Church and home

THIS IS A PICTURE OF RASOUL OUR WATCHMAN PLAYING LUDO WITH ROSE, AKIM AND ADETHA

This Sunday we were invited to a thanksgiving of one of my colleagues in the community department. Ronald was 58 and wanted to give thanks for his life and his marriage. He had helped as a translator during the workshops for the Miirya project but had become ill during the last workshop. He developed severe heart failure due to hypertension and was off work for several weeks. I visited him at home several times and managed to get his failure and blood pressure under control so he was keen that I attended the thanks giving service.
The thanks giving was part of the weekly English service at the cathedral which is the church that Ronald attends. The first service of the day is at 7.00am in Runyoro. We attended the 8.00 am English language service with about 600 other people. There were 5 muzungos in the congregation. You can not imagine 300 people waiting outside an English church for an 8.00 o clock service but that was what we found when we arrived. The other 300 seemed to be staying on after the Runyoro service. Ronald was there with several members of his family dressed in their finery. They invited us to sit with them in the choir stalls but we opted to sit in the ordinary pews. In spite of this we were spotted and had to stand up and be welcomed by the congregation. The service turned out to be dominated by an election of church wardens. This produced a dispute between members of the congregation and the vicar leading the service. The diocese has a constitution and the election of 12 wardens is not part of that constitution. After a heated discussion the election was abandoned but only after some youth volunteers had been elected. One of the youth did not want to be elected as she did not live in Masindi but her protestations were discarded and she was duly elected to serve the youth of the congregation. It was a shame that in spite of the enthusiasm of the congregation the service appeared to be dominated by politics and collecting money. Ugandans love religion but if this is an example of how the church works they are being let down. I am told that it is very different in the villages and much more joyous.
Maggie’s blog last week mentioned the wild life. She now claims that there is a mouse in the house. Every now and again she shouts out and says she has seen something run across the floor. She is the only one to see it and I am beginning to think she has had too much sun or too much waragi. People say it is a good sign if you have a mouse because it means there are no snakes in the house. The rains are continuing and every thing is growing rapidly. It is a great time of the year here and as long as the roads stay clear you are ok.
This week we have been holding meetings with the volunteers from the Miirya project. Happily most of the volunteers attended the meetings and seem to still be motivated to keep involved. We have nearly finished our first round of net sales and most of the volunteers reported that people had been pleased with the nets. A first look at what had happened to the nets revealed that some people were keeping them and not using them. There is still a lot of education needed so the project needs to develop. One volunteer reported a tragedy where a child had been put to bed in a net and had taken a candle in the bed. She was left alone and the net and bed set alight burning down the house and killing the child. Fires are not uncommon here as people have to use candles or paraffin lamps as electricity is not around in the villages. The villagers did not blame the nets for this tragedy but blamed the mother for leaving the child alone.The nets are flammable but very slowly and appear to be safe. I saw another burn this week of a 3 yr old child whose mother had let fry some eggs over the stove. She was an intelligent mother, a primary school teacher but she did not think that 3 years old was too young to cook. Childhood is very short here for many children. It is not unusual for children especially girls of six years to be caring for their siblings.Most children have jobs to do before and after school such as fetching water or fuel.There is little time to play and most children do not have toys.
Akim and Adetha who live in our compound are luckier than most. Rose is a great mum who spends a lot of time with the children in spite of having 4 jobs. Some one brought out a giant ludo and they love to play. Adetha is the champion at the moment. They also love to play chasing games. Every time we arrive home the boys run out to greet us.They then tig us and shout "Kabali" and race off,I usually manage to catch Akim but Adetha is really fast or may be I am just getting old.

Late news
Maggie is not hallucinating. The mouse is real!