Tuesday, May 15, 2012

The Beautiful Usual

We got a new sign made to put up outside the compound. Big sign, little bike, what a conundrum…









Things have been moving along here. I’ll be doing a show at The Keep (the same place where I sang at Christmas) on May.25th with the help of a friend named Benji; a very talented singer/guitar player. We’ll be filling up two 45 minute sets, so naturally I’m terrified. I’m looking forward to it, don’t get me wrong, but the 26th will be a happy stress-free day.

Kelsey and Caroline left last Tuesday so I’ve had the volunteer room all to myself and, I’m not going to lie, it’s been so nice. When you’re living with 2-5 other people for 8 months, you just deal with it, but now having had my own space for a while, I’ve realized how much I missed it; not competing for the bathroom, playing my music as loud as I want when I want, having the room tidy…all the time, not the 5 minutes before and after momma Emma mops the floor. The room will slowly fill up again over the next couple months, so I’m enjoying it while I can. On top of having the room to myself, it’s been really nice just having the three of us in the house. We all agree that we wouldn’t be disappointed if it just stayed this way…

What else? One of our new boys, Elijah, had the measles so he was quarantined in my room for a couple days. The poor guy had a rash that was making his skin itchy so we kept him lubed up all day, covered in lotion. It wasn’t a chore keeping an eye on him, by any means. Em H and I spent a whole day watching old movies and drinking tea (Seven Brides for Seven Brothers? Um, can we say chauvinistic? My gosh…). He’s doing much better (no more 104.5 fevers) and so far, none of our other kids have shown any symptoms. A couple of them fall under the “at risk” category and hadn’t been able to get immunized for various reasons before this epidemic hit Jinja, so we’ll be very relieved when we’ve passed the incubation period without anyone else falling ill.

I spent Friday in Kampala with both Emily’s to take a couple of our boys to an orthopedic surgeon, including Elijah. He’s only been with us for about 3 weeks now and it was clear when he came that he’d suffered some significant abuse. He’s about 3, fully dependant with severe CP and a wrist and ankle that had clearly been broken and not attended to; both bones have set very badly. The doctor confirmed that he would need surgery so we will begin fundraising for that shortly. I almost hoped he’d tell us that Elijah was suffering from brittle bones so I wouldn’t have to face the truth that the damage was done with force and intent and the realization that his bones were otherwise healthy brought me to tears right there in that little curtained enclosure.   

It’s been really relaxed lately. We’d been having some trouble with a few of our morning mamas; just not doing their jobs, showing disrespect to Seera, the mama in charge of the morning. It’s been causing a lot of tension and generally negatively affecting the moral in the house. Em put them on probation and the day after Kelsey and Caroline left, the day the staff got paid, they initiated their mutiny. The plan was to just not show up for work the next day (all 3 of them) as a way of trying to, shall we say, screw us over; but they made a huge mistake. Two of them came into the volunteer room to give me a tearful goodbye, so naturally I asked Emily if they’d been fired. She was able to catch one of them before she walked out the gate. The interaction wasn’t exactly pleasant but they saved us the trouble of having to fire them and the next day, even though we were shorthanded, everyone pitched in and the air just felt lighter. It was actually a pretty incredible change. So, between that and it just being me and both Emily’s in the house, it’s been so peaceful.

Let’s hope the phrase, famous last words, doesn’t come into play…