Sunday December 17: Tilapia and Church

Vincent arrived a half hour early this morning to take us to church. He had to wait because we were hardly finished with breakfast when he pulled in. It was the first of many!

There was no traffic at all, so we made a quick dash to church. The crowd was light for the first 2 hours as they sang and danced and prayed. Then Jon preached the Christmas Story from a realistic rather than the typical romanticized perspective. They seemed to follow him closely.

After the sermon, I had everyone come up and made first a picture, then a video of them wishing everyone there a merry Christmas. Then, Joseph spoke for a minute, then five members. Finally, we had the kids come up and went through the same with them.

Last year, Joseph told me that 2005 would be the last time Brainerd gave them gifts at Christmas. He said from now on, they would exchange gifts with Brainerd. So when we arrived, Joseph showed us how his members had taken the Brainerd directory and chosen people to send gifts to. These were random selections: not sponsors, not church leaders, not people who had visited Uganda before. This was simply a situation where Ugandans looked at a directory and selected families that interested them based solely on a picture.

So the final part of my video to Brainerd has all these people coming up on stage and presenting Jon and Jim gifts to carry home to Brainerd. It took a long time!

There were other things on the agenda after church other than lunch. First, we drove to Joseph’s house where Lydia had prepared mango and cookies for us. Baby Lisa was hilarious. She has a mind of her own, which, with the terrible twos gets rather interesting. She was hitting people with her new stuffed bear and generally reeking havoc. She won’t speak to me at all, and cries if I try to talk to her.

From there, it was on to Jane’s house. I really dreaded this because we had cut off support to her because she was causing trouble in the project and her son, Mark, was, too. In the end, there was plenty of blame to go around, and everyone agreed that Jane and Mark would meet with the church monthly to work out problems. Jane can be frustrating because she is very stubborn at times. But this widow lady has late stage AIDS (one summer, she went into the hospital to die), three boys of her own, and seven adopted orphans! I don’t see how she can possibly keep it all together. We reinstated Mark in school and agreed to continue her rent.

Finally, it was time to eat. Vincent chose a fish place almost all the way out at Entebbe. Traffic had picked up a bit, so it took a while to get there. This was the place where Lisa, Kim, David, and I went a couple of summers ago. It is an interesting set up with a lot of buildings that don’t appear to be completed. It sits directly on the shore of Lake Victoria and the setting is ideal. The lot was crowded when we got there at 3:30. We parked and walked in to find that there was a HUGE Muslim wedding underway. There was another obnoxious MC screeching into a much too loud noise system. We walked past the gathering to a table beneath a tree.

A waitress came at once and took our orders. We were seated outside the rest rooms, and the smell and number of over fed flies were less than desirable. Jon went into the restroom. I knew from experience he would find a very smelly large room with no urinals or commodes, only a concrete trench running down the edge of the wall and those same huge flies that, should three of them pool their resources could easily carry away a small cat.

There were also flies, so when Jon came out, we moved to a small structure by the lake. Our waitress found us and asked to be paid for the meal, which I did. Then we waited 2.5 hours for our food!

Everyone had fish and chips, so when it finally arrived, each plate was the same. We had a plate of delicious French fries, and a very huge fish! The fish are gutted and fried whole, and they are wonderful!

We were starved and ate quickly, then climbed in the van and returned to the guesthouse. I stopped at Reception to get our keys and the deskclerk handed me an envelope. It had 5,000 shillings in it (not quite $3, but a day’s pay for the cleaning folks). I had exchanged money on Saturday and apparently left the bill in the envelope which I threw away. She had found it in the trash and took it to the front desk.

We were tired from all the waiting and decided to go to bed early. Tomorrow, we plan to go to Jinja!!