Back in the game!

I didn’t blog last week to give you guys a break from the sound of my typing and me a break from making up stories about Uganda… I mean recounting stories. Anyway, trying to work out what to write this week makes me realise it was a bad idea.

For help, I reread my journal entries from the past fortnight and was quickly aware of all the great times I’ve been having. Driving has been a recurrent feature of the past fortnight. I wrote on Facebook about an amazing drive I went on last Tuesday (14^th). I reckon it’ll stay among the highlights of the trip. The road was wonderfully interesting with outrageous incline, slippery shingle but most of all with panoramic views of the village area stretching out to the long plains. Chuck in some fun bumping around over potholes and squelching around in mud, it’s fair to say I had a great day. Initially, driving here was great for the experience and also because I knew I could deploy it at will as a story in the future when confronted with any pothole. Now that I’m getting more used to the motorbikes and taxi’s style of driving (dangerous is a fair and polite description) and am learning which potholes I can dodge, which I can overcome and which ones will be painful, it’s great times. Indeed, I’ve just gotten back from doing half of the driving to and fro Kampala to drop off Stella at university.

Life here has been changing quite a lot recently. Joanna and Nuulu, two girls on placement here from New Hope, Kasana, finished their placement a week and a bit ago; Stella just started a 16 week semester at university; and the Dr was away in Kampala for 3 days and leaves for the UK in two weeks so life has changed and will change quite a bit over the next little bit. However, I’ve also spent more time with some of the Jenga guys over the past few weeks, eating their wonderful Western cakes and telling bad English jokes (the great one about hating the darkness the other day). I say Jenga guys, this is misleading on two fronts. Firstly, Jenga is currently wholly deficient in male workers. Apparently, they’re sending out two lads for some good man time which will be cool. Secondly, not all of them work for Jenga. Most relevant for story-telling is that one works for Lulwanda Children’s Home (she’s Texan as are loads of muzungos who work out here). Last Thursday, they were taking the orphans swimming as it was their holidays. However, they only had one swimmer. Needless to say, I made the sacrifice and swapped a day in the office for one jumping into pools and teaching small children to swim. This story has a sad ending though: serious sunburn. After my previous crowing about not being sunburnt, I managed to brutalise my shoulders on Thursday (yes Mum, I did put on sun tan lotion. Yes Mum, I even re-applied! Yes Mum, it was factor 50!). The red has been splendid for several days and I’ve come close to some little blisters that would maximise sympathy but unfortunately they’ve faded away since.

The issue of doing work with the Children’s Home is the renewed pressure it puts on time and work things. Re-reading journal entries, I can definitely feel a shift toward settling in the current role and the decline in initial enthusiasm that comes with. I have made some stunning spreadsheets over the past fortnight (one for monitoring drugs stock and ordering new drugs and one for salaries and tax), but I’m having to re-examine my motivations as the work moves away from fire-fighting toward general running. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing though and it’s good to weigh up why and what I to do and be involved in. There’s [quick break to turn on the generator] definitely lots of things I can do toward my goal of being completely surplus to requirement by the end of May but I still don’t yet completely know what normal life will come to look like in Mbale.

That said, I realise I haven’t said much about what normal life currently looks like here. Work is 8-5 so I generally get up around 7 for my breakfast of two weetabix with milk from a pan with the cream floating on top. After my 7 minute walk to work and 5 minutes of opening padlocks, an array of jobs keeps my busy until on of us in the office picks up cups of tea for everyone around 11 (Ugandans also have ‘escort’ which can be bread or the like but those weetabix are still going by 11). Lunch is around 2-3 (scandal, I know) and it on a rotation. Wednesday is the only meal I’m not ken on. I growing to really enjoy the other Ugandan food, particularly when it’s accompanied by beef or chicken but I guess that’s cheating. I usually wander back a bit after 5 and evenings vary wildly from work to play and combinations of the two. Weekends also tend to vary, but I am increasingly opting for something relaxing on the Saturday. Last Saturday I went swimming and collected ingredients for baking; this Saturday I went to an introduction which is a traditional wedding which was long but very good. Saturday is egg and chips for lunch which is always delightful. On Sundays I either go the Deliverance Church or out to the villages with the Dr. Yesterday I went with the Dr and Rev on a wonderful visit down a classic non-road and visited this brilliant local church. It was brilliant to be back in touch with rural, charming Uganda now that town-Uganda has become familiar and has its moments of frustration.

I’m still very much enjoying updates from home, if slightly perturbed by the explosion of romance since I left. I mean, I know you guys are missing me, but there are surely other ways of taking solace!

One other thing I should mention: I’ve gotten myself a delightful Ugandan haircut whilst watching the Man U Arsenal game live. It’s just a shame that most of you will never see it...(unless some people come on an impromptu trip).

Progress

That's right, I've caved and gone for a title that has a subjective definition. Wait, no, I've changed my mind. It refers exclusively to progress through the reports and (as usual) to my time here. Better.

I'm afraid, you've caught me in a rather strange mood today. I began the day a little tired, but then expended lots of the remaining energy onto three excessively long bank queues as I strived to achieve a few modest goals. Worse, these queues led to lunch being delayed to 4:30 (it's usually about 2 here which I'm steadiy getting used to)... One saving grace (in addition to THE Saving Grace) was that I finally went to find out about these brownies which an American lady who works for a children's home sell via a local cafe. Needless to say, they were the bomb, especially after far too long without quality cake/baked things.

Some of my tiredness comes from very good things. The annual reports are now finished (basically)! We had the meeting where they were presented and people didn't seem to mind too much that I still haven't found 300,000 shillings. Finding the money went well. I had t fight the urge to avoid inputting data that made the gap bigger and was rewarded on Thursday afternoon when I found 6.5 million shillings! Hooray! I was loud and overly cheeful for the rest of Thursday and most of Friday as a result.
Saturday was packed, but good. I went to Sipi falls (see photos) which were stunning. A bit of rain made the paths slightly more eventful than they usually are but thankfully the only person to fall over was myself. As much of the mud is a bright red colour, I wore a beautifully conspicuous badge of honour on my rear for lots of the walk back. The drive there was pretty fun. I'm starting to get used to Ugandan driving so the experience is increasingly enjoyable, especially when the road is in such beautiful surrounds as it was on Saturday. [That said, I did have a slightly unfortunate moment when driving on Tuesday. I got a little impatient on the drive back as we'd left the village clinic later than usual and then I'd gotten stuck behind a medium speed vehicle half way back. When we joined the main road (which is dreadful), we got stuck behind two exceedingly slow lorries. When the two vehicles in front set off for an overtake, I followed and off we went over to the other side of the road. Unfortunately, the mud bit next to the road decided to then go down below the level of the road by several inches so I was stuck behind two other cars driving as much on the wrong side of the road as possible. The Dr wasn't totally entertained.] We raced back [and I got cahnged out of the wet and slightly dirty clothes] to be ready for the Medical Execuive Committee Meeting. This meeting was god in the sense that the outcomes we wanted came out, but bad in that it took FOUR AND A HALF HOURS. Wow. Once I'd eaten my samosa and banana, the time started to become a bit of an issue. Plus, some people disagreed with me... I couldn't understand what was going on! Anyway, that over, I went out to dinner. This was wonderful. Great food, great company and then I got home! Unfortunately, before I went to bed, I had to check the footie and cricket scores so it turned into quite a long day.

I won't treat you to a low-byblow update for the rest of the week, but it's been a good week with real progress (see what I'm doing here) on several fronts (exclusively those mentioned at the start). Still, there's plenty to do! I've come across a bit of a problem in that I'm already a little buiser than I think I'd like to be, but haven't yet fitted in all the things I'd like to be involved in...

In response to several questions: church things are decent. The church isn't overly charismatic, but I enjoy the praise and worship. Notices are like UK notices but more drawn out. Preaches vary. Other than church, I've got the Dr's library to raid and am digging my way through several commentaries and the like, as well as a little bit of fiction she's got Pride and Prejudice, but I haven't started on it yet...)
Jenga is not a person, it's another NGO that has range of community project ranging from female education and empowerment to food storage and water projects to prison ministry and kids work.

I'm gonna cut myself off there!
Have good weeks!