Hello dear readers,
It has been a LONG time since I have entered the blogging cyberspace so we have lots to catch up on.
Last time we spoke my parents had just left and I had returned from my trip to the Fort Portal region. After returning we got straight back into the swing of things by teaching our classes the required curriculum, and helping around the project in many different ways:
Our first assignment around the project was to get to work on the new school. Sam and I helped carry stones to fix a solid base so we could then start filling in the structure with cement. After that was set the pillars would constructed and filled with more cement. This cement was mixed by hand, none of these fancy cement machines about, Fada! The workers that were employed by David were the only machines we needed. They started work at 6 am and finished at 7 pm or later, now that is a shift! Sam and I were mere hired muscle (I don't know why I was there!) and helped where we could, lifting, pushing and shoveling anything that needed such actions. We also helped with the Garden bar construction as well, which was finished two weekends ago before Easter Sunday.
The religious holiday
On Good Friday, Sam and I traveled to Kabale to take part in the Catholic 'March of the Crosses'. The mood was sombre as a large possession wound its way through Kabale's streets with all its participants holding hand made crosses of every size. This march is to signify how Jesus carried his Crucifix to his place of execution. The songs were somewhat sad but uplifting as the people preempted their Lord's resurrection, creating a beautiful mixture of joy and pain, which was made more poignant by the onslaught from the Heavens as it rained buckets!
Easter Sunday was a double special day for us at the Project. Firstly, it was the day Jesus rose from the dead. Secondly, David's son Liam was being baptized. It was a very happy day at GCV. The baptism went ahead without a hitch and then we went down to the new Garden Bar at the project to celebrate. There was much dancing and eating of delicious pork, which was slain and butchered on that very day (I know, I was there). A beautiful sunny day, for a beautifully joyous day.
So it been around 7 months now going on 8...where has the time gone?! The community I once saw as a huge mass of faces which I would never think of being able to get used to is now my family. Mukaka is now my loving Grandmother. Patience and David my African Mama and Tata, and our next door neighbors Maama, Eliza, Alex, and Cynthia are our extended family. I feel very much at home (and might not be able to leave when the time comes...sorry Mum and Dad!).
I have stayed in my two room house for 7 months. Cooking on a single orange gas stove (one ring), with my handmade mingling stick, which is traditionally used for mashing up posho and mixed porridge, but also makes a great sauce and soup stirrer! We eat in the same place we eat, wash, cook and relax in, with the other room being left free for sleeping and dressing. Our electricity supply come from a tiny solar lamp (beginning to fail slightly after much beating from the heavy African rain) or candles sitting on our window still. I wash from a basin in the corner of the room, which has shown me how much water we waste in washing ourselves at home! All these things I have been doing since I arrived in Uganda, and do you know what...I wouldn't change it for the world. Every last thing I have done here, experienced, felt, seen, learned has fascinated me. I am in love with this country and its people. The smiles of the children and people about, the sound of the boda boda drivers yelling across the road or the glorious market chatter, the coating of dust and muck you accumulate when driving or walking through any town in Uganda, the smell of steaming rice, boiling G-nuts, fried rolexes, the heat, the cramped clothes markets, the pot-holes, the call of 'MZUNGU', all these things are why I love Uganda and why when I leave I will NEVER forget any detail. It has been imprinted on my skin, shoved under my finger nails and caught in my hair. And that why I won't really leave because Uganda is now part of me.
I will need to add more pictures when I return from my travels in Malawi (and also tell you about the travel to Malawi). We shall converse more on my return, but for now...
Stay cool, Won't you.
Liam Scarth
