Fresh!

One of the items solidly located in the "pro" column on our mental "Living in Africa" list would be all the fresh food we're able to get here. Note, "fresh" also means all those exotic little African germs are alive and well, but after disinfecting, the stuff is wonderful.

Here's one of our many guards who shimmy up our avocado tree for harvest time. I might sound slightly like a product of the American litigation system when I ask more than once, "You're being safe, right?" Patrick, the guard in this photo, laughed at another guard climbing another tree this past weekend, saying the guy was just an oversized mango.

I always call the kids outside when it's time to get some avocadoes; they love watching the guard in the tree.

Speaking of fresh, check out the size of the snails here, like this one that the kids found in the meantime.

Yum. These things are almost the size of J.'s head. And we always get enough to share, which is a perfect relationship-builder.

Our awesome housekeeper, Oliver, has been going weekly downtown to purchase our produce--where all of the vendors in Kampala get theirs, so she gets fantastic prices direct from the farmers. She found all this for about $13.

There's a dairy farm that brings milk to a home about half a mile from our house. I walk down on the weekends, when they have more milk since they're not selling it to schools. I take my own containers and purchase six liters of milk to last us the week--enough to drink and make some yogurt. (I was counseled to find a place that didn't dilute the milk to make more money. Good advice.) This means we get fresh cream to make a little butter, too. The interesting thing is walking back with all the milk; let's just say I've had to change my shirt more than once.

Moses, our fishmonger, visits on Tuesdays. He purchases the ngege, or tilapia, from Lake Victoria, and I just tell him how many I want when he arrives. You say "fill-et" here, because "fill-ay" means it comes with the bones. Moses knows just where to cut to remove even the finest fishbones.

 Here's where the African part comes in. He makes a day-long route around the neighborhood on his boda with a wooden box full of fish on the back. I am currently the last house on the route--meaning he arrives around five--but Oliver is trying to improve my status. I pick out which fish I'd like, make sure the price is fair, and he guts and filets them right there on top of the box, placing them on the plastic plate I bring out. A little crude where I come from, yes. But baby, that fresh fish is good.

It's inspired us to try out some new fish recipes, and we've found some remarkable ones worth passing on...as long as I'm willing to substitute and ingredient here and there: fish tacos, italian breaded tilapia, and pan-seared. 

Can you taste it?! Fresh is a significant perk.

eMi Family Fun Day!

It was one of our best days in Uganda ever yesterday. In the sports field of a nearby Christian school, complete with playground, eMi rented an inflatable water slide, had a potluck, and played games all day out in the sunshine. (I "heart" Uganda weather thus far.) All told, I think there were 70 or more of us.

The kids played on that water slide all day. When we moms hauled ourselves up there to plummet down that blown-up monstrosity with them (nice try. No photos of that one), we started laughing about what would happen if the power went out at that very moment.

There was football, volleyball, ultimate frisbee, and a whole lotta soccer going on. John, in fact, jumped in with some Ugandans on a football i.e. soccer game, and actually held his own really well. He loved it. Quality time is one of his "love languages"--and athletics would be if it made the list--so he was happy as a clam playing sports with friends the whole day. (One of the things we love about Uganda, in fact, is that with a housekeeper and a groundskeeper/guard, our Saturdays leave us a lot more time to be a family and build relationships rather than playing catch up.) It was such a valuable day for all of us--and the entire office with their families--to make great memories with new friends with whom we already feel so close.

Mzungu prices

Last summer when we took our first baby steps in Uganda, we were counseled about haggling. Bargaining. Bartering. The main idea: By all means, do it. If you don't they're nearly offended, we were told. And after witnessing bartering as a social interaction when we bought our furniture, I believe it. Here, with the exception of the kind of things you get receipts for, you barter.

Interesting side note: We have also had a number of friends mention a phenomenon for people buying things for their employer. The employee makes the purchase for x amount, and the person writing the receipt says, "For what amount should I make out the receipt?" As in, how much would you like to skim off ? A friend of ours was actually behind one of his workers in line a couple of weeks ago when this happened to his employee. True story.

But I digress. The reasons for bartering also include my rather expensive skin color. You see, many a salesperson will double or triple their prices for a fair-skinned maiden like myself--a mzungu price. In fact, we've been told, when the U.N. moved their headquarters to Entebbe not long ago, they didn't barter. They bought things at whatever prices they were given. After all, these people are impoverished, right?! But unfortunately, the result has been prices driven sky-high, influencing the entire region's economy. The price for a bag of flour, for example, has now doubled. Short-sighted moves like paying more than something's worth, it has been explained to me, can have ripples that actually end up hurting the poor.

So--I've been bartering a little in the marketplace. For the most part, one can get a lot better prices.
But it can be a little tricky to know when I should barter, or, say, figuring out when a seller is bluffing or really can't back down on a price.

Maybe that explains why I was a little hurt the other day when I got home from a homeschooling co-op meeting. My wonderful housekeeper, Oliver, had gotten some items from a local seller who was recommended to me.  When the seller told her the price, she said she wouldn't pay that mzungu price. She wanted the real price. Which my friendly seller then gave her. I've been in this house for six weeks now getting these items from this seller who was recommended to me from other eMi women. No one had recommended I barter, so I figured I shouldn't, and his prices wouldn't be inflated for unsuspecting mzungus.

Oops.

Well, you can probably tell by my recent posts that I have been feeling my foreignness lately. Even Oliver and I joke back and forth about the silly things mzungus do, which for a few days I've had to stop. It's just a little too close to home. Or should I say far away?

But then yesterday happened. That's when two nice guys from the power company, the source of a sizeable portion of mzungu frustration, showed up at my gate to read the meter. Odd, because we'd just gotten a (confusing) bill the day before. But they were there to cut off my power. Apparently the people living here before had not elected to pay their bill. Since our bill had arrived with a large, and now we understand erroneous, credit the month before, we hadn't paid said bill either. Gratefully, the very kind technicians acquiesed to Oliver's protestations that this was an error. But I had twelve hours to pay, they said. Understand that this means going to their office--you can't pay online--with a large sum of money and two very different bills and a notably pale-hued face. I felt confused, embarrassed, and angry as the exchange in Luganda ping-ponged back and forth between Oliver and the technicians.

So I brought the bill to Stephen, a local in our office, to help me understand. You'll need to go there and sort out the bill, he explained.

It's at that point I felt crocodile tears rolling down my cheeks. "I'm afraid they're going to treat me like a white woman," I whispered, embarrassed even more to be crying. Let's see how much money we can get out of her, I could hear the fictitious office personnel thinking. Not a fair stereotype on my behalf, mind you! But a fear, just the same.

I suppose we all have prices of some sort to pay, alonside the blessings, for the ways we look.

Epilogue: Very thankfully, I didn't have to go to the electric company. One of the local office staff, Semei, went on our behalf as he has done in so many other ways. Our power was not shut off. If it had, it wouldn't have been the biggest deal on earth (after all, we only have it 60% of the time anyway, right?) And it was good for me to reflect on what it's like to be a minority, or just what God asks of us when He tells us to be strangers here on earth....And to be fair, also upon reflection, it was also good to recognize the effect one's hormones might have on emotional stability. Ahem.

Quiet time when the to-do list is loud

I suppose you can tell by now that getting settled here can leave one's nerves somewhat raw, displaced, or, okay, overwhelmed.

One of my favorite things about living here are the mornings when I pad out to sit on our porch in my PJ's. On the best mornings, I bring a warm cup ofcarefully-rationed Starbucks Via that some adoptive parent blissfully, blessedly left behind for those less privileged. I walk out to witness that green, fully-flowering quiet that is our backyard: roses, bougainvillea, impatiens, and curious-looking plants I can't even name yet. More than once, there has been this staggering tangerine sunrise that neither John nor I can capture with our camera lens. The birds, and even the monkeys next door (not talking about neighbor kids! Real monkeys!) seem to love chittering and laughing with each other in the morning. And there's something about the birds here: I can hear their wings beating from my wooden chair on the porch as they lift into flight. There are even some African eagles that I watch dip and coast on their hunt for breakfast.

But even in that damp, captivating square of creation, settling down to talk with God can feel...distracted. Sometimes with all of the noise inside of my head and out, not to mention my emotions during such a mind-boggling little strip of life, I have to keep a little notepad nearby so I can save to-do list thoughts for later.

It got me to start a list: What practical things can I do if my brain just doesn't seem ready to be still and know? I even posed the question on Facebook. Of course, so many lists just look like little baby blog posts to me waiting to find their way in the world. So I did it. I posted it: 28 Ways to Connect with God When Your Brain Won't Quiet Down. And may someone benefit from my struggles for spiritual discipline.

Particularly me.

How to find our house on a map

...or at least pretty close!

Africa, turned on its side, looks like a rhinocerous! The "horn" of Africa, on the east/right side of Africa (around Sudan) when it's right side up, is also the "horn" of the rhinocerous. The "eye" of the rhino is Lake Victoria, the second largest lake in the world--only Lake Superior is larger--and source of the Nile River.

...And we can see Lake Victoria from our backyard. So if you can zoom in on the lake on a map, you'll probably see the capital city of Kampala. So we are on the side of Kampala that sees the lake (click to see a closer map), right there above the equator.

Map of Africa from www.freeworldmaps.net

While you're looking at the map, if you'd like to find the seven countries eMi East Africa serves, they are Uganda (of course), Tanzania, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Burundi, Rwanda, Sudan, and Kenya.

What it's like for us: Having a housekeeper

I've been excited to introduce you to one of our most valuable gifts here in Uganda. Meet Oliver (some mzungus pronounce it "Olivia"; we pronounce it "Oh-lee-va," like Ugandans do. Some names are flip-flopped here, like the boy's name Emma, short for Emmanuel. Yes, she shares J.'s middle name). Oliver turns 27 next month, and she hopes someday to be a counselor. Oliver is an orphan because of AIDS. But she also happens to be an incredible blessing to us. She's our housekeeper.

I cannot tell you the burden that this woman lifts from my shoulders as we try to synthesize our lives here. She's asked before what I did in the United States; who did all this work?! I did, I explain. But I didn't do it near as well. And I got a whole lot less sleep.

Some of you might raise your eyebrows at us having a housekeeper, and you're certainly entitled to do that! For us, it has been a wonderful, truly inexpensive way to

• provide someone a job in a tough economy.
• develop someone in-depth: professionally, spiritually, and even relationally as we draw her into our family.
• make it sustainable for us to be here, so that I can focus more on the kids, have a home that is functional, get a little more sleep at night, and ultimately reduce a whole load of stress--sometimes in the form of neatly folded piles of lights and darks. The housework load, like mopping the red-dirt covered floors every day and handwashing all the dishes, is fairly heavy.
• learn Ugandan culture and language as a family. In fact, our kids are starting to pick up Luganda! She's a great teacher, and has no problem giggling as our mzungu tongues try to wrap themselves around the words.
• someone--because they are actually staff with eMi--two meals a day, medical benefits, transportation costs, education benefits, etc. This means that after years of putting her siblings through school, Oliver may be able to pursue a degree in counseling soon.
• transfer my energy from an area of weakness (can I get an amen?) to areas that are much more my strength, and hopefully fruitful areas of ministry and time for relationships--particularly with my kids.

At times I feel like having Oliver around makes the difference as to me sinking or swimming. The amount of work there is to do; the amount of time I want to invest in my kids and their education, or in ministry; and the constant weight of maneuvering in a developing country is simply more than I am personally equipped to do.

I thought I might feel like I was living in a fishbowl. And I'm sure there are moments here and there when that's true. But I think that's so far surpassed by watching minute by minute someone physically removing burdens I won't have to lift later. It also means, I must sheepishly admit, that I'm able to keep my own emotions as a mom more even-keeled. Ever the people-pleaser, I find that my temptations toward overreacting--or discouragement at all the work--are alleviated considerably by Oliver's light-hearted presence. More than living in a fishbowl, I feel like she's almost a familial presence.

 

We prayed for a long time about who God would provide for us as house help. This is an area where I really feel like He's so generously provided for us. Thus far, Oliver has proved very honest, independent, forthright (not necessarily a cultural norm), detailed (also a rarity), and a sunny addition to our home. She's so thorough--hello, a great complement to me--and has a wonderful work ethic. She's also a snappy dresser! But more, I love that her faith is important to her. I wish I could recount to you all the conversations we've had about God and culture already. She watches how we raise our kids, and we dialogue about family a lot. We both learn from each other on a regular basis!

 

And the kids love her. J. starts talking about her after breakfast, usually, ready for her to come. When she shakes the lock on our gate to let us know she's here, he shouts, "Owiva heah! Need keys! She at gate! She have chapatti!" Hopefully he has pants on. You know. Oliver does, in fact, usually have a chapatti--like a big tortilla fried in oil--that she splits between all the kids, complemented by a mug of warm sweet tea that they take together in her changing room in the boys' quarters. Then, after Oliver's in her work clothes, they all go out and jump on the trampoline for a few minutes before she starts on her tasks. It works--she has quite a fan club around here. She calls J. and C. "my J." and "my C." and J. calls her "my Owiva".

This weekend, John and I took our first night away with some friends to a little lodge in the rainforest. I cannot tell you how refreshing this was, considering the past year and especially the last eight weeks. I'm learning a lot about what will help us to be long term, and part of it is confessing our need for rest and the occasional break from the crush of Kampala. Oliver and our friend's housekeeper stayed with all of our kids. When I came back, despite the water and power being out for the majority of the time, both ladies had big smiles on their faces, and everyone had a great time. When she left to go home, Oliver thanked me in Luganda: "It was really fun!"

But I also love the little ways she's falling in with our family. She's talked freely about how she feels like our house is her home, because she spends so much of her time here and likes being here. And the other day when we were all at eMi, she mentioned that she would just do something at home. I brushed that idea away with my hand. "Don't wait until you get home, Oliver! You can just do that at our house."

She looked at me and smiled. "Oh, I was talking about your house!"

Oliver in traditional Ugandan dress clothing, called a goma

 If you would, please thank God for us for such an opportunity and tremendous relief for our family.

Culture shock is like..., Part 2: There's no place like home

Is any place here on earth home?

Now, I have been and am certainly still privileged to have family that gives me an excellent idea, I think, of what that “prepared place” is, what the  wholehearted embrace that is Heaven and our true Home must be like. It’s where I got both roots and wings. And I will always remember the words of a dear friend’s mother, spoken about what she saw as she passed away: “It’s like home, only better!”

But allow me to thoughtfully clarify. I don’t know that even “home” can be home, with a place and people like this—my new “home”—embedding itself deep inside me. Last night in that penetrating haze of fatigue I just can't shake, I was watching the water go down the bathtub drain. I was thinking, Abraham and Sarah must have felt something like this. They must have had days and months and years like this, if they were people who “went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.”

It means that home is elsewhere. And it means that He will give me what I need to plunge forward through this marathon, with Him taking my hand each morning when I get out of bed: Good morning. I’ve been waiting for you, and we’re going to do this together. Just get on my back. It means Him carrying me through moments when tears blur my sight, through moments where I realize that things—that I—will never be the same now...not wanting things to be the old way, but just not completely able to digest the new way, either. It’s loving that I can make fresh fish tacos, but realizing that I’ll probably never have the crispy taco shells at the same time to go with it.

I feel like a ball of playdough, with new things being tacked on and pressed in all the time, with colors swirled in haphazardly from my previous journeys as I roll from place to place and pick up scraps. I think Heaven must be a little like Facebook in the way that you can see a lifetime of friends and experiences in one place—“This…is…Your…Life!”—without travelling far. It’s that running mental list of things I can’t wait to show ___ when they visit. It’s loving it when my sister and brother-in-law are finally home from England, but knowing that their home is split between two continents; that they can never be completely home all at once. It’s reveling in my sister and brother-in-law from Thailand being home, but knowing they will go back to their other home in a handful of days. It’s being delighted to see my good friend Emily and then my friend Paula when they cheerfully showed up at my gate today—but also wishing I could call my Mom when I know she’s still asleep.

My heart hurt last night when my oldest expressed that he just wasn’t thrilled about being here, in those words. It’s not because he wasn’t expressing something that each of us all feel from time to time. It’s more because it’s one more little scrape that I need to pray for, to bandage and prevent scarring by gently talking with my son, and to patiently allow God to heal in His way, in His time.

This is what it feels like to always be a little out of your element; to always be learning, to wake up every morning a foreigner for the sake of being forever at home in the place where it really counts. It means accepting from God’s hand the things that just don’t feel right, like your electricity or water pressure going in and out with all the fickleness of a toddler--and I’ve seen a few of those. (Last week the power went out after using the clippers on only half of a coworker’s hair. Nice.) It means embracing the beauty—the “God-ness”—that you just don’t find in the place you came from, because your country of origin had its own display of "God-ness." It means being a stranger, and trying to look at the world with gratitude while still being honest about the things that, to be fair, just chap your hide or rattle you to the soul.

The lyrics of "10000 Reasons" keep tumbling through my head, and I think I want them to stay there awhile.

The sun comes up, it's a new day dawning;

It's time to sing Your song again.

Whatever may come, and whatever lies before me,

let me be singing when the evening's done.

Bless the Lord, oh my soul...