Highs and Lows

 

No power for 2 1/2 weeks then it came back.....for nearly 48 hours! Actually it is far less frustrating knowing you won't have power at all than having it coming and going at random times. For several days we had no water as well and that was hard. Still it puts it into perspective when you know that most people here don't have water or electricity ever. We have watched people toil up and down the steep hill to the lake with jerry cans on their heads. What right have we to complain if water doesn't come out of our taps for a while but complain, we do.

The night the power came back will stick in our minds. We were sitting in the candle light when a police car arrived. The power came back as Nurse Emily was walking towards the Medical Centre. It was a newborn baby found naked and abandoned in a banana plantation. He was still covered with grit and soil. He fought magnificently for several hours but his temperature was unrecordable when he arrived and even in the incubator, they couldn't get his temperature to rise very far. Eventually his lungs bled and we lost him. He had been outside for too long. We took him as one of ours and arranged his funeral. Festo, the carpenter made a coffin, Social Worker Annet got the paperwork done, Jackie went with the town clerk to find a burial spot, Leonard and James dug the grave, Mike led a short service at the grave. All very intimate and special but ultimately so very sad.

On a brighter note, Rosie returned from the UK but Emily leaves for good on Thursday. On Wednesday morning she and I will try and climb the hill for her to have one last look at the view of Lake Mutanda then in the afternoon we will have fun and games with the children. She will be sadly missed.

 

 

 

At the end of the month we say farewell to our Administrator Jackie. In traditional style for a big celebration we will kill and eat a pig. Meat is a rare luxury for most of our staff so it will be a treat for them. After the customary speeches the staff will perform traditional dances to drummed music.

 

 

Here are a selection of vegetables that have grown from seed since we arrived back in July. We have enough tomatoes to last 3 months.

 

The children are eating their first courgettes.

 

 

 

There will soon be carrots, broccoli, cabbage, cucumber,

leeks and there are a vast array of herbs. The speed of growth

is phenomenal. Strangely the rhubarb is not doing so well but

it is going to transplanted onto a mound of manure - of what

variety I am not sure, nor will I ask!

 

Powerless

 

Yet again we are without power but this time we know we are in for a long haul. Over a week ago the transformer was seen heading very slowly out of Kisoro for Kampala. We were informed it would take a week for them to decide if it was possible to fix it. The last time this happened there was no power for a month!!!! It is only our line that is affected so I am sitting in the Hotel with our equipment plugged into the wall. The problem with that is that there is now a power cut here also. Grrrr!

Coping without electricity is a nuisance but feasible. We were without water also for several days and that was harder. We got to the point we had to buy in bottled water to make up the baby feeds as it was deemed unsafe to give them boiled green water from the tanks. So we count our blessings that we have water and keep reminding ourselves that most others live permanently without electricity.

So we apologise that we cannot answer emails etc as well as we should.

Jackie, the Administrator, leaves at the end of the month. We announced a vacancy for a secretary at the English Service on Sunday. The Board this end was happy for me to have a Junior post to help in the office - I need someone who speaks Rufumbira as much as anything. One applicant has a post grad diploma in finance....wow! She has also worked in the Probation Office which is ideal. We are now debating whether to swap roles and appoint her to do the finance and I will run the office. She will be a more expensive option but very useful.

Moses, our new Uganda Nurse, also announced he was leaving in order to work with an American NGO at the Refugee camp. They can offer twice the salary so it is no surprise he wants to take up the offer. We have had a lot of interest for his post so that should not be hard to fill.

Apart from that, things are going well. Ivan has found his appetite but has now bloated with air and looks like Humpty Dumpty. Talk about one extreme to another! He also had an x-Ray last week as he was unable to lift his arm and was clearly in great pain. Mike was worried he had had his shoulder dislocated by someone lifting him up by his arm alone. He hadn't but the arm is still very sore. He certainly goes from one trauma to another.

Mike is in Kampala trying to get his Medical registration and the registration for the Medical Centre - both of which he was informed were ready to collect. He got the Postbus at 5.30 am on Thursday and arrived in Kampala at 4.30 pm. Not a journey I want to take. Sadly he has achieved nothing. Neither were ready so he has to stay until Monday and hope to get them then. To cap it all, he had his phone stolen on the way back to the Guest House. He is not a happy chappy!

I am now very low on power so will move to the Gorilla Junction cafe and see if they have electricity there.

It's all part of the African experience I keep saying to myself!