Happy Birthday Tom June 6th 1954
Today we were on the 8 hour bus ride to Kampala. The seats are all plastic so you can really
sweat but the sky was overcast so that was lovely for the first 6 hours, after
that everything is tiresome. The first pictures are labeled for all about Tom
except for the lovely pit latrine on the way where the large flying ants are
building there mud homes inside the latrine.
They give you paper and water to wash your hands for 200 shillings (8cents). This is the stop for Murchison Park. You can see the bridge over the Nile just behind Tom. This is where the elephants come to at night and the hippo’s laze in the water. You will see people fishing in the Nile in the dugout canoes too. The country side is rolling hills like S Pennsylvania only the houses here are the round bandas made of mud and thatch roofs.
They give you paper and water to wash your hands for 200 shillings (8cents). This is the stop for Murchison Park. You can see the bridge over the Nile just behind Tom. This is where the elephants come to at night and the hippo’s laze in the water. You will see people fishing in the Nile in the dugout canoes too. The country side is rolling hills like S Pennsylvania only the houses here are the round bandas made of mud and thatch roofs.
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| Stopping to pray on the bus ride to Kampala facing Mecca in a garage |
The hospital here has a program with a Tropical Medicine rotation
open world wide to the med schools. When
I see new students in the wards I make friends and invite them over. The 2 beautiful girls in the picture with Tom
and I are Beth Bard from MN United Methodist Pastors daughter and Renee
Killaars from the Netherlands, the other 2 women are Geesja (her household help make the Christmas card
out of banana fibers )midwife from the Netherlands who helps out at Lifestitches
and who’s children we have become Honi and POPOP to and her children’s teacher Eleza, who was
interviewing for a job at the international School in Kampala, which she got.
The next pictures with other people in at our
house were Peace Corp volunteers Geo, Laura, Heidi and Cristoff from Germany who
gave me a lovely party for my birthday and Ann from the UK Next one is all of us on the veranda with Hannah who does refugee work with
the dioceses’ here also a German.
I took pictures of the MILKMAN fresh brucellosis in a can ( I am told he is 72 and rides his bike all over selling milk very few cows here are milkers mostly free range waiting to go on the hook at market, meat is so tough you are still chewing it the next day
BAKERY delivery man his bags all have holes in the bottom so
the air comes out (and the ants come in and the bread gets stale real quick)
but the bread does mold after 3 days if you haven’t eaten it so you always have
fresh bread with no preservatives…
Pictures of our keyhole garden with the compost in the middle note the 12 foot fence around it. The goats and chickens here eat tender young plants and we have so few we eat, behind the fence you can see the pineapple field. If you want to grow your own take the top part off with a bit of the flesh and put it in the ground in 2 years it will be big enough to eat.
I will take new pictures tomorrow so you can see what a
month does here for plants
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| Note how tall the maize is behind the fence they intercrop with beans and pineapples See how nice the zinnea's look Pattie? |
This is Herbert Tom’s friend and Lugbara teacher he is 11. He is from a family of 8 and has 3 below him. Herbert has non Hodgkin’s Lymphoma diagnosed in 2008 and treated with 2 rounds of chemo and then his father ran out of money so he got no further treatment. Treatment is given in Kampala and meds are free if the cancer center has them but if they don’t you have to buy your own which the father could only twice. The meds were 100,000UGX ($40) every 2 weeks and the dad had to take Herbert back and forth to the hospital every 2 weeks too on the bus and Herbert got very sick after treatments so it was overwhelming. Tom has worked with the father on a budget, our church and anyone else that would like to help cover the $3000.00 treatment food and transportation costs for Herbert. Just drop us an email. He had his preliminary work up again 2 weeks ago and the new biopsy is different than the 1st one so we are awaiting to hear what the new diagnosis is. Herbert tells us the African Dr are mean, the Indian ones are nice. The sense I get is if you become educated as an African that you get pompous arrogant and demanding and everyone should just do what you tell them. Very little compassion shown, especially in obstetrics. Enough, Back to pictures
These are pictures of Plummeria trees branches that Hannah cut for me. You just put them in the ground and they root and hopefully before we leave they will flower again. They call them frangepani here they smell as wonderful as they did in Hawaii when we made the lei’s out of them. Now I found out that is you take the white ones and break off the neck of the flower that the milk they produce heals fever blisters. Had an opportunity to try it and it worked well and fast
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| This is a kitchen in the alley in Kampala one of 13 all lined up and making lunch for the people downtown |
but Geo does so Betty invites and buys the beverages Geo buys the groceries and we get together and cook all afternoon and invite the brothers and other guests at the Cristus Center over for a meal. It is always different people except for 1 chow hound who comes to clean up. The Lugbara people eat beans and enyasa (there bread made from cassava and sourgum with water mixed together like heavy paste) everyday 2X day. (I think the enyasa tastes like it has sand in it so I only eat the beans) They eat huge amounts of food. There plates are heaped so we make lots. These are pictures of her 3 dinner parties Sorry I can't figure out how to get them from email to the blog so these are different pictures
The last pictures are from the bus in Kampala it is the road they make the furniture on when it rains they cover some of them but the others will dry eventually in the hot hot sun
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| Dumpster Diving |
