Chapter XV
Chapter XV
It’s one of our last few days here, and the mixture of feelings – sadness about leaving, excitement about arriving home – has started. Yesterday, we went to a large cave way back on the side of a mountain. Walking into the cave made me feel like I had been transported into the Clan of the Cave Bear book. We had driven there which was an adventure in itself. We drove until the road ran out, and then drove down a footpath only about half as wide as the car. Even way out there, there was a crowd of children running after the car. Some of them followed us all the way to the cave. The cave has a huge mouth and a high roof that slopes gradually back about 30 feet. At the back wall there are two indentions, almost like alcoves. The roof is blackened by fires over the centuries. But what the cave has been used for in recent times was hiding out from Idi Amin. People running from his regime of horror would live there in the cave. It was really fascinating. We stayed for quite awhile, just lost in our own thoughts.
Later, when we got home, I noticed that I was feeling really itchy under the waistband of my skirt. REALLY itchy. I thought I had finally gotten a few mosquito bites. However, I woke up in the middle of the night with giant welt-like hives all over my body – scalp to toes. I took a benedryl, went back to sleep, and woke up with them all still there. I showed my arms to Fr. David and Fred. My arms were really broken out. Fr. David said nonchalantly something about one of his children used to get that way from eating potatoes. I thought – wow, he doesn’t seem very concerned. (I found out a few days later he had contacted a friend in Kampala about having me airlifted to a hospital, which is a bit OVER concerned). I kept monitoring myself, making sure I wasn’t wheezing or feeling constricted for air. No – no swelling of the throat or inside of the nose. All seemed to be on the outside. Weird, but extremely uncomfortable. Finally, I asked Fr. David to take me to a clinic to have it checked. So, off we went to a clinic in town. The door was open, but no one was there. So, after waiting for a few minutes, we left and went to another clinic. The Dr. wasn’t in, but the nurse looked at me and decided to give me a shot of hydro-cortisone. I thought that was a good idea. She also gave me some prednisone tablets to take, and some other tablets that didn’t say what they were so I didn’t take them (I found out later they were de-worming pills – worms can cause hives and other allergic reactions – yuck). So I got the shot, went home, took the pills, and woke up in the morning still covered with hives. We were supposed to go to a Revival that day and be guest preachers. I said I wasn’t going covered in horrible itchy hives, so Fr. David and Rick went off alone seeming rather irritated with my decision. When they got home, nothing had changed so I asked to go to the clinic again. This time, Fr. David called the Doctor (who is a friend of his) and arranged to have him meet us there. That seemed really great, until we got there and realized it was a power shedding night and there was no electricity in town. It was pitch black inside the clinic. The Doctor lit a lantern, took me in his office and held the lantern up to observe my hives. He agreed I had hives and gave me some more pills to take. I’ll have to admit, it’s a little scary to be ill in a foreign place, especially a Third World foreign place. Rick and I had a couple of Epi-pens with us incase he got stung by a bee, and I told him, if I start gasping for air, please use one of the Epi-pens on me. He said, well, he didn’t know if the side effects of the epinephrine might not be worse than the allergic reaction. At this point, his extreme analytical side almost put him in danger of being strangled by a wife crazed by itching hives and only wanting the reassurance that he would try to save my life if I began suffocating. But I remained calm and just slid an Epi-pen under my side of the mattress.
We were leaving in the morning for the drive to Kampala and the airport. When I woke up, the hives were receding finally, and we prepared to say our good-byes. We were unprepared for the formality of the good-byes. The family appeared, all dressed in beautiful clothes and bearing parting gifts we were totally not expecting. We wound up having to re-pack a whole suitcase. Several family members made very nice farewell speeches, and we all took pictures, hugged and cried. The family gathered around the car and prayed for us and sang a song. It was really wonderful. And then, we were off. I spent much of the next 7 hours in the car making a mental list of the things I’d rather endure than this car trip – bamboo under the fingernails, chemotherapy, Chinese water torture – and sticking my arm out the window to feel cool rain on the remaining hives.
September 4, 2006
And so, we are on the plane, flying over Newfoundland. We’ve been flying now for about 14 hours with one hour on the ground in Nairobi and one hour at the airport in Dubai. I wish they would hurry up and invent a transporter so we could beam places like on Star Trek. We have flown today over Kuwait, Iraq, Iran, Warsaw, Moscow and Oslo – unbelievable. While staring out the window over Iraq I prayed for our troops. Strange being on an Arab owned airliner considering the world situation. They are so blatant – all the maps of the Middle East on the air trip monitors contain not one reference to Israel! To them, it doesn’t deserve to exist. The newspapers carry articles about all the Jewish terrorists beating up on poor, defenseless Lebanon. It will be good to get home. I’m trying to just drift here because I’m getting that incredibly sad, depressed feeling that happens after all these hours squashed into this little space. Everything aches, and my mind has started ticking off all the things I have to jump right back into the minute we arrive. I’ve been away in a fairy-tale world for a month now – a place that seems almost magical to me right now. Africa, a place I never really had an interest in except maybe to see the history of Egypt. Uganda, a place I hardly new existed except in news reports about dictators and atrocities of people against each other, and terrible diseases like Ebola. No desire to ever go there. But God knew otherwise. He has given me a love for the country of Uganda, the people, the landscape, the strangeness. I’ve been fascinated by science fiction all my life, and always dreamed of visiting other planets and galaxies in God’s universe. I think this trip has been like that because it’s definitely a whole different world to me.
December 5, 2006
We are on our way back to Kabale to participate in the wedding of Patience and Emmanuel. My sense of excitement has become dulled by about 15 hours of flying and all that goes with it – swollen feet, hair that has somehow become greasy and stiff with no exposure to weather or exercise, heartburn, mind numbing boredom. Even the scenery from the window has become boring after a grand passage over the beautiful Alps that brought back fond memories of my trip to Europe with my daughter in 1985. After a brief time over Italy there became nothing to see but clouds. I drifted off for awhile and when I woke up and looked out I was momentarily confused. It still looked like just clouds, but they weren’t white. Stretching out interminably as far as I could see from 39,000 feet was sand colored – well – sand. Mostly flat with areas of clusters of dunes. Nothing green, nothing blue, nothing but sand. I think I have seen the Great Sahara Desert for the first time in my life. It is awesome and terrifying. So much nothingness.
I spent 18 years of my life living in the Sonoran desert. The Sonoran Desert teems with life. An experienced person could survive quite a while there. The Sahara is lifeless and vast. I began to think of life without Christ being like this. The sun was setting and since we were flying due South long dark shadows began creeping out from the dunes, pointing like long fingers toward the East. There was nothing else – no roads, nothing moving. The sun continued to set and the dun colored sand became gray, then maroon. So desolate, nothing to hope for, no landmarks. A small point of light appeared near the horizon. It seemed to be shining through a haze, reminding me of some of those glorious Phoenix sunsets when my children were little and we were building a house in the desert. I kept watching the light, the only point of reference I had seen in almost an hour. It seemed curiously symmetrical. And suddenly, it became clear. It was the moon, rising out of the desert like the sun rises other places. I have never seen this miracle before! The half disc of the moon, huge and glowing, wavering a little in the updrafts from the cooling desert, became larger and rounder and finally separated itself from the horizon to float free in the sky – a beautiful silver light – and just in the last lingering glow of daylight as the moon took over the watch from the sun, the bright sunlight reflecting off the moon revealed a long, winding river – probably the Nile, stretching gloriously through the barren desert – a river of life in the middle of death. And then there was just black sky and the full shining moon, a reminder that no matter what kind of desert we choose to make of our lives, there is a Light that shines and a River of Life to guide us and deliver us from the desert. I love you, Jesus!
It’s one of our last few days here, and the mixture of feelings – sadness about leaving, excitement about arriving home – has started. Yesterday, we went to a large cave way back on the side of a mountain. Walking into the cave made me feel like I had been transported into the Clan of the Cave Bear book. We had driven there which was an adventure in itself. We drove until the road ran out, and then drove down a footpath only about half as wide as the car. Even way out there, there was a crowd of children running after the car. Some of them followed us all the way to the cave. The cave has a huge mouth and a high roof that slopes gradually back about 30 feet. At the back wall there are two indentions, almost like alcoves. The roof is blackened by fires over the centuries. But what the cave has been used for in recent times was hiding out from Idi Amin. People running from his regime of horror would live there in the cave. It was really fascinating. We stayed for quite awhile, just lost in our own thoughts.
Later, when we got home, I noticed that I was feeling really itchy under the waistband of my skirt. REALLY itchy. I thought I had finally gotten a few mosquito bites. However, I woke up in the middle of the night with giant welt-like hives all over my body – scalp to toes. I took a benedryl, went back to sleep, and woke up with them all still there. I showed my arms to Fr. David and Fred. My arms were really broken out. Fr. David said nonchalantly something about one of his children used to get that way from eating potatoes. I thought – wow, he doesn’t seem very concerned. (I found out a few days later he had contacted a friend in Kampala about having me airlifted to a hospital, which is a bit OVER concerned). I kept monitoring myself, making sure I wasn’t wheezing or feeling constricted for air. No – no swelling of the throat or inside of the nose. All seemed to be on the outside. Weird, but extremely uncomfortable. Finally, I asked Fr. David to take me to a clinic to have it checked. So, off we went to a clinic in town. The door was open, but no one was there. So, after waiting for a few minutes, we left and went to another clinic. The Dr. wasn’t in, but the nurse looked at me and decided to give me a shot of hydro-cortisone. I thought that was a good idea. She also gave me some prednisone tablets to take, and some other tablets that didn’t say what they were so I didn’t take them (I found out later they were de-worming pills – worms can cause hives and other allergic reactions – yuck). So I got the shot, went home, took the pills, and woke up in the morning still covered with hives. We were supposed to go to a Revival that day and be guest preachers. I said I wasn’t going covered in horrible itchy hives, so Fr. David and Rick went off alone seeming rather irritated with my decision. When they got home, nothing had changed so I asked to go to the clinic again. This time, Fr. David called the Doctor (who is a friend of his) and arranged to have him meet us there. That seemed really great, until we got there and realized it was a power shedding night and there was no electricity in town. It was pitch black inside the clinic. The Doctor lit a lantern, took me in his office and held the lantern up to observe my hives. He agreed I had hives and gave me some more pills to take. I’ll have to admit, it’s a little scary to be ill in a foreign place, especially a Third World foreign place. Rick and I had a couple of Epi-pens with us incase he got stung by a bee, and I told him, if I start gasping for air, please use one of the Epi-pens on me. He said, well, he didn’t know if the side effects of the epinephrine might not be worse than the allergic reaction. At this point, his extreme analytical side almost put him in danger of being strangled by a wife crazed by itching hives and only wanting the reassurance that he would try to save my life if I began suffocating. But I remained calm and just slid an Epi-pen under my side of the mattress.
We were leaving in the morning for the drive to Kampala and the airport. When I woke up, the hives were receding finally, and we prepared to say our good-byes. We were unprepared for the formality of the good-byes. The family appeared, all dressed in beautiful clothes and bearing parting gifts we were totally not expecting. We wound up having to re-pack a whole suitcase. Several family members made very nice farewell speeches, and we all took pictures, hugged and cried. The family gathered around the car and prayed for us and sang a song. It was really wonderful. And then, we were off. I spent much of the next 7 hours in the car making a mental list of the things I’d rather endure than this car trip – bamboo under the fingernails, chemotherapy, Chinese water torture – and sticking my arm out the window to feel cool rain on the remaining hives.
September 4, 2006
And so, we are on the plane, flying over Newfoundland. We’ve been flying now for about 14 hours with one hour on the ground in Nairobi and one hour at the airport in Dubai. I wish they would hurry up and invent a transporter so we could beam places like on Star Trek. We have flown today over Kuwait, Iraq, Iran, Warsaw, Moscow and Oslo – unbelievable. While staring out the window over Iraq I prayed for our troops. Strange being on an Arab owned airliner considering the world situation. They are so blatant – all the maps of the Middle East on the air trip monitors contain not one reference to Israel! To them, it doesn’t deserve to exist. The newspapers carry articles about all the Jewish terrorists beating up on poor, defenseless Lebanon. It will be good to get home. I’m trying to just drift here because I’m getting that incredibly sad, depressed feeling that happens after all these hours squashed into this little space. Everything aches, and my mind has started ticking off all the things I have to jump right back into the minute we arrive. I’ve been away in a fairy-tale world for a month now – a place that seems almost magical to me right now. Africa, a place I never really had an interest in except maybe to see the history of Egypt. Uganda, a place I hardly new existed except in news reports about dictators and atrocities of people against each other, and terrible diseases like Ebola. No desire to ever go there. But God knew otherwise. He has given me a love for the country of Uganda, the people, the landscape, the strangeness. I’ve been fascinated by science fiction all my life, and always dreamed of visiting other planets and galaxies in God’s universe. I think this trip has been like that because it’s definitely a whole different world to me.
December 5, 2006
We are on our way back to Kabale to participate in the wedding of Patience and Emmanuel. My sense of excitement has become dulled by about 15 hours of flying and all that goes with it – swollen feet, hair that has somehow become greasy and stiff with no exposure to weather or exercise, heartburn, mind numbing boredom. Even the scenery from the window has become boring after a grand passage over the beautiful Alps that brought back fond memories of my trip to Europe with my daughter in 1985. After a brief time over Italy there became nothing to see but clouds. I drifted off for awhile and when I woke up and looked out I was momentarily confused. It still looked like just clouds, but they weren’t white. Stretching out interminably as far as I could see from 39,000 feet was sand colored – well – sand. Mostly flat with areas of clusters of dunes. Nothing green, nothing blue, nothing but sand. I think I have seen the Great Sahara Desert for the first time in my life. It is awesome and terrifying. So much nothingness.
I spent 18 years of my life living in the Sonoran desert. The Sonoran Desert teems with life. An experienced person could survive quite a while there. The Sahara is lifeless and vast. I began to think of life without Christ being like this. The sun was setting and since we were flying due South long dark shadows began creeping out from the dunes, pointing like long fingers toward the East. There was nothing else – no roads, nothing moving. The sun continued to set and the dun colored sand became gray, then maroon. So desolate, nothing to hope for, no landmarks. A small point of light appeared near the horizon. It seemed to be shining through a haze, reminding me of some of those glorious Phoenix sunsets when my children were little and we were building a house in the desert. I kept watching the light, the only point of reference I had seen in almost an hour. It seemed curiously symmetrical. And suddenly, it became clear. It was the moon, rising out of the desert like the sun rises other places. I have never seen this miracle before! The half disc of the moon, huge and glowing, wavering a little in the updrafts from the cooling desert, became larger and rounder and finally separated itself from the horizon to float free in the sky – a beautiful silver light – and just in the last lingering glow of daylight as the moon took over the watch from the sun, the bright sunlight reflecting off the moon revealed a long, winding river – probably the Nile, stretching gloriously through the barren desert – a river of life in the middle of death. And then there was just black sky and the full shining moon, a reminder that no matter what kind of desert we choose to make of our lives, there is a Light that shines and a River of Life to guide us and deliver us from the desert. I love you, Jesus!
Labels: Uganda Chronicles
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