Our First Thanksgiving in Africa

We had a wonderful first Thanksgiving here in Uganda. While it was more of an international affair (there were Irish, South Africans, Italians, Canadians, Sudanese and Ugandans there besides Americans) it was definitely an American Thanksgiving. I brought green beans, homemade applesauce and pecan pie (had brought the pecans over with me from the States). There was also turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, cranberry sauce, bread, carrot souffle (a yummy substitute for sweet potato casserole), salad, lima beans, onions in cream, apple crisp, and of course, pumpkin pie. We had a lovely time in fellowship with others and the food was amazing. As is traditional for Thanksgiving, we both overate and came away completely stuffed. The only thing that didn't feel like Thanksgiving was the warm weather and the mosquitoes! Well, that and the hum of the generator that we had to speak over due to the power going out. Regardless, we were blessed to share the holiday with friends and have a little taste of home, somthing that I had foolishly been worrying about!  -Krista

An American Auction...Of a Chicken...After Church

Last Sunday we saw something that we had never seen before. During the service, Pastor Jerome Wamala was installed as the pastor of Kampala Lutheran Church. Afterwards, there was a special offering to raise money for land the church is hoping to purchase in the future. We would also be enjoying a meal together afterwards. However, between the offering and the meal a chicken was brought to the front of the church. It had been donated by a man who wanted to contribute to the special offering and had no money, but did have this chicken. It was announced that the chicken would be auctioned off "American" style, with the money going to the offering. I have to admit, it took Shauen and I the longest time to figure out this American auction. Instead of someone bidding, $1, then someone else $2 and so forth with the highest bidder taking the chicken, someone would bid an amount of money, afterwards someone else would bid an amount of money, sometimes a higher or lower amount than the first bid. This went on and on, with people placing the amount of money they bid in the offering basket. We finally figured out that it wasn't the amount you bid that would get you the chicken, but that whoever the last bidder was, even for 500 shillings ($0.50), would get the chicken. I must say, it was an ingenius was of doing things. If only one person bought the chicken, it probably would have gone for around $10-$20. This way, everyone in the congregation was throwing in amounts ranging from $0.50-$10. As long as no one bid after you, you could get a chicken for as low at $0.50! In the end, the total amount collected was over $100 and the last bidder gave the chicken to Jacent Wamala, the wife of Pastor Wamala, our newly installed pastor. Lots of fun was had by all, especially the Americans trying to figure out the rules of this "American" auction!  -Krista

Christmas Too Early

Every year, I encounter my biggest pet peeve: stores that put up Christmas decorations and start playing Christmas music WAY too early. It absolutely drives me crazy. I don't need Christmas music playing in September! Also, there is a complete skipping of Thanksgiving! I'm all for Christmas decorations and music starting the day after Thanksgiving, and I must admit much to my husband's horror, I love the hustle and bustle of Black Friday. But Christmas starting September/October/November? No thank you! The other week I walk into one of the two big South African stores we have here and what do I see? I see over-the-top, bordering on gaudy, Christmas decorations everywhere! It's the beginning of November, Thanksgiving is still weeks away (although to be fair, Thanksgiving isn't celebrated here so they don't know that rule) and not only are these two stores decorated for Christmas, they are even playing Christmas music! I absolutely loved it!! I can't explain how happy it made me to see this. Now, as I first mentioned, Christmas too early is one of my biggest pet peeves, but here I was happy and excited to see it! In my defense, I am pretty sure that even as Christmas draws near, only maybe a few other stores will start to decorate for Christmas, nothing even compared to how over the top it is in the States. It was just nice to see something that reminds you that the holidays are coming! I wasn't feeling homesick exactly, but it did make me feel a bit more excited about the approaching holidays. I was also excited to see that they have for sale artificial Christmas trees. Now granted, these are the most obvious, fake Christmas trees I have ever seen, but sometimes it just nice to see that you can get even a bad fake tree which is better than nothing! It's the little things that count sometimes.  -Krista

Dyeing our Eggs

Neither Shauen nor I can make omelets. We try, it just always ends up as scrambled eggs with veggies and cheese mixed in (still delicious). We tried once again the other day, and once again the same results. As we sat down to our breakfast, Shauen asked if I noticed something special. I realized that the eggs were yellow! The majority of eggs here have white yolks, you can find and pay extra for organic, yellow-yolk eggs (actually advertised as such) but we typically don't. Apparently while getting the eggs ready for our pseudo-omelet/scrambled eggs, the whiteness of the egg mixture started to drive Shauen a little crazy and he snuck in some yellow food dye so that we could have yellow eggs for breakfast! In the States some people really try avoiding foods with unnatural ingredients such as food dye; here, we add them in ourselves!  -Krista

Pulled Over

Yesterday after I left the Women's Bible Study I attend, I was pulled over by a traffic cop. After coming out of the neighborhood, I needed to turn right, but there was median so I had to go left and shortly afterwards there was a break in the median with an actual turn lane (so extremely rare). I got in the turn lane and made my u-turn. About 50 feet down the road was the policeman who waved me over. The traffic police here just stand on the side of the road, they don't drive police cars and have no radios. I could have tried to ignore him and just kept on driving, but that's a pretty hard thing to do when your American culture has ingrained in you to respect and obey the police. We greeted each other and then I asked if I was not allowed to turn where I did, people make u-turns like that on a road with a median all the time, but the tricky thing is only certain breaks in the median are to be used for u-turns, there are of course no signs to indicate which ones you can use or not use. He told me that where I turned was only for cars turning onto the side street there, not for u-turns. Now, as I mentioned there was an actual turn lane, something very rare, and although I was on a major street, the side street this rare turn lane was for was not impressive. It was barely paved and certainly didn't look like a major thoroughfare. Maybe someone important lives down the road? He asked me to read reason #21 in his ticket book, careless and inappropriate use of a vehicle, fine 40,000sh ($20). I was a bit perturbed at this, it was not a careless u-turn, there were no cars coming. If anything it was just an illegal u-turn. I apologized to him, told him that I didn't live in this area of town and wasn't familiar with it, that there was no sign so I didn't know that I couldn't turn, etc. He showed me his ticket book and pointed out the fines that other people were paying, also 40,000sh. Was this his way of asking for a bribe? If so, it was way too subtle for me. I was tired and maybe a bit nonchalant about the whole thing. I didn't try and bribe him nor did I try to talk my way out of the ticket. While I didn't want to pay a ticket, I figured overall 40,000 wasn't too bad. (later Shauen told me that it would have entailed them impounding my car at that time and taking it to the downtown police station, I would go to the bank, pay the ticket, and then come back and get the car...if I knew all this I don't think I would have been so nonchalant!) In our conversation it came up that my husband was a pastor here (vicar/pastor - it's pretty much the same thing here), I was American and this was my first baby. Who knows what it was that resulted him in letting me go. Maybe he saw I wasn't going to bribe him, maybe because my husband was a pastor, maybe because I'm American, in other words President Obama, or maybe because of my pregnant belly. I like to think it was the pregnant belly that did it!  -Krista

Sigh...He Got Another Haircut

Well, Shauen did it again. He went out and got another not-approved-by-the-wife haircut. The guy doesn't learn! He decided Sunday after church that he couldn't wait another second to get a haircut. I had just settled down to take a nap (haven't been sleeping well) or I would have gone with him. He told me he had seen a place nearby and was just going to walk and check it out. Now there are some Westernish style places around, so I wasn't immediately suspicious. I asked him to promise to pay at least 10,000sh ($5), preferably 15,000-20,000sh ($7.50-$10). In retrospect, this should have aroused my suspicions as I now realize he carefully did not promise to do so. He instead had some carefully worded reply that placated my tired pregnant brain and tricked me into thinking all would be okay. I now have a husband whose entire head of hair has been buzzed off with a #2 clippers. Do you know how short that is?!!! I don't think it's even required to be that short in the military! He could almost be bald it's that short! He was happy because he only paid 3,000sh ($1.50). At least every thing was even this time, that's one positive thing about it. In his defense, he was going to have the guy use the longer clippers on the top of his hair, but instead of starting on the back with the short clippers, he started right on top! He also prevented the guy from shaving off his widow's peak this time as well so that was also really great! He's also excited about the possibility of forming a relationship with his barber. I have to admire him for that, I mean, we're missionaries, that's kinda what we are here to do! However, I selfishly want him to form that relationship with someone who has cut a white person's hair before! I miss my old husband and am still getting used to this stranger I wake up in bed with. He tells me it will grow. I only hope it's long enough by the time baby gets here, I don't want to remember this haircut every time I look at our firstborn's baby pictures! Not to mention the fact that yesterday we went on a date, dinner and a movie (there is one movie theater here). After the movie, as I come waddling out of the bathroom my pregnant belly leading the way, there's a woman, who looked somewhat questionable, hitting on him! Her pick-up line?! I like your hair! Now that's just insult to injury.  -Krista

Feeling a little under the weather?

Around here if you're feeling a little under the weather it's perfectly acceptable to say, "I'm a little coughy." Now, if you're not used to hearing that, you think you heard, "I'm a little coffee," in which case one might reply "What in the world are you talking about?" and your mind quickly runs through the possibilities of how you could possibly have misunderstood the sentence. You want some coffee? You need a little pick-me-up? You're a little what? Or you might be one of those smarty-pants who comes up with a quick response to everything so you say in reply, "I'm a little teapot!"  Trust me on this - as strange of a look as you may have given someone when they make the perfectly reasonable statement "I'm a little coughy," it's nothing compared to how they're going to look at you when you say "I'm a little teapot" in a culture that doesn't have that particular nursery rhyme. Anyway, don't worry about us - we're in good health and hopefully neither of us will be too coughy anytime soon.  -Shauen

Lawnmower!

~a neighbor mowing the lawn with a gas-powered lawnmower~Once in a while some sound drifts through the window and it suddenly occurs to me that I haven't heard that sound here in Uganda. Today while sitting at my living room table with fellow missionary Rev. Jacob Gillard and Ugandan Pastor Jerome Wamala, I realized I was hearing the sound of a lawnmower from the compound next door. They do sell gas lawnmowers here - I've seen them in the store. But they're very expensive. Most people hire someone to come once every week or two and cut their grass with a gas weed-wacker or their gardener mows the lawn with an old-fashioned push reel mower. I'm pretty sure I haven't heard a good ol' gas-powered lawn mower since I arrived. Believe it or not, it's actually a kind of comforting "normal" sound. Honestly, I never expected the sound of a lawnmower to make me feel at home. I guess you can't expect the unexpected. -Shauen