Voice of Truth

My Day as a Vet's Assistant

2009-08-30T08:55:00.000-07:00

Only in Congo would I be participating in the neutering of my kittens. And taking pictures! T

The boys have been peeing on everything lately, and I decided it was time they should be neutered. This was something I was hoping to put off, as I don't particularly trust the vet's domestic cat operating skills and I feel like these two have been through enough. However, the peeing has been getting ridiculous (on every plastic bag available and suitcases/duffel bags) and in order to prevent a full scale housemate revolt, I bit the bullet and had 'er done today.

I set up an "operating table" out on the deck (blanket, towel, hot water) and patiently waited till the vet got here at 9am. I was surprised to see two vets arrive. I think our regular vet was learning the cat neutering process from the other vet. YIKES!!!!! To make a long story short, I sat with the cats the whole time, petting and cooing and taking pictures. It didn't take too long, but the anesthesia has really knocked them out. Not that they were unconscious during their operations. Nope, they were awake but frozen. Seriously...8 hours later and Dr.J is still feeling the effects. Let's hope all this pain (for them and for me) pays off and I can stop cleaning cat pee out of everything.

If you are at all squeamish...don't scroll down.

Just a James Bond Day

2009-08-30T03:14:00.000-07:00

Flying from Kalemie back to Bukavu with MONUC (UN Peacekeeping mission in Congo) means one of three things: flying direct from Kalemie to Bukavu, flying to Goma then to Bukavu, or the completely bizzare Bukavu via Entebbe (Uganda). You don't really know what you're gonna get till you check in at the MONUC airport.

I was really hoping to go to Entebbe. I was sure I was going to Entebbe. Going to Entebbe meant a good Cafe Latte, a Smirnoff Ice, a Coffee Crisp, buying a new book and general craft store browsing. This would have been an excellent way to spend the afternoon waiting for the flight to leave for Bukavu.

But that didn't happen. When I checked in I was told the flight was Kalemie - Goma - Bukavu. I've never been to Goma, so I guess missing out on Entebbe wouldn't be that bad. But wait...it got better.

As we walked to the air plane, I realized that it was an Russian Antonov. Cool! And it came with a Russian crew. I wish I had written down some of the lines delivered by the flight attendant. Suffice to say, her Russian accented English combined with her usage of english phrases was a highlight of my flight. The other highlight? Well in the cabin, there was english below the russian on all signs and an english safety card in the seat pocket. But in the bathroom...nyet. I was really hoping the black button next to the toilet meant, "press to flush." Even the air freshener was russian.

Flying into Goma is a bit surreal. I had been told the airport is in the center of town, but nothing really prepares you for looking out the window and seeing exactly what people are doing in their yards and on the streets. Yes, you get that close. Seriously, the airport is in the middle of town. There are houses maybe 100 meters away from the runway. There was a major plane crash last year where a Congolese airliner ran off the runway and crashed into the market. (A friends sister survived that crash - she was in the plane). I am surprised there aren't more accidents.

Once you get off the plane, you are loaded into a MONUC bus and driven to their airport lounge to wait for your next flight. I had about a 3 hour wait. The wiating room was croweded. After they called for passengers for the flight to Kinshasa, the room thined. Then they called the for the flight to Entebbe; the roomed thinned considerably. Looking around, there were only 7 of us remaining. I started to wish, then hope....

And my dreams came true. As the bus drove the 7 of us out to the tarmac and past the planes I knew I would be able to scratch a new item off my "Things to do Before I Die List." I was flying back to Bukavu on a helicopter. Whooo Hooo! I have always wanted to fly on a helicopter. This was one of the big military ones although I am not sure what kind. Unfortunatley I was squished up next to all the baggage (mostly soldiers duffel bags) and my right leg had to rest on top of a bag while my left leg was squished next to the lady next to be. But still, how cool. It is amazing to me how you just go up and down on take off and landing. It was very noisy, but the ear muffs helped. I was also surprised with how bumby a ride it is. For some reason I assumed it would be really smooth. And...the crew was Russian. Yep, Russian plane and 2 Russian crews made for a terrific James Bond day.

Note 1: Not sure why I was feeling like I was in a James Bond movie. It just did!

Note 2: Sitting in the waiting rooms at the MONUC airports, both in Kalemie and Goma, I was really struck by it being a United Nations airport. There were soldiers from Benin, India & Pakistan, a UN worker from Sierra Leone, a Chinese man and many others from different nations. For all that the UN is slammed for its beauracracy and ineffeciency, there is nothing more beautiful than seeing the world represented in a small airports in Eastern Congo.

Major Accomplishment

2009-08-30T03:08:00.000-07:00

OK...this will be a short post...

Last week I went down to our site office in Kalemie to do a small training session. I have created a new Excel Spread sheet that combines both budget lines and figures with the actuals that are posted. You would think this would be easy...but when you have a hundred lines + budget with lines that are charged to the same account code, it makes tracking budget spending a little difficult. However, I think I cracked the code and have come up with the perfect spread sheet.

But that's not the major accomplishment. I gave the entire training in FRENCH! Ok, honestly, maybe it was 98% French and 2% English. Either way...whoo hoo me!

Got Rabbit?

2009-08-20T03:09:00.000-07:00

The lengths Quinton will go to look for his pureed rabbit...

The Disappearing Dock

2009-07-30T01:27:00.000-07:00

We had a dock. It was a nice, simple dock commissioned by our previous Country Director. I haven't been swimming in the lake and have only been down to the dock once since I came to Bukavu, but lots of others do and our dock was used as a popular swimming point. Our current CD has also been using the dock in the mornings to launch his kyak from. Slowly the dock has been disappearing. The wooden slats were stolen one by one. Now...the dock is gone.

This isn't a great picture, but you can see I am sitting at the end of the dock (Pic taken January 09)

This is all that remains of the dock as of July 2009.

What does it say about the state of things in Bukavu that the wood from a dock are worthy targets to be stolen in broad daylight?

Christmas in July

2009-07-29T05:23:00.000-07:00

When I was in Kampala in May I bought a whole bunch of stuff to bring back to Bukavu. Stuff you can't buy here or you can if you are willing to give up an arm and a leg. Things like cereal and cat food and yarn and jam and ketchup and pasta. The list goes on. Plus, my mom sent me a ton of stuff with my dad: books and yarn and cotton face pads, etc. I can only carry 30kg on the Rwandair flight from Entebbe to Kigali to Bukavu, so I left a box, a large duffel bag and a smaller bag at the FH Uganda office as FH DRC had a 4 ton truck to be picked up in Nairobi and driven to Bukavu. Joel, my housemate and our head of logistics, said the truck would be coming through in about 2 weeks (that would have been 2nd week of June). A month and a half later....the truck arrived with all my goodies. The celebrations started on Monday when Joel brought me the smaller bag...there were good things in there. But the real show was last night when I opened the box and large duffel bag. I could tell you how much fun it was, but I would rather show you.

Opening the bag and box

Look at all the great stuff

Excited to be able to make Rice Krispie Squares

I think Q likes his new basket

Three housemates celebrating their haul

Avacodo on Steroids

2009-07-27T23:49:00.000-07:00

The term coined by my dad to describe the avocados in Kampala. I think the term also fits for the avocados in Bukavu.

As seen here....

Sunday Excitement

2009-07-27T23:21:00.000-07:00

It's Sunday...and I am sitting in my usual Sunday place, watching a little television and doing a lot of crocheting, when I hear a pretty unusual noise. It was coming from the lake side of the house and sounded like maybe the hill had given away. (Except there was no splash of water...so what was I thinking) I looked out the back windows to see if the guard had heard it...he did...then proceeded to the balcony off my bedroom to check out what had happened.

Turned out that part of the massive eucalyptus tree in the MSF (Médecins Sans Frontières - Doctors Without Borders) compound next door had fallen over the brick wall into our compound. It was kind of comical. There was no wind, no warning it was going to fall. And it was huge. There is a gate down to the lake...but you wouldn't be able to tell from the photo's.

MSF is going to help with cutting the tree off of the wall, but our guard, Maxime, spent the rest of Sunday afternoon cutting the tree away from the far back wall. He was concerned that if it stayed that way, it could be used by someone to climb up over the fence and into our compound. I love that our guards care about our safety. It's such a blessing.

Here are some shots of the tree from the balcony of the house then from ground level.

Oh and while I was down checking out the tree, I took this great photo of the house.

A Good Photo Op Gone Bad

2009-07-27T23:15:00.000-07:00

When you have kittens there are lots of opportunities for cute photo's. And sometimes, that opportunity passes very quickly.

Case in point....

I'll leave it to you to imagine what the picture was supposed to look like.

What's New with FH Congo

2009-07-27T06:37:00.001-07:00

I find that working in Finance does not give me a lot to blog about. Sure I could tell you about the new spreadsheets I am working on or the Access Database that I am trying to create for Human Resources...but hey, who really wants to hear about that?!?!? However, since you sent me to "work" with Food for the Hungry, I guess I should keep you updated on what's going on in my "work" life.

Last month was particularly difficult for FH Congo. There has been increased violence in North and South Kivu due to renewed efforts by the Congolese Army (FRDC) to push out the remnants of the Rwandan Hutu Genocidaires (FDLR). The FDLR "... have been operating out of eastern DR Congo since the aftermath of Rwanda's 1994 genocide by Hutu extremists against the Tutsi minority. Some of its members are accused of being among the main perpetrators of those massacres." (AFP - May 13, 2009) This increase in violence has forced us to shut down operations in South Kivu and suspending the contracts of our staff in these areas. This, however, affects our overall funding and means that we have less money to operate our main office in Bukavu. The result was that in June, we suspended the contracts of close to 15 Bukavu based staff.

So what does it mean to suspend contracts? Well, we secured what is called a Force Majeur. It is a document issued by the Provincial authorities stating that due to unforseen reasons (WAR!) we can no longer continue safely operating in the South Kivu region. Under the Force Majeur, we can suspend the staff contracts for 2 months. If after those 2 months the situation has not improved we can then terminate the contracts.

As you can probably imagine, this suspension of contracts did not go over so well with the staff in Bukavu (the staff in the fields completely understood the situation). Times are tough, and not getting a paycheck really hurts. The problem is further exacerbated by the fact that all NGO's are unionized here in South Kivu and that there is a central Union as well. It has been very uncomfortable for those of us who are still working. The biggest problem is that the actual organized push against the FDLR has not started, so there is no chance the situation will have changed at the end of the 2 months.

In a related news, we moved the office. By related I mean we drastically have to reduce our overhead spending. This is a source of much joy for me for many reasons:

It is only 5 minutes away from our house.
It is on the lake.
It is very QUIET
It is not located next to an elementary school (see #3)
It is not located on the main road (see #3)
There are no endless car horns (see #3 & 5)
There is no clinking of pop bottle openers against glass pop bottles (see #3 & 4)

There are lovely views of the lake from some of the offices...but not mine. Here's a pic of my very tiny office and of the views from the balconies.

My New Obsession...

2009-07-27T05:47:00.000-07:00

...is crocheting. Yes, crocheting. I am addicted. It's getting a bit crazy!

While I was home at Christmas I had my mom show me basic crocheting. I practiced chaining and the single crochet, bought some yarn, bought crocheting for Dummies and off I went back to Congo with the pattern for an Afghan. Once I was settled in, I pulled out the Dummies book and started practicing the basic stitches. And I sucked. I got so frustrated I put it all away and didn't look at it again for 2 months. When I finally got up the courage to try again, I was able to figure out several stitches with the help of the Dummies book and the internet. Next problem, I so did not understand the crochet pattern for the Afghan I had chosen. No big deal, just search for a new pattern? Yeah, tried that too. In the end, I settled on making a striped blanket using just the double crochet stitch. (It's my favorite!) Over the next 4 mpnths, with lots of starts and stops and ripping out stitches, I finished my first ever crochet piece. What an awesome feeling.

Next I tried baby hats. My friend Holly gave me some baby yarn she was going to knit with...and voila...baby hats! And so the obsession started.

When the team from Cap Church came to Uganda in May, the brought with them cotton yarn my mom had sent with me. I was to use it to make a mesh bag. But, without a pattern, this proved too hard for me. See, I can't cook or crochet without a pattern. I am just not that creative! So I found a pattern from the Lions Brand Yarn website for a very cool Market bag. As you can see, the bag rocks! I love it!! This one is the first, I have since made 2 more and am now busy trying to figure out how to get more cotton yarn sent to Congo.

Now the title of this blog is, "My New Obsession." Why obsession you ask? Cause it is all I think about and do. I have spent hours (weeks of hours!) searching for and bookmarking crochet patterns and blogs. I come home every evening after work and spend the rest of the night crocheting. Every night...and all weekend. It is getting crazy! But I have figured out so many neat things and have even made small pouches with the remaining cotton yarn. Just waiting for cool buttons to finish them off. My goal is to make a handmade gift for each of the staff members here at FH Congo (Bukavu office only) to give them when I leave next year. I will need at least 60 gifts...6 down, 54 to go!

And I'm Back...

2009-07-22T01:49:00.000-07:00

OK...I know it has been ages since I have posted. And I promise to post once a day to catch you all up on all the good things that have been going on in my life since March (If I can remember...getting very old!).

But to tide you over, here is one of my favorite photos...me and my dad in Kampala before going to see The Little Shop of Horrors put on by the Kampala Amateur Dramatic Society and a special after show visit to the Kampala Serena Hotel for appies and drinks. It was a wonderful evening in it's normalness. Because for me, life in Africa is normal (as normal as insanity on a daily basis can be!). Kampala was and always will be home for me. I am not a tourist when I am there; I wanted the time spent in the city to be like being at home. I think it worked. We watched tv movies on the computer, made dinner, visited with friends, walked to the mall, ate ice cream and saw a movie. Nothing touristy about that!

International Women's Day

2009-03-15T09:35:00.000-07:00

Did anyone else know that March 8th was International Women's Day? I didn't until around February 28th. But it is, and in Bukavu that means the International Women's Day parade. This is a big deal in Bukavu. Organizations and business purchase fabric for their female employee's/members and each person has a traditional Congolese dress made. March 8th was aSunday, so the march took place on Saturday. Thousands of women in their uniform gathered together to march through the city and parade in front of the governor.

There were 5 women from FHI who marched alongside our friends from Renee's coffee shop. We all had the same fabric so it was fitting we marched together. As Liz, Renee and I (the Wazungu - white people) were dressed in pretty fancy Congolese dress, we got a lot of attention. We also got a lot of sun...bad, bad sunburns. It isn't often that I am outside in the sun for any length of time.

It was interesting being a part of this event. In the weeks leading up to the March, the men kept asking if we, the women, were throwing them a party. Boy did this get me riled up. In Congo, the women do all the work: they cook, they clean, they work the fields, they raise more babies than they should, they die needlessly in child birth, they carry impossibly heavy loads on their backs day in and day out. And the men want a party?!?!?!?

The day of the march, several NGO's had men marching alongside the women. To me this was men supporting women, standing beside them on the only day that celebrates them. However, this wasn't always the case. I witnessed many women yelling at the men marching. To them they were taking away their day. Who's right?

I think that the reason we in the west don't know about International Women's Day is because we have achieved relative equality with our men. We share our lives together, we share responsibilities. Our girl children grow up knowing that they can do anything they want and have the same opportunities as boy children. But here in Africa and across most of the world, women don't grow up knowing that. They grow up knowing that their purpose is to work in the home and the fields, to get married and to have babies. Of course that is slowly changing; many women here in Bukavu and elsewhere have jobs and are contributing to the income of their families. But it isn't enough; so we continue to have International Women's Day. But I hope that one day March 8th can just be another day of the week.

Kalemie and Moba

2009-03-09T08:08:00.000-07:00

In February I spent 17 days in the southern province of Katanga. FH has two field sites there: one in Kalemie and one in Moba. While in Kalemie I again stayed at the MONUC base. Always an interesting adventure although enjoyable as it is air conditioned. I always meet interesting characters when I stay there. This year it was 2 French Canadian firefighters and a jolly Italian. I was also able to use my 10 years restaurant experience to educate the Welfare Club (MONUC restaurant) on tipping and good service.

It was a very productive 17 days. I was able to finish a staffing plan for out two new grants there as well as work with the staff on the requirements for our monthly cash flows. I also visited the site in Moba for the first time. Moba is extremely beautiful and much cooler than Kalemie. It is also a much smaller, more village like community. And it rained the entire time I was there...also a plus for me.

Life as a Mama Cat

2009-01-28T10:20:00.001-08:00

Meet Quinton , Blondie and Blackie...

On Friday January 23rd, Liz came into my office around 4:30 saying their was a cat in a box. I got excited, of course, cause I love cats and we have been trying to warm Joel up to adding a cat to our menagerie of dogs and parrot! Up we went and sure enough their was crying coming from a box on the far side of an unused office space. When we opened up the box, lo and behold were three of the tiniest kittens I have ever seen. They were bundled into the middle of a plain cardboard box and although they cried a little, they seemed content to curl up around each other.

No one knows how the kittens got in the box; no one had fessed up to moving them. There are a lot of unknowns and everybody has their opinions: there was a cat raiding the food in the office kitchen that was chased out on several occasions, there is a cat that sleeps in one of the outside offices as evidenced by cat hair on the chair and it running out of the office in the mornings, the night guards see lots of different cats, the babies were in the outside basement, there is a cat who is often in the outside basement...the list goes on.

We decided to leave the kittens in the box in the same place we found them on Friday night, hoping that the momma cat would search for them and take them back. I came to the office first thing Saturday morning and the box hadn't been disturbed so I brought the kittens home. What an adventure that has been. Lots of Googling about raiding orphaned kittens gave me most of the information I needed to try to keep the kittens alive. Living in Congo means limited resources; I would love to be feeding them proper kitten milk replacement but you can't just pop around to the local pet store. My recipe of choice...powdered milk, corn oil, egg yolk and baby multivitamin delivered with a syringe. It isn't perfect, but two of them have finally got the hang of it. The next best part...mama cats stimulate the kittens to eliminate waste then clean up after them. A damp cotton pad does the trick for me.

Based on kitten development I have determined that the kittens are between 3 to 4 weeks old. There eyes are fully open, their ears erect and they are walking and climbing albeit very wobbly. Their weight, however, puts them around 2 weeks. It would really be best for them to be reunited with their mother. I tried again on Monday night to leave them at the office. This time in the back office where we know for sure a cat (hopefully the mother) sleeps a lot of the time. I even left 2 whole fish on the ground next to the box to try to lure her to them. It was an awful night for me; I cried and cried and worried about their safety, their warmth and their hunger. I went to check on them at 6am and...nothing. Fish not touched, kittens crying and covered in poop. Home we went for food and baths and warm hot bottles under the towel for warmth.

And so it has been. They come to work everyday and sleep, wake up, walk around, eat, eliminate, repeat. I worry constantly. The black kitten (Blackie for lack of a better name) is severely underweight and barely eats. His eyes weren't fully open the day I found them. I keep waiting for the morning that he doesn't wake up. But he has spunk... The light colored kitten has been dubbed Blondie, although I am pretty sure she's a he. I think Blondie has gotten formula in her lungs; when she is awake she coughs all the time. Plan is for a vet to see the kittens, but I don't know what we can do if she gets a bacterial infection in her lungs. I would say a shot of antibiotics, but this is Congo. Then there is the striped cat. His name is Quinton or Q for short; he's the kitten I will be keeping. He is the biggest and the strongest and the best eater. He completely recognizes me. He plays the most and loves to climb up over the edge of the box. He has the cutest stripes and loves to lay on his back and play with his feet in the air. I am so in love and attached.

Please help me to pray for God's protection over each one of the kittens. They were rudely taken from or abandoned by their mother and I am doing my best with limited resources to keep them alive. Also, pray for the next steps of weaning and potty training. Usually mom takes are of that, but since I am the mom...well, wish me luck.

My Balcony

2009-01-25T02:26:00.000-08:00

I though you might like to see the place where I sit and relax on the weekends and the view I get to look at when I occasionally exercise. The couch and chair were made in Kampala for my old house and I had them brought over to Congo. The cushions are coming…in African time.

At night, with the candles lit and lightning flashing in the sky, it's kinda magical.

Just wanted you to know that sometimes it isn’t all that bad being in Bukavu.

Appearing for one day only….

2009-01-25T01:37:00.000-08:00

This doesn’t happen often. Actually it is the first good hair day I have had with my new haircut since I came back to Africa. Nor do I often match my shirts, to my earrings to my toenail polish. But sometimes everything just comes together. Hurray!!!!!

Back to Buhozi

2009-01-25T01:26:00.001-08:00

One of the first things I did when I got back was visit the feeding centre in Buhozi with our FH driver Israel. You may remember from a previous post that the feeding centre in Buhozi is a non-FH funded centre that feeds approx. 70 malnourished children in a community just outside of Bukavu. It is funded by our ex-Country Director’s Church and was over seen by his wife Katie. If you remember, I am taking care of the finances till August and Israel is purchasing and delivering the food as well as general centre related issues.

It was a Friday holiday and Israel needed to take the remainder of January’s food to the mama’s who cook and care for the children. Unfortunately, due to the holiday, things were getting a slow start and they weren’t really ready for visitors. Some of the children came and played this neat game in the courtyard with a ball and several beans. I of course took pictures, which always causes a scene as the children push at each other to “see” the photo on the screen.

It is hard being stuck in the office always working on the behind the scenes but never actually seeing the change that is occurring in our fields. So even though the feeding centre is not an FH project, it is good for me to see how God’s love is played out in communities here in Congo.

One of the Mama's with a load of food for the month of January

The game with the ball and the beans

The Cupboard Under the Stairs

2009-01-25T01:05:00.000-08:00

Ever wondered what it must have felt like for Harry Potter sleeping in the cupboard under the stairs? Probably not…but I got to find out anyway!

Sleeping in a newly created room in the space under the stairs and sidewalk of my London Victoria area hotel furnished with a TV, sink, bed and space heater (shared bathroom inside hotel): £20

Getting to feel like Harry Potter for a few nights: PRICELESS

Going Home

2009-01-24T03:17:00.000-08:00

How great was going home? OK...rhetorical question. Being at home was the best thing to happen for me in months. I was able to take 6 weeks away from Congo. I spent the first few days in Kampala and Mbale visiting with friends and my beloved Bufukhula. Then came the long trip home. Luckily it was uneventful; I managed to navigate London Heathrow Terminal 5 in hour and make my connection to Vancouver. I was really hoping for an inconspicuous arrival; I didn't want any pomp and circumstance. And I got it...in "typical" fashion no one was at the airport to pick me up. Dad...let me remind you. Know one takes the Lions Gate Bridge to the airport on a Wednesday evening when the person arriving gets in at 6:30pm!

What a shock coming from Kampala with a sunburn after 32 degree heat...to Brrrrrrr! Luckily I had 2 weeks home to acclimatize before the snows started. Being home was so wonderful. You never forget it; the sight, the sounds, the lights of Grouse Mountain. Coming home is like snuggling under a warm quilt in front of a crackling fire with a hot cup of tea. But is it a shock like everyone asks? I am not sure if it bodes well or bad for me, but I didn't find it hard being home. It is surprising how easy it is to fall back into the wealth and consumerism. You don't want to...but how can you avoid it. You have to eat, to shop, to visit with friends. But I know my attitude has changed. You don't take it all so seriously; you respect what blessings were provided to you growing up middle class. You remember not to waste water and to improvise when the sink is plugged and you aren't sure you can wash the Christmas dinner plates in the kitchen sink. Africa teaches you to improvise.

I had so many wonderful moments at home with my parents, my support group, my home group, my pastors. Hanging out with my mom felt like old times. (as did the occasional fight!) But just as important was the quiet time, the time for reflection. After having a rough couple of months, I needed that time to look and reflect back on where God had taken me over the past year and to look forward to the new year and it's limitless possibilities. It was an interesting month. When I left Africa the last week of November I had my heart set on seeeing out 8 more months of my contract and coming home after two years. But with much introspection, a little counseling and a lot of pastoral care, I was able to look back at the past difficult eight months, see them as the growth and learning opportunities they were and know that I hadn't seen why God brought me to the Congo and that I wasn't prepared to leave until I was sure I had made a difference here.

Being home for Christmas this year was so great. Christmas has always been my favorite time of the year. I love the family time and this year was no different (although it was a lot different than last years 32 plus degrees Christmas morning Frisbee and volleyball matches!). The snow almost out a crimp in our plans; we almost cancelled Christmas! Being at my aunt's place, on the hills of West Vancouver, made for some difficult driving times. But persistence, chains and the miracle of the snow plow made all the difference. Christmas was back on and a wonderful time with family and friends, old and new. I couldn't have asked for a more precious time home.

Leaving was difficult, although with a new sense of purpose, not as hard as I thought. I weaned myself back into Africa by making a pit stop in London and seeing the Musical Wicked. The title says it all! The last leg of my journey was a bit rough (waking up in London with a sore throat, 9 hours in Heathrow, 9 hour flight to Entebbe, the unexpected new ticket to Kigali I had to purchase, then a grueling 6 hour drive through Rwanda to Congo. Not fun when you are sick and exhausted. But it felt good to be back in Congo; a relief to be back in my house. It is home for now and there really is nothing like HOME.

Obama Mania

2009-01-19T08:17:00.001-08:00

The back of a Matatu in Nairobi. A Matatu is a taxi bus...African public transport. Enough said.....

More Zanzibar Photo's

2009-01-19T07:48:00.000-08:00

Here's a couple more of my favorite Zanzibar shots. For even more photo's click on the album on the right.

The view from my room
AMAZINGThe steps down to the water and the beachThat's my hotel in the distance....I walked that far out!

Nairobi and Zanzibar

2009-01-19T03:04:00.001-08:00

I got the opportunity to attend a 3 day USAID Rules & Regulations training in Nairobi in the beginning of October. It was my first time in Nairobi and unfortunately there isn’t much I can say. The extent of my NairobiAfrica. I ate thin crust pizza from the Italian restaurant and Japanese food grilled to perfection right in front of me at the Japanese restaurant. And most importantly I learned to stop complaining about Congo. I met a bunch of ladies who work in Juba in Southern Sudan. They talked about rat infested houses and offices, bathing in brown Nile water, being sick all the time because of the brown Nile water. And to top it all off…one of the girls, on the last day of training, got word that her friend had been air evacuated to Nairobi because she had oozing sores all over her body. YUCK! Never again will I complain, cause while my living conditions might not be a good as they were in Kampala, they are 5 star compared to Juba. experience was the drive to and from the airport. The rest of the time I stayed at the most amazing resort where the conference was held. I won’t bore you with the details of the training. But I did get the chance to meet some amazing men and women who are serving in different countries around

Leaving Nairobi I headed to Zanzibar for a week of R&R. Exciting and intriguing as Zanzibar sounds, it really does suck to vacation alone. And Zanzibar really is one of those places you need to enjoy in the company of friends or loved ones. That being said, I really enjoyed Stone Town and it’s wonderful Arabic architecture. The narrow, shop filled lanes were exciting to explore. The shopping was a little depressing as it was the exact same East African arts & crafts you can buy in Uganda yet more expensive. I did manage to buy a few treasures that I couldn’t find anywhere else.

I spent two nights in Stone Town and went on a spice tour one of the days. That was really fun. Who knew that’s what some of the spices looked like in their raw form? I was able to buy a ton of fresh spices which made a wonderful Christmas present for my brother the Chef.

Nutmeg and Mace - Nutmeg is the seed in the middle and the red membrane on the outside is the mace

Vanilla Beans on the vine before they are dried

Turmeric just pulled from the ground

From Stone Town I headed to Pongwe Beach on Zanzibars East Coast. As things turned out, I didn’t stay at the hotel I had originally booked with, but rather at their annex. It was a lovely spot with lovely staff, but didn’t have the white beach at my doorstep as I was looking forward too. At high tide, the water came right up to the cliff at the edge of the hotel. But when tide was low, you could climb down the stairs and walk for miles on soft white sandy beach or halfway out to the coral reef that rings the east coast of the Island. My morning walks were truly a peaceful time. Local women and children harvest sea snails and seaweed so as soon as the tide went out the sea floor was scoured for these delectable treats (not to me…but I am sure there are others who find them delectable!!!)

My favorite moment…finding Nemo’s cousin Bob or Barbara in a small sea anemone. I went back three days in a row to say hi.

Of course, no R&R for me is complete without some sort of disaster (Remember I was on my first R&R in Uganda in July when I found out about the fire in my room). I got my first cold since leaving Canada (it was a doozy) and my back went out so bad I couldn’t hardly walk or sit for two days. Then of course there was the heat…it was sooo hot and my room had no air conditioning, just a fan. So while it is nice to get away, sometimes it isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

Can you Believe It?

2009-01-19T03:04:00.000-08:00

So while I was in Kalemie, Flory, our regional accountant was getting ready to pay a supplier. What you see below is $100 US in Congolese Francs. At the time, $1 was 550 CF's.

Side note: With the world's economies in crisis, the Congolese Franc rose to 1000 CF's to the US dollar last week. I believe it has gone down to around 700, but unfortunately shops have not changed their prices.

Military Bases and Beaches

2009-01-19T02:31:00.001-08:00

I got the opportunity to head back south to our field site in Kalemie which is situated on the northern end of Lake Tanganyika. Kalemie is much hotter than Bukavu. Luckily, since the FH expat house was full, I was bunked on the UN base where they rent rooms to NGO’s. Why would I say luckily….my room had air conditioning and it was really, really hot! The accomodations were a long trailer separated into 5 units. There were two units with en-suite bathrooms, but sadly mine did not.

My room at the UN Base
The lady who took me to my room said that since there were no guys staying there I could use the men’s washroom/shower trailer as it had hot water showers. Of course, that was only one night of the 7 I spent there. So my only real option was the women’s shower; since you don’t find too many women heading off to stay at a UN base in southern Congo, the women’s washroom/shower was a concrete room with one toilet and one shower. No hot water, bugs on the floor, one sink and no mirror. Good times! Now, you need to know that I intensely dislike cold showers…unless it is so hot that at the end of the day all you can think of is getting rid of layers of sweat and grime and a cold shower is the most refreshing thing in the world and doesn’t really feel that cold since your body is already overheated. And the other nice thing about being on the base was the cantina or Welfare Club as it is called. CNN, good food, wine…it was a nice respite. I worked lots and hard, but also got a chance to relax at the beach on Lake Tanganyika with my friend Keith. It was a good trip and I look forward to going back again in February 2009. This time for a month…but I am hoping to stay at the FH residence this time. I am not sure I can take a whole month of cold showers no matter how good they might feel!

Me running on the beach
Keith and I enjoying Cokes at the beach cantina

Where Did You Go?

2009-01-19T02:15:00.000-08:00

I should start out by apologizing for not updating my blog since September and I should probably start by telling you why. The last blog was about celebrating my 1 year anniversary in Africa. It wasn’t the worst year ever by far, but it also had a lot of ups and downs. The months after my last year are ones that I would love to have back. They weren’t happy months; they were dark and dreary and depressing months (And not in the weather sense!)

In September several things happened. I finally caught on that we were majorly overspending on a large USAID grant that was going into it’s final months. As I brought that into the open, there were major consequences to our programming and ultimately to the job of our Country Director. That was a stressful time for me. In some respects I was the golden child who was here to “fix” years of problems; that is something that can’t be done overnight. I felt unspoken pressure to work as long and hard as I could to fix the problems. Then came time to get our upcoming Fiscal Year 2009 budgets uploaded into our accounting system. Three days before they were due, I was told that I would be doing them. And with that piece of news my Finance Director went on holidays. WHAT??????? Talk about more stress than I could handle. Add to that the major culture stress I was going through living in Congo. Then October rolled around and so did the resumption of war in North Kivu. While we were distanced from the fighting, the repercussions spread to Bukavu and resulted in a female colleague and I being evacuated to Rwanda for a 24 hour period. This did little to relieve the overwhelming amount of stress my mind was fighting.

The result of all this…I pulled away. I isolated myself from friends and reality. I spent a lot of time on my own watching TV on my laptop or on the TV. I stopped going to church, refused to go to Sunday Bible Study and even stopped wanting to attend Tuesday night women’s group. And worst of all, there was absolutely nothing positive I could say about Congo or the Congolese. And that was definitely not who I am. But the more I felt that way the worst I felt; and the farther away I felt from God. It was like I was drowning, could see the hand reaching towards me but refused to grab hold. And as I sank deeper and deeper the less I felt like doing simple things…like updating my blog. Depression…maybe. But I think it was more major culture stress, language stress, work stress all taking a big bite out of my psyche. By the beginning of November I knew that if I didn’t get out of Congo and Africa for a break, I would be packing up my bags and leaving for good.

Now the good news…I went home. I will tell you all about that and what it means to be back in DRC later. But now I need to go back and tell you about some of the things that happened between September and December…..

Celebrating 1 Year in Africa

2008-09-17T09:00:00.000-07:00

So…September 13th officially marked one year living in Africa. And what a year it has been. When I arrived in Entebbe last year, I thought I would be spending 3 years in Kampala doing some sort of finance job and spending as much time as I could with my friends in Bufukhula. A year later and I sometimes don’t recognize my own life. Congo? Who would have thought?

So in no particular order, here is a list of highlights and lowlights from my first year in Africa:

Landing in the under construction Entebbe airport with 5 large suitcases and no clue who was picking me up
Looking at 12 or more houses then finding the PERFECT house
Learning the words and melody to several traditional hymns
Finding and volunteering with a fantastic church in Kampala
Discovering that there really wasn’t that much for me to do with FH Uganda
Learning that there was much I could do with FH Congo
Leaving Kampala – hardest thing I did all year
Elaine’s visit to Kampala and the trip to visit Janet in Kitgum
Having stomach bacteria problems on the 8 hour drive to Kitgum!
Spending time in Bufukhula
Aunt Leslee…enough said!
Soft serve ice cream and the bookstore at Garden City Mall in Kampala
Café Bourbon in Kigali
Spending time with my friends from FH training in Kigali
Angela, Martha, Martin, Mary and Maria
Buddy…cute puppy….terror of a dog
The FIRE
Seeing lions, giraffes, hippos and elephants in Murchison Falls
Friday night card night
Flambayed ice cream at the Orchid in Bukavu
Renee’s coffee shop
Being too stressed at work….having to take a mental health day
Visiting the Buhozi feeding centre
Jeff and his amazing brochettes and banana bread
Satellite TV
Skype…again enough said!
Bad culture stress…French is hard
Seeing Gorilla’s in DRC

OK...I could probably go on, but this should give you a good idea. It is hard to believe it has been one year; it has gone by very fast. And then at times, it is hard to believe I have two more to go; the time isn’t going by fast enough. These past few weeks I have had mixed emotions about continuing in Africa. I can recognize that this is work stress and culture stress talking. So this one year mark has been a good time to reflect, assess and pray for God’s continued support for my “mission” in Africa.

The one year mark is also a good time to have a party with friends. So, on September 13th I threw a little party and invited both my ex-pat and Congolese friends. We had a wonderful time dancing and laughing and lip-synching to Celine Dion (she is very popular in Africa). Have a look and meet some of my Bukavu friends.

My Friend Kim who works for the International Rescue Committee

My friend Ric and I dancing

Renee our resident Bukavu expert

Liz and I lip-synching to Celine Dion!

The Gang

Buhozi Feeding Centre

2008-09-17T03:16:00.000-07:00

Last week I took a seriously needed mental health day and joined the Directors wife Katie at a feeding centre for malnourished children in the village of Buhozi. The village is located about 45 minutes outside of Bukavu. Currently, Katie and Kostas’ home church in Washington, DC have been sponsoring the centre and Katie provides administration and “pastoral” support. The centre feeds about 60 children in the area; all are under the growth targets for their age and each receives a meal of beans, rice and cabbage once a day. While the three mama’s are preparing the daily meal, the children gather to sing and dance.

On this day, Katie and I were accompanied by Keith and Nathan and Robyn. Keith and Nathan just joined FH Congo, Keith for 1 year as a Program Support Officer and Nathan on a 6 month internship. Robyn is a friend of Katie’s who used to live and work in Bukavu and has previously visited the feeding centre. We were also accompanied by Papa Israel who is an FH driver and assists Katie in translating as well as Papa Jean, a public health nurse who sees to the children’s health. (Picture on left: Keith, Israel & Nathan)

What’s interesting about this village is not only do many of the villagers and children not speak French but they also do not speak Swahili; Moshi is the local dialect. This makes it even harder to communicate with the children. I could converse in French and maybe even a few words in Swahili…but Moshi…no such luck! However, dancing, singing, laughing and a comfy lap are universal and I had no problem enjoying my time with the children.

And of course there is the requisite baby holding! Baby holding, that is, without diapers - wet baby holding. I was in heaven.

We also went on a home visit to see Katie’s friend Regine. She is a single mother of 5. This doesn’t seem too bad in African terms, but that 5 comprise 2 sets of twins and all the children are under the age of 5. Regine’s husband left her after the second set of twins was born…and he took the metal roof from the house with him. Regine has no income and no family to assist her. Katie has been providing her with monthly financial assistance and the younger 3 children receive a meal at the feeding centre. All of the children are malnourished and this, of course, affects their normal developmental stages; the 2+ year old twins just started walking in the past month. The oldest, who I believe is around 4 looks more like a 3 year old.

It is always difficult to see poverty such as this. The village is scattered in between fields and fields of banana trees. Produced from the banana’s…banana beer. In talking with Robyn and Papa Jean, the village leaders have been approached about removing some of the banana fields and planting other food crops to help reduce malnutrition. However, they refuse as the beer is more important. Papa Jean was even approached by an angry elderly women who declared that the banana beer was fine for children…they filled up and slept through the night. (Recounted to me by Papa Jean) These are some of the conditions of poverty that FH and other organizations are fighting in Congo and in other places around the globe.

The BASKET

2008-09-08T13:25:00.000-07:00

So the other day Joel picked me up at the house to bring me to the office (after a quick stop at the shop for lunch). As we reached the main road, I saw an older man with a large basket on his head. It was a big basket for this guy to be walking around with on his head. I commented to Joel about it as we passed. You see, since the fire, I have no place for dirty clothes and have been thinking about getting a basket of some sort.

But we kept going and headed to the shop. A short while later, basket man was standing outside the door of the shop. They do that, street vendors, stand outside the shop hoping they can make a sale. Well, I asked my Congolese friend Rick to see how much the basket was. He came back with the price of $10, so I borrowed from Joel and bought the basket. Well, I knew it was a big basket…but didn’t know it was a HUGE basket. I can sit in the basket; in fact I did! Not only will it fit my dirty clothes, but Joel’s and Liz’s and all the sheets from three beds and still have room left over. And it’s heavy! Any ideas on how to bring this back home?!?!

And To Think That I Saw It on Patrice Lumumba Avenue…

2008-09-08T13:21:00.000-07:00

I see a lot of crazy things when I drive down the main street in Bukavu. I thought I had seen strange and fascinating things on the streets in Kampala, but Bukavu takes the cake. It is almost impossible to describe; you truly do need to see it to believe it. And I don’t think I can put it together in elegant prose, so you will just have to settle for point form:

• Pot holes big enough to loose a car in…OK not that big but pretty close! It is incredible the number and size of the pot holes. And this is on a paved rode. It is fun to watch and to drive as cars swerve around the holes into oncoming traffic. What is not fun is being the passenger or God forbid be sitting in the back of the Landruiser while going over said potholes. Most times you will have a car coming at you in your “lane” and they will honk/flash their lights at you like you are in their way.

• And speaking of lanes…there are no lanes. Cars go wherever they want. You stick to your side of the road, but the middle is first come first serve. I spend a lot of time driving down the middle…one to avoid the holes and two, because the taxi’s go super slow along the side honking to pick up customers.

• And speaking of taxi’s honking…it is constant…all day honking. The taxis here are just regular guys with a car. Sometimes they have a taxi sign on top but mostly they don’t. They drive like maniacs; you can’t be too close behind them as they will suddenly pull of the road right in front of you. Or worse, they pull out in front of you with no warning. Turn signals…what’s a turn signal.

• And speaking of driving like a maniac…everyone drives like a maniac. Even the NGO drivers; even me sometimes.! There really aren’t any rules and everyone is impatient. While there are not a lot of cars on the road, it seems like a lot as everyone drives so badly. The roads are so bad that in most places you can’t go fast. But in those places where there is un-potholed pavement…the faster you can go the better. (Me too!)

• Another thing you see on the road…two wheeled carts carrying wood or rebar being pushed/pulled down the road by a group of young men. It is an odd site and a job I don’t envy. Bukavu is rather hilly and it always pains me to see them struggling to get the cart up the hill. It is a delicate balance as the two wheels are in the middle of the cart. But, it is also funny to see them going down hill with someone riding the load and the rest running to keep up with the cart and keep it balanced.

• Fridays….how I hate Fridays on Patrice Lumumba Avenue…and Saturdays too. These seem to be the days that people get married. Many people! And the custom is to drive your wedding party down the road with the cars all decorated and maintaining a constant rhythmic honking. And the best part…they drive really slow so everyone can join in on the parade.

• It seems like life in Africa takes place on the side of the road. At least the Africa I have been too. In Bukavu it takes on a new meaning. On the side of the main road you can buy everything from running shoes to purses, from cell phone accessories to pirated movies, from thermos’ to kids toys and even Hawaiian lays. There is hardly anything you can’t buy along the side of the road. And this isn’t in a shop. People set up right on the dirt track that passes for the sidewalk or in front of an unoccupied building.

• It is always the noises that strike me as I drive to work; the constant sound of thousands of people going about their lives. But the one thing that always stands out to me is the boys who walk with metal buckets filled with soda bottles. The bottles are lined up around the bucket and they run the bottle opener around the bottles. It makes a musical sound. But combined with the noise of horns honking, police whistles blowing and general city noise it combines to make an often times ear splitting cacophony.

There is so much more to see along driving down Patrice Lumumba Avenue. Everyday there is something new and often I think of something I want to write about but forget by the time I get to where I am going. I think I need a bigger purse to keep a small notebook inside so I can jot it down as I see it. I guess a visit to the vendor with the purses I see on the side of the road is in order!

Bloggers note: And To Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street was Dr. Seuss’ first published children’s story

Rest & Relaxation: Lions and Tigers and Bears...oh my!

2008-07-14T04:01:00.000-07:00

OK…there were no tigers or bears, but there were lions. Two of them!

Most people come to the lodge either with a tour group or with their own vehicle. I of course came with neither, so I booked my game ride with the lodge. A lodge vehicle, driver and guide. And I was all by myself, which was pretty cool. My guide/driver was Eric and he was fantastic. There was a hole in the roof of the landcruiser and I stood with my head sticking out the whole time. There were tons of giraffe, which are my favorite animal. They are so gentle and majestic. I learned that the older the giraffe gets the darker his spots and more pronounced the small horns on his head are. I also say lots and lots of Oribe, Jackson Hartebeest and Uganda Kob (the national animal of Uganda). It was in a field of Oribe, that we saw the male lion. We had stopped and Eric jumped out of the vehicle and climbed on the roof and said there was a lion. He could tell by the behaviour of the Oribe that the predator was there. He jumped back into the vehicle and drove off the road into the field with the Oribe and sure enough there was the lion. OH MY GOODNESS. A wild African male lion! Eric said it is very rare to see a male lion. We drove right beside it and it walked right on by. Incredible.

We left and went down the road a bit and saw one of the other tour trucks up ahead on a different path. Again there was a field with Oribe. The other driver called us over and sure enough, there was a lioness approaching the Oribe. She was injured in the back left hind leg and was limping. She could only walk for a bit then stop and lie down. I felt so bad for here. Eric said they would report it and that sometimes a vet comes from Kampala to check on animals the rangers are able to capture. Unfortunately, it doesn’t bode well for the lioness as she can’t hunt. If she can get to her pride, maybe she can eat their kills. Otherwise….

We kept going and saw a group of three elephants. The one kept looking straight at me. Another was pulling leaves from a tree; the whole tree shook with the force of it. We also saw a pack of elephants down near a watering hole. Two of the males were play fighting until the big mama elephant broke it up. The last thing we went looking for was the elusive spotted leopard. They are hard to find. Eric says some weeks they don’t even find one. Sure enough, we didn’t find one. But since I had seen lions, elephants, giraffe, buffalo, water buck, osibe, Ugandan kob and warthogs I felt I could let go of seeing the leopard.

The landscape is so varied in the park. There is forest, savannah grassland and savannah woodland. Everywhere you look the land looks a little different. And it is extraordinary when you see the Nile majestically winding its way through the land. At one point we were at the Nile delta where several rivers meet together at the end of lake Albert and transition from the Albert Nile to the Victoria Nile.

I am glad I took my dad’s advice and went on the game drive. This land is beautiful. Even without the animals I could drive through the park just to see the beauty and variety of the land.

Rest & Relaxation: The Fire

2008-07-14T03:58:00.000-07:00

Started out like yesterday. I got up around 8am and went to breakfast. After I sat at the pool for a while reading my book. Came back to my room and was finishing up with my music files when there was a knock on my door. Turns out there was a call for a Kristee, but the last name was different. I went back to my computer and a few minutes later there was another knock. The call was for me. So I went down to the front desk and waited. A lady came out and told me the call was from Food for the Hungry and that they would call back in 10 minutes. I asked if it was FH Uganda or FH Congo and they told me it was FH Uganda, So I came back to my room and was going to call Golda at the FH office when my phone started ringing. I noticed I had two missed calls and was wondering what was so important someone was trying very hard to reach me….

It was Renee from Bukavu. There was a fire in my room and most everything was lost. Just my room which was good, although good is a relative term to me. They think the fire started in the light above my bed. Jeff, our house guy extraordinary, discovered the fire when he came to work in the morning. He hurt his hand trying to put the fire out and that hurts me more than the loss of the things. But, it still stings that my family photo’s were destroyed, the notes and letters from supporters, the printer CFHI provided me with, the extra toiletries I lugged all the way from Canada, the arts and crafts I collected in Uganda, my baseball gloves, books and bibles and $2500 US. I feel like I have been violated. Kind of like you feel when you are robbed, yet there isn’t anyone to blame, just a fire.

So, that sort of put a damper on my holiday. I cried my way through lunch which was a little embarrassing. I need to talk when I am going through stuff like this so it was the staff that got to hear all about it. One of the tables overheard and a guy came out and told me how sorry he was. I burst into tears again. My attitude, truly is however, that all that was lost were things. They can all be replaced. If the fire did start above my bed and I had been sleeping in the bed, I could have been hurt. And while that is truly how I feel, it really sucks thinking about the things that made me feel at home being destroyed, my clothes damaged by smoke and flame. But, life moves on and so will I.

I went on my regularly scheduled Nile boat ride and saw hippos, elephants, crocodiles and Murchison Falls. Coincidentally, the guy that spoke to me at lunch was on the boat with his family and friend. They were extremely nice people; he’s Ugandan and is married to an American women and they have two beautiful girls. We had a nice time chatting on the boat, but always the fire was on my mind.

After the boat ride I came back to my room and called my parents who were their normal practical selves. I love them! I was considering not going on the game drive in the morning and instead heading back to Kampala and home, but Dad convinced me to stay and enjoy my holiday before heading back and dealing with the fire’s aftermath. It was good advice…as always.

I was debating whether or not to go to dinner. I hardly ate any lunch and was hungry, but the thought of eating by myself again and thinking about the fire was not appealing to me. Then another knock on the door. I thought it was the guy who comes in and pulls the mosquito net around and sprays the room, but it was a man from reception letting me know that the doctor, Hugo, requested that I join them for dinner. Thank you Jesus…who knew what I needed at that time. So I went to dinner and had a lovely time. It was nice to be able to chat with people and even be able to joke about the fire.

And I booked my game drive!

Rest & Relaxation: Nothing To Do

2008-07-14T03:50:00.000-07:00

Going to sleep at 9pm means walking up early. But I didn’t want to get up early, so I forced myself to doze for as long as I could. Breakfast is from 6:30am – 9:30am and I set the alarm for 8am. I was awake before that so lay in bed and read till the alarm went off and for a bit after that. I headed up to the dining room for breakfast and was the only one there for a bit. I think my table is number 4, as it is set for 1 person and that is where the hostess took me last night. So I headed back there and sat down. The staff are already calling me by name; it is so nice to have the staff walk up, call me by name and ask how my night is; it makes me feel not so alone. On my way back from breakfast, I looked up, and standing right below my balcony was a very large, obviously hungry hippo munching on the grass in front of the lodge. A hippo! I had to shake my head. I am staying in a place, living in a country where a hippo eats the grass under your balcony. I love AFRICA!

It is hard to know what to do with yourself when you have nothing to do. After breakfast I sat by the pool and read my book. Then I came up to my room and watched an episode of Reaper (my brother works in catering on the set in Vancouver). Then it was time for lunch. After a wonderful lunch of salad, beef stroganoff with mashed potatoes and fruit salad I thought I would take my camera and go for a walk. As it is a game park, I stuck to the main road down to the ferry launch. Ran into a couple of baboons on the side of the road, but that was it. It was stinking hot so I decided to lay down with the ceiling fan blowing and watch the last episode of Reaper. Then I finished a book. Then I showered. Then I organized my music files. Can you see the trend here? Nothing to do and I love it. I did manage to organize a Nile boat ride for tomorrow and a game drive for Thursday morning. So not a completely useless day!

Rest & Relaxation: Getting to Murchison Falls

2008-07-14T03:37:00.000-07:00

It is easy to get from Bukavu to Kampala. The flights from Kamembe to Kigali and Kigali to Entebbe are scheduled and predictable (the plane will always be late from Kamembe to Kigali!). On this trip, those two flights were the only travel arrangements I was sure of. Getting to my final destination, Murchison Falls, was going to be a crap shoot. And if there is one thing I don’t like while traveling, it is not having a plan; not knowing how I am going to get from point A to point B. Well, I’ll give away the ending right now: I am sitting at the Paraa Lodge at Murchison Falls on my verandah overlooking the Nile River. It is beautiful; majestic in its calm and orderly procession across the amazing African land. I have been on and in the river as it rolls and drops and speeds through

Uganda

, but here it is slow and relaxed. But that’s getting ahead…I’m sure you are wondering how I managed to get here in the first place.

I spent weeks trying to find a way here. I knew I wanted to spend my first R&R relaxing in Uganda and since I had never been to the West of Uganda I thought that Murchison would be as good a place as any. I didn’t want to go with a tour group as I didn’t want to be on anyone’s schedule but mine. It’s harder that way, but I think the payoff is so much better. So I booked, well actually my friend Julia booked for me a room at the Paraa Lodge. It is the up market accommodations at Murchison, but since this is my first holiday in 2 ½ years I decided to throw caution to the wind and go for it. So, now I had a reservation for Monday-Thursday night, but still had no idea how I was going to get there. I searched the internet and didn’t find any good answers. Then I remembered that I had the Brandt Guide to Uganda. DUH! There I was able to find that if you are trying to get to Murchison all by yourself, you can take a bus to Masindi and from there hire a taxi to take you to the park. I learned from my housemate Joel that I had to take a ferry to get to the Paraa Lodge.

So I had a starting point. I got back online and found that there was a Uganda Postal Bus that left at 8:00am every morning from the Main Post Office going to Masindi. I had my favorite Kampala taxi driver, Fred, take me to the Main Post office at 7am Monday morning. Already there was a pretty good line up of people waiting. I met a group of Muzungu’s from the UK, Australia and I think the US that were going to Tororo (near Mbale) with African Inland Missions. The bus finally arrived and it was a mad dash to get on board and get a good seat. You don’t put your luggage underneath (they charge extra for that) so I found a spot in the back corner and tucked one back pack on the floor at my foot, put the other across my lap and the camera bag on top of that. Not comfortable, but it gave me a little space as no one could get too close. What proceeded was the longest, most uncomfortable bus ride of my life. For six hours I couldn’t move. We traveled on some stretches of road that could rival the Congo. I was sitting at the back of the bus and at times I went air born. All this on 3 hours of sleep (I had stayed up late catching up with friends the night before). So I slept most of the way to Masindi, the only way to forget about the numbness in my butt and the pain in my back.

The one thing that always stands out for me about Uganda is how friendly the people are. All the staff working for FH are amazing and you could think it is just them that give me that impression. But the truth is, Ugandans are a friendly lot. They want to know all about you, where you come from, why you are here. They always tell me they pray that I will stay longer, visit their part of the country. There openness is always so off putting and so very welcoming. On this trip, I was blessed my several helpful Ugandans who made it possible for me to get to the Lodge as happy and in one piece as I did.

The Postal bus was a mistake. It stops all over the place. Mostly in towns to drop off/pick up mail, but also to pick up passengers from the side of the road. And they don’t really announce where they are. I had a generally idea that Masindi should be around 3 hours outside of Kampala (without stopping!), so I felt comfortable napping most of the way. When we finally came to Masindi, the bus stopped on the side of the road and most of the people started getting out. With my two pack backs, camera bag, sweat shirt and bottle of water, I was neither quick nor graceful trying to get off the bus. As I made it from the back to the front of the bus, the conductor came back on and asked me if I was going to the post office. I told him I needed to rent a special hire to take me into Murchison Park so he told me to sit back down and they would drop me up ahead at a tourist location. It turned out to be The Traveller’s Corner, a place I had read about in my research for the trip. Thank you Uganda Postal Service worker!

I got off the bus and headed into the restaurant and was greeted by the server. I told her I needed to find a special hire to take me to the park. She got on her phone, called a driver and told me he was just on his way back from Paraa and would be there in 30 minutes to get me. Now that is why you should always tip your waitress! Thank you Traveller’s Corner waitress. I was also able to have my first meal of the day, a Spanish omelet and a coke. The driver Sam arrived and we quickly got on the road. My tour book had said around 100,000 UGX for the special hire to the park, and when Sam said 150,000 I was pretty happy. Fuel has gone up so much in the last year, that I was appreciative it wasn’t any higher. We also took along with us a Murchison Park guide who was on his way back to work. His name was Emmanuel and he was a great resource as I asked him questions about the park.

Sam was/is a wonderful resource. I have his number to call for a ride out of the park and he said he would get me on a bus or Matatu on Friday to get me back into Kampala in order to catch my plane back to Kigali. He also said he would come to the park and take me for a game ride if I can’t hook into a tour here at the lodge. Along the way to the ferry launch, we saw a few animals. There were tons of baboons. We saw them mostly in the forest part of the park. That’s were the trees and vines were thick and the insect noises reached my through the sound of the car speeding along the dirt road. Later, when we came to the more savannah areas, we stopped and watched some warhog and saw a Uganda Kob. I saw another Uganda Kob at a watering hole and a few more warthog standing in the middle of the road. When we reached the ferry launch, the next boat wasn’t for an hour and a half. Sam spoke with a man he knew, Angelo, who is the captain for a boat that takes tourists up the Nile to the bottom of Murchison Falls. Sam entrusted me to Angelo and we sat and talked for a bit. He is from Arua, but has been working the Nile here at Murchison for three years. Angelo gave me the number for the Lodge so I could let them know I was here and arranged for me to take one of the Paraa boats across the river so I didn’t have to wait or pay for the ferry. Thank you Angelo!

On the way across the river I watched a herd of water buffalo and a hippopotamus make there way into the river for a late afternoon dip. The boat driver radioed the lodge and a van and driver met me at the launch to take me to the lodge. Thank you boat driver and Isaac the van driver! As I was standing waiting for Isaac, I looked and not 10 feet away was a very large primate. I don’t think it was baboon, but I am not sure what type of primate it was. He was just sitting there, no fear as I pulled out my camera and got a little closer.

The Lodge is beautiful. It has been around for a long time; weathering war and royal visits. I was greeted at the front door with a cool towel and a fresh juice. The wonderful lady at the front desk gave me a room with a view of the river and it is spectacular. The room is simple and understated, with a quality that can only be called colonial safari. There are no TV’s and no phones in the room. It is quiet, with the sounds of animals in the night close enough to hear but not see. After a quick clean up and rest I headed up to the dining hall for a beautiful dinner by lamplight. It is weird being on my own; wonderful but lonely. I have no agenda, no plans. It’s just me, my wits a couple of books and my laptop. Exhaustion overtook me early and I think I was asleep by 9:00pm.

Day 1 was one for the books!

Gorillas in the Mist

2008-06-30T03:29:00.002-07:00

OK...there were gorillas, but no mist. I took the opportunity on Sunday to join my friend James (SIS from UK/FH) and his father John to go see the gorillas at the Par National de Kahuzi-Biega an hour and a half outside Bukavu. Gorilla watching is something I have always wanted to do. You can see them in Uganda, Rwanda or Congo but it is cheaper in Congo and from what I have been told, much better.

Our day started at 7:20 when we picked up the FH driver, Fidel to drive us to the park. Funny thing, Fidel was dressed in his church clothes: black suit, white dress shirt, tie and dress shoes. The drive to the park was fun; the road not so fun. The biggest thing about Congo is it's lack of roads. The road we were on took us along the lake, past the Chinese MONUC base, past the nunnery where the nuns make/sell really good ice cream (I'm told). We branched off before the airport, but the road also leads to the Bukavu airport. Along the way we say fishing boats, a rolled over bus and countless other incongruous sites.

We arrived at the park at 9:00 am and met with the park official. Unfortunately, as it is dry season, the gorillas have ventured quite far away and we had to wait for the guides to find the family before we could head out. Also waiting was a large group of Pakistani UN soldiers. They are funny. A couple of them wanted photos with James, his dad and I. What is that all about! After an hour and a half of waiting, we were off. Accompanying us was a group of four French nationals who lived in Burundi. The park is home to three family groups of gorillas. The group we were going to see had one male silverback, 17 females, 2 babies and one juvenille. The head guide gave us a brief introduction and instructions then we were off. The lead guide went ahead with a machete to clear the path. It was unbelievable. I kept thinking, when is Indiana Jones going to appear. We truly were hiking through the jungle. At times, the underbrush we were working on was so thick you couldn't see the ground. The machete guide had to completely clear the path at times. It was so cool. What was not cool was stepping into the water in the marsh and having to climb over a watery mud hole. Nor was it cool that we had to walk for close to an hour.

But....... ...it was so worth it! We started to come across piles of gorilla dung so we new we were getting close. Then...GORILLAS! It was awesome. They were not afraid of us or the machete wielding guide who cleared the bush around them so we could get a good view. The silver back was huge, bigger than anything I could imagine. And scary looking. Some of the young ones came up quite close. One of the gorillas was in a tree above our head. We watched for sometime, then the silver back got up, yawned, and ran off. It was amazing and scary at the same time. The rest of the family followed their leader and we followed as well. The viewing wasn't as good, so we headed back to the vehicles.

The problem with walking downhill for an hour? Having to walk back uphill. My legs were so tired; I could hardly lift them to walk over the logs and debris. As we walked back I listened. There was the sound of my heart pounding from the exercise and the sounds of the forest: birds and bugs. I was so excited to reach the vehicles at the top of the hill, but sad the experience was over. This is definitely something I want to do again. So if you have ever wanted to see gorillas...come and visit and I'll take you! (see the album on the left)

Congolese Wedding

2008-06-30T02:09:00.000-07:00

I went to my first Congolese wedding this weekend. Our FH driver Israel's daughter was getting married. It was nothing like a Canadian wedding. In Congo, the church has not been given the right to perform a legal wedding. Therefore, there is a civil ceremony before the church ceremony. And before the civil ceremony, there is another get together. The first get together was last weekend and the civil ceremony was on Thursday. The church wedding was on Saturday morning at 9am.

The muzungu attendees were myself, Joel, Michael and his wife Holly and Liz (All FH Staff) Since most African (Uganda/Congo) events do not start on time, we decided to leave around 9 am to get to the wedding around 9:30. However, we were late leaving and didn't arrive at where we parked the car till around 9:45. We were met by one of Israel's friends and walked to the church....straight up a very long and steep hill. Have I mentioned I was wearing 2 inch high heels! It was not a fun walk. Then, when we reached the church, when I was red faced and sweaty, we discovered we wer late. And of course, as muzungus, we were seated right at the very front. YUCK!

The wedding itself was interesting. It was in Swahili and French which means I hardly understood a thing unless it was translated by Joel or Liz. There were two choirs that sang and a skit. That was the first hour. Then there was the 40 minute sermon. Then the vows and exchange of rings. There were speaches by the father and mother of the bride and groom. Funny thing...the groom was around 22 years old; his father was 100 years old! The one thing I can't get past, and really taints my view of Congolese weddings, is the tradition that the bride and groom cannot smile. Never! Not in the photo for the invitation, not at the pre-gathering, civil ceremony, wedding or reception. If you smile it shows you are not serious about the marriage. And the bride has turn her face down towards the floor. It was awful; the wedding party looked like they are at a funeral while the rest of the guests are whooping it up. In fact, the bride looked terrified; I have never seen hands shake like that.

I think I am pretty open to the different cultures and customs I have encountered since arriving in Africa. I try really hard not to judge but to accept the differences. This one, the bride and groom not smiling, is just too much. I never felt comfortable watching the wedding party and found the seriousness of the bride and the groom too discordant from the joyful celebration going on around them.

Before the vows After the vows

My Weekly Treat

2008-05-09T07:47:00.000-07:00

I learned from my friend Holly that there is a flower guy named Jean Paul. He makes his livelihood carrying a metal bucket full of beautiful flowers…on his head. And for $5 dollars (USD) I get a gorgeous bouquet of flowers every Saturday. There are a variety of flowers in the bucket (I don’t know all their names). The first time he came I told him that the Calla Lilly’s were my favorite. Now when he comes, I give him the vase, he empties the old ones, I put water in the vase and he creates a masterpiece, always with Calla Lilly's. See for yourself.

The Menagerie

2008-05-08T05:58:00.000-07:00

I think I mentioned it in a previous post, but I thought I would tell you a bit about the animal gang living at my house.

First there is Ruth. She is an absolutely wonderful guard dog. (Please don’t ask me what breed she is, I know absolutely nothing about dogs - I am a cat person.) I am told that Ruth was initially the guard dog at the office, but that she wasn’t getting fed and was too thin and almost died. Joel, brought her home and she is now thriving. Joel has been giving her a piece of bread every morning to fatten her up. I have continued the trend while Joel is away. She loves me!

Then there is the newest addition to the gang. His name is Buddy and he’s my favorite. Joel brought Buddy home from Rwanda. For the first week Buddy would spend the day outside with Ruth but slept in the house, in my bed with me. It was fun, but after a week of being woken up every few hours, it was decided that Buddy was ready to sleep outside with Ruth at night. He is the cutest puppy. But he bites and jumps a lot. If anyone has any dog training tips, I could certainly use them.

The third resident of our menagerie is Hommie. Hommie is Joel’s Africa grey parrot. He has a specially built cage on one of the side decks of the house. Actually the entire deck has been caged in to make a big parrot home. African grey’s are known for being talking parrots, and boy does he talk. (Funny thing…Joel’s not sure if Hommie is a boy or a girl – I hear it is hard to tell with birds) Hommie whistles, says his name, some other things I can’t distinguish. But best of all, he mimics the yelping cries of Buddy. The first time I heard it I thought it was Buddy and I raced outside to see if he was OK. And the second and the third. Then I clued in that it was Hommie. It is absolutely uncanny.

So that’s the gang. I wanted a cat, but I am pretty sure that the dogs would kill it. And if the dogs didn’t it, then Joel would if it ever got near the bird.

A Day in the Life

2008-04-29T05:00:00.000-07:00

I have been is Bukavu for three weeks now. Settling in has been easy, probably because I have done it once before. I have the room and bathroom on the main floor and have quickly made it my own. It’s funny. Here I was looking forward to having a housemate, to not living on my own. But in the three weeks that I have been here, Joel has only been in Bukavu for the equivalent of a week. First he had to go to Kinshasa to work on getting the necessary papers to get 4 new vehicles out of the government impound. Now, he is away for a month. Three weeks of vacation and a week bringing another vehicle to Bukavu from Nairobi. So, again I am living all on my own.

But, it’s not so bad. The best thing is that we have Jeff. He is the most amazing cook and launderer. It is so nice to be able to come home after a long day of working (most of the time from 8am to 5:30-6:00pm) to have dinner already prepared. He works during the day, ensuring there is always fresh fruit salad for breakfast and dinner for when we get home. My favorite, though, is Saturday. Jeff makes breakfast (pancakes and French toast so far) and then prepares meals for Saturday and Sunday. Saturday’s dinner is always pizza. I love this man. I joked with my dad that it was going to be hard to come home after this pampering. Since I hate to cook, I was either going to have to come home and take cooking lessons, marry a chef or stay in Africa the rest of my life. Dad said,” Bring Jeff home!” It is hard, sometimes, the feeling that you get when you have someone who cooks and cleans for you. But, I try to remember, that my purpose here is to work as effectively as I can in the short amount of time I am here. It is often a full time job just living in Africa. Jeff makes it possible to focus on our jobs and gives him a good paying job, something that is hard to come by in Bukavu.

So what does life look like for me in Bukavu? I get up just after 6am to get ready for work. By 7:15 I am getting my fruit salad and toast. Some mornings I have the a car and driver and some mornings I get picked up by Kostas, the County Director or by Michael, the Program Manager. This is while Joel is away. Joel usually drives us to and from work. Side not, I got my drivers license and will be taking some lessons driving the FH trucks. They are big, heavy suckers and getting in and out of the driveways at my house and Kostas’ are tricky. I can’t officially drive the FH vehicles until Joel gets back and approves me, but I will get some practicing done in the meantime.

Devotions start at 8am. Because FH/DRC is primarily funded by USAID, the Christian part of devotions is only a very small part. First we sing a song or two, either in French of Swahili, then a small bible reading, then announcements. After devotions, I head to my office to check my emails. Then the day starts. First, let me tell you about the office and my office in particular. The FH office used to be a five story apartment building. So the office is divided into suites. Finance is in suite #1, and my office used to be the kitchen. Yep. It has yellow tiles all around the room and pipes sticking out of the wall. Plus it has a little balcony. But since it faces a brick wall and on the other side of the brick wall are very noisy school classrooms, I don’t go out there very often.

My job keeps me busy most days; it is evolving every day. So far I have re-allocated funds for three grants, a process that involves digging through a dinosaur DOS based financial systems and binder upon binder of receipts trying to figure out where funds expenses have been misallocated. It has been frustrating and rewarding all at the same time. Nothing like getting your feet wet all at once as you figure out the names of regions, sub regions and individual fields. It’s not as straight forward and separate as things were in Kampala. But I love it. There hasn’t been a dull moment yet, and it is exciting to be a part of such a large organization undertaking large scale relief work. The biggest challenge of the day is the French. I have a tutor from 9:30-10:30 Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings. But I am frustrated at how slow my progress is. I don’t understand much of what is being said in devotions and often feel isolated because I can’t socialize with the staff. That is not to say that most don’t speak at least a little English. I have been able to get by with a mixture of French, English and sign language (not formal sign language – more the kind of gesturing you do when people don’t know what you are talking about). I am a little worried that the staff might take my lack of socializing with them the wrong way. So if you are reading this, maybe you could say a quick prayer asking God to help me speak in tongue – French specifically!

Lunch is at 1pm. I bring leftovers from home and Vincent, the office cook, re-heats it for me. I eat in my office and take this time to browse the internet, catch up on world news. Then it is back to the grind until 5:00. By then it is 8am in Vancouver and I usually spend a bit of time Skyping with Elaine at CFHI and my parents, then it is off for home. I love my time with the drivers. This is where I practice my awful French and learn about their lives outside of work. Bahati, my favorite, is a pastor and has 10 or 11 kids. His church was just built with assistance from an American church. And I learned last night that is 18 year old daughter is very sick, is in hospital and may need an operation. Let’s just say he doesn’t make enough money to pay for that. The other driver is Nuru (which means light). He was a moto (motorcycle taxi) driver but was hit by an FH driver and had a serious leg/foot injury. He hadn’t worked for a long time, and has a family of 4 to feed. Joel felt very bad for him, so he hired him as a driver. He has a very funny accent when he speaks English. Both Nuru and Bahati are so incredibly patient with me. I adore them both, although Bahati is my favorite (in the whole office!!!!)

When I get home, I turn on the oven to re-heat the dinner that Jeff has prepared. I am trying to exercise on the elliptical before dinner, but my desire and my actions are not lining up right now. Dinner is always fantastic and always includes a salad. Yeah salad! Then I spend some time reading or watching TV. Then bed and up at 6am to start it all again.

To break the routine, I have women’s bible study every other Tuesday and Friday’s are games night with the whole FH ex-pat crew plus Kim who works with International Rescue Committee (IRC). The weekends are pretty lazy affairs; it is hard to get motivated to do anything but read and watch TV. Luckily everyone else is motivated, so most weekends I have a visitor or two. Katie and Kostas’ son Daniel likes to come visit Hommie as does Michael and Holly’s daughter Natalie. But I am gradually building a good circle of friends. Renee is fantastic and has lived here her whole life. Through her I am making Congolese friends. My biggest prayer is that my French will improve drastically and I will be able to make more friends.

You might be asking yourself, what about Church? Well, that’s a fun story. The only English service in the entire city is at the Anglican Church down the road. It is within walking distance of the house. Problem is, the English service is at 7:30am. Ouch! There are about 10-15 Congolese who attend and the pastor is Congolese. The non-Congolese congregation consists of the FH ex-pat staff and Kim from IRC. That’s it. As it is an Anglican church, the service is more formal and structured than I am used to. But, the choir is fantastic and the church is large and bright. The best part is that Church is done by 9 am and I have the whole day ahead…to do absolutely nothing!

The down side of living in Bukavu right now is definitely the French and Swahili. Because I don’t understand a lot of what is being said at any given time, I don’t feel comfortable being out on my own. The area that all the ex-pats live in is called Muhumba and it is also the location of MONUC, the UN Peacekeeping force. There headquarters is just down the street from my house. The area is very safe, although there are a lot of street kids and they have been getting a bit more active in Muhumba. It’s not that I don’t feel safe. I do. But because my French is not so great, if anything did happen I wouldn’t understand what was going on, nor could I talk my way out of a difficult situation. So, for now, I don’t really go anywhere but to work or to Michael or Kostas’ house. But I am trying to get up the nerve to get out and walk around on my own one of these weekends. There’s something else you can add to you prayer list.

So…so far so good. It is always exciting and challenging, and there is so much to learn everyday about life in Bukavu. It isn’t an easy place to live, for ex-pats or locals. War ravaged the area four years ago and it has taken its toll both on the city and the people. But there is hope. And with hope and God, miracles can happen.

What to Do When there is Everything and Nothing to Do

2008-04-29T04:54:00.000-07:00

My last day of work in the Kampala office was Friday March 14. However, my flight to Kigali was not until March 31^st. The reason for this time delay was to give me ample time to sell the contents of my house (at least everything that I wasn’t taking with me). But they say God is in the details and he sure has been in all the details from start to finish with regards to my move to Bukavu. When I told my landlady I was moving, she asked if I was taking my furniture. When I told her that I was selling everything she said she wanted to buy it. Praise God! It took a while, but we settled on an amount that worked for both of us. With this out of the way, I had two weeks to get ready for my move. The biggest challenge was completing 40 hours of one-on-one French re-fresher classes. I had a fantastic teacher, Saloman, who was so encouraging. If I had had him as my high school French teacher I might not have needed his services now! (For those who are interested, I took 4 hours of French a day for 10 days – the last class was on the 31^st, the day I left)

The other big challenge I had was finding appropriate work clothes. In Kampala, although the female national staff tend to wear dresses and skirts, the ex-pats adopt a more informal style of dress. But in Bukavu, the expectation is for more traditional formal office attire. The DILEMMA: I brought a lot of clothes with me. But there were two problems. First, most were informal clothes; a lot of t-shirt, tank tops and casual pants. Second, I purchased most of my clothes in spring of 2007 then put them away in a suitcase. But then I went ahead and gained too much weight over the summer, and now many of the clothes that would have been appropriate no longer fit. The PLAN: go shopping for dress pants, skirts and formal tops at Oweno market in town. Sounds simple enough, right? Not so much! Oweno is a large African market. Think rows and rows of stalls, makeshift shops made of wood, tarps and metal sheeting; exposed to the elements through the gaps in the “roofs.” You can buy anything you can dream of at Oweno: second hand clothes and shoes from the US, Canada and Europe, cheap Chinese knockoffs, food, home wares. You name it, they have it.

Rainy season started in March, and we had a doosey of a storm the night before my shopping adventure. I wore flip flops, my usual foot attire. My shopping partner, Juliet (Ugandan staff member who works with the Go-Ed program), warned me that I should change shoes. I didn’t listen! We took a special hire into town, through major rush hour traffic. When we pulled up in front of Oweno, I was struck first by the smell (of garbage) then by the shear size of the market. It was nothing like I had expected. I had been warned that the market was crazy. Most Mazungu’s get grabbed and dragged into stalls by their owners. With Juliet, this wasn’t a problem. She walked so darn fast I had to race past everyone with my head down making sure I missed the mud puddles and didn’t slip and fall flat on my butt. Juliet knew the market very well. I barely saw a quarter of the market as she took me straight to the clothes section. We passed many a stall until Juliet stopped and one in particular. I stood there, pointing at things I liked and wanted to try on, while several “boys” went looking for other items that matched the descriptions of what I wanted to buy. It was a little disconcerting getting changed behind a blanket being held up by random guy as the shop owners across the way and people passing by watched. But, I was game so I tried on a bunch of skirts and pants. They kept trying to bring me small pants and tops, bless their hearts! We managed to put together a few outfits, then the part I dislike intensely: the bargaining. Juliet would have got me a fantastic price if only I had kept my mouth shut. But alas, I didn’t, and only got a good price. (Juliet informed me via text message, not to say another word!)

From there we went on to the shoe section. It’s crazy! There were large white sacks full of shoes from the West, and men and women sitting around cleaning them. I saw used Nike running shoes that had been cleaned so well they looked brand new. Thanks to my Aunt Candis, I now have a shoe problem, so I was in heaven. I found two pairs of shoes which I liked, and Juliet bargained real hard for them. We actually walked away for a while and finally the guy came down to a price that was reasonable for both Juliet and I. After the shoes we headed out of the market and across the street. The whole area around the market has clothing and fabric stores. I was looking for a nice purse, but found a really great dress and leggings instead. After a quick stop for a soda and fries, Juliet and I headed towards the taxi park.

The taxi park…what can I say about it. It is a mass of humanity and vans. Taxis in Uganda are called Matatus; 14 seater vans in varying degrees of mechanical and aesthetic condition. I have been trying to avoid riding in them for several reasons, the most important being that they drive like maniacs and my friend Stella was injured in a Matatu accident. But this was a day for firsts, so Juliet and I hoped into the taxi going to Muyenga. The thing about the taxi park and the taxi system in general is that it looks like a big ‘ol mess, but really is quite organized and very inexpensive.

So, shopping…check. French classes…check. Furniture sold…check. The next challenge was packing. Joel, the logistics director with FH/DRC was going to be driving through Kampala on his way from Nairobi to Bukavu with two 8 ton trucks. The problem was, he didn’t know when they would be released and ready to go. It could be sometime during the two weeks or sometime after I had already left for Bukavu. This caused a few problems. First…when to pack? I didn’t want to pack too early and be living in an empty house, but I had a lot to pack and needed to be ready for the trucks as it would only take a day for them to arrive once they left Nairobi. Second…if Joel didn’t come during the two weeks, where was I going to store my stuff? I arranged with the Logistics boys in Kampala to store my stuff at the office, so that was one problem solved. I decided to start packing in my last week; starting with the room I didn’t use and the storage in the hallway. I used the other spare room as the packing room. I timed it perfectly – no God timed it perfectly – and I was all packed by the end of my last weekend and Joel arrived Sunday night. Did I mention that I was flying out the next day?

Yes, Joel and his other driver Jules arrived late Sunday night. This meant the packing of the truck would occur Monday morning; the same Monday that I was flying to Kigali. Thankfully I didn’t fly out till 9:50pm. We got the truck all packed, Joel picked up last minute items at the office and Game (the South African version of Canadian Tire) then he was on his way. As for me, I finished up at the office saying my goodbyes, went into town to pay the bills for radios for FH/DRC that I had picked up for Joel earlier in the week, then went to my last 4 hours of French class. Finished that and headed back to the office where my friend Finn was picking me up to take me to the airport. It was a busy day for my last day in Kampala, but it was typically me.

Now the fun begins….

Sometimes I am like my mother and sometimes I am like my father. When it comes to being at the airport early, I am just like my mother. My flight was at 9:50. so I got to the airport around 7:30. My tickets had been arranged by FH/DRC and I had the email with the confirmation number. Good thing I was early, as after having taken my suitcase, laptop bag and camera bag through security, I was told at the counter that my confirmation had been cancelled as no ticket was issued and that the flight was full. You can imagine how flustered I was at that moment. I had no more Ugandan shillings and only American dollars. I knew if worse came to worse I could call someone to get me, take a taxi back to Kampala or spend the night in Entebbe. But I had no money in the bank to withdraw Shillings and the exchange at the airport is awful so I wasn’t looking forward to any of these options. I wanted on the plane! They check-in people told me to go upstairs to the Rwandair office. So out I went back through security with my suitcase, laptop bag and camera bag only to find that the elevator does not work. It is only one long flight of stairs, but a little hard with my 22 kilo suitcase and other bags. A very nice airport man carried my suitcase upstairs which was most appreciated. I got to the office flustered, worried and a little ticked off only to have to wait while two Rwandair employees chatted and laughed. This did not help my disposition. Finally one of the ladies told me to come inside and have a seat. It was around this time that I felt the tears coming. Then I remembered the nine months of fundraising and six months of living in Uganda and remembered that this was not a big deal. If I didn’t get on the flight, big deal! There were other options and I could handle it.

The nice lady booked me a standby ticket. Luckily I had the US cash to pay for the ticket. I then lugged my suitcase, laptop bag and camera bag down the long flight of stairs, through security again and back to the ticket counter. We got everything all sorted, then I had to sit down and wait and see if I would get on the flight. I prayed a bit during this time. Mostly I just sat back, and waited to see where the cards were going to fall this time. I have felt that God wanted me to come to Bukavu; everything had been lining up since I made the decision to move. And this night was no different. I made it on the plane. I was so relieved.

However, I might have made it to Kigali, but my suitcase remained behind in Entebbe. Actually, 15 suitcases where left behind in Entebbe. There were a lot of very angry people at the airport that night. Most were yelling at the poor lady who had to take our information. I preferred to be nice to her and even prayed for her before I went to bed. My friends Seng and Jen were waiting for me and I couldn’t get a message to them telling them that I was there, but waiting to give my lost luggage info. Thankfully they waited having figured out some baggage had been lost. So with no luggage in hand other than my camera and laptop bag, we headed to Seng and Jen’s. Unfortunately, they had a guest stay longer than expected so I had to sleep on the couch. Not a problem, but this meant that there was no mosquito net. And boy were there mosquito’s that night. So there I was sleeping on a couch with very large cushions, in the clothes I had been wearing for over 12 hours, trying to cover my head from the mosquito’s buzzing all around my head. I ended up with two bites on my forehead. But bless Jen. I slept in, and when I got up, saw that Jen had left me a large basket of toiletries and her makeup. I was able to shower and do my face, even though I only had my stinky clothes from the day before to put back on. Luckily, my bags came in on the 9:50 flight that night and I was able to feel human again the next day. I also got to sleep in a real bed that night.

I spent two days at the Kigali office. I did a little training with Seng who is the Regional Finance Manager, but mostly I caught up on email and visited with friends. I went to my favorite place in East Africa, Café Bourbon, and had the best latte this side of Starbucks. And I had Indian with my friends Jen & Christie who I also met in training in Peru. It was a nice few days of recharging after leaving Kampala and before arriving in Bukavu.

The last leg of the journey passed uneventfully and I was soon at the airport in Kamembe. I had planned on studying my French on the plane, but instead had a delightful young man as my seat mate who spoke only French. So instead I practiced my French with an 8 year old Congolese boy. Renee from the office was at the airport to greet me, which made me extremely relieved as I didn’t want to have to cross the crazy border without her assistance. I have to say, however, that my border crossing experience was much easier this time. I think it helped that we had an FH vehicle this time and that the border guards remembered me from last time.

So now I am in the Congo, settling in to my new house and making it my home. I share the house with Joel, the head of logistics, his parrot Hommie, Ruth the guard dog and Buddy the puppy, the newest member of our menagerie. I miss Kampala, my friends, how comfortable I felt in the city. But I am excited about the possibilities: the job, the friends, and the country. Congo has been the source of exploitation, war and misery since it first attracted the attention of King Leopold of Belgium in the late 1800’s. The last 10 years have seen over 5.4 million Congolese killed through war and the effects of war; it is the worst humanitarian crisis on the continent of Africa. And yet, have you heard anything about the Congo? Northern Uganda…yes. Darfur…yes. But nothing of the death and destruction that has been wrought in Eastern Congo for years. I hope that I will be able to bring you stories of hope and resilience during my 2 ½ years, to bring to life the past, present and future of this magnificent country.

Get Your Plane of the Tarmac Please! (Part 2)

2008-04-09T05:52:00.001-07:00

So off I went on my first outside Uganda adventure. My flight to Kigali Monday night was uneventful and Seng was at the airport to pick me up. I spent the night at Seng/Jen’s house (along with their 2 roommates). It was really great to see Jen again as it had last seen her in Peru last May. Kigali is so much nicer than Kampala. It is clean and organized, with wide 2 lane roads and manicured boulevards down the middle. Side note about the cleanliness…the black plastic bags that are endemic to Africa have been banned in Rwanda, and in Kigali, the last Saturday of the month is cleaning day. All residents are expected to get out in their neighborhoods and clean. Buses/taxis are not allowed to work and unless you are headed to the hospital or the airport, the police will stop and question you and ask you to return home. Now that is taking the clean to the streets!

OK, back to the story. We went into the office in the morning after dropping Jen at the FH guesthouse. This was a bad mistake on our part. Seng had mentioned when he picked me up at the airport that President Bush was arriving in Kigali in the morning for a visit; there were extra police and military forces on the road in the morning as we drove to the office. We should have gone straight to the airport instead of to the office. This was around 8am and my flight was at 11am. But, neither one of us thought of it. Instead we went to the office, went to devotions, and then left for the office. Unfortunately, the police started closing all the roads and we couldn’t get to the office. Seng was driving, Becky from the Regional Office was with us and we had an FH Rwanda staff member with us. Well, the boys thought we could find another way to the airport. So off we went. Long story short, we ended up on the back side of the airport just in time to hear Airforce I land (and see the tail with the American Flag). We could also hear the drums beating at what I would assume was the welcoming party on the tarmac. As we were sitting at the military base on the backside of the airport, the Rwandan staff member kept repeating that he was sure the airport was closed because Airforce I was at the airport. I kept insisting that Rwandair wouldn’t have issued a ticket 4 days before the scheduled visit of President Bush if the airport was going to be closed. I thought it best that we call the airline and find out.

By this time it is about 30 minutes before my flight is supposed to leave and I am a little panicky. As some of you may know, I inherited my flying routine from my mother which entails always being at the airport before the mandated time. I am starting to get more and more frustrated at the defeatist attitude of the Rwandan staff member and a little ticked that we hadn’t just stayed at the main road and waited for the convoy to pass. So we start to make our way back to the main road, but since they have blocked the main road all the side streets are blocked with cars. We end up going down little dirt roads away from the airport trying to get to the main road. By this time Becky has confirmed that the flight to Bukavu is flying and had informed them that I am on my way. Finally we get stuck, park the car and walk with my suitcase (small rolling carryon) up to the main road. The road is still closed, but Bush has gone by. We hop the fence and start power walking towards the airport. Moments later, the road re-opens and we decide to put me in a taxi. But not before I got a great shot of what turned out to be Airforce I and II. I got to the airport 15 minutes before my flight was supposed to take off. Unfortunately, the plane left almost 2 hours late. But I got up close and personal with Airforce I & II. It was cool; like the movies. There were Secret Service stationed at the nose and tail of each plane and an SUV parked at each nose.

Arriving at Kamembe airport in Rwanda is surreal. It is the smallest airport I have ever been in. It is one small building. Half is arrivals and half is departures. You walk off the plane and into the building and fill in an arrivals card. Then you wait for your luggage to be brought to the door and carry it down a steep flight of stairs to the parking lot. A very nice young lady named Renee was there to pick me up. Renee is third generation American missionary to Bukavu. We took a cab down to the border, filled out the Rwandan departures card then jumped in Renee’s truck to cross into DRC. To get to the DRC border, you leave the parking lot, cross a rickety wooden bridge then drive 500 meters up hill to the DRC border. It is a bit surreal. There are people waking or pushing wheel barrows along the road carrying foodstuffs on their backs or heads. The border area is awash with people some in uniform, most without. We parked the car on the side of the road and went into the small building housing border patrol. Renee speaks Swahili like it is her mother tongue so I didn’t have to do much. It was funny watching her with the officials. They obviously new her very well; there was a lot of joking going on. This one guy cracked me up. He was asking me all sorts of questions through Renee, and as we were leaving said, “Watson, I want you.” It cracked me up. Then we had to go down to a smaller building that house the health lady (for lack of a better description). It is mandatory to have your yellow fever vaccination to enter DRC. The health lady went through all my vaccinations and got stuck on the Oral Dukoral. You may or may not know that Dukoral is marketed as a vaccine to get to prevent traveler’s diarrhea. You know the kind you get in Mexico if you have ice cubes in your glass or eat the salads. It isn’t a mandatory vaccine. The problem is that it is also a vaccine against cholera. Or at least that is what the stamp says. And it only lasts 5 months. So health lady, in Swahili, started going on about it being out of date. This went on and on for a while. Finally I told Renee it is an optional vaccine and is used to prevent diarrhea. Repeating saying the word diarrhea had her handing me back the booklet and letting us go. You see in DRC, they are just looking for a way to make a little money on the side. No vaccine…just slip her a few dollars and she will stamp your booklet.

We got back in the truck and had the back door opened by random guy who wanted to see inside my bags. I only had the small suitcase and my backpack that contained my laptop. I opened them, he looked then he closed the door. We drove a few feet to the where a guard lifts up and down the gate (actually just a pole). While Renee was chatting with the guard, who knows her dad, another random guy opens the door and wants to see my bags. Renee isn’t really paying attention and I am trying to tell him they have been looked at. Finally Renee turns around and starts telling him that they have already been checked. When he leaves I asked Renee what was up. These random guys are border patrol and again, they are trying to make a buck. Trying to find something they can intimidate you into paying a bribe. The problem with these random guys…not one of them is wearing any kind of uniform and with the crush of humanity hanging around the border; it is hard to tell who is official and who isn’t.

We left the border and drove the ten minutes to the Country Directors house where I will be staying. I met Kostas’ wife Katie and their two sons Daniel (2 1/2) and Jonathon (7 months). I had a great time with Katie and the boys, had an awesome lunch cooked by their cook/house keeper and learned a lot about living in Bukavu. Kostas came home early from work and we spent a lot of time talking about possibilities and options. That evening I went with Katie to the Orchid, a Yaletown type restaurant right on the lake. A bunch of ladies were starting a women’s bible study group and were meeting to decide what to study. We all had ice cream at $5 – $7 USD a pop. Expensive…but very nice! The next day I went to the office to interview/be interviewed by each department head. It was a chance for me to find out where they needed help the most. At the end of the day, I sat down with Kostas and told him what I thought was needed. His response, “I wish I had a tape recorder. You just wrote your own job description.”

The next day I started my trek back home. Again in the crazy DRC border office, across the rickety bridge, Rwandan border office where people don’t understand what a line is or personal space, then the airport. It was a little weird, no scanners so had to open the bag for the lady to go through. Everything is manual. On the plane I talked with this guy I had first seen on the flight from Kigali. He was a Congolese guy producing records in Rwanda and engaged to a girl from England. We had a great chat and when we got to the Kigali airport offered a ride to wherever I needed to go. I assumed Seng would be there to pick me up. We had talked about lunch with his wife and one of the other girls I had met in Peru during FH training. But when I got to the main lobby…no Seng. The problem was, my cell was not working and I didn’t know Seng’s number or the number to FH Rwanda. Nor did I have any Rwandan Franc. So I went out, found my new friend and asked if I could still get a ride. I blindly assumed that the taxi driver would now where the FH office was. He didn’t. No one did. And none of us could get the number to FH Rwanda even though I was texting my friends Julia and Kenny back in Kampala. I did have US dollars so they took me to town to exchange for francs. As we were driving we passed Café Bourbon (the best latte I have had outside Starbucks). This was where Seng and the gang were taking me for lunch. After exchanging money I had them drop me off at Bourbon. Seng had called by this time and was on his way with Jen and Cheryl to meet me at Bourbon. All was well. I was pretty proud of myself for not freaking out during all this time!

Had a great lunch with the gang, went back to the office with them then to their house for dinner. Jen and Seng brought their baseball gloves, so Jen and I threw the ball around for a bit before they took me to the airport. I was so glad to touch down in Entebbe. Being back in Uganda felt like coming home. Which is why I was so surprised that it felt like I had to make the move to FH/DRC. As much as I loved Uganda and Kampala, I really felt like joining the team in Bukavu was what I was supposed to do.

I told Kostas before I left that I was 99% sure I was going to take the job. But I wanted to talk with Paddy (my pastor in Canada) before I made my final decision. I had been worried about how Cap would react to me leaving Uganda/Bufukhula and wanted to be sensitive to that. Although I told Sang Hoon Friday that I was going to make the move to FH/DRC, talking with Paddy the next day solidified my decision.

So there you have it: the entire journey from start to finish. It was a battle; one that tested my faith, had me questioning what God requires of us and generally turned me into a basket case for a month. I don’t regret a single moment of the struggle. I feel like I am a stronger person because of it. Stronger in faith, stronger in my relationship with God and sure that God has a plan for me that is much bigger than anything I could ever have wanted for myself. And most of all, I finally trust Him with my life. That is something I haven’t been able to do. For this I am grateful.

The Phone Call That Changed My Life (Part 1)

2008-03-21T03:41:00.000-07:00

It was a Thursday morning in the middle of January when I got the call. Actually is started with a Skype chat. My friend Seng, who is also the Regional Finance Manager (Region = Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi & DRC), Skyped me to see if I was free and able to leave the office so he could call me. I was; so I went outside, took his call and began walking laps around the FH compound. Now I was expecting Seng to ask if I would be interested in doing some regional training. We had Skyped about the option a few months back, so that was what I was expecting. Instead Seng shocked me into silence (something that doesn’t happen too often!) with a request to consider the position of Finance Director in FH/DRC. I was stunned to say the least. We talked for quite a while about the situation in the DRC, how they hadn’t had a Finance Director for over a year, how hard the transition was to the new Sun Systems, how deadlines would come and go without the necessary work being completed. I spoke of my love of Uganda, the connection that I have here, the life that I had created for myself, the roots that were starting to settle.

The reason Seng asked if I would consider a move to FH/DRC was because he was aware of how under utilized I have been in the FH Uganda office. When I first arrived I spent time training the field coordinators and accountants in the use of Excel and the new financial system. This, coupled with a big learning curve kept me fairly busy. However, now that we have settled into the new financial system, my main role has been adding the receipts sent in by the field and ensuring they match the journals they have sent in. It is important work, but not very challenging and not the best use of the education and experience I bring with me from Canada. My life in Kampala is wonderful, but something was missing at work. I knew God brought me to Uganda, but I just wasn’t sure if this is what I was supposed to be doing. I figured I would wait it out; see where things would go. Have patience that God had a plan for my time in Uganda that He would reveal when it was time.

So back to the conversation with Seng…I was obviously not going to be able to give him an answer then and there, not did he expect one. He asked me to give it some thought, and that if I had any further questions, Dwight Jackson, the Regional Director, would be at my office the next day. So I went back to work, completely stunned and unable to talk to anybody about it. Well, actually, I went directly to my friend Julia (who works with the Go-Ed Students). I had to tell somebody! Then it was back to work. It is fairly hard to concentrate when someone has just asked you to consider a life changing decision. But somehow I managed. As soon as I got home and my parents came on line, I Skyped them to tell them the news and run things by dad. We talked and I cried for two hours. Dad and I went round and round and round. He kept asking me questions, trying to help me make a decision. Just to give you an idea of what was going through me head during this time: I have taken two accounting classes and spent five months working in NGO work…what were they thinking? There was no way I could do the job they were asking. Then there was the thought of leaving Kampala, my house, my friends, my church, the youth group and BUFUKULA. There was just no way I wanted to leave all that to go to a country I had never been too, where they speak French, and to a job that was bigger than my schooling and experience.

By the end of the conversation with my dad I had decided that what I really love best is training and Uganda and that being in the Director of Finance position in the DRC would not allow me to do that. I was completely prepared to tell Dwight Jackson, thank you but no thank you. I met with Dwight that morning and started by asking him for some more information about the situation in FH/DRC and for information about the DRC. I wanted to make sure they new they were asking someone with little finance experience and no schooling and almost no NGO work. Dwight was wonderful to chat with. He told me God works with our weakness and turns them into strengths; that there are things that can be taught, but that my leadership and management qualities were something they needed desperately in the DRC office. Some other things he told me. FH/DRC is the largest field in all of FH, size and money wise. It has an approx. $11 million budget in USAID grants with the potential for another $33 million over the next 5 years. As Dwight said, “It’s like we have a six inch pipe and are trying to shove a ten inch pipe inside it.” By the end of our conversation I was convinced I could do the job. He also told me that there was no way I could make a bad decision; if I stayed it was a good decision if I went to the DRC it was a good decision. So…instead of telling Dwight I was not interested in the job I told him I needed more time to think it through.

To give you an idea of the time frame, the day I spoke with Dwight was Friday January 18^th. For the next two and a half weeks I went back and forth and back and forth. I spoke with several of my ex-pat FH friends and with friends from church. I wanted to say no, yet couldn’t. A few things stood out for me during this time. First, I spoke with Gary Zander who is a Canadian on the board of FH International (actually with the name change FH Association). He pointed out to me that what I was experiencing was grief: the grief of leaving Uganda and all the ties that I had made. Understanding what I was feeling was a big step forward. Once I understood what I was feeling I was able to begin working through the grief and explore the possibility of leaving. Second, in one of my many conversations with my friend Julia she asked me if I wanted the job. I had never asked myself that question. I was focusing on could I do the job and did I want to leave Uganda. Third, Julia told me to stop stressing about the decision.

So I did. I stopped stressing and I stopped praying about it. I completely stopped giving the decision any attention. And that is when the work started. I would be in morning devotions and would be banging my head on the table as we sang Trust and Obey. We were working through the book, On Earth As It Is In Heaven by Darrow Miller and Bob Moffitt, during our devotions. Little things would have me shaking my head. It was as if the words or phrases were directed right at me. Finally Seng came to Kampala and we sat and chatted. I told him all my reasons for wanting to say NO, but that I couldn’t and had to see what that meant. I still wasn’t saying YES, but I was ready to move to the next step. That step was letting Kostas, the Country Director in FH/DRC, know that they had approached me for the position of Finance Director. I should note two things here: first, at this point the only people who officially new about the offer were me, Seng and Dwight and second, there was another offer on the table. That other offer was the option to be a regional trainer. It was something we had talked about in our original phone conversation and that I had talked about with Dwight. But their first priority was finding a Finance Director and this was the answer I had to give them.

The next day Seng asked me to send my resume on to Kostas and about three days later Kostas called. We chatted for a while and it became clear that the role of Finance Director was not suited for me (something I kinds knew already) but that there were many other ways they could use me in their finance department. In his own words, “We’re drowning here!” I got off the phone excited about the options and ready to take a trip to Bukavu (where the office is located) to visit and flesh out some of the options. But now the cat had to be let out of the bag. Elaine had to be informed and more importantly (sorry Elaine!) Sang Hoon, my country director had to be told. This is where things hit a snag. I talked to Elaine that very night. She was wonderful although it was a little faux pas on my part not to have told her sooner. And I Syped with Seng, told him I was ready for a visit to Bukavu but that Sang Hoon had to be told. He asked me to email Dwight, as it should really come from the Regional Director that they wanted to move an SIS from one field to another. The problem was that Dwight was in the US interviewing for the new Country Director position in Uganda. So I waited and I waited and didn’t hear anything from Dwight. Seng was in the dark and Kostas kept sending me photos of Bukavu to show me how beautiful it was there.

During the next two weeks, as I waited to hear from someone, we continued with the Bob Moffit/Darrow Miller study in devotions. There had been little pieces here or there that seemed to be speaking right to me, but then we came to the chapter on servant hood and we read from Philippians Chapter 2:

¹Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, ²then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. ³Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, ⁴not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. ⁵In your relationships with one another, have the same attitude of mind Christ Jesus had: ⁶Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; ⁷rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. ⁸And being found in appearance as a human being, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross!

This verse and the phrase a servant is some who voluntarily and sacrificially serves changed the whole course of my decision making. I began to see that perhaps it was God calling me to the Congo and as such, I had no option but to obey. I was felt that my answer had to be YES. But…I still wanted to visit Bukavu, meet Kostas and his team in FH/DRC and discover what role they had for me to fill.

Almost two weeks later, I received an email from Kostas telling me that Dwight had contacted him and that I was to go ahead and tell Sang Hoon what was up. This was not cool with me! Kostas volunteered to be the one to tell Sang Hoon although in hindsight I should have been the one to do it. Actually, it should have been Dwight, but that is a whole ‘nother story. I was on Skype with Seng when an email from Kostas went through to Sang Hoon (it was Seng who told me he had received it). About 10 minutes later Sang Hoon called me into his office. I was a little worried; this came out of left field for him. But he was so gracious. He had first served in the Congo over 10 years ago and the country has a special place in his heart. He also recognized that when looking at the region as whole, the Congo is where there is the need for the most financial help. Lastly, as an SIS himself, he recognizes that as SIS we follow the call from God; if that is where I felt God was leading me, he couldn’t stand in the way.

Everything went very quickly after that. This was early Friday afternoon. By 5pm my tickets were booked for me to fly to Kigali the following Monday evening, then on to Kamembe/Cyangugu Tuesday morning (to get to Bukavu, you fly first to Kigali then to Kamembe/Cyangugu which is a small airport/town on the Rwandan side of the Rwanda/DRC border)

THE STORM

2008-03-07T06:31:00.000-08:00

I was awoken at 1 am last night to the deafening sound of wind tunneling through my house, the slamming of doors, the claps of thunder and the flash of lightening. Oh and the fan beside my bed going off. There was a very powerful storm going on outside my windows. The curtains were blowing and from experience I knew there was a puddle accumulating on the floor below the windows. I think it was after the door slammed shut that I got out of bed to see what was going on outside. I have to say again, the sound of the wind was incredibly loud. From what I could see out the window, the trees were a moving. I got up, closed the windows so as not to have a flood in my room in the morning, propped open the door that slammed so it would do it again, then got back into bed clutching tightly to my flashlight. I have to say, this was the scariest storm I have experienced ever...and we had some good ones in October/November.

All was calm when I got up in the morning. There wasn't any noticeable branches down when I looked out the window so I thought all was OK. The first thing I noticed when I walked out the door to go to work was that the small plastic bin that sits on the porch wasn't there...well the lid was but not the bin. As I walked down the stairs and over to the driveway...that's when I saw it. One of the garage doors was lying on the ground. The wind had, not torn it from the hinges (the piece of wood with the hinges is still attached), it had broken the wooden door completely. All I could do was laugh. I thought I heard a loud bang as one point. Oh and my shoes that were on the porch were scattered across the lawn as were a multitude of large pine needles, small branches and one large palm leaf.

We are in the hot season right now, so it is common to have storms in the evenings. Here's hoping tonight is a little less eventful.

FH Congo Website

2008-02-28T12:32:00.000-08:00

I just finished browsing through the FH Congo website. It is by far the best Food for the Hungry website I have seen...and I have looked at many. Please click on the link on the left of my blog and learn about the work FH is doing in the Congo; read the stories. Let God weave the people of the Congo into your heart they way he is doing in mine.

Congo Journey - John le Carré

2008-02-28T11:33:00.000-08:00

The Nation article | posted September 14, 2006 (October 2, 2006 issue)

It was the strangest journey of my life and it always will be. I was looking for fictional characters I had invented, in a country I had never visited. The distant town of my imagination was Bukavu in Eastern Congo, known formerly as Costermansville and built in the early twentieth century by Belgian colonialists. It stands at the southern end of Lake Kivu, at 4,800 feet the highest and coolest of all Africa's Great Lakes. I had written my novel in a period when for personal reasons I had felt unable to leave England. Now, too late if my previous books were anything to go by, I was about to check its people and places against the reality.

But the novel isn't really set in Congo at all--or so I had almost persuaded myself by the time I began my journey. It's a romantic satire, for heaven's sake, written with both feet firmly off the ground. It's about Tony Blair's England, and good old-fashioned colonial exploitation, and political hypocrisy and shameless public lies, and other scores I had to settle. It's about the quest for identity in our multiethnic society, and New Labour's assault on our civil liberties, and a bunch of other similarly lofty themes. Congo is just backcloth, an abstraction, a symbol of perpetual colonial exploitation, slaughter, famine and disorder. To meet it face to face would only violate the delicate illusion!--or so I had tried to believe.

The only problem was that, well before I had added the last full stop to the first draft, Congo had become the elephant in my drawing room, and no amount of literary sophistry was going to make it disappear. My central character was the son of an erring Irish missionary and a Congolese headman's daughter. He had been dragged up in a bleak English boarding school, and he and I could get along fine. I had no quarrel with him. But when it came to my three Congolese warlords, each one some sort of standard-bearer of the militia or social faction that had spawned him, I had doubts. Neither my researches, nor my furtive lunches with Congolese expatriates, had reassured me that these characters could survive in the real world. If my visit to Bukavu did not deliver their likely counterparts--by which I mean, verify their attitudes and beliefs--I might be forced to look for other ways to tell the story, such as writing it again from scratch.

In Belgian colonial memory, as in my novelist's fantasy, Bukavu was a lost paradise, a misted Shangri-La of wide, bougainvillea-laden streets and lakeside villas with lush gardens sloping to the shore. The province of South Kivu was to Central Africa what biblical Palestine was to Arabia. The volcanic soil of the surrounding hillsides was so fertile, the climate so benign, that there was scarcely a fruit, flower or vegetable that didn't thrive there. But Eastern Congo has like every paradise a fatal flaw: It is a natural treasure chest of gold, diamonds, cassiterite and now coltan and uranium, which for centuries has lured every known species of human predator to its misted hills and jungles, from freebooting Rwandan militias to suited corporate carpetbaggers with nice manners and fat checkbooks and shiny offices in London, Houston, St. Petersburg and Beijing.

Ever since the late 1960s, Bukavu has suffered catastrophe after disaster. In the wake of the Rwandan genocide that hand-killed almost a million people in a hundred days, the town found itself in the front line of the refugee crisis. Hutu insurgents who had fled across the border from Rwanda used Bukavu as one of their two main bases from which to attack the Tutsi-dominated revolutionary government that had ousted them and seized power in Kigali. Goma, at the northern tip of the lake, was the second. The Tutsis retaliated in what became known as the First Congo War, and Bukavu took the brunt. The town barely had time to draw breath before the Second Congo War struck. And in June 2004, Bukavu fell into the hands of one General Nkunda, who invited his men to do with it what they pleased for three days. The town was sacked, and scores of women were raped.

I had also read that the Roman Catholic cathedral that dominates the town is called Our Lady of Peace.

There were three of us in the car by the time our Rwandan driver took the winding hill road from Kigali and headed toward the Congolese border four hours' drive away. The Foreign Office had advised us not to go, but for my two traveling companions such warnings had about as much impact as a footnote in a backpackers' guide. Michela Wrong had spent twelve years reporting on the African continent. She had covered post-genocide Rwanda for Reuters and the BBC and had written a seminal book, In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz, about Congo's recent history. Jason Stearns, at 29 a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group, had served three years in Bukavu as a political adviser to the United Nations. He spoke immaculate French, Swahili and an unknown number of the more obscure African languages and was widely held to be one of the West's leading authorities on Congo.

Both had plowed through an early draft of my novel, forgiven my trespasses and offered advice. Both knew the kind of players I needed to meet, and the locations I needed to see. Both had their professional agendas but agreed to coincide their trips with mine. It was April. On July 30--but the date remained uncertain--the Democratic Republic of Congo was proposing to hold its first multiparty election in forty years at a cost of nearly $500 million, $400 million of them from the West. There was gathering nervousness about the outcome. For my companions this made it the perfect time to go, as it did for me, since my novel was set in the run-up to the same elections. My only problem was: Had I left it too late for my warlords?

Well before we reached the Congolese border, my imagined world had been changing before my eyes. The Hotel Mille Collines in Kigali, alias the Hotel Rwanda, where we had stayed the night, had an air of oppressive normality. I looked in vain for a commemorative photograph of the actor Don Cheadle, or his alter ego Paul Rusesabagina, the hotel manager who in 1994 had turned the Mille Collines into a secret refuge for Tutsis in terror of the panga and the gun. But that story, in the mind of the revolutionary party still in power, is no longer operative. The genocide, according to the prevailing political correctness, produced bigger and better heroes who were not darlings of the Western media. Ten minutes into Rwanda with your eyes open, you know that the Tutsi-led government runs a very tight ship indeed.

From the windows of our car as we wove toward Bukavu, we glimpsed Rwandan justice at work. In tailored meadows that would not have been out of place in a Swiss valley, villagers crouched in rings like summer schoolchildren. At their center, in place of teachers, men in prison pink gesticulated or hung their heads. To break the backlog of suspected génocidaires awaiting trial, Kigali has reinstated traditional village courts. Anyone may accuse, anyone may defend. Only judges are appointed by the government.

An hour short of the Congolese border we turned off the road and climbed a hill in order to take a look at a few of the génocidaires' victims. A former secondary school looked down on lovingly tended valleys. The curator, himself an improbable survivor, led us from one classroom to another. The dead--hundreds, of them, whole families, tricked into assembling for their own protection--had been laid out in fours and sixes on wooden pallets and coated with what looked like congealed flour and water. A lady with a face mask and bucket was giving them an extra coat. Many of the dead were children. In a country where farmers do their own slaughtering, the technique had come naturally: First cut the tendons, then take your time. Hands, arms and feet were stored separately in baskets. Torn clothing, brown with blood and mostly children's sizes, hung from the eaves of a cavernous assembly hall.

How had so many normally peaceable people been dragooned into becoming assassins at the drop of a hat? Answer: by a few bad men seizing the moment. By faking the evidence. By exploiting traditional resentments. By lies repeated over the radio. By persuading the Hutus that they themselves were about to be slaughtered by their Tutsi neighbors. Hermann Göring at his Nuremberg trial had the recipe off pat:

''Naturally, the common people don't want war...but after all it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along.... All you have to do is tell them they're being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism.... It works the same in every country.'' And we know it still does.

Would I, as a Westerner, have felt easier if the murderers had used Zyklon B to do their work? Or dropped 15,000-pound "Daisy Cutter" bombs from two miles up?

''So when will you bury them?'' we asked.

''When they have done their work,'' was the reply.

These dead have no one to name them, no one to mourn or bury them. The mourners too are dead. So the bodies will be left on show for a while, to silence the doubters and deniers.

Rwandan troops in green, US-style uniforms have appeared along the roadside. The Congolese frontier post is a dilapidated shed on the other side of an iron bridge across an outlet of the Ruzizi River. A cluster of female officials frown over our passports and vaccination certificates, shake their heads and confer. The more chaotic a country, the more intractable its bureaucracy. But we have Jason. An interior door bangs open, joyous cries are exchanged, Jason disappears. To peals of congratulatory laughter, our documents are returned to us. We bid farewell to the perfect tarmac of Rwanda and for five minutes lurch over giant potholes of red Kivu mud to our hotel.

In every trouble spot I have cautiously visited, there has always been one watering hole where, as if by secret rite, hacks, spies, aid workers and carpetbaggers converge. In Saigon, it was the Continental; in Phnom Penh, the Pnom; in Vientiane, the Constellation; in Beirut, the Commodore; and here in Bukavu it's the Orchid, a gated, low-built lakeside colonial villa surrounded by discreet cabins. The owner is a worldly wise colon who would have bled to death in one of Kivu's wars had not his late brother smuggled him to safety. In a corner of the dining room sits a German lady of a certain age who talks wistfully to strangers of the days when Bukavu was all white, and she could drive her Alfa Romeo at sixty miles an hour down the boulevard.

Next morning we retrace her route, but not at her speed. The boulevard is still wide and straight but, like every street in Bukavu, pitted by red rainwater gushing off the surrounding mountains. The houses are fallen gems of Art Nouveau metro-land, with rounded corners, long windows and porches like cinema organs. Where there are new buildings, the same style is replicated today. The town itself is built on five peninsulas, ''a green hand dipped in the lake," as it is locally described. The largest and once the most fashionable is La Botte, where Mobutu kept one of his many residences. According to the soldiers who barred our entry, the same villa was being refurbished for the new president, Joseph Kabila, Kivu-born son of the Maoist revolutionary and wheeler-dealer who in 1997 drove Mobutu from power and four years later was murdered by his own bodyguard. A steamy haze hangs over the lake for most of the day. The border with Rwanda splits it longways. The toe of La Botte tips provocatively eastward. The fish are very small. The lake's monster is called mamba mutu, half-woman and half-crocodile. What she likes best is eating human brains.

We enter a Roman Catholic seminary. Its windowless brick walls are unlike anything around them in the street. Behind them lies a world of tranquil gardens, television dishes, guest rooms, conference rooms, computers, libraries and mute servants. In the canteen an old white priest in jeans shuffles to the coffee urn, gives us a long, unearthly stare and goes his way. He suffered greatly but survived, our host explains, and laments how his fellow African priests are at risk from penitents who confess their ethnic hatreds too eloquently. Once inflamed, they are capable of becoming the worst extremists of them all. Thus in Rwanda, priests were known to summon all the Tutsis in their parish to the church, which was then torched or bulldozed with the priests' connivance.

My first warlord, Thomas, is about as far removed from my expectation as he could decently be. He is tall and elegantly dressed, and receives us with diplomatic grace. His house, guarded by sentries with semiautomatic rifles, is spacious and representational. A plasma television screen plays silent football while we talk. He speaks for the Banyamulenge, and his people have been fighting wars in Congo pretty well nonstop since 1966, but his own war was spent in South Africa, lobbying for their cause. The Banyamulenge, I had read, are pastoralists originally from Rwanda who over the last couple of hundred years have settled the high plateaus of the Mulenge mountains of South Kivu. Feared for their battle skills and reclusiveness, and hated for their supposed affinity with Rwanda, they are the first to be pilloried in times of discontent. Would the upcoming elections make things any better for them? we asked. His reply was not encouraging. The losers will say the vote was rigged, and they'll be right. The winner will take all, because why else win? Candidates are vying to demonstrate their pro-Congolese, anti-Rwandan credentials, so it will be open season on the Banyamulenge.

Thomas was similarly unimpressed by Kinshasa's efforts to incorporate Congo's many armed groups into one national army: ''We have many men who have joined and then defected to the mountains. In the army they kill us and insult us, although we have fought many battles for them.''

There was a chink of hope, he conceded. The Mai Mai, who regard themselves as the keepers of a Congo free of all ''invaders'' and ''foreigners''--including the Banyamulenge--are also learning the high price that must be paid to become a soldier of Kinshasa. ''Maybe as the Mai Mai learn to mistrust Kinshasa, they will draw closer to us.''

Afterward, I ask Jason whether Thomas was right to be gloomy about the forthcoming elections. By and large, thought Jason, he was. Elections were only one trapping of a democratic system. Without a Parliament, courts or an administration, they merely decided who got to rip off the country next. Thirty percent of Congolese lived on one meal a day. Eighty percent earned less than a dollar a day. The losers had guns, and would very probably use them to contest the outcome. And yes, another Congolese war could follow. Next day we met a colonel of Mai Mai, the largest and most notorious of Congo's many armed militias.

Like Thomas, the colonel is immaculately turned out. His Kinshasa-issue khaki drills are ironed and pressed, his badges of rank glisten in the midday sun.

We are sitting in an open-air cafe. From a sandbagged emplacement across the road, blue-helmeted Pakistani UN troops watch us over their gun barrels. The colonel fidgets a lot, perhaps in embarrassment. Two cellphones lie before him. His heavy French is rich in extraneous additives. Sometimes his language and beliefs seem a bit of a puzzle to him, as if he wants a different role in life but has been landed with this one. Like their forebears the Simba, the Mai Mai possess magical powers--dawa--which enable them to turn flying bullets into water.

''The Mai Mai are a force created by our ancestors. There are races in my country that do not deserve to be here. We fight them because we fear they will claim our sacred Congolese land. No government in Kinshasa can be trusted to do this; therefore, we do it ourselves. When Mobutu's power failed, we stood in the breach with our pangas, bows and arrows. Our dawa is our shield. When you are face to face with an AK-47 that is firing straight at you and nothing happens, you know our dawa is authentic.''

In that case, we ask, how do the Mai Mai explain their dead and wounded?

''If one of our warriors is struck down, it is because he is a thief or a rapist or has disobeyed our rituals or was harboring bad thoughts about a comrade when he went into battle. Our dead are our sinners. We let our witch doctors bury them without ceremony.'' And the Banyamulenge? we ask. ''They can remain in Congo if they accept Congolese law. If they don't, we shall kill them.''

Venting his anger against Kinshasa, however, the colonel comes significantly close to sharing the sentiments expressed by Thomas the night before: ''The Mai Mai have been neglected and marginalized. Kinshasa forgets too soon that we fought for them and saved their arses. When Mai Mai fighters join Kinshasa's army we become kings without kingdoms. They don't pay us and don't listen to us. As soldiers we are not allowed to vote. Better we return to the bush and look after ourselves.'' And as a parting question of us: ''How much does a computer cost?''

In my novel, I have sketched in an armed attack on Bukavu airport. We are about to set off to inspect the reality when we learn that the center of town is blocked by demonstrators and burning tires. It seems that a man mortgaged his house for $400 in order to buy his wife a medical operation. When Kinshasa's unpaid soldiers heard about it, they raided his house, killed him and stole the money. Angry neighbors seized the soldiers, but their comrades sent reinforcements to get them back. A 15-year-old girl was shot dead and the crowd rioted. In our five nights in Bukavu, there were two riots.

After a tortuous drive through uneven back streets we reach the Goma road and drive northward along Lake Kivu's western shore. The airport is under the joint UN protection of Indian and Uruguayan troops. Not long ago, the Rwandans took the place over and remained there for several months without anybody interfering. The Uruguayan soldiers, who are not allowed into town, give us an excellent lunch and urge us to come back for a real party soon. ''What would you do,'' I ask an officer, ''if the airport came under surprise attack?'' His right fist clenches and shoots forward as his left hand closes over his forearm. ''Vamos,'' he replies.

The discothèque is my last and most affecting memory of Bukavu. In my novel, it is owned by the French-educated heir to an East Congolese trading fortune. He is a warlord of a sort, but his real power base is Bukavu's young intellectuals and businessmen. And here they are. There is a curfew and the town is quiet. A bit of rain is falling. I recall no winking signs or bulky men checking us at the entrance, just a gray row of little Art Deco buildings disappearing into the dark, and a rope bannister descending a dimly lit stone staircase. We grope our way down. Music and strobe lights engulf us. Yells of ''Jason!'' as he vanishes under a sea of welcoming black arms.

The Congolese, I had been told, know better than anybody how to have fun, and here at last they are having it. Away from the dance floor, a game of pool is running so I join the lookers-on. Round the table, deathly silence attends every shot. The last ball goes down. To hoots of joy, the victor is swept off his feet and carted in triumph round the room. At the bar, beautiful girls chatter and laugh. At our table, while I listen to somebody's views on Voltaire--or was it Proust?--Michela is politely discouraging a drunk. Jason has joined the men on the dance floor. I will leave him with the last word: ''For all Congo's troubles, you meet fewer depressed guys on the streets of Bukavu than you do in New York.''

Would I have written the same novel if I'd gone to Congo earlier? I wonder whether I would have written a novel at all. The reality of the place is so overwhelming that stories about it seem almost an irrelevance. But then I wasn't really writing about Congo, was I? It was all those other things. Congo was just backcloth.

An Introduction to the Democratic Republic of Congo

2008-02-28T09:13:00.001-08:00

A vast country with immense economic resources, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo) has been at the centre of what could be termed Africa's world war. This has left it in the grip of a humanitarian crisis.

The five-year conflict pitted government forces, supported by Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe, against rebels backed by Uganda and Rwanda. Despite a peace deal and the formation of a transitional government in 2003, the threat of civil war remains. The war claimed an estimated three million lives, either as a direct result of fighting or because of disease and malnutrition. It has been called possibly the worst emergency to unfold in Africa in recent decades. The war had an economic as well as a political side. Fighting was fuelled by the country's vast mineral wealth, with all sides taking advantage of the anarchy to plunder natural resources.

The history of DR Congo has been one of civil war and corruption. After independence in 1960, the country immediately faced an army mutiny and an attempt at secession by its mineral-rich province of Katanga. A year later, its prime minister, Patrice Lumumba, was seized and killed by troops loyal to army chief Joseph Mobutu.

In 1965 Mobutu seized power, later renaming the country Zaire and himself Mobutu Sese Seko. He turned Zaire into a springboard for operations against Soviet-backed Angola and thereby ensured US backing. But he also made Zaire synonymous with corruption. After the Cold War, Zaire ceased to be of interest to the US. Thus, when in 1997 neighbouring Rwanda invaded it to flush out extremist Hutu militias, it gave a boost to the anti-Mobutu rebels, who quickly captured the capital, Kinshasa, installed Laurent Kabila as president and renamed the country DR Congo.

Nonetheless, DR Congo's troubles continued. A rift between Mr Kabila and his former allies sparked a new rebellion, backed by Rwanda and Uganda. Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe took Kabila's side, turning the country into a vast battleground. Despite coup attempts and sporadic violence a fragile peace has held since the formal end of the war. But the Kinshasa government has no control over large parts of the country and tension remains high in the east.

Moreover, the lot of DR Congo's citizens is little improved. The Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think-tank, said in 2005 that 1,000 people were dying every day from war-related causes, including disease, hunger and violence.

Present Day

Joseph Kabila became Congo's president when his father Laurent was assassinated in 2001. He gained a mandate through the ballot box to rule the vast country as its elected leader in an election in 2006. The historic presidential election was intended to bring a new era of stability after years of war, dictatorship and chaos. The vote was generally praised by international monitors.

Mr Kabila has enjoyed the clear support of western governments such as the US and France, regional allies such as South Africa and Angola and businessmen and mining magnates who have signed multi-million dollar deals under his rule. He is a former guerrilla fighter who participated in nearly a decade of war that ravaged the country. He fought alongside his father in a military campaign from the east that toppled dictator Mobutu Sese Seko in 1997 after more than 20 years as the despotic, whimsical and corrupt leader of the nation he had renamed Zaire.

But when Laurent Kabila was killed by a bodyguard in 2001, his soft-spoken, publicity-shy son, who received military training in China, was thrust into the political limelight and installed as the world's youngest head of state. He swapped his military fatigues for elegant business suits, but - in contrast to his chubby, jovial and temperamental father - remained a reserved figure. Mr Kabila has promised to rule by consensus to try to heal the still raw scars of Congo's many conflicts. Though revered in the Swahili-speaking east, where he is widely credited with helping to end Congo's 1998-2003 war, he is less liked in the west.

A Funny Thing Happened On the Way

2008-02-05T00:37:00.000-08:00

If you’ve never been to Africa then it is truly hard to understand the hilarity that is a boda boda. Well sometimes hilarity sometime sheer terror. A boda boda is a motorcycle taxi or a in the more rural areas a bicycle taxi. Boda’s as we call them are used for marrying anything that can sit or be tied down. This includes people, as many as can fit, chickens, crates of pop, 15-20 mattresses a car hood or a guy sitting on the back holding a wooden dresser with a mirror. I am not exaggerating in the least. I have witnessed all this and more! The terror is that they have no care for their lives or those of their passengers. They drive on whichever side of the road will get them to their destination faster, they pass on whichever side of a car they are able and are generally a nuisance on the road.

Not having a car means I do a lot of walking. It’s also a great form of exercise as anywhere I want to walk involves waling up and down hills. Several things occur when I am out walking. First, I get stared at like I am the first and only white person in the entire country. This of course is not the case, especially in Kampala, so I can’t figure out why the need to stare and shout Muzungu at me all the time. It is really funny when boda drivers or guys in cars turn to stare; I keep waiting for them to crash into something ahead while their heads are “Linda Blair’ed” behind them! The children shouting Muzungu is not as bad unless it is accompanied by, “Give me money,” which is upsetting but luckily doesn’t happen that often. What’s funny is that with adults, mostly men but sometimes women, it is, “Muzungu, how are you?” or with children it is, “Muzungu, bye” as you walk past them. Some of my favorites are, “Muzungu, I love You” or ,”Muzungu, will you marry me?” Once when a guy told me he loved me as I walked by, I turned around and jokingly said, “But you don’t even know me!” No response from him, but it sure made me feel good! The attention and inappropriate comments or noises can be difficult and I often want to yell and chastise them, but for the most part I find it extremely hilarious. The good thing is it in never done maliciously, but one does have to be careful how you respond. I choose humor instead of anger.

The fun thing about walking all the time is you have time to look around and notice things. One of my favorite activities is to sign watch, to look at the names of the businesses, restaurants and schools that I pass. One of my absolute favorites is the 24 hour restaurant called I Feel Like Chicken Tonight (There was a commercial several years ago with the same jingle). Then there is the Disney Daycare and Psalm 23 Beauty Salon. Remind me again…what does Psalm 23 say about beauty? Recently I came across the Homely Café; I’m sure they meant Homey Café. It’s the use and combination of English words that make for some very interesting and downright funny signage around the country.

When you walk you also see funny random things…like 20 or so cows – cows with very big horns – being walked down the road. But even funnier is the random cow walking unattended. You would think they would walk a little faster having gained their freedom.

Sometime You Have to Pass it Along

2008-02-04T03:15:00.000-08:00

I got this email from my friend Myron today and I just felt like I needed to pass it on.

Thanks Myron!

The Crosswalk

Awesome!! We complain about the cross we bear but don't realize it is preparing us for the dip in the road that God can see and we cannot.

Whatever your cross, whatever your pain, there will always be sunshine, after the rain....

Perhaps you may stumble, perhaps even fall;

But God's always ready, to answer your call....

He knows every heartache, sees every tear, a word from His lips, can calm every fear...

Your sorrows may linger, throughout the night, but suddenly vanish, by dawn's early light...

The Savior is waiting, somewhere above, to give you His grace, and send you His love.

May God fill your day with blessings!!

Be kinder than necessary, for everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle!

Lesson's Learned

2008-01-23T04:56:00.000-08:00

I know it is almost the end of January, but I think I am ready to share the horror story of my new years eve day and night. As with any horror story, it starts out all nice and happy. A group of us (Myself, Luke from FH/US, Yoshi from FH/Japan Jiin from FH/Korea and Jiin’s Korean friend) has made plans to go to Jinja for the day. Luke picked us up just after 7am. Getting out the door this morning involved unlocking 2 locks on the inside of the gate, getting through the door with my purse, large camera bag and day bag, putting everything on the ground while I crouch down, reach inside the little flap to lock the main door on the inside, then lock the little flap on the outside. (Normally Angela is home and I don’t have to go through this trouble, but she was away in her village for the holidays) I picked everything up off the ground, we got into the vehicle and off we went to Jinja.

As we were on the road, my very full purse emptied out on the floor of the car. I struggled to find pick everything up as we three ladies were squished in the back seat and my camera bag was on the floor at my feet. Our first stop was at the Rainforest Lodge in Mabira Forest. Mabira Forest is in between Kampala and Jinja; and the lodge is situated right in the thick of the forest. Luke, as CDP manager, was looking at different places that work teams could stay at for retreat after their time in the villages. BTW…the Rainforest Lodge is amazing. It will be my go to place when I just need to get away for a few days to relax and rejuvenate. We left Mabira forest and continued along to Jinja. We made a pit stop at the Kingfisher Lodge so Luke could check it out as well. It is a favorite destination spot for retreats hosted by my church. We tried to stay for breakfast, but it seemed they were “all out!”

After a quick breakfast of Spanish omelet’s and sausages in a small “restaurant” in Jinja town, we headed to Bujagali Falls. The name makes is sound more important than it is. It is really a series of rapids that are part of the Whitewater Rafting and Kayaking route. They are definitely beautiful, but once you’ve stared at them for a while, you’re ready to move on. We played a rousing game of Phase 10 (combo of Uno and Rummy) then each of us went off on our own for an hour. Jiin, Semi and Yoshi went for a boat ride on the Nile, I sat and read a book, and who knows what Luke did. It was then time for the highlight of our trip…the Mexican Restaurant at the Palms Guesthouse. Yes Mexican in Uganda! The owner’s wife is Texan and she has done a fantastic job replicating a darn good Mexican meal. After lunch we briefly shopped; I picked up a 4 3 foot wooden giraffe and a nice pair of heals while Luke looked for a motorcycle jacket at the market. Then it was home….and that’s where the fun starts.

Our first problem was trying to get gas. We didn’t know it at the time, but the post-election violence in Kenya was just beginning to take it’s toll in Uganda, most notably at the pump. We found some at an unusually high price then carried on our way back home. It wasn’t until we had just got into the Kampala city limits that I realized I hadn’t seen my keys anywhere (Oh yes!!!) After a frantic search through my purse, bags and car it was determined my keys were not there. Don’t forget, this is not just a house key. This is 3 gate keys plus a house key. Angela has a set of keys, and while she was somewhere in the city, she wasn’t answering her phone. Now the kicker is I was supposed to be at a New Year’s Party in just over an hour. Luckily my friend (who’s house it was at) called to give me directions so I asked if her dad had bolt cutters. Thankfully he did, so after dropping Jiin, Semi, the giraffe and all my bags off at the FH office, Luke dropped me off at a gas station to wait for Makinzi to come get me and take me to her house. After Luke had left I called Makinzi and told her I was there. She told me her brother, 15 year old Jesse, would come down and get me on his motorcycle. So I waited, and waited, and waited. It’s after 7pm and dark, and I am in a strange neighbourhood and the only Muzungu around. I waited next to the security guard who kindly brought me a stool to sit on. At this point I was pretty distressed as you could imagine. Loosing my keys and having to cut off all my locks was not how I intended to ring in the New Year. After around 25 minutes of waiting, I called Makinzi to find our where Jesse was. It turns out he had got in an accident on the way to get me and that Nat (another 15 year old from the youth group) would come and get me on his motorcycle. This was a bad situation getting even worse!

Finally Nat shows up to get me, but he has no shirt on. So here I am on the back of a motorcycle with a half naked 15 year old from youth group. I’m trying to sit as far back as I can and not touch Nat, but also not fall off as we bounce down a typically pot holed road back to the Makenzie’s (Yes my friend is Makinzi Mackenzie). We get to the house and it turns out Jesse had taken the motorcycle with no light and he didn’t put on a helmet. He got about 10yards from his house and crashed into a boda boda. He had a pretty bad concussion and his dad took him to a clinic to get checked out. I got the bolt cutters and Nat and Harley (Youth Group kids) to come with me to climb over the fence to cut the lock on the inside of the gate. There was no way I would be able to 1. climb the fence and 2. have enough strength to cut the locks. So we walked down to the end of the street and the boys haggled with a special hire. We agreed on a price and off we went. Of course it is after 8pm on New Years Eve and traffic is awful. We got halfway to my house when the driver decides he needs to get gas. In order to save time, I gave the boys money to pick up new locks and we dropped them off in Kabalagala (near my house) while I went with the driver to get gas. Remember that fuel problem I talked about earlier. Well know it is a full blown crisis. The first two stations had no gas and the third one which did, had tremendously long lines. When we finally go back to Kabalagala to pick up the boys, Praise God, they came almost right away. We picked up Jiin, Semi and the giraffe and piled into the car to make the short trip down to my house. As we pulled up to the gate, the headlights flashed on something shiny on the ground. MY KEYS!!!!! They had been sitting in front of the gate for over 9 hours. Why, you ask, didn’t I check there first. Well the answer is, I assumed that when my purse emptied onto the floor on the way to Jinja, they got lodged next to the door and probably fell out when I opened the door at the Rainforest Lodge in Mabira. Not once did it cross my mind I had left them in front of the gate. If I had left them in front of the gate, then someone would have robbed me blind.

So lesson learned…don’t curse God when He is watching over your gate. And get a third set of keys cut.

Note: I did end up at the party and had a good time. And Jesse is OK.

When Love Came Down

2008-01-04T10:44:00.000-08:00

So the last time I posted I was telling you about my Christmas Day so far. I also said I would post later with the rest of the details. As today is January 1, 2008, it is obvious that I didn’t. But better late than never…right?!?!

Christmas Eve was spectacular! That’s the best word I can use to describe it. Jiin and I went with Sonya and Bruce and their children to Kampala Pentecostal Church (KPC) for their 5pm showing of their Christmas Cantata. It is something that the church does every year, 3 shows a day for 15 days, with the last show Christmas Eve. KPC is a very large church (1400 cell groups) with at least 4 “churches” that I know of. The Christmas Cantata was at KPC Central in the heart of Kampala. It used to be a theater, so it is massive; the scale of the Orpheum but not so grand. And funnily enough, the head pastor is from Alberta and the Worship Pastor is from Toronto. My friend Downie Mickler (her husband used to work with FH Uganda) is friends with the Worship Pastor and his wife, who also happens to be the KPC Choir leader. Downie arranged for us to have the entire second row reserved as we had several families attending together.

Right from the start you could tell this was a big production. There wall in front of us has a large screen in the middle, and all around the screen the wall was painted with an African sunset scene, complete with the silhouettes of elephants and giraffe. It was stunning. There was a complete band, with the drummer sitting behind plexi-glass to mute the sound. When the lights came down, the choir came in, and in, and in. It was at least a hundred person choir. The women were dressed in zebra patterned tops and black skirts with white trim on the bottom. The men were dressed in traditional Ugandan dress: black pants, white long robe and black suit jacket. And then the show started. There was a narrator who kept the show going and little movie clips on the screen, and an enactment of the nativity in the corner. But the singing and the dancing…it gave you chills. It was phenomenal, stunning, and electric. The choir was perfect and the dancing amazing. When the show ended two hours later, I stood up, looked at Sonya and told her,” I don’t want to go home now next Christmas. I don’t want to miss this!” (Don’t worry…I’m still coming home)

And that was Christmas Eve. Jiin and I came home, had a friend come and visit then off to bed. It was a great Christmas Eve, my first in Africa.

Christmas Eve Day

2007-12-24T01:06:00.000-08:00

It's still the 24th, but I thought I'd tell you how my day has gone so far. It started at 6am. Yes...6am. That's cause at 6am in Kampala it is 7pm the previous night in Vancouver and my family was having Christmas dinner at me aunt Candis'. We arranged for them to "Skype" me so I could talk to the whole family. Oh my, it was wonderful. I saw and talked with my Grandma for the first time since I left my family at the security gate at YVR. I cried, of course. Not because I missed them so much I wanted to be home, but because it is still amazing to me that I can see and talk to my family and friends even though we are so far apart. Of course I miss them terribly, especially right now. But as I've said, I am embracing my African Christmas and loving it.

After I got off with my family and dried my tears, I jumped back into bed and watched A White Christmas. I watch it every year, usually as I wrap presents. I am very behind in my Christmas movie watching so today is catch up day. When the movie ended I strapped on my runners and headed out to walk to the butchers to pick up our Christmas steak. It's about a 30-40 minute walk down the hill, and I even extended my walk to the Embassy Supermarket a little further down the road. It was so funny all the people from church I ran into. It made me smile. It was just like being in the Save On Foods in Lynn Valley and running into a half a dozen people I knew. It reminded me of how much Kampala is becoming home.

I forget to mention...it's really hot here! I think it is one of the hottest days since I've been here. Hold on for a second and let me check the temperature...28 degrees. And 29 degrees later this week. When I was at the butcher they had ice cream, but I was looking for a popsicle. Non to be found unfortunately =(

Now I am home after a 2 hour walk. I have to start getting ready for going to church at 4pm today and I still have two Christmas movies to watch before I go to bed. I promise to update this blog with the rest of my day later tonight.

Better Late Than Never

2007-12-23T03:18:00.001-08:00

OK Dad, I will sit down and write in my blog!!!

Sorry it has been so long. December has been a really busy month here. First it was the 100 Christmas cards I had to write before my friends Kenny and Julia flew home to the US on the 13th. Julia mailed them from Phoenix for me. That was a lot of cards and I spent most evenings working on them.

Then it was work. I think I have mentioned a few times that we ended the 2007 fiscal year in September and started a new fiscal year October 1st with a new version of Sun Systems and a whole new way for the fields to process their monthly accountabilities. It has been hard work training the field staff, and most have limited computer knowledge. It’s a good thing I love to train as I have already had three training sessions and will be going back out to the fields in January to train some more. December also brought with it auditing of the 2007 fiscal year. For me this meant trying to figure out all the old codes and the old Sun Systems, while still trying to follow up with the fields about the current month’s accountabilities. Making your head hurt following this…me too!

Friday the 21st was our last day at work; it was also our Christmas BBQ and gift exchange. We had drawn names for buying Christmas presents, and I had to buy for James in communications. I was so happy to have drawn James, cause there were two things I new about James: he plays the guitar and he loves to mock me when I am wearing my t-shirt that says, “What’s the Point?” So I had a t-shirt made for him that said, “What is the Point?” (apparently Ugandans do not use apostrophe s). That was the easy part of the gift. The hard part was that I wanted to get James a guitar songbook. Unfortunately I finish work after 5pm everyday and have no idea where to shop for a guitar songbook. So I decided to make one. Every night last week, I stayed up past 1am copying songs with guitar chords and tabs, pasting them into word, then adding pictures and bible verses. It was over 100 pages once I was all said and done.

So now it is Sunday December 23rd. I have finished shopping and wrapping and am ready for Christmas. Tomorrow I am going to Kampala Pentecostal Church for their Christmas Eve service, then will head home for a glass of wine and a Christmas movie. Christmas morning will see Jiin and I off to Bruce and Sonya Nisely’s for brunch, a viewing of It’s a Wonderful Life, games and BBQ dinner with their children and Luke Runyon from FH US. I truly thought I would be homesick this Christmas. I am always the one organizing the holiday season at home. I thought I was the glue that held them all together. I have to give props to my brother for carrying on the traditions in my absence. But instead of being sad, I have decided to embrace this African Christmas. Instead of a pine tree with multicolored lights and a variety of decorations, I have a fake tree, with white lights and red and green decorations. Instead of turkey and stuffing, I am having teriyaki steak and salad. It is turning out to be a perfect Christmas. Of course I miss my family, but I have a new family here that I would miss if I wasn’t here.

What else…that’s all I can think of right now. If there is anything you would like me to blog on in the New Year, please leave me a comment and I will work to be more diligent in my blogging. New Years resolution #1…blog once a week.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Christmas in Bufukhula

2007-11-22T11:33:00.000-08:00

I made it back to Bufukhula last weekend. Moses and Andrew invited me to come to the village for the CDP children's Christmas Party. This is a party to celebrate the children, the teachers and the parents and for the children to have a nice meal and receive a Christmas present. The plan was originally to take the bus (a first for me). I had a taxi arranged for 5:30 in the morning to take me to the bus park. The bus left at 6am (hopefully!) and should arrive in Mbale be 10am. I was very excited and nervous about the bus trip, I even had the office pray about it during devotions. (We often pray for people who are travelling) But alas, Luke the CDP Manager had one of his supporters in town and wanted to show her CDP in action. So he arranged a private hire and the three of us headed off to Mbale. It was such a funny trip. We started late cause the driver was late. Then he got lost on the way. You start on the highway that goes to Kenya, but in Inganga you turn off and take the road to Mbale. I was sitting in the front but chatting with Karen (Luke's supporter) in the back and wasn't paying attention to the road. When I turned around I realized something wasn't right. You see the road was terrible; pot holes galore. The road to Mbale is absolutely perfect once you make the turn off the main highway. I said something once, but the driver didn't respond. So after a minute or so I said something again. This time we stopped and found out that, yes, we missed the turn. But there was a short cut between the two highways. Well, it wasn't a shortcut but it sure was fun.

We arrived in Mbale an hour later than I would have had I taken the bus. But then we had to check into the hotel and drop a Fourth passenger off at the bus depot in Mbale so he could go back to his CDP center in Soroti. By the time we reached Bufukhula we were really late. They didn't start the program until we arrived at noon, although it was supposed to start at 9am. Luke, Karen and I sat at the head table with the other guests of honour. There was the LC1 (local leader), the Head Master of Bufukhula Primary School (Bob!) the Head Mistress of Makhai Primary School, the School Inspector and us. One of the fathers, a Muslim who has begun attending church, was the MC. The children began with songs welcoming the visitors. There were scripture readings, poetry and plays by the children. Of course there were speeches, by the LC1, the School Inspector, the Head Master, the Head of the PTA, the Head of the SMC Committee??, Luke, Karen, Myself and finally by the guest of honour the Head Mistress of Makhai Primary School. In between speeches and children's performances was Christmas music played by the hired DJ! Finally it was lunch, three hours later. The guests and leaders had lunch in the same room that was our lunch room last year while the children lined up and spread out for their feast. After lunch we all headed over to the soccer field to watch the Primary School Boys vs. the Secondary School Boys. It was great to see the two teams wearing the uniforms donated by Cap Church. The players take so much pride in themselves.

The children were to receive mosquito nets as their Christmas present. However, there was much debate over whether or not they were going to arrive in time on Saturday to distribute to the children. Thankfully my friend Vincent in Kampala was working overtime to ensure that the nets arrived. And they did. It was so comical watching the children stream off the soccer pitch and rush to the Head Masters office as the taxi arrived with the nets. It still amazes me at how organized the children become when they are asked. They were all removed from the vicinity while the nets were counted and while we opened the packages (to prevent them from being resold). They got into their class groups and were brought in class by class to receive their net. It was so organized. Each child had to stamp their thumb print next to their name to acknowledge that they received their net.

I had such a wonderful experience with my three sponsor children at the party. As I was sitting at the head table I kept scanning the children to see if I could spot Dianah, Ivan or Ben. After a few scans I found Dianah. She was sitting in the second row right in front of me. Her friends figured out that I had found her and kept poking her and telling her that I was looking for her. I waved at her and caught her eye a couple of times; she was so embarrassed. Later Ben was sent up to greet me; it is always so good to see him. He's the only one of the three who seems comfortable around me, but I suspect that is because he was my only sponsor child last year and he is used to having me around. But later, the children were dancing to the music the DJ was playing. The song is Calypso and as I have learned since I came to Uganda, it is a very popular song here. I joined in with the children, and Dianah was right there next to me dancing and smiling. It was so awesome! When it came time to receive the mosquito net, Dianah came to me to thank me, bending down and bowing in that humbling way the children greet you in Bufukhula. I took her outside and made sure I got a picture with her and her net; I also had pictures taken with Ben and Ivan. I can't fully express how it felt to be there as there celebrating with the children. It brings tears to my eyes even as I type this blog.

The next day we went on a home visit to Dianah's before we attended Sunday services at Bufukhula Church of Uganda. It was so great to visit her home. It was a surprise visit so her mother was not there as she was off getting water.(these are done so the family does not prepare something for the guest that presents a burden to the family). Dianah's father indicated that he knew me very well from my visits and was so thank full. He also expressed a desire to have me back so he could entertain me in Ugandan custom. I promised him that this was only a short visit, but that as I am living in Uganda for three years I would have many chances to spend more time with him and his family. I also met Dianah's grandmother and sister. Their home is small, only three rooms. But they have several cows which indicates a small amount of wealth for the family. For those reading this blog who have been on home visits in Bufukhula, this was the farthest home visited so far. You have to take the back road that leads to Makhai, get off the main road then walk through fields to find their homestead. It was very comical as it was obvious the distance we were travelling was going to make us late for church and there was every reason to suspect that Dianah and her family might not be there. Ah Africa!!!!

After the home visit we rushed back to the village as we were late for church. Of course it didn't start on time and went much longer than we were told. Apparantly 4 hour services are the norm and not just reserved for when their are guests (We had Andrew instruct the community that they were not to do anything different because we were there). Unfortunatlely we had to leave before church was over so we could get back to Kampala at a reasonable time.

It was such an extraordinary weekend for me. I love being in Bufukhula. I feel so at home there. It is nice to get the attention, but more than that I feel like I am accepted, just not as a visitor but as a member of the community like the FH staff. I had a wonderful conversation with my friend John Mukhooli and he kept asking when am I going to be back. I desire to spend as much time as possible in Bufukhula. Now that I know how to catch the bus, and a cheap place to sleep in Mbale, it is my desire to visit at least once a month. My next trip to Bufukhula will be in January when Elaine comes to visit. I am counting down the sleeps, not just for Elaine coming but also for my return home to Bufukhula.

A Little Bit of This and a Little Bit of That

2007-11-15T10:19:00.000-08:00

I had a rough week last week; nothing so bad…but a rough week nonetheless. I liken my week to being on the downside of a roller coaster, a cultural stress roller coaster. The week started out great. My internet was installed only two weeks after I signed up (although even that is not sorted out as they installed more expensive hardware and service than I signed up for) and the engineer who I hired to come fix some things around the house finally came over to go over what needed to be looked at. So Monday was a pretty great day. I came home from work and talked to my parents on Skype for 2 hours.

Then came Tuesday; if there was a plane leaving at 2:30 in the afternoon I would have been on it! It has been hard transitioning into my work life here. I came at the exact moment Food for the Hungry changed its entire financial system. It has been chaos here for the past two months. We also have a Korean Finance Manager, so I have had to adjust to both Korean and Ugandan work cultures. That has caused several moments of work stress for me. On Tuesday the stress came to a head for me. Nothing earth shattering, just upsetting and frustrating at the same time.

Wednesday went down hill fairly fast, although it ended with a banana split! The engineer came to fix several things around the house and put some things up for me. After my experience with the holes in the wall when trying to have a towel rod installed in the bathroom, I wanted to have the landlords engineer do any work in the house that involved putting holes in the wall. I had three mirrors that needed to be put up in the bedrooms and living room, as well as two wall hangings I had purchased. When the engineer came on Monday, we went through everything, even marking x’s on the wall where the screws should go so the spears that hold the wall hangings could sit. When I came home to check on the progress I found the following…the concrete used to fill the holes in the bathroom was so dark that it would take several (5 or more) coats of paint before you wouldn’t see the patches, the paint is a lighter shade than the wall color, the mosquito net was not hung by the center ties but the outside ones so the net did not hang evenly over the bed (It has since fallen down), the mirror in my room was not put in the marked location, the replacement door handle was not installed in the same spot as the broken one leaving gaping holes on the side of the handle. And the kicker…he screwed the wall hangings directly to the wall right through the fabric loops that hold the spears and not even on the x’s he and I marked together on Monday. I think that is what sent me over the top and down the stress roller coaster. I refused to pay him his over priced fee until he fixed the wall hangings, the unnecessary holes in the wall and the mosquito net. But to top it all off, I discovered the next day that my butcher knife was missing. He has said he will replace it, but no word on that yet.

I do realize that there are homeless and starving people living in Kampala and throughout Uganda. Holes in my wall are not a big deal, holes in the loops of my wall hanging are not a big deal (the loops can be replaced). I am blessed to have a roof over my head and furniture in my house. But it is stressful nonetheless to have shoddy work done, work that I could do on my own at home when I am not worrying about an entire wall crumbling down at my feet. Wednesday night was great though. I had dinner with the gang who run the youth group at a fancy restaurant and topped the night off with a banana split. Yummm!!!

Thursday and Friday were OK, although I was in a bit of funk. We had an awesome storm early Friday morning which caused flooding throughout the city, damages to my hedges and the top floor of our office flooding. Blocked drains and a broken gutter caused the patio to fill up and flood the finance, Go-Ed and Bringing Hope departments. But the upside was that Sang Hoon thought that in light of the flood in the morning, we would stop work at 3pm and watch Evan Almighty before heading out for the weekend. It was a nice way to end a frustrating week.

The nice part of the cultural roller coaster is you don’t stay down for long. There is the fun and anticipation of the uphill climb to look forward to.

Mbale and Bufukhula

2007-11-04T23:39:00.001-08:00

Two weeks ago I was finally able to make it out to Mbale to visit with Moses and Andrew and to make the trip out to Bufukhula. Ostensibly, the trip was for training. We left Kampala on Wednesday afternoon arriving in Mbale by dinner time. Bruce, who runs the Go-Ed program, also went along on the trip as he was visiting two of his students who are doing their practicum there. It was so wonderful to see Moses and Andrew at work in the Mbale office (I had seen them a month ago here in Kampala) I even got to visit with Patrick, Livingstone and Molex when they came in from Makhai to do some work. It was really wonderful to be able to see where Angela spent so much of her time and to meet Vicki who holds a special place in Angela's heart.

Thursday was a full day of training. The bookkeepers from Kapchorwa, Kumi and Soroti came into Mbale to join Andrew so I could follow up with all the changes that have been made in the accounting system. The account codes have been changed, new codes have been added and new forms have been created, and this has thrown everyone for a loop. They are overwhelmed by the changes and seem to think that more has changed than actually has. So needless to say, there was a lot of training to be done! Then, as is the norm all through Uganda, the power went out. We came to a dead stop in our training. My only hope was that they understood enough to go back to their centres and complete the monthly reconciliations correctly. They didn't!

Friday morning dawned with much anticipation for me. I was finally going back to Bufukhula. I was nervous and excited all at the same time. We went first to the FHI office and met up with Andrew and Apollo! It was so good to see him. He still has only two children and is practicing family planning. We then made our way to the village proper. It has changed so much since May 2006. The school blocks are finished, painted with their respective Capilano Christian Community Block and Lynne Block, and full of children. The school has 730 students, 180 of them if grade 1! There is also a new teachers office, where we went and spoke with the new Head Master of Bufukhula Primary School. It was wonderful to hear him talk of the pride and ownership the parents have of the school. It isn't FHI's or even Cap Church's school, it is their school. The Head Master took us to each of the classrooms. There were so many familiar faces, although only a few children remembered me. Paul also joined us as we were visiting the Head Master. I was so happy to see him and be able to congratulate him on his wedding and pending fatherhood. He looked wonderful, although he was suffering from pneumonia.

When we finished touring the school, we went under the mango trees and met the health committee in charge of the new clinic. Both Samson and John Mukoli were there. And they both greeted me with Mwanguisi. I wanted to cry. It was so amazing to be welcomed back so warmly and remembered. It must be the same to them as I greeted them with rememberence of their names. The health committee took us first to the church so I could see the framed panorama photo of Cap Church placed in prominence near the altar at the front. Andrew joked that Cap Church was inside praying at that moment! We then went and toured the health clinic. Work is going on daily to get it completed, although currently, the grade 7 children are sleeping in the unfinished rooms so they are close to the school for extra teaching as they prepare to write their exams to get into secondary school.

The health committe and the Head Master toured us around the village. There are such big plans for the community. Behind the clinic is land set aside by the community to build a residence for doctors and nurses. Behind the Primary School is land set aside to build a secondary school and teacher's residence. The community has a very good chance of receiving the secondary school from the government. It is between Bufukhula and another nearby community; the government is leaning towards Bufukhula because of the work that they have been doing to improve their community. The spirit of improving the community extends beyond the role that FHI plays in the community. The trenches have already been dug for another four room school block and bricks have already been brought into the community. And the school block has yet to be put into the FH budget for 2008 and the next team to visit isn't until Cap comes next May.

The best part of the morning, however, was sitting with my three sponsor children, Ben, Ivan and Dianah. We waited until lunch and brought the children over to the mango trees so we could meet again and have a conversation. Dianah and Ivan were very shy, but Ben was all smiles. He even told his mom that I was coming and she made the 30 minute walk to the village to see me. This meant so much to me. Last year, she seemed awkward and overwhelmed by our presence at her home. However, this time, she was all smiles and we had a wonderful conversation. I hope to make many more visits over the next three years and get to know her a little more. Soon it was time to leave Bufukhula and head over to Moses' house for lunch. It wasn't as hard to leave this time as I know I can come back anytime and will be welcomed back with open arms.

Having lunch at Moses' house is always a treat. Grace was at work and could not join us, but Peter was there along with Grace's mother and Moses' sister. We left picked up Faith and Emmanuel from school so I could see them again then went back to the office in Mbale to wait for my ride back to Kamapala. Grace joined us there and it was wonderful to see her again. I am looking forward to the time that I will be able to go back to Mbale and have more time to visit with Grace and my friends in Bufukhula.

A Quick Update

2007-11-01T05:20:00.000-07:00

Sorry it has been a while since I posted. It has been a very busy two weeks. I will blog more on these past two weeks, but not until the weekend, so I'll give you a quick update. I spent three days in Mbale last week and visited Bufukhula and my three sponsor children. So much fun! This week had been extremely busy trying to get the month end financials organized since we changed to an entirely new system that no one knows how to use perfectly. It had been very trying. I also have a new roommate for the next two months. Her name is Jian and she is from Korea Food for the Hungry.

I plan to tell you all about it this weekend, so until then hold on tight. Life is great here. I have a very busy social life, great friends and a great place to work at. And if you want to see some pictures of my trip to Bufukhula, go to the photo album on the right and have a look!

Help Name my New Friends

2007-10-22T05:41:00.000-07:00

I recently discovered that I have a gecko living in my house. I thought it was a boy (no reason...just cause) until I met the baby gecko. So now I assume I have a mommy gecko. Anyway, they don't cause any harm, in fact they eat bugs. They come out at night, so far not together, and crawl around the walls. One night I watched as the mommy gecko lifted her tail and pooped on my floor!

So I've decided to let you help me name my gecko friends. Add a comment and let me know your favorite name for 1) Mommy gecko and 2) Baby gecko.

Rains Down in Africa (Thank you Toto!)

2007-10-19T07:11:00.000-07:00

I miss the seasons. My uncle recently sent me a photo of the family cottage in Ontario and I was struck by the lack of leaves on the trees. I love fall! I love the colors of the leaves and the rain; those drizzly days when you can curl up with a good book or watch a movie. In Uganda there are two season, the wet season and the dry season. We are currently in the wet season. There has been so much rain in the North that it has caused massive flooding. President Museveni has declared it a National Disaster, his first ever declaration during his 20 years as President. (He did not declare a National Disaster at any point during the worst years of LRA terror in the North) The flood has devastated entire communities, caused several deaths, closed schools and clinics and now poses health risks due to flooded latrines. I read in the paper the other day that there are some communities that have been cut off for over 2 months without any assistance with food or supplies. FH Uganda has been working with other aid agencies and the UN to provide basic supplies like jerry cans, bedding, mosquito nets, etc. Please pray for the rains to stop, the floods to recede and for assistance to flow into the affected areas.

Coming from Vancouver, I love the rain. I really love storms and watching the God's awesome power. And I have seem some good rain storms in my life, both in Vancouver and at the cottage in Ontario. But they are nothing compared to some of the rain storms we have been having in Kampala. The thunder rolls for hours sometimes. From the window of my office I watch the clouds roll in, dark and ominous. When the rain comes, it comes down HARD. One day the wind was blowing the rain so hard it drenched my computer and desk through the open window. Another time I awoke early in the am to the beating of the rain on the roof and the garden. My favorite, though, is the thunder and lightning. Sometimes at night, the lightning pierces the black sky; it's beautiful. And the thunder. The other night I was awoken suddenly at about 4 am by the loudest crack of thunder I have ever heard. I bolted from bed I was so spooked; I'm sure it cracked right over my house. Then last night, I was woken again at 4am, this time by wind so loud I thought I was in a wind tunnel or the edges of a tornado. This morning, the sun was shining bright and the rains started. I was sure there would be a rainbow, but I was running behind and had to get ready for work. Sure enough, Bruce said it was the most beautiful rainbow he had ever seen.

The weather in Uganda is not always kind. Rain comes and comes and comes then goes; scorching heat takes over. But through it all, God's power and the beauty of His creation are showcased for me here everyday.

Facade

2007-10-17T01:26:00.001-07:00

I'm glad everyone has had a chance to see my house here in Kampala. I absolutely love it; it already feels like home. It is my oasis from the stares, the comments, the drivers, the dirtiness, the culture stress. But like many things, what you see on the surface is not always what it appears.

The house is old. It has bad plumbing, crumbling walls. Since I moved in the toilet has leaked (luckily with the clean water not the dirty stuff!). It was "fixed" once; it still leaked. I came home Monday night to find a flood in my kitchen. The water draining from the sink wasn't leaving the house, it was staying in the house! I have now had both toilet and sink fixed properly and hope that this is the end of the problems for now.

As for the crumbling wall...I wanted a towel rod installed in my bathroom. I bought the rod and hired a young man to install it. BIG MISTAKE. When I came home to the flooding kitchen on Monday I also came home to gigantic holes in the bathroom wall. The house is old; the concrete dry and crumbly. Thus when trying to install the rod, the wall crumbled. So I come home and Juma is bringing a piece of wood to install the rod on then attach the wood to the wall. Not covering the holes of course and up way to high. ARGHHHHH

Monday was definitely the first time the culture stress hit me like a brick. All I wanted to do was prepare my dinner, eat and relax. Instead I have a stranger banging an ugly piece of wood into my know hole filled bathroom wall and a flood in my kitchen. Not the best night I've ever had. However, Juma did do a fantastic job fixing the leak in the kitchen, and it's not really his fault the wall was in such bad shape.Although placing the rod so high up I do blame him for. This seems to be a Ugandan thing putting things high up, which is kinda odd cause they aren't all that tall.

In case you are wondering, the plan is to pull the wood off the wall, the rod off the wood, fill the holes, paint the wall and attach the rod properly at the height I want it at. At my expense of course! Lesson learned.

Did You Know?

2007-10-10T05:41:00.000-07:00

Kampala is hosting CHOGM (The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting) in November. It is a big deal here in Kampala. The first stop lights in the city have been installed, roads are being paved, new hotels have gone up and the city is being beautified. This also means that street vendors have been pushed out of the city and are loosing their livelihoods. It reminds me of the issues Vancouver is dealing with in regards to the Olympics.
That if you hang your clothes to dry on a line outside then they have to be ironed before you wear them. This is because mango flies will lay their eggs in your clothes and potentially hatch and burrow into your skin causing you to have to have them removed by a doctor. Yuck!
That one can easily get used to being sweaty all the time.
That everyone in Uganda carries a cell phone and practices flashing. This is when you phone someone and let it ring once so your number appears as a missed call. People will flash you to tell you they are at your gate, or ready to pick you up, or because they want you to call them so they don't waste air time.
That it is possible to ignore the daily stares and comments of "Muzungu! Muzungu!" You would think it would be hard, coming from a place where we say hi to everyone we meet, but it is possible to just walk right by people and pretend you didn't notice the stare.
That it rains in Kampala just like it rains in Vancouver. Not the amount, but the intensity. And Kampala gets wonderful thunder and lightning storms. Beautiful

Random Thoughts From the Week

2007-10-08T23:53:00.000-07:00

This post is going to be a cornucopia (Happy Thanksgiving!) of information. I had a very busy week last week. On Monday I moved into my new house with nothing but a mattress, fridge and stove with no gas. Nothing really changed during the week. I was the victim of Canadian banking rules which state I can only withdraw a certain amount of money from my account in a week; since I had to pay $2400 US for my 6 months rent as well as $775 US for my fridge and stove I hit that weekly limit very quickly. In fact I was unable to pay the entire six months rent and had to wait 5 days before I was able to get another Ugandan shilling from the bank. But I am blessed to say that I have amazing friends here in Kampala who all offered to lend me money. I borrowed a little to pay my house help and to get a gas tank and hose, but managed with only 100,000 shillings for the week. That's actually quite a bit here in Uganda.

The other big thing that took up most of my week was preparing to train about 15 field staff on how to navigate through the new Microsoft Vista operating system and the basics on how to use Microsoft Excel. You see Food for the Hungry International has moved from a dos based Sun Systems platform to a new Windows based Sun Systems housed on the server in Phoenix, AZ. What this means is that all our files will now be entered into Excel and directly uploaded to the server in Phoenix. No more manual entry of each transactions. To give you an idea, I worked all day Monday manually entering 2 of about 20 journals. And I mean all day!!!! This new system will cut down on the amount of accounting work that is done, both in the field and here in Kampala. But there is a huge learning curve for the field staff, most of whom are entirely unfamiliar with technology and are now expected to use laptops, Excel and scanners. I am directly responsible for all the CDP (Child Development Program) centers as well as the HIV/Aids program and the GO-Ed program. I have an even bigger learning curve than the field staff as I have to learn the old way as well as the new way. Not to mention that there are a lot of zeros in Ugandan shillings (1000, 5000, 10000, 50000, 100000 notes) and the way Ugandans write zeros, sixes and eights can be very hard to decipher. Let's just say it is an adventure in accounting.

The best thing about last week was that it was my birthday on Saturday. I had probably one of my best birthdays ever. This is because people I have only known for 3 weeks went out of their way to throw a party for me, with cake, candles and presents. Sonya and Bruce and their children hosted and Luke and his mom came too. It was truly special; a birthday I won't forget in a long time. Then on Sunday after church, Luke, his mom and Brooke (Sonya and Bruce's daughter) went to Speke Resort. It is a very large resort right beside Lake Victoria. We swam in the biggest pool I have ever been in and went horseback riding. Then back to Bruce and Sonya's for waffles. It was a wonderful weekend.

The start of my week, yesterday, was of course Thanksgiving. I was very blessed to have been invited to attend a Canadian Thanksgiving dinner. There were around 30 people there, mostly Canadian, but with a few token Brits. There was turkey and stuffing and pumpkin pie. It was amazing.

On the church front, I am loving Kampala International Church. The worship is fantastic although there are lots of songs I don't know. (But it is fun learning the new ones) The head pastor, John is awesome. He has such character. Very different from Mike and Paddy at Cap Church. I have thoroughly enjoyed his sermons. I even found a home group to attend starting in November; it is only two gates down from the FH office and only an 8 minute walk from my house. God has been guiding and blessing me through this entire journey and He continues to amaze me with his steadfast love.

The New House

2007-10-02T05:19:00.000-07:00

I moved into my new house yesterday! While I only had 5 suitecases and a fridge and stove, it took until after 6 to finally move in. This being because as always, I had to wait. The morning started off with a bang...literally! I awoke to the sounds of thunder and lightening and rain much like we get at home in the fall. It was a downpour! (Which I had been wanting since it had been 2 weeks without rain - but not on moving day) I got to the office and luckily, Jimmy the driver was able to take me to the guest house to pick up my bags and check out.

Side note...I have a lovely lady named Angela coming to live in my "boys quarters." The boys quarters is three rooms at back of the garage. The first room has a sink, toilet and shower; the other two are empty rooms. Angela and her 3 children are moving in on Wednesday. Angela will work 3 days for me doing some cooking, cleaning and laundry and will work the other two days for Sonya and Bruce. She is a lovely Catholic lady who has been out of work and is trying to support her children since her husband left her. I am very happy to be able to provide her with a job and a home for the next three years.

Back to the story...Angela came by the office right on time, and we agreed on a monthly amount and when she would start. (I thought Wednesday and she wanted to start right away!) Sam the driver, took us to the market to pick up supplies then down to the house so Angela could start cleaning. The plan was for Sam and I to drop her off, then go on to Game to return a kettle and to Uchumi to pick up my fridge and stove. But in Ugandan fashion, my friend Vincent in logistics called and Sam had to go back to the office to take Jane to the bank. So, instead of sitting around moping, I tagged along on the trip to the bank. I like driving around town and getting my bearings. I also get to have interesting chats with the drivers. We got back to the office, waited around for a while, then I went off again with Sam and Simon. This time we took Elsa to a meeting with the World Health Organization. While she was in the meeting we headed over to Game to get the kettle fixed and to Uchumi to pick up the fridge and stove. Success!!!

By the time we picked up Elsa and got through Kampala's rush hour traffic, it was around 5:30. (I forgot to mention that I didn't have time to eat lunch. I was running on the eggs and cereal I had at 8:00 am for breakfast!) We loaded up the truck with some of my bags and headed down to the house where Angela had been cleaning all day. Sam, Simon, Angela and I unpacked the truck, the boys drove Angela home then they went back to the office to get the rest of my bags and the bed that I will be borrowing from FH. By the time they came back and unloaded the rest of the stuff, it was well after 6pm.

Now I was all alone on my fairly large property. I locked the gates tight as well as the front door. I put on some music and started the process of unpacking. I discovered that there was no light bulb in the bathroom light and that there was no water in the kitchen sink (I learned this morning that this is affecting the whole area) But I had my headlamp and I plugged along unpacking suitcases. There was a screw missing for the bed, so I set up the mattress on the floor. Due to an issue with not being able to take any further money from the bank right now, I haven't been able to make any of the basic purchases for my house. So I have a stove with no gas tank or pots and pans and a fridge with no food. I have no furniture, no light bulbs, or even a mop and broom (I had to borrow that from the Go-Ed guest house). It sort of feels like camping in your own house! But my friends are supporting me and I am so happy to have started putting together my new life.

It was very weird to be all alone last night. There were new sounds and the problem of cars beeping at gates and not knowing if they were beeping at mine. I enjoyed a dinner of cheese crackers and Australian Shiraz while I unpacked. I brushed my teeth and washed my face with the light of my headlamp, then lay down to sleep. I was worried I wasn't going to be able to sleep, worrying about every noise. But God kept me save and let me have my sleep. And today is a new day. Still no money, but I love my house!

HOT!!!!

2007-09-24T00:24:00.001-07:00

Before I came to Kampala, I looked at different web sites showing the average temperature in the city. Both the websites and the Brandt Travel Guide for Uganda stated that the temperature in Kampala was quite mild, between 20 and 28 degrees Celsius. I thought, well that can't be that bad. Well it is! It was the hottest it has been since I arrived 11 days ago. And of course, yesterday was the day that I decided I wanted to go for a walk (at 1:30pm) up a large hill and down to the Italian Restaurant Cafe Roma for lunch. I was a sopping mess by the time I got there. Then once I had cooled off, I had to do the walk all over again. Every time I go out walking I am always passing everyone on the street. I finally realize why Ugandans walk so slowly:so as not to over heat! It is my natural inclination to walk fast. To get somewhere quickly, for exercise, or because walking slow doesn't seem to accomplish anything. But here, it is the only way to get around without looking like a mess when you get to your destination. Ugandan lesson #1 learned!!

House Hunting

2007-09-20T23:53:00.000-07:00

My most frustrating experience so far in Kampala has been finding a home. Being a single women with no means of transportation presents a particular problem both for me and for the logistics team here at FH/Uganda. The area that the office is located in is called Muyenga. It is the second most populated neighborhood with Muzungus (white person). It is a very safe area and one where I can walk at night provided the house is near the main road (Tank Hill Road). Now in order to find a house you have to work with a broker. And when you work with a broker you have to pay them a finding fee to have them start looking for you. A landlord only works with one broker. So as you can see, that makes it a difficult process. In order to look at a variety of places you need to use several different brokers and you have to pay each of them a finders fee. This can get a little ridiculous. In the past week I have looked at at least 10 places. Most of them have been too far from the office for me to travel to both during the day or the night if I am on foot or on bicycle. The only other way is to travel by Matatu (public taxi - more like a small bus). I have found a few locations that are close for the day time, but would not be safe to travel alone at night unless I took a special hire (what we think of as a taxi). The reality is I should have had a car in my budget. That would widen the area I could look at. I've actually found the most perfect apartment. It is brand new, spacious and has views of lake Victoria. It is in lower Muyenga and is perfectly safe to walk during the day time, but not at night. Having a car would allow me to take the apartment right now. Not having a car means I have to wait. But I am trying to remember that God has a plan and that He is working on finding me the perfect place, and that it will be in His time not mine. I read this verse today in daily devotions and it seems to have a special meaning for me as I keep looking:

Trust in the LORD with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
in all your ways submit to him,
and he will make your paths straight. (Proverbs 3:5-6)

Moses

2007-09-18T11:30:00.000-07:00

For all those who have been to Bufukhula, you will understand how excited I was to see Moses yesterday. He was in Kampala for two days of training. He knew I had arrived and came to find me as I was checking emails at the GoEd guesthouse (which is on the same property as the office). I was overjoyed to see him. He brought news that our friends in Bufukhula remember me and are waiting for me to come visit. He also told me that work on the clinic is progressing. But most of all he brought news of Peace and I have been diligently passing that information along to Angela. Peace is doing great. She recognizes all the FH staff and smiles and tries to talk to them when she sees them. Sylviah and Andrew are in charge of her care and they have made sure her grandparents are getting trained on the proper nutrition for her and for her regular medications. She has undertaken some tests to see if more than just malnutrition is a factor, and plans are in motion for her to stay some time with the FH staff to ensure feeding and medication is administered appropriately. But Moses assured me she is doing better than great.

I was able to send Moses back with some Christian books and a bible, as well as my old mosquito net and some CFHI T-shirts that were too big for me. I know he and the Mbale staff will be able to use these items. I am anxiously waiting for the chance to visit my old friends in Bufukhula and to answer again to Mwanguisi.

Meeting New Friends

2007-09-18T11:05:00.000-07:00

I have been very lucky here in Kampala. There is a SIS (Seconded International Staff - that's me) from the US named Luke Runyon. He had been in Kampala for about a year. Also, FH US runs a semester abroad program called GoEd. The program in Uganda is run by Bruce Nicely and the students are managed by Julia and Kenny. Bruce is married to Sonya and they have three children. These people have been absolutely amazing and have made the transition here so much easier than if I was the only SIS at the office. Julia and Kenny, of course, picked me up at the airport, but Luke has been helping me find a place to stay. There are also 13 GoEd students here for their semester abroad, all ladies. I've had dinner at the guest house with the students, at a great Indian Restaurant with Julia and Kenny, a grilled cheese and Settlers of Cattan night with Julia, Kenny and Luke, and an evening of making pizza and chocolate chip cookies with the GoEd students at Bruce and Sonya's house. Then there have been trips to the American Recreation Club (an ex-pat country club - although not super posh), shopping trips with the ladies and a BBQ at the church with members who live in the Muyenga district (this is the area the office is located). It always seems strange to me when there are a lot of Muzungus (white people) congregated in one place. But it was neat to meet other people with a passion for missions here in Uganada. And such a range of people. There were Brits and Aussies and Kiwis and Americans. And everyone has such facinating reasons to be in Uganda. I made some great contacts among the ladies. The BBQ was held at the Heritage School. It is an ex-pat school and also the location of Kampala International Church. This is the church I will be attending (I'll post more on that later). But one of my favorite new friends is Janet Shaver, I had met her at Cap Church on her last trip home, but she is down from Kitgum right now and we are getting to know each other better. In fact we had a girls night last night and I slept over. It was like a little holiday for me and a chance to tap into her knowledge of being a single Canadian Girl in Uganda. So as you can see I have been keeping busy and starting to form a social circle. I am looking forward to meeting more of the ex-pat community here in Kampala. While it is important to make Ugandan friends and experience Ugandan life and culture, it is also important to surround yourself with a group of people who understand your frustrations and concerns and with whom you can just be yourself.

Arriving in Uganda

2007-09-17T04:14:00.000-07:00

I'm on day 5 of 1095 days in Kampala...and so far so good. God has provided in every way since I left Vancouver, actually before I even left Vancouver. If you have ever had to pack up your life and move it for three years then you may understand the difficulty. My new life in Kampala turned out to five suitcases! However, since I was only allowed three by British Airways, I had to pay for the extra two to a tune of $512 dollars. But God had anticipated this problem and provided a last minute donor who's donation covered this unexpected cost. I was also a little anxious about the travelling to Uganda, the flights and layover as well as getting through customs in Entebbe. Again God anticipated and provided the company of a family of four from Mission travelling to Uganda for a three year mission. I was overjoyed with God's gracious provisions. These two instances combined with my smooth sailing through customs made for a great start to my trip. But it only gets better. I was met at the airport by Julia and Kenny (Americans working for the Go-Ed program run by FH US), not Jimmy the driver as I was aticipating. It turned out that there was some confusion as to the date I was arriving so there was no FH driver available to pick me up at the airport. There plan was to send a random taxi driver to pick me up. Julia and Kenny, bless their hearts, felt that this was not the best impression to make on a single women arriving scared and unsure, so they volunteered to pick me up. Again God provides. We came straight to the office and broke into morning devotions for introductions. I met most of the office staff and sat down with Sang Hoon Lee the country director and Jung Jin the new Finance Minister. Then it was off to the Guest House with my five very heavy bags. Of course my room is at the top of two flights of stairs. It is comfortable enough if a little small. I had no hot water for the first few days, but that was only because the power was off and the generator does not heat the water, just keeps the lights going. Such is the problem in Uganda. Power is a luxury and is not a very reliable one at that.

13 Sleeps.....

2007-08-29T14:35:00.000-07:00

With only 13 sleeps to go the countdown is on. It's hard to contemplate, sometimes, packing your life into 4 suitcases. (I visited the rest of my life packed in the basement of a friend's today...I miss it already!) I keep thinking I have everything, then I find something else I need. I know I will probably be able to find it in Kampala, but there is some security in knowing you have everything you need right off the bat. There is still alot of uncertainty, like getting through customs, hoping that someone is there to pick me up, not knowing where I will be staying for the first few weeks. It's comforting to know that I have everything I need to "live" my life the way I know it, at least until my supplies run out.

With only a short time left at home, I have finished work and am "working" at trying to spend as much time as possible with family and friends. As much as I am excited about my new life in Uganda, I am already starting to miss home. I guess that's normal. I try not to think ahead to my birthday and to Christmas as I get too sad. It will be interesting to live between two worlds: making a new life in Kampala yet still keeping my foot in the door at home. I was never one for psychology, and now I feel like I will be living in a life sized psychology experiment.

I am truly looking forward to making Kampala my home. I am most looking forward to the everyday presence of God in my life. It is so eay to leave Him in the background here at home where everything is familiar and comfortable. But to rely on Him each day, to talk to Him each day, to have Him be present in my work life, this is something that I have been dreaming about since I came home from Bufukhula last May. I give thanks to God and my supporters each day for this amazing opportunity.

Almost Famous

2007-08-12T21:27:00.000-07:00

Sharing Number Sense in Uganda

Caroline Skelton, North Shore News

Published: Sunday, August 12, 2007

Kristee Watson, 32, says she would have helped out in Uganda by taking out the garbage.

But with her accounting background, it will be her way with numbers that she brings to a three-year stint as a volunteer in the country.

Watson will be taking a break from her Canadian life to help out in the finance department of Food for the Hungry in Uganda, reporting all major donors, handling all the funding that comes in to make sure it's recorded then allocated out to different regions.

"It's not as glamorous as nursing or doctoring or being an engineer, but those projects don't get done if there's nobody there," she says.

Considering Uganda's record of troubles with fiscal responsibility, she says, she looks forward to bringing with her both good accounting practices and a sense of financial ethics and accountability to her new job.

Watson learned accounting while working with the Earls restaurant group during the last decade. Starting out serving, then moving into the head office, and finally being hired on as assistant controller for the Joey Tomato's restaurant chain, Watson says it's not just a knowledge of accounting that she'll take from these experiences.

"I think that what I gained with Earls was an ability to go into a situation and not be afraid of it and learn as you go," she says.

Watson is still in the process of collecting funds before her departure, as Food For the Hungry requires volunteers to secure all their funding before they leave.

These funds, explains Watson, include living expenses, transportation, training and an emergency evacuation fee, as well as savings for home, so that volunteers will have funds to return to.

But Watson says she has already received no shortage of support from the community, especially members of her church, Capilano Christian Community, which already sponsors 300 Ugandan children.

Watson was first inspired to volunteer in the country after she helped out in a short-term volunteering excursion last May with a work team from the church that helped in a building project in a Ugandan village.

While there, she was impressed by both the Food for the Hungry staff and the Ugandan people.

"I think there's the perception that Africans are poor, that they have nothing, that they must be miserable and sad all the time, and that is just not the case," says Watson. "I've never been in a place where there's so much joy."

So while her life here is rich with "(a) great job, great friends, great church," says Watson, "there's just something about Africa and the opportunity to go and serve the rest of the world that I think is important for a person to do."

To donate to Watson's volunteering effort, visit http://www.givemeaning.com/proposal/UgandaBound.

cskelton@nsnews.com

God Said No!

2007-06-01T14:04:00.000-07:00

I asked God to take away my habit.
God said, No.
It is not for me to take away, but for you to give it up.

I asked God to make my handicapped child whole.
God said, No.
His spirit is whole, his body is only temporary.

I asked God to grant me patience.
God said, No.
Patience is a byproduct of tribulations; it isn't granted, it is learned.

I asked God to give me happiness.
God said, No.
I give you blessings; Happiness is up to you.

I asked God to spare me pain.
God said, No.
Suffering draws you apart from worldly cares and brings you closer to me.

I asked God to make my spirit grow.
God said, No.
You must grow on your own, but I will prune you to make you fruitful.

I asked God for all things that I might enjoy life.
God said, No.
I will give you life, so that you may enjoy all things.

I asked God to help me LOVE others, as much as He loves me.
God said...Ahhhh, finally you have the idea.

So Much to Tell

2007-05-14T16:16:00.000-07:00

I apologize for the lengthy delays between postings. This is due to the fact that I don't have a computer at home, so have to sneak posts in during work or at my parents on the weekends. That will change soon as my laptop for Uganda has been ordered by CFHI.

So...the big news is...I am leaving for Uganda in 12 weeks! Can you believe it?!?! What started out as a small seed God planted last May in Bufukhula is now bearing fruit.

Only 10 More Sleeps!

2007-04-04T12:21:00.000-07:00

How excited am I to be heading of to Peru in 10 days? I will be spending 3 weeks training with staff from Food for the Hungry International and missionary candidates from the US and Great Britain. While I am not looking forward to the studying, I am looking forward to meeting the other candidates and hearing how God has been working in their lives to get them to this point. Not to mention the three weeks of hot summer weather!