One Sock Short

I don’t buy it. I used to think that washers and dryers were sock eating machines, but yesterday I found myself coming up one sock short as I was laying them out to air dry. Even here in Uganda where we’re washing clothes by hand, we still end up with an incomplete pair! I don’t care what you say, you can’t blame the washing machines for stealing your socks.

I apologize for taking so long to write another update...I think there is a way that stability and routine will help solve that problem in the future. So much has happened in the last few weeks so I’ll try to just give a “quick” recap...we’ll see.

-We celebrated our 1 month anniversary on Tuesday, the 16th, but it feels like we’ve been married a lot longer!

-We’ve booked an apartment in Seeta (pronounced “Say-tah”), the town next to Mukono. We haven’t started occupying it yet because we’re still buying furniture, but we’re planning to make this Saturday our moving day. I’ll post some pictures as soon as I get some! In the meantime we’re staying with a friend of Rev. Henry named Rachel. I couldn’t stay at Reverend’s house anymore because we discovered that the cold/flu I thought I had was actually a result of staying in that house. I’m allergic to something, possibly bats, the furniture, who knows? All I know is that I begin sneezing and coughing almost immediately upon entering the house. So Rachel has been kind and generous enough to let us stay with her until the end of the month. It’s really a pleasure too, because she has a 6 month old baby named Jed who is just the happiest and most peaceful baby I’ve ever seen!

-Last week I applied to the Kampala School of Music to teach cello lessons and a week later I already have the job! I won’t be starting until August 10th but they assured me I have the job. This is definitely a God thing because it was just way too easy! I met the administrator a few weeks ago and talked with him for about 5 minutes. He told me to email him my resume and after seeing it he told me to call him. When I called he said we should meet to discuss a few details, but then called back a minute later and said that the visiting teachers are leaving in August so just come August 10th – that’s your starting date. Way too easy!!!!! Also, they apparently provide housing for their staff, so we may be getting even more help in that area in the coming months.

-I’ll be talking soon with some of the USP staff about ministry opportunities in the area so that I can start volunteering and serving somewhere soon.

-A couple weeks ago we had a family reunion of sorts for Michael’s Mom’s side of the family. We all met in Jinja at Grandma’s house and feasted! We ate in the traditional way of only using our hands, and it was quite entertaining for the kids to see an American eating this way! After feasting there was dancing of course, and I really got a kick out of watching the older folks jump up and dance. I think what really made it hilarious was actually the song that everyone first started dancing to – the new hit song in Uganda that is about bread and butter! The first time I heard it I couldn’t stop laughing because it’s these guys singing to their girls, “You are me bread and me buttah, me bread and me buttah”. Imagine your whole family getting up and dancing to this song...quite entertaining.

It was great to see Michael’s mom again and spend that weekend with her. My baby nephew Okello apparently doesn’t remember me at all from last year because he cries and hides every time he sees me! Hopefully he’ll get used to me as he gets older!













It’s official...we’ve deemed this the picture of the week! On our way back from Jinja we passed someone transporting goats in a most unusual way. He strapped 2 of the animals to himself and even made the boda driver carry one as well! Needless to say, they were ashamed.

Life is still a little bit hectic right now but God is providing for us all the time and I think life will be taking shape more in the next month or so.

Home Again

It’s good to be back in Uganda...I never realized how many little things I missed! Simple things like the natural sounds you hear at night, African tea, the sweetest pineapple on earth, and even Blue Band! Blue Band is basically the only brand of butter here and it’s so much sweeter than ours. Of course, I missed the people most of all. It has been amazing to see everyone here. In fact, it feels like I hardly left even though it’s been a year.

We arrived around midnight at the airport in Entebbe completely exhausted, but excited to be home. The most exciting part about our arrival for me was discovering that my cello was completely intact and even tuned to the same pitch that I left it in! I had heard so many horror stories about people putting their instruments under the airplane with the rest of the luggage and finding them crushed when they reached their destination that I swore I would never check mine as baggage. I was planning to just ship it through DHL but apparently something of that size costs about $2000 to ship that far...not an option! Since we found this out the day before we left for Uganda, we had no choice but to check it with the rest of our luggage and trust that God would get it there safely. Needless to say, God came through for us again! A big “THANK YOU” to all who prayed for it!

After spending the first night in Entebbe, Michael’s sister Barbara picked us up and had us stay at her house for lunch. She has 4 beautiful boys who I am proud to call my nephews. They were fascinated with my “guitar” and also had fun with the camera. I’m telling you if you just give kids here a little bit of trust and lend them your camera, they will take the best pictures. Here is some of their work...I think you can tell which one is Mr. Personality

Later that day I met some more of Michael’s family that lives in Kampala, and finally ended up in Mukono in the evening at my host family’s new house. My host father from last year, Musumba Henry, insisted that we stay with them until we find a place of our own...how could we refuse?! It’s been so good to be with this family again, especially Enoch. Sometimes he can be just as fun and sweet as he was last year, but other times he really lives up to the stage that he’s in...the terrible two’s. He’s talking a lot more now, and his favorite new words seem to be “motocar, vroom, vroom!” He really only speaks and understands Luganda, but he’s very good at copying and mimicking words and sounds – even when I cough or clear my throat he also does it!

So far we’ve been looking around Mukono and Kampala for cheap but decent apartments. There are definitely plenty of good options but it’s hard to decide where to live when we don’t know where we’ll be working. There’s a beautiful apartment in Mukono with a lot of advantages but we’ll most likely end up somewhere in Kampala. Michael’s friends and family have been so great, looking for places for us...people here really take care of you.

Unfortunately I came down with a cold about 2 days after we got here and throughout the week I’ve had it all – runny nose, sore throat, cough, fever, and aches. I’ve been taking more medicine than I knew what to do with and just to make things worse, on Friday I woke up with a very fast heart rate and almost no strength to do anything. I finally went to the doctor only to find out that it was just a reaction to some of the meds I was taking to get rid of the cold. So I guess that’s good news but we spent a lot of money to find out that information and walk away with some basic pain killers and vitamins.

Anyways, we’re really doing fine overall, though still very tired. Michael has been meeting often with his business partners about their travel company, and I’ve been attempting to rest though it’s still not enough. It’s going to take a while to adjust and really recover from the trip, so please pray for rest and strength in these next few weeks while we also look for jobs and housing. God has been so faithful every step of the way and we’re excited to see where exactly he takes us next!