The Weekend

Weekends around here are interesting. All the sewing women leave at 5 p.m. Friday and don't come back until 9 a.m. Monday. Dorcus and Emma alternately leave to visit their families and/or distant friends, so sometimes it is just us, trying to entertain ourselves.

Friday, our region experienced a massive rainstorm in which the power transmitter pole thing was knocked over and we lost all power (aka WiFi access). We also lost our running water that day, so neither of us can remember the last time we showered.

The power was restored around 6 p.m. and we decided to watch a movie on Dorcus' recently acquired television and DVD player. Lucky for us, one of the only appropriate and English movies she owns is High School Musical….all three of them.

I'm somewhat ashamed to admit how homesick watching High School Musical made me. Moving on.

While watching the movie, we got a hankerin' for brownies. Hardly anyone in Uganda has their own oven, and the office is no exception. Even if we scrounged up the ingredients, we have no way to bake them into brown chocolately goodness.

Enter: www.hellofood.ug It's the best thing since chapati. Basically these boda guys on motorcycles get your online order to almost any restaurant, go and buy it for you, and then deliver. So while Troy and Gabriella were impressing us with their cheesy high school romance, Benji was entering an order for two brownies, two chocolate chip cookies, and a side salad. His number and address were submitted, and just when he hit submit, the power went out. Again. So we said whatever to the brownies and the movies and got ready for bed.

Around 11 p.m., teeth brushed, mosquito net pinned shut, scriptures read, we noticed missed calls from an odd number on our Ugandan phone. Benji called them back and discovered a pair of disheveled boda men desperately trying to deliver two brownies, two chocolate chip cookies, and a side salad. "We have been trying to find you for an hour!" One of them said, to which Benji replied, "I'm sorry, but I didn't actually know I had ordered anything!"

After waking up Emma for the third time that night to unlock the gates, we enjoyed our little picnic 'neath our mosquito net at 11:30, laughing all the way.

Saturday, we decided to attend a traditional African Introduction. Before Africans wed, they are "introduced," which is where they formally introduce each other to their parents. It is a huge, huge party and the groom gives the bride's parents massive amounts of gifts to ease their pain at marrying off one of their daughters.

Hundreds of people come, and the African women wear the traditional dress, called a "gomesi." On Friday, the ladies in the office decided to dress me up in one of them:

They have very very puffy shoulders.

The wedding was absolutely overwhelming. Hundreds of people, all speaking a language we don't understand, for six hours. It was fun, however, to see all the different colorful gomesi's and observe the extravagant gift giving and the rituals. Plus we got free food. So there's that.

All those tents were the Introduction

We were at the very back of about 500 people

We got to see baby Hewan again!

Rolled up chapati, watermelon, matooke with smashed nuts, rice, unnamed foods, French beans, cucumbers. The bowl was cow tongue.

Chicken cooked in a banana leaf

More people

Sunday, both Dorcus and Emma were out and we were left to our own devices. For breakfast, we each had a handful of goldfish, a pop tart, and our malaria pills. For lunch we had rice. For dinner we had fresh green beans and rice. Needless to say we need to plan for the weekends a little better. 

Then last night, during High School Musical 3, we were joined by a beautiful butterfly! Anyone who knows Benji knows that butterflies are not his favorite thing….so it fell to me to capture the pretty thing and let it back outside. 

We are both a little desperate to accomplish what we came here to accomplish. I'm struggling to get clinical sites and Benji is struggling to access school girls. The trouble is, we have to wait for them to come to us wanting the Days for Girls services because a fee is charged for all the training and materials. We can't exactly call them and say "Hey, pay us to come train you." Likewise, the hospitals don't want some Muzungu claiming to be a trained nurse knocking on their door with no evidence. So, pray for us that we will be able to meet our objectives.