For Such a Time as This: Christmas...What a Week...

These last couple weeks have been crazy. It took a pretty significant amount of time for it to start feeling like Christmas for me, given the warm weather and the lack of familiarity, but it came. I was doing a big market shop with Emily H midweek and I was saying how I felt like I’d gone through the stages of grieving to get to a place where I was excited about Christmas; denial, anger, bargaining, depression and finally, acceptance. I guess once I accepted the fact that Christmas is a celebration, not a season, I started feeling the Christmas cheer. Of course, receiving care packages from Natasha, my lovely roommate and my parents within the week before Christmas didn’t hurt, either.

The Sunday before last, during church, a woman named Sandy made an announcement that they still needed more singers for Christmas at the Keep, the second annual evening of music and dance at the restaurant, The Keep, attended by a good chunk of our church congregation. Of course my ears perked and with the added encouragement of Chalice whacking my leg, I resolved to speak to her after the service. In a matter of hours I went from not being involved at all to singing two songs (Mary, Did You Know? on the keyboard and Rose of Bethlehem with a track I speedily purchased from iTunes) and leading two carols. The big night wasn’t until Wednesday but I went to Sandy’s house on Monday afternoon and then to The Keep on Tuesday evening to run over things and through that process, I was able to make some new friends: Sandy, one of the guys from Bible Study who was also involved and another missionary family whose keyboard I used. There were other things that contributed to this which I will get to, but all-in-all, it was just a really great week of building my own community here; something that has come slowly, but that I am continually grateful for. The evening went really well, but man was I nervous; I guess it’s been a while since I’ve done anything like that apart from church…I think what did it was that this was more of a first impression so I felt more pressure than usual to do well.

On Thursday, we piled 16 people into a rented 14 passenger mutato (all us Ekisa girls plus another 8 friends) and went to Kampala for the day. We started off at Le Petite Village to get the good cheese at the deli and chocolate croissants at the bakery; a necessary stop any time we venture into the big city. From there, we split up as some, including myself, were going to see Sherlock Holmes at this really nice theater in Garden City and some were going bowling. Those of us seeing the movie were on a time constraint and traffic was bad, as it typically is, so we chopped our travel time by 90% and took bodas in order to make it one time. I now understand why people get that look on their face when they talk about taking bodas in Kampala, except the weird thing is that instead of being terrified about driving between lanes, slinking through three lane, clogged up traffic circles and weaving through cars (sometimes within a few inches of our legs), I just kept on thinking, I should be scared…but I’m not; I guess I’m officially desensitized. I’m still debating whether to post that video as it’s rather long and it might freak out my mom.

After the movie, we all met up and continued on to see the infamous Christmas show at Watoto Church. We waited in a line up for a good half hour, not knowing what was going on before being led to a holding area with hundreds of other people and being told that the 5:30 show was full and we could wait for the 8pm show. People were not happy and were even less impressed that people (including us) were standing at the door trying to see if we could wrangle our way in given how far we were from home. At one point a lady who was particularly (and not without reason) perturbed, worked up the crowd and we suddenly heard a commotion behind us followed by a large mob of people standing up and pressing up against us; not going to lie, mob mentality is a frightening thing and I have to admit to being a bit unnerved. At that point, a lovely gentlemen came out and explained calmly that they were trying to make room and requested that everyone take their seats and wait patiently. So we did, and decided that we would wait 10-15 more minutes to see what would happen but then call it a night and head home. Then something remarkable happened; that same gentlemen came up and announced to everyone that there was a group that had come all the way from Jinja and asked that everyone be gracious and allow us to go in ahead. We all looked at each other, shocked, then slowly got up and made our way towards the front. No one made any objection, but the few hundred pairs of eyes that followed us towards the door did not feel particularly friendly and we may have made a few “friends” along the way as people pretended to be a part of our group. The place was packed and so hot but the show was pretty spectacular (see quick clip here). It was a fabulous day.

How to sum up Christmas…Friday, we had a Christmas party for the kids thanks to a donation from a grade 1 class in Nashville that had two stipulations: they wanted the kids to decorate cookies and have a day they’ll never forget. So, what do you do in Uganda when you are in a position to be indulgent and want to give kids a day they’ll never forget? You rent a huge bouncy castle, of course. We invited our friends to bring their kids too and everyone had an absolute blast. I think one of the funniest things I’ve seen to date is one of the mommas (Momma Rehema) going “a** over tea kettle” down the blow-up slide; skirt billowing, screaming all the way… (See Chalice's video here)

was for us. Emily H killed the turkey first thing in the morning (to see the video of her trying to catch it, click here) and we had it plucked, gutted, seasoned and in the oven by 10:30. Preparations went on throughout the day and included a lot of singing and impromptu dance sessions in the kitchen and that night we had a group of guy friends over for dinner and enjoyed some incredible turkey, mashed and roasted potatoes, bean casserole, carrots with a brown sugar and mustard glaze, stuffing, homemade rolls and gravy. We outdid ourselves, for sure. The night ended with a gift exchange and the first half of A Muppet’s Christmas Carol before no one could keep their eyes open anymore. Good day.

Sunday, we took almost all of the kids and mommas to church - 7 bodas and two trips with the car later. Nap time gave us a chance to put together and hang the stockings and prepare for the mayhem that ensued during the gift opening portion of the day. We had a huge dance party (click here to see a video), Aaron dressed up as Santa and handed out gifts, we drank hot chocolate and put the kids in front of a Christmas movie. That afternoon, we took a trip out to the hospital to pass out stuffed bunnies to the kids there (a little project put together by Chalice). The place was pretty deserted as they discharge everyone over Christmas, sick or not, but those that were there were precious and grateful in a way that almost makes you feel bad given the insignificance of what’s being offered. Our last stop was the maternity ward: a long building with one center aisle, lined with beds along each side. It was rather full; some brand new babies, some a couple weeks old, women in early labour and some clearly in the grips of contractions. As we were leaving, they were just carrying out a women (four men each holding a corner of the blanket that she lay on) that had just had a C-section; a nurse stood nearby with her brand new baby and we all got a peak before heading out the door. We hadn’t actually planned on visiting this particular ward and didn’t put much thought into the fact that our friend, Bobby, who was with us to take pictures would be uncomfortable by all the labouring and topless women; but we all got a good laugh in after finding him outside, around the corner, with a shell-shocked look on his face as we were leaving.

Tuesday was a sad day: Erika and Chalice went home. They are the second and third girls to come and go within the time that I’ve been here and they surely won’t be the last. Erika is a nurse and will be coming back in a few months as she has plans to stay for a year, but I truly hate having to say goodbye. As you can imagine, there were many tears, but I’m resolved to not guard my heart in any way while I’m here. It can be emotionally draining, for sure, but I’m going to love every person that comes through the door, regardless of how much it hurts to say goodbye. I realize that it is customary for the person that is leaving to receive a gift, but in Erika’s case, she gave something pretty great to me. She guided me through my first I.V., offering herself as the test dummy.

Let me explain: Since beginning my job working with a student with high physical and medical needs at a high school, I have developed an interest and have really enjoyed doing a lot of nursing-related things. Coming here has only increased that interest and has provided much more opportunity to learn as we do as much as we can here at the house given the state of care in any of the local hospitals. For example, one of our mommas got a really bad third degree burn on her leg from falling off a boda and for the last couple weeks, I’ve been changing the bandage. As the only way to learn is to do, we have no choice but to practice on each other and I really wanted to try on Erika first given that she’s a nurse and she could direct me; plus she had the easiest veins of anyone in the house. I am very proud to say that my first go was a huge success and I got the vein first try, no problem. Next step? Tackling Emily’s rolling veins and Bridget’s thick skin.

And finally, another boda first; I had a little mishap yesterday. We were coming slowly down the skinny dirt road towards the house just after a rain storm, which made it pretty slippery, and the driver started skidding out. As we started tipping and the back end was swinging out from beneath me, I simply planted my right foot on the ground and lifted my left leg as the bike continued to slide. I stumbled slightly, but was left standing looking down on the boda and the driver who wasn’t so fortunate. He asked if I was ok, I reciprocated the question and then promptly passed him the 2000sh he was owed and walked the final 20 feet to our gate leaving him to look over his boda for any damage the wreck may have caused. I’m glad to say that my first (and hopefully only) “wreck” was as minor and humorous as it could have possibly been.

It’s my birthday today, but today will most definitely have a post to itself.

Merry Christmas, from my momma and pops (the Celine Dion disc was for Aaron)

Doing a cute art project with Erika and our newest, 5 year old Zuena. What a gem she is; gives the best kisses too. Actually, we had a rough start; for the first week, she gave me the evil eye like no ones business for no apparent reason, but we've worked it out.