Powers out and Generosity - AKA: making me look bad.

I noticed 2 things today. First, it has been some time since i have updated everyone. Second, the power is off. I have 50Min of battery time on the laptop to write something that is emotional and still witty, and upload some photos. Not so easy on African internet and not easy after this last weekend/week.

This week (2 weeks i suppose) have been great, but enormously tiring. Sarah is now doing a "full batch" of testing, every day. About 40 samples per day. But, this will mean that we can go to Kampala a little early next week. And then we can go out to dinner at a fancy place. Not sure if i have defined fancy for you all. We will likely spend about $30 total on the meal. If we were back home it would probably be a $150 meal. So it is fancy by any standard. Also keep in mind, an ok dinner here in town is about 3 dollars for both of us. We are also looking forward to a shower, not a bucket and pitcher.

So, as i said, i dont have alot of time here, but i will tell you 2 stories from the last week, and next blog i will tell you about or weekend visitor...

Our house backs onto a field. For the first time i saw people working the land. It looks like it is extremely difficult work as there are no powered tools or tractors. Changing the subject slightly, when we buy beef from the butcher there is always extra stuff. I always decline on the organs, but there is always fat and sinew. We are not really a fan of these parts, but they are really hard to cut away without loosing alota meat. Well, i now feel a little guilty about throwing food away(see the story below), but i also feel guilty about giving scraps and fat away. They do love the fat here, so i came up with an idea. I will just cut the fat off with substantial pieces of meat, that way it doesn't look like scraps when i give it away.

Back to the workers, i gave them about a pound of beef yesterday, and they thanked me lots for it. This morning the man came to my front door with a huge bag of mango's, smiling ear to ear. I was smiling to, said thankyou in the local language, which always gets a laugh. But in my mind i was thinking, thats not the way it was supposed to go. I was supposed to give to you only. I dont need mango's, i can afford them. I guess i have learnt a thing about generosity today.

Now for the other story. Our front doors are quite high security. We have 2 sets of metal doors, and both get locked. So, that means 2 locks, and 2 latches. It is quite the hassle to lock the doors. We were going into town and once we got 10 steps from the house i realized that i had my thin sandals on, and it is a little uncomfortable to walk a few miles in flipflops. So, as i was already grumpy for some reason, i grumpily opened the doors to get my other shoes. Once we were about 20 steps from the house, Sarah asked me if i had the grocery list. No, was my response, i do not have YOUR grocery list. So, i had to do the process again, with extra grumpiness, and extra clunking and clanking of the locks to show my frustration. As i was locking up for the last time, Sarah noticed that some kids who walked past us the first time were in our rubbish pit, looking around for stuff. As i walked towards her, she let me know about the kids. So, a little less grumpily, i opened the doors again, and grabbed some food. A cabbage, watermelon, and some beef. Once we gave it to them, they turned around and went home. This means that our rubbish pit is a destination. I guess i do need to finish my dinner because there are starving children in Africa. (i hope that is not to witty after some emotion)

There was a solar eclipse a few days ago, and then it went behind a cloud.

Found a wild chameleon.  He was grumpy.

I don't know what was going on, but it was funny.

Ok, so this is not in Uganda, but it is a nice memory, of wearing jackets and pants.  I was going through our memory cards and found this from a 2007 rock climbing trip at Red Rocks Nevada.