Blue Ivy and Me

Miracle of all miracles has occurred!!  My boxes have arrived!  They actually made it up to Gulu last Sunday, and as predicted, I got my brochures printed and the stencils completed in the same week.  How exciting!!  Of course there's a snag and I'm not off and running yet...but more about that in a minute.  First!

Ebola and al-Shabab update: Ebola seems to be under control.  People are still a bit wary, lots of jokes are being made about it, but for the most part we all feel mostly relieved.  There have been a few more deaths, but those were people known to already have the disease.  There haven't been any new confirmed cases or outbreaks, so while we are still in the middle of a ridiculously long 28-day incubation period - we all feel quite hopeful the worst is behind us.  And there have been no terrorist scares in the last few weeks.  So all has mostly returned to normal in this town - which includes a fair amount of craziness without help from fatal diseases and bomb scares.

500 boxes, lids and trays.  That's a lot of boxes!

OK, so much to my surprise, my boxes were finished last Saturday.  And then the manager told me I needed  to get them out of their warehouse that day.  Right.  They took a good month longer to finish the things than they told me they would, and the second the boxes are done they expect me to have a truck pick them up?  Do they live in this country?  But, amazingly, Philip (Mr. Boxes Manager) found someone to put them on a truck that very evening.  Of course they didn't communicate that to me (dead phone batteries are a serious problem here....) until about 8:00pm that night and they were coming in the next morning at 7:00.  Oy.  So I called the place I'll be storing them and they arranged to have their security guard come in five hours earlier than his normal shift, and it seemed all would be well.  Until it was 8:00am Sunday morning and I still hadn't heard from the truck driver.  I tracked down his number and had several frustrating conversations with the man, but finally thought we'd come to an understanding.  So I headed to the storage place at about 9:00am to wait for them, and Lenox went to town to find the truck and show the drivers where they were going.  Two hours later, Lenox still can't find the truck and now they aren't answering their phone.  Just before noon he calls to tell me he has found my boxes....they are sitting on the ground, the truck has left for Kampala and they are saying I'm going to have to pay another truck to get them to storage.  You know, I can keep my cool waiting for two months for boxes to be made, I can keep my cool waiting five hours for the truck to arrive, but finding out they lied to me and dumped my boxes on the side of the road?  I lost it.  I flew over to where Lenox said he was, got off my boda and promptly started berating people who were telling me I should just be happy the boxes were in Gulu.  Lenox, bless his heart, pulled me aside and told me to cool down, which I did, and he said he would talk to these people.  The next thing I know, calm patient Lenox is yelling at the truck driver (who has magically reappeared with his truck) "YOU ARE A STUPID, STUPID MAN!  STUPID!"  And then I started laughing.  If dear Lenox looses his temper, you know we are wading in ridiculousness.  Long story longer - they all knew I was American (and therefore made of money) and figured they could somehow squeeze another 100 thousand shillings or so out me.  So they had just dumped $2,500 worth of boxes on the muddy ground expecting me to pay an off-loading fee, another on-loading fee, a new truck fee, transportation costs, and yet another off-loading fee once we actually got to the storage area.  Thanks to Lenox (and my stubbornness,) they didn't get anymore money from me than what they were owed, and now my boxes are safely in Gulu, and stored at a Living Hope compound.  Whew.

Also of note - I found a place in Gulu to print my stuff.  They were more expensive than I would have liked, but they did an awesome job.  And I think it was worth it to support Gulu's economy and save myself the trip and expense of Kampala.  I'm sure I'll use them again.

Kind of a dark photo - power was out and the sun was setting.  But they turned out nicely, don't you think?  

And!  Most excitingly!  This is a photo of the first payment Recycling for Hope has received:

It's 200 Ugandan Shillings, which is equivalent to about $.08.  But it represents a whole lot more.  And the most exciting part to me is that it didn't come from pickup fees, paper or plastic - it came from a couple tin cans (purchased during my processed-food-only Ebola scare.)  There is a place in town that turns old tin cans into kerosene lamps or other small metal objects.  When I brought my cans by I was hoping to just be able to donate them, but he told me he'd pay me for them - 100 Shillings a piece - and asked why I didn't have more?  So I said I would love to bring more - how many could he handle?

"As many as you bring."
"What if I bring you 100 cans?"
"Great, no problem, I will pay you for them."
"What if I bring you 1,000 cans?"
"You bring 1,000 or 2,000 it doesn't matter, I will take them all."

So guess what is being added to my list of household recyclables??  You better believe it!  Tin cans!  Now I just have to get a household on board....  But since I finally have boxes to give a household, that will be a lot easier!  I'm now just waiting on the stencil guy to get me the rest of the printing supplies and come show me how to do the painting on the boxes.  He insisted this last Sunday was the only day he could do it, but of course he hasn't answered his phone for three days now....  Sigh.  Soon though, I really think it's all happening soon.

Lovely little stack of stencils.  

A few other fun things this week - there is a restaurant here called Sankofa that is a western-ish restaurant, run by an American guy, and place a lot of expats hang out. Sankofa was forced to move locations and business hasn't been great since it moved.  A friend of mine asked if I'd be willing to participate in a little acoustic concert to bring people out and put it back on the map.  A chance to sing?  Of course I agreed.  So I got together with a couple guys out here - Coy, an awesome guitarist, and Ben, a classically trained cellist - and we put together a couple hours worth of music.  We had a little local group do a few numbers as well - they were fantastic - and Sankofa served an all-you-can-eat pizza buffet for a cover charge.  It was a hit!  About 75 people showed up.  The biggest problem was, we musicians didn't think we'd have more than a dozen or so in our audience, so we chose not to be amplified.  With that many people's usual dinner chatter it was a bit hard to hear.  But still a load of fun, and we decided we need to do it again soon.  We're hoping to  start monthly or bi-monthly acoustic evenings.  Fun, right??  (And a perfect place to put in a little plug for RfH....) Oh I do miss performing.

(Photos coming soon....check back!)

And lastly - I got a dog!  Some irresponsible expat thought it would be neat to have a puppy for a few months while she was here - but then she left and never really arranged for the dog to be taken care of.  My friend Kathleen has been looking after her - and doing a great job for having had the dog unwillingly dumped in her lap - but she's leaving next week.  So I decided I'd take her on.  Her name is Ivy (actually it's Blue Ivy, like Beyonce and Jay-Z's baby - but "Blue" is promptly being dropped - and yes I am making harsh judgments about the caliber of person her first owner was based on that fact....)  She's super gentle and submissive, completely untrained, but quite smart, has only been allowed to live outside for the last few months so is flea bitten everywhere, and is an unknown number of months old.  I think about nine or ten months.  So I've bathed her with flea shampoo (though I'm not sure yet whether it's actually worked,) and let her sleep on the floor next to my bed and have been watching innumerable training videos on YouTube (my pay-as-you-go internet is suffering dearly....)  But she's learning fairly quickly for an older puppy, and she's just so darn cute.  The biggest problem is that she chases the turkeys.  I wouldn't really mind letting her have one for dinner one night - I hate those noisy things - but my roommate would be quite put out.  So I am keeping her inside a lot and trying desperately to convince her she doesn't actually want that turkey.  But she's been quite successful in de-feathering the tail-ends of a few, and the way she sits and chews on those feathers....I'm not sure I'm not fighting a losing battle.  But I'll keep fighting.  I'm determined she will become a well-trained dog.  It's been enjoyable having her around, and thankfully all my roommates like dogs as well.    I will try very hard not to become the annoying pet owner who posts obscene amounts of photos....but most certainly you'll get a few in the future.