We arrived safely at the house in Kuba Mtwe village, Luweero District on Monday late afternoon, welcomed by our friends Alex and Simon. They had cut (slashed actually) the lawn around the house, prepared and concreted a wall and door to the long drop and had made us all beds with a brick base and they had been and chopped and cleaned branches from trees for our beds, not Zach and Sam as they slept in the back of the 4WD. Best nights sleep I have had in a long time and not one single ache or pain to my neck, back or shoulder!
I had taken a beef stew and buns and muffins for dinner the first night and had frozen another meal for the 2nd night, all went well without a fridge or power. The fire works really well and we purchased a coal burner and a large bag of coal so we had extra cooking space.
Eight of us in a 10m x 15m house – 4 rooms, consisting of a kitchen and 3 rooms used as bedrooms. Deane and I had separate beds and rooms for the first 6 nights then got Alex and Simon to construct a double bed in one of the rooms – brick and mud walls, wooden windows (no glass) just shutters and dirt floor, kept very tidy and clean tho. One thing is the bugs and flies – you really do get sick of them always landing on you or crawling up your legs! It’s the ants I hate, they are huge and everywhere, the mosquito net does a good job of keeping more than just the mozzies out at night!!!!
First morning Alex took me to the water bore to fill the 2 x 20L jerry cans – we stopped at every neighbour along the way so he could introduce me and I could speak my limited Lugandan words (Alex and Simon use 2 cans a day – but with 8 of us it meant 5 trips to the water bore each day) a job Zach loved and the bike has been thrashed – 2 punctures in 10 days, not surprising considering the number of kids that Zach carries around – he has a little harem – all ages and sizes -that follow him everywhere and they can run just as fast as he can cycle!
The first afternoon we had a lot of little visitors peeking around the house to see what was happening – I got a couple of packets of biscuits, BIG MISTAKE, kids came from everywhere – 4 packets later they stopped coming.
It was great having Esther with us cos she could interpret and converse with many people, we had heaps of visitors over the 10 days – mostly the woman from the village, they had heard this Muzungu family had shifted in and that a muzungu (white woman) was living in a mudhut in the village, they didn’t believe it so had to come and see for themselves, they always arrived at dinnertime or shower time and you just cant offend by getting up and carrying on with what you were doing or about to do.
Zach and Sam walk, run and bike everywhere, the bike is invaluable, they go to the egg farm for eggs, Zach collects sacks of coal from a nearby village and goes there by himself and negotiated the price, (Alex couldn’t believe how much coal he got for so little money and says Zach and Sam are REAL VILLAGERS now) Zach and Sam just LOVE the life, freedom and no school work I guess at Luweero, there is always something happening or something to do. They are hoping we will spend at least 5 days a week at the village, we will probably do Sunday for church and youthgroup, Monday, Tuesday and maybe Wednesday in Mukono to do schoolwork and then head to the village for the rest of the week.Bri is not so keen on the village, too many men walking up and down, steering at her and making comments, also the long drop is a real issue for us woman, men have it so easy she told Zach! Also it is so easy for the boys to wander and take off, Bri needs to have someone with her all of the time. Esther and Bri went to the nearby trading centre for some sweets and passed a school, the teacher stopped and talked with them before stopping the whole school and asking them to come out and see Bri, the muzungu!
We spent one afternoon in Wobelenzi, 20 minutes away at the Dr’s with Alex, he had been unwell for a few days and had a terrible headache that wouldn’t go away. He had the malaria test and it tested positive – stage 2 maleria (which he must have had for at least 2 weeks) so he had an injection on the spot and came away with a heap of pills, I was really impressed with how sorted the treatment here for that is. Stage 1 treatment is pills, stage 2 treatment as for Alex and stage 3 maleria treatment is immediately to hospital and on to an IV drip. Amazing how fast the injection worked tho, he was a different person, even looked better the next day.
