Backwards and Forwards

Hey folks, just a quick one today - I'm feeling slightly deflated and buoyed up at the same time.....

First attempts.

I finally convinced Mr. Stencil Man to meet me on Saturday (after he'd stood me up three times already) to teach me how to print logos on boxes.  But he didn't bring the rest of supplies I needed, so I'm still missing one ink color and two large stencils.  And then as we started the printing process, we realized three of the smaller stencils he'd made me didn't work properly.  So he took them with him at the end of the day, promising me that by Tuesday he would call me and would give me everything else I needed.  Well, it's nearly 5:00 on Tuesday and he hasn't called.  And his phone is off when I try to call.  So I stopped by his shop, prepared to give him a piece of my mind.  Lucky for him he wasn't around.  So I told his co-worker, Steven, what that "piece of my mind" was, and Steven said, "I will tell him.  It's as though I've recorded it and when John comes back I will hit play."  Haha, awesome.  Let's hope the playback is effective....

Good news though, I've hired my first employee!  His name is Lenox - you've seen photos of him on here before.  He's supposed to be working for my roommate, but she's gone all the time and he doesn't have enough to do to keep him occupied.  He's chomping at the bit wanting to do more, so I am giving him more! Only ten hours a week to start - that's all either of us can afford at this moment....but I have high hopes for Lenox.  He's truthfully one of the smartest and most honest Ugandans I've met.  Fingers crossed over time he'll be able to start doing more for Recycling for Hope.

Lenox Ojok!!

Crappy photo taken at night, but you get the idea.

Lastly, this town is growing.  Relatively soon (20-50 years) it will be a small city and then a city.  And while the town officials are beginning to think about garbage removal a bit more, it's still on way too small a scale.  Currently, the city has only two skips - the really large garbage bins commonly found outside large buildings in western countries.  But they don't have a truck to hook the skips up to and haul the garbage away.  And they don't have anywhere to haul the garbage to, even if they had a truck.  I've heard rumor the town plans to invest in a few more skips and trucks in the next few years.  Let's hope they're also coming up with something to do with all the garbage.  This isn't nearly enough, but I suppose it's a start.  I've had conversations with many Ugandans lately about garbage and the environment.  They want thier country clean, they have a lot of pride in Acholiland.  They need to be provided with a way to do so.  I feel as though RfH may have landed in this town at just the right time.  Keep your fingers crossed for me....  In the meantime, these little green garbage bins have sprung up all over the town center.  I've seen them in Kampala before, but they're new here in Gulu.  They seem to be actually being used.  I'm trying to track down who is responsible for these little bins so I can learn a bit more about the up and coming waste removal system.

Who thinks about garbage this much??

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.

Ebola and al-Shabab

Alright, late post from last week, and early post from this week.  I'm condensing the two into one.  There's a lot going on here in Uganda, and so I'm chilling out a bit for the next couple weeks.  But here's a full update:

I had a fairly productive week last week.  I met with a primary school deputy and a secondary school head master on separate occasions to discuss doing environmental programs in schools in the Gulu area.  They were both very enthusiastic about the idea and want me to start with their schools right away.  I wish!  Hopefully soon....  In any case they gave me some very valuable information which makes me excited to get started!  Still waiting on the boxes however....

After seven weeks of trying, I was finally able to bring stencils home with me.  As my new roommate pointed out, I could have made these ones myself, (frustrating,) but the ones I want, the ones I thought I ordered, I cannot make myself.  I felt bad for the time and effort he spent making these ones, so I bought them from him anyway, and now he's assuring me the ones I really want will be ready tomorrow.  I've been assured very many things in the last two months, however, so I'm not betting on it.  But it would be rather nice if I could actually get one thing accomplished the way I had planned....even if it does take seven weeks.

Lastly, I went with Living Hope to distribute some maka pads (made from the recycled paper!) to Pece Pawel Primary School.  It was exciting and fulfilling and energizing to see the end result of all our combined efforts.  There were two women from Living Hope, and the first thing they did was take one of the female teachers in charge of such things to the bathroom area.  They proceeded to have really important conversations about sanitation, water accessibility, proper waste disposal, etc.   These bathrooms were in pretty dire straights, but since they follow up monthly, I'm hopeful that some of these changes will actually be implemented.

Next they gathered all the girls in the primary school together and had more great discussions about hygiene and respecting yourself and modesty.  They didn't mince any words, and they taught in both English and Acholi so all could understand.  Of course since Living Hope is under an evangelical church, they discussed the gospel with them as well.

The girls sat as they do, staring blankly through much of it, giggling at the uncomfortable parts, and sometimes standing to answer questions in a very formal and polite manner.  They also sang us a few songs and smiled sheepishly at the weird white woman who had come along.  And then the Living Hope women passed out two packets of pads (each containing 10 pads,) to each of the girls.  They were happily accepted and I fully believe they will be used.  One of my friends told me this week that in some schools teachers do actually discuss this issue with the students, but often the girls have no means of feminine hygiene, so they will stay out of any public area for one week of every month.  Living Hope is changing that for at least a few women.

Painted on the side of a building at Pece Pawell Primary School

Early this week an older missionary couple from my church called and said they were going to Chobe Lodge for dinner, and would I like to join to pick up bottles?  I guess they had gone a few months before for their anniversary and had a discussion with the general manager about recycling.  He said he always takes his bottles to Kampala for recycling which is sometimes a difficult task for him to accomplish.  The missionaries told him about my project, and consequently, the lodge has been calling them regularly ever since to try to get us to come get bottles.  It's nearly a two hour drive away, so it is fairly unfeasible for RfH to take them on as a regular customer.  But it made for a really awesome evening, picking up a hefty load of bottles, eating some great food, and having an amazing view at that - all to the soundtrack of hippos laughing.

The room at Chobe Lodge housing all the waste bottles.  

The beginnings of loading the truck bed.  

Handsome Ugandan man hauling empty bottles.

Truck's full!  Thanks guys!

What kind of five-star lodge would this be without three swimming pools?  I'll admit, I kinda wanted to jump in....

The sun started to set as we were exploring the river before dinner.  

My friend Brenda and me, you know, hanging out with the Nile.  

Sunset on the Nile River. 

View at dinner.  

The hippos are now where we were 15 minutes before.  They seriously sound like laughing pigs, it's amazing.  

Sister Woods off-loading the bottles at St Monica's the next morning.  

Adding to the pile!

In other news, there was a HUGE Christian crusade in town last week.  I haven't seen so much hype (ie large trucks with over-sized speakers blaring music whilst driving all around town) since the presidential election last year.  They did it in this big open field, and had two evangelists from the western world, they set up an enormous stage and lots of lights and screamed about the devil and pronounced blessings and miracles for a nominal fee.  For FIVE days.  People bused in from surrounding towns to witness the saving grace of God as exemplified in a couple rich white dudes.  Because of this fever pitch and massive crowd gathering, we also had an al-Shabab scare.  Those are the Somali terrorists that bombed the Ethiopian restaurant in Kampala during the world cup two years ago.  The police raided this local pub here in and town and then illegally rounded up a bunch of street kids in town and stuck them in prison for the week since apparently they are a common target for al-Shabab to plant stuff on.  So me and everyone I know avoided public places for the week.  I don't know if they were actually in town, or if there was just a scare.  But better safe than sorry, right?

And it just keeps getting better.  Now we have Ebola in the country.  All the victims have been in the south, several hours from here, so most people in the north don't have much to fear at this point.  Solid numbers are hard to come by, but I've heard between 25 and 36 people have been diagnosed with the disease, and between 14 and 18 have died.  Lots of people have been quarantined, and we are keeping our fingers crossed that means it has been contained.  The World Health Organization and the CDC are here trying to get it under control because the Ugandan Ministry of Health seems to have been fairly useless.  The US embassy released a statement a couple days ago to be cautious and not to touch people at funerals, etc, and certainly not to come in contact with anyone showing symptoms - but as yet there are no travel bans or anything.  So yesterday I bought as much processed food as I could stomach and/or afford.  I'm not really afraid I'll get it through fresh produce shipped up from the south....but I don't really want to chance it either.  A couple friends and I are joking about quarantining ourselves together in a house eating food only grown and packaged in another country and not leaving until things are under control.  It's really a joke.  We all joke about it.  But we're all a little nervous as well.

Oh the unexpected adventures in Uganda.  I was going to head to Kampala this weekend to get my brochures printed off (there isn't anywhere to do it in Gulu - I searched,) and put the pressure on my box-making guys.  But I think I'm going to go ahead and wait out the weekend and see what the Ebola temperature is like next week.  I've been waiting all this time for the boxes, I can wait another week.....

The Water Bottle - UG vs US

My celebration earlier this week about my boxes being done.....was a bit premature.  Sigh.  Machine broke, behind schedule, blah, blah, blah.  Philip has ASSURED me they will be done by next Friday.  Did I already say sigh?  So my fingers are crossed for next week, but I'm not really holding my breath.

However!  Things are shaping up despite that.  Meet Jimmy:

Jimmy is my hero of the week.  He owns the popular local pub that does a trivia night every Thursday.  A couple weeks ago I had a conversation with him about my recycling project and he was very supportive and told me to come his way when I was ready.  Well, Wednesday night I got a phone call from him; "Morgan, I have very many bottles for you.  And tomorrow is a big night, so I don't think I'll be able to store them any longer. Do you think you can come get them, or should I dispose of them?"

Jimmy is quite proud of his pub's grounds - he is considering changing the name of the pub to The Green House  

"You're already saving them for me?  Amazing!  I will come get them tomorrow for sure."  So I arranged with St Monicas to meet me at the pub in the afternoon, I brought my gigantic sack, (see last week's post) we filled it with bottles, and they were carted off to become bricks for a new hut.  Awesome, right?  I'm just so happy that it's working already, before I can even put as much energy into as I would like.

Jimmy and an employee tossing the empty bottles into my over-sized bag.  They're storing them in that broken freezer.  Awesome.  

My friend Elizabeth - who works at St Monicas - was surprised by how many bottles were collected in one week by one establishment, and said, "Oh man, we're going to have to hire more people to start filling bottles!"  Which thing I could not be happier to hear.  That's the idea, right?  Build the economy, protect the environment, strengthen the people.  I can't tell you how happy that makes my heart.

That is a lot of bottles!  You can't really tell from the photo - but that enormous sack is about  one-third full.  

I can say however, looking at all those bottles got me thinking.  And here is where I get just a bit preachy, so if you want to check out now, feel free.  Here in Gulu there are very limited options for safe drinking water.  It's inconvenient not to use bottled water at best, and impossible at worst.  But in the States, when is the last time you heard about someone getting sick because they drank tap water?  OK, so all my siblings and I did get sick once as kids drinking from a pump at a park that had a sewage leak....ew...but that is the RAREST case.  In fact, I'm willing to bet I am now one of the only people you know that has ever been sick from drinking water in the US.  So what I am asking is why do we feel the need to drink so much bottled water when we have such abundant safe drinking water already available?  People will argue that there are other things in their water they don't want to ingest: rust, chlorine, yadda, yadda, yadda.  Guess what?  Bottled water contains all kinds of other things you don't want to ingest: the plastic leaches all sorts of nastiness into the water, (including arsenic?!?) particularly if it's had a day in the sun or a hot car.  Also, did you know that nearly all bottled water in America comes straight from your tap-water source anyway?  In nearly every state it's just filtered from tap water - and then put in toxic bottles and sold to you when  you could be drinking it free!  (Without arsenic!)  So why not just filter your own water!?  And if you want the toxins, you can store it in your own plastic bottle for free!  :-)  Or you can use glass or a stainless steal water bottle.

 Seriously though, I'm going to ask for another couple favors; A. Look into your local water source and see what the water contains.  If it's clean, drink up!  B. If there's stuff you'd rather not have in your own water, use a tap filter.  C. If you have to use bottled water (which if you're like me and carry a water bottle with you everywhere will be a very rare occasion,) please don't let my efforts here be in vain and recycle that little bottle!  (Maybe even after reusing it!)  If I haven't convinced you, you should really check out the documentary Tapped and let them try.  I watched it via instant stream on Netflix (oh, the days I used to have Netflix accessibility....)

OK, done preaching.  Thanks for sticking with me through that.  Now, leave me some awesome actually-I-did-get-sick-from-tap-water stories in the comments, or, even better, let me know of your very valiant efforts not to use bottled water.  Thanks for reading!

One Man's Trash

Things are shaping up.  I think.  I hope.  I just had a conversation with my box guy, Philip, and he thinks (while I hope and pray) that the boxes will be done in four days.  Which means on Friday or Saturday I can get them up here to Gulu.  HALLELUJAH!!!  That means I can get the stencils put on - if not over the weekend, then on Monday - and I can finally start distributing them next week!  I have butterflies just thinking about this!

Practicing it's new-found purpose in the world.

I had a few good things happen this last week as well: I had the prototype made up for the grocery sack recycling holder.  I wanted something at a very low cost, something small enough to fit in a kitchen, and something that looked fairly nice.  So I bought these large white sacks they use to carry rice and flour and such in, and had a girl I know help me out.  She is just learning to sew, but wants to go to school for fashion and design.  So she cut the sack into four, stitched up the sides, and attached these little handles out of scrap material.  I'll slap my logo on there and pass it out to residents willing to collect their grocery sacks for me.   Exciting!

Kinda cute, don't you think?

Also, I finally received my ENORMOUS recycling sacks.  Tracking these things down was kind of a trip.  When I called the guy selling them on the phone, he told me he spoke, "Only Swahili, only Swahili."  No one speaks only Swahili.....so I had to have Lenox - a kid who helps around our house here - talk to him about buying them.  So then the guy came to Gulu, with the bags, but wouldn't call me because he was afraid.  So bizarre.  Consequently, it took longer than planned, but I got them!  They're nice and clean now, but soon they will be full of nasty dirty bottles waiting to head to K'la.  

Unraveling the bag to see it's full potential.  

This is Lenox - he's a tall guy - probably 6'2", so you can see this is a large sack.

There was a group of volunteers in from America that asked if I had anything they could do for me.  So I organized a garbage pick-up day.  And then they cancelled.  But that day I was walking to get my bicycle tire fixed (it's been flat four times in four weeks....that's getting old....) and decided to do a little garbage pick-up of my own.  I filled my basket full of empty water bottles on the side of the road.  After only one block, my basket was overflowing.  And this is in a relatively clean part of town.  There were a couple young girls who saw me picking them up and were eager to help, so they carried a few extras to my gate, though they could not figure out why in the world this white girl was collecting bottles for money.....  But this inspired me to do two things:  1. I'm going to organize a service project garbage pick-up day with my my church members - I think they'll happily help me, and 2. I'm going to start carrying a plastic bag with me everywhere I go and fill it with garbage that I can reuse/recycle.  I am turning into the crazy garbage lady.  And I kind of love it.  

Good bottles will be taken to St Monica's while the crushed and broken ones will wait here to be taken to K'la.  This is just the beginning!

The Wrong Kind of Green

OK, the post is late because I ran out of internet.  It's pay-as-you-go here, and I only pay for one month at a time.  I can never quite remember when my package runs out, so when I run out Saturday night, there's not much I can do till Monday.....I do hate not being able to check my email though, there's nothing I like more than getting an email from friends and family!  (Hint hint....)

Anyway, life is humming along.  Painters have invaded my house and disrupted any sense of order that I had.  The good news is, my walls are painted now and I finally got to unpack my suitcase after a month.  And I will say, the new paint is miles better than what was there previously.  It was dirty, there were huge holes in the walls, there was plaster showing through in places, there were areas that had been cemented over for heaven-knows-what reason, sometimes two colors of paint on one wall....I really should have taken a before picture.  So anyway, the painters did a really nice job of patching the walls and everything before they painted, so truly, it's very much improved.  The only problem is, my room is now purple.  What's wrong with purple, you ask?  It's Loree Thielbar purple, that's what.  Growing up we had this great family friend, Loree, who was a-kick-in-the-pants funny, always said what every one was thinking but not saying, and happened to love purple beyond all reason.  She would put the most shocking colors of purple in the strangest places in her home.  But that was Loree, and it was fine.  I didn't have to live with it.  But now I do.  However, let me count myself lucky, because the rest of the house has been painted LIME GREEN.  Yes, that's right.  Every other room in the house, even the living room.  Lime.  And most unfortunately, the trim on my ceiling has been abducted by this heinous color as well.  So at night, I lay down on my bed, stare up at the ceiling and contemplate why anyone would voluntarily choose to have it look as though someone vomited on their walls.  I suppose I will just try to keep my head down (literally) and feel grateful when I am accosted by two purple walls every time I walk into my room.

The purple walls, in all their glory.

I'll let this one speak for itself....

Maybe if it had only been one wall....

In other news, I have come a long way on the brochures and am just looking for a place to get them printed.   And I would like to say I have my stencils all made since it's been three weeks since I started the process.  But I don't.  The temporary stencils are finished....the kind that will last for a good 100 uses.  But I need the kind that will last for 1000+ uses.  Miscommnunication at its finest, yet again.  So John, my stencil man, has gone back to the drawing board and tells me they'll be done next week.  Keep your fingers crossed for me, will you?  If I can time everything just right, I'll have the brochures, stencils, and boxes all within a week of each other and then really get things kicking at all once.

A little sample of the temp stencil's capabilities.  Not bad.  The next one should be even better.

I couldn't figure out how else to show you all the brochure....so you get a screen shot.  Windows Starter doesn't allow you to go full screen with your document.  Ah, well, you get the idea.  

Finally, it has been raining here like mad.  Which means it's been really cold as well.  It was not this cold last "winter" which is summer for the rest of you folks.  It rained daily, but it wasn't so cool all the time.  I mean, I'm not complaining.  When the sun shines it's still really hot, so it's a nice reprieve, it's just strange to wake up to overcast skies so often.  I had a ways to walk on Saturday after a particularly bad storm, and my little flip flops were not the most of ideal shoes I could be wearing.....But again, I'll take it the mud if it means I don't have to sweat so much!

I'll bet Old Navy never dreamed their flip flops would see the day....

Carrots, A Hut, and Reusable Bags

I have three things to tell you, as referenced in the title of this post:  

First: I have been wanting a garden for years.  Years.  Imagine my excitement, then, when one of the guys working with my roommate's NGO stood outside my window the other day and held up three beautiful, freshly-pulled-from-the-ground carrots.  I went crazy over them, and ate my first raw carrot in Uganda.  Carrots here just aren't very good - that weird woody inside part of the carrot is always really big and really woody.  This wasn't much different, but I ate it anyway, for the shear novelty that I was eating a carrot grown in MY yard.  Someday I WILL live in a house with a yard that I can plant my own garden in.  But until that day, playing around in my roommate's garden will suffice.  I can't wait to try whatever comes up next!

Aren't they just so pretty??

Second:  I visited St Monica's compound again this week and this time was able to see the new water-bottle hut they finished a couple months ago.  It's pretty awesome.  They have some volunteers staying there at the moment, and the volunteers were put to work painting the inside of the hut.  It's a pretty large hut, and is "self-contained," meaning it has its own fully-functioning bathroom.  And it has electricity.  Oh yeah, and it's made entirely from water-bottle bricks.  So dang cool.

You can see the dots on the top half?  Those are the bottoms of the water bottles.  

The water-bottle caps in a diamond cut-out on the inside of the hut.  

The hut's in a bit of disarray from the volunteers and painting, but you get the point - that weird protrusion is the bathroom.

Painting volunteer.

Third:  I am on a one-woman mission (well, I guess everything about my being here has been a one-woman mission all along....) to train supermarket checkers in Gulu what to do when someone says either, "I don't need a bag, thank you," or "can you put it in this bag I brought, please?"  It's difficult every time.  I'll buy a single item - say a bag of sugar.  It's in its own bag already, why do I need another?  So I'll say, "No bag please," and by the time I've finished paying and go to grab my sugar, it is inevitably in a bag.  And then I have to take it out and explain that I don't need the bag, but please do re-use that bag for someone else, and I get all manner of strange looks.  If I have many items and ask them to use the bag I brought, they just set my bag aside and use their own anyway.  Oyoyoy.  My trip there Saturday evening was especially difficult.  The store's new produce section is in one part of the building, but you have to take it to be weighed in another part.  Everyone does the same thing we do in America - use fifteen different little plastic bags for each peice of food they are purchasing.  Three tomatoes?  That's one bag.  One green pepper?  Second bag!  Of course my being the "recycling lady" here in town means I cannot indulge in this behavior, so I just put the produce in my basket - bag free - took it over to be weighed, and this is how I received it back....

Sigh.  What could I do?  So I took it and headed to the checkout stand, where I had to tell the nice man bagging that I didn't want a separate bag for my eggs three times, and then STILL had to take them out of the bag, and said, "Please, let's put them in here," referring to my own bag I'd brought.  Finally he said OK, and proceeded to put the rest of my food in his own plastic sack.  I just started laughing at that point, and trying not to be offensive, once again took everything out of the store bags and put them in my own, resting the eggs carefully on top.  (None of them were broken when I reached home, even without his extra plastic bags.  Imagine.)  I really prefer to use the main open-air markets that stink of fish, but where you know the produce was grown in some woman's back yard, and she'd rather keep her own expensive polyethylene bags if you have one already.  But when you're in a pinch late Saturday night.....

Awesome headless self-portrait of me and the bag I knit on the plane ride over.  Yes, I make the best environmental spinster ever.  

Moral of this story, boys and girls, think of my struggle here in Uganda, and when you go to the store in America, bring your own re-usable bags (or reuse a plastic one!) where the cashier will easily know what to do with them and just might even give you a couple nickles back for bringing them in.  Don't let my efforts be in vain!