I slept some Saturday night, but with nothing but a little soup on my stomach from Saturday, I was terribly weak. We started to the lobby where everyone was getting ready to leave. Jeff walked with us down the slope to the main building. “I might as well tell you,” he said, “David isn’t happy. He got up this morning and he realized that I’d worn his pants the other day.”
David and his story were waiting when we walked into the lobby. “He wore my pants! Can you believe it? He wore my pants. They’re the only dress pants I have here, and he wore them. Now I have to wear these hiking pants to preach in.”
“Well, you’ll remember me telling you I thought I was losing weight the other day,” said Jeff. “It wasn’t that. I just had on big pants.”
They went to the van discussing the pants issue. Lisa and I went into the restaurant area. I ordered scrambled eggs and ate about 1/2 of an egg. I had part of a piece of toast and tea.
After breakfast, we walked up to our room. The maids were working on our hall, so Lisa told them we would go out for a while so that they could clean. We drug chairs from an alcove on the second floor onto a balcony and read for a while. When we went back in, our room was fresh and clean. I took a long nap while Lisa read.
Our plan had been to go to lunch with a group from church. I decided I was probably up for that, as long as it wasn’t hot. The temperature was probably less than 70. It was overcast and trying to rain. David found a new place to try while he was with Michael on Wednesday. It was in the Kiwatule Recreation Area, only about two miles from the church. So Vincent brought everyone to the Guesthouse to change, then took us back to the church. We loaded the van and Joseph took his car. There were 14 of us in all.
I haven’t seen a place quite like this in Uganda. It’s a huge field with kid-friendly sculptures (hippos and monkeys and such) There are thatched roof huts scattered about and they are served by a restaurant. There are three swimming pools and a cultural village (whatever that might be). So we sat down in Hut 1. Vincent didn’t like the location so he had us moved to Hut 5. The waitress came quickly and took the complicated order. We were left to talk among ourselves for two hours or more. Jeff was feeling anxious to get home, and the wait was murder for him!
While we were waiting, Dan and Robinah came quietly over to Lisa and me. Dan was carrying a card. “Elder Jim, would you please accept our card?” It was a thank you card from Elisha, their son, who turned one in June. When we saw Elisha in December, he was fretful and whiney. He had a huge hernia protruding from his belly, and he seemed to be in pain. The doctors had said they wanted to wait as long as possible before the operated on him. In February, I got an email saying the boy was much worse and he needed the surgery as soon as possible. We worked out a deal for us to pay for the surgery and Dan to repay a portion of it. The boy was cured and now eats and plays and cries no more than a normal 1 year old!
So Robinah’s card, written as though it were from Elisha, thanked us for helping him and asked us to please receive his gift. Robinah handed us a painting of a giraffe. They handed the painting to me, then turned and went back to their seats.
I didn’t order fish because I was concerned about the amount of grease. Jeff was concerned, too, given the flight he was about to take. He ordered chicken. When the food came, there were several surprises. First, every one of the fish had some kind of red, tomato sauce on it. The fish were whole and huge, but they tasted more grilled than fried (at least the one miniscule piece Lisa shard with me tasted like it had been grilled). Jeff’s chicken was another surprise. It looked as though they had cut a section of chicken from end to end (it was either that or a small alien fell into the deep fryer). The cut through the bone worked, but there was no meat on it at all. And it looked very strange. I don’t think he ate a bite of lunch. I had a couple of French fries.
After lunch, we went to the cultural village. Getting there was most interesting. The signed path stopped at a railroad track where a smallish choo choo ran for the kids. David said we had to walk the tracks for just a little while, a significant feat for me and my cane! After a hundred yards or so, we turned off the tracks and down a few steep stairs to a path into a large field.
This was a most amazing display. Several traditional structures stood in the field. As we moved into the village, however, we found it was a number of villages. Each village was built in the traditional style of a Ugandan tribe. Each village had at least a family setting where a father and his wife and kids would live. They also had support buildings like kitchens and food storage huts. Some of the huts were furnished with musical instruments as well as beds, etc. At least one of the huts had a permanent visitor living in it.
We finished walking through the display. We had avoided rain, even though we heard a bit of thunder for about the last hour we were out. We finally walked back to the van. Vincent mentioned along the way that the university students wanted to talk with me at 4:00. It was a little after 5:00 when we got there. I told everyone to wait. I expected this would be a plea for lab tops or boarding expenses or transportation.
But it wasn’t! Poshal Samuel (P. W. and Lois) was there to lead the group. He stood up and introduced himself as the newly elected chairman of the Association to Sustain the Impact. As Samuel, our second graduate from the project certificate in computers, explained it, the Project had impacted each of the people in the room. It was now their responsibility to sustain the impact and make it grow. He introduced the other officers (seven in all with eleven attending members). He had a three page speech prepared.
Once he’d finished, he introduced Jacinta (Dan and Lisa). Jacinta explained that she was not the kind of person who said thank you all the time. She said the fact that she was talking should show us that this is very important to her. She said she finished S6 with excellent scores, but she knew that her mother has having a very hard time paying for her two primary school siblings. How could she even think about asking for more than 1 million shillings per year. So she actually sat out of school for a year, until she heard about us. It was December 2003 when Dan and I went to Uganda. We met her at the church and Dan said he wanted to help her. So he had Vincent drive him to the university and he went with her to all the offices so that they were sure she was registered. “I can do that for other kids,” said Jacinta. “I can go with them and take away some of the fear.”
Samuel promised computer help for any who needed it. Jacinta promised business and accounting. In a few minutes, many new tutors were identified. They said they would meet with the secondary students from time to time to make sure they were not becoming discouraged.
After two more speakers, I knew that Jeff was going nuts in the van. So when Joseph asked me to talk, I did it very quickly. I hated to cut this short because this was the moment we’ve been waiting for: an actual indication that a group of our kids here in Uganda get it!!
We had Jeff at the airport by a little after 7:00 for his 11:50 flight. We were all very sad to see Jeff leave. God brings to Uganda those who need to be here. It will be exciting to see how God uses Jeff!
The ride back took much longer. Traffic had more than doubled during Jeff’s unloading and departure. We crawled through the night on the narrow, two lane road as people passed on both the right and left and boda bodas darted in and out of the slow moving mob. We returned to the hotel a little after 9:00.
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