December 2009

Sekukulu enungi!
Yes, ‘Happy Christmas’ in Luganda. I hope you all had a good time over Winterval / the festive season / or whatever politically correct term we are now supposed to use.

Santa came this year (possibly for the last time, as a certain person will probably be too old next year) and we managed to remain ‘unwoken’ until 7.30am. We opened the presents and then didn’t really see the children for many hours as Jordan played a new computer game and Kira watched several DVDs.
In the afternoon we went round to a house dubbed ‘The Pink Palace’ – a pink house, rented by several people we know. This was the meeting point for many muzungus from Jinja, elsewhere in Uganda, and overseas, who came along for a shared Xmas meal.
We didn’t stay long as we had our Christmas meal with some friends. They are a French family, and they had also invited their neighbour who is English and a friend who is from Chile.
We had a lovely meal of tilapia - a local fish - as two of the people work at the tilapia fish farm. We also had a treasure hunt in the garden which was not only in the dark and involved Jordan climbing onto the roof, but was also in French … mon dieu!

The weather was strangely un-Ugandan on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. The sun didn’t shine at all for 2 days - very unusual. People were even wearing cardigans!

John Bosco our house boy has gone home to his family in the village for Christmas. Good grief, we now have to do housework! We’ve divvied up the tasks and I have the job of doing the washing. We don’t have a washing machine so I have to do it all by hand. Crikey!

I was a bit disappointed this year as Jinja seems to have discovered Christmas decorations. The mini supermarkets were selling tinsel, baubles and Christmas trees. Even some stalls in the market were selling decorations. Last year there was no evidence of Christmas at all.
Mind you, by western standards it was very low key, and as we don’t watch TV we had no adverts to sit through either. Christmas next year when we are in the UK will be very different.

Earlier in the month Jordan had a bad dose of malaria. He had been felling unwell, but he has been like this before and has become fine by the next day. I did a malaria test on him and it showed negative, so we left him overnight.
However in the morning he was in a bad way so I took him to the doctor’s surgery which has an on-site hospital and they admitted him straight away.
He had a temperature of 40 degrees, rapid heart beat, vomiting, dehydration and was delirious. They had to sort out all of these before they could start malaria treatment. When delirious he couldn't understand even simple things like 'clench your fist' or 'sit up', and was saying very unusual things. He tried to take the drip out of his hand and tried to get out of bed to leave hospital.
Kira got upset seeing Jordan so ill and was crying so I had to take her to a friend's.
He has never been able to master the skill of swallowing tablets so that made things more challenging. They gave him quinine in a drip but it made his blood pressure drop so they put him on artinam, which they gave by injection.
Jon stayed in hospital with him overnight. He was in for a day and a half then came home and was very weak afterwards. He’s probably recovered now. It’s been two and a half weeks.

As we arrived at the hospital, a strange looking man was crossing the road. As I got near to where he was, he threw himself on the road in a very melodramatic dive and started shouting out in Luganda, as if I had run him over. As I was near the hospital, I parked on the road just a few metres from where he was.
“Oh that’s just great” I thought, “I’m sorting out a very sick child and now someone is trying to claim I ran him over.”
Fortunately a Ugandan man was walking past. He looked at me, looked at the man and raised his eyes.
“Oh good” I thought, “He isn’t going to convince any Ugandans to go and call the police.”
The room Jordan was in looked out onto the road. I could see him from where we were, and he sat in the middle of the road for ages.

Although the room we were in was very basic, I think it’s the best room in the hospital. There are two beds there and when we arrived an old Ugandan lady was in one of the beds. I assumed she would be there for a while as she looked pretty ill. She had quite a few of her family members there who looked like they had camped out on the floor overnight, they had brought some mats to sleep on.
It took a few minutes to get Jordan sorted – to explain what was happening (though he didn’t understand) and to stop him trying to run out of the hospital. When I looked round the old lady and her family had gone. I think they had moved her to a communal ward, because muzungus tend to take preference for the best things …

I have been having Luganda lessons from Vicky, Kira’s teacher. I want to learn some basics so I can communicate with people, and so have been learning how to ask for things like ‘two kilos of potatoes’ from the market, which you translate as ‘potatoes kilos two’, or how to say ‘good morning’, which translates as ‘did you sleep well?’ Luganda is nothing like any other language I’ve learnt and so I can’t work anything out, I just have to learn the words.

Many Ugandans in the towns go home to their family in the villages over Christmas. I asked Vicky if she would be going to her village. She said she wasn’t because she didn’t like to see her Mum and Dad or Granddad. None of them are alive.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
Apparently it’s very common to bury your relatives in the garden, and she doesn’t like to stay at her Grandmother’s house, because when she comes out of the front door she can see the graves.

And so the Panto – Aladdin – went very well again this year. Many people from last year were in it again, plus a few new ones. Jon was the pantomime dame again - Widow Twankey – and Jordan and Kira were in the chorus.
Unfortunately Jordan was recovering from malaria at the time of the performances and so wasn’t able to take part. He had been rehearsing for about 3 months, so was very disappointed.
I was due to do the makeup, which was a bit of a challenge, as you can’t really find makeup in Jinja. I had to borrow some foundation, use some of my own makeup and brushes, and make all the eye shadows myself. I used cornflour, body lotion, vegetable oil and food colouring.
Anyway I got everything ready and someone else had to do it instead, as I had to look after Jordan.
Somehow he managed to drag himself along to watch the final performance. He hadn’t eaten for five days, was very thin and weak, and two hours beforehand had been so hot that I had to sponge him with cold water.
Anyway, the performance was great, and the audience loved it.

Our car insurance was due this month. Jon had sorted it last year so I asked where he’d got it from and went along to renew it. The office was closed, so I went back later and it was still closed. Kira and I peeped in through the lock in the door and it appeared to have closed down. We went to another insurance company. Companies produce a certificate for you to stick on the inside of your car window.
“I can’t give you your certificate” the woman said after she’d taken my money “my typewriter is broken.”
So we got in the car and went to another insurance company. They were out at lunch, so we went to yet another one (the fourth one I’d visited). Fortunately the woman there had a typewriter which was working perfectly and I managed to get my car insurance. Then I had to take the woman back to her office.

Some Ugandan ways we find difficult to deal with as they are very different to what we are used to. For example I was standing in the queue at Umeme, the electricity company, to pay my bill. A man was before me getting served. While I was waiting, another man came to the counter and stood next to the man who was being served. As the first man left, the other man pushed in front and gave his bill and payment to the woman behind the counter. I told him I was next, so he moved aside and stood next to (not behind) me. I gave my bill and payment in, and then a woman came in between us and pushed her bill and payment in front of me on the counter for the assistant to deal with.
Another time I was at the bank (aarghh, banks! aarghh) and when I got to the counter the man behind me in the queue came to the counter as well and stood beside me. He was very big and stood so close that I couldn’t actually get to the counter window as he was blocking most of it.
Sometimes if there is a queue Ugandans will go right up to the front and go behind the person working at the desk and get served there in front of others in the queue.
One thing I’d never really thought about until I came here was how men will always let a woman go first through a door. Here it’s vey different, men don’t let women go first, in fact they rush to get to the door before you or push you aside!

It’s very common to have geckos on your wall, both inside and outside the house. They are good to have around as they eat flies and mosquitoes. However, they do leave pooh around the house, and you need to check surfaces in case any has appeared overnight.
One day I decided to make myself pancakes for lunch while Jordan was at home recuperating. I made up the mixture and then popped in to see that Jordan was OK. When I got back a mozzie had landed in the mixture. I threw it away and made up some more. As I was making it, a fly dropped into the mixture. I decided to take a risk by taking the fly out and carrying on. I cooked a pancake and as I turned it over, discovered it had gecko pooh in it. We’d left the frying pan on the cooker overnight and I hadn’t noticed because the base of it is black. Groo!
I guess I wasn’t meant to have pancakes that day…

I’ve been quite creative recently, not only have I been producing some paintings for children which I’m aiming to sell, but have also produced a Haiku e-calendar with a verse for each month and a photo taken by one of us. If you would like a copy which you can print off, go to http://www.successfulspeaking.co.nz/products/

We are off to one of the national parks on 30th for three days. Will let you know how it goes













Jon has finished his masterpiece now – very impressive!