Church

Every Sunday we go to the primary site for church at Kasana Community Church. The service usually lasts for about 2 and a half hours (except on Family Sunday when it's about 4 hours). The singing lasts about an hour and a half and the sermon is about an hour. About half the songs are in English and about half are in Lugandan. I'm starting to pick up on some Lugandan songs. If I listen carefully you can pick out some Lugandan words that I know like:
Yesu-Jesus
Taata-Father
Mukama-Lord
So you can sort of figure out the point of the song. There is a LOT of clapping and usually your hands are hurting at the end of the song. Yesterday, Uncle George was preaching on the Armor of God. He had this boy stand at the front for a whole hour with the "Armor of God" on. The principal of the primary school was translating the sermon. At the end we left the church to walk home. Since it is the middle of the day it is usually very hot walking home. I was a bit behind the others so I got a ride back home. But some people walk really far to get to church. So that's what church is like here in Uganda.
Christina

Cold in Uganda????

As I get used to the climate here it doesn't feel very hot (most of the time) but it does seem sort of cold. When the wind is blowing I sometimes shiver and believe it or not at night I sleep with a sheet and a heavy quilt. If I don't I feel very cold. It sounds strange but it's true.

Sport's Day

Last Tuesday, my class went to the district Sport's Day. We walked most of the way but then got picked up by someone from the school who had his van. I never knew you could fit about thirty kids into one van. I was sitting next to my friend and even when shouting at the top of our voices we couldn't hear each other. When we got there we waited for a few hours just hanging around. Catriona and John came at about twelve (two hours after we got there) with some of our friends. At least Kasana and I weren't the only white people there anymore. The sports started at about 1:00. The girls were playing netball and the boys were playing football (soccer). We watched one of each game (which both teams won) and then we went home for lunch. We stayed at home after lunch because Catriona, Kasana, and I were babysitting someone's kids. The boys won football and the girls got second (I think) in netball. It was really fun.

School

This week I started going to Essuubi Eppya Vocational Primary School. I am doing Social Studies. I'm in P6 North which is supposed to be like Grade 5 but since their school year goes from about January to November I go with my friend, Kasana, who turned 11 the day after we got here. I probably will not complain about "having to write so much" in Canada again. My teacher says the question and we have to copy it down in one colour of pen (black or blue) and then he says the answer and we copy it down in the other colour. Most of the time we have about 7 questions. Some can have up to 7 answers to write down. The other difficulty is that I don't know how to spell most of the places in Uganda besides Kampala, Entebbe, Kiwoko, Luweero, and Jinja. Places like Bunalibugyo are not easy to spell just from hearing. My classes are usually from 9:20 to 10:40 but sometimes I leave early. I've been borrowing my Kasana's mom's bike and I ride to school with Kasana so it only takes 5-10 minutes instead of 10-15 minutes. In SST we've been learning about transport. So far we've done an overview of transport, human transport, animal transport, and road transport. Tomorrow we're doing water transport (I think). That has been the newest thing here in Uganda.

Water

Here in Uganda water is very precious! It is sometimes hard to get good water here. Back in Canada, all we have to do is turn on the tap to get water and we don’t have to worry about whether or not it’s good for drinking. In Uganda, things are a little more complicated. I’m going to list some of the things we have to worry about that have to do with water.
• We need to make sure it is filtered in case of parasites and other diseases that may be found in the water here.
• We need to have power to get the water from the cistern to the water tower so we can have running water in the house.
• There needs to be enough rain so we have water (that hasn’t been a problem yet as the rainy season is just ending)
So now I’ll explain how we get water. For drinking water and water for washing dishes and drinking tea our compound worker collects the water in jerry cans. Then our drinking water needs to be poured into our water filter (sometimes we buy drinking water). The water for tea and washing dishes needs to be boiled before it can be used (which isn’t that much of a problem because we would need to boil it anyway.) The water for washing our hands and taking showers is mostly rainwater. When it’s raining the water runs into the cistern. Then, when there’s power we turn on the water pump that pumps the water from the cistern up to the water tower where it then is carried from pipes to our house. The other side to water is that we can never get water in the house warm unless it’s boiled or in the afternoon or evening when the sun has been heating the water up all day. But if you want a shower in the morning then you need to be prepared to get pretty cold.
That is some information about water in Uganda. Sorry I don’t have more pictures. If there’s something you really want to see a picture of you can email me or you can post a comment.
Christina

Oops...

Sorry I'll give some pictures next time.

Hello from Uganda!!!!!!

Hello from Uganda!
We got here on Friday instead of Wednesday because of some complications with our flights. We’re getting settled in and have met up with most of our friends. We’re starting to get a bit more sleep at night. I didn’t have much trouble at all but the rest of my family were having some trouble. We’re staying in a house on the primary site right now while the team is painting the house we’ll stay in for most of our time here. That house is on secondary which will be closer to some of our friends but further away from the primary school. David Family, the family we’re associated with is the closest family group to secondary. It will be about a ten minute walk to David Family. We’ve been eating dinner at the guest house for the past few days with the team. It’s been nice to chat with the team.
For all my American (or United Staters as I have started calling you) relatives, (my Canadian friends and family don’t have to read this) we celebrated Independence Day with the United Stater missionaries. By the time we ate it was dark out (7:30) and my stomach was rumbling. We were the joke of the evening because we were Canadians at an American (or United Stater) celebration. Some people from the team didn’t understand at first why everyone was laughing when someone told us to start by saying why we were thankful for being United Staters. Dad just said, “Well, we’re thankful you’re glad to be Americans.”
Anyway, thanks to all those who were and still are praying for us. I hope you all have a great summer!


Christina