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however, was not a surprise as he normally wears contact lenses and his spare glasses are at least 2 prescriptions out of date.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

Our Initial experiences in Uganda

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’

Where's the Crawfords?

Sometimes luggage gets lost on a flight. Unfortunately there was concern that we had got lost between London and Uganda. The driver had turned up at Kigali airport at the right time – but we didn’t arrive. He came back to meet the next flight – still we weren’t there. Emergency calls were made to the Kisoro, and even though the Bishop was busy conducting 2 weddings and a funeral (a good name for a film, maybe) he was interrupted to be told of our disappearance. Phone calls were made to CMS in England. Where are the Crawford’s? Not here. Beijing? Majorca? Manchester? Florida?

Nothing so dramatic. Our first flight from Heathrow to Nairobi was 1.5hrs late, and we had missed our connection. We were put on a later flight, but unfortunately this took the longer route first stopping at Burundi, before flying on to Kigali in Rwanda. This made us almost 6 hours late. Not a good way to start. Must do better.

We have been made most welcome here. A lot of work has been done by the staff of the Diocese to prepare a house for us. The garage has been converted to make a new lounge, and plumbing has been installed to the shower room and toilet. Unfortunately, the first time the new toilet was used by one of us, (guess who!) the seat broke. More work is needed to convert a spare bedroom to a kitchen (install a sink and buy a cooker, fridge etc) and to provide hot water as Irene is not too keen on a cold shower, but we have plenty of time to do this. (No we haven’t, says Irene)

On our first evening we were invited to a meal with the Bishop, his wife and other staff from the Diocese. The menu was a beef stew with potatoes, pasta, beans and spinach – delicious after airline food. So far we have not had to cook any meals as the Mission Partner here, Jenny Green is being very kind to us. She lives up quite a steep hill with her three children, Issie, Hannah and Joseph, a friend, Peace and baby Joanna who almost died when born and has needed a lot of care to get strength – and who looks now extremely ‘bouncing’ – especially in her bouncy chair. We have also had the company of Ian, a visitor from Cumbria who has come on holiday for a few days

On Sunday we attended our first service at the Cathedral – we chose to attend the shorter, 1 ½ hour English speaking service rather than the 3 hour local language one, as we thought we needed to get our breath back first after our journey here.

This will be a week of settling in, but with its share of excitement. The Diocese is holding a Convention, of several thousand people from across Uganda and elsewhere in Africa. This is only held once every 10 years or so, and speakers are coming from England and the USA, as well as the Archbishop of Uganda. In fact, today (Monday) Malcolm has been asked to paint the veranda outside the house where the Archbishop is staying – but as he will also be fed as a reward he is most pleased to do so:

So what has the next week promise:
- Malcolm getting into trouble by ruining his best clothes with paint?
- Visiting the town to get some money and to buy essentials such as Internet and mobile phone access, food, cooking utensils etc?
- The arrival of thousand of visitors for the Convention?
- Trying to learn some of the Local language, especially ‘I don’t know where the …… is – I’m new here too’

Here we go again, happy as can be?

A lot has happened in the last 10 months since we arrived back from Tanzania. To cut a long story short, this Friday (27th August) we fly out to South West Uganda, to spend 2 years working as volunteers for the Diocese of Muhabura based in Kisoro.

Malcolm has been asked to be the Diocese ‘Estates Manager and Internal Auditor’. This is a bit of a challenge as he has never been an Estate Manager, but is content that his primary concern will be to get best value from the Diocesan property. Incidentally, its several years since he did Internal Audit – about time he got his hands dirty again!!!

Irene has been asked to help students at the Vocational Training Centre to set up small businesses, and to assist at the orphanage to teach mothers how to encourage their babies to be inquisitive – a skill they tend to lose when they spend most of their day on their mother’s back whilst she is busy working. Again, the VTC will be a new challenge , though she has been refreshing her baby rearing skills when visiting our two grandsons (and has therefore already got her hands dirty again).

But, returning to the long story, the ‘highlights’ of the last 10 months have been:

- acceptance by CMS as short term mission support ‘thingies’ (as Malcolm calls us)
- the engagement of our eldest son, David, to Sarah
- the birthday parties of our two grandsons Jonah (2) and Thomas (1)
- the news that our daughter is expecting a second child (our 3rd grandchild) in December
- visiting lots of friends and family and burning up the miles in our car
- the wedding of our niece last December during the start of the bad winter weather

- Irene's mother's 90th birthday
- the death of Malcolm’s mother, sorting out her estate, buying her bungalow
- consolidating from various stores all our belongings, and preparing the bungalow for letting

What will next year bring?

We understand Kisoro is a town in a beautiful area, nestling high up amongst extinct (we hope!) volcanoes and popular with tourists for the nature reserves (mountain gorillas) and ‘impenetrable forest’ (not much point going there then? Or is there?). In the 1930’s it was in the area where the Rwanda Christian revival occurred, but more recently has suffered from the influx of refugees from conflicts in Rwanda and DR Congo (formerly Zaire). Currently the latter is still a country where visitors are advised not to go. In Rwanda you get Gorillas – in DR Congo you get Guerrillas!!!!

We will be coming back for 2 breaks in 2011 – the first in January for 2 weeks for the wedding of our son, David, and a longer 3 month break over Christmas and to celebrate 4 birthdays!!

And so, we are almost packed with clothes, basic cooking implements, computers and 2 kg (yes, 2kg) of Cadbury’s chocolate. This is not for us, but for the Mission Partner, Jenny Green, to give pieces to the children at the orphanage (though it might be drinking chocolate by the time we arrive)

As ever, tune in next week to find out:
- do we arrive in Kisoro, and is there Internet access to update this blog?
- are our clothes one molten chocolate mess?
- Does our house have plumbing in, and is there plumbing out?


PS Rumours that we are leaving the country simply before our appearance in ‘To Buy or Not to Buy’ on BBC1 are purely coincidental .