Weekend travels to Iganga, Jinja and Budaka

This weekend found Ella and I kissing our dogs goodbye, loading up in our car and heading to eastern Uganda. The Lugwere translation and literacy project were dedicating their new office building on Saturday in Budaka (not far from Mbale) and L and I wanted to be there to show our support. We also had some tithe from our organization to leave with the Sisters at St. Philomena Iganga Babies Home.

We picked Prossy up Friday morning and off we went on our new tires to Jinja. I love driving and a road trip! Being a Ugandan child and not a true Montanan child yet, Ella’s not used to spending most of her life in a car so I had to prepare for boredom by supplying her with a small selection of books, her phone, a baby and some stuffed lambs. Prossy and I enjoyed listening to her look through the pictures that her Granny and Grandpa sent her from Montana. From what we can tell she is planning on riding horses in the front field with my old dogs, Hank and Nola. We are wondering however, does she expect the dogs to be riding horses alongside her? If so, Mom and Dad had better get to work teaching those old dogs how to ride horses!

We had lunch in Jinja, then proceeded on to Iganga. Sister Elizabeth wasn’t there but we were greeted and escorted around by a very lonely 16 or 17 year old little Sister who was the only nun left there at the moment. Ella enjoyed playing on the little trikes and the swings. She was tired (no real nap) and getting cranky and I felt a little bad that she was taking up ALL my attention when the other kids there could of used some. We got the usual tour of the place and ooed and aahed over the babies. I helped Ella hold a couple of them, then when I was holding one she told me, “Put the baby down Mom. Just leave it.” Am I going to feel guilty about this child not having a sibling? NO!!

Some of the older kids were back on their holidays. Interesting to see bigger children like that and how they behave. It’s really sad. Lots of really infantile behavior (thumb sucking by a five year old, putting things in their mouth and sucking by a seven year old), extremely long fits of crying over simple grievances and a real “fend for yourself” mentality. They pop the kids into boarding school institutions so the fending for yourself will work for them socially but it is still really sad. Especially considering when the seven year old comes for a visit and most of the kids she was raised with are gone and the Sisters have all changed. Human beings were not meant to be raised without parents in institutions!

From Iganga we drove back to Jinja and visited Bujagali Falls. Prossy and Ella had never been there before and we were all glad to get out in the fresh air. We stayed the night at a nice place where we’d stayed when my parents were here. The perk was a nice big Jacuzzi tub for the Ellster to play in and BUNK BEDS. The top bed had a railing that went all the way around it so L got to sleep up there. The next morning, while Prossy and I played dice, Ella amused and entertained herself by climbing up and down, up and down the ladder. She started out by falling off the bottom rung and hitting her head on the door but that didn’t seem to faze her. She’s a determined little girl. We checked out of our room and sat outside in the nice big yard so L could run around and play. While Prossy and I continued to play dice, Ella poked around sticking leaves on the ends of sticks and “roasting” them. Who needs toys?

Got a kick out of watching the weather forecast on tv in the hotel room. Seriously, I don’t know why Ugandans even bother! All over the entirety of Uganda it’s “Sunshine!” with a few “rain showers!” thrown in. Made me and Prossy laugh. Since the weather in Uganda is pretty near perfect all the time, they have fun “guessing” the exact temperatures. Then I compare it the vastness of the U.S and all the extreme temperature differences and it makes me giggle .

Saturday we headed for Budaka. Made it in two hours. Even after living here 3.5 years the beauty of the country is breathtaking and the eastern part isn’t even the prettiest part! Everything is just so green and the dirt is bright red. A policeman stopped us and we gave him a lift. Ella was totally unfazed by the uniformed male company sitting beside her and just continued talking to herself and “reading” her books the whole time. Funny!

We arrived in Budaka a little before 1pm, found the rest of those from the office that had gone up on Thursday, and were served a very delicious meal by Sam’s wife, who was up from Kampala for the event. I had met her only once before but she’s really nice, especially when it came to Ella. L is quite the hit where ever she goes and I don’t really understand why. I mean, there are lots of other cute little kids wandering around. After the meal we drove out to the sight of the new office building. It is very nice! By the time we got there and it got started it was about 2pm, so we only stayed 1.5 hours before we had to head back to Entebbe.

Ella amused herself by playing in a little pile of dirt with some bricks that were left over from the building the whole time. So there she was all gussied up in her little skirt having a big time “building a house” for me and Prossy. A woman behind me tapped my shoulder and handed me a piece of bread for her and the old Muslim man sitting next to me got a big kick out of Ella telling her, “Thank you!” I just think it’s so nice when people with obviously less then we have want to share with Ella. As a general rule the majority of the people we meet are incredibly kind to us.

As we were getting ready to leave Ella found another promising pile of dirt (think “building site” and all the great piles of dirt around), kicked her shoes off, much to the horror of Sam, and began to play. A man told me, “She’s just like other children, playing freely in the dirt!” Well, yah… nice clothes doesn’t make her any different from any other kid!

We left at 3:30pm and got back just a bit before 8pm. Record time as that included getting through Kampala traffic! I had a roaring, dehydration induced headache when we got home but the trip was a fun one because another friend, Richard, rode back with the three of us. So it was a rather noisy party of four. The more the merrier, in my book!

Sunday I was pretty spent, as was Ella, so we just stayed home from church. Depriving Ella of her sandpits for almost two days is perilously close to child abuse and deprivation and depriving me of my dogs for almost two days is pretty bad too. You’d think we’d been gone a month the way the two of us and the dogs were so happy that we were home! I laid down and was reading on the couch and Ella crawled up and fell asleep on me for over an hour, during which she managed to wet her pants… and my leg… and the couch… Good thing we have a vinyl one! My leg absorbed most of it so it wasn’t a big deal. Didn’t even wake her up.

Monday just happened to be a public holiday, thanks to the poor King of Busoga dying. I’m sorry for him but was grateful for the day off. Bridger, Sanyu, Ella and I all spent the day home bonding, with only one quick trip to the office.

And thus concludes the rendition of our weekend travels.