Too many new concepts

This year, we get to celebrate the dawn of 2011 with a missionary family that lives in Soroti, a town northwest of Mbale. They have three adopted children, one African American girl and two Ugandans.

                “Where did those children come from?” Lucy, our laundress asked me this morning, seeing them running around with Josh. “They are not Karimojong.”

                “No, they live in Soroti.” I answered. Lucy looked over at the woman who was carrying around baby Zulia.

                “Where are their parents?”

                “Right there, can’t you see?” I pointed to the white woman. “She is their mother.”

                “That white woman? She has married the black African?”

                “No. Her husband is there.” I pointed him out, standing with his son, Moses who was peering into the chicken pens,

                “Then how can she have black children?”

                “She has adopted them. Do you know adopted?” Lucy only stared at me, and then slowly shook her head. I attempted to explain, “She did not give birth to them, but she has taken them as her own children.”

                “Oh, so they are orphans. The parents have died?”

                “I don’t know. Maybe.” Lucy looked so confused.

                “Why don’t they give the children to their relatives?”

                “Because now they are their family. That white woman, she is the mother to them, her husband is their father. They are all one family.”

                “But they are black children! How can the white family have black children?”

                Gosh, it is the hardest thing to explain the concept of adoption to a Karimojong. They simply don’t understand it. Here, even if a child is an orphan, the relatives would rather send them to an orphanage a hundred miles away then have to feed and clothe them. And on the rare occasion that an orphan is taken into to a relative’s family, they are only fed on the understanding that they will be the ones cooking the food and washing the clothes and caring for the smaller children. A slave basically, with no prospects beyond work in the home and no prospect of school at all. They are not really welcomed into the family, but simply given a food to eat and a place to sleep at night. But now, here is a young mzungu couple living in Soroti, Uganda, caring for three black children who are not even related to them! They must be crazy! No one seems to grasp the idea that these wazungu are now the children’s parents and their loving family.

                Today is the last day of the month, and therefore payday. Zulia’s mom had asked me to watch Zulia for a bit so I wandered out onto the porch, where Cosmas was, awaiting his payment.

                “Maria, who is that child?” He inquired.

                “Have you seen those visitors? It is their child.” I answered

                “Those white visitors? Yes, I have seen. They even have two more. But where are the children’s parents.”

                “No, those visitors are their parents. They have adopted them. ”

                “So this girl’s parents are dead?”

                “I don’t know.”

                “But then why have they taken her? Is she Ugandan or from somewhere?”

                “She is Ugandan. Even the other small boy, he is Ugandan.”

                “What about the other girl?”

                “She is American.” His face portrayed his shock at my words

                “American? You have blacks in America?”

                “Yes. They are there. They are African American.” I could tell by his face, that the concept was hard to grasp. African American? So she is American? But she is black? He shook his head in confusion. It was too much to take in in one day. “Her name is Zulia.” I said. Zulia stared up at Cosmas with big eyes.

                “Julia, ejoka?” He took her tiny hand in his and shook it gently. She didn’t know what to make of that, but she smiled anyway, showing off her four teeth. Boy, is she a cute little bugger.

Christmas feasting

People say that Thanksgiving is the holiday where you stuff yourself so full that you can hardly move, but I disagree. On Thanksgiving, you have one enormous meal during which you may, if you chose, gorge yourself, but Christmas lasts for a whole season. Christmas cookies start being made weeks in advance and consequently begin being devoured weeks in advance. Then you have a Christmas Eve party, a Christmas dinner, and sometimes even more food on Boxing Day. Then of course, you must diet for the week up until New Years Eve when you are subject to eat even more. I think I should win the prize for most eaten this Christmas. Not that I totally gorged myself the entire day. While I didn’t exactly diet, I wouldn’t call myself a pig. But see, it’s very rude to refuse food and when you’re invited over to everyone’s Christmas dinner, what can you do but accept?

                Christmas morning began with the usual amazingness. Family time around the tree, listening to music, eating frozen mangos and pumpkin bread that Mrs. Okken made for us. At ten, we dressed up in our new finery, crammed our family, Amy, Leah, Mrs. Jantsch and Dr. Greet into our five-seater Toyota Land Cruiser and headed to Namalu for the Christmas service at the Trinity Church in Namalu. We met the Wrights there. Pastor Emuron, when he invited us, had told us the service would start at ten, which of course meant that he would start playing Christmas music on his boom boxat 10:00. And what music it was. Not just Christmas related songs, but gospel songs with a kind of 60s beat in the back ground.  I love how people blast cheesy music everywhere. It makes me happy. Then the service began with the most energetic singing in the world. Pastor Emuron’s wife, Linda, played the drums so quickly…and she never once missed a beat! I’m pretty sure my arms would’ve fallen off if I’d been drumming. She was also leading the songs most of the time, which takes serious skill. I only knew some of the songs. Many of them I had never heard before. But I still clapped away till I couldn’t feel my fingers. People were dancing, raising their hands in the air, praising God with enough enthusiasm to warm the coldest heart. Happiness seeped into everything, shining on people’s faces, radiating from the entire church building. After the sermon, there was more singing, during which more and more people came in through the door. Girls in their smart holiday skirts, men in their brightly flowered blankets, and everyone covered with beautiful beads, danced their offerings up to the front of the church. People brought anything they had, be it money or not. One woman brought a huge pot of porridge, while others brought a plastic plate or a pen or a couple of live chickens. The chickens, plate and pen were auctioned off to the congregation, one would pay 5,000, another 2,000 another 3,000 until all the chickens were paid for. Then the singing commenced again as row by row people danced back down the aisle.

                Pastor Emuron had been expecting us to join him in a Christmas feast afterwards. So he led us into a little thatched building and sat us down…all 15 of us. His daughters started bringing out the plates of food. They just kept coming! Posho, matoke(a bland banana that tastes like a bland potato), rice cooked with meat, chapatti, cabbage, huge pieces of goat meat, chicken, irish (potatoes), spaghetti, two kinds of soup, beans, liver, kidney and intestines. And to top it all off, a boy came in with a crate of soda for us. I bet you they could’ve fed the entire US army with the food they had prepared. They must’ve been cooking all morning! So we sat down and dug in. By the time we had all eaten our fill, the three tables of food still looked untouched. Pastor Emuron and his family had not eaten anything in this time, so now he called all his family that could fit in the building in and they all thanked us for coming and scolded us for not finishing the food. We all laughed and in turned thanked him and his family (which is just about as big as our mission including grandchildren) for their cooking. It was almost 2:00 when we loaded into the vehicles and started home.

                My good friend Susan had invited me, Anna, Mrs. Jantsch and Leah to come and share her Christmas dinner with her since her husband had been called away that morning on urgent business. So Dad dropped us off at the road side and the four of us made our way towards her home. She too had been cooking all day. There was rice cooked with onions and tea to make it brown (a Susan specialty), white posho, more chicken, beans, soup, and scrambled eggs. Let me tell you, Susan is I think the best cook I have ever met. She insists that she really has no idea how to cook and just makes it up half the time, but I have tasted her food and I say she cooks the best posho and beans I have ever tasted. But today she had cooked for us a special Christmas meal. SO we all sat down in the cool of her house and ate once again till we thought we would burst. It only took one plate to fill me up. But the food was so good, I wanted to eat more. I think everyone expects you to finish the food when you go to their house for Susan too scolded us for not finishing it. Well, the eskari will be happy tonight, she said.

                Normally, we go to the dance down at the Catholic Church every Christmas, so Susan escorted us back to the mission so she could continue with us there. I decided to stay home and help mom with the cleaning up and cooking for tonight’s mission dinner at 6:00. Was it already 4:00? Oh boy. So after processing the fresh green beans we had brought up from Mbale and putting them aside in a pot, I lay down on the couch and slept off the several pounds I had gained since noon. Mean while, James and Bobby were playing with James’s new iHome speaker that he got for Christmas and decided it would be really funny to blast fart noises that came on James’s iTouch, in my ear on the speaker’s top volume. Happy Christmas to you too. I threw a pillow at him.

                I hardly need to mention the sick feeling in my stomach as I munched down the third delicious chicken dinner since noon. Mr. Wright had created a culinary masterpiece out of chicken, bacon and mushrooms. Then there were green beans, mashed potatoes, cooked carrots and bread. And Mrs. Jantsch had baked a chocolate bundt cake for desert to go with Mrs. Okken’s Christmas cookies. It was all very well prepared and absolutely delicious, but I still ended my day collapsed on the couch. Oh, what we missionaries suffer!

warning! opinons expressed in this essay are strictly a means to a literary accomplishment and not the opinions of the author.

The Christmas season is a time of cheer. A time when everyone spends the majority of the time and money before Christmas making sure they will have time and money on Christmas to do with as they please. A time when  everyone gets all hyped up for one day on which all the kids wake up at 6:00 so as to make the day last as long as possible, and all the adults wake up to bouncing children at 6:01, wishing they could take advantage of the day off and sleep in till 12:00. A time when every catering company, fancy restaurant, cookbook, incredibly talented mom, fussy aunt, sneaky child and just average motivated person is busy in the kitchen, creating (or inspecting the creation of) gargantuan amounts of rich, sugary, not-very-good-for-your-average-diabetic, food. Of course, it’s not till Boxing Day that everyone truly appreciates the money spent, sleep lost, and food gorged part of the season.

This aspect of Christmas is a given. Every family everywhere sympathizes with each other come Boxing Day. However, by some this sympathy is shown by congregating at one house and giving each other trinkets and treats in order to comfort—the “bigger gifts to the bigger spenders” rule generally evening things out—while for others the sympathy is shown by the literal meaning of the day and is simply sent through the mail in a box. Over the years, the tradition of being social has slowed to a trickle. Instead of coming over to spread holiday cheer and enjoy each other’s expressions of joy as gifts are revealed, one simply stops over for a Christmas cookie, drops the box under the tree, then mutters something about putting another log on the fire and escapes back to the cozy  sweatpants and steaming cup of cocoa, to laze around in peace. I find this a much more rational way to spend Christmas.

Over the past few decades, statistics have shown that the percentage of sick children during Christmas has dropped considerably.  Statistics have also shown that over the same space of time, the rate of car crashes due to icy roads has also dropped. According to this chart (insert chart) since these are the only two things which have changed, it is only logical to assume they are connected somehow. Our next logical step is to consider the causes of both these tragic occurrences.

Our first issue, child illness during the Christmas season, can be illustrated by this second chart (insert second chart). We see here that the top reasons for child illness are INFLUENZA, PNEUMONIA, FOOD COMAS and OVER CONSUMPTION OF CHRISTMAS SWEETS. All of these can be directly traced back to socially connected Christmas traditions, namely family/ friendly gatherings. Everyone knows that it’s not half so much fun to have snowball massacres and build (and consequently get busted for building) anatomically correct snowmen when you’re not doing so with a large group of people. Both of these activities encourage spending excessive amounts of time outside which could lead to any number of illnesses including INFLUENZA, PNEUMONIA and FROSTBITE.

It is also common knowledge that every family attending such gathering is requested to bring some sort of food item. However, while this is common knowledge to us party-poopers, the families who are asked to contribute the food have apparently no idea that everyone else was asked as well and so bring enough food for the entire gathering. Let’s do the math on this one. If everyone brings enough food for themselves PLUS everyone else you get…WAY TOO MUCH FOOD! Once this is realized, each contributor begins to feel rightfully sheepish and so, as penance, stuffs themselves fuller than they thought possible in a useless attempt to reduce leftovers. This can result in FOOD COMAS or, in the case of children who slyly slip their meat and potatoes to the dog and instead survive the entire night on pecan pie, sugar cookies and candy canes, a SERIOUS SUGAR OVERDOSE.

Now, let’s look at the second issue: car crashes due to icy roads. This one, quite frankly, is so simple, you can sum it up in one short phrase—“spiked eggnog and icy roads don’t mix!” Did you ever wonder why eggnog tastes so good? Or did you, like so many others, get pushed back and told to let the adults go first. In the end, specific adults got a few more rounds than others and then decided that the party needed a little more “spike”, and so went out in a very crashable car which should have expired in the 1800’s to fetch it? That and the combination of all the ambulances rushing to pick up the kids in food comas makes for some pretty nasty car crashes.

Over all, as statistics prove the dangers of congregating about Christmas time far out strip the benefits. It is just as fun, and not nearly as dangerous to curl up  on a sofa in your pajamas with a mug of cocoa, coffee, tea or other such warming beverage (other than spiked eggnog) and just be lazy. Plus, with the recent improvements of the postal services all over the world, you don’t have to worry about being unsocial. Dollar store trinkets and cheep Christmas cards sent through the mail are lifesavers. Besides, if you use this method of celebrating Christmas, you are upholding the tradition of Boxing Day. And that’s what Christmas is all about, right? Upholding tradition.

a very fun week beginning

It was two weeks before Christmas and all through the house, every creature was stirring with the necessity to go down country. So down we went. We left Sunday after church, stayed in Mbale that night with the Jameses, drove to Jinja Monday, stayed at the Kingfisher then took a day trip into Kampala Tuesday and drove back Wednesday.

                That Sunday, as we were making our way to Mbale we saw a sign for the CPCC power project just past the Amaler prison. There was a mabati building, draped with power lines that shone with the flickering light of newly installed electricity. Heaps and heaps of telephone poles rose in some places taller than the building. Maybe this was the beginnings of what Museveni had said about giving Karamoja electricity.

                Monday noon found us sitting at a wobbly, orange-clothed table at Ozzie’s, a small restaurant in Jinja run by a lovely old Australian lady. They make the best burgers I’ve ever tasted in my life. It’s a small place, with only 8 or so small tables and a tiny kitchen off the back, but the white concrete walls bear the mark of true beauty. On them rest several very impressive paintings by a fellow named Angello. His color-usage is amazing. If I were a millionaire, I would buy a big house and turn it into an art gallery of his work. Well, other people’s work too (Katie’s for instance and Rachel’s), but definitely a few Angellos too. Also decorating the walls of this quaint eatery are numerous pamphlets, advertisements and brochures for organizations like ADRIFT, NRE, and less well known safaris, game parks and tourist attractions. Among these was a small white booklet labeled “street children in Jinja S.A.L.V.E. international” I picked it up and started to read. “Our research shows that just over 1 in 10 street children beg. Tourists play a significant role in keeping children on the streets in Jinja, as they are enticed by cash handouts.” hmm. Food for thought.

                Mom and I went into the market on Monday to do among other things, Christmas shopping. We walked down rows and rows of woven mats, cheap dress shoes, clay cooking pots, plastic jewelry and dried fish. They have the randomest things in the entrance to the market. People were shouting at me as I passed “Do you like to eat this kind of fish?” nope. Not at all. I think it’s the only smell in the market that I really can’t stand. But thanks for asking. We continued on through the part of the market where the produce is sold. I walked past heaps of oranges, mangoes, pawpaw, star fruit, passion fruit, jack fruit…fruit that I’d never seen before. This is the most colorful part of the market. Then the heaps of oranges turned into heaps of onions and garlic, the grain sacks full of green beans turned into grain sacks full of cinnamon bark. Vanilla beans, coriander seed, pepper corns, cardamom pods, rock salt, pink, yellow and red curry powers, crystal sugar, dried hot red peppers…the list goes on and on. This is the spice market, and consequently the best smelling part of the market. Next, in order to get to the clothes market, we had to cross what is affectionately called “blue jean central” or “the place with the creepy pastor dude who sounds like Gollum”. There is in fact a man who calls himself a pastor who stands amid the piles of jeans shouting at people about the fires of hell and need for repentance. I mean, he has half of a good point there, but too much of a good point can quickly turn to a very bad one when he takes to picking random people out of the crowd and assessing their personal sins from their attire. He once physically grabbed an unsuspecting tourist who happened to be scantily clad by African standards and made some very unfair accusations about her. Thankfully, he was not there today, so we continued our spree in peace. We walked from heap to heap searching through American thrift store rejects for a church shirt for James that was not Hawaiian, ripped up, or size XXL. Unfortunately, we had no luck. We did happen to find a surplus of rainbow colored hats, though. And a very cool belt with a glittery picture of Obama on the buckle. The entire time, this weird guy followed me around trying to sell me these cheap lace table coverings. He seriously would not get it that my table did not “need smart clothing” as he put it. Aiaiai. I argued with a guy over the price of a pair of jeans, getting him from 18,000 down to 5,000, only to remember that I was saving my money for Kampala. What a pity, for they were awesome jeans. And not a bad price, too.

                Tuesday morning dawned cold and drizzly, a very handy thing when you’re going to be working up a sweat carting stuff to and from stores all day. Every store in Kampala was decked out with mammoth amounts of cheesy Christmas decorations. At the entrance to “uality hoping village” (actually Quality Shopping Village, but some of the lights don’t work) there’s this inflatable Santa thing that changes position every ten minutes. It scared the flamingo out of me when it suddenly dove forward as I walked in the door. After the grocery shopping was done, we went over to Garden City Mall to eat lunch at the food court and go to Aristoc, the awesomest book store in the world. It was so crammed with Christmas decorations and security guards, you could hardly move, but I did find some rather good things in there. Then, James, Dad and I went to watch a movie in the CINEPLEX which, can you believe it, I had never been to, while Mom and Josh went bowling at “Alley Gators”. I tell you, that bowling alley is scary! There are these life size figures of alligators everywhere. Crawling on the walls, clinging to the ceiling, and all are destroying bowling pins with their monstrous yellow teeth. Sends shivers down my spine.

It was a very fun Kampala trip, even if it only lasted a couple of hours. Even driving back to Jinja and then home was fun simply because of everything you could see by looking out the window. You never know what you’re going to see out there. People wear, do and carry pretty strange things. Such as a coffin or bed frame or thirty live chickens on the back of a boda. I mean, people do and wear weird things in America, but somehow the weirdness varies from continent to continent. Nothing eventful in the way of flat tires or running over animals happened on our way back to Karamoja, so we arrived home safe and sound, with minimal injuries. J

Thanksgiving 2010

Let’s see, a month ago where was I? Ah yes…in the back of our car with James getting jostled along the Junction-Napenenya freeway.  Mzee Asiyo had asked for a ride to the Museveni rally so mom was driving Mrs. Wright, Amy and Lomongin and us there. And let me tell you, that was one of the smartest parties I had ever seen. Even fancier than Huruday! We were surrounded by a sea of yellow t-shirts with President Yoweri K. Museveni’s head, decked with the usual wide brimmed safari hat, printed on them. The words “Stability and Unity”, which were printed on the back of the shirts, jumped out of the yellow sea like black dolphins.

People were dancing in the streets, bells on their knees, beads on their heads and black and white Colobus monkey tails raised high over their heads. Some people held posters on sticks, others waved dried banana branches in the air, and others just waved their hands over their brightly crowned heads in praise. There were people all around us, still dancing and singing, but only half as much as they had been before they noticed us. White people AND the president. What a day! We made our way down the slope into the valley. The crowd got thicker as we neared a large tree under which were grouped approximately a million soldiers, AKs in hand. One of the soldiers, spotting us, came toward us quickly and pulled us out of the line. He apologized repeatedly and then led us towards the place through which the entire crowd was funneling. It was a metal detector. Like you would see at an airport. Under a tree. In the middle of Naturum. The shiny metal arbor looked more out of place than we did. We were then given the mzungu treatment which means that everyone else had to stop and wait as we cut in line. They asked to see our phones, wallets, purses, cameras… I thankfully had nothing on me of importance so I was free to look back at the hundreds of people lining up to walk through this thing. They all had metal bracelets halfway up their arms and legs.  I watched as a boy walked through the metal detector and freaked out when it beeped. A woman soldier walked over to him and searched his pockets. He had a little tin box of math instruments in his pocket. She took it away, looked through it, and then gave it back. He snatched it from her hand and took off towards the brightly colored tents that were set up to welcome Museveni. We followed suit.

You know, being a mzungu has its bad points. Sometimes I wish I was black just to cut back on the racial discrimination. But it also has its handiness. We were spotted in the crowd and given seats under one of the three tents. In front of us sat Mzee Asiyo. It’s understandable that he should be given a front row seat for he was once a member of parliament and ambassador to the Congo and he and Museveni were, according to him, old chums. But that we should get a seat behind him basically made my day. We wouldn’t be able to see anything if we were in the crowd.

So we sat and we waited. And waited. And waited.  Groups of singers from different villages came in, village at a time and sang and danced songs of greeting. At one point the nephew of Museveni came forward and shouted that in order to get more votes, they brought a gift. Now I noticed the stacks and stacks of cases of water bottles. These were passed out, first to those in the tents, then to the rest of the people. As Museveni’s nephew chucked them into the crowd, people scrambled all over each other, punching and fighting to get the bottles. Boy am I glad mine got handed to me.

In the center of the clearing a man hacked away at what used to be a small tree. When it had been whittled to his liking, he called to a man who brought out the Ugandan flag and a coil of rope. It was a beautiful sight, the black, yellow and red stripes dancing with the wind and the crested crane actually looked like it was flying, or at least flapping very energetically. A big truck with a water tank on it then drove through the clearing, a man walking behind it with a hose, spraying water all over the ground, drowning the dust that could dirty the flag and the president.

Finally he came. He climbed out of the car and went to sit in the cushioned chair that had been set on the red carpet next to the little table with the tissue box on it. There was a wastebasket behind him and a bunch of flowers on the table. A girl started singing the national anthem and I joined in feeling very patriotic. A truck with a podium on the back of it drove up in front of the flag and with great pomp and ceremony, the president made his way to the top.

And what a speech that was! He said that the only problem in Karamoja was the guns. He said if there were no guns, then there would be no fighting and everyone would keep his own cows and allow them to reproduce and there would only be profit for everyone. After explaining the problems of Karamoja and how to fix them, Museveni went on to promise the same thing he promised at the beginning of his last term, and the one before that. He said that he will pave the road from Mbale to Tokora to Moroto. He said the reason he didn’t do it last term was because in order to merit a paved road, there must be at least 200 vehicles traveling that road per day. But there aren’t. And this is all due to the cattle rustling and guns in Karamoja.

Yoweri K. Museveni made a lot of promises that day. He promised among other things, paved roads, 800 mill shs for Namalu water supply, a hospital for each district along with 200k worth of immunizations, increased commerce, and last but not least, to put Karamoja on the power grid. To hook up power lines from Mbale to Nabilatuk to Moroto. Then he took a sip of tea from his white china cup and said “I would stay longer to discuss this with you but I have to go to Amudat. I will be back.” He climbed from the podium, and turned to leave, but first he had one last stop to make. He made his way over to his good friend Edward Asiyo, shook his hand, exchanged a greeting, then left to the sound of hundreds of people singing his praise.

Let it snow?

The crackling of the grass fires drowned out the chirping of crickets and the squeaking of the dark bats that circled high in the star-strewn night sky. The music of the night-the groggy rustling of the midnight risers, the whistling of the wind through the trees, the song of the gibbous moon spinning on its axle-were all squelched in the searing heat. Twas sometime between 2 and 4 am that the wind shifted from the stillness that prevented the spread of the fires to the stiff breeze that blew the ash towards the mission. So this morning when I awoke and went to my desk, I found my Bible, textbooks and scrap paper covered in what I thought was a thick layer of eraser shavings. I tried to brush it off only to see an inky smear replace the fine dusting. I glanced out the window. Our cold corpse of a compound lay at the heart of a giant snow globe. Only the snow, instead of frozen H2O falling from the clouds, was a silent storm of shriveled pieces of charred grass catching on the screen of the window, landing on the dying leaves of the neem trees, swirling through the rustling wind like butterflies flitting over a flowered shrub.

Tis the season for lighting fires. The rain has stopped and the grass in the fields is dry so it’s the best time for clearing the fields. To light the fields takes only a small spark, a lot less exerting than clearing by hand. Unless of course it gets out of hand and then you have to fight it back from your houses so it doesn’t destroy your home. It also chases the rats from their homes and into the traps, and consequently into the stew pot.

It is now 2:30, and I sit at my desk, trying to wrap my dazed brain around numerous complicated and sometimes completely senseless geometry problems. Mom stands out at the laundry line shaking the dust and ash from the clothes before putting them in the basket. The wind shifts and all of a sudden, the crackling is louder. The air turns into a thick, suffocating blanket of grey-ish orange. My nose stings of smoke. My lips taste ash. Pieces of charred grass which somehow escaped the screen on the window float in my coffee. Once again it is snowing. I think it just got hotter.

At 4:00 we stand at the fence line peering between the thorny branches of our compound, watching the red-orange flames ebb and flow with the wind. It almost reminds me of the ocean, its fiery waves rising and falling to a deafening roar and crash. The fire is far, yet near. Surrounding our compounds are the mission fields fences by wooden poles and barbed wire. On the other side of that is no-man’s land edged by cassava fields. As we watch, an entire WFP cassava crop is razed to the ground. The ravenous jockey of flame races with the wind to the south. We watch the tall elephant grasses just two feet from our fence line flare red, shooting smoke in our eyes.

Standing out in the smoke, Akol and Papa Lokwii, two generations of warriors, beat out the flames that threaten to jump the fence. Kites and eagles circle over head, darting down now and again, then returning to the sky with a rat or snake clutched in their talons. Now, hands on hips, the warriors stand in the field facing the wind. Waiting. Watching. They say the danger is passing, yet still they stand. They say it is traveling east, yet the wind blows south. They say the flames will not com, yet the blinding blizzard of ash still blows in my face.

We cross to the northeastern corner of the compound, meeting Akol there, trousers rolled to his knees, hands grey with ash. “Itemokin” he says, announcing the fire’s change of direction. The wind once again shifts, picking up the fragments of char it had brought to us, then turned right around and marching north. The snow embraces me one more time before slipping its shoes on and following its master. I see the men from Nakaale rush out with branches to steer it away from their homes. The flames fade, then crawl away, dejected. I sit on the cement-like dirt, a pile of dead leaves and ants hugging my toes, and watch the snow rustle away, dancing in the heat.

on cholera

Cholera is not an airborne disease like meningitis. It is not communicated by breathing in the general vicinity of another person. It is from dirty water. It is from physical contact with another person who has cholera. It is from contact with the diarrhea of a person with cholera. So as long as we touch no one, stay away from the public latrines and drink only the water in our houses, then we should be safe from the epidemic that has seized hold of south and central Karamoja.

There have been epidemics before. About four years ago, there was a meningitis epidemic. I remember very vividly sitting for hours in the clinic ward pinching pieces of cotton off a gargantuan fluff ball and rolling up cotton balls to be used for immunizations. After that day, however, we were all basically quarantined into the mission. Doctors and nurses went to the clinic, we still had morning church, but village bible studies, friendly house visits and evening worship were put on hold. Of course, since cholera is not the same sort of disease as meningitis, such measures need not be taken.

It has been several weeks since the few cases that have been seen were declared an outbreak. The initial scare that had dominated this area first the first two weeks has now died down to an extra careful caution. Truth be told, people around here are far more diligent about washing hands and trying to keep the spread at a minimum these days. Perhaps it is only in the presence of mzungu that they adopt such measures, but seeing as even after such a short time, Nakaale is on the verge of being considered cholera free, I really do believe that people are getting better. People are scared, to tell the truth. They rush to the clinic at the slightest headache sobbing with the fear of cholera. And while sometimes this can be considered annoying and foolhardy, it is a much better practice to adopt in the place of resisting medical treatment until it is too late.

The other day, I was sitting in my house studying when I heard a Karimojong voice speaking over a loud speaker. The voice was yelling a warning to people, telling them not to drink Ngagwe, the locally brewed beer, saying that since it is all drunk from the same pot, the risk of enhancing the spread is high. They also stated that anyone found drinking Ngagwe would be arrested. The following Thursday, Dad was out in a village by the name of Akuyam, and he came across a number of green wheelbarrows that he had never seen there before. His friend from there said that the….people…..had driven in with their trucks, given people wheelbarrows and told them to dig latrines, saying that it will improve sanitation and reduce the spread of cholera. Notice they did not give them shovels, or hoes or anything with which to DIG the latrines.

I really do believe that the sanitation and hygiene around here has gotten better since the outbreak. I was eating lunch with one of my friends and her young daughter and after she had brought out the food, she brought out dish of water and a big thing of soap with which to wash our hands. What before had consisted of a little splashing of water now took minutes of careful scrubbing before rinsing massive soap suds off.

On the other hand, it has also encouraged the buying and consequently drinking of etule, illegal booze. The witch doctors are telling people that it is the only way to cure and prevent cholera. I suppose to an extent, that claim has a little truth in it. An alcohol as strong as that will certainly kill many things in your body, but with the scare of death hanging in the air, the risk of this turning into a disaster is high.

It has been at least a month since cholera has first appeared in our area. And again, I really do think that it is dying down considerably. The aura of fear has taken its shape in over-careful vigilance rather than foolish disregard. There seems to be more caution than irrational panic around recently. The way things are going, now cholera will have to fight pretty hard for control of Nakaale.

Dr. Jose Chameleon

I mentioned in the previous post a certain dog by the name of Zorro. And I must apologize for stating such rude things about his mental capacity as I did without any sort of background. You see, he has recently proven himself a little short of brain cells in a certain incident involving a potentially deadly reptilian horror. Let me back up.

In the beginning (of this story), there existed a snake about as big around as my pinky finger and as long perhaps as, say, a yardstick. Now this snake was knotted in a great tangled mess about eight feet up in a tree which had previously been the habitat of a certain chameleon. Yet, for the sake of the hungering belly of the reptilian monstrosity, the chameleon had consented in the most contradictory sense, to be swallowed whole as a late afternoon snack. The venomous viper, however, didn’t quite know what he was getting himself into and seemed to bite off more than he could chew. Quite literally, in fact. In other words, for about ten minutes he was completely immobilized by a chameleon five times as big around as he hanging half out of his mouth. My brothers, mother, Cosmas, Akol and I stood about the base of said tree for said amount of time while we waited for said snake to swallow said chameleon just enough to completely impede him from any free movement, without even the option of spitting the chameleon back out again to save his life. (You see, we have much experience with snakes vomiting their prey down on us from up in trees. One snake vomited four baby birds just before his death all of which Zorro consumed soon after. But that is another story)

When the snake had swallowed all but the tail of the poor heroic chameleon, Cosmas and Akol had us wazungu, who have as everyone knows absolutely no aim whatsoever, gather up quite a pile of stones and bricks with which to pelt the snake. We did so and I would like to attribute a good portion of the success of the execution to our stone-gathering efforts. But it was after the thing had been expertly knocked to the ground that our dear Mexican hero, Zorro, decided to step in. He waltzed right up to the thing, sniffed, poked with a grubby paw, and refused to flinch as the viper flung itself up into an offensive position and darted its head back and forth, fangs bared and tongue whistling. It looked exactly like a hooded cobra does before it strikes, only pathetically lacking in the head gear department. If only his pathetic appearance was worse than his bite. I fear to report that had it not been for the following actions performed by Cosmas, our dear dog would be no more. But it seems the dog feared the pain of stoning more than death by a mamba, and so he was convinced to hop out of the way just in time. We then completed the task of beating the snake’s head till the poison ran from his fangs and sank into the earth, never to slow the heart of another beast.

As a result of this fearful ordeal, our dear Zorro has rejected any caution he may have learned from it, and to this day has gained absolutely no wisdom as concerns potentially deadly serpentine horrors. And in case you were wondering, the title of this blog post has absolutely nothing to do with the story, besides the obvious fact that they both contain the word chameleon. Dr. Jose Chameleon is in fact the name of a musician who has, as far as I know, no reptilian connections.

A tragically comical comedic tragedy

I have discovered that it is completely impossible to sleep in past seven here. There is always something happening even early in the morning, be it howling dogs, prayer meetings or people coming to work early because their watch is broken and then deciding to sweep the porch outside my window whistling really loud. This morning was one of these mornings when I was awoken earlier than I wanted to be (but then I don’t think I’m ever that eager to wake up). I’m pretty sure this morning was just about the only time in my entire life I have ever literally leapt out of bed. Now, I wouldn’t exactly call myself a brilliant person, this being a direct result of the ownership of a certain brain that takes a good lot more road trips then the average sane person. BUT sometimes I can actually logically deduce things with surprising accuracy even within the confines of a few groggy half-asleep seconds. And it was on one of these rare occasions that I awoke this morning to the sound of feet pat-a-pat-patting quick as anything past my window. I simply put two and two together and translated the resulting four into a completely logical conclusion. The only people running around outside that early in the morning are the guards and the only reason they would be running was if they were chasing something. So I jumped out of bed, ran to the window and pressed my pillow-imprinted face against the cold glass. I saw three blanketed forms silhouetted in the darkness. There was a shout and a fourth came rushing through the gate that connects our compound and the Wright’s. Zorro, the youngest and by far the stupidest of our three dogs, came bolting out of the thorn bushes that line our compound, either chasing something or having a neck-to-neck race with himself. He then did several summersaults to the great amusement of the now five guards who followed quickly behind him, their bows cocked and loaded. I saw a flash of white, heard the surprised shouts of the guards and pathetic barking of Zorro, and then all seven dashed out of the range that the window had permitted my vision. By seven I now mean the seven parties involved: five jovial night watchmen, one very excited dog, and a slightly crumpled but none-the-less incredibly agile honey badger.

As I mentioned, the window prohibited me from watching any more of the tragic comedy…or is it a comedic tragedy? I can never tell. All of Shakespeare’s comedies ended with weddings and all of his tragedies ended with funerals so I’m not really sure how to judge each one. Well, I suppose this story did end with a funeral of sorts, but there definitely was no wedding in it…they skipped straight to the feast. I of course only heard of these things (though from a very reliable source). I really don’t understand why they didn’t invite me to feast on their triumphant spoils with them. I mean, come on…it’s a honey badger. Need I say more?

dear anna

Dear Anna Williams,

Once upon a time I wrote you a letter. Then I gave it to Dad to mail down in Mbale. Dad put the letter on the dashboard and set out. Much to his assumption, a greater part of the road was muddy and had already caused not a few trucks to get immovably stuck, so he decided to go around them. As you already know, the roads here are not like the roads in America. But not only are they made of dirt. When it rains, they become death traps of mud. And not only are they death traps of mud, they are mountainous death traps of mud. In other words, if you are not traveling in the exact center of the road (and sometimes not even then) then you are most likely tilting drastically sideways. So, if you are My Dad, and you are driving around several stuck lories in the road, and there is a letter on the dashboard, and the window is open, then unless the letter is stuck with glue, it will most likely not stay in the same spot. So Anna, if you get an envelope in the mail with the address written in my Dad’s handwriting and upon opening it you discover a flat piece of hardened mud that is remarkably rectangular, just know that it is not a strange souvenir from your crazy friend in Africa, but it is actually what used to be an envelope. Upon opening it, you will hopefully find a letter. Hopefully. It may not look like a letter. It may not look like anything. But trust me…it definitely was a letter at one point.

Your friend, Maria

sparkly

I’m pretty sure that the Dubai airport is my favorite airport yet. I mean, I have been through many different airports and it seems like each one has something unique about it. Schippol International Airport in Amsterdam has an art museum in it, which is pretty cool. The airport in San Francisco has this awesome play area with blocks and Legos and a Fisher Price slide. It was really fun. We built really tall Lego towers. (Words from the wise: don’t try to slide down something when your legs are longer than it is. Then people come and yell at you.) I think all airports should have play areas. But I must say, nothing compared to the airport in Dubai. I tell you, those U.A.E.-ians have style. The airport’s just about the hugest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. When I first saw it, I immediately thought of the Mines of Moriah from the Fellowship of the Ring. But only because it was super duper tall with pillars. That was the only way it reminded me of the Mines of Moriah. This place was…well…I think the best word to describe it was sparkly. Everything was sparkly. And white. And clean. Even the pillars were sparkly.  My brothers and I were so entranced by their sparkliness that we went up and touched them, half expecting glitter to come off on our hands. And then we looked at our hands and they were what? Glittery. So what did we do? We put the glitter on our faces. Or rather, on Josh’s face. Poor kid.

It’s become sort of a tradition, now. Every time we go through that airport we rub the glitter off the pillars and put it on our faces. It really sounds very stupid and juvenile, but when you consider that every time we’ve arrived in that airport it’s been bookended by super long flights, is normally at like 2 A.M., and the airport is almost completely empty except for really bored customs people who are very happy for the amusement…our actions become more or less justified.

Poor bored customs people. I would hate to have that job. In other airports, they always look crabby and don’t really talk to me at all, but this last time going through Dubai, the guy did. When he took my passport and saw my name, he looked up at me with an excited smile on his face and said “Your name is Anna?” as if it was the most amazing thing he had ever heard. I answered, even though he had my passport so I didn’t really have to.  Then he grinned and said, ”Do you want me to tell you what your name means in Arabic?”

Um yes

“Anna. It means ‘I am’”

“So, I am Maria Tricarico.” I said, thinking it was the funniest thing. He looked at me strangely, as if he didn’t get it. Then he laughed, and I was glad because I was starting to feel the glitter on my face forming a great big “I am stupid” on my forehead. What can I say? I was tired. But let this be proof that customs dudes really do have a sense of humor.

like Jack and the Beanstalk...only not

I’m not much of a gardener. I mean, I have tried many times to plant and care for a garden which I suppose means I am dedicated, but I have yet to succeed in actually making anything grow. This, of course makes me very frustrated so that the next rainy season I try even harder and work even longer to find out and fix whatever’s wrong with what I was doing.

I have tried many things. I’ve watered it every spare moment of every day to see if water-lackage is the problem, but that just ended up drowning every living thing down to the smallest weed. I’ve composted the ground first, which attracted snakes. I’ve planted it in the shade, where the sun-loving plants shriveled. Then I planted it in the sun, which sucked ever nutrient out of the ground and burned every sprig of life up till nothing but thorns covered the dry ground.  I’ve experimented with different seeds only to discover that every seed package I had in my possession, had expired at least four years ago. I even found some tomato seeds that expired in September of 1995. Where did those come from?

So this past year, we decided that to try moving the garden to a completely different area where there had not been a garden since long before we moved here. It was part in the sun and part in the shade and was relatively flat and nothing else productive was being done with that specific patch of ground, so it seemed like a good idea. Mom, Josh, James and I collectively marked out the ground and built a fence of tree branches and chicken wire. Then we got out our two half-broken hoes and James and I set to work. I nearly killed myself trying to get the metal to dent the rock hard ground. So we waited a month and a half until it rained. Then we practically wrenched our arms out of their sockets as we discovered that the ground had the consistency of clay and stuck to the head of the hoe so that as you lifted it up over your head, huge clods of mud would come with it and consequently fall on your head, or fly back and hit Josh in the stomach at which point all work would cease and the whole thing would turn into a huge mud fight. We must’ve looked pretty funny, dancing around the “field”, moving as fast as tortoises while using the effort of the fastest hare to slog through the sticky mud, clay shoeing our feet and clothing our clothes.

Meanwhile, Mom randomly scattered a few pumpkin seeds on the other side of the compound without hope of much. Like Jack chucking the magic beans out his window.

Two months, third degree sunburns , four billion blisters, and five hundred kazillion hours of frustration later, a carefully prepared, organized, planted, replanted and re-replanted garden sat out in the baking sun…all of its neat lines and heaps and markings looking beautiful. When it rained, it looked like a melted ice tray with its stripes and plaids of little lakes here and there. The symmetry was killing me. At this point I was very frustrated with the fact that all it was was neatly arranged piles of dirt and that any plant life was gone. The cucumbers, tomatoes, eggplant and green peppers had just not grown at all.  The corn had grown to a foot high, tasseled and then produced tiny cobs of corn (one kernel per cob). They were ultimately felled by termites. So the only things growing were about a fourth of the beans I had originally planted and random stalks of sorghum which I had not planted at all and just kind of appeared.

Then we went to the States for six weeks. Then we returned. The beans in the garden had shriveled up and died. The sorghum was ten feet high. Out of all the herbs planted, the dill was the only one that had survived (the only herb I have no clue what to do with had thrived to bush height). Nothing else in the garden looked even remotely alive. But way over in the far end of the compound, a forest of pumpkins towered over my tiny little garden, the vast shadow cast by its accomplishments eclipsing my formerly triumphant dill bush. I keep wondering if there are any magic harps or geese laying the golden eggs hidden under the huge umbrella-like leaves. Joyce had piled all the pumpkins she’d harvested while we were gone on our porch. There were 53 in all. I guess Mom has the green thumb.

 There are pumpkins piled and heaped in random places all around the house like under the bookshelves in the hallway and behind the dumbbells in Dad’s office. You can’t go anywhere without bumping into the golden devils. So I guess we’ll be eating pumpkin soup for a while. Flavored with…dill?

the de-molder

The house we live in is an old house that was bought by the mission from one of the local “big men” by the name of Timothy Lolem. The mission spent some time renovating it and making it suitable for living in before actually moving in in 2000. And since then the mission has expanded considerably. Not including the clinic and all its staff housing, three whole houses have been built as well as many smaller huts or bandas for visitors and MA’s etc, and loads of smaller projects are constantly going on. One such project is in progress at the moment.


The roof of our house is made of tin sheeting which makes for a very loud rain fall. I have often wished that we could have had just a flat concrete roof so it wouldn’t be so loud. You know, like the ones in the Bible where they have a staircase built into the wall so you can just climb up there anytime you want. I mean, how cool would that be to just be able to climb up there and hang out and do stuff. That would be so cool. Actually, over a portion of our house there is no tin roof so it is just flat concrete and we sometimes climb up there for trimming trees, tanning, and fetching things such as Frisbees, baseballs, basketballs, shoes, kittens, alligator skins, Jamie’s money belt…just things that we left, lobbed, forgot or hid up there. One of these flat areas is over the bathroom off the kitchen and because it is flat, when it rains the water sits in a stagnant pool up there. This did not seem to make that much of a difference until last rainy season when we noticed 1) water streaming down the wall inside the bathroom through a microscopic crack in the ceiling and 2) very large growths of mold in several places around the bathroom. The roof of Dad’s office was also like this and he too had found large areas of mold in his office. Because my dad especially, among other members of my family, is very allergic to mold, a solution to this problem was carefully thought out and executed by Mr. Wright. It seemed that the water had been seeping into the walls through the ceiling and so making it damp all the time. So a tin roof was built over Dad’s office to keep the rain off. And it has worked so far. Not only has it kept the mold away and prevented the office from flooding through the many cracks in the windows, it has also provided a shelter for various cats living in the vicinity.

Since it worked for the office and we were still having the same problem in the bathroom, it seemed reasonable to deduct that this problem would have the same solution. So now, as I speak, Mr. Wright, Heather, James and Bobby are in the midst of building an extension onto the present tin roof so as to cover the flat roof over the bathroom. We are confident that this will affect a major improvement.

Random Thing: there is this huge monster crack in the wall of the same bathroom, actually in the shower. Our shower (as most showers are) is built into a corner of the room and the crack is at about eye level (my eye level) through both walls, so I can see all the way out into the courtyard while I’m taking a shower. It’s kind of cool and kind of creepy at the same time. That’s been caulked before and we’ll probably just caulk it shut again. Though really…I think it’s kind of cool. Like watching tv while you’re showering. I mean, not that much happens out in the courtyard at the time when I normally shower, but sometimes I see a bird or something. It’s pretty cool.

My two best friends

I have just returned from six weeks in the States and being back is strange and good at the same time. Strange because of all the time in America spent talking about what we would do with Kate and Em when they come next summer and with Anna Williams (my best friend) who hopes to come next year sometime. It has made me feel as if I was supposed to bring them with me but have mistakenly forgotten them in America. But I haven’t and that is what must be.


On Monday morning, having been in Uganda for barely three days, I opened my geometry book and forced my jetlagged brain to concentrate. Instead all I can concentrate on is the hum of the termites chewing through the wooden legs of my desk. Not 10 minutes in I hear the familiar shriek “ah Mayhaa!!”So I decide to leave my work for more important things. I hurry outside to the awaiting shrieking kid who is so energetically screaming the same noise over and over again. Akol is the one and a half year old son of our laundress Lucy. She has been bringing him to work with her since he was born. I have watched him learn to sit up, crawl, walk, run, jump, dance and more. My little brother Josh has a “shop” outside in an old shipping container where he set up a show of local crafts like hats and jewelry and stools etc. He likes to bring his ipod shuffle in there and blast the two songs he has on it where no one will yell at him and tell him to shut it off *clears throat*. And every once in a while Akol will wander over there and dance to the music, his chubby little legs bouncing and his adorable laugh ringing through the metal walls of the shipping container. He’s learning how to talk now too. He can say the Karimojong words for candy, food, phone and water. Oh, and the only name he says aside from “Mama”, which is a given, is “ah Mayhaa!” or something to that effect, which is his attempt at pronouncing my name. The adoring screeching noise that is actually produced is of course impossible to accurately represent using our alphabet, but it will have to do because it is the only alphabet I know.

Akol is my second best friend. He runs screaming to me when he sees me coming and tries to suffocate himself in my skirt while in the process of ripping my legs off. He pees on me occasionally and has a lot of fun going around the compound picking up sticks, leaves, stones and random pieces of metal and trash that he finds on the ground and testing to see which one creates the most panicked reaction on my part as he shoves them down his throat. He really is the most considerate of kids. I cannot tell you how many cramps I have gotten in my arms as a result of that little angel’s fickle mind. He can never decide if he wants to be held or put down and shrieks me deaf when I do the wrong thing. See? He is even helping me with practicing patience AND muscle-building at the same time. He really is a good best friend.

As I stand with this boy in my arms, his head nestled comfortably against my neck, I feel how good it is to be back. Every sensation welcoming me home. The smell of the air. The hot sun on my face. The mud between my toes. The buzz of the insects crawling through the rain-enriched earth. The chirping of the crickets clinging to the grass in the fields. The long fingernails of a tiny boy named Akol digging into my neck as he tries to strangle my necklace off me.

a way of seeing things

The Greek scholar Herodotus called Egypt “the gift of the Nile”. Argentina was named “the land of silver” by Spanish Explorers. Thailand ‘s official title is “Muang Thai” or “the land of the free”. Ireland is “the Emerald isle”. And Uganda, my Uganda, is called the “Pearl of Africa’.


Africa. It is like a land from a faery tale. Foreign. Frightening. Fantasy-like. Unknown. Undefined. Mysterious. Intriguing. It has remained distant to many people for years on end. People shrink from it as they shrink from something terrifying and unfamiliar. Mud. Malaria. Flies. Cow Dung. Thorns. Crude huts with thatched roofs. Naked children with gleaming white teeth as strong as a tigress’s. Cannibals. Spears. Lions. Snakes. Deserts. And truly, those who believe in the thorny, cannibal infested desert wasteland have every right to be frightened, mystified, to want to keep as far away as possible. To not want to explore the unexplored.

People call Africa “the Dark continent”. Why? Because all they have seen is this darkness. They have never seen the incredible wonder and beauty of it all. They have never seen the beautiful snow-capped mountain ranges, or the colorful rainforests rich with life. They have never felt the Saharan wind in their hair or the sweet Karimojong rain on their faces. The Kalahari is not just a dry death trap unable to sustain life…it is a beautiful landmark and an incredible wonder of the natural world, home to countless content (as well as man can be content) bushmen and their families. Africa could just as well be called the land of beauty. I cannot describe to you the feeling of awe and wonder I feel as I watch a thunder storm rolling in across the savannah, or the deep red sun sinking behind the rolling foothills to the west of Mt. Kadaam, an ancient volcano that can be seen from my backyard.

Uganda is the Pearl of Africa. It is beautiful. Every speck of dust. Every fleck of mud. Every red tipped thorn and yellow striped snake is beautiful. If you look at a map of Africa, of the entire continent, and get a good sense of all the ins and outs, ups and down, gentle curves and jutting points of all the coasts, you will see that. Look at the rivers and lakes, the mountain ranges fringing the deep fertile valleys. Look at the deserts and the oases. Look at it all. On the right side of the continent—the eastern side—just about halfway down the coast, on the equator, there is a very large lake. It is this that is the beating, living heart of Africa. And from this heart flows a mighty river, reaching up towards the Mediterranean Sea, sustaining all life that dares to exist above it. Rivulets of water stretch out like fingers straining to touch the driest seas of sand, the loneliest valleys, and the most forsaken hilltops. It is just above this heart, this source of sustenance, that there is Uganda.

I have lived in Uganda for 5 ½ years now, almost 6. I have seen a lot of pain and suffering and fear in the lives of the people around me. Darkness does exist, I am not denying that. No mother should have to keep herself as unattached as possible from her child so as to feel as little pain as possible when he/she dies of hunger or sickness. No child should have to fall asleep without knowing if their father would come home alive from raiding the enemy’s cows. No human being should have to go through life without a hope of heaven and everlasting life after death. But things are being done about these things. Charity organizations such as the World Food Program and Samaritan’s Purse are seeking to find a resolution to world hunger. There are countless treatments for malaria and other diseases and illnesses. Clinics run by missionaries and do-gooders are rapidly spreading across the continent. The spread of the Gospel by missionaries, though a slow and difficult labor, is possible by the mercy of God. Nothing is impossible with God. In fact, everything is impossible WITHOUT God. The poor efforts of WFP count for nothing if they do not go about it in the right way . Every sick child shall die if God does not provide the cure. The eyes of the people will not see Christ as their savior unless God enables them to see.

God has really blessed me. He has given me the most beautiful place of Earth to call my home. The dirty faces on the hungry children should not be seen simply as characters in a faery tale to be pitied, but as real people with real minds and hearts and souls to be loved as brothers and sisters in this family of humanity. Their lives and their customs should not be viewed as a wall between our two cultures, but as an opportunity to learn more about Him and His creation. Through his mercy, God has allowed me to see the light that He has shown through the restricting title of the “Dark Continent” so as to catch a glimpse of the hidden beauty of Uganda…a glimpse of the PEARL of Africa...