Uganda

We're leaving Uganda. In one half hour a man will be here to pick us and our luggage up and take us to the airport.
So I will be quick. I think you deserve at least one decent blog post while we're here, no?
This is what Uganda is like: No INTERNET.
But other than that... here are three stories to help you picture Uganda, treat them as individual blog posts and remember, in a mere three days I will have Internet good enough to post PICTURES online for you.

Story One; Chicken Eating Ants
Everywhere in Uganda there are tall (sometimes 10 feet tall!) red mounds of dirt as though some one dug a gigantic hole and piled up everything that came out. Having read the Posionwood Bible these mounds terrified me and I assumed that they were gigantic ant-hills.
After I finally asked about them I was told that not only was I correct, but that our cook said that when they all come out they could eat a live chicken.
The night after I was told this was a very scary night. Travis and I have been sleeping on a mat-thing on the garage floor of our house. As I prepared for bed I saw what could only be described as a CHICKEN-EATING ant. He was freaking gigantic, walking calming towards my side of the bed.
In a daring act of bravery I smashed the ant (which was as long as half my pinky) with our sunscreen bottle repeatedly. It proceeded to release the worst-smelling poison (I'm SURE it was poison) in to the air making it even more impossible to sleep.
Why was it already impossible? you ask.
Here are three good reasons:
1. We live next-door to a piggery and can hear pigs screaming all night long as they are slowly killed with a blunt knife.
2. We were given a chicken as a "gift" and he does not only crow at sunrise. I would describe his crowing as insanely loud and occurring every 15 minutes.
3. There are two goats on our land too. One of whom (Aberforth) is very pregnant. If I had not seen her sans-baby the next morning I would assume that all of her human-like screaming was due to the pain of giving birth. Guess what? That treat is still to come.

Oh, and our cook finally told us today that the ant-hills are filled with delicious crickets... not ants.

Story Two; The Orphan Choir
On Monday we were asked to join a few HELP Intern. volunteers as they went to listen to the Orphan Choir in Kyini. We were to record music for them that they could hopefully sell. I was prepared for the same sort of children that we often see here: Happy laughing children in matching but shabby uniforms sing songs of welcome and simple pleasures.
I was not prepared for a small group of 15 students who sang songs abut AIDS, death, loneliness, the possibility that God did not exist and other horrible things, all while many of them wept themselves.
If that were not enough, the director of the Orphanage kept a running commentary. "That girl who is crying, her last parent died on Saturday. That girl in the yellow, she is HIV positive. That boy there, he is thirteen and is caring for 4 younger siblings on his own." Besides that, we met another woman who was caring for her own children and the children of her deceased brothers and sisters, 27 kids all told.
Travis and I had to have a serious discussion about adopting a child. Leaving them seemed too heartless.
People on buses, have actually asked me if I would take their child for them. All of the girls here have had babies thrust on them and been begged by desperate adults who cannot feed all their siblings children to take the baby back to America and raise it.
I was prepared, I think, for Annie. I was not prepared for actual orphans. It was the hardest day I've yet experienced in Africa.

Time is running short. Here is the third story.

Story Three; Freddy the Boda-Boda Driver
Today our friend Freddy's wife had a baby. She is a beautiful little girl (but little might not be the right word, she was nearly 10 pounds!) After driving Travis around this morning on his Boda-boda (motorcycle) to film around Mukono Freddy came back to pick me up to take us to his new house and make a video for Mr. Clint and Tammy, some of our mutual friends.
Throughout the tour of the house (which you can all see soon enough) Freddy would add "I love Mr. Clint so much," or "It is all to Mr. Clint that I have this," or my favorite: "I wish Mr. Clint to stay here one week, seven days and six nights and every day he will give me a new idea. I could use seven new ideas."
It seems that Clint gave Freddy his first lessons in business, teaching his valuable but uncommon ideas like "Spend money on what you need, not what you want."
Ever since they came 8 years ago, Freddy has worked on changing his life around. He works hard, and saves money. He can send his children to school, and now is building a new house. (If any of you are interested in helping Freddy, he's trying to earn money now for a water tank, about 400 USD.)
After the tour of his house and the meeting of his three sons and adopted daughter (his sister's) Freddy took us back to see his new wife and baby who were still at the hospital. Despite having been in several hospital-type places here I couldn't help but think "At least there will be an indoor toilet there. I've got to go."
We arrived at the hospital by traveling down a thin dirt-path (treacherous for motorcycles) and arrived at a shabby building no different from any other. There was an uneven dirt floor with an open ceilinged court. There was trash littered everywhere and a dozen doors leading to private rooms.
Private rooms without electricity, water, special beds for babies, without ice chips, without nurses to get you things, without even a fan or a real pillow for the new mother. They had to bring their own sheets for the bed.
I can't believe I expected her to have her own bathroom.
A legit bathroom.
Freddy told us the medical bills would cost 50000 shillings (25 dollars) so he had to go back to work.
We said, It is customary to give gifts when a baby is born in America. Stay with your wife today.
And helped him pay the doctor's fee.
I feel a little guilty, perpetrating the whites have money to spare stereotype.
But not very much.
That baby deserved to have both parents there. She was so stinking cute.

And that is all. Tomorrow we will be in London.
Wednesday we will be home.

Wish us luck, we love you