Family

This week has seemed to give me lots of insight into Ugandan families. And just drawn me closer to my Ugandan family.

On Sunday, when I returned from rafting, my parents wanted to know all about the experience. My dad has an amusing quirk of, whenever I tell a story, repeating everything back to me just to make sure he picks up every detail. So I'll say, "My boat flipped and I took a big swig of the Nile and I scratched my leg. Look!" Then he'll say, "Oooook. So your boat tipped? Into the Nile? And you swallowed some water? And whoa! Look at that scratch on your leg!" I think he does it to create a picture in his mind. He's very contemplative, and I'm convinced his thoughts are very vivid. That evening I painted my mom's toenails and fingernails with bright pink nail polish that I had bought at CVS in Chicago before leaving. She was very particular about not getting paint on her cuticles. Afterwards she exclaimed, "Nalwoga, you are a beautician! God bless you!" It was cute. I think the pink made her more sassy though. She's got a lot of attitude now :).

On Monday we started soaking cotton husks in the drums. We had to pump the water into jerrycans from a borehole (spelling?) and then carry them a decent distance to Jjaja Judith's house. The push ups my dad does with me are doing some good, as I was the only girl (apart from Ellen) on our team who could carry the cannister by myself. We also administered pre-nutritional surveys to the five families with whom we are working on our project. We're hoping that, after Jjaja hosts a nutrition seminar in a couple weeks, and after the community members are able to harvest and sell their mushrooms (and thus have more money to buy healthier food, like fruits and vegetables), the post-nutritional survey will reveal a better understanding about the phrase "balanced diet." One man told us he thought "balanced diet" meant getting all the three food groups: matooke (steamed banana), rice, and posho (tasteless, white, floury goo). Wrong-o. Since all of my teammates and I didn't need to be present to interview each person, Ellen and I decided it should be our job to distract the village kids while the interviews were conducted. We taught them the song "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes," played some Simon Says, and just made silly faces and noises. One thing that cracks me up about the kids here is that there is no difference in attire for boys and girls. So lots of little girls in pretty, frilly, flowery dresses actually turn out to be little boys when they lift up the rim of their dresses to dance. Boys and girls also both shave their heads, making gender identification even more difficult. Monday evening we went to Bryan's house to say hi to his mom, Hajat Sarah. She barely speaks any English but is super excitable and very welcoming. She lives on a compound situated on 7 acres of farmland. Her hobby seems to be taking in orphans and elderly, mentally-off grandmothers. One of these grandmothers was so happy to see us that she ran around screaming, "Good morning!" before settling down enough to hug us all. She then quickly resumed talking to her invisible friends. Hajat has such a big heart, and it was refreshing to see that evident compassion in a woman who didn't really have many resources to share.

Tuesday was one of the most irritating days yet. The day started off with Jonathan, one of our supervisors, telling us that the 17-year-old girl who we met last week died in the morning. Apparently she had been taken to St. Francis last Thursday, where she received an adjusted ARV regimen that made the vomitting stop, but did nothing to alleviate the diarrhea. St. Francis suggested she be taken to the hospital to start nutritional therapy, but the family never did. They were afraid of the hospital bill. So the girl continued to wither away all weekend and finally just couldn't fight it anymore. That family will no longer be involved in the mushroom project since the burial ceremony (which lasts traditionally 3 weeks) is occurring right around the time we need their attention most. So I carried a mixture of infuriation (with the health care system, with poverty) and nausea into our day's work. Katie and I worked on the instructional brochure in the morning, then met the rest of the team in Buziika for the boiling of the cotton husks and the construction of another mushroom shed. I think the mixture of emotion, heat, and disagreement about not including that family in the project raised everyone's tensions. Katie and I went on an hour-long run that evening but decided not to talk. Both of us just wanted silence. Of course that wasn't possible, given that Ugandan children can spot white skin from a mile away. We had kids shouting, "Muzungu bye!" across the cornfields, kids chasing us with their makeshift toys (bike tires propelled by sticks), and kids runnning at our heels even with water jugs on their heads.

After the run I took a long bucket bath in the dark, ate my new most favorite snack (McVitie's whole-wheat digestive crackers and peanut butter ... I hope to find them back in the US, but given that the nutrition facts are in Arabic and Russian, I don't know how much luck I'll have), and finished The Last King of Scotland to decompress. I felt much better today. We ran out of bottle caps (used as washers for the nails of the sheds), so we called it a day early and headed into Jinja to send in our weekly progress reports. We won't be going to work on Friday, since FSD has planned a three-day trip to Cipi Falls so we can do some waterfall-repelling. On our way to the internet cafe, Bryan was digging bottle caps out of the ground with his spade. He looked so goofy carrying such a fierce-looking instrument through the heavily populated streets of Jinja, but not nearly as goofy as this red-headed muzungu trying to pull off a silky Ugandan traditional dress (the one with the pointy shoulders). I try to fit in as much as possible, but not that much. Daisy and I bought raspberry and lime Jell-O mix, as well as some Cadbury chocolate squares, for our dad's birthday tomorrow. We'll be heading to the annual agricultural show in Jinja tomorrow after work, but hopefully will be able to get the balloons blown and Jell-O made by the time he returns from work. Speaking of the agricultural show, we saw President Museveni's entourage escorting him into town today for the event. That's how big of a deal it is. I anticipate coming home with some unfamiliar fruits and vegetables tomorrow.

Ta Ta For Now,

Abby :o)