A Change of Course

This morning I drove to kiwoko to meet a friend whom I mentor, but before I even left the front gate I picked up a passenger. (Not unusual) One of the aunties who works in the childcare department needed to go to Kiwoko to check on some of our children, so instead of her waiting for a motorbike ride we went together. On arrival she announced that she was visiting someone who lived directly next to where I needed to stop. 

Shortly after greeting my friend at her place of business, a former staff member of New Hope Uganda arrived and we were all blessed to catch up on the news of his family. 

I was unable to meet with my friend because she was very busy working alone due to a sick coworker. When she described how sick he was I got worried. We had recently lost someone in our community due to a sickness that sounded very similar to what she was describing. Just then a young man came to help her in the shop, but I asked if he could go with me to check on the coworker, whom she said was not wanting to go get medical care.

We arrived at the sick coworker's house, after making only one wrong turn and found his children playing outside and his wife cooking. When we asked about him she went inside to get him. As I waited, I didn’t know what to expect, but thankfully he looked better than had been described. He agreed to let us take him to our clinic where he received care very quickly and was soon ready to go back home.

I am soooo thankful we checked on him! We have lost too many people in our community over the years due to failure to receive medical care—for many reasons. Here is a smattering of  scenarios—they don’t want to spend the money (often they don't have enough), they try the witch doctor first and never follow-up at a clinic, they fear hospitals, they lack money for transport, or the family tries to treat with local herbs.

Once he finished at the clinic I accompanied him back to his home with Sam driving. It has been awhile since Sam had a crack at driving, so I figured this to be a perfect opportunity. I am glad he practiced driving today because once back at our house he heard from his future employer that they need him to report to work this coming Monday!

Sam will be teaching primary school for the next few months until his laboratory technician course commences around late July or August. At lunch we all realized that with us leaving for the U.S. in June we will not have Sam in our house anymore starting Monday except for the occasional visit! I am excited for him, but the changes produce deep emotions for all of us!

This afternoon he played a local game with our neighbor, Mercy. 

The other three enjoyed sitting out in the sunshine listening to music and playing a board game. Kevin is entertaining the younger neighbors now on the side porch.

I will miss the days when they are all around the house!

Airport Bathroom scented hand sanitizer

We are a family of Americans living in a country far away from our birth places. The kids have grown up here--we arrived more than 12 years ago when they were ages 2, 3 and 4. In all of our travels, adjustments to foreign culture and experiences with differing world views, the things we consider comforting can be a bit ODD! 

At lunch recently the kids lamented about things passed by during our Christmas shopping trip a couple weeks ago that would have made good stocking stuffers. One was a three-pack of teeny, tiny bottles of hand sanitizer. This regret brought up a memory in another of our kids who complained that he’d had a small bottle of hand sanitizer hooked on the outside of his backpack, but it was recently finished off by an unknown user when he was in a public place. (Yes, no lie, these are the intensely intriguing lunch table discussions you can look forward to if you ever have the privilege of eating with us!)

Geoff commented that we had plenty of hand sanitizer around the house and we could simply refill the small vial. 

“But, Dad! I LIKED that one! It smelled like the airport bathroom.” Once we all had a loud laugh, he had to further defend his weird statement with, “Whaaaat?! It smelled good and it reminded me of our travels!”

I can see it now...an entirely new line of products created by third culture kids.

Toby and his TCK friends. We hosted a New Year holiday party out at our place. They enjoyed sleeping in a tent, exploring our site, playing ping pong and carpet ball, lots of sweets**, basketball, lots of sweets**, watching movies and YouTube videos, lots of sweets**, playing the games of "Things" and "Apples To Apples" and creating goofy photos.

**We had an overload of sweets given to us in Christmas packages by family members from the states. It was enough to last us a couple of years!!!!!! So, being able to share stateside sweet treats with these other bush-residing expats was a lot of fun!