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August 27, 2009

So today hasn’t been all that exciting, but it is always nice to hang out with the kids. I got to play some checkers with some of the children. I was playing Maureen, and I kept winning. Then Deizy who is like 7 or something started to play and beat me 3 times in a row… I couldn’t believe it.. she is good. Just like everything else, they play differently. Talking to Steven… he taught them wrong. Now im starting to think I don’t know how to play. Maybe I have been playing it wrong my whole life.

Last night we had a bunch of the boys over to watch a movie on the computer. It is a movie that we bought for 4000 Ush ($2.00). The dude that sold it said that there were English subtitles, but nope. No subtitles. It was a rad Kung Fu movie though; “Ong-Bak 2”. The boys liked it. Well see how much the girls like it.

Yesterday we also decided that we were going to do some laundry. When I say laundry I mean underwear. We usually let some of the Mums do the pants, shorts, shirts, socks, etc. but we piled up our underwear in a box and kept it. A few days ago I thought it would be a good Idea to let them soak in some soapy water. It was a bad idea. I filled the tub about half way with soap and water, put our clothes in it, and walked away. I forgot about it and 2 days later (yesterday) the smell was terrible. Just curious what he would say, we asked Bill if he wanted to give it to one of the Mums, and he was like “I don’t think I could bring myself to do that. The smell is too terrible.” And it was. So we sat out on our front porch and scrubbed underwear for the next hour or so. A bunch of girls decided to come and crowd around us and play games on our porch while we did laundry; I was all self conscience, because I could smell our underwear… They had to be thinking that Americans are the stinkiest ever. We got it washed and hung to dry, so we should be good for a while on our (to a degree) clean underwear.

August 29, 2009

Had Mum Sara come to our door this morning screaming for Bill, that is a usual thing, but this morning we were supposed to go down and take some pictures of getting plantains and making Matooke. Matooke is made with a banana that is not sweet. They pick it, peel it, wrap it in banana leaves, steam it, then when it is nice and soft, mash it. They usually put all kinds of things on Matooke. Here at the orphanage they usually put Meat, or Beans on their Matooke. Its delicious. We went, cut the Plantains, and peeled them so that the Mums and Bonsiano (Cook) can start to prepare dinner for the birthdays tomorrow. Im pretty excited to be here for that tomorrow. I know that they celebrate birthdays twice a year; Half the children in the summer months, and half in the winter months.

August 31, 2009

Last night I got back from one of the kid’s houses around 10:00. I have bonded pretty well with the particular house that I was at. Bill and Zion were in our house watching a movie and Steven was in bed. I usually am a light sleeper, but I just went to bed and before I knew it the lights had been turned out and I was asleep. This morning I woke up, and Bill had woken up, got dressed and was practicing singing his songs that he wrote. Im not saying they are bad, but they sure are bad when you just want to get a little extra sleep. I woke up, did my usual round-off out of my bunk to the floor, and found my shorts and shirt. I have to lay the deodorant on thick these days; I don’t get to shower all that often. I put some toothpaste on my brush, then proceeded to lose control of it and it went crashing to the floor getting toothpaste all over the place, and getting little interesting hairs all over my toothbrush. Steven and I both agreed that it looked like someone had probably been trimming in there. So I had to do a thorough wash of the toothbrush, and get to scrubbing.

I went to get into bed the other day, and I hopped up to the second bunk, and did my usual wipe of the feet; don’t want to get dirt in my bed. There was something stuck on my heel. Thinking about it, the last place I was in was the bathroom, so I took my hand up to my face to give it a little sniff, and sure enough. A little poo had gotten in between my flip-flop and my foot… I think I have better aim than that. So I hope that it wasn’t mine… then again I hope it was… both answers are bad… Just so you know, I got down and washed that trash off before I got into bed.

Since we took the girls to the Ridar, we had to take some of the boys. We had little Simon, Jimmy, Edgar, and James. …and Bill, of course. We didn’t want to blow a bunch of money, which is hard to do when you are taking quantities of people out, so we decided that we would just watch a Football match, and eat some lunch, then come back. The boys had Pizzas for the most part, James had a cheeseburger that looked amazing. Steven, Bill, and I didn’t eat restaurant food, instead Steven made a run to the store and bought some more fruit so he could snack on that. I got some biscuits, which aren’t really biscuits at all. They are more like delicious cookies, and Bill got something else. But we paid far less for our snacks than we would have for lunches. The boys disappeared with my camera for a while and when they came back, they had gotten in front of every car in the parking lot, put their feet on the bumpers like they were on the front of a CD case. It was pretty funny.

So yesterday was the kids birthday party that they celebrate once, maybe twice a year. One of the pastors from Christian Life church (Deborah) came to decorate and to help with the whole thing. We had a huge display setup in the main hall. It looked very nice. The Mums were simultaneously cooking a huge lunch for all the children. There were Irish potatoes, cabbage, matooke, some crazy fish soup thingy, and of course, a whole cow; liver, intestines, meat, bone marrow, all of it. They gave the head away to the evangelists, which they cooked and ate. Steven went down to their houses and took some pictures with it. The weather turned a little bad while the mums were preparing food. It went from warm and sunny to warm and monsoon rainfall. It was the kind that you step out in it for 2 seconds and it looks like someone pushed you into a pool or something. So a bunch of the children were holed up in the church and Betty decided to play a Luganda game show. It was the strangest thing. It was boys vs. girls, and the children would give each other riddles. I have never heard of the kinds of riddles that they were giving each other and none of them made any sense whatsoever to Steven or I, but it did to them which is what matters. There was one that I remember Zion interpreted for me. It was “what can a white man not sew?” and the answer... “A crack in the ground.” …I can’t believe I didn’t get that one; it was obvious. But it was fun to watch. Bill went head to head against Becky, and got destroyed. Steven and I were like.. “Come on Bill.” He would get one wrong, and the whole girls side of the church would roar, then the boys side would roar at the girls side… All the while Betty and Zion (The officials) were totally on the girls side, so it didn’t help our cause. While we were sitting there, we were commenting on this goat that was tied to the soccer goal out in the middle of the soccer field just getting pounded by the rain. It would try to run for shelter, then the rope would tighten and it would try to go the other way and do the same thing. Betty decided to send two volunteers out to get it, so two boys took their shirts and shoes off, and booked it through the rain after this goat. The whole church was crowded at the window to watch, it was pretty funny.
The power was out all day. I was supposed to take pictures of the ceremony and of the children with their gifts. Everything was setup in the church, but there was no light, and I don’t have a good flash, so the pictures were going to be garbage. So they decided they were going to move it outside, but it was busy raining outside, so we had to wait till it stopped. By that time it was getting dark anyways. When the rain did stop, we had to move all the gifts out to one of the porches of the homes, and setup a table with the cake, and gifts there, so to distract them Betty organized a little competition for the children; Race around the soccer field. I have to hand it to her, she is a genius at keeping children occupied. When we actually got around to starting the celebration, Betty was stressed, the kids were hungry, the food was getting cold, everything was wet, and I had a layer of clay that was about an inch thick on the bottom of my flip flops. Betty was asking me what she was going to tell Eve when she talked to her on the phone about how it went, and all I could think of was that God has a plan that is bigger and better than our plans. No matter what plans we make, sometimes God decides that he wants to make sure that we understand that. Even though it seemed like the birthday was a disaster, I won’t ever forget it. I think if it had been flawless, I would just pass it off as another birthday party. I don’t think that I would forget this particular birthday being in Africa with orphan children, but it seems the times that you remember the best are usually the times that don’t work out the way you planned them. I had a blast.

Steven and I leave for a few day trip to the Congo here on the 2nd. Should be pretty awesome. Some of the Gosvener’s missionary friends from Montavilla church (Darrie and Debbie Turner) that have been here for like 12 years or something have some down time, so Darrie decided that he would take us around for a little while. I’m pretty excited about it. I hear that you can trade a dog for like 4 goats there. That would be so rad. I totally would do it. Steven and I were talking this morning about stealing the neighborhood pest here, and trading it for delicious goats there. Given the opportunity, I think I would try a little dog. Maybe make a BBQ pulled dog sandwich.. mmm…
YACK!!


September 1, 2009
Had a little more restless leg last night, I had to get up around 1:30 to adjust the sheets and the blanket in my bed. I think it may be a combination of a few different things. I haven’t bathed in like 3 days, Steven hasn’t bathed in a week… but Ill cover that in a second. I got up at 1:30, and I noticed that the computer was on in our main room, so I wandered out there to find Bill watching a king fu movie. We bought this 9 in 1 Kung Fu DVD. The quality is somewhere around a youtube video, but the kids love them. Bill had been watching TV all day, and he was on his 4th movie. I walked out there, and was like “Bill… Really?! Go to bed and give the computer a break.” He is like a little kid that is addicted to TV. So I adjusted the sheets and went back to bed.

Last night Steven, Zion, and I were playing some Rummy, and Zion got called to Mummy Benna’s House. So to pass time while she was gone, I got up and went outside in the dark for a bit to find several girls huddled on the ground with their cups. I went to check it out and had to call Steven outside. The girls were eating bugs… The were like “You eat.”
“are you kidding me?!”
Again, they told me “you eat.”
“I wish I could, but they give me really bad gas.”
They were just chowing down on them. They are white ants that don’t bite. Supposedly they are a delicacy or something around here. I wasn’t about to eat that trash, so Steven said he would, then I had to. They had gobs of them in their little cups. When I finally got one in my mouth, the little jerk made a B-line for my throat. Just about made me gag. I actually have a picture with me looking like I was going to gag, but you can only see half the bug in my mouth because it was moving so fast. so I put one of the girls on there. I had to crunch down on him before he got into my esophagus and made a little home for himself down there somewhere. We ended up eating around 4 each, and taking a bunch of pictures of it. I got a good one of Steven, and a ton of the girls. So thats bugs off the list, now we got to get some dog in the Congo.

Speaking of bugs, we killed two monsters last night, we came in after eating dinner at another one of the kids houses, and there were these to HUGE cockroaches just chilling inside. So we smacked them with some flip-flops, and now they are just chilling over there in the corner being eaten by ants. I put my pencil in the picture so that you could get an idea of how big they are.

Also speaking of bugs. I got a bug inside my chin I think... It's just making a little nest for its babies in there, I know it is... I haven't had a pimple that size since I was like 15. made me look like I had a double chin. I was forced to shave some Lamb chops...

Its been almost a week since we posted last, but I don’t know if we will get a chance. I hope that Darrie and Debbie have internet that we could post with, but who knows. It might be a long time before we get to.

September 2, 2009
Made it to the Turner residence. We were blessed with some delicious sandwiches on hoagie rolls. I think that was the best sandwich I have had in a long time, and I don’t mean that because I haven’t had one in a long time. The avacados are to die for, the bread was so soft, and the cheese was Gouda! We went to this Italian store because Debbie needed to find some things for the pizzas that she wants to make for dinner tonight. They had all kinds of things there. Steven even bought Harry Potter 6 on DVD… wait, that isn’t out yet… (bootleg) We were hoping that they had internet so I could post, and thank you Lord, they do! We are planning on heading out to Kasesse tomorrow. It is about a 6 hour drive over there, and Darrie wants to take us to a game park, or something fun. We would like to go into the Congo, and he said that is fine, so we will have to see what happens.