Sssss is for Sssnake. Eeee is for Eeeemun!!

More snake excitement.
Earlier this week, as I was walking back to my banda, I saw a snake in the grass. The good thing about most snakes is that they will move away from you when they realize you're coming. So it did move away from me, but unfortunately it moved TOWARDS our banda. I think it must have a hole somewhere in the tall grass around our hut. We called Papa Lokwii to walk around with his stick and look for it, but it's still out there somewhere. It looked fairly long (probably 4 ft?) and was a medium/dark green with two yellow stripes down the length of its body.

This second snake story, which took place just this afternoon, I did NOT witness, but I got the full account from several eye-witnesses. Josh was walking out to his shop when he noticed the cat, Timu, hissing furiously at something. He saw it was a snake and that Timu was trying to protect her two kittens from it. Josh, Ruffin, Jamie and the guard, Akol were all present at the Death of the 7 1/2 Ft. Forest Cobra. Akol knocked it on the head a couple times with his stick, and Jamie threw stones at it. Even after its head was smashed in, its reflexes caused it to twist and curl around on the ground for several minutes after it was dead (I've seen the video, it's horrifying). There were four toads in its stomach, two of which were still alive and moved around a bit after they were cut out, but then they died. We think it was going for one of Timu's six week old kittens. The boys dissected it (the heart kept beating for a long time after it was dead), skinned it, and are now curing the skin to make it into a snakeskin belt or guitar strap. I saw the skin just a little while ago... even with 1 1/2 feet of the length cut off (you can't use the head or smaller part of the tail for a belt) it is still REALLY long. The skin feels pretty cool but it's starting to dry out too much so they need to oil it, and then salt it to keep it from getting smelly.

Snakes are just a part of life here. A very unwelcome part of life. Now that it's the dry season and they're looking for water, we're sure to see more, so please pray for us, that we would be diligent in taking precautions, but that we would not be too paralyzed by a fear of them. The fact that Erika and I have now had three snakes right outside our hut (two dead, one still unaccounted for) is pretty scary, but we have to go on with life. We still need to walk around at night, we need to take certain paths to get certain places.

Some precautions we take:
Never walk at night without a good flashlight. You can't really enjoy the scenery when you're walking, you have to look at the ground. If you want to stargaze or just enjoy the mountain view, it's best to stop and look, and then keep walking when you can pay attention to your surroundings.

Stomp when you walk. It's not graceful or ladylike, but the snakes feel the vibrations.

Don't leave any water sources around the banda. The snakes are thirsty.

Shake out boots before putting them on. NEVER put your hand where you can't see.

The T's had a black mamba that wasn't much bigger than a worm. They still have venom. All snakes should be killed unless someone can confirm it's not poisonous (some are actually helpful, they eat rats.)

Never a dull moment. These critters keep us on our toes, that's for sure!

Rain's gone. Here comes the fire.

We're definitely in the dry season now. The rains are gone, the wind is blowing, the sun is hot, and the wildfires have started. Last night there was a noticeable haze of smoke over the whole compound, although we couldn't see where the fire was burning. Some of these fires are caused by people intentionally burning their fields - to remove brush so the enemy (the Pokot, or other raiders) will be more visible (probably for agricultural reasons too, but I don't know how that all works); some fires are started by shepherd boys who are hungry for some BBQ rat, so they burn the fields so the rats will run out. The problem in both cases is that these fires can easily get out of control, and there's no fire department in Nakaale. The missionaries tell me that fires are to be expected and can get quite scary, but Bob plows a break line around the mission, and the guards keep the area watered so that, hopefully, the fire won't jump onto our land. They've never had a serious fire here on the mission, so I'm not too scared, but there have been some close calls. So you can pray over the next few months that we, and especially our neighbors living in thatched huts, will be protected from the wildfires.

RP Missions Countdown

I am so thankful for the way the Lord has blessed me through my RP Missions trips. Not only have I fostered wonderful friendships and had some truly once in a lifetime experiences during my trips to White Lake Covenanter Camp, Airdrie and Inverness, Scotland, and Karamoja, Uganda -- I've also learned so much about myself. I've learned that the Lord has given me particular gifts that can be used in His kingdom, and that I should not be afraid to seek a way to use those gifts for His glory. I know that it's no accident that God has given me a desire to work with children. He has been growing my abilities in this area for as long as I can remember. God opened my eyes to the idea that this love for children is not restricted to comfy middle class American kids -- this particular gift has opened the door for me to work practically anywhere in the world. Through RP Missions, I've discovered, wadio wadio (slowly slowly!), that surrendering your life to the Lord isn't scary, and it's not a sacrifice. It's an immense blessing. My life is more fulfilling and exciting than anything I ever could have planned for myself -- God has been leading me to a wonderful (not necessarily easy, but joyful) life of ministry.

I am so indebted to RP Missions for helping me through the baby steps of missions. Now I'm beginning to crawl, I guess... but I'm still a baby here on the field. I still need guidance and help. So far, I've been blessed by wonderful counsel and encouragement along the way.

There are others who have already gone through these baby steps, and now they're walking. They're running. They're out in the fields, reaping the harvest of souls that the Lord has prepared for them. But they can't do it alone.

RPM&M (Missions and Ministries) recently announced that there is a $50,000 deficit in their budget that needs to be met by January 1st. I have given to RP Missions in the past (very little, but whatever I could spare). Now I'd like to ask all my friends and family to consider giving just $10 to RP Missions to help them meet their goal. What is $10? One less strand of Christmas lights and one less Christmas-y frappacino at the mall? If $10 were given to RP Missions for every person who has viewed my blog, they could put another person like me on the field for six months; they could pay for the Cush4Christ team's Christian Education program -- twice! It's a small sacrifice with an eternal reward.

Visit this site to learn more about what RP Missions has in store for next year, and how you can help them meet their New Years goal. Only 21 days left!

In Christ,

Emily

'Tis the season!

It's strange to be celebrating the holidays on the other side of the world. I've had plenty of birthdays away from home, but this will be my first Christmas away from the family (cats included...). I know that Christmas is going to be a ton of fun, though. Erika's piano students will have a Christmas carol recital/party a few days before Christmas, Friday night we'll have a white elephant gift exchange, and Saturday (Christmas Eve) we'll celebrate Christmas with a big meal together (I think? plans were still in the works last I heard). Since Christmas is on a Sunday we'll have church, I'm teaching Sunday School that day, and then there's the Christmas edonga (dance) and also a wedding that I might go to with Leah (we tried to go to that wedding a few weeks ago, but found out it had been postponed till Christmas day because the priest from Nakapiripirit wasn't able to get to Nakaale through the mud). I'm not exactly sure how the edonga works, but I know everyone wears their best clothes and all the beads they own, and they meet out somewhere towards Atedeoi I think, and the men jump up and down in a circle and the women dance around them outside the circle. I think it's a prime time to choose a fiancee, so that will be interesting to see. But I'll tell you what it's like once I've seen it with my own eyes, Lord willing :) The dance goes all day and night so hopefully we'll be able to pop in for an hour or two. On Monday night the Knox's are having us over for a Boxing Day dinner party.

Last night Jenny (Baumgardner) Knox had me, Erika and Leah Hopp over for a girls' night. We did pedicures (my feet haven't been this clean since I left America... but we didn't scrub all our callouses off cause we need them!), had delicious Indian food (naan, rice, and daal... sooo good), and we just chatted and relaxed. It was wonderful. I am so blessed to be here with such fun, sweet, encouraging ladies. You guys are the beeeest :)

So, today I need to bust out some more TEFL lessons (obviously this blog post is just my way of productively procrastinating!). This afternoon several of us are going to get together to play board games before dinner. Since it's my birthday, they let me pick the meal tonight, but I'm not too creative so I just picked Mexican food. It's always delicious, especially here. I am learning to cook a lot of amazing things here, I can't wait to get back to the States and try these recipes at home. Who knew I'd have to go across the planet to finally learn to cook... but I'm starting to enjoy it. It's becoming less scary to me and I've only had one disaster meal (failed tomato soup and grilled cheese... just does NOT work here) so that's not so bad.

Ok. No more procrastinating.
Much love,
Emily

Could it be? Is it really the dry season??

There have been a couple days without rain now and it is very, very windy. The wind is nice... although the sun is bright and hot, the breeze makes it very comfortable. For now, at least. I've been told that when the dry season is in full swing, there are a lot of wildfires and the driving wind blows the sand everywhere. Just another feature of the Karamoja Resort and Spa: mud treatments, exfoliating sandstorms, wading pools, the malaria weight-loss program... :) The wind right now is ridiculous. I have never felt such strong wind in my life... and this is just the beginning!

We've had two false alarms already when we thought the dry season was starting, so I'm not counting on it... but it would be nice for the rain to be done so the roads will dry out. I'm sick of muddy feet and my flip flops being destroyed in the muck... and it would be good for the roads to dry out since different members of the mission have to drive down country many times in the next few weeks.

On Thursday the Wright family will be leaving for a ten day vacation down country. It will be quiet and boring without them (they bring a lot of life to this compound! I love those kids...) but it will also be nice to have ten days to organize life, work ahead on lesson plans, clean the banda and kitchen, and just relax for a while. I'll only be teaching from 9:45-12 every day. It's also wonderfully providential that they're going away now, because it will give me lots of time to complete my TESOL course, which I have to finish by December 23rd (and I still have 8 lessons to do, each of which takes several hours!).

My mind knows that Christmas is coming, but it doesn't feel like Christmas at all without snow... Erika and I do have a nice little fake tree in our banda (which she lovingly refers to as The Toilet Brush) with tinsel, colored lights and decorations. Last year's teacher, Amy Folkert, sent Erika and I a package of Christmas presents! It had candy, decorations, a card for Erika (who shared this banda with Amy for 3 months earlier this year) and a few presents. She doesn't even know me so it was so so sweet of her to include me in the gift.

I'm also having mixed feelings about turning 24 in a few days. 24 just sounds so grown up. In some ways it's great, and I'm so glad I'm an adult now, and done with school! But in other ways it's a little daunting because at this point I really need to start taking things seriously and planning for whatever's next... time to start making some serious decisions which could really influence my next few years, important decisions like where to live and work next year. But I'm excited that for the rest of my life I'll be able to say I celebrated a birthday on the African savannah :)

If at first you don't succeed...

Erika and I are hoping to start a kids "afterschool" type Bible study in the village behind the clinic ("after school" isn't the best term since most kids here don't go to school... but you know the idea, sing, play games, hear a Bible story). So today was going to be our first day. We walked down to the clinic and tried to mobilize as we went (shouting "apena akilip" and "potu daadang" to all the kids we passed on the road.) If not for a pretty intense game of soccer happening in the middle of the road outside the clinic, we could have had quite a group... as it was, about 10 kids came. Erika brought them to the big, empty building (the ward) and I went off to the village to get Rose to translate. But when I got to Rose's home, she was making dinner and said she could not come...
So I went back, gathered up Faith, James and Stacey from their banda, and went back to the ward. I told Erika that we didn't have a translator, but we decided to wing it and make do with our tiny vocabulary and hand motions. We taught them Red Light Green Light. Of course, these kids have never in their life seen a stoplight, or any road signs at all for that matter. So Erika had a piece of green paper with "apethi" on it, which means "go" (or fast? something like that) and a red paper that said "bas" (stop). These kids also can't read, but it was helpful for us to have the words written out. Basically we just demonstrated what to do and they had a great time...
We also tried Duck Duck Goose. Faith, James and Stacey are old pros at this game now. The K'jong kids seemed to enjoy it, but the problem is that they wouldn't say the words, or they would just whisper them. We tried to have them repeat after us, but they were too shy. So they would walk around tapping each head saying something like "duh" or just a general "uh" sound, and then when they got to the person they wanted to goose, instead of saying anything distinctive, they would say "uh" again, or they would just start running with no warning and we'd just yell "apethi! apethi!" to the one sitting down until they figured it out. So I think we should pick some Karamojong animal words that they can pronounce easily and use those next time. Dog Dog Cat (Ino, Ino, Epus)?
We obviously couldn't do a Bible lesson without a translator, so then we sat the kids down and attempted a few songs. Thankfully Faith knows the Karamojong songs pretty well so she actually led them for us, and many of these kids come to Sunday school and church occasionally so they  know the songs too. We sang Kire Ejok Akuj (super easy and repetitive), Kidyama Lore A Papa, and Yesu Amina Ayong (Jesus Loves Me). I was quite convicted that I don't know the songs well enough, so I need to practice those during the week.
Altogether though, the kids obviously had a lot of fun, our charades worked, and everyone went away smiling. We'll try again next week, hopefully with a translator, and we'll tell them the Christmas story.

ngaKaramojong Prayer

Yesterday at our language lesson, Rose taught Erika and I a simple prayer we can say if we come across someone who is sick or injured. It will take a lot of practice to memorize this (and, as Martha said, one missionary trick is to read prayers off index cards, because everyone closes their eyes during a prayer so you can get away with reading!). But I would like to try to memorize the whole thing.

Akuj Papa, ikilakara ainakin isua ngiboro daadang.
Ikilakara akiboi kaapei akilip ekonikiro.
Akuj Papa - kitangaleo ngikonei kosi.
Ka kidara ikes toyakaun kaapei ka isua akimor akiroit kon.
Papa Akuj, kotere erauni ekiro kon ngolo apolon nooi alotooma isua ikilipi jui jui.
Ngona ikilip isua kira iyong!
Agogong kapedori daadang ebunit a neni kon.
 Iyong Papa Akuj ipolo ngooi.
A lokiro a Yesu Kristo Ekapolon yok. Amen.

Father God, we thank You for all things.
We thank you that we are here together.
We pray in your name Father God, heal our friends.
Keep them so that they may be with us to share your Word.
Father God, we pray always that your name, which is very great, will be in us.
Hear what we pray!
All strength and power come from you.
Father God, you are very great.
In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.

You Know You're In Karamoja When...

1. The internet is down for two days. Why? Because the cell tower (which we can see from our mission) ran out of fuel to power the generator (because there's no electricity here) -- this fuel shortage happens at precisely the same time each month, by the way -- and the truck carrying the fuel up from Mbale is completely stuck in the mud over an hour away.
2. You see an ant in your food, you scoop it out with a spoon, and you keep on eating.
3. Rose comes to the door. "Hemly! I have a jigger just here... do you have something?" Erika immediately responds "on the desk!" Yes. We keep a safety pin readily accessible solely for the purpose of digging bugs out of hands and feet. (Thankfully Erika and I haven't had any jiggers yet, but Erika did have to have a guard, Sam, dig a thorn out of her foot. He's apparently the BEST... he's so careful you don't feel a thing).
4. You're really not all that surprised to walk into lunch one day and see a dead Green Night Adder  in a cardboard box on display. I was, however, less than thrilled to learn that it had been killed just outside my banda. Papa Lokwii, the one who killed our cobra, came to the rescue again!
5. You can't tell someone their baby is beautiful, because they think evil spirits will ruin the child if you say that. So if you tell a mother that her baby is beautiful, she will just laugh nervously and try to get away from you.
6. Owls are wizards. Chameleons are demon-possessed.
7. You're walking to the clinic and you reach the culvert (small river) where several people are bathing. Yes, they are naked (could be men, women or children). And yes, they would like to greet you, talk to you, and even help you practice your Karamojong phrases... right there knee deep in the river.
8. You wake up to beautiful mountain views every day... and every evening the sunset looks like a spread out of National Geographic.

On Tuesday I went to the nearby market town of Namalu. First stop, Juliano’s nursery. Juliano is a really nice Italian guy who grows flowers, trees, etc. in Namalu. Leah (another MA, who does health education and literacy work) and Erika really wanted a REAL tree for Christmas. They came home with a real tree, but it’s certainly not your traditional Christmas tree J It has a long stem and a few big, broad leaves at the top, which have now been thoroughly decorated with tinsel and popcorn strings. Unfortunately, just this morning the tree officially died... all the leaves fell off  :(

I bought some beads at the general store, which I need to string together in time for the Christmas edonga (dance), which we’ll hopefully be able to attend. We wandered around but didn’t do much shopping. We visited a man who sells vegetables, and he gave Kipsy and I free bananas, which was nice. He knows how to keep his customers. J He was selling matooke (aka plantains, or green bananas – you cook them in oil and they are sooo yummy, they taste like potatoes), yellow bananas, tomatoes, onions, kumquats, and little green eggplants. I didn’t buy anything from him this time, though. I was hoping to buy some blankets or fabric, but they didn’t really have any out, probably because it was drizzling. After wandering up and down the market street, we went to Pastor Emuron’s church for a Bible study with the pastor, his family, and a few members of his church. Attendance was low (probably 8 people?) but it was interesting to hear them talk about Christmas. Leah was asking them what the average Karamojong child or adult out in the villages knows about Christmas. The influence of the Catholic church is very strong here, because the first missionaries to Karamoja were Roman Catholic. Unfortunately this means that most people here know a lot about Mary, but she is so overemphasized that they worship her more than her Son. The Catholics taught, first and foremost, that Mary is the mother of God… and they didn’t really distinguish that she was not the mother of God the Father. So they seem to place her even above the Trinity. Leah is going to be visiting the villages and sharing the real story of Christmas, and its relation to the whole of the Gospel.

            When the Bible study was over, we all climbed back into Pastor Al’s SUV (Kipsy and I had sat on the floor in the trunk on the way over… Erika rode in the back on the way home). And we proceeded to get very, very stuck in the mud. It took us several minutes of violently rocking forward and back, forward and back, spraying mud everywhere, before we finally got out of the ruts.

Oh, rain. It’s still raining like crazy – no dry season in sight. Our laundry lady/language teacher Achio Rose said that the people in her village are coming to her asking “Are these the rains of Noah?” For us, the rains are mostly just a pain – we have to break out our boots, we can’t charge anything and we lose power every night because there’s not enough solar power coming in… but for the people in the villages, they have to walk around barefoot in the mud, wade through rivers to get to work, and sleep on the floor in flooded huts. Their crops are being destroyed by the rain.

It was raining all day yesterday, and by the time me, Erika, Heather, Leah and Ruffin went over to the Tricarico’s for dinner  everyone was freezing. We were all decked out in our hoodies, jeans, socks, with blankets wrapped around us. I asked Mrs. T what the temperature was.

It was 68 degrees.

I’m becoming such a wimp.

After dinner, while we were sipping tea and eating gingerbread cookies, we started hearing popping sounds. In all seriousness, I said, “Ooh, are those firecrackers?!” And everyone said, “Yeah, firecrackers.” I did not get the sarcasm. Laurie comes in from the other room and says “Gunfire.” There were a lot of rounds going off, and the six night guards on the mission compound blew their whistles to alert each other and make sure no guards were sleeping on the job. We just stayed inside. Later we found out that the shots were coming from Alamacar, which is quite a ways away from us, back in the hills, but the sound of the shots was echoing on the mountains so it sounded very close. We also found out that the local militia successfully stopped the raid. The militia is made up of government-appointed locals who are allowed to have firearms to prevent raids – the rest of the Karamojong are not supposed to have guns, the whole region has gone through a disarmament). When I walked back to my banda around 9:30, I quietly greeted the two guards on the Wright’s compound who were faithfully walking back and forth with their bows. It was good to see them taking it seriously… I feel very safe here.

            

Reality Check: This is Africa

Well, the last few days in Mbale it was raining quite a bit, and we had received word from friends here in Karamoja that it had also been raining "too too much" in Nakapiripirit. Nevertheless, we prayed and set out for the journey around 11:30AM. Erika and I rode with Pastor Al and Laurie again.
The first bit of the journey is a real, paved road (lovingly referred to as "The Tarmac") -- but once we got onto the dirt [mud] road we knew pretty quickly that this would not be an easy journey. We hit three particularly rough spots. In the first significant stretch of slippery, muddy ruts we came to, there were other cars and trucks coming the other direction already stuck. We headed in for the ride (it felt a bit like being on a shying horse... if anyone out there knows what I mean... one minute you're going left, the next minute you're spinning right, you're turned sideways, tilting side to side, and holding on tight). There was one particular point when I really felt scared because the car was tilting and sliding and I was so worried we were going to tip over (and I would have been on the bottom side, getting squished into the mud! But God protected us and Pastor Al kept the car upright :) However, we did get legitimately stuck, and it took several backward pulls by Bob's massive Dyna truck to get us out of the rut.
Later on we came to a similar rough spot. Bob, Heather, Ryan (a visiting pastor from Kitgum) and Pastor Al actually walked out the course through the mud and planned the best way to navigate the huge ditches and ridges. We made it through without getting stuck. The funniest moment of the day -- we've got our windows down and Pastor Al is vigorously steering through this labyrinth of puddles and potholes, we're all quite tense and holding on tight and as we're coming over a tough patch someone standing on the grass on the driver's side says "How are you?" Pastor Al, spinning the wheel like a boss, replies "I am fine!" We just broke down laughing hysterically. How does it LOOK like we're doing?!?!?! We're basically going sideways through a muddy trench the size of my house! But Al's right, "It is important to greet!"
The last spot of the really daunting spots actually ended up not being too bad. There's a broken bridge at one point. Several men were standing around trying to guide cars through the water and up onto the other bank. We watched Pastor Dave in the car in front of us go in... it's up to his wheels... his exhaust pipe is underwater for a few seconds... he almost looks stuck... but then he's up and out. So Pastor Al just went for it and it actually didn't feel as bad going over it.

We made it home to Karamoja again. It's raining cats and dogs here. It had been dry the past couple weeks so I really thought the dry season was here. Think again. The climate change here is remarkable... the seasons have completed shifted. Unfortunately that makes it quite hard for the Karamojong, who can't easily foresee what to plant when... some have planted again in these extended rains hoping to get more of a crop. We'll see how this rain effects things here next year. As long as we don't have to drive in it, it's a good thing... but the Mission has to take several more trips south in the next month, so these roads can add a lot of stress and uncertainty to our plans. Please pray that they will dry up soon!

Many many good things (and a couple bummers)

Highlights of today:

*Chatting with Christi bright and early this morning (and yesterday I was able to Facebook chat with David and Christi, which was fun :P

*African tea at Chat 'n' Chino -- although Elizabeth's is still better :)

*Walking around Mbale with Erika. I got some bright patterned fabric which I'll have made into skirts sometime in the next five months... and I bought some earrings and a necklace. I need to keep buying beads so I'll have enough for the Christmas edonga (dance)... I'm told that when attending any type of celebration in Karamoja, you should wear every single bead and bangle you own. Forget about whether they match... just pile them on. I only had one strand of red akimat beads and one pair of green earrings, which is simply unacceptable.

*Refusing to buy into mzungu (white person) prices while shopping. One woman tried to sell Erika a skirt for 25,000 Ugandan shillings (~$10) when it probably should have been USH10,000 or less. They see our skin and double or triple the prices. One woman tried to sell me earrings for USH10,000 (~$4)  but I went around the corner and I bought some for 1,000 (less than 50 cents)! It's not that I'm so stingy... but it's not right of them to charge so much, and it makes it impossible for local people to buy anything at these stores when everything is marked at mzungu prices and tourists coming through won't try to barter. I'm not good at bartering but I hope I'll improve with practice. At this point I usually attempt a couple lower prices and if it's not going well I just leave rather than standing my ground and fighting for it.

*Thanksgiving dinner. Turkey with barbecue sauce, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, cabbage salad, rolls, beans (of course), and something meant to be pumpkin pie which was strange and full of small diced pieces of pumpkin, but it still tasted good. So, not your traditional meal (we knew it wouldn't be, with Ugandans catering) but it was delicious. Then a Christian couple who live here in Mbale and are friends of the missionaries renewed their wedding vows after the dinner, which was really sweet. :)

Not so great:
Being harassed while trying to shop... I wish we could just shop in peace, but that's not possible here, it seems.
No hot showers.
RAIN. SO MUCH RAIN. We'll have to see how the roads to Karamoja are tomorrow... who knows, we may be stranded here another day if the roads are impassable. Being stuck here wouldn't be too much of a trial for us :) But it would be difficult for the pastors and there were people here in Mbale who wanted to visit Nakaale for the weekend, so it would be a shame if our visitors missed their chance to come up.

But altogether, this was a good day :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Our hotel is supposed to have hot water (we turned on the water heater half an hour ago) but, alas, Erika and I have only enjoyed half of the delights of the big city. Fast internet, yes. Hot showers, no.

So, in light of another little letdown in the form of an icy shower on this rainy evening, I need to keep in mind all that I'm thankful for...

I serve a merciful and loving God who has given me so much now, and has an eternity of joy and peace prepared for me in heaven. Every small setback here seems so insignificant in the light of an eternity with Christ. "O praise the Lord, O thank the Lord, for bountiful is He, because His loving kindness lasts through all eternity!" Psalm 106:1

I'm living out what I've been dreaming about for years. I'm in Africa. I've met amazing people and I have wonderful students. I am living in a frontier missions context, in a brick hut, learning a tribal language and making Christian friends in Karamoja who will be with me as brothers and sisters in Christ forever. I get to spend so much time with kids doing what I love. It's so surreal. I'm truly blessed.

I have a great family, church family and friends back at home. I have internet access and a Ugandan cell phone so that I can keep in touch with all of you, even though we're an ocean apart.

I am healthy. I'm safe. I get to sleep on a real bed, drink safe water, and lock my door at night. I don't live in fear. This is not a given for the vast majority of people in the world. Please, be thankful for these things. 

I could go on and on. I have so much. Most of all, I know that all I have, I didn't acquire by my own strength... the Lord has been so good to me. I deserve nothing... I'm given everything I need, and more, and an eternal hope which is worth more than everything else put together. God does not guarantee that I will always be safe, healthy, secure, connected. He may take all that away. He may call me to a much more difficult task than the one He's currently placed before me. But those circumstances shouldn't affect my real joyfulness and thankfulness. Those are rooted much more deeply. 

I hope you've all had a blessed and happy Thanksgiving! 

Love in Christ,

Emily

Asyomi ayong ngaKaramojong!

I'm loving my ngaKaramojong lessons so far. Theirs is actually quite a sophisticated language... more complex than I expected (why is it that our Western minds seem to automatically equate almost everything African with simplicity?). It reminds me of Latin and Greek in that (as far as I can tell, and I'm no linguist, so feel free to correct me) nouns have different endings depending on gender (masculine, feminine, neuter) - so we have to learn both noun and verb conjugations. Of course, there's only so much we can learn in the next five months, and the people we talk to will still understand us if we mess up our conjugations (I still haven't quite mastered "we" forms so I always use first person singular, no matter what... yeah I should work on that).

Anywho, for anyone who wants to learn a few phrases, just for fun, here are just a few of the many phrases we've learned in the last few weeks. "ng" = the sound you make at the end of the word "sing" -- "c" = "ch"

Ejok! (hello!)
Angaleo-a? (is it good? response "ee, angaleo" - yeah, it's good)
Ngai ekonekiro? (What is your name? Answer: Erae ekaakiro Ngakiru -- that's my Karamojong name, which is a reference to "the time of the rains" -- since the rain was CRAZY when I first arrived here. My teacher Rose named me).
Ai ilosi iyong? (where are you going?)
Alosi ayong lore/lodakitar/losukul/lotic/lodonga/locor/alo Mission (I'm going home/to the clinic/ to school/ to work/ to a dance or party/ to the water hole/ to the Mission compound)
Ngikonikaru naie? (how old are you? My answer: Erae ngikakar ngatomoniareiangiuni - I am 23).
Ngae ekiro nakaato kon? (what is your sister's name? Answer: Erae ekiro a nakaato kang Christi).
 ** Funny side note, I was learning to say "My mother's name is Beverly" and the Karamojong CANNOT pronounce that name. It was soooo funny to hear them stumbling over it... I finally just told them we'd call her Betty. Sorry, mom!**
Mam ngace (no problem!)

Now for numbers 1-20 (I might have some of the teens wrong... but I'll do my best!)
1 epei
2 ngiarei
3 ngiuni
4 ngomon
5 ngikan
6 ngikanikapei
7 ngikanikarei
8 ngikanikauni
9 ngikanikomon
10 ngitomon
11 ngitomonakepei
12 ngitomonakarei
13 ngitomonangiuni
14 ngitomonangomon
15 ngitomonankan
16 ngitomonankanikapei
17 ngitomonankanikarei
18 ngitomonankanikauni
19 ngitomonankangomon
20 ngatomonangiari

I can't even begin to write the 20s.  The teens are bad enough. Ridiculousness!

Green Garden

This morning we were on the road by 8AM on our way to Mbale for the quarterly Mission Meeting. Erika and I rode with Al & Laurie Tricarico. The roads were bumpy, but dry. We got chapatti (think homemade tortillas, cooked in oil... delicious) at a stand along the way, enjoyed the scenery, and tried to have good conversations although it's tricky with the noise of the car bouncing through potholes!

We arrived in Mbale around lunchtime, Erika and I checked into our room at the Green Garden Hotel, and then we went with Laurie and Josh to BAM, a grocery store. Erika and I went crazy buying everything we'll need (hopefully) to live comfortably between now and the next time we're down country (I probably won't be down again till Jan. or Feb. at the earliest... whenever we have our next mission meeting). Afterwards we went to Chat N Chino's, an American-style coffee shop. The service was slow but the food and drinks were good and there was wi-fi and... so wierd... WAZUNGU (white people) everywhere. Most of us were there for a while - all the teens, Martha, Laurie and Sunshine... then the teens scattered in a couple different groups across the city (they've grown up here so they're completely confident and know where they're going... which is kinda cool). Erika and I decided to stick around and enjoy the wireless and Coke floats for a while (Carolyne Scott would be proud!). We also met a pastor who is going to be coming to our mission Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow, who is doing church planting work up north in the Kitgum, literally 2 hours away from any other Westerners.

Then Erika and I each nabbed a piki (public transport motorcycle) for the short ride from the cafe back to our hotel. I was a bit nervous about the piki but it wasn't too scary, although sitting sideways on a motorcycle in a skirt with a heavy backpack on is kinda tricky, as far as balancing goes. But we both had careful drivers who went nice and slow for us mzungus. We'll be taking lots of them tomorrow, I'm guessing.

We came back and got cleaned up for dinner. Our shower is literally a shower head hanging from the ceiling, a bucket on the floor in the middle of the bathroom, and a drain in the corner where you can dump out the bucket. No curtains or anything -- so the whole bathroom gets completely soaked. Poor Erika didn't see the water heater button you have to press for hot water (although I pressed it and the water still didn't get hot... oh well). Hot showers and fast internet are the two main things to get excited about when going down country!

We had dinner at Delicious Dishes, an Indian restaurant. Erika and I tried to get pikis in but neither of the drivers we hailed had ever heard of the restaurant so we let them leave. We ended up just walking down. The food was great and almost the whole mission came. The Wrights gave us a lift back to the hotel, which was nice, cuz Erika and I don't really want to travel alone at night unless we have to. I'm sure it would be fine, but it's good to be cautious.

Now we're just chilling in our hotel room under our mosquito nets. There's mold on the wall and the TV only has one channel (loud African beats, all the time!); our windows don't close and have no screens so who knows how many bugs and geckos could climb in tonight (Erika has already bravely squashed a massive moth)... but overall it's a pretty good room. The best part is we're splitting the cost and it comes out to $10 or $15/night each. Not bad :)

 Erika and I go down to the village behind the clinic about three times a week, to have language lessons with our laundry lady, Rose. After our lesson Monday I asked her son Tony to help me get a picture of the tiny baby goat. (Yes, he's named after Tony Curto -- he has a little brother, called Baby Bob even though he's five years old, who's named after missionary Bob Wright)

 Mom, this baby goat picture is for you. It's only a couple days old. SO CUTE.

 This is a picture of our (messy) banda. I'll try to get a better picture soon, but at least this gives you an idea.

 This is the church... nice view, huh? :)

 This is the Wright's dog, Herman. He insists on accompanying Erika and I whenever we go down to the clinic. He's usually fine, although a couple weeks ago he got into a fight with one of the nasty clinic dogs and came home with a huge bloody gash on his neck. Poor Herman.
The Karamojong pronounce his name "Chairman." They call the other dog, Jackal, "Chuckles."

James and Stacey. Way too cute. This much adorableness should be illegal. It helps that on this 80+ degree day their concerned caregivers put them in long pants and that amazing hat. It's chilly here in Karamoja. Today I saw so many guys in puffy down parkas.

In other news, while shopping, they had GARLIC SCENTED SHAMPOO.
There are no words.

Airplane pictures :)

I LOVED having a daytime flight from Brussels to Uganda. We were flying over the Sahara for at least two hours... here are a couple shots of the desert. Didn't turn as well as I'd hoped... but still, kinda cool to see the shadows on the sand. If you look very very carefully in the top picture, you can see a trail through the sands... from the plane I could even see some white tents pitched in the middle of nowhere. I cannot even fathom living in such a place. It goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on....

And here's my little Rwandan buddy :) There were two others, including a chubby little waddling baby girl, but I couldn't get a picture of them. We played a lot and since they didn't speak English, I got to brush off my college French and communicate in the most basic way with them. Dr. Leon never would have guessed I'd be using my French here of all places! Little kid French accents are the beeessst. I'm so glad I had that empty seat beside me on the plane so they could visit me :)

Take a deep breath before reading this post.

Erika and I are alive and well today, so no worries :) But it was a terrible week...
First off, both of us got the stomach flu (or some unfortunate illness) -- Erika at the beginning of the week, and me at the end of the week. It's not fun being sick here... but we were fine. I got tested for malaria twice (finger pricks... not painful at all, thankfully) but both tests came back negative so they think it must have been the flu. So now we're kinda playing catch-up with our lessons, but we're not too far behind. Everyone here is pretty flexible because illness is just a regular part of life here... you have to work around it. Our student Kipsy had malaria this week, too, and Jimmy, another visitor, has been sick for a couple weeks. That's life.

The worst part of the week, though, was Wednesday afternoon. I was complaining in my last post about the monster spider. Well, we killed another one of those Wednesday morning... so I thought, man, Erika's sick, there's another nasty spider, that's enough bad stuff for one day. Ha!
That afternoon Erika was digging around for a receipt. I was up in my bunk reading reading for class or something... she pulled down a black Adidas duffel bag, which had been stacked at the top of all our luggage, at the end of our bunk beds, right next to our pillows. She's rummaging around in it for at least three or four minutes, pulling stuff out, digging in the corners, when she gasps and says "I think there's a snake in the bag." I'm up on the bunk so I just tell her to run and get the guard. She finds Papa Lokwii ("Lo-kwee"), an elderly man who works as our gardener. I could hear her talking to him, trying to remember the word for snake (he doesn't speak English). "Umm... ee-.... emun?" She told me when she said "emun" his eyes bugged out and he jumped.
At this point she wasn't sure it was a snake, she just knew she had seen something moving in the bag. Could have been a lizard, a scorpion, anything. But she grabs a broom and Papa Lokwii brings his walking stick, and he manages to hook the handle of the bag and bring it outside. As soon as he lifted the bag, I could tell it was way too heavy... there was something in there. He brought it out to the concrete block in front of the schoolhouse. I waited to make sure it was actually in the bag before I got out of my bunk (in case it had snuck out and was under the bed) but soon I saw Papa Lokwee and the dog jump, and got out of bed as fast as I could to watch the beating. He beat the snake to death. It was a five foot forest cobra... and we were later informed that one bite can kill an elephant in three hours. He smashed its head in and the blood is still on the concrete.

So, talk about God's providence. Erika had her hand inside a bag with a deadly cobra for several minutes and wasn't bitten. Let me tell you, she was shaken up. It was a close call. But she wasn't meant to die on Wednesday. God was protecting her and He shut the cobra's mouth.

We are now being extra careful (paranoid??) about ALWAYS keeping our doors shut and locked. It must have crept into the banda when we had the door ajar at some point... probably trying to escape the rain. It has been raining several times a day here (dry season? yeah, not so much).

So, basically, we survived. And Psalm 91 is our theme, I'd say. We survived the plague and the cobra. Another lesson in trusting God... we can't make it on our own here. Talk about a reality check!

We're fine now... it's a sunny day, we've got time to get our work done, and tonight we have a community meal so we can just relax. We're both feeling much better today.

Special thanks to Aidan Kharroubi, who has been praying specifically that God would protect us from snakes :)

Spiders, Sunrises and Sumerians

I've now been in Karamoja for two weeks... I'm finally starting to feel settled in here. My schedule's sorted out, I'm getting to know everyone, and the jet lag is gone. I'm off mefloquine (the malaria prophylaxis I was taking, which was giving me nightmares), taking doxycycline now. That should help.

Here's an average, weekday Day in the Life of an MK Teacher here in Nakaale :)

6:30AM -- I'm on the top bunk, right next to the window. The sun rises and at first the sky is grayish... I go in and out of sleep for a while, but when the sky starts turning pink and purple I know it's time to get up. It's really a beautiful view from my bunk... looking out over the savanna to the dim outline of mountains in the distance. I eat breakfast, make coffee and get ready for the day.
8:00 Literature(MWF)/Bible(T/Th) with Bobby and Anna Wright
8:45 World History with Bobby & Anna
9:45 Omnibus III (Great Books) with Maria Tricarico
10:30 Omnibus III with James Tricarico
11:45 Grammar/Vocab with Caleb Okken
12:00 lunch (rice and beans in the main house every weekday)
1:45 Heritage Studies (world history) with Mary and Kipsy Wright

Depending on the afternoon, I may go down to the clinic with Erika to visit our little Kenyan friends Faith, James and Stacey. Erika teaches Faith three days each week, and I'd like to go as often as I can just to play with the younger kids while she teaches. Erika and I  sometimes need to prepare food to bring to dinner at someone's house (we have dinner invites 4 days/week right now), or we may need to make our own dinner. I try to prepare the next day's lessons in the afternoons, because in the evenings we're often visiting with people and it's nice to be able to socialize without having to leave right after dinner to get back to work. But when my reading load picks up I'll probably have to skip out pretty quickly after group dinners.

Some highlights of this week:
- There was a HUGE spider in our banda (hut). It was as big as my palm, hairy, fast, and we could see its eyes gleaming at us. NOT OKAY. I really, really, really hate spiders, so I mostly held the flashlight, moved the furniture and poked it to make it move around so that Erika could squish it with my shoe. It was epic.
We have a friendly little brown gecko who lives in our hut, and we like him because he eats bugs. I'm pretty sure if gecko and spider had ever brawled, spider would have won, which would be sad, because I like our gecko. But the spider has been conquered.
- I went to the town of Namalu on Tuesday. I bought some things at the store there (we call it WalMart... but its actually about the size of a small living room). We had samosas at a "restaurant" (they pulled two benches out of a shack for us to sit on, and served our samosas on a real plate). Samosas are deep-fried pastry things filled with beef and onions. So good. They made us a fresh batch so they were hot and safe to eat. An old woman with a terrible sore on her leg was begging from us and almost snatched Anna's wallet out of her hand. On the way home we ran over a huge black mamba in the road... but it was already dead.
- Priya the cat just ran into my banda, chased something, caught it, walked outside with it and ate it. What was that? A mouse? A gecko? I'm so confused. Uhh... thanks Priya.
- It has been raining like CRAZY here. This is supposed to be the start of dry season but it's been pouring rain for days. It's always overcast and it usually rains in the evening, but it's rained in the morning a couple times which is apparently very unusual here.
- Last night all the visitors (me, Erika, James, Johnny, Ruffin, Britney, Joe and Heather) went over to Jim and Jenny (Baumgardner) Knox's house, and Jim played his bagpipes for us. After the typical Scotland the Brave and Amazing Grace, he took requests. He had a kids book of easy bagpipe tunes... so he played Pop Goes the Weasle and La Cucaracha. HILARITY. Then we had some hilarious conversations after dinner about spanking in public schools (still happens in TX, apparently), various uses of cow dung, and the worst travel toilet experiences (one involved a pole to push pigs away). It was so fun.
Ok, I've got to go. This afternoon Erika and I have our first ngaKaramojong lesson with Rose, our laundry lady. That should be fun :)
I miss you all... hope all's well on the home front. I'd love to hear from you!

I've been enjoying the peace and quiet here, but I'm ready to have my friends back again :) It's boring being the only one on this compound all day! Of course I have plenty of work to do, but it would be nice to have a few distractions :) 

This morning Priya showed up and she's skinny now, which means she had her kittens and they're around here somewhere... I haven't found them yet. I hope they all survive :/

Last night there was quite a party going on out in the street - shouting, singing, drums, general craziness. To be honest, I was a little scared. The conga line seemed to have stopped right outside our gates and it was very loud, and my untrained ears couldn't really tell if they were just having a good time, or doing some scary witchcraft ritual or something... but Laurie assured me this morning that the villagers were just out drinking and enjoying the moonlight. 

This morning Faith (my brilliant multilingual Kenyan friend) came over, we finished her schoolwork for this week and then spent an hour playing Life. She kept asking difficult questions like, "what is stock?" or "I got the mobile home! Is this a nice home in America?"

Last night Heather and I went to the Okken's house for pizza and a movie with their kids (Caleb is 8, Megan is 5 and Jacob is 3, I think? Or am I totally off?). Sunshine is a great cook (she's very humble about it but the truth is... she can cook) and we watched How To Train Your Dragon which was such a fun movie. Little Jacob was afraid at some points and didn't totally understand that the big dragon died... but he still liked it. On Thursday night Laurie and Josh had me over to eat Indian food (something with paneer, the unmeltable cheese) and watch a super cheesy Bollywood flick, Kaho Naa Pyaar Hai. That was super fun.

I can't wait till everyone gets back this afternoon and I have my roommate back :) Several people were down in Jinja rafting the Nile on Thursday so I can't wait to hear their stories. Every Saturday night the whole mission gets together for a meal and we play bocce, chat and relax, which is a great tradition. 

And on Monday I start teaching! We're still ironing out my schedule (flexibility is key!) but in the meantime I am prepping for seven classes. 

I was feeling a little sick this morning so I'm going to take it easy, try to sleep it off and hope it's not malaria. But don't worry, if it is, I won't die! I'll get medicine and be on the mend in just a couple days. Erika and Johnny both had malaria last week and were improved enough after taking the medicine for just a couple days that they were still able to go on the Nile rafting trip. I think maybe I'm just dehydrated though. It's hot, dry and windy here so I've just got to remind myself to drink lots of water. Funny thing is, it feels hot here to me, but this is only the beginning! Give it a couple more months and we'll really be in the dry season with temps well above 100 degrees. I'm glad I've got time to acclimate :)

Most of the mission is down country on various retreats/errands/adventures right now, so it's very quiet here. The only ones left here are Laurie and Josh Tricarico, the Okkens, Jim & Jenny Knox, Heather and me. As the only mzungu on the Wright's compound during the day, I've been having quite a few conversations with the Karamojong guards, our laundry lady Rose, and the slashers (men who cut the grass by slashing it with sickles).

The other day I heard "Emily!" Iriyama Paul told me that something smelled very bad behind the schoolhouse, in the shady area where the workers sit down to rest. The schoolhouse also houses the kitchen, bathroom and shower that Erika and I share, so they thought that maybe we had rotting food or that our propane tanks were leaking. But after some investigation they determined it was probably a dead rat rotting under the building. Great. So today Josh is going to come and see if there is anything dead on top of the building; if not, it's underneath and we'll just have to deal with the rank smell for a little while.

The Wright's cat Priya is going to have kittens any day now. She's huge and she is desperate for food. I feed her a little more than the other cats since she certainly can't hunt in her condition. But she's becoming quite a pest and keeps trying to get into my banda. I don't want her having her kittens here, because then I'd have to leave the door unlocked and open all the time for her to come in and out. Although the workers here are very kind, petty theft is an issue here so we have to keep the buildings locked when we're not around.

Yesterday I went down to the clinic to teach Faith, the eight year old daughter of a Kenyan couple working at the mission. She is a brilliant girl and speaks four languages. Her little brother James (4) and cousin Stacey (3) were also there so I played with them. James speaks some English but Stacey only knows a handful of words. The primary language in their home is kiSwahili. Erika taught them Duck Duck Goose and they know Ring Around the Rosey (in kiSwahili!). They are absolutely adorable. Stacey's mom died of cancer just a few weeks ago, and her father and brother are working and can't care for her, so she's moved in with her cousins here. She's been very shy and sad and hasn't been eating much, but it was great to see her smile and laugh and play yesterday. Poor thing.

I have lots of lesson prep to do before Monday! SO MUCH READING. And the internet here is horrible, so I may not post too often, but I'll do my best.

I miss you all! Please email me or comment here -- Facebook is pretty unreliable so the best way to reach me is through email (emilygpihl@gmail.com). I'd love to hear from you!

Emily