Welcome back to the next instalment of my blogggg. Hello July! And hello new font! Where has the time gone? Geez Louise, I will be leaving Mbale at the end of next month. Weird. So Jo has gone back to the UK indefinitely, so our house numbers are fast dwindling! Now it’s just me and Penny in the house which is quiet but also a nice change from the hustle and bustle of the office and being around town. Although now with two less hands to pat dogs with, the two of us have to ensure we sufficiently smother the dogs with the attention they always want. Not an easy task! Jo was definitely the biggest animal lover in the house. I have big shoes to fill.
So did I get my UK working visa, you ask? Well, the answer to that timely question is no. It turns out I can’t apply for the visa in Uganda because I’m not a Ugandan resident. I would have to apply for the visa in Australia if I wanted it to actually get processed. But the upside to the situation is that they refunded my processing fee in full, so I didn’t lose a whole chunk of money on nothing. Yay for money! My car back home managed to die a slow, painful death and my lovely mother had the fun job of sending it on to the wreckers (thanks mum!). So now I have a few hundred more dollars from that – albeit no car. I still can’t believe we’re officially in the second half of the year. Seriously, is time on fast forward or something?
I have no train of thought which to follow, so let’s just meander through unrelated topics in non-chronological order shall we? So apart from not getting my visa (oh well), Kampala was good fun. I met Zoe late morning at the hotel and we ate Cadbury mini eggs before heading out to a local market where every second person yelled out to us and tried to force us to look at their goods because we’re mzungu’s. Kinda getting used to that by now though. Shopped around a bit, finally found come decent black leggings, although they are only ½ length…maybe ¾. Went to Garden City and got my first ever manicure cause in a freak turn of events, I actually have nails at the moment. I got French polish and it looks very lovely. We also went and saw The Adjustment Bureau at the cinemas which was not at all what I thought it would be from looking at the movie poster, but raised some interesting ideas about destiny and free will and so forth. Plus, Matt Damon is easy on the eyes ;) Had dinner at an Indian restaurant down the street and retired early. Went and picked up my refund from the British Council in the morning, then tried unsuccessfully to get to Garden City in a matatu – they guy dropped us off about 200m up the road from where we were picked up and he tried to charge us 1,000 shillings. We told him we weren’t paying and we didn’t. So then we bargained down a price with two pickies to take us, then mine tried to get an extra 500 shillings off me at the end and got all angry and was being a jerk. I calmly told him that we had agreed on 2,000 shillings and that’s all I was paying. Zoe berated him for trying to rip us off because we’re white. Go Zoe! Went and got a pedicure with bright red polish and Zoe got a manicure this time. Now all our nails are pretty! Bought some stuff from Uchumi (supermarket) and headed back to Mbale on the Elgon Flyer. It’s about a 4 hour journey but I quite enjoy listening to my music and watching the scenery go past.
We are saying goodbye to another volunteer this week – Mr Grant Price. It’s weird seeing people leave one by one, it really changes the group dynamics but I guess that’s to be expected. I am actually going to outstay all the current volunteers, so I have a few more goodbyes ahead of my own! We are going out for dinner tonight to celebrate Grant’s time with us and wish him well with his travels back home and starting his Masters course in London.
Korah is getting bigger every week, she will overtake Bailey soon methinks. She’s such a cutie! I want her to stay a puppy forever. I am enjoying my new room very much, my desk not only provides a place to write, read and type, but it looks out on our front yard, which is looking better and better these days with Peter’s hard work in the garden and the completed fence. If I haven’t already said, we have a new house girl now – Martha our previous one had a baby, so she left to look after him and we hired Anna (who used to help out at the boys’ house) to look after our house. She has a young daughter, Patience, who is a cute little monkey. She sometimes brings her to work with her, but I haven’t seen her for a little while.
I’m in the middle or trying to finalise travel details for my time in Spain with Liz. We are meeting in Madrid, taking the bus to Valencia, doing La Tomatina for a couple of days, then taking the bus to Barcelona, where we’re staying for three nights. I’m really looking forward to it – I have heard only good reports of people’s travels to Spain and Barcelona especially seems like an amazing city. It’s a little weird to think of being in a first world country in a few weeks, I think it’s going to be a bit of an adjustment for me.
On the Jenga front, I’m not really working on any particular project at the moment – I will be assisting with developing some training material for the food storage project next week and this week I have been looking into accommodation for a group of 12 people from the UK who are arriving later this month. Robby is gearing up to go on a 6 month sabbatical in early August, leaving Pastor Vinnie is charge of things. Tiff has an appointment with her doctor next week to assess how her arm is going and he will basically tell her if she can come back to Uganda in July or not. I still have no idea when I will return to Melbourne and what I will do when I get there. Please pray that I will hear God’s voice in the midst of everything here – I could really use some guidance about now!
If you’ve seen my photos on Facebook, you would know that we had a staff day out the week before last to Sipi Falls. We went on a Wednesday as a special mystery outing day in honour of Jo leaving after 5 years with Jenga. Sipi Falls was really beautiful and we did a short hike through the lush landscape to arrive near the bottom of the waterfall. It’s certainly not everyday that the local staff get to do things like that, and watching their excitement and appreciation of being able to have a fun day out and marvel at God’s creation was a humble reminder of just how lucky I am to be able to come and go as I please, earn a decent wage, go on holidays, study, travel, and anything else I decide I want to do. Most people in Uganda don’t have the luxury of spending time or money on things outside of their immediate daily needs and those of their family. I will try and introduce you to them all in my next entry – they are the true heroes of this story. For now, this is Rose, Moses and Deborah:
Until next time, thanks for reading and au revior.
Louise :)
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