An 'ordinary' day

Written, Feb. 10, 2010

A maddeningly, frustratingly, ordinary Monday.

I’m up at 6 now that school has started. I walk Harriet’s daughter, Shannon, to her school about 2 miles distant. That reminds me of the walk to the school of my childhood in Holland, but not the road conditions or the early hour. School starts at 7 for all classes.
Shannon is a spunky 5 year old now in 1st grade; who told the bus driver that since her mom also was in school he’d have to take her home. No arrangements had as yet been made for her to take the bus but that was quickly arranged and since then Shannon has been taking the afternoon bus at 4. To have her ride the morning school bus she’d be getting on at 5:15; I kid you not. Things are no nonsense here. Now I get my morning exercise.

The road from our compound to the turn is paved but full of holes. They were filled with gravel and dirt a few weeks ago when the President came to town but most of it has already disappeared. At the turn in the road we go straight on a dirt road. The first section of that is gravel but the next part is unbelievable and difficult to describe. Part of it is steep, filled with deep ridges and large holes because, you guessed it, vehicles go there as well. I was afraid I'd have trouble walking there when the rains came but I was wrong. The worst part is the paved road which gets very slippery from all the mud when it rains. (I fear it because I've fallen one time on the way to church. One side of me was mud from top to bottom but we went on to church, surprising everyone. :<) Now I wear my trusty 'purple crocks' wherever I go; they don't slide.) Yes, I'm a sight for sore eyes I'm sure. but Shannon does not mind.

Sometimes I walk into town after leaving Shannon at school. All businesses are open by 8 and some even earlier so that is helpful. If there are a lot of purchases to be made I bring my trusty big shopping bag. (I’m forever grateful for that, Ruth.) The bag is large and can get very heavy but have no fear the boda-boda guys are begging to bring me home.

(Boda-boda, motorcycle taxi, so called because that is what it sounds like when Africans say, ''We’ll take you border to border.")

So what made this Monday so frustrating? Yes, and maddeningly so? We were without electricity and had been since Sunday afternoon at 3. Saturday we were without power from 11am to 6pm, after which I confidently started the crock pot for Sunday company dinner. Not so fast. By 10pm power was off once again and did not come back till 8 on Sunday morning. Sam was happy because he was able to shave. I’d already gotten up at 5 am to fashion a slow cooker on the gas stove because I did not want the food to spoil.

The neighbors on the compound, Sara and Anthony, do their laundry on Saturdays so I try to do mine on Mondays. And there we were without electricity and as it turned out, water as well. Water came back at 9 so I decided to at least fill the tub and soak the sheets. At least it gave me something to do because the computer battery was also empty. Sam had gone to the farm so I decided to take a nap, hopefully power would be back soon. Yea, sure, by 3pm, but then the water was off again, so laundry had to wait till the next day.

Just after 4 pm we heard this awful scream down in the garden area. Our garden is down a steep hill. Was it a bird? “No, grandma, it is a goat”, Harriet yelled while also yelling for Anthony. The 2 goats that were chained down in the garden area belong to Anthony but he didn’t think anything could happen there. Harriet kept screaming and when he finally got to where she was he came upon an awful scene. Two wild dogs and two puppies were pulling one of the goats through the back fence and a man with a shovel was hitting the dogs, which then let go. But the goat, Silas, was dead. Anthony wondered if the man with the shovel would want to buy the goat, to eat it, but Sam said we’d butcher it. He asked one of the men at the scene to cut the animal’s throat so the blood could drain, after which he and Anthony brought it up here on the compound.

The goat was hung on the fence and the men were occupied for the next couple of hours, butchering. Neither one had ever done that before so Harriet had a lot of fun listening to all the suggestions on what to do. Guess what? When a large bucket of water was called for, there was water, lasting at least 3 hours. Sara washed the hide, after which a neighbor man and our night guard scraped it clean and nailed it to a board. That is now drying on our roof and we have to keep the birds away.

Since we were still out of power I’d gone inside to make use of the last bit of day light still available so I could cook a meal. We’re so thankful for the gas cook stove.
Since none of us had a freezer large enough, I called our friends to ask if Sara could bring most of the goat meat there, which was fine. They brought me the backbone and some small pieces of meat, from which I cooked a large pot of soup. That became our compound, unity meal on Tuesday; as Anthony said, “In memory of Silas.”

Monday’s dinner was eaten by candle light and since we were still without power it was early bedtime, praying that Tuesday would be a better day. It was surprising to us how matter of fact Harriet’s two little girls take all these things. Shannon had to see it all, telling me later how she helps clean many chickens in her grandmother’s village. Stacy, almost 3, just loves to catch bugs.

The only pictures I have of this episode are of the men, cleaning and stretching the goat hide to the board. The guard loves pictures, since he’d never seen a digital camera before. He was so surprised that could be done when I took a picture of the big poisonous snake he killed here on the compound last week. It was already dark when Shannon saw something strange and asked her mother about it. Harriet saw it and while grabbing a stick, called the guard. He was our hero that night.

An ordinary day? Yes, for us here in Uganda. There always seems to be something different going on.
At the moment there’s a large truck, carrying a political team, passing the compound; yelling through great big loud speakers how their candidate is going to give them all they ask for. Yea, right! They even mentioned fixing the transformer at our place. All 4 of us living here, have been calling the power company. Thus far they’ve sent an assessment agent and a tree trimming crew. The agent diagnosed 2 rotting poles filled with bees and disconnecting wires. Sam has been telling them that for a couple of months now, one pole is hanging from the wires. I'll keep you posted.