Bam!

The day after writing last week’s blog, we ended up with an explosion of little and big new jobs that needed doing before the end of the week, teaching me never to complain about a lack of things to do ever again. Among the less exciting jobs such as a new way of paying PAYE (income tax here) and continuing to pester the bank to actually open the accounts the man has promised are ‘nearly finished’ for about a fortnight now, I’ve had some chances to do some pretty fun stuff!

Little things at work keep it interesting

Some things can try one's patience a bit

Not a bad building site

There’s a general trend toward building work going on currently with new things appearing at the Clinic and the Hospice. This obviously offered the opportunity to climb on stuff and prod it to make sure of the quality of workmanship. You’ll al be pleased to know I haven’t been missing out! I spent an inordinate amount of time on Wednesday trying to drill into something that I was supposed to be putting curtain rails on. I don’t think I’ve damaged the drill, but I guess only time will tell! The best thing with the curtain rails was that I was determined to put them up level so got out the thingy one uses and made sure the top was parallel with the ground. Then, it slipped and ended up on the bottom of the rail which I noticed was telling me was not level with the ground. I opted for the compromise.

More frustrating was my first attempt at fitting glass. I got out the tape and skilfully measured the size of the gap so we could take the glass to be cut to the right size. Returning home clutching the precious, second-hand but cut glass, I removed the broken glass from the door to realise I’d over-estimate the width of the putty and it wouldn’t fit. I’d already changed into my “I’m doing manual work so will put on the dirtiest things I can find” clothes which led to extra staring as I raced into town on the back of a boda to get half a cm off each pane. Before leaving, I carefully checked the height at the corners, feeling I’d cleverly dodged a second trip. The glass cutter wasn’t delighted to see me again as I wasn’t paying for anything on this trip either. I raced back, keen to finish the job before it got dark. Got home, put the glass in the door and realised it wasn’t my day. Whilst the corners worked, the gap for the pane wasn’t square so the glass was too tall. This wasn’t a good development. In desperation, I tried to cut the glass myself, this wasn’t very successful. With the little tool, the guy can draw a line over the pane and then break it off; without the little tool, I was scratching in vain (even with a tile cutter) and ended up resorting to trying to chip little pieces off the top. Predictably this led to me snapping the edge off the pane. Thankfully, it all worked out the next day, I got a new pane, cut both to the right size, covered myself and large portions of the floor with kerosene (to soften the putty) and the glass is still intact! This week, I’m seeing how I can bodge up painting, sanding, shelving and tiling.

A nice part of the past few weeks has been spending increasing amounts of time at one of the Jenga houses with Tiff and Natalie. As well as providing opportunities for games and banter, the delightful food promises to halt or slow my continued shrinking. This has gradually developed from a weekly games night into a general occupation by me, at least whilst the Dr’s away, but they’re still handling it well.

At the top!

This quality mzungu time culminated in a camping trip away this weekend! That’s right! Real camping! Ten of us went to camp near the bottom of some waterfalls and had a great little adventure away from town. The site was lovely and peaceful with the gentle crash of the waterfall pervading the whole site (in a peaceful way). We had good food, good chats, good games, good walks and good times. On Sunday morning, a few of us braved the walk to the top of the fall which wasn’t the simplest route, but would have been even more exciting had it rained as our route up was typically the water’s less beautiful route down.

After we’d struggled to the top with a few breaks we were suitably ashamed when our guide pointed out an 8 year old who not only done the same route as us barefoot, but had obviously carried about 15kg of firewood up on her back as well. Two weird things about the camping were (a) not having to put up or take down the tents, felt a bit like cheating in honesty and (b) sleeping without a mosquito net for the first time in nearly 3 months which was delightful!

I’ve been being challenged recently about continuing to press on for what God has for me and for me to do whilst I’m here, rather than simply opting for what might be more comfortable. Prayers for wisdom over this and guidance on thoughts for the still-distant future would be appreciated.

P.S. The post is named after a local supermarket I went to twice today trying to find cheese in Mbale; little things are often harder than one might have thought!