A Week in the Rear View Mirror

Saturday, August 4^th  - our one-year-in-country mark, is now disappearing behind us and just a memory in the rear-view mirror.  That much anticipated anniversary passed without the marching band (which will march for almost any occasion) parading through the streets and no one celebrated our year of survival, tears, friendship and laughter but us.   But around Uganda the 40 or so of us remaining from our group of 46 raised a beer somewhere around noon to celebrate what certainly feels like a victory.

We have “survived” Ebola, Kony 2012, rain, mud, revivals, terrorist threats, worms, shisto, malaria, burns, fires, some broken bones (not mine...) and even a few rats – not that there was any true survival to it, though some have had closer brushes with those that others.  Still, we never were seriously threatened by Ebola, the terrorists and especially not Kony.  It’s the daily stuff that wears one down.

But this morning dawned with a really spectacular, almost otherworldly fog which had deposited water droplets on hundreds of new little hammock spider webs decorating the property like a scene from Avatar.  Trees, bushes, even the water tank frame ethereally draped with cascading basket-webs woven by bowl-and-doily spiders (Frontinella communis for the purist).  We needed a little ethereal around here and it lasted just until the sun came along and dried up the dew.   The weather has been deliciously cool (70’s in the morning) and we love it, but the Ugandans are sporting shawls, wooly caps and winter jackets.

This is bed-and-breakfast week and our Gulu digs.  PCVs are coming through to be part of Peace Camp and some are staying with us.  It’s fun to see folks we haven’t seen for a while.  We’ve put together an absolutely deadly puzzle of a box full of beads sent by good friends. We are almost crazed  by the time we finished, but if what science says is true – we should be getting Alzheimers and the like ;-)

In the midst of this, Jenna, who was cleaning and organizing her room, managed to  somehow activate her burglar alarm, which – when it starts out - sounds like maniacal sleigh-bells. So in that perverse way my mind sometimes works, the first vision that flashed through my brain was of some demented bionic Santa outfitted with amplified sleigh bells (everything is on loudspeaker here..) bearing gifts like garlic salt, coffee, chocolate and such about to descend on our roof with a team of  equally of Reindeer. - no make that Gazelles.  Well – you’ve heard of Christmas in July…  But soon, this was accompanied by Jenna’s shrieking something like “Oh shit, that’s my alarm and I can’t turn it off.”  It accelerated into full-shriek at which point it sounded nothing whatsoever like sleigh-bells, but more like a prison break.  While she was frantically trying to silence the beast which had shrilled to an ear-piercing 120 decibels, I was too convulsed in laughter to be anything but annoying.   It was pure comedy and after about 10 minutes something magically happened, but I don’t think it had anything to do with Jenna figuring out how to silence it.  Simply popping the battery out  wasn’t an option, because it had obviously been designed to prevent an attacker doing the same and requires tools we were too rattled to find. 

It is interesting to note that  NOT ONE of our Ugandan neighbors who were casually cooking 10 feet away even looked up.  So much for the fantasy of rescue, should the damn thing be activated by something real!   I can only say, that Ugandans are accustomed to living in such close proximity with alarms, bizarre cell-phone-rings and loudspeakers, that it probably never even crossed their "what's that?" threshold.   Or they are either too polite to say to our faces “God those Muzungus are loud!” or to  risk offending us by asking, “Whats going on?”  So I can only hope, that if we should ever need an alarm (as our PCV friend did two weeks ago)  it would at least call attention to the fact that one cannot stealth about in the middle of the night playing the burglar.

Just such an act was what  triggered our putting actually batteries in her alarm and renewing those in my extra.  Travis and Brett gifted me with two personal alarms before I came and it was one of those I loaned to a friend a couple of weeks ago.   She credits it to scaring off the burglar who was having his way with her compound (fenced – gated – with sleeping guard and a drugged guard dog).    My $6.00 alarm shrieking out her window was what saved the day – NOT because it woke up the sleeping (now fired) guard, but because it scared the burglar away.

So there’s that to keep life interesting. 

And of course “water is finished,” not because there is NO water, but because the water line servicing OUR property is “spoiled,” meaning it exists in two disconnected pieces now sticking out of the ground awaiting repair by the city.  The parts are on order from Kampala and I was informed by the water company rep who came by when I reported water shooting from the ground (but not from our faucets) that “perhaps you will have to help us (rubbing his fingers together) because you know our parts are not here.”    I decided against asking him: "just which of your parts are missing...?"  and instead returned the lament –  "and this Muzungu has no money so you will have to ask the Ugandan landlady/property owner.”

So that’s the scoop from the last week.  The mouse population seems to be down and I’m hoping this is in part due to the arrival of a new litter of kittens produced by Yin, the black-on-white component of our Yin and Yang cat duo.  There are two Yin-like feral kitties prowling around and I can only hope that Yin has taught them well the fine art of moussing, because God knows Yang is a lousy mouser.

In reading the Isabel Allende novel, “Ines of My Soul,” about the settling of Chile by the Spaniards, I’m reminded that being without water, power and amenities pales in comparison with what it took to “civilize” the New World.    So I will shut-up (this time) about hauling water, which is my next task.

Onward to the bore-hole.