The sun sets about 6:30pm and rises about 6:30am each
day. While there is a bit of twilight at
the beginning and end of each day, the change from light to dark or dark to
light happens more quickly than further north.
Last night, the full moon rose over the ridge to our east and it lit up the entire valley. Just beautiful!
Monday-Saturday, we typically wake about 6:00am to prepare
to go to school. However, today, Sunday,
we slept in until about 8:00am-----much needed and glorious. We woke to discover an ambitious group of
termites had broken through our bedroom baseboard and were already busy
building a nest on the floor. One of our
suitcases was right by their worksite, but luckily they had not yet claimed the
suitcase as part of their land acquisition.
So, after searching the house for any insect prevention products and
some good debate, we cleaned up the nest, poured boiling water down the nest
hole, and scattered some insect powder we found around the house. Now we wait
to see if the termites have a second set of construction plans in mind. What we
have found out is that there are numerous holes in the cement around this house
that need to be filled. It is a brick exterior, but has never been plastered,
so water and bugs can get in pretty easily. There is a plan in place to plaster
the exterior of the house and fill the holes within. Let’s hope it’s before the
next group of termites or whatever else seeking shelter comes in uninvited.
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| Guesthouse front entrance |
Justine, who manages the Project Guesthouse in which we
live, has Sunday off, so once up we prepared breakfast. Today it was granola (bought in Kampala when
we came back from Namibia and produced/packaged in South Africa) in a yogurt
and banana mix. Justine made the yogurt
with her family cow’s fresh milk and the bananas were from a bunch we bought
earlier in the week, but couldn’t eat them all fast enough before some became
over ripe. We have no refrigeration, so
all food purchases and meals need to be thoughtfully planned. To our breakfast we added coffee grown and
produced locally and Splash pineapple juice from a box manufactured in
Kampala. For our coffee, we add room
temperature milk from a small box that lasts 4 days once opened and locally
produced brown sugar. We eat in the main
living room area of the guesthouse (all of the 4 bedrooms in this main building
of the compound open into this room) and on this sunny morning we opened all
the doors and windows. The sounds we
hear include some roosters crowing, cows mooing, birds singing, a scattering of
human voices calling, and the bees taking nectar from the lovely white flowers on
the front porch. We are living in quite
a special place.
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| Dining and living room, kitchen below |
After breakfast several chores needed completing. The dishes from last night’s supper and
today’s breakfast needed washing. We are
also expecting several graduates from the Bududa Vocational Academy to stop by
this afternoon and we must prepare for their visit. I took on the dishes and Karen wen to the
nearby area of shops. We use the classic
three-dishpan method for the dishes:
first one hot with soap, second lukewarm for the first rinse, third cold
for the final rinse. Once cleaned everything dries in the morning sun. Karen bought chapatis in the market and made
arrangements for us to pick up some cold sodas later today (Coke and 5
Sprites). Each large pan-sized chapatti costs about 20 cents and the sodas cost
about 30 cents. As in most of the world,
whenever a person invites someone to visit, there is an expectation that some treats
will be offered. We could have offered
tea and chapatis, but we want to make a good impression and hope to get other
graduates to visit us in the future, so soda it is! Also, since Karen and I are representing the
program, we will offer to pay for any travel expenses that any of the students
incur. We plan to locate and meet with
as many graduates as we can to begin to compile a roster of graduates and to
try and use their feedback to better inform the program.
Before the graduates’ visit, the day is ours to do any
laundry, wash-up, and relax. I’m getting
a chance to write this latest blog entry.
Many folks here will attend church today and the services can vary
greatly in length. Schools take their
longest break starting after next week (December 8) and will not return to
school until early February. This break
marks the end of the school year, with a new school year starting in
February. We will be meeting with school
folks during the break, but we hear things will slow down considerably. With
school winding up and Christmas and New Year coming, this Sunday has a
wonderfully low-keyed rhythm. I find
myself singing, “What a day for a daydream, custom made for a daydreaming
boy….”
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| Welcoming front porch with the view down the hill |
I’m writing this in real time-----and we have just said
goodbye to the group of 5 graduates who came to visit and share with us. Everyone lived nearby, so travel expenses
were not necessary and the refreshments and food were greatly appreciated. Of course, when we went for the cold sodas,
the afternoon rainstorm that had just blown in cut the power to the
refrigerator that was cooling our sodas---so we had to make a new mix of cold
and warm soda. We weren’t sure if the storm might cancel our meeting, but it
cleared up enough to allow us to proceed.
The storm unfolded just like the rain making game played at home. A few early drops followed by distant
thunder, building to an all-out gusher with peels of thunder, and then slowly
tapering off to a light smattering of rain and distant thunder. Once gathered
at the guesthouse, the former students expressed much gratitude for the program
and, in general, they all spoke very highly of the school. Once Karen and I interview more graduates, we
will write in greater detail about this process in the days ahead. For Bududa residents, gaining a real job
skill is an important and still rare step, but it is only the first step to
earning a living. What usually follows
is an individual path taken amidst family needs and crisis, person health
concerns, acquiring the necessary tools for one’s trade, and a whole host of
other possible impediments. The
graduates we spoke with today all showed remarkable persistence and are earning
money at their trade, although for some, it is still not steady earning. For example, one young graduate trained as a
brick layer, has been able to hire onto specific building projects, but is not
working full time for a masonry company.
He believes he is expanding his skills and getting a good reputation,
but he has to keep hustling and hoping to find work. Sharing such stories on
the front porch was a true pleasure and privilege.
Darkness came on quickly and after debriefing on our
interviews, we made supper: fresh
tomatoes and avocado (a large avocado costs 20 cents) with some cheese on
chaptis washed down with a left over Coke.
We cleaned up after dinner and now wind down at day’s end. Tomorrow it is up at 6:00am getting ready to
walk the 2 miles to head back to school.
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| View from the front porch |
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| Path from the main road to the Guesthouse |
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| Side garden and Robert the gardener, planting lettuce, beans, radishes |
