My last full day in Uganda.
I had a quite schedule that, of course, turned out to be anything but. They came at 9:00. Our plan was to talk briefly about church plans for the coming year. The meeting lasted for more than 3 hours! There is SOOO much to do, and our team is so willing, but they need training. So I did what I could in the time I had, then we loaded the van and went to lunch. We were back at Garden City once again. I ate a pita sandwich from a Lebanese stall at the food court.
At 2:00, I was scheduled to meet Monique at the clinic. This would be our first meeting since we fired Monique for mismanagement some two and a half years ago. It was also the first time I had seen the clinic since it was completed. It was very nicely done! There were at least eight beds, and there is a doctor on duty more or less all the time. They actually have the capacity to hold patients overnight! They don’t have much in the way of equipment, but Monique said they see a lot of patients.
I talked with her for over an hour. None of my team would go in the room with me. There was much to discuss! She still contends that she took no money and that she simply had a poor bookkeeping system. We talked about many things and about a lot of specific kids and situations. Then I went around and made pictures. Monique called home to make sure all the kids were there, and we drove her in our van to her house. I got to see everyone, Kathy, Phoebe, Andrew, and Anna. They have grown tremendously, especially Andrew. Helen was also there. She has reentered school in Monique’s program. The kids were very cool. In fact, they said nothing at all to me. John came in after a few minutes and we talked a bit more.
I can’t say that we settled much. John did agree to sign a letter of release from an old church registration. And it truly was good to see them all. We’ve known this family for nearly twenty years, and in truth, I miss them! We sat around and drank soft drinks for a bit, then we got up to go. But Phoebe and Helen decided (or perhaps Monique decided for them) that they should write to Lisa so we had to wait almost long enough for each to complete Gone with the Wind in Latin! I finally made a family photo and we took Monique and Kathy back to the clinic.
From there, we went back to church and I gave them more pointers on Excel. This time, they took exhaustive notes and I gave them a chance to practice what I was showing them. Both Joseph and Grace were working through everything with Vincent and Michael watching. It went very well.
Michael said I had three visitors waiting for me. The first was Mutebi. He was like a new boy! Monique had thanked me for helping him-he is her nephew. His eyes were so much brighter and he was actually laughing a bit. He is still terribly disfigured by some sort of skin infection, but he said the medicine made him feel better. The doctor wanted him to come back tomorrow for treatment. He handed me a small paper envelope. Inside was a syringe and a small container of medicine. He said they sent him out for it and said he would get the injection when he returned tomorrow.
And so another very odd thing about the Uganda health care system. The hospital does not keep medicine! There is a pharmacy nearby, so the doctor gives prescriptions and the patient most go and fill it. In cases like Mutebi’s, he actually bought the syringe and everything then he goes back later to get shot!
The boy was simply ecstatic! Again, I believe it was more about someone paying attention to him than the treatment he was receiving, though some of the pus seemed to be drying up in the mass of tumors on the side of his face.
Mark was also waiting to see me. He said he had heard that President Ford was dead and it made him very sad. He obviously had never heard of President Ford, and he was most amazed that we were waiting until next Wednesday to bury him! In a nation without embalming, I guess he thought President Ford would be well passed ripe by then!
His mother, Jane was also waiting outside. To get outside to talk to her, I had to step around a teenaged mother who was breast feeding her tiny baby. There were a couple of guys out there talking to her, but they left when I came out. As I talked to Jane, it sounded as though the baby couldn’t decide whether she wanted the left or the right. There was all sorts of shifting and moving and cooing going on but I kept my eyes on Jane!
Jane had come to thank me for working with her on her housing and on her son’s education. She was very appreciative and she talked for at least half an hour. She was very excited that I had visited with Monique. She said it was good that we were somehow talking again. She told me Mark was going to be a minister, and I told here we would certainly support him in that, IF his grades this year indicated that was a reasonable course of study for him. I told her God would use Mark in whatever field He led him into, so let us wait and see how he does and encourage him in the way that is best for him. She seemed to listen to me. This had been the source of much of the problems with Mark and his mother. She wanted him to be a great student and he is a somewhat marginal one at best. I told her Mark had served as my translator on Sunday and he had done a very good job. I told her I was very proud of her son, and she left us glowing. (Her rural tribe had broken out the front teeth of her son when he was a young teen because his father had died of AIDS and Mark had no prospects. The missing teeth were to be a badge for all to see that he had been declared worthless. But as a result of very hard work, Mark often works as a translator in the church and he also works with small children there).
I went back inside and they asked if I had spoken with Juliet. I went back out and found that the young woman I couldn’t possibly look towards earlier was, in fact, one of our sponsored children! We had learned last term that she was pregnant and being forced out of school. The baby is now two months old and Juliet’s mother has agreed to keep the baby if we will allow Juliet to return to school. I had already spoken to the sponsor, and she is ready to support Juliet in this. So I told her we were ready to put her back in school February 1. She talked with the team for a few minutes to work out details, then went away.
The mosquitoes were terrible again tonight, and, once again, I forgot my DEET! I got bitten once on my arm. I had managed to avoid it for three weeks, but got bitten on the last night!
I climbed in the van to avoid providing a meal for any more malarial bugs and in a while, everyone came out. Several of the church members had come by to see me off. I probably won't make it to the church tomorrow, so I probably won't see them again.
Lydia joined us for dinner, our last meal together. We went to the Chinese place we had visited earlier in the week for lunch and had quite a feast! It began with hot sauce. Grace basically dared Lydia to eat some. So Lydia put some chili paste on her plate, dipped her finger in it, then howled when the burn hit her. Grace laughed and laughed, then Lydia said something in Luganda and Grace also took some of the firey sauce! She howled louder than Lydia, who then took more. These two had no water or anything else to drink, and I know it was very hot because I enjoyed the sauce on all my food when it came. Lydia and I were the only two that ordered soup. She ordered chicken and mushroom, I ordered seaweed soup, which absolutely grossed everyone out! It was basically egg drop soup with a few pieces of seaweed thrown in but you would think I was eating worms from their reaction to it. Joseph asked to taste his wife’s soup, and he ate almost every bite before he gave it back to her!
Michael would hardly eat because he had eaten an entire medium pizza by himself at lunch, but everyone else seemed to have a good time. They really wanted Joseph, Lydia, and Grace to try squid, so I bought a dish even though it was quite expensive. The food was wonderful, and the company even better. They told me at the end that these restaurants were places they had never been. Joseph said he had actually entered one of them once and asked for a cup of tea. He said he wanted to see what went on in a place like that. The owner came to him and told him he couldn’t order tea unless he ordered a meal with it. Joseph said he didn’t want a meal, and the owner told him he should leave immediately and very quietly.
They took me back to the hotel and everyone but Vincent had to come up to my room. Both Grace and Lydia had a fit in the elevator! They squealed and grabbed onto each other even more than Priscilla had done on Christmas Day. I’m not sure Lydia had been in an elevator, and once I thought about it, I realized that Grace always takes the stairs!
I had downloaded a picture of a squid from the Internet, and Lydia was appalled that she had eaten such a thing. Michael finally admitted he couldn’t really eat Mr. Squid tonight because he knew what he had looked like alive!
Grace asked me to make some changes to a report on my computer. She said she knew that I could do it more quickly than she could, so I cleaned up the report for her and everyone left.
I won’t be online tomorrow. I will check out of my hotel early tomorrow morning. I have lunch scheduled with a missionary who will be arriving in Kampala tonight, then I’ll start out to Entebbe. My flight doesn’t leave until 11:00 p.m., but I’ll have to check in at 8:00 p.m. I will fly to Amsterdam, then to Detroit, and to Cincinnati before flying home late on Saturday afternoon. It will be 26 hours from departure from Entebbe to arrival home. I will have a bit of a layover at each of my interim destinations, and I have realized I forgot to bring any kind of sweater or jacket! I do have a long sleeved shirt and a very light rain coat, but I’m not sure how it will be in these airports in an equatorial adapted body with no protection from the cold.
I’ll finish writing about the trip after I get home, probably on Sunday night or Monday. Until then, thanks for reading!!
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