The United States Ambassador to Uganda,
from MN is coming to Aura to meet the volunteers and ave lunch.
Coming Sunday the 16th. What to wear? Let's see, what
shoes since we will be walking to the restaurant? Dirty Birkenstock
or causal Teva?
Should I paint my toe nails?
Should I shave my legs? Why would
anyone be looking at my legs?
Well, should I wear my Africa outfit?
Or my US dressy outfit? If I wear dressy US it's black and I will
bake walking to the restaurant.
Tom, “What do you think?” Black....
“Ok, what are you wearing?” White...Great
Do you think we should give a gift?
Like what is here in Arua that is not in the rest of Africa? Well
they still teach the children to weave baskets here, so that is a
start, some napkins would be nice from our secondary project, the
honey from here is really good, a mingling stick would be nice... Tom
thought I should give up one of my baskets,
but I found a nice young
lad selling them so I bought 2 more, we had a mingling stick and I
never mingle (that is what they call stirring the enyasa (bread paste
mixture) they eat as bread) that can go in the basket. George works
at the honey refinery he can bring the honey, the napkins we got as a
donation, and of course I gave a speech.
 |
| The Ambassador to my R his wife across from me |
So for 2 days worth of
questions and planning here is the group photo. He was a nice man
from St Paul who took the civil service test after finishing at the
Humphrey Institute for is law degree and for 31 years he has been in
the Civil Service. They just finished the service in Nepal where
they brought the Peace Corp back to the country. We are the first
place they have visited and it was a very pleasant way to spend the
afternoon. They liked the gift and said they would come back. We
will see, it is a long long way to Arua from Kampala.
Greetings from
the equator which we cross to get to our all volunteer training last
week in Masaka, 12 hours
 |
| Crossing the Nile into Jinj |
from home.
We stopped in Jinja, "The
source of the Nile" to spend 3 days on the way home, but found after 1 day and a nice
American meal we missed our home and got back on the bus and came
home to Beautiful Arua. It feels good to be back in your own bed
even better then the hot water we had while we were away. Tom even
experienced a miracle. The pot holes here in town are worse then
spring in MN. With everyone driving trying to miss them they come
over to the sides to hit you if you are riding a bike. Tom
complained and sought help from the mayor and from engineers that
networked all over the world to give advice on easy fixes. (The kind
one does with a shovel rock and gravel cement marrum mixture. ) When
we got home form our week away, the road in town was being fixed.
The miracle is “things don't happen that fast in Africa”, so he
sat and watched and we wonder what happened and how can it be
repeated?
TIA Marc
PS The US military (marines) here call the PCV the people with the "dirty feet". Mine are clean and siny everyday but the brown is the suntan from wearing the Birkenstock...Just so you know
