A glimpse into life in Uganda.

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How’s Africa? – A Trip to the Dentist

The only trampoline accident we’ve ever had (thank God!) wasn’t long after we got to Africa and set the thing up in our yard. The kids went quickly from normal jumping to trying crazy tricks.

To this day, I get mixed reports of what actually happened that afternoon. As I understand it, the kids were trying a variety of flips — backflips, front flips, cartwheels. Jamie didn’t quite complete the flip. His mouth hit his knee and he broke off his permanent front tooth.

At the time, we had a dentist in town who could do simple things like cleanings and basic fillings. He was able to put a temporary polymer in place on the broken tooth, and build it back to its normal size, permanent enough to last until Jamie could grow up and get a crown put on. The dentist also told us the temporary measure would only last until Jamie was 17 or 18.

Right on cue, last fall the temporary polymer started having trouble. We knew it was only a matter of time until it fell off completely. Trouble was, the only dentist we knew of who could do the crown was in Kampala, 4 1/2 hours away.

Around that time, we heard of a new dental office in town, about a half mile from our house. We heard it was clean and that the dentist was skilled. We decided to look into it.

I’m so thankful we found out about Trust Dental. The office staff is wonderful. Dr. Ibra is a complete professional. We’ve been in there so much over the last couple months that they recently told us we need to be sure to keep in touch when all of our dental stuff is finished. Hah! 😀 

We were all able to get cleanings. (No cavities! Yay!) They used 3D printing technology to make Jamie’s crown and put it on in the office. They removed 4 sets of wisdom teeth from us. They can also do orthodontia and bridges — though I sincerely hope it never comes to that!

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They needed an x-ray of Jamie’s front tooth, which they took right in the office. I’m pretty sure Alex needed a lead vest for protection, too. The imaging center they used for all of our wisdom teeth x-rays was a lot better shielded for the technician, too.

Trip to the Dentist 2

Trip to the Dentist 3

Trip to the Dentist 4

They went out of their way to make sure the younger kids were comfortable with the whole experience and not frightened or in pain, including letting Brennah be the assistant for the day.

Best of all, knowing I was going to have a challenging wisdom tooth extraction, Dr. Ibra and his staff stopped and prayed with me before we began. Shiba, one of his assistants, prayed for me during the procedure when I was having a hard time.

My dental experience in the states was never this good. I think I’d rather see my dentist in Africa.

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How’s Africa – Grocery Store Shopping

A few months ago I posted about shopping in our open air market. A couple weeks ago I posted a video of a trip there. 

We don’t do all of our shopping in the open air market. Our town has several good grocery stores where we buy other things — the things you can’t get at the market.

We used to have a huge, chain grocery store in town. You could get things there that you couldn’t get anywhere else. They went out of business due to corruption in their leadership. 

Thankfully, several of the other grocery stores have stepped in to take up the slack.

We do most of our shopping at Apple Door to Door Supermarket. Nishit, who owns the store, used to manage another grocery store in town (that also went out of business, but that’s another story). When he was fired from his job at the other grocery, he opened Apple Door to Door. He stocks things that many of the other stores don’t — like Dr. Pepper, and American chocolate. He also keeps bacon and sliced ham in stock. We buy Indian snacks for homemade snack mix from him. I’m sure his eyes get shilling signs in them when he sees us coming. 😉

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Uganda Shopping 2

Uganda Shopping 3

Uganda Shopping 4

The great part is that Nishit has become a friend. We’ve watched his two girls grow up. His oldest is the same age as my youngest. He and his wife go for morning walks and we see them while we’re out jogging. Sometimes he stocks things just because he knows we like them.

Golf Course Supermarket opened right before the other big chain store opened. I didn’t really like Golf Course at first. Their prices were higher than everywhere else. Then they learned about competitive pricing and everything changed. 

Golf Course is owned and run by a sweet Ugandan woman. She has made changes little by little to attract a diverse clientele. It helps that the store is less than a mile from our house, so if I need something I can walk there and back in less than 20 minutes.

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Uganda Shopping 6

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Kirimi Supermarket used to be a tiny, hole-in-the-wall store. I rarely shopped there because it was out of my normal route to and from town. Our guy, Athen, kept telling me I needed to check out the store. 

About 3 years ago, they built a new, bigger store. It’s also owned and run by a Ugandan woman, though I’ve only seen her a couple times. She stocks primarily things that locals will enjoy. The longer we’ve lived here, the more I buy local stuff. 

About 9 months ago, they opened a bakery and deli at Kirimi. The big chain store had a huge bakery and deli but it closed at least a year before the store. Having this open at Kirimi has been a blessing! Their whole wheat bread is soft and delicious. They sell individual Ugandan pizzas. (Not like American pizza, but still good). The store also sells several things we like but can’t find at any of the other stores.

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Uganda Shopping 9

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I carry my own cloth shopping bags everywhere and all the shopkeepers in all the grocery stores tease me on the rare occasion I forget. They also tease when I shop by myself because James usually goes and helps me carry it home.

I like that there isn’t usually a huge selection. You can find what you need, but they only have one brand of it. Easy decision. Those stores in the US with 100 different kinds of the same thing make me want to cry. Here, my choice is already made. 

I personally think that shopping was one of the easiest things for me to adapt to here. It’s simple, straightforward, small town, local. I love that I’m supporting local business people, most of them women. I love that I know the clerks and they know me. Like everything else here, it’s all about the relationship. And that relationship is how you can have a real impact on people’s lives.

(All photos taken with permission from the store owners.)

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A Trip to Nakivale

The road to Nakivale has gotten particularly bad over the last several weeks. We decided to capture some of it on video while traveling today. Hope you enjoy this little glimpse!

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How to Make Yogurt in 5 Easy Steps (with Pictures)

It’s super easy to make homemade yogurt. There’s no better way to get this cultured staple preservative-free than to make it yourself.

I started making yogurt before we ever came to Africa. We were able to get milk from a local farm. I’d found directions for making yogurt in a book I read and decided to try it out with the fresh milk. It turned out the first time!

Yogurt making is now a normal part of our weekly ritual. It takes time, but not much supervision. Most of the process is just letting the bacteria do its work to change the milk to yogurt. You don’t need any special equipment.

You’ll need:

  • a pan with a lid in which to heat the milk and leave the yogurt until it has cultured
  • a wooden spoon
  • plain yogurt to use for a starter
  • a towel (optional)
  • flavoring (optional – see below)

How to Make Homemade Yogurt in 5 Easy Steps

1. Boil the milk.

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It doesn’t need a hard boil, but it won’t hurt if it boils hard. You know what they say about watched pots. I can watch it simmer but not boil for 10 minutes, then leave or turn my back for one second and the milk boils over. *sigh*

This is the first place the wooden spoon comes in handy. If you lay the spoon on top of the milk, it breaks the surface tension and the milk tends not to boil over as easily.

2. Cool the milk until you can hold a finger in it for 10 seconds or longer.

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If your milk is too hot, it will kill the culture on the yogurt starter. The milk is cool enough when you can hold your finger in it for several seconds. The cooling part takes longer than the boiling part. I come back and stir it on a regular basis (use the wooden spoon for this) and only test it when I can touch the outside of the pan without it burning me.

3. Add yogurt starter to the milk and mix thoroughly.

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6-8oz. of plain yogurt is enough for a starter – in other words, it’s enough to start the culturing process. Once you’ve added the starter, mix it into the milk until it’s smooth and there are no chunks.

4. Cover and let it set for 6-12 hours.

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I leave mine sitting on the back of the stove but my kitchen stays around 80 degrees during the day. If your kitchen is cooler, place the pan with the yogurt inside the oven (oven turned off). This helps it maintain its heat. You can even set the yogurt on the counter or table or the top of the fridge wrapped in a towel. 

You don’t have to check it or stir it. In fact, you don’t want to disturb it any more than necessary.

5. Refrigerate.

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I leave mine out to culture for 8-10 hours (usually closer to 8) and it’s nice and thick. The longer you leave it out, the thicker it gets, but it also gets more sour (sourer?). We use it in place of sour cream, so we don’t mind it being a little tart. But you can overdo it.

What if you forget and it sits out longer? It’s yogurt. It might be very sour or tart, but you can still use it. I’ve left mine sitting out overnight and it was still okay the next day.

Additions:

  • For sweetened yogurt, add honey to taste as the milk is cooling. Stir with the wooden spoon until the honey is completely dissolved.
  • Add fruit to the yogurt when you refrigerate it or as you serve it. 

Questions? Feel free to contact me with them. I can’t promise I can help but I’ll do my best. Have you made yogurt before? How did it work? I’d love to hear from you!

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How’s Africa? – Land of Milk

God sent us to the Wisconsin of Uganda. We live in cattle country, dairy-land. There are 3 dairies within walking distance of our house and another two on the other end of town. The biggest dairy resides smack in the middle of town, down an almost impassible dirt road. These dairies provide milk products, primarily yogurt and gouda cheese, to most of the rest of the country. 

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All that being said, getting milk to your house on a weekly basis can prove a challenge. Dairy is regulated here, much the same way meat slaughtering is. There is a Dairy Council. The milk supply is monitored for diseases like listeria. Dairies would get shut down if they sent contaminated milk out in their products.

We still have to be careful that the milk we buy hasn’t been watered down (remember, the water here isn’t potable; you don’t even want to drink it in your milk). Sometimes the local suppliers will skim and dilute their milk to make it go further. 

Because of this, we’re cautious where we buy our milk products. Most of the milk for sale in the grocery stores has been treated with UHT (ultra high temperature). Most, if not all, the nutrients have been killed in this process. We could buy from door-to-door milk sellers. Most of these guys probably sell good milk — especially if you get it first thing in the morning, but there is always a danger it’s been diluted with water. The little eduka (shops) that sell milk give you the watered down stuff. 

We get ours straight from a dairy farmer outside town. Once a week, Athen goes and gets 10 liters for us in a good old fashioned dairy can.

Milk 1

We strain the milk and refrigerate it. I use it to make all kinds of things. I skim the cream to make butter and buttermilk. I make a gallon of yogurt almost every week. From that, I make cream cheese. If the milk sours (which rarely happens) I make cottage cheese. (We buy our harder cheeses from local vendors or one of the dairies.)

I’m noticing that ice cream is missing from this list! I may have to remedy that in the near future!

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How’s Africa? – An Epic Storm

We’ve entered the rainy season again here. You might remember from my post about the rainy season that we can expect a couple big storms during those months. 

Wednesday last week dawned sunny and warm. It was the first truly sunny day we’d had all week so we took advantage of it. The older boys and James helped Athen dig stumps out of the yard while the younger kids and I cleaned house. We hung laundry because it was sunny and the laundry would dry fast.

I needed to go the Wednesday market at Rwebikoona. I’d been putting off a big shop there for weeks, only getting the few little things we needed to get by. James and I went down there and stopped at all our normal places — Elizabet who just had a baby a couple months ago, the lady who sells me beans and teaches me numbers in Runyankore (we got on better this time than last time!), the lady who sells green beans (and gave me double what I thought she was going to!). It was crowded and hot but the sky was clear except for a few high, fluffy clouds. 

As we were leaving, I noticed the huge cumulous clouds were forming into cumulonimbus in the distance.  We’d been feeling like a storm was brewing all day. Everyone was crabby, even our dogs. I pointed to the clouds and said, “Yep, there’s the storm forming over there!” James agreed with me.

Sure enough, by sunset, storm clouds rolled in. We could see lightning in the distance. A breeze picked up. It didn’t seem that bad.

Then it hit. Sheets of rain came down. It hailed. The rain blew in our windows and doors, even though the doors were shut. We all hurried outside to get pictures. I was able to photograph the lightning.

Uganda Epic Storm 1

Uganda Epic Storm 2

Uganda Epic Storm 3

Uganda Epic Storm 4

But that wasn’t the worst of it. When the real storm hit, I thought for sure the roof was coming off our house. Power went off. The storm roared its deafening noise above us. We had to yell at each other to be heard. I’ve only seen a couple storms that bad in my life. All the locals I’ve talked to (Athen, our landlady) say they haven’t seen a storm this bad in 20 years.

The worst of the storm had blown over by the time we went to bed. It rained all night and most of the next day. 

We were able to see the storm damage the next morning. Many of our banana trees blew over and we had a large crack in our wall. Athen was able to replant the trees and they’re already growing. Power was back on by late morning, which surprised all of us.

Uganda Epic Storm 5

Uganda Epic Storm 6

Uganda Epic Storm 7

We had it easy. Around the corner from us the entire front of their wall fell into the yard. We’ve seen downed power lines and poles laying in people’s fields. Our neighbor’s field was almost washed away. He’ll have to replant. A power line in another neighbor’s yard keeps shorting. It explodes with a shower of sparks and our power goes off. It’s happened 5 times since Sunday morning and they keep repairing it.

Worst of all, in Rwebikoona, 12 people died in flash flooding. My heart is breaking about this. We were there earlier in the day. At that time of day, the market is usually crowded, people rushing around to get last minute foodstuffs on the way home from work. Then the vendors have to pack up their things and get home. I’m hoping and praying none of my friends were among those who lost their lives.

We all know the old saying, when life gives you puddles, you should run in them. 😉 My youngest daughter decided to take advantage of all the puddles and rain we had on Thursday. She ran around outside in it, screaming and laughing until she was cold and drenched. It brought a spark of joy to the whole situation.

Uganda Epic Storm 8

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How’s Africa – A Trip to Kampala (in pictures)

Kampala is the capital of Uganda. It’s a large, sprawling city that houses several million people. 

We avoid going to Kampala unless absolutely necessary. The last time we went was in October last year. We drove there and back the same day — more than 8 hours of drive time total. We had to get our residency visas and Kampala is the only place you can do it.

In fact, if you want to get any kind of paperwork done, you have to travel to Kampala for it. It would be like an American having to travel to Washington DC if they wanted to apply for a passport or driver’s license.

This trip was to renew our passports which will expire in a few months.

Trips to Kampala are always interesting. The most frustrating part of the trip is the traffic. You’ll spend hours in traffic, which doesn’t usually look like traffic in the US.

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Sometimes the “traffic” is cattle crossing the main highway.

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Bodas (motorcycle taxis) rarely follow normal traffic laws or patterns and the police ignore them. These guys were driving the wrong way up the road right next to us.

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Vehicles will pack people in wherever they fit. 

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Sure enough, there was a guy dragging his goats right through the middle of traffic on one of the busiest roads in Kampala. At one point the black goat refused to walk and the guy dragged it along by the rope until he got past a car. Then he unceremoniously grabbed the goat by the tail and set it on its feet and made it walk again.

I have no pictures of our time at the US Embassy. Photography is not allowed. Neither are any electronic devices. And by electronic devices, I mean anything with wiring or circuitry. We didn’t know about this ahead of time. There was a niggling little voice at the back of my mind that said “We should take paper books for everyone to read” (the prompting of the Holy Spirit? probably!) but I ignored it. They weren’t even going to let us wear watches but I put my foot down. I reminded them we were US citizens, that we’d cooperated so far, but that the rules were starting to feel like harassment and they were just watches. They backed down and didn’t make us take them off.

Not that it helped. They really are just watches. We had to go inside, facing down a 2 hour wait, with nothing to do but sit and watch CNN on the TV in the waiting room. Kinda makes you want to dig out your ear drums with a spoon. :-/ 

Thankfully, once they got us in for our passport appointments, they moved us through fast. We were done in less than an hour. 

We’d gotten passport photos taken in Mbarara a few days before we had our appointment. Uganda passport photos aren’t the same size as US passport photos. James gave the man here in town the dimensions and he followed the directions but the man processing our applications at the embassy wouldn’t accept them. The background had come out with a blue hue instead of the white/off white they wanted. We didn’t realize this until we got there. We had to get them taken again.

They directed us to a place about a kilometer up the road, where we all got our photo taken again. Then I took the kids to a cafe across the road from the photo shop while James waited for the pictures and then took them back to the embassy. 

We do try to make the trip fun as much as we can. James found a lovely guest house for us to stay at that has a family suite with nice bathrooms, a huge park-like yard, and a playground for the kids. We also try to take advantage of food options there that we don’t have here — like Chinese food (that I don’t have to make from scratch), and

:drumroll:

NACHOS!!!!

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The sweet and sour chicken wasn’t quite as good as what I make at home, but it was close. 😉 We all enjoyed it.

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Those plates of nachos were so big, we had leftovers. But who’s going to say “no” to leftover nachos?

I’m always happy and relieved to come home to our city on the mountain, where even the worst traffic can’t come close to the bumper-to-bumper-and-everywhere-in-between traffic we experience in Kampala. Our house. Our beds. Our places and people. What more could a person want?

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How’s Africa? – Valentine’s Day in Uganda

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Valentines Day isn’t celebrated the same in Uganda as it is in the US. In the US, as soon as Christmas is finished, stores put out their Valentine’s Day goods. The holiday is everywhere you look. The pressure is there for both those in relationships and those who don’t have a Valentine.

It’s easy to forget about Valentine’s Day in Uganda. When we first arrived, if stores got any gifts at all, they were difficult to find, hidden away on the corner of a shelf. The day would come and go and you’d find the items and wonder if they’d been intended for Valentine’s Day. Most of the time we couldn’t find any roses at all. In a fit of annoyance one year, James went to a nursery and bought a bunch of rose bushes for our yard. Now we get roses year round.

Today, a few years later, stores get the gifts sooner, but we still don’t see them on the shelves until a week or two before the holiday. They are small, often generic, type gifts.

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We plan ahead for Valentine’s Day. Last year we stocked up on chocolates and brought them back with us in our luggage.

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We had a special breakfast and a special supper and James and I went to town for lunch. There is a new-to-us restaurant in town called Curry in a Hurry.

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They really do bring that food out to you in a hurry! It’s almost as fast as ordering in an American restaurant! I love Indian food and have my meal already chosen for the next several visits. 😉

One of the local hotels is holding a Valentine’s Day concert. They’ve been advertising it for the last couple weeks with huge speaker trucks driving around blasting music and advertisements for the event. It’s not exactly the way you’d celebrate the day in the US, but I can’t blame the hotel for trying to capitalize on the holiday.

Worst of all? No discount chocolate after the holiday. Tomorrow, they’ll pack up the Valentine’s Day gifts and pack them away for next year.

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How’s Africa? — When the Water Comes Out Brown

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What would you do if the water looked like that when it came out of your tap?

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How about if it looked like this coming out of your shower?

The truth is, it doesn’t always look like this for us, either. (Our water had been off all day and this is what it looked like when they turned it back on.) Most of the time the water is murky or cloudy. Our whites don’t stay white very long. Showers, toilets, and sinks get a film of dirt over them between cleanings. We never use the tap water for cooking or drinking. 

But not everyone here has that option. Many people use the water here, straight from the tap without boiling. Water is a necessity of life. They can’t afford a fancy filter or to buy bottled water  so they drink what they can get. I’ve even seen children collecting water from ditches and puddles. I tell myself their mom is going to use it for laundry. Then I wonder how on earth she’ll get the clothes clean using muddy water to wash. But I know better than that. I know people drink and cook with that water.

So, what do you do if you visit a place where the water isn’t suitable for drinking? Here is what we do and it’s worked well for us the last several years:

1. Drink only bottled or filtered water.

We have a Berkey water filter at home and we use that for our drinking and cooking water. When we go places, they always serve us bottled water (you have to pay for it; water isn’t free here) and open the bottle for us while we watch. 

2. Make sure water for coffee or tea is boiled.

Sometimes we’ll order coffee or tea when we’re away from home. We always make sure the pot they bring us is to hot to drink immediately. This ensures that the water, even if it came from a tap, was heated hot enough to kill anything inside it.

3. Love the skin you’re in

Skin, your largest organ, will protect you from everything else. I try not to shower or wash in nasty water (what good does it do, anyway?) but soap still binds with dirt and oil and washes it away, even if the water is, well, dirty. I keep Epsom salts around to use for soaking if we get infections. 

We also treat the whole family for intestinal parasites a couple times a year, just to be on the safe side. 

Next time you turn on the tap in your house and clean, drinkable water comes out, give thanks! Most of the rest of the world doesn’t have that.

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How’s Africa – Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

Christmas in Africa is, in many ways, the same as Christmas in the US, but in some ways it’s different. The differences surprised us when we first came to Africa.

First, and most noticeable, is the temperature. Christmas where we live falls at the end of the rainy season, just as it is changing over to the dry season. Some years we get our last rain for three months during the week of Christmas. It’s cooler than normal for here when that happens. But most years it’s hot and dry. We make plans to go swimming that week because it feels so nice to go in this weather.

Another difference is that people don’t put up Christmas decorations until about 2 weeks before Christmas. No one puts lights on their houses. All the grocery stores put up decorations and play Christmas music. But outside everything moves on as normal.

Christmas here isn’t a huge merchandise driven holiday, though it has become more than way since we first arrived. People buy each other gifts of food, or clothing and shoes. The price of many food items increases in the middle of November. We’ve learned to stock up on essentials like flour, rice, and oil at least by the beginning of November so we can miss out on that price hike.

Cost of travel also increases in December. People like to travel to their village to celebrate the day with their family and the taxi and bus services take advantage of that desire. 

Thursday last week, James and I needed to go to town for a couple things. Town was crazy busy! We struggled to move around because of all the vehicle and foot traffic.

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We walked down to town today and got pictures of those same intersections on Christmas Day.

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You almost expect tumbleweed to roll across the road and a gun slinger to ride out of the dust. There were more people in town today than I expected, but still no where near what there are on a normal day.

All the protestant religions hold services either on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, sometimes both. We had our big service yesterday and it lasted until late afternoon. There were choir specials. Many visitors attended. It finished with a big meal and cake. (You can read about it in my blog post about the wedding.)

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We followed our Church people from Isanja and Ngarama home as they rode on the truck and sang hymns all the way.

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So, while Christmas here is different in many ways, we’ve all come to love and embrace those differences.

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