A quick entry to keep the eager masses at bay.

Dear all
I am very sorry for how little i have written in the last month, i wish i could blame it on something as exciting as loosing my fist to a rabid monkey but unfortunately the reason for my un-called-for silence is simply a lack of power. I think that God, feeling my homesickness simply won't do, has decided to give me an extra special few weeks of rubbish weather to remind me of home. Ergo we have had no power for quite a while. I must also add a very quick sorry to say there will not be another entry for about two weeks, again nothin like plasic surgery to replace a missing fist due to monkey bite but rather i am going off into the middle of nowhere, for a very good reason, all of which i will document in a longer than normal entry in a few weeks time. In the mean time, take care and please watch out for monkeys
Dan

Remember Remember…was that the Apocalypse?

This weekend while most of Great Britain was kept awake by fireworks, rotting their teeth with toffee apples and generally having a miserable time with all the added lights and noise in the sky, the Clays, plus lodger, went away to Entebbe. It is a rather comfortable fact that every 6 weeks or so the Family tries to go away for the weekend to somewhere with a slightly more western feel but more importantly a pool. Last weekend the destination was Entebbe guest house, the last place we stayed with the stunning birdlife. We departed Chez-Clay after lunch on the very hot Friday. Unsurprisingly, due to the heat in the car even through the air con, before long the three older occupants of the car were getting rather tired of the 5 younger participants. However before long we came to Kampala for a quick money withdrawal and ice cream purchasing session for the weekend before back into the car for the shorter trip to Entebbe. I noticed this time on my visit to Entebbe that the Ugandans who live in the airport town don’t give Muzungus a second glance compared to the Ugandans in the rest of the country who will stop what it is they are doing just to stare. I have to admit I do the same if I see a Muzungu out of New Hope surroundings, in fact its rather fun to guess their occupations. The missionaries are usually easy to spot, beards, sandals and sun hats usually accompanied by very large rucksacks. Then there are the people who 30 or 40 years ago would have been big game hunters but these days are probably just normal thrill seekers trying Africa out. There seems to be a very large Asian population about and you catch the odd Asian Adonis walking around with his pencil thin beard, aviator sunglasses and extraordinarily white shirt strutting his stuff like he would be more comfortable in an arrogance of the year contest that in the middle of Africa. But I am going completely off the point. The point was that in Entebbe there must be white folk coming and going all the time so the locals don’t bat an eye lid. It was strange after being stared at on every outing for 2 months to suddenly be invisible again.
The Entebbe guest house is still as delightful as ever with fantastic food (we actually had feta cheese…forgot where I was for a moment) and the usually array of tropical birds. The Friday we arrived we didn’t do anything because of the late hour so had some tea and went straight to bed. I had a disturbed night sleep for some reason meaning that when I woke up at a severally unhealthy 5:30 am and couldn’t get back to sleep I wasn’t particularly amused. Add to this the fact that I was again sharing with Jed and Moses, coupled with my task of keeping them quiet for Aunty Jenny next door…by the time 7:30 rolled around I was ready for another nights sleep…little did I know I would be lucky to get any the following night but I will get to that later. Saturday was spent with board games, some badly timed rain canceling the swimming trip and some very well timed intense sunshine rescheduling it. I spent every available moment in the pool, not knowing when I might go again and wanting to make the most of it. By the evening I was very tired having swum solidly for about 3 hours on a bad nights sleep the night before. I lay in my bed at about 10:30 after an intense political comparison of the UK and the US, none of which I understood, and felt rather inadequate in the brains department. I fell asleep but a few hours later I was awake.
I discovered the following morning that Naomi had got her blanket tangled up beyond repair and when she began screaming the other two girls in the room decided stupid o’clock in the morning was a ripe time to strike up the four thousand six hundred and seventy ninth daily Clay screaming contest. Susanna won this round managing to wake up most of the other residents of the guest house before one of the parents got up to mercifully sort them out. Naomi was obviously upset with the result of the contest because a few moments after the end of the last contest, Naomi threw the gauntlet down again with a pointless but none the less very loud scream. By the time the girls had been given their orders to shut up or ship out it was pushing half past two and I was getting a bit bored of my waking state. Finally I drifted off only to be woken two hours later by a Plane blowing up outside my room.
Or so I thought. I must qualify the next paragraph or so and ask you, before you make inquiries about mental institutes for me, to put the thoughts in context of having a rubbish night sleep and being a bit out of it. Anyway after the earsplitting sound of the explosion I was wide awake is a second. I went to the window and could see nothing extraordinary. No screaming people, no flaming wreckage no birds fleeing the area in fear. I unlocked the door and ventured out, I could smell burning and I noticed one other person coming out to see if they could see the wreckage. Nothing. That was when I noticed the sky. The clouds were low, much lower than usual and were illuminated in the sky by brief pockets of white light that came and went without a sound. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what was going on. If couldn’t be thunder and lightning, there wasn’t any rain and I have never heard of thunder and lightning with no rain. So what is it then? Perhaps North Korea had finally gone one extra step in their nuclear tests and launched a Nuke at Entebbe…but what did the Koreans have against Entebbe. No I couldn’t be that…I hoped. Then I finally came to the only logical explanation I could. The only one that made sense and filled all the gaps. It must have been the apocalypse. Well that’s alright then, I thought, and went back to bed.
After a few minutes of lying in my bed trying to get back to sleep, secure in the knowledge it was only the world coming to an end, I figured out that the end of the world was a fairly major event and probably needed a little thought. Was I going to heaven? Hopefully. Will I be hearing Gods voice over a large all-earth PA system any second now? Maybe. Should I watch the end of the world? Probably, but that involved getting out of bed so I didn’t bother watching for any horsemen. Just then the rain kicked in, and apparently the storm sorted itself out. The thunder and lightning resumed properly with all the necessary flashes and bangs. I discovered soon after my apocalypse theory was thrown in the mental waste bin in exchange for a feeling of utter silliness, that the plane blowing up was in fact just a very large crack of thunder very close to the guest house. Having never really heard thunder that close up before I didn’t know what it sounded like, assuming it just sounded low and rumbly like it usually does by the time it reached you. But no, apparently it sounds like a rather sizeable explosion close to and turns into a rumble as it travels from its epicenter. A few more better aimed bolts of lightning struck the guest house compound that night giving only a split second warning flash before shattering the soporific rain effect with a mighty crash.
So I'm left to wonder what the point of fireworks are, I think my Apocalyptic night of Nukes and Plane crashes was much more fun, we even had lights in the sky.
I must apologies for those who have lost fingernails in the past week or so due to nervous biting with the lack of Blog for a while. Let me reassure you I am fine, and more importantly will continue to enlighten your lives with these little memoirs until I return in March. Thanks for all your prayers and support. Take care
Dan

Mud houses and Water towers

Today after a day of unbearably humidity it is raining cats, dogs, mice and fleas. I am in the living room in the house where I am being slightly naughty and plugging my laptop into the solar powered mains when there is no sunlight. Dave is walking past giving me mildly disapproving looks which I am ignoring though I expect a polite request to unplug is coming soon. From here I can see Rosy the cow getting extremely wet in the long grass she is for some reason ignoring. Now the more avid readers of this epic tail of adventure and intrigue will be scratching their heads and frowning and saying to themselves, “I thought the cow was called Zebra, which was a much better name…” and you would be right, on both counts. The cow has been renamed this week from Zebra to Rosy. The only reason given was that Rosy is apparently a better cow name and the cow looks like a Rosy, or so I'm told. I think the cow looks like a zebra so can imagine why I disagree with the rename. If you, like me are feeling anger welling up in your stomach at this injustice and agree with me that the cow should indeed retain its original name then please write a letter of complaint to the management here displaying your sheer disgust.
Apart from the obvious disappointment of the cow being renamed (Imagine the confusion for the poor beast, I think were talking animal cruelty here, lack of proper identity or something…anyway) this has been an interesting week. Tuesday and Thursday were spent as scheduled with Calvary family group. On the Thursday the browns and I were joined by Scott and his friend Jeremy. Both Scott and Jeremy being patriotic Americans and Steve and I proud Brits, before long the conversation descended into a comparison of the two cultures. We discussed everything from the proper use for Mayonnaise (Steve and I regard it as a perfect compliment for any meal where as the Americans would only really use a mayo in a sandwich) to the growing population of fat people in both cultures to the Enigma of which side of the road is really the right (or indeed left) way to go. Friday saw what was called a “manhood day” a title which I think is rather funny for some reason. A possible reason why this tickles me so much is that twinned with the manhood day is a womanhood day and while the women got together and talked, the men went off to build a house. I suppose whoever invented the day decided both genders should go and do what they do best.
I suppose I should move off that shockingly sexist comment and change the subject rather quickly.
The men congregated on the football field by the Dangers house at 7:45. We were told that today we would be building a house for a widow in the village who didn’t have one. There was to be many jobs and it was going to be hard work we were told. Everyone stood around with solemn grimaces and folded arms as if to say to each other and any woman who for any reason might just be looking, “Yup, hard work, excellent, that’s what we like to see…I am a MAN!” After a brief pep talk we started making our way down into the village in search of the site. Dave rode over on his motorbike and I, never wanting to pass up an opportunity to ride on the bike in the hands of someone who knows what they’re doing, went with him. We got lost. Eventually we managed to track down the building party. Upon arriving at the site I found three main activities going on. Firstly for reasons I still don’t know to this day a large area of bush was being cleared by thrashing at the grass. Just behind a nearby house a pit was being dug but all the loosened soil was being kept in the center. I later learned that this was the mud that would be used on the walls. Finally there was an area of flat mud with sticks poking out of the ground in regular intervals. These sticks were removed to be replaced by foot deep holes for putting support beams in.
Dave and the two boys went straight to work digging the foot deep holes and I started looking around for something to be done. There was plenty to do but the problem was a lack of tools for everyone to do something useful at the same time. I managed to get my hands on a hoe (much more like a mattock or an axe and really useful for weeding big weeds) and a few moments later found out Scott had gone off and been a hero, finding himself a huge mound of clay perfect for using on the house. I went off to help him doing whatever he was doing and found him digging away at this clay with his hoe. I joined in and did my usual of making little effect for maximum effort. I felt useful however and from that point on I was never without a job. I collected water for the mud, this involved walking down to a stagnant little pond, filling a jerry can until its just a little too heavy and then lugging it back up a hill to where the mud was bring mixed. I also did a bit of mud mixing, this involved shoes coming off and stomping about in the sloppy mud in a style not completely unlike sweaty men pressing wine in France, only stomping in mud doesn’t have the added effect of putting you off wine for a month or so. Once the clay/mud was ready I helped to transport it from where Scott found it to where the other busy beavers had been building the infrastructure for the house.
Once all the main support beams were in place thick bamboo-like canes were put in place at two inch intervals down the beams. Once the canes were all on place and all the mud was transported we started the squishing the mud through the gaps in the canes and filling in any holes until at last there was a wall in place. By the end of the day we had about 50 exhausted and hungry men, about 150 relaxed but for some reason hungry boys who had refused to do any work of any kind, 3 exterior walls up and mudded and all the beams for the roof were in place. A few observations; Breakfast was porridge which filled a certain hole tea would usually fill, it was however served at 1:30pm, please don’t ask me why, neither my stomach, nor I have any clue why. Lunch was served at around 4 and was BBQ pork. It was delicious and I couldn’t get enough of it. However they started preparing and cooking the pork about 5 hours before we ate it so while we worked the smell of delicious pork was wafting over us and making our hungry stomachs growl in anger. There was a certain amount of disappointment in the air because we had all worked a good 9 hours solidly and the house was only half finished. However this Saturday we have arranged to go back there and finish off the building hopefully this time with better timed meal breaks.
There is not a lot more to add to this already mammoth addition to my online diary except to say, briefly, that last Sunday was the thanksgiving celebration at New Hope. I think I said, but neglected to correct myself, that thanksgiving was postponed two weeks ago because a day scholar from the village died in the night of a typhoid infection and it seemed a little inappropriate to have a party the following morning. So all the festivities, including the world premier of my media presentation, took place last Sunday instead of two weeks ago. I got my chance to climb the water tower and film the procession which was just about as fun as it sounds and got some more footage which might or might not be added to the DVD to be sent out, not sure about that yet. I was also glad to see that my presentation went down well, all the villagers saw someone they recognized and events they could remember and applauded when they came up. Being the perfectionist that I am I watched the whole thing back making a mental list of things I should have done differently, but then that can’t be helped…
So that is all for now, I hope you are all well and settling into autumn comfortably. I look forward to seeing you all when I next do and continue to appreciate your prayers and comments.
Dan