Neil Diamond concert? That’s how some people enjoy themselves in Africa. For us, something a bit simpler (and cheaper).

Last weekend was birthday party weekend. On Saturday Jenny’s youngest, almost adopted, son JoJo had several of his friends round to celebrate his 5th birthday. We decided to arrive for the food (sausage in rolls, popcorn etc) and the candle-blowing out. Their favourite game seemed to be when the guests had a balloon tied to each of their ankles, and then had to try to burst everyone else’s by stamping on them whilst protecting your own. The winner being the last one with a balloon. JoJo quickly worked out that the best way to win was to hide in a bedroom and wait for everyone else to burst each others balloons. Bright these 5 year olds.

On Sunday we went out for lunch to celebrate Eve’s 20th birthday. She is staying at Jenny’s and helps with looking after the children.and babies. It in not usual to receive birthday presents in Uganda so she was even delighted with the bar of Cadbury’s chocolate we gave her.

On Monday Eve went with Jenny to take one of the baby twins born about 6 seeks ago to see a neuro-surgeon at Mbarara Hospital – about 125 miles away. The mother of ‘Squeak’ and ‘Grunt‘ (Emmanuel and Edson – pronounced Edison) died when giving birth about 6 weeks ago. (see blog of 4th March). Although Emmanuel is healthy, Grunt (sorry, Edson) is suffering with hydro encephalitis as his head started swelling, and he seems brain damaged and blind. Unfortunately there are no medical specialists on tap here, and it was only this week that one was visiting Mbarara Hospital, a days journey away. The prognosis was better than feared as the swelling appears to be decreasing of its own accord. Edson will need to go back for a check up in a month's time, when surgery on his eyes will also be considered.

Apart from that its been business as usual. Irene is continuing to give some very basic computer training and is speaking at 2 evening lent meetings at the Cathedral. Malcolm has met with the Treasurers of nearby churches including the cathedral to audit their financial records.

Matron!

2011-04-01T07:09:00.000-07:00

It’s been a week of new experiences for Irene. Firstly, she’s begun to sort out the ‘new’ computers for the Vocational Training Centre (VTC). Well, ‘new’ if you regard 15 year old Pentium 2 computers with about 130kb of memory running Windows 98 (does anyone remember Windows 98?) and Microsoft Office 1997 as ‘new’. Still, they are better than no computers at all for a computer course and will at least give the students, who probably have never touched a computer before, a chance to use a ‘mouse’ and to see how a word processor works.

Secondly, she has been asked to be ‘matron’ to the teenage (16 years +) students, especially the 14 female boarders and 4 males. The rules are very strict – for example, the boarders have to be in their unlit dormitories by dusk, (7 pm or after they have been fed) and must not leave the grounds of the VTC at all. She has decided that if she is going to be matron she is going to ‘champion’ her boarders, and has already got agreement that the boys dorm, a tiny room with just enough room for a single bunk bed for 4 boys, is too small, even by African standards, and will need to be changed during the Easter holidays.

Thirdly, she was asked to speak at a quarterly Fellowship meeting at the Cathedral last Saturday on the text Rom 12:2 – a renewed mind. Most of the audience did not speak English so the Cathedral Vicar translated for her. She must have been appreciated because twice the congregation began spontaneously singing their favourite ‘revival’ chorus during her talk, indicating their pleasure at what she was saying.

As for Malcolm, he had another trip to one of the Parish Churches, this time Kabami, to audit the books of 4 of the neighbouring Parishes. One of the treats is that, as is the custom here, he was given a cooked lunch of plantain (green looking savoury bananas cooked like mashed potato), rice, greens, beef and ground nut sauce. This is as honour as normal meals for local people would just be rice and beans since meat is too expensive.

Comic Relief

2011-03-26T04:26:00.001-07:00

We never expected to celebrate Red Nose Day.

On Saturday we went for a walk with two volunteers from Potters Village, Ruth and Ellie and a friend, Victor, a priest working at the Diocese. It was up the same nearest volcano that the Bishop took us to in January. Once again we were followed by a group of local children, amused at why these strange white people should want to walk up and then down the ‘fields’ where their parents grow food.

Unfortunately on the way down Irene fell and badly grazed her nose.

Malcolm was quite keen to include a photograph of her ‘red nose’ in this blog but has been strictly forbidden to, unless he donates £100 to the Vocational Training Centre (VTC) to buy material for the dress making course. Not wishing to embarrass his wife (and being mean) he has decided to resist the temptation. However, he is happy to report that there was no permanent damage and we all enjoyed ourselves at Victor’s place where we were treated to refreshments.

The reason material is needed for the dress making course is that there are not enough funds to buy material for the students to learn on, so instead they have to practice dressmaking by cutting up and sewing together paper bags. Similarly, a new computer course has started with 3 students enrolled, but the VTC has no computers – the second hand ones that were expected have been embargoed at Kigali as Rwanda now ban the import of second hand recycled goods.

Irene is now involved with the course. She first managed to persuade the University, who hold a weekend course at the Diocese, to allow the students to use the University Computers during the week. Then, her master stroke was to visit the local secondary school where she discovered they had just received brand new, state of the art computers, and so they were prepared to give their old ones to the VTC. Malcolm noticed from labels that most had been donated by his former company, ICL, which was ‘absorbed’ by Fujitsu in the mid 1990’s – which makes them about 20 years old (i.e. early Pentiums)!!!! Still, a computer course ought to have computers. All it needs now is a teacher. Irene!

Our culinary experiment this week was crayfish – a local delicacy from Lake Bunyoni. A large, football sized bag only costs about £1.50 (cheap enough to appeal to Malcolm) – but by the time Irene spent 3 or 4 hours removing the shells she was left with enough tails for 2 servings. She has decided, despite the cost, next time we want crayfish we will go to a restaurant and pay about £2 each for a meal and let someone else do the dirty work.

And how do you get rid of smelly old crayfish shells when there is no household rubbish collection?

PS. In keeping with tradition Malcolm’s computer crashed once again in Africa last weekend and now requires a new motherboard before he can use it again – shall it be taken 600km to Kampala or England to see a Dell engineer? And the good news is that the mobile Internet has been upgraded to faster 3G on Wednesday – which means that since then no-one has been able to use it as it doesn't work. This is Africa!

Consequences?

2011-03-18T09:30:00.001-07:00

Last week we wrote how on Friday Malcolm plumbed in a new sink.

Saturday morning – no water.

Wednesday - no water anywhere in Kisoro for 24 hours.

It is said that the first time was because the house next door had a broken tap, and the water was turned off until the plumber came to fix it. The second time is said to be because a tree fell on the pumping station.

Coincidence? Or a consequence of Malcolm’s plumbing? You decide.

However, there was no shortage of water when Malcolm went to Gitovu, another remote village, to audit some Parish accounts. Apparently the rainy season has started, which is a bit of a surprise since it seems to have rained most days since we arrived in August. Buildings here have corrugated iron roofs, and when it rains it is impossible to hear your self think, let alone talk to someone because of the noise. This made asking treasurers questions in the church very difficult. The rain was so heavy that Malcolm was almost stranded in the vicar’s house after lunch with a moat of water outside and no paddling shoes! The vicar did suggest that rather than return to Kisoro immediately he should wait till the rain stops. Malcolm jokingly said that might not be for 10 hours!!! He was right as it rained heavily all night.

It has been an exciting week for church Lay Readers here.

Before Christmas the first Lay Readers for many years completed their training. They are important members of the Diocese as most churches do not have a vicar, and the Lay Readers (or Church Teachers) are responsible for the care of the congregations. Visitors from a church in Winchester, England, arrived on Friday and presented each Lay Reader with a new bicycle and a Bible commentary. One of the recipients was Benon, who we first met when we visited Mabungo, and is now a Lay Reader at Rutaka, Because of the bad roads here, and the cheap quality Chinese bicycles, all bikes have reinforcements on the front wheel to stop the forks buckling. Malcolm was driven to Rutaka a fortnight ago along some of the worst roads here, so he didn’t envy Benon the bicycle ride home – he will need all the reinforcement he can get and it will probably take 3 or 4 hours to cycle home – in his best suit!!!!

Changes continue to take place in Kisoro. Part of the remaining forest in the centre of town has been cleared and fenced off for a new bank to be built. There is only one tree left on this site, which appears dead but is now the home for the cranes that used to nest in the trees. Ironically, we think the new bank will be a branch of the Crane Bank. Coincidence?

Anyone for 'Squash'?

2011-03-11T09:30:00.000-08:00

An update on some of last week’s blog.

Irene isn’t half glad Chris and Polly Barton were visiting Kisoro!

Chris is a British dentist who worked for many years in Kabale teaching dentistry, before returning to England. And their brief visit coincided with one of Irene’s teeth deciding enough was enough, and letting her know in a big way. Fortunately, before returning to England Chris and Polly were visiting their former base, Rugarama Hospital in Kabale which has a good dental clinic. Chris was therefore able to drive both of us the 45 miles to Kabale on Sunday and carry out the necessary ‘deed’ first thing Monday morning, to Irene’s relief.

The ‘highlights’ of the trip were:
- cost of extraction 84p, plus £1.70 for antibiotics (saving over £50 at NHS prices!)

- Sunday lunch in the smartest restaurant we have used here – Birdnest Hotel overlooking beautiful lake Bunyoni (excellent 3 course meal, £8)

- the return trip. We decided to try out the local ‘minibus taxis’, realising from our experience of these in Tanzania that the maximum capacity of 14 seats is just a starting point. Having paid our fare (£3.50 each) and waiting for about half an hour on the minibus, we were told that it had broken down and we needed to transfer to a 7 seater estate car. In total there were 15 of us travelling in the car over the mainly rough roads to Kisoro. It wasn’t so much the 4 of us in the middle 3 seats that sticks in our mind, or the 5 adults and 2 children crammed in the 2 seats behind us, but the 4 adults in the front seats, including 2 sharing the drivers seat! The journey along bendy mountain roads was hair rising as on the tarmaced sections the driver liked to drive as fast as possible, on the wrong side of the road even as we approached blind corners.

We are pleased to report, however, we arrived back safely.

Malcolm visited another remote part of the Diocese to audit the books of 2 parishes, Nyamiyaga and Rwamashenyi. Once again, following a long journey over rough mountain tracks with driver George, he had a warm welcome and met the two treasurers, Ferederiko and Justus.

As with last week his appearance also attracted the attention of groups of children. This time village kids, not in school uniforms, clustered around the car shouting ‘Mzungu! Mzungu!. Unlike last week, they were very suspicious about having their photo taken.

.

Post, post script from the last 2 weeks items on Irene’s wedding anniversary present – the kitchen sink has been installed. Joy of joys, she no longer has to empty a washing up bowl by hand – but can ‘pull the plug out’. The wonders of modern technology! Now, where did Malcolm put the chain?

Celebrity! Celebrity?

2011-03-04T10:48:00.000-08:00

Malcolm says he must be like David Beckham – or does he mean Posh Spice?

He’s never been any good at football, and doesn’t have the figure of a pop star (not a female one anyway). However, as a ‘celebrity’, wherever he went earlier this week all he could hear was children shouting ‘Mzungu, Mzungu’, waving and chasing after him!!

Before he gets too big headed we ought to say that he went by car to some of the remoter parts of the area to meet with some of the church treasurers to audit their financial records. The roads were some of the worst we have seen here, and it takes a very brave, skilled (or foolish) driver to arrive safely. Fortunately the Bishop’s driver, George, was driving. He is the only Ugandan driver we have seen so far who is so safety conscious he stops the car to answer his mobile phone!!!!!! Even motor cyclists here think it’s OK to answer their phone whilst driving over rough roads.

The area is so isolated it means white people are a bit of an oddity. Whenever the car passed children on the road, there would be surprised shouts of ‘Mzungu, Mzungu’ even from children in fields over 100yards away.

When Malcolm and George arrived at Rutaka, a remote village in the mountains, they had to walk up the steep, muddy path to the church. Malcolm noticed children coming out from the primary school to cluster around the car. ‘They must be car spotters’ he thought. He then realised, when they started to climb the hill after him, that their main interest was to have a closer look at the strange, white man. Celebrity? Or oddity? We’ll let you decide.

There are several new ‘Mzungus’ in Kisoro. Last week two new volunteers from England, Ruth and Ellie, arrived to help at Potter’s Village for a few months. Also, two ‘old timers’, Chris and Polly, have also stopped for a break. They worked for several years in the hospital in Kabale training dentists and have come back to Rwanda and Uganda for 3 weeks to see how things are going. Part of their tour is 3 days for a break in Kisoro.

It is just as well there are more workers at Potters Village as every week more babies are admitted. This week two 3 day old twins were brought to the Village. Unfortunately their mother died giving birth and with 5 other young children her husband andthe family are unable to care for the new borns. They are so young that they have not yet been giving names, and so are called ‘Squeak’ and ‘Grunt’, being the sounds they make when they try to cry.

Post script from last week.
Concerning the ‘wedding anniversary present’ that Malcolm said he had ordered for Irene, the ironing board has arrived. For those readers that have made comments we would like to make it clear that it wasn’t really a present for Irene – Malcolm had previously ordered a kitchen sink and chain for that!

Congratulations! And celebrations!

2011-02-25T08:04:00.000-08:00

It’s been a week of celebrations.

Just a month after our son’s wedding in England we were pleased to attend the wedding in the Cathedral of the former Diocese Treasurer, the Revd Habert, to Immaculate. Although entirely in Rufumbira, many aspects of the service were familiar.

However, a couple of major differences were:

- the bride arrived about 50 minutes late, but this was before most of the guests, and she walked up the aisle to an almost empty church.

- Malcolm noted, having been ‘official’ video man at his son’s wedding, that there seemed to be no restrictions on the number of photographers at the service, and how intrusive they were. At one point there were 6 clustered around the Bishop as the couple made their vows – something that would not have been permitted at David and Sarah’s (or any British?) wedding!!!!

The reception also had a distinctive flavour:

- It was outdoors, but fortunately under awnings for guests as just before the arrival of the wedding party there was a major rain storm.

- First all the guests ate.

- Then the wedding party arrived, Having paraded around the town they processed into the reception area accompanied by a band.

- There was entertainment from Ugandan dancers and choirs,

- Many people gave speeches

- Not just one tier of cakes - there were lots and lots of wedding cakes

- The most popular drink was Bushera, made from Sorghum and served from a large oil barrel. It looks like chocolate, is non-alcoholic and is an acquired taste much enjoyed by the locals. (There is an alcoholic version which is available in town and is the cause of some problems from excess drinking) The contents of the barrel, and several jerry cans, were drunk dry by the guests. We kept to Fanta Orange!

Having celebrated a new marriage at the start of the week, at the end of the week we celebrated our own wedding anniversary by having dinner at the Travellers Rest hotel, and were delighted to be given a bottle of bubbly by the manager. As a special present Malcolm has ordered for Irene an ironing board from a local shop – he is trying his luck!!!!

The other celebration this week was by the supporters of President Museveni who was re-elected despite claims of vote rigging from his opponents. He was so pleased to be re-elected that both of us (along with many Ugandans) have received text messages from him thanking us for voting for him!!!! (We are still waiting for similar messages for our votes in the UK last May!!!) Although the national elections were largely peaceful and international observers have reported that it was fair there have been problems this week in Kampala as local elections for the mayor were cancelled. This was because falsified voting papers supporting the NRM candidate (the President’s party) were discovered, ready to be ‘stuffed’ into ballot boxes. This has added some weight to the opposition party claims that the national elections were rigged.

Vive le President!

2011-02-18T02:26:00.000-08:00

It’s election day in Uganda, and therefore a public holiday. It’s a chance for citizens to elect a new President and their MPs for national Parliament. This is only the second time in more than 30 years that multi-party elections had been held. If he wins it will be the 4th term of elected office for President Museveni, although he has been in power since 1986 when he led the military overthrow of the dictator, Obote. Museveni is credited with rebuilding the country, bringing peace, stability, economic growth and reintroducing multi-party elections following the violence and extremes of Obote, and his predecessor, Idi Amin.

Although many aspects of the elections are familiar to us, the arrangements of the polling stations are a bit different to the UK. Firstly, those near us are out of doors, with the one behind our house being in the middle of the local football pitch. Perhaps because the purchase of polling booths would be expensive, it appears a bowl is provided in which voters can place and then mark their ballot papers with some privacy. Their are many candidates for President, and some form of Alternative Vote system must be used but we do not know the details – perhaps it is something that the UK government could consider in the current debate at home, though I don’t suggest moving out of doors to vote!!!!!!

The results of the Presidential election are expected to be announced on Sunday

There are also more visitors here. In addition to Chris from Chesham that we mentioned last week, two paediatric doctors from Manchester, Chris and Rosie, are also visiting Potter’s Village babies home for a couple of weeks. On Monday we were all invited for dinner at the Bishop’s house which was most enjoyable.

We are looking forward to going to the wedding tomorrow of the former Diocese Treasurer, Revd Habert. He is now the vicar at the cathedral which is where the wedding service will be held. This will be followed by a reception at a local school.

Visitations from 'above'

2011-02-11T08:34:00.000-08:00

As Malcolm was walking under a tree across the open land in the centre of Kisoro town centre he felt something land on his head and drop to the ground. He looked down and seeing some kind of seed he breathed a sigh of relief – it could have been a lot messier!!!

The open land has what remains of what must have been a substantial wood. Over the years many trees have been cut down to make way for shops and roads, and what remains is at risk – several have already gone in our few months here and there are plans to build a new bank on part of the site.

For the time being the trees are the home for a flock of large cranes. These are fairly common here, and whilst the crested crane is a protected species, being the emblem of Uganda, these birds are not so lucky as one by one their homes are cut down.

The open land is also used for a range of rallies and events. It is just one week until the national and president elections. Some weeks ago the long standing President, Museveni, held a rally here. Today the supporters of the main opposition candidate, Busigye, also held a rally. Unfortunately in previous years there has been violent demonstrations in parts of the country during the elections – we don’t expect such problems here.

The open space is also the site of the only communal waste skip we are aware of. There is no collection of waste in Uganda, and we burn our own rubbish. However there is one skip in the town centre which gets emptied occasionally. It is also used by some cattle owners as an additional source of nutrients for their herd. Maybe this is a recycling scheme that could be adopted in Britain, although we are not sure this would

be welcome in many towns?

In town you can also see other sights not usual to the UK. On his way back from buying chips from our favourite chip shop Malcolm almost tripped over a new coffin left on the pavement outsider a joiners. He could tell it was new – in the lid is a window for viewing purposes and the coffin was unoccupied!!

There are a number of visitors from the UK at Potter’s Village this week. One, Chris, is a retired Community Health nurse. The coincidence is that she lives in Chesham, and 2 weeks ago when we were being sent off by our church, Emmanuel, she was being sent off by her church, Kings. And she lives just round the corner from where we were staying in Chesham. She is most welcome at Jenny’s house helping to care for the two pre-mature orphans, Joshua and Esther.

Kisoro - Our Return

2011-02-04T09:42:00.000-08:00

It’s been a busy 3 weeks back in England. The main ‘features’ were:

1. The ‘stag do’ for our eldest son, David. This included Malcolm’s first attempt at skiing, and he had the dubious honour of being the only person in the class to fail the first, beginners’ lesson – something to do with not doing a ‘ploughshare’. He doesn’t know if he will resit (although he insists he did some ‘resitting’ during the lesson.). He also managed to make up for this by achieving at least one strike whilst 10 pin bowling

2. The dedication of two of our grandsons at their Baptist Church in Cambridge

3. The wedding of David to Sarah.

Whilst in England we managed to stock up on a range of items, including a microwave oven, a laser printer and 6 cartridges, an electric drill and a jar of Branston’s pickle. We carried so much that we had to repack our bags at the airport and carry several items in our coat pockets as our luggage weighed too much!!

We returned to the relative warmth of Kisoro on Tuesday.

We also returned to a bit of a crisis at the Potters Village home for abandoned and vulnerable children. On the day before our flight 3 babies had been admitted. Joshua (one month old) could not be cared for by his mother due to her mental illness and his grandmother had been found drunk in the streets having left Joshua alone at night. Esther’s mother had died soon after giving birth, and the baby weighed just 1.4kg. Emmanuel had acquired AID’s at birth and was dieing from pneumonia. The hospital did not have the facilities to staff to help him and due to his weakness had not been possible to insert a canula to provide strong enough anti-biotics. Unfortunately he died on Wednesday in Irene’s arms.

For more details about the work of Potter's Village:

http://www.pottersvillage.org.uk/

We also returned to some of the same challenges we left. So far we have had one major power cut with no electricity for more than 24 hours. The shame is the more you rely on modern conveniences (e.g. microwave, laser printer, the Internet) the more you miss electricity.

The ‘sign’ this week is from Potter’s village, being part of a large mural painted by a previous volunteer on the wall of the building that will be the Medical Centre when funds allow.

R & R on Bushara Island * (see footnote)

2011-01-12T08:29:00.000-08:00

We had a most enjoyable long weekend on Bushara island, on Lake Bunyoni, with Jenny’s family and visitors from England – this was even though everyone (except Malcolm so far) came down with ‘tummy problems’, which had been picked up in Kisoro.

Bushara Island is about 50 miles from Kisoro on Lake Bunyoni. It is in a very picturesque and peaceful setting, being one of several islands on this large freshwater lake.

There is no tapped water or electricity on the island and it is managed as an ‘eco-tourist’ site with accommodation being in cottages or tents. It does boast a restaurant which, considering the remoteness of the island and ‘Africa’ offers a wide range of well cooked food – it was difficult not to put back on all the weight we’ve lost in the past 4 months (though the ‘tummy problems’ will have helped!).

‘Bunyoni’ means ‘place of small birds’ and one of the features was the number and variety of birds that live on the island, and try and share food with us.

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It is one of the few freshwater lakes where it is safe to swim, as it is free from ‘Bilharzia’, a rather nasty parasite that lives in most water in East Africa. Not to miss the opportunity Irene did swim the mile to a neighbouring island which in the past was a leper colony when this disease was still a problem.

The sign this week comes from one of the ‘composting’ toilets on Bushara Island. (basically a deep hole in the ground and no flush). The bit that caught our eye is the final sentence, which we assume is deliberate.

We returned to Kisoro to pack up our things for our 2 week trip to England starting on Thursday for David’s, our eldest son’s, wedding

* ‘R & R’ stands for ‘Runs and Regurgitation’ rather than ‘Rest and Relaxation’.

You know you live in Africa when…

... an ambulance rushes to the carpentry workshop, not to tend to a casualty but to collect a pile of wood

… a poinsettia plant is taller than you are

Missing - Swiss Miss

2011-01-06T11:41:00.000-08:00

We’d been asked to look after a Swiss visitor from Tanzania.

Malcolm quickly brushed up on what he knew about Switzerland – will she speak German, French or Italian. ‘Willkommen’, ‘Bienvenue’, or ’Benvenuto’? We also tried to remember if we’d met her in Tanzania. We were confident we wouldn’t know her as we hadn’t met any Swiss people in Tanzania.

It was therefore a surprise when Robyn arrived. We did know her, only she’s not Swiss but from New Zealand. We then realised that in the same way we might get confused about whether someone is from Zaire, Zambia or Zimbabwe, Africans get confused by other countries, such as Switzerland, Netherland and New Zealand.

We last met Robyn on our last day in Tanzania in 2009. She was the last person we said goodbye to then, and the first we have as a guest in our house here. She works at the Theological College in Dodoma and had come here for 3 weeks during her holiday to experience work in another Diocese.

So we have had an enjoyable time catching up with her and showing her around Kisoro. (We will only be with her a few days as this weekend we are going for a break to an island on Lake Bunyoni and next week we return to the UK for our son’s wedding so we needed to make sure she could find her way around here and know where to get supplies).

The highlight of the week has been a walk up a nearby extinct volcano with The Bishop. Although the view was not as good as it could have been because of the misty conditions it was still pretty spectacular. As with most of the land in Kisoro the sides of the volcano were all being cultivated, even the crater in the middle.

But, we couldn’t call it a peaceful walk. As normally happens when white people go for a walk we were soon followed by a crowd of children all keen to know what we were doing, to look through our binoculars and to see photos of themselves on our cameras.

The ‘sign’ this week is another from the Compassion Child Development Centre we ‘featured’ on 10th December. What appealed to us is that shows that Ugandan’s concern about health, but this time next to pictures teaching children to count is a warning against drinking and smoking.

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You know you live in Africa when….

… you are ecstatic to buy the last small bottle of HP Fruity sauce for more than £2 from the local shop

… you ask the shop-keeper for plaster filler to fill holes in walls, and he says he has none. You then notice boxes of ‘Polyfilla’ but he explains that is for cracks in walls, not holes.

...and a Happy New Year

2010-12-31T11:15:00.000-08:00

We had a most enjoyable Christmas.

On Saturday we woke up to what might be the Ugandan equivalent to a White Christmas – not snow but a white mist hovering over the field behind our house.

And Santa had left presents around our Christmas Tree – although it might look just like an old margarine tub. That’s because one of the presents Malcolm had for his birthday was a grow your own Christmas Tree from seeds which promised that in 3 weeks the tree would be 4 inches tall!!! Just add water and watch it grow!! Unfortunately the ‘manufacturer’ hadn’t reckoned on Africa – we still live in hope.

Following the service at the Cathedral we went for Christmas lunch at Jenny’s. The ‘luxury’ meat was chicken (as Turkey’s are almost unheard of here) with all home grown vegetables followed by trifle and cheesecake.

Two weeks ago we mentioned there would be a nativity play which starred a bat. This was presented at the Cathedral on Sunday. The lonely bat lived in the stable where Jesus was born. Because of Jesus he was no longer lonely so went to find other people (including the sun, the moon and shepherds) to meet Jesus. Only a slight 'enhancement' to the Gospels.

After that we had Christmas tea at a friends, Judith. One of her skills is cooking so we had all the Christmas fayre – cold meat salad, mince pies, Christmas Cake, Trifle, flapjack ……..

Apart from that we have had a quiet week, although Malcolm has come down with a bit of a cold and we think Irene must have caught a Nairobi Fly in her elbow as she has developed a nasty looking scabby rash. (see blog of 26th November – the bodies of these flies contain an acidic fluid which burns skin). She is slowly recovering.
The ‘sign’ this week is actually a woven mat at Judith’s house. We think it should read ‘I wish you Peace and Joy, except the ‘J’ has become ‘L’.

So our seasonal greeting is too: ‘We wish all our friends Peace and Loy .... And a Happy New Year’

You know you live in Africa when….

… a crowd standing outside a shop doesn’t mean the shop has a sale, but a television.

… instead of suntan lotion shops sell ‘Fairness Cream’ to make your skin lighter.

It's Christmas!!!!!

2010-12-24T09:09:00.000-08:00

Well, almost.

As we write this on Christmas Eve night we are in the middle of a heavy thunder storm. Near the equator we knew there was never any hope of a white Christmas, but the weather is trying its best to make it seem like England as there are hailstones falling as well.

It has been unusual getting accustomed to a different sort of Christmas for us. The weather has been getting hotter, and there has been minimal signs in the town that it’s Christmas with few if any decorations. One or two more shops have started playing Christmas music in the last week, and there has been the occasional Christmas tree in tourist hotels but that's more or less it.

The last office day at the Diocese was Tuesday, and that was the day the office tree was installed and decorated. Malcolm was quite relieved that it hadn’t been there for a week or so. This is because when the lights are turned on a tinny electronic version of ‘We wish you a Merry Christmas’ is continually played, over and over and over. Any more than a few hours and he might have been forced to bring a hammer to work!!!!

The last working day also meant lunch together. Although this did not include traditional Christmas fare (i.e. turkey, sprouts, mince-pies) it was a very pleasant sausage casserole and a range of vegetables.

We are not the only ones tucking in. As you see some cheeky birds have been pinching the peas in our garden – its been a race to see which of us gets them first.

The closure of the Diocese offices has not meant we have stopped working! On Wednesday Malcolm spent the day doing the books at Potters Village. This meant he was unable to goto a rally in Kisoro attended by the country’s President – not that he would have gone as we won’t be involved in next February’s elections. Since then Irene has been making Christmas presents for friends here, and Malcolm has been doing some painting outside – he just finished touching up the emulsion before the current storm. Shame!! He also found time to put up some decorations our daughter sent him for his birthday earlier this year.

The ‘sign’ this week is unusual for Uganda. A couple of weeks ago a team of men turned up in town to dig up some small potholes in the main roads. They’ve done a good job, deepening the holes considerably and squaring them up ready to be filled. Unfortunately there is no sign that they are about to be filled. One did originally have a row of stones marking it out, we assume to warn motorists. This is highly unusual as potholes are normally left unmarked to surprise the unwary motorist. However, the stones have long since gone and motorists now have the excitement of trying to avoid the man-made ravines / water holes!!!

Finally, we wish all of you a relaxing Christmas and a very happy New Year.

You know you live in Africa when….

… whilst outside painting your door children from the school across the road shout for about 20 minutes ‘Mzungu, Mzungu. How are you?’ even after you’ve given up repeatedly replying “I’m fine; I'm fine”

… ripe oranges have pips – and are green

The Build Up to Christmas?

2010-12-17T07:46:00.000-08:00

To repeat our opening comment from last week:

‘We continue to be amazed by African resilience.’.

This time it is how long they (including children) will stay for a church service.

Last Sunday we returned for a service at Mabungo church, where a few weeks ago Jenny presented a drum (see blog of 19th November). It wasn’t the service itself that was particularly long – about 2 hours (partly explained by the baptism of several children and an adult) but it was followed by talks by 3 parliamentary candidates. The national elections are in February and it is customary here for candidates to be able to present themselves in church. That took about an hour. This was followed by the auctioning of items given in the offertory instead of money – including 2 large squashes and 4 chickens – live. We were a bit limited as we didn’t understand the language but it was clear the auctioneer was a bit of a comic and the congregation enjoyed the 45 minute event!

We are pleased to report that Christmas is slowly arriving – we mainly know this because there are a lot more people in town as students return from school and families come home from Kampala etc. However, apart from one music shop which was playing one day ‘O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree’ very loudly, the only other sign is that the ‘supermarkets’ are getting low on some items like cornflakes as more is needed to feed the extra visitors. Apart from that it is getting hotter and hotter as the rains have slowed down – it almost feels like the sort of weather you would expect in Africa.

Malcolm continues to potter around with DIY – this week installing exterior lights. This did involve using a ladder (he’s not very good with heights) and at one point an ’extension ladder’ which Irene called ‘not very sensible’ - he can’t think why. He also discovered that the electrician who had installed some new sockets when we first arrived had, in one of them, swopped the live and neutral wires. We are surprised our electronic equipment still works!

He continues to work a day a week helping the manager of Potters Village with the book-keeping. This week Jan (or Yan?), the manager of the Travellers Rest Hotel, brought some visitors to look around whilst Jan took the opportunity to play with the eldest boy there, Pius.

Irene is helping to make costumes for the Nativity Play at the Cathedral on 26th December. For some reason one of the characters is a bat. We can’t remember Dracula being mentioned in the Gospels – we wait and see.

This week’s sign comes from a shop in Kisoro – we now know where to go if we want to dig foundations!!

You know you live in Africa when...

… you get sunburnt walking to the market to buy food for Christmas

… you open the electric meter box to check the reading and a lizard looks back at you from inside

The Bishop's back in Town

2010-12-10T07:34:00.000-08:00

We continue to be amazed by African resilience.

If we had just arrived from a 9 hour flight from England to Kampala, and then, after a days rest, had completed an 9 hour drive from Kampala to Kisoro, I think the last thing we would want to do is entertain about 30 guests for the evening. Bed, or failing that, to relax would be on my mind. But this is Africa where it is important to make sure that you welcome people properly, especially someone of importance.

On Thursday evening the Bishop and his wife arrived back in Kisoro after spending 6 weeks touring England. As soon as they arrived we met them for a cup of tea in his office, and then moved up to their house where about 30 people from the office, clergy and friends stayed for about 4 hours hearing, over a meal and speeches of welcome, of their experiences in England. They spoke of the people and friends they had met, and, surprise surprise, the snow.

Apart from that its been a fairly quiet week. On Sunday we visited, with Jenny, another Parish church – this one actually an ‘Archdeaconry’ which meant it was a bit grander than a normal parish church with a large congregation – so large in fact that, as we were sitting in the front row we felt rather squashed and pressed in when the children and people came forward, to be prayed for as they went too Sunday School, to give to their offerings and later for communion.

It was a longish service – about 3 hours so Malcolm did leave part way through for a bit of a breather and to try and discourage the children from climbing all over the car.

Irene has been doing a lot of sewing for Potter’s Village baby home, and on her own dresses. As in Tanzania we seem to have temporarily inherited an electric sewing machine which no-one was able to get going until she arrived. She is getting a bit of a reputation.

Next Monday the Diocese Finance Board meets to consider a number of matters including the budget for 2011 so Malcolm has been busy helping the accountant with some of the background reports.

As for Christmas, it hasn’t arrived here yet. There are no Christmas decorations in the shops, or piped Christmas songs but if you look very, very carefully you might be lucky to find one, or maybe two adverts in the national newspapers decorated with a small picture of holly, or something like that. Other than that, Christmas has not arrived, although we have been warned in a week or so the prices of vegetables will increase as people return to Kisoro from Kampala to stay with their families over the holiday season.

Regarding the nest outside our office the news (bad?) is that it appears that instead of the birds nest we have gained the nest of a rather large flying insect; it looks something like a giant black wasp but a wing span of over an inch. It makes UK flies look puny, I’m afraid.

The signs this week are from a Child Development Centre run by the charity ‘Compassion’ located next to the church we visited last Sunday.

You know you live in Africa when….

… you find yourself staring at white people walking past your office and wondering ‘Who are those Mzungus?’

… the drain in the floor of your ‘wet-room’ shower is higher than the rest of the floor (and even African water only flows down-hill!)

There's excitement - and there's ExCiTeMeNt

2010-12-03T10:49:00.001-08:00

It’s been fairly exciting here, but nothing like in England!!!!!

First of all we’ve been reading about the snow. Oh dear. And here it’s 'boringly' beginning to get hotter, with the rain reducing. The Bishop from Kisoro and his wife have been visiting the north of England for the past 5 weeks - it will be interesting to hear what they think when they return next week.

But even more exciting than that is we understand the BBC programme we appeared in, To Buy or Not to Buy, was broadcast last Wednesday, and from what we can gather from ‘Facebook’ has caused a bit of a stir amongst family and friends – some laughed until they cried / wet themselves, others covered their faces in embarrassment, others are still trying to avoid watching it. And we don’t know what all the fuss is about as here we can’t see what is, after all, a serious house-hunting programme.

But even more exciting than that - we heard on Saturday that our daughter, Rachel, gave birth to our third grandson Mark – a week or so earlier than planned but very welcome especially as he arrived on Malcolm’s birthday. We hope now that Malcolm will at least remember in future one relative’s birthday!!

Compared to that it has been relatively dull here!

Of course, there was Malcolm’s birthday. He received several presents, including a Christmas emergency relief ‘Food parcel’ with amongst other items mince pies, cake, trifle and Christmas tree (or at least the seeds to grow a Christmas tree). a Sudoku game for the DS and a dictionary for Rufumbira , the local language. He can’t remember how old he is but has been told next year is a ‘big’ birthday – which must mean he will be 21 (again).

On Sunday we took our lives in her hands when we went with Jenny to another village church for a presentation of a prize – only this time to the back of beyond. The rough track we went on to avoid a 'dangerous’ bridge was almost impassable even to a 4 wheel drive vehicle because:
- parts had been washed away by the rain
- there were several steep gradients – almost 45 degrees in places
- part of the road had been undercut leaving a 6 foot deep crater in the middle of the track

We arrived to find the church was about 1 km away from the nearest road, accessed down a valley by a track (made especially for us by the church members) and up the other side.

We then had a very enthusiastic welcome, partly because we were the first white people ever to visit the church., and were served a large lunch after the service.

On the return journey we decided to take the better road but risk the bridge – we made it!!! But nobody but Jenny was in the car when it crossed the bridge – Malcolm had his camera ready just in case she got into difficulties. How thoughtful!

After all that excitement it was a fairly quiet week with one tragedy. We are sorry to report there will not be the patter of tiny claws / wings outside our office as the nest has been abandoned.

After all that excitement, we can’t wait to see what happens next week!!!!

The following signs are at the entrance of a nearby Seseme Girls school and demonstrates again the Government’s up-front approach to tackling AIDS that we mentioned on 29th October.

You know you live in Africa when….

…the gloss paint, which is described on the tin as ‘dry in 6 hours’, is still tacky 4 days and 2 thunderstorms later

… you realise you have discussed seriously how to catch, fry and eat grass-hoppers

Male Anxiety!

2010-11-26T11:43:00.000-08:00

Irene has had a bit of a tummy upset this week. We are not sure how she caught it, but she didn’t want much to eat on Thursday. Fortunately these problems are fairly quickly recovered from with a bit of care and attention. Malcolm could tell she was recovering on Friday when she said she fancied some meat for tea. However, he was a bit alarmed when she suggested that he go and buy some of the pieces of goats meat which are barbecued over charcoal at our local ‘chip shop’ – so she had toast and jam instead.

One of our treats, about once a week, is to buy a bag of chips each from the local chip shop. The only similarity with those in England is that they are potato slices fried in oil. However, the chips are cooked in large pans of oil over a charcoal fire in the street, and served in plastic bags along with a portion of cooked cabbage and with a meat sauce. They are very tasty and remarkably free from fat, and at 30p for a large portion are good value.

Another concern for Malcolm this week was the training book-keeping arranged on Thursday for Parish Treasurers. About 40 treasurers and priests arrived and benefited from discussion and presentation not only from Malcolm but also the Diocese Secretary and Treasurer. Unlike some groups we’ve met here who can be reticent in interactive sessions, the 40 or so delegates were very forthcoming and there were lively, productive, exchanges of views.

Friday was the deadline for Malcolm to renew his 90 day visitor’s visa. This involved the short drive to the border to leave the country and then re-enter. Jenny Green took the opportunity of giving Malcolm a lift, and they continued to Kigali in Rwanda to do some Christmas shopping.

Christmas has not yet had any effect on Kisoro, so it was in Kigali that Malcolm saw his first artificial Christmas tree and a (talking) mechanical Father Christmas of the year. He decided he hadn’t missed much. What they both enjoyed was lunch of an ‘All Day English Breakfast’ of bacon, sausage, fried egg, baked beans and hash brown – lovely. The last cooked breakfast they will have for some time. Then back to the border where a new visa was successfully granted. Jenny has done the journey on many occasions, and is now on first name terms with immigration and police officers on both sides of the border. Hopefully this will be the last time Malcolm or Irene will need to renew their visas as they expect their applications for two year resident’s permits to be approved soon.

So what else has Malcolm got to be anxious about? Well, Saturday is his birthday, when it is rumoured he will be entering his 60th year – Oh dear!

And, oh yes, he noticed that ‘Nairobi Flies’ are attracted to the lights in the lounge at night. These small ant like insects contain acid in their bodies which burns skin badly if they are squashed. More alarmingly, when he turned the lights off to watch a DVD on his laptop, he noticed they had now been attracted to the light from the screen and were crawling across it.

There is no sound of any new arrivals yet from the nest outside Malcolm and Irene’s office. However, the husband was seen pacing nervously near the nest this week.
The following sign caught our attention because of the name of the Hair Salon. We fully support the need to get ‘Back to the truth of the Bible’, but not sure how it applies to a hair-cut – unless your name happens to be Samson or Delilah. However, we are a bit concerned about at least one of the services on offer.

You know you live in Africa when…

… you use a toilet in an up-market hotel, and find that because the w.c. has been fixed in the centre of the cubicle, it is almost impossible to both close the door and sit down – especially with feet size 11.

… you find out that a ‘Nairobi Fly’, which can burn you with its acid, has no wings and can’t fly

Anyone for cricket?

2010-11-20T00:39:00.000-08:00

Last week heralded the arrival of the first of the swarms of crickets. Children could be seen running around with black plastic bags collected them up. Why? Because they could sell them to the shops who then sell them on as a valuable food supply. We have not yet tried them but there is always a first time! (and possibly a last time).

On Sunday we went with Jenny to Mabungo parish church and enjoyed a long traditional service with drums and choirs, with lunch with the vicar afterwards. The church had won the “Family Service Competition” and were presented with a certificate and a rather large drum for the Sunday School to use. We think that maybe the school could meet in the drum; it was pretty big. The children sat around our feet seemed particularly fascinated in us – but this may have been because for some reason Malcolm was wearing one black leather, and one blue suede shoe. Poor old thing - the sun must be getting to him.

In the nick of time Tim Sanders, our Personnel Officer from CMS, arrived on Monday with Jenny and Irene going to meet him in Rwanda and enjoying a shopping expedition and buffet lunch at a “posh” hotel. Irene took the opportunity to renew her visitor’s visa as the 90 days validity was almost up and our work permits have not yet been processed. Malcolm will probably have to make the trip next week to renew his.

On Wednesday we enjoyed another outing, our first visit to Kabale, the closest big (er) town. The journey, through stunningly beautiful countryside and through what is left of the bamboo forest, wasn’t too bumpy as it had tarmac in quite a few places! After having lunch with other Muzungu workers we dropped Tim off. Irene and Jenny then enjoyed buying in better stocked “supermarkets” with Malcolm trailing behind to pay the bill; however he cheered up when he managed to find another bottle of the elusive HP “brown sauce”.

Having picked up 6 gas cylinders the return trip was smoother as the weight helped keep the pick-up on the road, although we had to stop to rearrange the ropes holding them upright when the bumps loosened them.

Malcolm had the privilege of visiting with the auditor from the Anglican Province in Kampala several of the farmers in Nyakabingo who had been given a sheep following training in modern agricultural techniques. Many of their homes were up narrow tracks into the hills where they manage to scrape a living.

Fortunately the land is very fertile with some fields growing in abundance mixed crops of potatoes, maize, cabbages and bananas.

There continues to be a lot of activity around the nest outside our office, although it is difficult to get a good view!

This week’s sign is from Kabale – the shop name appealed to us

You know you live in Africa when….

… you are interviewing someone in her lounge when a hen struts in and jumps up beside you on the sofa

--- you discover a scruffy street child’s entire English vocabulary when you have the following conversation:

Child: ‘How are you?’
Answer ‘I’m fine. How are you?’
Child ‘Five plus five’

You know he will soon master ‘Give’ and ‘me’ and 'money'.

What a shower!

2010-11-12T08:20:00.001-08:00

Irene is very happy.

Irene is very, very happy.

Malcolm successfully connected the water heater to the electricity and now she can have a hot shower every (yes every) morning – as long as Malcolm remembers to switch the heater on, of course. As he needed to go back into the loft to make the wiring connections, and he came down looking in the same condition as he did 2 weeks ago, it was in fact Malcolm who had the first hot shower. However, he wanted to include a photo of Irene’s first shower – but the world is probably not ready for this yet.

It has been quite an eventful week. On Sunday we were invited to Judith for a traditional Sunday roast – roast goat - delicious and similar to lamb. Judith has lived in East Africa most of her life and currently cares for Pamella, a young Ugandan girl. Judith’s adopted son runs the local honey cooperative which sells some excellent honey.

On Wednesday Irene gave her final Business Studies lesson for the term. The students were most excited about being given certificates for attending the course. Amos, the Vocational Training Centre manager who has been translating for the past 5 weeks was delighted to be given a Mars bar by way of thanks. Next week the students sit their exams and then the College closes for Christmas and the national elections, reopening next February. Just as well Irene has lots of other things to do including helping out at Potter’s Village babies home.

On Friday Ezra, who is the Administrator at Potter’s Village, needed to visit Nombe, a village on the border with the Congo and about 15 miles from Kisoro – so we went along for the ride with Kristen, a Peace Corp volunteer working at Potter’s . The scenery was once again stunning as we drove carefully along unmade mountain roads.

Nombe overlooks the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the ‘Impenetrable Forest’ where families of Mountain Gorillas live. These are a major tourist attraction for wealthy tourists as a day’s trekking costs $500 a person – about 4 months salary here.

We visited the Nkuringo Gorilla campground (we didn’t see any Gorillas camping though) for a soda (excessively priced at almost 50p a bottle!!!!!) and to find out about their excursions. Irene would like to see the Gorillas, but at $500 she will have to make do with Malcolm. Shame.

When Ezra visited the local school it was us Mzungu's who suddenly became the local attraction with the children.

The signs this week are African road signs. The ‘Men at Work’ sign is fairly conventional. The second sign is typical from what we have seen here and in Tanzania but comes in various forms – sometimes bushes, other times branches and on this occasion a tree trunk. It is very adaptable to what it means - maybe we should suggest that the UK Highways Agency uses it?

You know you live in Africa when….

… you walk gingerly over the sharp, stony paths in your walking boots and realise others are walking bare-footed

… the second time you cook beans, and decide this time to soak them in hot, not cold, water before cooking, you notice little black boiled weevils floating to the surface and realise that you must have eaten them the first time you cooked beans. But you decide it’s not a problem and would have simply meant you had eaten extra protein.

Half Way Points

2010-11-05T12:19:00.000-07:00

It doesn’t seem it but this Friday was the half-way point for our first ‘term’ in Uganda. We’ve been here just over 2 months, and in the middle of January we return to the UK for a couple of weeks for our eldest son’s wedding.

Its also half way point for our plumbing. This week a team of plumbers came to install a water supply to the kitchen and to plumb in a water heater for the shower and kitchen. This meant our kitchen moved into the lounge which made it harder for Malcolm to ignore the washing up.

The pipe-work has completed – the missing bits are:

- we need to have a cupboard made for the sink top – until then we continue to use a plastic bowl for a sink, with no drain even though the pipe has been installed

- plastering
- Irene is waiting for Malcolm to connect the heater to electricity – until then it is still cold showers. If he doesn’t get a move on then he’s the one in hot water! Perhaps next week we will be able to report (without photo!!) Irene’s first hot shower for several weeks. Phew!

On Friday we had our first trip out of Kisoro as Jenny drove us 20 miles through the mountains to Rwamashenyi to inspect a piece of land owned by Potter’s Village. Half way there, near the top of a mountain we stopped at the point where we understand Winston Churchill in 1907 declared that Uganda must be the ‘Pearl of Africa’ because of the beauty of its mountains, valleys and lakes. No doubt the view has changed since then with many trees and bamboo being cut down, and new roads and buildings but it was still a spectacular view.

We have both been busy this week. Irene has continued to meet with students to discuss their career plans, and also showed Jenny’s daughter Hannah and Izzie how to sew dresses for their dolls.

Malcolm spent a couple of days at Potter’s Village helping the administrator with the monthly finance return. He was also persuaded to help Irene with her Business Training course at the Training Centre by taking the 2 hour session on Financial Management. All we can say is that he (and the students) survived.

The nest outside our office is still there, with one of the birds spending time on the nest. We are not experts but we guess we are about half way to any eggs hatching.

The sign this week was spotted on the mud flap of a lorry we overtook on the way back from Rwamashenyi.

You know you live in Africa when….

… when you are crawling around your attic you see in the torch-light a large green grasshopper which decides to jump at your face
…you proudly unpack your new gas cooker which boasts ‘thermostatic control’ for the oven to discover there are no markings to show which knob controls which burner, let alone the temperature of the oven

Electrifying Experiences

2010-10-29T06:09:00.000-07:00

The best advice when it comes to electricity in Africa is ‘leave well alone’. This is because our experience in Tanzania as well as here is usually the wiring has been botched together with poor quality components. The common way of connecting wires is by twisting the ends together – this avoids the cost of buying junction boxes but does make crawling around lofts a bit more challenging.

The second best advice is, if you want something done well, do it yourself. (Also known as ‘Fools rush in…..’) and this is Malcolm’s approach. There is nothing he likes more than crawling into dark places and getting absolutely filthy. His first tasks were to replace with ceiling roses all the light-holders dangling through the ceiling from ends of electrical cable, and then to put in proper junction boxes to replace the botched wire connections. So having visited the town’s only specialist electrical component shop, and buying their entire stock (and therefore Kisoro’s entire stock?) of ceiling roses (4) and junction boxes (5), he borrowed the Diocese’s ‘ladder’ (made from off-cuts of 3x2) and went into the loft. Apart from being concerned about how large the African spiders might be as he destroyed their enormous webs, his discoveries included:

- the earth is the least important wire in Africa – most being cut short and not always connected to anything.

- however, this isn’t a problem as the earth of the main wire from the meter to the fuse box wasn’t connected to earth anyway, which explains why we’ve been getting small electric shocks from our laptop and electric cooker

- the lights in the lounge are connected to the power circuit, not to the fuse for the lights – as Malcolm discovered when (having carefully disconnected the lighting circuit) he was trying to install a junction box and there was a loud bang and a big spark. Fortunately he wasn’t touching the wire – and for the record, the 20 amp fuse didn’t blow either, which rather defeats its purpose.

After several attempts he emerged from the loft more or less in one piece and we now have better lighting in our lounge – next week he hopes to install lights in the hall way which currently has none which makes it interesting when you walk around in bare feet at night. This is especially so as we have been warned that soon it will be the time when we may find Nairobi Flies near or in the house. These have the interesting feature that their body acid will badly burn your skin when they are crushed..

Other events of the week include:

- leaving Jenny to care for some sick babies we enjoyed lunch and Sunday afternoon with her children, Hannah and Joseph and Izzie.

- part of the excitement with her children was the arrival that day from Kampala of 4 of the ‘Big 5’. This is not the safari Big 5 animals you might hope to see ( Lion, Leopard, Rhinoceros, Elephant and Buffalo ) but:
- gas cooker, fridge, toilet seat and kitchen sink

- the missing item, the water heater was received later in the week and is desperately needed for the shower.

- Malcolm went shopping and was a bit puzzled when he bought from the market some spinach for 1000 shillings, and the stall holder seemed terribly pleased. When he got home Alan (the lady who cooks and cleans the Diocese ‘Guesthouse’) explained she would have paid no more than 200 shillings. Trust a man!!! However, this is not too serious a matter as 1000 shillings for 2 lbs of spinach is about 15p a pound.

- A pair of birds have built a nest just outside our office door, and immediately above the place Malcolm likes to sit to work (see photo in blog dated 17th September 2010). We will let you know if anything happens!

The sign this week is from Chihe Primary school whose mission is ‘to provide a conducive environment for better learning’. But it’s the sign in the lawn that caught Malcolm’s attention.

In case you think it is a bit explicit for a Primary school, we understand that children up to the age of 16 attend as they all receive education at the ‘Primary’ school level. Aids is a serious problem in Uganda with at one point the country having the highest incidence in the world estimated at 20% of the population carrying the virus, down to 6.7% now. There was a recent item on the BBC news web-site about some of the explicit literature used in Ugandan schools, in which the country’s President is quoted as saying “When a lion enters your village, you must raise the alarm loudly."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/9117296.stm

A new idea which we are copying from friends from University, Jeremy and Jerica Davies, who are now CMS Mission Partners in Kitui, Kenya, is a series entitled ‘You know you live in Africa when…..’. Our first item is in fact copied from them, but happens here too and so proves how true the statements are (including this week when Irene needed hand-outs for her students).

You know you live in Africa when….

... nobody can use the photocopier in the office because the person who keeps the key to that room has gone into town (or has the day off).

… you are not surprised to realise that the electric cable that emerges outside from the attic of your house, is connected to another cable by twisting the bare wire-ends together and left exposed to the weather and then returns into the house, is in fact the mains cable from the light switch to your lounge light

… part way through the lesson you are giving students a young goat comes into the room to escape the thunderstorm – it ws just another kid joining the class!

I don't want to be a lawn mower when I grow up!

2010-10-22T06:47:00.000-07:00

One of Malcolm’s least favourite jobs in England is cutting the lawn. Its not that its difficult, especially with a hover mower – its just so tedious and when you think you've finished the grass just keeps growing again.

Here, the same problem is that the grass seems to grow very fast – but there are no hover mowers. This week a couple of men came with long machetes and spent several hours cutting (harvesting) the grass outside our house with too and fro sweeps of their knives – and by the end it was probably better than Malcolm would have done with a mower.

There was a lot of activity at our house this week The mason arrived and installed a new steel door and window and built a wall, so what used to be an outside porch, with 3 doors to lock, is now a corridor with just one door to lock. The door is not very pretty, but hopefully it will be very secure and should look better painted.

We also had some unwelcome visitors. On a couple of evenings, when it was raining, the flying ants decided to swarm, and thought the best place would be our lounge. And these are not wimpy, European flying ants. These are mighty, African ants with wingspan of about 6 cm – which can be quite daunting when a dozen or so are flying around your head. By the morning all the wings had fallen off and the ants had disappeared, meaning we had a floor carpeted with discarded wings. Fortunately a small lizard also visited, maybe with the intention of helping to clear up the ants.

For the past 2 weeks the Diocese has had a team of visitors from Switzerland, England and Zambia. Most were here to run two 4 day ‘train the trainers‘ discipleship courses ‘Rooted in Jesus’. (www.alisonmorgan.co.uk)One of them, Sarah came to help at Potter’s Village. As well has making musical instruments and posters she spent time teaching the carer’s how to play. There is not a culture of games here and it was a shock to her to realise that even adults were struggling to do a jigsaw puzzle designed for a toddler (e.g. trying to force the large pieces together without looking at the picture) or to blow soap bubbles.

Irene gave her second lesson on running a business this week – and even more students, about 36 out of a college of 38, turned up. On Thursday she was invited to have tea with the Bishop’s wife and the coordinator of the Mother’s Union. Whilst there they explained the work of the MU and suggested Irene goes with them sometime to visit one of the outlying parishes and maybe teach some of the young mothers basic sewing skills.

We are not sure what happens next week. Malcolm wants to sort out some of the lights in the house and we will need to clear up when the building work is finished.

This weeks sign is from a Secretarial services shop n Kisoro.

A toilet seat - a luxury not a necessity?

2010-10-15T05:35:00.000-07:00

We surprised ourselves when we realised a new toilet seat, to replace the broken one we now have, is not our top shopping priority. In previous blogs we’ve said how 2 toilet seats have broken within a week of being bought. The problem is that those available in Kisoro are of such low quality that they break very easily (and is nothing to do with the weight of the users!!!!).

We can purchase stronger ones in Kampala, and next week the manager of Potter’s Village, Ezra, is going there in a pick-up! So we have given him the following shopping list – but the toilet seat is not the top priority which means it will not be bought if the money we’ve given is not enough:

1. A fridge – we get fresh milk every day but it goes off within 24 hours. We are also concerned that other perishable food is not keeping very well in the open
2. A calor gas cooker / oven
3. A kitchen sink
4. A hot water boiler (for showers and the kitchen)
5. A toilet seat
6. A doormat

An added confusion is that a ‘toilet seat’ means something different here. When Malcolm asked for the price of a toilet seat at the local hardware store he was surprised at the high price quoted of about £30, and being asked whether he wanted all the fittings. And the store manager was surprised that Malcolm had broken one by sitting on it. What we call the seat, Ugandans call ‘the lid’ – they call the ceramic base ‘the seat’ which is rather understandable especially for those not used to using one as the bowl does look like a seat. We await with interest to see what is brought from Kampala.

We are getting into a regular routine, and Saturday morning is ‘burning’ day. There is no weekly, or even fortnightly refuse collection here and our waste at present is about a carrier bag full a week. Vegetable and fruit peelings are given to the calf at Potter’s Village using an orange ‘slop’ bucket – everything else is either found a new use for (such as tins) or burnt – and Saturday morning is when Malcolm burns other waste. Last Saturday saw the 2 broken toilet seats being ‘sacrificed’ on the pyre – and they burnt very well though we are not to sure about the toxicity of the fumes. Just as well Irene hadn’t put any washing out to dry.

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On Sunday we visited one of the local Parish churches for the first time – All Saints Church in Busamba. Although most of the service was in Bufembera, they kindly translated it for us. They also apologised, with no need, for the music. They were very proud that they had recently been given a new electronic keyboard. However, the new road works had meant electricity had been cut off for several weeks. The young people therefore accompanied the hymns by beating traditional Uganda drums. For us the use of traditional music was most enjoyable, and better than a keyboard. For them we guess drums are boring and a keyboard ‘modern’.

Irene gave her first training session on running a business last Wednesday. She first asked the students what they were expecting from the course. Some said to be given money, others ‘mechanics’ (meaning how to tailor). The session took longer than Irene had expected as she wanted to make it interactive and she had forgotten that students are used to just being lectured to and not to being interactive in classes – the opening warm-up ‘getting to know you’ exercise, which she thought would take 10 minutes actually took about an hour.

We have noticed there are many signs in the town which look a bit strange to western eyes. Out of interest we may include some of these in future blogs. The first is painted on the wall of the school next to our house. Most of the schools have some sort of Mission statement or other sign outside – this is an example, and a rather tame one too.

Next week we are hoping that a new front door and hallway will be added to our house, At present there are 3 separate entrance doors for the lounge, kitchen and sleeping area. A new front door will mean we will no longer keep on having to unlock doors to get to different parts of the house – which can be a drag when you have to go from the kitchen to the bathroom and back again just to fill up the kettle for a cup of tea – especially when its raining!

The Best Laid Plans.......

2010-10-09T00:07:00.000-07:00

The last time Malcolm laid some vinyl is was some nice, thick, ‘Cushion floor’ – a quality floor covering that was comfortable to walk on, particularly on cold mornings. So what has he put down in the lounge here? The best vinyl money can buy in Kisoro. Something that is little more than wallpaper for floors – not much stronger than a vinyl table cloth. It has a square pattern, except the squares aren’t exactly squares, and the parallel lines aren’t exactly parallel (as he found out when trying to match up the joins). However, it does have a couple of key advantages:

- it is warmer on the feet than bare concrete
- at £1 a square metre it is about 1/16th of the price of ‘Cushion floor’ in the UK
- and it only has to last us 2 years

It has been an exciting week for the Diocese. One of the promises made by Uganda’s President was that he would buy all Bishop’s in the country a new car, and last week the Bishop went to pick it up from Kampala. Although a car is a luxury item here with few Ugandans being able to afford one, it is an essential item for the Bishop. The Diocese is extensive with many of the roads mountain tracks, and already he has had to make a return trip to Kampala (over 600 miles return) for a meeting to select a Bishop for a neighbouring Diocese. When the Bishop arrived with the car there was a reception and food for special guests from the Local Council and Diocese.

Malcolm has continued to investigate the payments made to the Diocese by individual parishes, with a view to doing some training for church treasurers on basic book-keeping. Irene has been spending most of her time meeting the Vocational Training Centre students, and is planning to start some basic business training for them next week. She has also been spending some time at the Potter’s Village orphanage doing some ‘tailoring’ (sewing mattress covers etc).

The weather continues to be ’changeable’ – one minute being bright and fresh, to be quickly followed by a thunder storm. A couple of weeks ago we had hail storms with quite large stones – although we understand they were mere pebbles compared to some storms here.

Postscript on earlier blogs:
1. Egg box. Following the catastrophe with eggs mentioned on 3rd September, an emergency relief parcel was received from our son of our very own ‘Happy Eggs’ egg box – this made Irene very happy.
2. Cake. Despite the disastrous coffee cake made by Malcolm (17th September) he has had another go. This time, a Fruit Cake using dried fruit left for us by Jodie (24th September) and eggs carried home in the new ‘Happy Eggs’ egg box. It was intended for tea when the Mother’s Union coordinator and Bishop’s wife planned to see Irene. The bad news is the tea had to be postponed – the good news is more cake for us!!!!!
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" Give me money!"

2010-10-01T11:29:00.000-07:00

One of the noticeable things walking around Kisoro is that whenever you meet children they often say ‘Mzungu. Give me money!”. (Alternatively “Give me pens” or “Give me sweets”) We think it is because many white tourists visit the area who feel able to respond to such a demand, and are happy to give small change. As a result the children associate a white face as someone from whom you can demand money. This may seem OK to tourists, but is wearing when you are living here, and worrying if it encourages young Ugandans to think it is easier to get money by begging from white people rather than working.

Malcolm is still working out how to respond. In part he is tempted to say “Its rude not to say ‘Please’”, but fears that a bit of Education might only encourage them further. Its harder to resist "Please give me money" - (though it never gets Irene very far!!!!!) Instead he simply replies “I don’t give money” in the hope that over time they will learn that it’s not worth pestering this particular Mzunga.

And yet, when you might expect an adult to ask for money as a reward, they don’t.

As an example, last weekend Malcolm went out for one of his ‘little’ walks. We had seen Lake Mutanda from the top of a local hill some weeks ago, so Malcolm decided he would try and find it. The only problem is that to get there you have to first climb, and descend, a rather steep range of hills. And the shortest route is little more than a winding, mountain goat path. Twice Malcolm got lost, and twice two men (Julius and Peter) escorted him to put him on the right path, or he could still be wandering around the hills (which would be apt as we understand ‘Mzungu’ means a man who wanders). And in neither case was there any hint that they expected a reward – but were pleased with his gratitude.

The walk did prove how beautiful the countryside is, and how much work the residents put in to growing crops. No matter how steep the slopes, every inch seemed to be terraced, with people digging the ground and sowing seeds. Malcolm walked along narrow paths to the lake through a ‘forest’ of tall banana trees, which made it very difficult to see which direction he was heading. Almost every child he met said ”Mzungu. Give me money”. But some were happy just to have their photo taken.

And having arrived at the lake, and learning that it used to be a home for crocodiles and hippos, he turned around and had to walk back over the hills again.

Next week – new vinyl for the lounge!

Big Celebrations!! - The 'I's have it.

2010-09-24T08:21:00.000-07:00

On Saturday Irene celebrated her birthday. She has made a habit of being abroad on her birthday, and Uganda is added to Turkey, India, China, Kenya and Tanzania. We’d like to say how romantic it is partying abroad, but opening presents under a mosquito net isn’t as good as dining under the light of the moon, even though receiving presents and messages from children was exciting.

And you can’t have a birthday without a birthday cake and candles. Fortunately Jenny made an excellent sponge cake with icing which was big enough to last several days and many portions (Note – it did not have to be so big just to hold the correct number of candles but there were several children and visitors that needed feeding).

One, not so welcome, visitor that popped in was a bright green cricket which was allowed to sip water but not to taste the cake.

Two other visitors were Jodie (from the UK) and Carrie (from Texas) who had been invited to run four, 2 day Leadership training courses at the Arch Deaconries across the Diocese. They are both Associates with J.John (an evangelist based in Chorleywood) and had spent a few weeks on a Mission in Zimbabwe before arriving in Uganda. Carrie is the only evangelist employed by any Episcopal Diocese in the USA (which makes her unique in many ways). Amongst other talents Jodie manages a charity called ‘Beyond Ourselves’ which has a two pronged mission – to run a sponsorship and feeding programme for children in Zambia and to provide resources for disaffected youth in Enfield, London. Details can be found on http://www.beyondourselves.co.uk/

Malcolm has created some excitement (Oh No - not again!!!!). Keen (?) to test out the medical facilities, on Tuesday he got some dirt in his eye, which was causing a problem. As the two options were to seek treatment or risk continuing pain he went to a local eye 'clinic' to get some treatment. The following day he revisited the doctor at the local Hospital to report the problem had cleared up. For those of you unfamiliar with the type of equipment available in developing countries, although the doctor was competent he relied on what would have probably been available in the UK before the second world war. The doctor was a bit alarmed when Malcolm was unable to read the bottom half of a sight test chart with his glasses on.This, however, was not a surprise as he normally wears contact lenses and his spare glasses are at least 2 prescriptions out of date. It was just as well Irene accompanied him or he might not have found his way home again!!

We have been slowly getting into our work. Irene has met with several students from the Vocational Training College to find out what help is needed to find them work. There main request, however, seems to be for money to pay their fees, with not all being motivated to complete the course in order to find employment. She has also been asked to judge some work of students in the tailoring class.

Malcolm has started to find out how the finances of the Diocese work by looking into the quota payments received from the Parishes each month

We are not sure what is happening next week – maybe it will be just a ‘normal’ week – whatever that means!

What do you call a coffee cake with no coffee in it? American

2010-09-17T01:50:00.000-07:00

Malcolm was looking forward to the birthday party for Heidi, Judith and Dieter. One of his favourite cakes is Coffee cake, with coffee flavour and coffee cream icing. So when he heard that Heidi, the American Peace Corp volunteer, had made some coffee cake, he was really excited.

Except - American Coffee cake has no coffee in it!!!!!

What!! It’s more like a Madeira Sponge cake rather than a coffee cake. Heidi explained it is intended for eating with a cup of coffee. In his disappointment Malcolm decided the Americans are missing a trick. They could market exactly the same cake as:
American Chocolate cake – for eating with a cup of hot chocolate
American cheese cake – to go with a slice of Cheddar
American cola cake – for eating with a soda
American Big Mac cake – as sold by MacDonalds

He now also assumes American apple pie has no apples in it and American cars have no engines.

He was a bit concerned whether the same fault could be found with English tea cake – until an expert explained that a key process is to soak the dried fruit in a cup of tea overnight. At least in England you get ‘what it says on the tin’!

Anyway, the American Coffee cake, (which has no coffee in it), did taste very nice. Which is more than can be said for Malcolm’s attempt to make a ‘real’ coffee cake with coffee icing etc as a farewell gift to Heidi as she returned to America. He bought all the ingredients, followed the recipe carefully, put it in the oven. It rose a treat. But then there was a power cut which lasted all night. We decided to rename the cake a ‘sticky coffee fudge crunch’ and agreed it was not fir for public consumption (so we ate it all!).

On Saturday we went to a ‘Gifting Ceremony’ which takes place whenever a couple are to get married. The central feature of it was the ‘bride price’ paid by the groom’s family – traditionally paid in cows but in this case symbolised by six crates of soda. The negotiations were carried out with humour throughout and included a section when the groom had to choose his bride from about 8 young women. We don’t think he changed his mind although there was a time when her family didn’t seem too pleased with the quality of the coca cola offered.

This week we were also allocated our office which signals the start of work proper. Irene has started to meet the students from the Vocational Training Centre to discuss their career plans and Malcolm has started assisting the Diocese accountant.

Next week:

- big celebrations for Irene’s birthday
- we find out more about the area and our work

At a 'Loo'se End?

2010-09-10T00:03:00.000-07:00

When we were in Tanzania we noticed how cheap the quality of imported goods are. Its the same here. For example, the electricity sockets look like normal English type sockets. However, they are grossly inferior to any bought in England. We had some new sockets fitted in our new kitchen, but within a week one of the switches has broken. Unfortunately it seems that developing countries are taken advantage of and persuaded to accept poor quality goods which would be rejected by western countries, even though they are marked British Standard ‘BS 1363’.

We mentioned a couple of weeks ago that our brand new toilet seat broke the first time it was ‘sat upon’. (No names to avoid embarrassment). You can see from the picture it has completely given up within 2 weeks. Unfortunately when we were fitting a replacement the screw connectors broke as soon as they were tightened up. Therefore, our shopping list for when we return to England for 2 weeks in January so far consists of:

1 used Tesco’s egg box (or similar) – see last weeks blog
1 loo seat

The highlight of the last week has been the Convention. This 3 day event is held every 10 years and attracted about 4,000 (a guess) delegates to the Sunday Service with about 1,000 to 1,500 on the other days. There were a range of speakers including 2 visitors from England (the Revs David Hughes (ex Didsbury) and Jolyon Tricky (Nailsea)) and the Archbishop of Uganda.

Fortunately, because delegates came from different parts of Uganda and did not all speak the local language, as a matter of course the talks were in English, or there was an English interpretation, which made our lives easy.

Normal parts of such an event seemed to be:

- communal singing and dancing, the African way (with Mzungu participation by some!)
- calls for people to come forward to commit or recommit there lives to Christ, which many responded to.

This week we met with the Bishop to discuss what we might do. Irene is going to talk to the manager of the Vocational Training Centre to see if she can help with any business training. Malcolm has met with the Diocese accountant to start finding out about the Financial procedures of the Diocese and next week he will view the Diocese’s property to start to plan how best to use it.

The good news is that following £30 of phone calls we are able to withdraw funds at the ATM from our Halifax account, but not from our Nationwide account (for which the Nationwide does not understand why we can’t withdraw funds and has therefore been unable to sort the problem out – other than to send a new card to our UK address, which is not much help). It was well worth the 1 ½ queue at the bank last Friday to get the money out. The bad news is that we are having problems getting our Ugandan Orange modem to work so we can access the Internet – oh well, This Is Africa.

Babies continue to be brought to the ‘Potter’s Village’. Recently 4 week old Peter was brought by his grandparents. His mother died at birth and her parents have been trying to feed him but his weight has dropped from 3.1kg at birth to about 2.5kg through under nourishment. As a result Jenny is caring for him, feeding every 2 hours.

Next week the Social Life starts up:

- on Saturday we should be going to the ‘giving away’ (engagement) party of the daughter of a Canon of the Diocese (he's one of the 'Big Guns' here)
- on Sunday we have been invited to the Birthday party’s of Heidi (an American Peace Camp volunteer just completing 2 years at Potter’s Village) and Judith, a long term English worker in Uganda.

‘Shell’ we Crack up? You must be ‘yolk’ing! Everything’s all ‘white’ (Almost)

2010-09-06T05:27:00.000-07:00

We thought we’d brought all the important things. Clothes that are easy to wash; a computer for communications and entertainment; a basic set of tools; some packets of soup, our bank debit cards. But we had forgotten (especially as the shells are thin) that if we want to buy eggs, and have a good chance of getting them home safely then we would need to bring an egg box. Carrying 6 eggs home in a plastic bag is bound to end in disaster – anyone for instant omelette?

We’re also having trouble getting money. Even though our main bank, the Nationwide, worked well in Tanzania and had reassured us that we didn’t need to tell them we were going abroad. Despite several attempts at the town’s only ATM we have always been refused money. The UK call centre thought it was first the Ugandan network (until we were able to withdraw funds from our ‘fall back’ bank with the Halifax) and now think it is a faulty magnetic strip on the card (even though both cards have the same problem, but are able to access the account to tell us the balance). To us it is seems the account is simply being blocked somewhere in their systems. As their ‘solution’ is to send a new card to our UK address in effect the account is dead and we will need to transfer to our ‘fall back’ account. In the meantime we have borrowed about £100 (or 300,000 Ugandan shillings) from Jenny, who has suggested a repayment of $1 to 1 shilling – I hope that’s a joke. We are considering alternative sources of finance but I don’t think Kisoro is yet ready to see white people (bazungu) begging on the streets..

Apart from that all is well. The weather has been overcast with the occasional shower – typically English for somewhere so close to the Equator. The Diocese has been preparing for the Convention which started on Friday and we did some work helping to clean one of the large houses for the 1,000 or so delegates to sleep in. (However Malcolm was seen playing most of the time with Jenny’s young son, Joseph, justifying this by saying it kept them both out of the ladies’ feet).

Malcolm has spent some time at the Potter’s Village Orphanage using the Internet (to try and sort out the Bank Accounts). The Orphanage cares for babies up to about 2 years old who have been orphaned or whose parents can’t look after them. This week a 14 year old girl came with a 2 week old baby (Favour). The girl, who had been at a Primary School in Kampala, had been raped and returned to her home town to give birth. Being too young to care for the baby, and needing to return to school if she was to have any prospect of a career, the orphanage accepted the baby, and prayed with the mother and baby.

Next week we expect
- a couple of thousand people at the Convention
- to start buying some essentials
- to find out more about our work
and hopefully no more money problems.

PS. Sorry about the bad puns that started this blog. We hope you didn’t get to ‘egg’cited by them

Our Initial experiences in Uganda

2010-08-30T06:18:00.000-07:00

We are writing this on our second night in Kisoro. Outside we can hear the thunder and lightning of our first tropical thunderstorm. The annual rains only started the day we arrived here so maybe we brought them with us from England!!! If so the villagers are delighted as they have been desperate for rain so they can begin sowing crops for next years harvest. We are also writing this by the light of a candle as we experience the third power cut in 24 hours to – a regular feature we will have to get used to.

We are very happy that following a lot of hard work by the Diocese staff the house has been ready to move in to. The accommodation is basic and adequate – and there is plumbing ‘In’ and plumbing ’out’ to the shower room. Further work will be needed to convert a room to a kitchen and to provide hot water. At present we have the loan of a Baby Belling type hob and furniture.

Unfortunately, because our flight was late, we missed our connection in Nairobi, and arrived in Rwanda, the nearest airport to Kisoro, over 5 hours late. This was long enough for the staff here to get extremely concerned that something terrible may have happened to us en route, for the Bishop to be interrupted part way though conducting 2 weddings and a funeral, and for urgent phone calls to be made to England. We felt guilty that we hadn’t found a way during our journey of letting our hosts know that we would be late.

We have arrived at a busy time for the Diocese as 2nd September is the start of a 4 day ‘Convention’. These large Missions are held every 10 years or so, and attract several thousand visitors (10,000?) from across Uganda and other countries, including the Archbishop and many Bishops. We imagine this will be like a ‘Spring Harvest’ or ‘New Wine’ but with most of the meetings in the open air. Although there is rejoicing that the rains have come, there is also prayer that they won’t be too heavy during the convention.

The local CMS Mission partner is Jenny Green who has lived here for about 15 years, and is responsible for the Diocese’s Children’s work. Her main project is the Potters Village Children’s Home which looks after abandoned or orphaned children, and young single mothers. She has three children, Issie, Hannah and Joseph and is currently looking after a baby, Joanne, until she is strong enough to be cared for at the Potters Village.

Prayer:
We thank God for:
- The hospitality and generosity of churches, family and friends in England during our last weeks in saying farewell to us and providing somewhere to sleep
- our safe arrival, and that all our luggage arrived with us
- for the way we have been made to feel welcome here by the Bishop, Jenny’s family and Diocese staff
- that the rains have arrived

We pray for the coming month, that:
- we are able to make our basic house into a home
- we find our way about the Town, and begin to adjust to the new culture
- we can a learn few words of the local language
- we can find out the work that God wants us to do here so we can help the mission of the local church, and so that we grow spiritually

In addition to this occasional ‘serious’ item we also plan to keep a weekly blog to describe some of our experiences here. You can find it by searching on the Internet for ‘Malcolm and Irene Crawford’