Mzungu Memoirs

I have heard several say that eMi’s heartbeat is the design project trips, many of which I have been blessed to have experienced since 2002.  Although an average eMi project involves a donation to ministries of what would cost $80,000 in professional fees, hosting a design team also usually involves a cost to the ministry we are serving of simple meals and lodging, in-country transportation, one airfare for the team leader and project sponsorship of up to $8,000, if the ministry can afford it.  Many small national ministries cannot afford to host a full team.  The East Africa office has begun offering design services (feasibility studies, master planning, etc.) for these small growing ministries that could make use of fund raising documents or design assistance to help them as they grow and develop their often God-sized visions.

Now living in Kampala, I have been able to work on several of these small projects in between the larger projects.  A teacher called to transform an entire nation by developing a school that incorporates Biblical teaching, a Ugandan man that endured civil war as a boy now feeling called to provide healing for orphans left in the wake, a ministry serving Christian university students or a mzungu woman called to educate and house orphans.  I wanted to share some of the recent small projects I have been working on.

Growing up in a rural village in Northern Uganda, Dr. Toli Simon endured the tyranny of Idi Amin and many of the atrocities of the long civil war that ended only a few years ago.  Many abandoned their faith after years of hardships, yet Dr. Simon’s family held firm.  Witnessing the murder of an uncle, he now feels called to minister to the many orphans left in the wake of the civil war.  Some children lost parents from the war, others from AIDS prevalent and spread in refugee camps.  Dr. Simon has a God-sized vision for an orphanage, primary school, secondary school, vocational school, clinic and staff housing.

Visiting the site and surveying the property almost two months ago, I was amazed at what I witnessed the day we visited.  Initially a small site that would have only accommodated a small primary school and some of the intended orphans, the village elders sat down to discuss a land dispute that had erupted while we were beginning the survey.  Dr. Simon’s amazing ability to be a peacemaker and the intent to provide much needed education, orphan housing and a clinic resulted in the village elders granting more land, enlarging the property 2.5 times the original size!  You can read more about the site visit in a past blog 10 Apr, “First Mzungus in the Village.”

These images show the phasing and proposed complete development of the now larger ministry site for True Life Ministries International.  In an e-mail message, Dr. Simon wrote, “This is an amazing master plan for our project.  It is a great donation.  It has enlarged our vision, considering the miraculous expansion of the land during the surveying process.  It is an affirmation of the Bible truth that ‘we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.’ Romans 8:28”

I have also been working on renderings and drawings for the Ukarimu House in Nairobi, Kenya.  Adjacent to Daystar University, the Ukarimu House seeks to serve students by providing a facility for outreach, mentoring, counseling, fellowship and discipleship.  Named for the Swahili word for hospitality, the Ukarimu House would include several residential rooms for students, several meeting rooms, a kitchen and dining room, study areas, a large veranda, a separate apartment and two-bedroom guest house.

Having been under construction for about ten years, this ministry is anxious to finish the project.  Currently, it is a concrete skeletal frame without a roof, windows, doors or finishes.  There have also been several revisions and errors through the construction.  eMi was asked to provide as-builts of the existing conditions, develop fund raising renderings and develop documents to complete construction of a roof.  A design team was sent from Colorado, with a representative from our East Africa office.  I have been working on developing presentation renderings and will continue developing architectural floor plans, elevations, roof plan, and drafting structural roof framing plans and truss details.

A third small project I would like to share with you is Mary’s Little Lambs, a ministry serving Ugandan orphans.  Started by a mzungu woman from New Jersey, Mary’s Little Lambs has purchased a site in Bulama, about 1.5 hours west of Kampala.  Mary has the vision of serving Ugandan orphans with housing, education and the love of Christ.

This fully developed master plan would house 80 orphans, educate 200 children, provide staff and teacher housing, a multipurpose building, offices, guest housing and a peaceful garden with water features and meditation spaces.

Living here in Kampala has made working on these small projects possible.  Heather & I continue to see more confirmation of our calling to serve here in Uganda…more stories later.  Thanks to all of our supporters who have partnered with our ministry to make all of this possible.

Then He said to His disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.  Therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest.” – Matthew 9:37-38

To market, to market, to buy a fat pig,

Home again, home again, jiggety-jig.

To market, to market, to buy a fat hog,

Home again, home again, jiggety jog.

While I haven’t been buying any pigs or hogs, there are certainly places here you can.  You can also buy chickens, goats and cows, but that is not really the type of place I prefer to shop.  I prefer to go to the butchery shop, such as Rosa’s Butchery, to get my pork and beef.  I’ve pretty much given up on buying chicken.  When it costs more than steak, it just isn’t worth it.  Chicken is the most expensive meat here, with beef being the cheapest and pork somewhere in between.

Actually, you can get just about anything to run the average Ugandan household at the typical Ugandan market.  The Kansanga Market just down the road from us in the heart of Kansanga is a good example.  (Kansanga is the name of the little suburb or neighborhood we live in.)  Essentially, it is a row of little shops, each about the size of a storage shed, with a bunch more stuff set out front on tarps or wherever a vendor can find a spot.  In the row of storefronts you can find clothing shops, usually separated for men, women and children, appliances, household goods, hardware, etc.  Out front, you will find overflow from the shops as well as shoes, produce, livestock, and whatever else you can’t find inside the shops.  In amongst the row of shops, there is also a pharmacy and clinic, a restaurant or two, and at least one Ugandan butchery where they have sides of beef hanging and you just go up and tell them where you want them to carve off a hunk for you.  Out with the sidewalk venders (I use that term loosely as there really aren’t any sidewalks here unless you go downtown), you will also find food vendors selling chapattis, rolex, mandazi and meat-on-a-stick.

While we have bought a couple of things from one of the little shops (a fan and a radio as they were much cheaper than anything we had found at the mega stores downtown) and I would like to check out the clothing shops as my clothes shopping endeavor downtown was less than successful, we don’t usually frequent the market.   It is all very chaotic and a little overwhelming to the reserved mzungu mindset.  For furniture, one can peruse Kampala’s “Furniture Row” as we call it, where carpenter’s build and display all kinds of furniture.  There is also a very large market downtown that I would like to go sometime just to experience (it is kind of seen as a novelty).  But mostly, I prefer what they call supermarkets and the little neighborhood shops and stands that are a little closer to home.

As I mentioned in a blog entry not too long after we had arrived in Uganda, what they call supermarkets here are definitely not what you would think of as a supermarket in the States.   They are usually much smaller, more like convenience store size.  But they are crammed full of stuff from floor to ceiling.  Aisles tend to be a little narrower, so while they do provide small grocery carts it is easier to use a hand-held basket for ease of maneuvering.   I haven’t figured out any rhyme or reason to stocking methods here as sometimes they will have something you are looking for and sometimes they won’t.  Mostly, they have canned and dry goods, some meat and refrigerated products like milk & cheese (although I get the “long life” box milk as Caleb doesn’t care for the “fresh” milk they have here), some household items and a few items of clothing as well.  Supermarkets typically do not have produce, unless it is an imported item like apples or sweet oranges.  Produce is typically sold at a little independent stand just outside supermarket entrances.

There is a small supermarket about half a mile from our house that Caleb and I walk to and then call a boda to take us home.  I typically shop there as it is the closest, but if I’m looking for more “mzungu” type items I have to venture a little further from home to the larger supermarkets that cater more to mzungus in general.  These require a boda ride both ways as there are none within walking distance.

Usually, when we walk to the supermarket close by, we will stop by Rosa’s Butchery Shop before calling the boda.  This shop is a more mzungu style butchery (they have cuts in meat cases rather than sides of beef hanging) but it is a little more affordable than the really nice mzungu butchery shop further down the road or the meat counters at the mega stores.  I really like Rosa’s for their pork cuts.  I used to get mince (ground beef) there, but I have found that I prefer the mince at the Italian supermarket up on the other side of the hill we live on.  We have also found that we prefer the beef cuts from the Italian supermarket as well.

On the way home from our trips to the supermarket, I usually ask the boda driver to stop at a little fruit stand that is just down the street from us.  Sometimes, if we need fresh fruits and veggies but not anything at the supermarket, Caleb and I will walk.  There are stands that are closer, but this one is larger with a little more variety, and he usually has very nice produce.  Besides, the guy that runs it has gotten to know me and what I like.  Our neighbors both in front of us and behind us have produce as well, but their stands are definitely not as big.  The neighbor behind us sells a little bit of everything from cabbage (which I have bought from him) to airtime.  The neighbors in front of us have a little table from which they sell a variety of fruits and vegetables as well as charcoal which they make right there on their property.  I have bought a pineapple from them (one of the best I have ever had), and at some point I intend to buy some charcoal from them as well.

One last little shop that I haven’t mentioned yet is Christine’s.  She is the Ugandan equivalent of the corner convenience store.  Other than the neighbor’s, she is the closest shop/stand to us, and she sells everything from rice and potatoes (in bulk) to bread and mandazi to soap and matches.  I get my eggs (which they don’t refrigerate here), beans (you have to be sure to pick through really well for bugs) and rice (which sometimes comes with rocks) from Christine.  She is close enough that I can send Caleb on an errand for a kilo of potatoes or a half dozen eggs (which are also sold in bulk).  Although the first time I sent him for eggs, he told Christine that he wanted a half kilo of eggs (which works out to 5 eggs, apparently).  Christine and I both had a good laugh about it later.

There are much larger stores downtown more like the stores you would find in the States.  They are “mega-store” chains from Kenya and South Africa.  If they don’t have what you are looking for, it probably can’t be found in Uganda.  But they are all the way downtown and require a longer boda ride, so we usually reserve those trips for the weekends, particularly for Sundays when Robert can drive us on our own boda.

“She is like the merchant ships, bringing her food from afar.” – Proverbs 31:14

It was recently requested that I blog about some of the local foods we have eaten.  Actually, food is kind of on the forefront of my mind right now as I have been asked to help the cook at the eMi office develop a three to four week menu rotation that includes both Ugandan and mzungu dishes.  Both the cook and I are excited to learn each other’s recipes.  I am also very excited about the chance to finally get to plug in a little bit somewhere.

When we first arrived in Uganda, I had grand aspirations of eating and learning to cook all these Ugandan dishes.  My intentions were quickly put into check when on our very first day in Uganda we had the very mzungu meal of hamburgers at the office.  I quickly realized as I began the process of stocking our kitchen, that while my cooking habits would need to adapt to the ingredients that I have available, I would basically be cooking the same sort of stuff that I would back in the States.  The variety of meals that I fix is not quite as extensive, but mostly it is just like home which is comforting.  Although we eat mostly mzungu type meals when we eat out as well, we have been introduced to a variety of Uganda dishes that are really quite tasty.

Matoke is the quintessential Ugandan dish.  It is a type of green banana (or plantain) that is more starchy than sweet and must be cooked before being eaten.  It is a major cash crop in Uganda and can be seen transported on everything from large trucks to bicycles (yes, there is really a guy on that bike behind all the matoke).  Matoke is traditionally steamed in the leaves of the plant on which the bananas themselves grow.   It can also be boiled if you don’t have any banana leaves handy.  It is then mashed and served with some sort of sauce made of vegetables, ground nuts (g-nuts, similar to peanuts) or some kind of meat.  It tastes a lot like mashed potatoes, although I feel it could use some salt.  The first time I tried it (made by the eMi cook) was with a meat sauce kind of like a thin beef stew.  I have also tried it with g-nut sauce which I thought was pretty good.  However, matoke is not one of Robert’s favorite Ugandan dishes, so I probably won’t bother learning how to make it.  Caleb has at least tried it, but doesn’t really care for it either (although I’m not really sure he got enough in the bite he tried to actually taste it).

One of Robert’s favorite dishes is samosas.  It is a filled pastry snack that, according to Wikipedia, can be found in one form or another all the way from Asia across the Arabian Peninsula to the Mediterranean and throughout Africa.  In Uganda, it is a fried triangular pastry.  The ones we have eaten have been filled with meat with a little bit of onion and carrots and sometimes green pepper throw in.  I have also seen frozen ones with vegetable filling at some of the shops I go to, although I’m not sure what constitutes the vegetable filling.  Caleb is also quite fond of samosas, although he prefers to break them open, pull the filling out, pick out the vegetable, eat the meat and (maybe) eat the wrapper.

One of Caleb’s favorite foods is chapattis which are round, flat, unleavened bread similar to tortillas.  Apparently, they are common in Western Asia, particularly India, but they are also popular in Eastern Africa, especially among the Swahili people and in Swahili-speaking countries (which they do speak here in addition to Lugandan).  I have been told that chapattis are fairly simple to make.  Essentially, all they are is flour and water with a little salt thrown in.  Then you toss them on a well-oiled griddle (as opposed to dry for tortillas) and fry them.  I haven’t tried my hand at making them yet.  It’s kind of hard to get myself motivated to make them when Robert can run down the road and pick up three rolexes (fried egg with maybe a little onion and tomato wrapped in a chapatti) for he and I and a couple of plain chapattis for Caleb for less than one McDonald’s value meal.

A new Ugandan food that we just discovered is mandazi. It is fried bread similar to doughnuts (donuts) although they are not as sweet as U.S. style doughnuts and do not have a sugar glaze or icing.  They are typically eaten with tea or coffee for breakfast or for a snack anytime.  Caleb was just introduced to them yesterday when Grandma Maggie bought him one as a special treat for going to the local convenience store with her (I’ll talk more about the stores and markets next week).  We thought they would make a nice Sunday breakfast, and since I didn’t have anything else planned for this morning, Robert and Caleb ran over to the same little store and got us all some.  As far as Ugandan breads are concerned, it’s one of the better varieties, but it doesn’t really have a whole lot of competition (the breads here really aren’t that great).

There is one more dish that I would like to mention before I close: bamboo soup.  This particular dish was made by Grandma Maggie’s housemate, Florence, and it is really only made in eastern Uganda in the area of the village she comes from.  I’m not exactly sure how it goes from the ground to being ready to cook, but you have to boil it to make it edible.  Then you add some onion, tomato and mchusi mix (a common spice mixture used around here) and let it all simmer for a little bit.  It was really good when Florence made it and sounds very easy to make, so I’m eager to try my hand at preparing it with some of the boiled bamboo she gave us.

I’m sure there are many more dishes that we will get to try while we are here, some we will like and some we may not.  But I’m game.  I’m willing to try just about anything once.  Well, maybe not bugs.  Grasshoppers are a delicacy here.

“He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.” Deuteronomy 8:3

Not too long after we moved to Uganda, our neighbor, Grandma Maggie, suggested to Caleb that he should build a cardboard General Lee from the Dukes of Hazzard.  This is not an unreasonable suggestion for a creative 5 year old, unless you live in an area where construction materials, particularly of the cardboard variety are hard to come by.  It was one of the few times that I haven’t been thrilled with one of Maggie’s suggestions.

So we started collecting cardboard boxes.  When we were visiting Heritage International School in anticipation of enrolling Caleb for the fall, Caleb saw a box behind the desk of the lady we were meeting with.  I don’t remember if he point blank asked the lady for it, or if he just mentioned that he was collecting boxes.  Either way, the box was offered and gratefully accepted.  And it was a fairly large one too, at least by Ugandan cardboard box standards.

One box down, but we still needed a bunch more.  Then I remember seeing a large cardboard box in our garage.  But since we are renting the house and everything in it, I wasn’t sure if we could use the box, especially if we were going to cut it up.  Upon inquiry, Maggie (who was the one responsible for setting up our household before we arrived and therefore the person I figured best to ask) said it would be fine.

Now we had two large boxes, but we still had a long way to go.  There was a new addition to the eMi full-time staff that was having to outfit and furnish her apartment and had several smaller boxes from purchases she had made which she brought over to Caleb.  I also saved all the boxes I emptied from the kitchen, which was not as many as your average American kitchen produces but definitely more than produced by your average Ugandan kitchen.

Finally, enough boxes of various sizes had been collected and construction began on a lazy Saturday in mid-April.  The bulk of the construction was completed over the course of the weekend.  Robert even fashioned a hood and an “engine”.  Of course, he didn’t have to worry about doors “because the doors on a race car are welded shut.”  But there were still some details that needed to be completed, most notably the color.

Thus began the search for orange spray paint.  This endeavor took several more weeks.  Caleb bided his time constructing some of the finer details such as the confederate flag for the roof of the car and the license plates which he made of Ugandan flags (after all, we do live in Uganda not Georgia).  Finally, we found some orange spray paint at Game, the South African Mega store where we found some of the needed supplies for the clothesline repair.  At 20,800 Ugandan Shillings (about $9), it was quite the splurge, but we had come so far on the construction of the General Lee we just had to put the finishing touches on it.  We decided to get one can and just do the best we could with the coverage.

Caleb wasn’t going to let that can of spray paint collect too much dust, however, and was able to convince Robert to paint the cardboard car within a few days of its purchase.  The coverage wasn’t too bad.  The General Lee was now definitely orange, even if you could see some of the original markings on the boxes.

So we now have a cardboard General Lee sitting in our garage, and Caleb proudly displays it to anyone and everyone who comes to visit (I think Daddy is pretty proud of it too).  I believe construction has been completed, but every now and then Caleb comes up with one more detail to add.  The latest was the trunk.  He asked Robert to make two cuts in the rear of the car so that he could open and close the trunk.  He also had to add rear view mirrors (ya gotta know what’s coming up behind you, especially if you are running from Roscoe P. Coltrane), and he had Robert cut out a cardboard key so he could start the engine.  I wonder what he will think to add next.

“I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” Matthew 16:19

Robert does not particularly agree with my blog subject for this week, but since we kind of left you hanging with the last one I figure I better give you an update.  That, and life must be starting to become mundane and routine here in Africa because I’m beginning to run out of ideas to write about.  Suggestions or blog spurring questions are welcome.

So, at the end of the last blog, we were still searching for steel pipe and high strength wire.  Apparently, steel pipe pretty much only comes in one size around here.  Maggie, our wonderful neighbor and guardian angel when it comes to all things African, instructed a boda driver she often hires for running errands to go down to the local welding shop and have them cut a pipe so it could fit inside the support pole of the clothesline.  She sent him off with part of the pipe that Robert had cut from the clothesline pole to use as a guide for the diameter of the new pipe.  I don’t think he really understood what she was requesting because he came back with a pipe that was cut down the length for about 6 inches and then looked like it had been cut down the rest of the length but had been welded back together but was the exact same diameter as the piece of the pole she had given him.  It would not fit in the clothesline pole and it certainly would not fit in the pipe that was buried in the concrete that Robert had worked to reshape and was now slightly oval rather than round.

This is where I got involved.  When the boda driver came back with the pipe, I took him to the back yard to show him what it was we were trying to do with it.  After much discussion, more on the part of Maggie and I as this guy is not a talker, and some serious time studying the problem, I think he finally understood what we were after.  We marked the pipe in some of the places we felt that it could be cut (it was little too long as well as too big in diameter).  He took off again with pipe in hand (actually it was tied to his boda, and I wish I had thought to get a picture of it).  He returned with a pipe that essentially had a slit down the length of it.  Unfortunately, the “diameter” wasn’t really all that much smaller, but with a lot of grunting and elbow grease, we were able to work the new pipe into both the piece of pipe that was left in the concrete and the support pole of the clothesline.  I say “we”, but actually it was mostly the boda driver hammering the new pipe into the pipe in the concrete and then the clothesline pole onto the new pipe sticking out of the ground.

So, now the clothesline pole was once again standing erect rather than lying forlornly on the ground.  However, I still couldn’t use it because I didn’t want to string the lines until Robert had a chance to install the guy wires to prevent the support pipes from bending under the weight of the wet clothes again.  It took a couple more evenings to get that done simply because the available daylight after Robert gets home from work is limited.  Being right on the equator is nice because are days and nights are pretty consistently equal, which means we don’t get the short days during the winter but it also means that we don’t get the long days during the summer either.

By Friday, our second house help day for the week, the clothesline support poles were fully operational once again and even had one line strung between them.  Our house help for the day took it upon herself to string another line which was just enough to hang the moderate amount of laundry we had for the day.  Unfortunately, almost immediately after she had hung it, we started to get a serious threat of rain and had to bring it all in.

Robert was able to string a couple more lines with the wire that we already had (we never did find any high strength wire, I don’t think it exists here in Africa) which gave me a total of four lines.  I am hesitant to put any more on even though the thing is designed for six lines as I don’t want to overload it which is what I think happened to begin with.  I was all ready for laundry on Tuesday, or so I thought…

Today (Tuesday), our house help was hanging clothes on the line when one of the masonry anchors holding the guy wire pulled out of the concrete.  Fortunately, it was on the pole opposite the one that had originally bent.  However, it was still bending in towards the lines under the weight of the wet clothes, so the day guard helped me tie the guy wire back to an exposed rafter on the shed the guards use to help straighten out the support pole.  So now we have to figure out if we are going to put another masonry anchor in the weak concrete or try something else…

“But come on, all of you, try again!  I will not find a wise man among you.” – Job 17:10

When we lived in the States, we had an old but reliable Kenmore washer and dryer set.  Robert had inherited it from his grandmother before we were married.  Because they were older, they were fairly easy to repair (not as many parts as the fancy models today), and Robert was a whiz at working on them, particularly the dryer.  He replaced the heating element and belt several times and even the bearings once.  The old models were built so much better than the new ones in the townhouse we bought that Robert had aspirations of switching them, but a very tight stairwell with a 90° turn in the townhouse convinced us not to.  It was a sad day when we decided to sell the old washer and dryer with the last house they were in.  We just couldn’t justify the space they would take up in storage.

In all the years of keeping our trusty Kenmore dryer running, I doubt seriously Robert ever thought he would be working on our dryer in Africa.  “I thought you didn’t have a dryer” you say?  Well, I guess you are partially correct.  We do not have an electric drying machine like you would find in the States.  They do exist here, but they are very expensive, not as big as the ones in the States and belong primarily to the wealthy and elite.  We have a good old fashioned clothesline on which to hang our clothes to dry.  And apparently clotheslines need occasional repairs as well, at least here in Africa.

I had already been through several rounds with our day guard of replacing and tightening wires.  These were minor “repairs” compared to what was to come.

We get house help (local Ugandans hired by mzungus and affluent Africans to help out around the house) two mornings a week.  This last Tuesday, Stella, our help for the morning, was working on a particularly large pile of laundry.  Friday the week before had been a holiday, so we had not gotten any laundry done.  Plus, we had been out of town for the weekend, and that always seems to generate extra laundry.  Stella was hanging clothes on the line when I heard her call for me in a rather surprised tone.  I ran around the house to find Stella holding one of the supports poles for the clothesline up.  It had bent at the base under the weight of the wet clothes (Ugandan metal isn’t very strong, a serious design problem in many ways).  I took over holding up the pole (actually, more like preventing it from bending any further), while Stella quickly removed all the laundry she had already hung on the line.  Then we proceeded to move the wet clothes to the lines I had strung in the garage, the bathroom, the neighbors line, pretty much anywhere we could think of to put them.

Redistributing the laundry was the easy part compared to the repairs that Robert was now faced with.  Nothing is easy in Africa when it comes to repairs, well mostly.   It’s not like we have a local Wal-mart we can run down to get what we need.  And it certainly is not as easy as running to the appliance store and bringing a part home to install.

First Robert had to saw the bent pole at the base close to the ground.  Then he sawed the bent section out of the pole.  That was actually the easy part…  Next came a trip to our neighborhood hardware store.  Robert needed a missing chuck key for the drill he was borrowing, some masonry eye bolts, a slightly smaller tube to sleeve inside the clothesline support pole and some high strength wire to anchor the supports.  He found none of these at the hardware store, but was referred to several downtown stores as well as local welding shops.  With Robert frustrated at the seeming inability to find any of the necessary items and with Caleb, who was riding on the boda with Robert, getting thirsty, they just came home.  After church on Sunday, we did some shopping downtown at Nakumatt and Game, Kenyan and South African versions of Wal-Mart, and found some masonry anchors and a drill chuck.  The search continues for the steel pipe and high strength wire…

One of Robert’s favorite verses is Isaiah 58:12, and it talks about being called “Repairer of Broken Walls.”  I’m sure Isaiah would be mortified that I am even thinking of comparing this verse to repairing bent clotheslines, but I hope he will grant me some literary license.  I’m very grateful for my Repairer of Broken Clotheslines, Restorer of Laundry Facilities, and I sure am glad he is willing to fix them for me.  Because in Africa, handymen are kind of hard to come by too.

“Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise up the age-old foundations; you will be called Repairers of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.” Isaiah 58:12

We have often joked that with Robert and I as parents, Caleb got a double dose of stubbornness.  This weekend we really got to experience it.

As a precaution against malaria, we have been taking mefloquine, a prescription prophylactic, once a week on Sunday evenings.  Caleb takes a quarter tablet, a very doable size for a five year old boy, and does quite well with it, too.  Until this weekend.

We were out of town this weekend, so I took the mefloquine with us.  I actually forgot to give Caleb his pill Sunday evening, so I had to give it to him Monday morning.  When I gave Caleb the pill, I didn’t have a cup readily available, so I just gave him a water bottle that was handy to take his pill with.  Big mistake.  While Caleb is fully capable of drinking out of a water bottle, he has a kind of funny way of doing it and has a tendency to backwash back into the bottle.  Well, this happened while he was trying to take his pill and it backwashed right into the bottle.

I had only brought one pill with us for him to take, so I didn’t have another one to give him.  We thought that he could just drink the pill out of the bottle, but after drinking a good bit of the water he still hadn’t gotten down what was now a rapidly disintegrating pill.  Then the water started turning bitter due to the pill dissolving, and he didn’t want to drink it anymore.  Unfortunately, by this point we were committed to having him drink what was left.

We tried everything: coaxing, reasoning, bargaining, begging.  Finally, we told him that he had to drink the rest of what was in the bottle before he could get anything else.  We marched down to breakfast with the bottle in hand.  Caleb sat in front of his bottle of bitter, medicinal water while the rest of us ate breakfast.

When we got into the vehicle to head home, one of the eMi interns traveling with us suggested to try adding some drink power, the kind you add to a bottle of water to make it into something like Crystal Light or Gatorade.  Caleb liked the idea, but didn’t want to do it right away.  When he was finally ready, he chose an orange flavor.  I added what I thought would be an adequate amount to the bottle.  Caleb took a sip or two and wouldn’t drink anymore.

A little bit later, I thought it might help make the water more palatable if I added some sugar to the water.  Caleb seemed keen on the idea as well, so we stopped at a supermarket in the largest town we traveled through on the way home.  But when I got the sugar added to the water, he wasn’t interested in trying it.  At one point on the trip home, he decided he was hungry enough to try the water with the added sugar.  He took a couple of sips, and wouldn’t drink anymore.

The entire way home, I maintained that he had to drink the water before he got anything else.  And the entire way home, Caleb wouldn’t budge.  He would say that he was hungry, and I would tell him that all he had to do was finish the water, but he wouldn’t.

When we got home, we upped the stakes, saying that he couldn’t do anything like go over to Grandma Maggie’s or play until he finished the water.  He sat at our dining room table with the water bottle sitting in front of him and still wouldn’t drink it.  I added more sugar to try to make it more palatable.  We tried having him take it off a spoon (the way I remember taking medicine as a child before they had those nice dispensers).  That lasted two spoonfuls.

Finally, I was at my wits end.  By this point, it wasn’t so much about making him take the medicine as it was standing our ground as parents.  I was afraid that if we gave in and let him abandon drinking the rest of the water, we would lose a major parenting battle.

So, I did what any good parent would do: I talked to a grandmother.  Since I can’t just call up my own mother, I went over to talk to our wonderful neighbor, Grandma Maggie.  Her thought was that we were all tired, and by this point the battle wasn’t worth fighting.  We have been on Mefloquine since before we arrived, and the chances of him getting malaria are not terribly great.   She said we should let Caleb know that we would be sad for him if he got malaria because he didn’t take his medicine, but that it was his choice.  So that’s what we did.

Caleb may have won this battle of the wills.  But we didn’t completely lose, since a grandmother’s ruling always overrules a mother’s.  Right?

“If someone has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town.” Deuteronomy 21:18-19

“African time (or Africa time) is a colloquial term used to describe a perceived cultural tendency, in some parts of Africa, toward a more relaxed attitude to time. This is sometimes used in a pejorative sense, about tardiness in appointments, meetings and events. The term is also sometimes used to describe the more leisurely, relaxed and less rigorously scheduled lifestyle found in African countries, especially as opposed to the more clock-bound pace of daily life in Western countries. As such it is similar to time orientations in some other non-Western culture regions.”

– Wikipedia

We have heard it said, “Americans have watches, Africans have time.”

“Africa time” is one of the things that drive us mzungus nuts about Ugandans, but it is one of the things that we probably could benefit the most from if we truly learned to embrace it.   It is not so much about “a relaxed attitude to time,” although it is partly that, as it is a heightened attitude toward relationships and respect.  Ugandans feel that the relationship they have with a person is more important than the time it takes to accomplish a task.  Consequently, they see deadlines and meeting times as fluid, dependent more on the time required to cultivate a relationship connected with that deadline or meeting.  For example, if a Ugandan is involved in one meeting, he will not move on to the next until he is satisfied with the relationship that has been cultivated with the first even if it means being an hour or more late to the second meeting.

Another example of relationship cultivation is the Ugandan greeting.  Ugandans greet with “Hello” always followed by “How are you?”  If you greet a Ugandan without additionally asking the question, they will often answer “Hello, I am fine” anyway.  This is not just an inquiry by rote; Ugandans are genuinely interested in how you are doing.  And they get offended when you don’t inquire of them.  I have, on more than one occasion, failed to ask the question of someone I was greeting and gotten the conversation or task at hand off to a rocky start.  Fortunately, Ugandans are very forgiving of mzungus and the relationship is quickly mended after a short time.

In fact, just this morning, I was trying to get the attention of the guard on duty to prevent him from doing something that I would later have to undo, but I didn’t greet him in the proper Ugandan fashion first.  When I was done explaining that I didn’t want him to do what he was doing, he asked how I was.  I of course responded and asked how he was, so the relationship was quickly mended, but it was definitely a goof on my part.  I think our guards, as well as many of the other Ugandans that I deal with on a regular basis like the boda drivers, realize that I am a relatively new mzungu and am still learning, so they give me some extra leeway.

And Ugandans take their greetings to the streets.  Because this is a largely pedestrian society, you meet many people walking along the road, and many will greet you even if they don’t know you.  This is particularly true when you have a child in tow.  Ugandans love children, and apparently feel it is important to teach the children (all children whether they are theirs or not) this custom of greeting.  Caleb is still getting used to being asked how he is, particularly by complete strangers.  Sometimes, particularly in the more metropolitan areas, people on the street will have a more serious or gruff demeanor and not always greet you.  But Robert has observed that when you greet them in the proper Ugandan fashion, their faces just light up and they are quick to respond.

Tied to the Ugandan importance of relationships is their attitude towards respect for one another.  Ugandans are, by and large, very humble people, and always regard the person they are greeting as more important than themselves.  This is often seen in the way they shake hands.  Ugandans will often touch their forearm or elbow with their left hand while they are shaking with their right.  I believe, the closer the left hand is to the elbow of the right arm the greater the respect is being shown.  Women will sometimes drop to their knees in a bowing motion when they shake hands, but I haven’t seen this as much.  I’m slowly remembering to use the sign of respect when I shake hands, but it is not as intuitive you might think.

There are many other subtle ways that Ugandans show respect and cultivate relationships, and I could probably go on for a while longer.  It blows my mind how humble these people that we have come to serve really are.  Ugandans are such a wonderful example of the humbleness exemplified by Christ that we are to emulate.  I hope that I can pick up even just a fraction of the Ugandans’ humbleness and carry it throughout the rest of my life.  I really think I would be a better person for it.

“For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” – Matthew 23:12

Northern Uganda has endured many hardships over the past few decades.  After several dictatorial regimes, including the tyranny of Idi Amin, all but three of the last 25 years has been scarred by war waged by a group ironically called the Lord’s Resistance Army.  The LRA ravaged villages, raped women, killed men and enlisted child soldiers.  Northern Uganda is still reeling from the effects of the war that finally ended in 2008.  Broken families, destroyed villages, thousands of orphans and refugee camps that cultivated the spread of AIDS were just some of the effects left by the LRA’s terror.

I spent most of the last week in Northern Uganda serving two ministries that feel called to help heal the wounds inflicted by the LRA.  Our team consisted of Dan Untch, a structural engineering intern serving in our eMi East Africa office and myself.  Dan and I caught a public bus at one of the taxi parks in downtown Kampala, which was quite an experience.  There were several street hawkers on the bus selling everything from newspapers and bags of coffee to chapatis and cheap knockoff watches.  A few of the hawkers even rode the bus through part of downtown with us trying to make that last sale before stepping off.  After about a five hour ride, we arrived in Lira and were soon picked by our first ministry contact.

The first ministry we served was Saving Grace in Uganda, begun four years ago by an American couple, Al and Val Bransdorfer, who were living in Lira and serving in refugee camps.  They noticed many street children living in Lira.  Immediately following the murder of one of the children by a bread vendor, Al and Val opened the home they were renting to 26 children and Fred Ojok, a Ugandan man who had already been working with the street children.  In meetings with Fred, he shared with us how they are working to heal the wounds of children that may have witnessed the murder of their parents or been used as soldiers themselves.  In healing these wounds, they lead them to the Great Physician, Christ.

Dan Untch used a GPS survey equipment we have in the East Africa office to singlehandedly survey an 8-acre site in about 3 ½ hours!  I was very impressed.  It is quite an improvement from the previous generation two-person total station systems or even older generation transits of the past.  After praying over the site and a morning of surveying, we met with Fred Ojok in the afternoon to discuss the vision and architectural programming for their properties.  Over the coming weeks, I will work on developing a site master plan and architectural renderings to assist them in their fundraising efforts.

After a couple of pretty restless nights swatting mosquitoes due to a lack of nets and worrying about contracting malaria, we were picked by the second ministry we traveled to serve.  True Life Ministries International was begun by Dr. Toli Simon, one of 11 siblings who were born in a remote village on the north side of Lake Kyoga.  Having endured the regime of Idi Amin and the LRA, Dr. Simon shared stories of he and his brother running away from soldiers, hiding in trees, witnessing the murder of an uncle, then hiding in grass waiting as soldiers poked the grass to find men to kill.  Soldiers took their cattle, roasted their goats and raped their women.  Many in the area began to lose faith, yet this family held firm in their faith in God and to Romans 8.  We were told this story after I preached in the village…maybe I should back up.

Stopping in the last town before the village, Dr. Simon wanted to introduce his guests at a local primary school, who sang songs for us and wanted each of us to share some encouragement from the Word.

After hours on rough roads stopping to buy bananas or fruit from people Dr. Simon knew, we left the end of the road and began driving along a footpath, narrow enough that the small Mazda car we were driving was being scratched by brush on both sides.  We met a man who Dr. Simon knew walking along the path who was carrying a chicken.  Dr. Simon felt compelled to help his friend out and bought the live chicken, placing it under his feet as he continued driving.  A bit further on, we had to all get out of the car to lessen the load and raise the clearance in order to allow passage through a rocky section.

After 5½ hours to travel 50 miles, we finally arrived in the village as women danced, hollered and surrounded the car.  Upon exiting the car, we were escorted to special plastic chairs covered with doilies in a place of honor behind a table covered with a larger doily. They were presenting their very best for us.  Greetings and introductions of everyone present ensued, describing family connections and relating some stories of names, including a brother of Dr. Simon whose name in the local language translates to “Gospel Power.”

Dr. Simon introduced me as “a preacher of the Gospel who also happens to be an architect” and asked me to share from the Word while we were waiting for lunch.  I felt I was living Acts 1:8 “but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.” Later finding out that Dan and I were the first mzungus (white people) that had ever been in this village made it a very unique experience.  At the end of my sermon, I used Romans 8 as an encouragement that, no matter what happens on this earth, nothing can separate us from the love of God through Christ.  After speaking, Dr. Simon was very encouraged and shared that Romans 8 has been his favorite passage and inspiration through many of the trials he and his family has endured through the years.  Pretty amazing how God works!

For lunch, we enjoyed some goat meat and liver stew, rice and cabbage.  Asking Dr. Simon about the grain storage in the village that was empty, he explained that due to recent lack of rain, the village has no food aside from the poor nutrition of cassava they have planted in the area.  Despite this, they had goat meat and rice for us when we visited.  African hospitality is very humbling.

As we were walking the site to begin the survey, an adjacent property owner began arguing about the future orphans being too close to his property where he has been building a home for the last several years.  Keep in mind that property corners, particularly in rural Africa, are trees and bushes.  Dr. Simon was very humble and sacrificial, offering to give several feet of the property intended for the school and orphanage to him to make peace and attempt to satisfy all parties.  Later discovering the potential for an orphanage, school and clinic, the village elders sat down to discuss the situation and decided to trade some land Dr. Simon owns in another area for more land behind the property being surveyed, effectively making the property about 2 ½ times the initial size.  It was amazing to witness this and made me think of Matthew 5:9, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.”

While Dan was surveying, I played with some of the children in the village even though we did not speak the same language.  The kids were fascinated with my pale skin, wanting to touch my hands and arms.  They pushed my shirt sleeves up, I think to verify that my skin color was not a paste and I was really dark like everyone else.

Dr. Simon, born in this remote village without roads, water or electricity, went to primary school in the nearest town, secondary school in another town, Makerere University in Kampala and holds a Doctor of Theology from Oral Roberts University in Kansas City.  Wow!  After talking with Dr. Simon about the God-printed experience regarding the land boundaries, he asked me about the strange device Dan was using for the survey.  I explained about GPS, satellites and small computers using trigonometry to calculate locations in three directions.  Then, he explained the system to the school children and villagers that had gathered in their local language.  He told me they had never seen anything like it and it was like seeing a rocket ship.

It was an amazing and impacting trip.  I pray that the use of my architectural skills will provide images and tools that empower True Life Ministries and Saving Grace as they seek to serve the people of Northern Uganda.

It was suggested to me when I was complaining about one of our rainy Ugandan days that I have Caleb write a blog entry.  This isn’t that blog, but I thought I would take a moment to share about the youngest member of the Donahue missionary team and give you a glimpse into his world here in Uganda as seen through his eyes.  His grandmother gave him a camera for Christmas (thankfully, a seemingly indestructible thing) that has allowed Caleb to capture his own images of his life here in Uganda.  I have selected a few out of the hundreds that he has taken to share with you.

Caleb likes to take pictures of people.  Mostly they are pictures of people directly involved in his life, but some are of activities he has witnessed by sitting out our gate and watching the world go by.  He had taken many pictures of Robert and me, but I don’t need to share those here.  He had also taken several of Grandma Maggie, our neighbor and adopted grandmother, but unfortunately I could not find one that is not blurry.  He did take a very nice picture of Rachel and Miriam, the daughters of Maggie’s housemate, Florence.  Rachel and Miriam live with Maggie and Florence and tolerate Caleb probably about as much as you would an annoying kid cousin.  They play with him some, but mostly I think they just let him play on their computers.

He has, however, managed to very much win the hearts of our guards.  Jackson, who was the day guard during the weekend when we first arrived but recently has been serving as the night guard, really took a shine to Caleb.  He would often come over to see if Caleb would like to go with him to walk the dogs or run errands with him.  I was very sad when he got moved to nights, both because I enjoyed having him around but also I knew Caleb really enjoyed “playing” with him.  Then Samuel, who had been working nights, moved to days and the playing really began.  Samuel loves to throw the football with Caleb and will even make moves to tackle him, in play of course.  I think Samuel is just a big kid at heart, probably the most kid-like of our guards.

Caleb has also taken pictures of our house help, although not as many as they are not around quite as much as the guards.  They are busy working pretty much the entire time they are here and don’t really have the time to play with Caleb, although they do enjoy carrying on conversations with him.  Caleb hasn’t been able to get a picture of Stella, but I understand that she doesn’t particularly like having her picture taken.  But he got a really good picture of Monica, capturing her impish smile quite well.

Now, I know dogs and cats aren’t really people, but the ones that run our compound are very important to Caleb.  Siraf, the puppy, has become Caleb’s playmate in the absence of neighbor children to play with.  They seem to wear each other out quite well, although sometimes I think is an attitude of mutual tolerance rather than brotherhood.  Sophie, the cat, isn’t so much a playmate as she has become a fixture around our house.  I made the mistake of letting her lick a tuna can and now I can’t get rid of her.  She is actually Maggie’s cat, but she seems to prefer our couch.  She tolerates Caleb, and he, in turn, is learning the proper way to “respect” pets, something we have been struggling with recently.

One of Caleb’s favorite pastimes is sitting at our front gate watching the world go by, usually waiting for Daddy to get home from work.  On one particular occasion when he was sitting at the gate, the utility worker who had just trimmed our tree in preparation for a new utility line came by and started visiting with Caleb.  They talked for probably an hour.  Caleb told him all about our trip from the States, American football, and I have no idea what all else.  The guy was so impressed with him that he bought Caleb some ice cream from the neighborhood ice cream man, a guy that rides around on a bike selling ice cream from a cooler strapped to the back of it.  I didn’t realize it, but Caleb watched the utility guys the next day as they were actually installing the line.  We even saw the utility guy that had bought Caleb the ice cream later when he was working on a pole along a route that we take to get to Robert’s office.  As mzungus, we have a tendency to stand out as we walk down the road.

Even though many of Caleb’s photographs are of people, most of them are of things.  I guess inanimate objects are easier for a budding photographer to capture.  They don’t move around as much.  A couple of his prized possessions here in Uganda are his chair that sits on the veranda and our new boda-boda.  The chair is of particular value because it has a smiley face on the back of it and what little boy wouldn’t love a chair with a smiley face and because it is blue.  The fact that it is blue is of particular interest because we had sent Ali, our weekend day guard, down to get some plastic chairs for us without specifying the colors, and he brought back a large red one (my favorite color), a large green one (Robert’s favorite color) and a small blue one (Caleb’s favorite color).  The guys were very tickled by this coincidence.  And the boda-boda is prized because, well, it’s a motorcycle and what little boy wouldn’t love to have a motorcycle as his main mode of transportation.

There is still a lot to learn and experience here in Uganda and probably a lot more pictures will be taken (I hope I have enough storage space on my computer), but I think Caleb is proving to be a wonderful little missionary.  Sometimes, I think he’s doing better than us big ones.

“The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them.” – Isaiah 11:6