Voyager Africa: Sunday: Our Day Off....

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.

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.

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….”

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.