Monday, December 25 Merry Christmas from Uganda!

The sun is setting here. Christmas is almost done! That means it almost time to call home so that I can get everyone at Christmas lunch!

I guess it won’t surprise anyone that the day didn’t go as I had planned! I expected a quiet day, that I would walk to Garden City for lunch, and otherwise, catch up on some computer work.

I did get to sleep until 8:30! That was very nice. And we kept power all night so the air conditioner stayed on. I wandered down to breakfast about 8:45. They had real coffee, not instant, this morning. And the potatoes were bright red (not sure why). The lady who cleans the room was waiting for me when I returned from breakfast. “Sir, do you want to help my family have a merry Christmas?” She has done well, so I gave her a tip.

While I was eating, Vincent called. Patricia had stayed at his house last night. She had slept very little because of the pain in her arm. He wanted to take her to see a doctor. Yesterday, he had started to the doctor, then decided not to go because there wasn’t all that much swelling. But he was concerned and I knew this meant he wanted me to pay. So I told him to go ahead and take her, then went back to my breakfast.

But a few minutes later, I called him back and asked if he wanted me to go with him. He seemed very relieved and said that he did. So I finished breakfast and Vincent and Priscilla came and got me in the van. Priscilla’s hair has extenders that make spikes sticking out in all directions. These seem to have been in place for a very long time because they look filthy. She had on a clean bright yellow dress with white flowers on it. The hem on the dress was out and so it was ragged. She had on her Project shoes and socks. She was holding one wrist with the other hand and she wouldn’t talk to me at all! I asked her to show me her wrist. She is so tiny. At 8, I could easily put my thumb and finger around the swollen wrist. She could move it and her fingers, but she had very little grip and there was a lot more swelling at the base of her thumb and on her forearm.

The streets of Kampala were deserted! There were very few cars or taxis, no boda bodas at all, and few pedestrians. And, most amazingly, the few pedestrians that were out were walking on the sidewalks! Must be some kind of unusual Christmas tradition. On the day we celebrate His birth, when there are few cars on the road and not a very good chance of being run over, all pedestrians will walk on the sidewalk like law abiding sane people rather than in the street like jaywalking maniacs and no one will dart between cars while they are stopped!!

The doctor was close by. It is called The Surgery and this is the place Phil Proctor recommended to us. The doctors are all British. They have a small compound on the side of a hill in an aging upscale area. We parked in a large lot with only a few other cars. We had to go up stairs to get to the entrance. Priscilla was limping noticeably, but I couldn’t tell the source of her problem.

The Ugandan woman inside was very efficient and nice in a very efficient way. She collected 60,000 shillings from me (about $35) as a deposit on the visit. Vincent had to fill out paperwork, but not as much as is typical for a new patient in the US. There was another white man in the waiting room talking with an Indian man. And there was a Ugandan man with very bad teeth. In a few minutes, his mother came out of the patient room. She was dressed in a beautiful golden traditional gown. Both her teeth were also sticking out strangely.

We didn’t have to wait long at all. A nurse called Priscilla’s name and she and Vincent walked down a short hall, then down a stairs. I waited, but it was a very short wait. During that time, though, I saw one of the doctors, a very tall young British woman. A Ugandan nurse brought a file to her, and they looked at it together. It sounded very professional.

Priscilla was two steps ahead of Vincent coming up the stairs. They handed a form to the receptionist and she called me over. “The charge is only 21,000,” she said. We had an emergency room visit on Christmas morning for less than $15!

The doctor said she was just badly bruised. She said there could be a cracked bone, but she wanted Priscilla to give it until Thursday. If she was still hurting, she should come back. She also checked out the cut in Priscilla’s head. I was hoping she would clean out the mess, but she only checked it and said it wasn’t infected. Vincent said he asked, but they couldn’t find a reason for the limp.

When I went up to get my change, I explained to the lady about our Project and asked if the doctors would consider giving us a discount if we used them for our children. “At that many kids, I’m sure we can arrange something,” said the receptionist. “We could set up an account, then give discounts against it based on how much you use us. I’m sure the doctors will be happy to do this. But you will need to come back in two weeks time because our administrator is on holiday.”

This could solve a major problem for us! We have no standardization in our health care, and that lets some of the problems slip through the cracks. So anything that would help us get consistency in treatment for some of these kids would be great. This is also the doctor that is working with Vincent to control his TB.

As we walked back to the hotel, I noticed that Priscilla had moved up very closely beside me. She didn’t take my hand, but I could hardly walk for her! They took me back to the hotel, and I asked Vincent if he had access to ice. He said he might but he wasn’t sure, so I brought them up to my room. Priscilla had never seen an elevator. She grabbed Vincent’s hand with her good one and squeezed as we rode up two floors. She was also amazed by the hotel room with carpet on the floors and bad wall paper. I didn’t have ice, but I had an almost frozen bottle of water. Vincent rolled it up and down her sore arm. She never said a word, but she winced as the bottle went over her forearm. I had her grip the bottle and that really hurt her, but she was a trooper, she never cried at all. I poured her a large class of mango juice and she drank every drop. I had very little else, but I did find her a mint.

I walked down with them. The down elevator really got her! She grabbed at both of us!! I took her out to see the pool, but she had no idea what it was. She wasn’t even sure after Vincent explained to her. Given the amount of gunk in the pool, I’m not sure that most Americans wouldn’t wonder about the purpose of this huge container of stagnant water!

I asked Vincent if Priscilla had gotten anything at all for Christmas. He said Agatha, his wife, was hoping to get her something yesterday. I asked him to call and make sure, but Agatha hadn’t had enough money left to buy anything. So I told Vincent I would come with them and buy something for her. I asked what she wanted and he said a dress.

So we down to the market. It wasn’t nearly as dead as the streets downtown, but it was all but deserted compared with Saturday! But the stalls Vincent knew were all closed, so we went to Garden City. All but one of these stores was also closed. We found two dresses left there, but they weren’t very nice. Priscilla would have loved either of them, but Vincent and I thought she needed something nicer.

So we went to lunch at the Food Court. There is an Indian place in the Court that I’ve never tried. With two of the kiosks closed today, I decided to try that one, but I didn’t have any idea what the items on the menu might be! The waiter was minimally helpful, but after several questions, he finally said, ‘I will make special for you. You can try many things.”

So I went back to my table. Since my stomach wasn’t feeling great, I ordered a mango laahsi without thinking that it also has homemade yoghurt! It was very good but sour.

Vincent ordered fish with gravy, rice, and peas. Priscilla wanted chips (French fries). She ate about half the huge plate and took the rest with her. I got her to try a bite of my Indian food. One of the things was a doza, a HUGE piece of paper thin bread rolled up. It was spicy, but not too much so and I dipped it in dal for her. She tried it, but apparently didn’t like it. She wouldn’t eat anything else from me.

I’m not sure what some of the other things were. I had coconut chutney, which I recognized and enjoyed. There was something that could have been potatoes died yellow with hunks of green on top and it was also good. The rice was fine. There was a dark brown doughnut shaped thing that quite spicy, and a white blob that looked like dough someone forgot to cook. It had no taste, but it was good in the hot sauce! On bottom was a thing like a thin crust pizza. I have no idea what any of the things on it might have been. The reds were much redder than tomato sauce and the green things were too green to be real. It was my least favorite, but Vincent liked it.

After lunch, Priscilla walked very close to me. She wouldn’t take my hand, but she leaned on me a lot. When we got to the first floor, we saw that the escalator was running. She couldn’t wait to get on it. It isn’t Vincent’s favorite thing, so he waited for us, but Priscilla all but pushed me to go faster to take her on it. She held my hand with both of hers at first, then put one on the rail like the other kids were doing. She was grinning from ear to ear when we got to the top.

They took me back to the hotel and this time, they left me there. “She had Christmas she will not forget,” said Vincent as he pulled away. I wish she could forget the hurt and the fact that her mother beat her. I hope she did forget about all that for a while. But I don’t think Vincent appreciates that it is a Christmas I will never forget either!

I took a nap when I got upstairs, then another one. I wasn’t really sick, but I must be very nearly exhausted! I didn’t feel like going out or doing anything but read a little and sleep. I talked to my parents a little before lunch, then Lisa’s parents. Then to Lisa, and to everyone at her parents’ house for Christmas, but I ran out of minutes long before I was finished talking to everyone.

I ate dinner at the buffet. Against my better judgment, I had French onion soup, but I resisted the temptation to indulge in the very wilted salad. I skipped the matoki and had boiled potatoes and cooked carrots instead. I have never eaten steak or anything like it in Uganda, but tonight, they had steak and gravy. The steaks were small and not even ½ inch thick, so I got two along with two small pieces of fried fish.

The potatoes were as good as always, and the carrots had no taste at all. The beef must have been hanging in one of the stalls on the street for a few days too long. It was tender enough to cut with a machete or very sharp sword. It was a little bit gritty, probably the ubiquitous Ugandan spice, red dust. There was a hint of ginger in the gravy, which Ugandans don’t typically use, so I hope the taste was intentionally included. I’m pretty sure this was the same fish I had at breakfast the other morning!

There were tons of deserts. I got a tart with white filling and white grapes on top. The filling wasn’t sweet and the tart was too thick. I also had more crème caramel, but it was left over and even though soaked with a watery caramel sauce, it was very dry. But there was pineapple upside down cake and it was superb.

Now, less you expect me to come home the size of Lookout Mountain, I only took tastes of each, but I do believe I’m gaining weight here. They cook a lot with butter, and starch is, by far, the major dietary component. If you can stay away from matoki and posho and the traditional sauces that go over them, the food here can be quite good!

Back to the room and back to bed. Kassanda tomorrow, the farthest place we go in the Project.

CHRISTMAS IN UGANDA

I wanted to take a minute to write about this. Things are different this year than two years ago. The Christmas lights downtown are missing this year, and I miss them! I’ve seen a few more fake Christmas trees and no one selling branches from big trees for Christmas decoration.

Very few Ugandans decorate at Christmas. Vincent has a tiny table-top tree, but I don’t think any of the others do. Some stores have trees. The hotel here has one decorated with the Christmas cards they’ve received. The hotel at the guesthouse also had a fake tree with simple ornaments.

At Christmas you see more mannequins modeling clothing at the stalls around town. Some will have more than a dozen lined up out front. They are ALWAYS note book paper white! It is so odd to see incredible African colors on snow-white dummies! And the other day, one of the shops had one of these mannequins standing out front without a top! Now THAT was a sight!

The most important gifts at Christmas are clothes. It appears that for many families, this is THE clothing shopping time. You see very few toys. There are some soccer balls and such, but few dolls and cars and play things.

There are also some of the most bizarre things around that you can imagine. People walk the streets selling things. Sometimes, they have a few items that they wave at passing cars. Others have bicycles. A bicycle is a beast of burden in Uganda. It is truly beyond belief what Ugandans can stack on a bike. Some merchants have displays on their bikes that tower more than seven feet tall. These bike merchants might have anything from mops and brooms to toys to spatulas and kitchen utensils to clothing to food. You see them everywhere pushing their bikes on these horrible roads, calling out there wares to whoever might be interested. The walkers are the most interesting. Their retail philosophy is based on availability where and when the customer wants. They are usually specialty retailers. The other day in a round-a-bout, I saw a newspaper seller, a man selling battery cables and rabbit ears for a TV (when less than 1/3 of Kampala has electricity!). Another had huge blow-up plastic Santas.

Christmas is still a time for family here. When you ask the kids what they are doing for Christmas, eating and seeing family always come before any thought of a gift at all. Some want to eat pork for Christmas, some chicken. The rich have turkey, the poor only matoke. But they all have each other.

I’m finally getting the hang of one thing. It doesn’t matter who you are talking to or about what, you MUST say hello and how are you before you start your business. If you just start into things, people look at you either as though you are from Mars or as though they hope to have the opportunity to really mess things up for you in some way. So it’s, “Hello, how are you?” first whether you are checking out at a shop, addressing the bell hop, or talking to an official.

So my challenge has been where to put Merry Christmas. Should I send my wishes before asking how someone is, or do I find out if all is well before sending Christmas cheer? After two Christmases here, I have no idea. As long as you get both in, the folks here seem pretty happy. They’re pretty happy anyway, no matter what I do or how bad things are for them. Even though Priscilla never did get comfortable enough to talk this morning, she never lost her smile!

And I have no idea what the protocol might be for blogging either! So whether my wishes for you should have come before my post or at the end, at least I am including them!

May you and yours have the merriest of Christmases and the happiest of new year’s.