Thursday
I started work this morning in the office, but didn’t do office work. I had a few finishing touches to put on the puppets I’d been working on for the puppet show with the kids, so the office was covered with Bible characters, Noah’s ark animals, a huge rainbow, etc.
After devotions and tea, Denis set me to work on some lists of the youth we’re responsible for. They fall under different categories too-- some are in the apprenticeship program full time, others are in independent living (meaning we pay their rent and upkeep), some are in a remedial education program, etc. As I started compiling these lists, I saw how important it was because I found many lists in many different places on the computer, and none of them were consistent. So it was important to figure out who belongs where and to delete the inaccurate files.
Sound a little tedious and boring? Well it kind of was. But it was important. Maybe it’s not the most interesting blogging material, but I feel sometimes like people expect me to be on some wild and crazy African adventure, but the truth is I still go to the grocery store, I still do laundry, I go to work on normal working hours, and sometimes there are fairly mundane tasks that just have to be done. Yes, sometimes there are adventures like wading through knee-high floods to get home and chasing mice through the apartment, but really it’s just life. Mine just happens to be in Uganda at the moment.
Anyway, for lunch we had rice, noodles, chicken, and a banana. All the essentials of the Ugandan food groups-- 2 heavy carbs and don’t forget the banana! Haha it was actually pretty good. The sauce the chicken was in was nice.
After lunch I headed to the children’s home to do more work on the puppet show. Again, one of the other local volunteers helped me out, and it made a huge difference. The kids are really into the idea of the show and were going nuts wanting turns with the puppets. And so far the puppets haven’t been destroyed by eager little hands, so all’s well!
I’ve had some unbelievably sweet moments with the kids at the home lately. I have a ring with the word “love” on it, and as the kids are learning their alphabet, they love identifying the letters on it. I’ve told them what it means, and once when we were talking about it, I was holding baby Silas (though he’s not much of a baby anymore-- he’s about a year and a half now) and he started mimicking the sounds I was saying. So since then I’ve really been trying to get him to say it. He’ll mimic the sounds when I say “love” or “I love you” but he’s not quite there yet. If he gets to saying it, I don’t know if I can claim it as a first word because I think I’ve heard him say “one two” and “bye” but it’s still up there with the first, and it’s too unbelievably sweet, I can hardly handle it.
Well, sweet moments took a backseat as I got home and discovered that our mousey friend was still in the house, and had found a way into the food cabinet. He got into my Reeses stash, so this meant war!! Trying to resist Dr. Seuss rhymes of “a mouse in my house,” I spent the afternoon taking everything out of the cabinets, throwing away things he’d gotten into, and wiping mouse poop out of the cabinet. Aren’t you so jealous of my wild and crazy African adventure now?
The power that had so miraculously come on the night before turned out to be a tease, because it went off again just as I got home and didn’t come back on all night. I’ve started watching the Lost series, which I realized is a terrible idea in a country where power is frequently out and I don’t have computer battery to watch the next addicting episode!
