One month

We left Uganda one month ago today. We've been home in Corvallis for about two weeks. It's been great to see Tracy, Carl, and Alfonc (our exchange student), and to meet Nasir, Carl's roommate. We've been catching up with friends around town and at church. We've gotten to see both our moms and some of our family. We've worked in our yard when the sun has come out, and shopped and cleaned. Paul started back at CH2M yesterday. In other words, we've begun to get back to our Corvallis life. It's been nice, and we haven't really experienced the reverse culture shock people sometimes do.

Scott, meanwhile, is still at school in Kenya. He had his mid-term break this last weekend. He and some friends decided they would go camping in the bush. Paul and I were a little concerned, but we figured this is the kind of thing you do when you are 17 and living in Africa. Here's the report we got from Scott when he returned (he told me it was ok to post). A few vocabulary explanations first:

Mrs. King is his dorm mother
the tracks he refers to are the railroad tracks leading away from the school
"longanaut" is Mt. Longanaut, the hill they were planning to climb
"boda" is a motorcycle
"click" is short for kilometer

"yeah of course we are safe. mrs. king told me you were worried but there was nothing to be worried about. we walked up to the tracks and down them towards longanaut. we had to walk in the rain under a big tarp which was tiring. we got there and paid for a nights camping which was cheap. interesting anecdote: a dude booked up on a boda, ran into the longanaut building and came back decked out in camo with a machine gun cocking it and checking his load. he took off and we asked the ranger where he was off to. the ranger told us he was going down the road to fight bandits. hardcore. anyways, we camped a night, walked up to the top and went down. we were talking about going further out but then a train came. we tried to hop it and failed. we met it at the station a click away and talked to conductor, he offered to give us a ride to kijabe and we accepted. it was awesome."

Corvallis may seem a little tame when he gets home in mid-July.

Going home

We've had a great trip home and are almost, but not quite, there. We spent four nice days in Finland with our friends. Finland is the anti-Africa, not in the sense of being against Africa, but of being its opposite: clean, finished, organized. Pauli and Tiina and their kids are as wonderful as they ever were, and we enjoyed the time to reconnect with them, this time on their home turf rather than ours.

We then spent most of a week in Providence, R.I., where Paul delivered his paper about his invention and participated in his professional conference. I lived it up - got a pedicure, shopped at the mall across the street, went out for coffee. We were near the Italian section of town, which reminded me of Ocean City NJ, which made me both happy and sad. Paul wasn't working all the time, so we ate out at some good restaurants and walked around Providence, which is a pretty city.

Now we're in Montgomery, AL, visiting the church which was the principal supporter of Paul's project in Ngenge. The people, only a few of whom we had met before, have been welcoming and helpful. Today we toured downtown Montgomery and saw sites associated with the Civil War and the Civil Rights movement. The weather is in the mid-90's and humid - definitely hotter than Uganda. Tomorrow Paul will preach in the morning service and we'll show slides of our time in Uganda in the afternoon.

Then we're going home!

Goodbye Uganda

I feel like I should say something profound here, but I don't know what it is. Our time in Uganda has been fascinating, discouraging, fun, challenging,rewarding - all of which we expected but didn't know how it would play out. Now we know. We have years' worth of impressions that we've packed into nine months. I know we both hope we take time to reflect on what we've experienced when we arrive home, and I think we will. But for now, we're anticipating stepping onto that British Air flight at nine tomorrow morning, settling into our comfortable seats, and flying back to a different world.

Thanks again for all the love and support we have received from our friends and family. It's been fun communicating with you through this blog, and though I don't anticipate continuing it for long once we return home, I'm sure we'll have a few thoughts and pictures to put up.

"The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace,"

Karen

Road work and brick making

As part of the ongoing work on the "mansions" next door to us, the owner has had some roadwork done on our corner. The dirt road was graded, and gravel was put down. Some laborers put a tack coat of tar down for the gravel.



Almost all houses in Uganda that aren't mud and thatch are made of brick. This photo shows how the bricks are made. They are formed, then set out in the sun to dry. After that they are stacked up in this sort of semi-pyramid, which is then covered with mud. Straw is piled on top. A fire is lit inside, and when the straw starts to burn, the bricks are done. You see these brick hives all over as you drive. The house is plastered inside and out for a finished appearance.

John receives his wheelchair

This sequence of photos shows John on the day he received his wheelchair. He was completely surprised, saying "I didn't even ask for this."

• In the top photo, he's listening as they translate the note that we wrote to him. Our brief message reminded him that God cares, and though he used us as the means to provide the wheelchair, it was truly a gift from God.
• Then he moved toward his new chair, stopping along the way to untie and remove the cushion he had been using.
• He was able to lift himself onto the chair without too much trouble and spent a few minutes examining it.
• The trike wheelchair takes some practice because you steer it with your hands while meanwhile spinning the crank. Initially, some of the villagers pushed him to help him get used to it.
• Before long, John had mastered it and left the man helping him far behind.

We hope it's a new chapter in his life.

Paul

Trike delivered

These pictures don't have anything to do with the post, they are just miscellaneous street scenes from our neighborhood. Fresh chicken, anyone?

This is Noelle, who has done sewing for me, and her helper. Her shop is underneath a staircase.

A corner not far from where we live. Can you find the EMI sign?

We heard from Rev. David on Monday that he was able to deliver the trike to the disabled man in Ngenge. He said the man was very happy and was able to ride it fine. He was going to try to take pictures, so if he sends us some we'll post them.

We're coming down to the end of our time in Kampala and I wanted to let you know about our travel plans for coming home. We've got some fun things planned along the way. We fly out May 9 to London, then continue on the next day to Finland, where we'll see our good friends, Pauli and Tiina. We first met them when they lived in the U.S. over 20 years ago. It's been our dream for many years to see them on their side of the world. Hopefully we'll be able to see their three children as well.

On May 14th we'll fly to Providence, RI, where Paul will be delivering a paper about field trials of his invention to the World Environmental and Water Resources Congress. After that we head to Montgomery, AL, on May 21, where we'll spend the weekend with people from Christchurch, the church that was the major supporter of the work done in Ngenge. We'll fly home from there on May 24. It's coming up soon!

Originally we had planned to return home in mid-June, but we moved up our departure date to May when Paul got his paper accepted for the conference. That means we'll be arriving before OSU gets out, which means Carl and his roommates will be making space for us until the term is over. We appreciate their flexibility, and I hope to make up for it by providing some good home-cooking for them.

Going-away party

Liz and me. We arrived in Kampala at almost the same time and have shared a lot of experiences. She and her husband have lived many places around the world, so she showed me the ropes of managing in a foreign country.

Scott has turned into a capable juggler. He was a good sport about hanging around with our friends.

Kevin, our host, and John, our pastor, visit with Paul on the front steps.

Left to right: Sherrie, who owns a generator company in Kampala (great business to be in with our intermittent power); Dick, a doctor; Rand, a documentary filmmaker and sometime fish farmer; Derek, an accountant with Missionary Aviation Fellowship; and Kristi, a hairstylist. Scott is listening to their tales of life in Uganda. They're all in our Bible study.

Our good friends Kevin and Liz threw us a going-away party last Saturday at their home. It was a perfect party, in my opinion, because we got to have lots of our favorite new friends together, but since we're not leaving for a couple weeks we didn't actually have to say goodbye.

Speaking of goodbyes, we say goodbye to Scott today. We'll leave in a few minutes to take him to the airport. We'll see him next back in the U.S. in mid-July when his school term finishes. He had an exciting first half of his mid-term break, spending two weeks in Tanzania with his roommate's family. They camped at the beach, where he got to snorkel in the Indian Ocean and paraglide. Then he's had a quiet couple of weeks here in Kampala with us, although he did take that rafting trip down the Nile. We'll miss him, but we're glad he's going back to be with his friends at a school that has become a second home.