Chapter IX
Chapter IX
Kabale Town
The streets are lined with small shops. Shops of the same type congregate so it’s almost like the whole town is one big department store. A block of textile shops, brightly dyed and patterned yards of material hanging in front, is adjacent to a block of garment stores, tailors sitting outside peddling away on manual sewing machines (immune to power outages). Then comes a block of household item stores, a block of furniture stores (the furniture being constructed on the sidewalk in front of the shops, rain or shine), a block of stationers, a block of parts stores for electrical and plumbing. Interspersed at odd intervals are tea rooms, hotels, and drugstores (some for humans, some for animals), video rentals and office services (copies, faxes, print-outs etc.) One store specializes in drums, a big item here. All different sizes and sounds of drums and some other types of musical instruments. The names of the shops and restaurants are interesting. There is the Big Bite restaurant, specializing in both African and Indian food. There is Amazing Grace textile shop, Jehovah Jireh Stationers,. There are a couple of internet cafés, the post office, telephone company and banks (complete with rifle-toting guards). In the middle of town is the food market with rows and rows of fresh fruits and vegetables and butcher shops interspersed with a few little variety stalls where laundry soap, toothpaste, toilet paper etc. can be purchased. Goats, chickens, pigs and cows wander the streets intermingling with people walking, bicycles and motorcycles and cars and trucks honking at the rest to get out of the way. There are no stop signs or marked lanes (or pavement) and a lot of potholes. There are open trenches where water lines are being repaired, or where something was dug up long ago and the hole was never refilled. The town has several trash heaps that are grazed by goats and cows in between trash burnings. It can get very aromatic.
The people are mostly friendly and curious about us. We have seen a total of 11 white people in the past 10 days. We saw a woman with a little boy about 4 years old who had a mop of platinum blonde hair and very white skin. All the little African children were laughing and pointing at him as they walked by. I don’t think they were being mean—they are just fascinated by white skin and light hair.
We went to an internet café because I wanted to check my email. You go in, get in line and wait your turn, hoping the person who vacates a computer when it’s your turn was using one that was less than three years old. The one I got had a keyboard with all the letters worn off and painted back on with white-out. It took me quite awhile to get my small message typed as the keys kept sticking. Fortunately, it’s very inexpensive so the 40 minutes it took me to send two short messages only cost me less than $1.00.
Patience
Patience, Fr. David’s daughter and my pen-pal, is beautiful inside and out. She is expressive, loving, intelligent and just mischievous enough to be really fun to be with. She works very hard but still takes time to dream. She is looking forward to her marriage, especially having children. (Both which have already occurred by the time of this newsletter article). She loves Jesus so much. The evening I gave her the wedding gifts from several parishioners which contained cash, she began praising God. She had not known where the money for her wedding dress would come from and had been praying about it. She said she was awake part of the night praising God for these generous gifts and the people who gave them. Yesterday, Patience and I went shopping to look for a dress for me to wear at the Introduction Ceremony. I love the clothes here and wish I could buy a lot of them! They are beautiful and comfortable at the same time, and made for people with actual bodies. At one shop, Patience tried on a wedding gown. She was stunning! She wants to know all about our wedding customs and other things in the U.S. She loves to dream and plan for the future, and hopes to have a job soon. Her future husband, Emmanuel, is a high school teacher. They grew up together and really love each other. Patience is the oldest of 7 children and worked to help several of the rest of them through school after she finished her education. All the children, ranging from 28 to 12, seem very close and compatible.
Constance
Constance is Fr. David’s wife. She doesn’t speak English which is a big disappointment to me because I would love to talk to her about so many things. I know she shares the frustration. She has been such a loving and enthusiastic hostess. She and Fr. David are obviously still as much in love as they were when they got married 32 years ago, when he was 16 and she was 17. She became a Christian first and he followed her later. They have been through a lot together including the SIDS death of their first child. I hope so much he can bring her to visit some day. Then I can spoil her for a couple of weeks. She certainly deserves it.
Fruit Trees
Yesterday we went to visit an agricultural research station where they are working on growing fruit not native to the area like apples, pears and peaches. Most of trees looked dead—no leaves. But then the researcher/guide, Dennis, told us that the trees here at the Equator have to be manually exfoliated twice per year to trick them into thinking it’s time to begin preparing for a new crop. Because there are no seasons here the trees don’t know when to do what. I found that fascinating.
Frustration
I also experienced what it feels like to be foiled at every turn. I have been trying to find ways to get some cash in this town. The bank’s won’t take any charge cards and my ATM cards are rejected in the local ATM machines. So I thought maybe I could go on line and wire myself some money like I wire donations to Fr. David. Well, after waiting 35 minutes for a computer, I called up Golden 1 and signed on to my account with the intention of sending an email asking the bank to wire me some money—but NO—the web browser used by the Internet Café in Kabale, Uganda, is not one recognized by Golden 1 in Sacramento, California. So then I went through all the contortions to do an online transfer through Western Union. This took 15 minutes, mostly of waiting while the slow slow SLOW computer processed each step. Finally—the last step– push send to initiate the transfer. But—NO, they cannot process my request because, in order to wire myself money from my own account I have to be physically present in the U.S. to do it. Too bad I can’t just beam home, wire the money to Africa, and beam back real quick to pick it up at Western Union. So I explained the situation to Patience, who had been patiently waiting for me during all this time. I decided to call my son Joe and humbly say, “I know I’m the Mom and you’re the (42 year old) kid, but HELP—please send money. But it’s not that easy. First I have to go to a place that sells air time so I can put the time into Fr. David’s cell phone so I can call Joe. The time costs 1000 UGS per minute—about 75 cents American. So I bought 10 minutes worth of time with my rapidly diminishing bankroll. Then I had to wait for it to be a reasonable hour in California before I could call due to the 10 hour time difference. I wrote everything down so I could give all the information to Joe in 10 minutes, always keeping in mind that the line could abort in 2 minutes or whenever it decides to. I got through, the line stayed good for 9 whole minutes and now I’m waiting to find out if it worked. I know God has some kind of lesson in this for me.
Kabale Town
The streets are lined with small shops. Shops of the same type congregate so it’s almost like the whole town is one big department store. A block of textile shops, brightly dyed and patterned yards of material hanging in front, is adjacent to a block of garment stores, tailors sitting outside peddling away on manual sewing machines (immune to power outages). Then comes a block of household item stores, a block of furniture stores (the furniture being constructed on the sidewalk in front of the shops, rain or shine), a block of stationers, a block of parts stores for electrical and plumbing. Interspersed at odd intervals are tea rooms, hotels, and drugstores (some for humans, some for animals), video rentals and office services (copies, faxes, print-outs etc.) One store specializes in drums, a big item here. All different sizes and sounds of drums and some other types of musical instruments. The names of the shops and restaurants are interesting. There is the Big Bite restaurant, specializing in both African and Indian food. There is Amazing Grace textile shop, Jehovah Jireh Stationers,. There are a couple of internet cafés, the post office, telephone company and banks (complete with rifle-toting guards). In the middle of town is the food market with rows and rows of fresh fruits and vegetables and butcher shops interspersed with a few little variety stalls where laundry soap, toothpaste, toilet paper etc. can be purchased. Goats, chickens, pigs and cows wander the streets intermingling with people walking, bicycles and motorcycles and cars and trucks honking at the rest to get out of the way. There are no stop signs or marked lanes (or pavement) and a lot of potholes. There are open trenches where water lines are being repaired, or where something was dug up long ago and the hole was never refilled. The town has several trash heaps that are grazed by goats and cows in between trash burnings. It can get very aromatic.
The people are mostly friendly and curious about us. We have seen a total of 11 white people in the past 10 days. We saw a woman with a little boy about 4 years old who had a mop of platinum blonde hair and very white skin. All the little African children were laughing and pointing at him as they walked by. I don’t think they were being mean—they are just fascinated by white skin and light hair.
We went to an internet café because I wanted to check my email. You go in, get in line and wait your turn, hoping the person who vacates a computer when it’s your turn was using one that was less than three years old. The one I got had a keyboard with all the letters worn off and painted back on with white-out. It took me quite awhile to get my small message typed as the keys kept sticking. Fortunately, it’s very inexpensive so the 40 minutes it took me to send two short messages only cost me less than $1.00.
Patience
Patience, Fr. David’s daughter and my pen-pal, is beautiful inside and out. She is expressive, loving, intelligent and just mischievous enough to be really fun to be with. She works very hard but still takes time to dream. She is looking forward to her marriage, especially having children. (Both which have already occurred by the time of this newsletter article). She loves Jesus so much. The evening I gave her the wedding gifts from several parishioners which contained cash, she began praising God. She had not known where the money for her wedding dress would come from and had been praying about it. She said she was awake part of the night praising God for these generous gifts and the people who gave them. Yesterday, Patience and I went shopping to look for a dress for me to wear at the Introduction Ceremony. I love the clothes here and wish I could buy a lot of them! They are beautiful and comfortable at the same time, and made for people with actual bodies. At one shop, Patience tried on a wedding gown. She was stunning! She wants to know all about our wedding customs and other things in the U.S. She loves to dream and plan for the future, and hopes to have a job soon. Her future husband, Emmanuel, is a high school teacher. They grew up together and really love each other. Patience is the oldest of 7 children and worked to help several of the rest of them through school after she finished her education. All the children, ranging from 28 to 12, seem very close and compatible.
Constance
Constance is Fr. David’s wife. She doesn’t speak English which is a big disappointment to me because I would love to talk to her about so many things. I know she shares the frustration. She has been such a loving and enthusiastic hostess. She and Fr. David are obviously still as much in love as they were when they got married 32 years ago, when he was 16 and she was 17. She became a Christian first and he followed her later. They have been through a lot together including the SIDS death of their first child. I hope so much he can bring her to visit some day. Then I can spoil her for a couple of weeks. She certainly deserves it.
Fruit Trees
Yesterday we went to visit an agricultural research station where they are working on growing fruit not native to the area like apples, pears and peaches. Most of trees looked dead—no leaves. But then the researcher/guide, Dennis, told us that the trees here at the Equator have to be manually exfoliated twice per year to trick them into thinking it’s time to begin preparing for a new crop. Because there are no seasons here the trees don’t know when to do what. I found that fascinating.
Frustration
I also experienced what it feels like to be foiled at every turn. I have been trying to find ways to get some cash in this town. The bank’s won’t take any charge cards and my ATM cards are rejected in the local ATM machines. So I thought maybe I could go on line and wire myself some money like I wire donations to Fr. David. Well, after waiting 35 minutes for a computer, I called up Golden 1 and signed on to my account with the intention of sending an email asking the bank to wire me some money—but NO—the web browser used by the Internet Café in Kabale, Uganda, is not one recognized by Golden 1 in Sacramento, California. So then I went through all the contortions to do an online transfer through Western Union. This took 15 minutes, mostly of waiting while the slow slow SLOW computer processed each step. Finally—the last step– push send to initiate the transfer. But—NO, they cannot process my request because, in order to wire myself money from my own account I have to be physically present in the U.S. to do it. Too bad I can’t just beam home, wire the money to Africa, and beam back real quick to pick it up at Western Union. So I explained the situation to Patience, who had been patiently waiting for me during all this time. I decided to call my son Joe and humbly say, “I know I’m the Mom and you’re the (42 year old) kid, but HELP—please send money. But it’s not that easy. First I have to go to a place that sells air time so I can put the time into Fr. David’s cell phone so I can call Joe. The time costs 1000 UGS per minute—about 75 cents American. So I bought 10 minutes worth of time with my rapidly diminishing bankroll. Then I had to wait for it to be a reasonable hour in California before I could call due to the 10 hour time difference. I wrote everything down so I could give all the information to Joe in 10 minutes, always keeping in mind that the line could abort in 2 minutes or whenever it decides to. I got through, the line stayed good for 9 whole minutes and now I’m waiting to find out if it worked. I know God has some kind of lesson in this for me.
Labels: Uganda Chronicles
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