Our Trip (Part 2)

Kobwin, as always, was lots of fun.  A majority of our time was spent cooking and cleaning up after meals with eighteen people! Some of the meals were cooked at Auntie Constance's house where many of us stayed but Kasana, Catriona, and I had the privilege to cook with Auntie Christine, one of the family group mothers.  She is one of the most joyful and hospitable people I know.  I don't know too many people who would be genuinely excited to invite eighteen people for dinner when you already have twenty children you are responsible for!  We enjoyed cooking ebo, rice, atapa, and pork with her.  We also extremely enjoyed eating it! Ebo is a mixture of cooked leaves and g-nut sauce and atapa is one or a combination of millet, cassava, and sorghum flour boiled until it is firm but sticky.  It's sort of hard to describe but it's good!

Me and Auntie Christine

Ebo

Kasana, Catriona and I also had fun doing our school work up on the big rocks (got to love homeschooling!) We also decorated one of Auntie Constance's walls with a Bible verse.  In the evenings, we played games and went up to the rocks.  Wow! The stars were very clear and beautiful!

One of the rocks. We even saw some monkeys on our last day there!

Kobwin is truly a beautiful place with beautiful people and it is always a joy to go there.  I'm looking forward to our next visit!

Our Trip (Part 1)

Two weeks ago, we started our journey to Kobwin, Musana, and Jinja.  My dad and Uncle Tal and Uncle James (accountant) and the auditors were going to work at Kobwin and Musana.  So our family and Uncle Tal's family decided to tag along.  We then planned to stay a few days in Jinja.  Our family was the advance party and the Andersons were going to leave Kasana after church on Sunday and pick up Uncle James and the auditors in Kampala.  Catriona stayed with them because her worship team was having a worship night on Saturday and leading worship on Sunday.  

Dad, Mum, John, and I left Kasana on Saturday morning to drive to Mbale.  We had to stop in Kampala to shop. We picked up some yogurt for lunch and then got back on the road.  Before you go into Jinja, you can stop to buy chicken on a stick.  You drive up and your car gets surrounded by people trying to sell you chicken, gonja (roasted banana), and drinks.  We bought some chicken and gonja and were on our way again.  By the way, it is delicious! 

We got to our hotel in Mbale around 6:30.  We were going to eat dinner outside but after a total of three minutes, my legs and feet were covered in mosquito bites so we chose the muggy indoors to the buggy outdoors.  It was a good decision because it meant that we could set up our Settlers of Catan game and play (in the light) until our food came.  Since our food didn't come until about 9:00 I was glad we came inside.  The food was delicious though--goat stew with matooke and rice. Mmm... After we finished our game, we went to bed.  The next morning, we went to an OPC church.  It was a different service from Kasana.  We sang from hymnals and it was much smaller, but it was great to get to see another church in Uganda. After eating lunch at the church, we got back in the car to drive to Kobwin! We were welcomed by Auntie Constance and many of the staff members and children.  

Part 2 is coming soon!

Life at Kasana Children's Centre

 After we "shifted" to our new house in August, we have enjoyed having lots of close neighbours.  Our next-door neighbours, the Mwanjes are a great family who we have lots of fun with.  A few weeks ago, we had a big Ugandan meal with them after our sponsor child gave us a chicken.  We also wanted to have a sort of good-bye party for two of the Mwanjes as they were going back to school.  

Over the Christmas holidays, we had 10 to 20 neighbourhood kids in our house almost every day, making Rainbow Loom bracelets and playing games.  John got a Frisbee for Christmas and we also enjoyed playing with that.

John, as usual, has made friends with all the children who live near us, and it isn't uncommon to find him playing football or tag with the boys.  And all the little kids love John. The Ugandans don't have school in December or January and our 3-year-old neighbours did not understand why their big siblings were out of school but John wasn't. This meant they would come to our big window, peek in, and say, "John, jangu!" (John, come). They were always very excited when John came to play with them at break-time or in the afternoon.

Who Lives Upstairs?

We don't have a two-story house, but some think we do.  A few weeks ago we asked someone to come eradicate these unwelcome residents.  Yes, bats.  About 30 of them were killed and buried somewhere in the bush.  Unfortunately, a few weeks later we are again hearing bangs and crashes from "upstairs".  

Trees+Pangas+Chain Saws=Straight Boards

A few weeks ago, there was a bit of commotion outside the New Hope gates.  A tree had been cut down, but unfortunately it fell across the road causing a bit of a traffic jam.  It was soon cut into a few pieces so that the vehicles could get through.  We got some pictures of the process of transforming a tree into very straight boards.

You know you're a MK when...

you eat pudding...

from 1995...

and enjoy it!

(We were given this by a friend who grew up in Kenya. Her parents had given a bag of pudding and jellos but she had never used them so passed them onto us.  Whether she knew the date or not, I don't know!)

Happy New Year!!!

Wow! January is almost half over and I'm just writing my first blog post of 2015! I'm hoping to write a few more today or tomorrow.  Our family got together with some of our friends on New Year's Eve and banged pots and pans together at midnight.  We also drank some sparkling cider as a big treat. 

Kasana, me, and Catriona