Flying solo
Today is my two week anniversary In Uganda and as of tomorrow it will be the longest I have spent in Africa. Today I had the unique opportunity of waking Jed and Moses up. This privilege cam about because Raych Clays parents flew home and we went to see them off at the painfully early hour of 6 am. I was keen to get up and see them off regardless of the hour, but Moses and Jed were still asleep so I had the amazingly satisfying task of waking them up before they wanted to arise. The reason for my satisfaction is that every morning at what seems like the least earthly hour known to man, Jed and Mo wake me up just for the fun of it. Therefore when I was awarded the task of waking them up, I couldn’t be more pleased…it felt like Justice was served!
However my joy at having my revenge served ice cold was short lived as I was sad to see the grandparents go. They have been my unofficial guides to life on the Clay farm for the last two weeks and also filled the child care role. Their departure leaves me on my own to look after the Kids from now on. We go back to the farm on Friday and as of the following Monday, battle commences. I'm not sure how to feel about the whole thing really. I have moments with the kids that are really great and I start to think, this isn’t going to be too bad…five kids on my own…piece of cake. Then one of them falls over or snatches a toy away, and all of a sudden it’s the world wide screaming championship with four of the worlds most professional screamers and criers battling it out for the title of biggest pain in the neck. I say four because Moses, the fifth contender prefers to sit out and observe the others whilst pointing out to me, ever so helpfully, that the others are crying by the way Dan, the others are crying, their crying, Dan their crying, Dan, Dan their crying Dan, DAN!
Most worrying of all is that my tactic of sitting back and observing how the experts handle the situation is now unbelievably obsolete. I can just seem myself standing outside a burnt down Clay house with Jed holding a can of petrol and a box of matches looking slightly singed and saying to Dave and Raych, “yeah, he started to play with them, I thought id watch and see what happened for future reference” No, now is the time to step in and remove the petrol. (For those who are wondering and aren’t used to my stupid brand of sarcasm, I have not spent two weeks doing nothing at all and just watching…I spent it doing nothing, watching and reading books, so I have made myself useful!)
The last few days have been spent in Entebbe at a really peaceful guesthouse near the airport. All throughout the day there are planes landing off to our right (but never overhead) and the various missionaries who have lived in Uganda for 500 years and are old hats at this game can be heard saying things like, “That’s the British airways flight from Dubai, its half an hour late” or, “oh the KLM is early…” or, “Well there goes Aunty Jo” For some reason everyone has a complete and working knowledge of the Entebbe flight schedule and funnily enough all the BA flight, whether arriving or departing, flight directly over New Hope and the Clay farm. So there are similar comments most mornings over breakfast and when the Kids go to bed at night.
Tonight is the last night we spend here and I am going to miss it. (For anyone who’s curious the reason it has seemingly taken me 3 days to write a page is we haven’t had any electricity through the plug sockets in all that time. So after I wrote a paragraph or two my battery ran out and I was left laptop-less. Today I had packed my bag, put the useless laptop in it and was heading out to put my bag in the car when the ceiling fan sprang into life. I threw my heavy suitcase to the ground and retreated my laptop, plugged it in and seeing the little orange power light decided to continue writing my Blog to those faithful few who read it. The technology is back with force) Anyway despite the distant sounds of planes doing what they do and various children screaming it is really very peaceful here. We are surrounded on every side by trees and flowers and the birds here are really amazing. I woke up this morning to find a two foot bird that looked like a hawk/eagle of some kind sitting looking at me with my morning hair and bleary eyes. It quickly took off and made a show of soaring round the little courtyard and up into the treetops where we watched each other for a while. Apart from the peaceful atmosphere and the amazing birdlife the food here is excellent as well. Every night we have some variety of BBQ meat, I highly recommend the chicken by the way.
On Saturday I plan to return to New Hope with Dave and discover how the internet works here. If all goes well I should have this, along with various emails, up and out by Saturday afternoon. If I fail this may not get out until Christmas so let’s hope it all goes well! I hope you are all enjoying your weather as much as I am enjoying mine and are all safe and well. God Bless
Uncle Dan
(ps, in case you hadn’t noticed there is a comment feature on this web site and if you look hard enough you should be able to find it. You don’t have to leave a comment if you don’t want to…who am I kidding, leave a comment, its not an option)
However my joy at having my revenge served ice cold was short lived as I was sad to see the grandparents go. They have been my unofficial guides to life on the Clay farm for the last two weeks and also filled the child care role. Their departure leaves me on my own to look after the Kids from now on. We go back to the farm on Friday and as of the following Monday, battle commences. I'm not sure how to feel about the whole thing really. I have moments with the kids that are really great and I start to think, this isn’t going to be too bad…five kids on my own…piece of cake. Then one of them falls over or snatches a toy away, and all of a sudden it’s the world wide screaming championship with four of the worlds most professional screamers and criers battling it out for the title of biggest pain in the neck. I say four because Moses, the fifth contender prefers to sit out and observe the others whilst pointing out to me, ever so helpfully, that the others are crying by the way Dan, the others are crying, their crying, Dan their crying, Dan, Dan their crying Dan, DAN!
Most worrying of all is that my tactic of sitting back and observing how the experts handle the situation is now unbelievably obsolete. I can just seem myself standing outside a burnt down Clay house with Jed holding a can of petrol and a box of matches looking slightly singed and saying to Dave and Raych, “yeah, he started to play with them, I thought id watch and see what happened for future reference” No, now is the time to step in and remove the petrol. (For those who are wondering and aren’t used to my stupid brand of sarcasm, I have not spent two weeks doing nothing at all and just watching…I spent it doing nothing, watching and reading books, so I have made myself useful!)
The last few days have been spent in Entebbe at a really peaceful guesthouse near the airport. All throughout the day there are planes landing off to our right (but never overhead) and the various missionaries who have lived in Uganda for 500 years and are old hats at this game can be heard saying things like, “That’s the British airways flight from Dubai, its half an hour late” or, “oh the KLM is early…” or, “Well there goes Aunty Jo” For some reason everyone has a complete and working knowledge of the Entebbe flight schedule and funnily enough all the BA flight, whether arriving or departing, flight directly over New Hope and the Clay farm. So there are similar comments most mornings over breakfast and when the Kids go to bed at night.
Tonight is the last night we spend here and I am going to miss it. (For anyone who’s curious the reason it has seemingly taken me 3 days to write a page is we haven’t had any electricity through the plug sockets in all that time. So after I wrote a paragraph or two my battery ran out and I was left laptop-less. Today I had packed my bag, put the useless laptop in it and was heading out to put my bag in the car when the ceiling fan sprang into life. I threw my heavy suitcase to the ground and retreated my laptop, plugged it in and seeing the little orange power light decided to continue writing my Blog to those faithful few who read it. The technology is back with force) Anyway despite the distant sounds of planes doing what they do and various children screaming it is really very peaceful here. We are surrounded on every side by trees and flowers and the birds here are really amazing. I woke up this morning to find a two foot bird that looked like a hawk/eagle of some kind sitting looking at me with my morning hair and bleary eyes. It quickly took off and made a show of soaring round the little courtyard and up into the treetops where we watched each other for a while. Apart from the peaceful atmosphere and the amazing birdlife the food here is excellent as well. Every night we have some variety of BBQ meat, I highly recommend the chicken by the way.
On Saturday I plan to return to New Hope with Dave and discover how the internet works here. If all goes well I should have this, along with various emails, up and out by Saturday afternoon. If I fail this may not get out until Christmas so let’s hope it all goes well! I hope you are all enjoying your weather as much as I am enjoying mine and are all safe and well. God Bless
Uncle Dan
(ps, in case you hadn’t noticed there is a comment feature on this web site and if you look hard enough you should be able to find it. You don’t have to leave a comment if you don’t want to…who am I kidding, leave a comment, its not an option)
posted by Daniel at 3:14 PM
1 Comments:
hello! i'm leaving a comment!! u did lots of spelling mistakes but don't worry i won't tell deborah :)
miss u LOADS
VICKY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(snardey)
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