A toilet seat - a luxury not a necessity?

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.......

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!"

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.

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

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?

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)

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