Taking Soda

Our baggage arrived on Monday on a truck w/ the materials for the new building for the children. The suitcases were in sad shape, caked w/ dirt from the roads between Kampala and Nimule, but it was what was inside the suitcases that mattered: clothes, toiletries, beef jerky and also lots of medicine, toys, and games for the kids.

I took a shower that night for the first time w/ soap and shampoo. It was probably the best shower I’ve ever taken. The logistics of the operation are pretty simple. You pour water from a jug into a small basin, pour the water on you, lather up, and repeat the rinse process. There are lots of little creatures in the shower w/ you. The other night there was a very large and menacing looking spider in the shower w/ me. We made a mutual agreement not to try to kill the other. When I went to the shower the next day, he was still there. I broke our pact.

One of the things I am working on right now is building a database of all the kids’ information for the children’s home to use for administrative purposes and also to help them try to set up a sponsorship program. My computer does not have Microsoft Access, so I have to download a copy online. The bank next to the compound has not been letting us use their internet, so I have to travel to the other side of the village to steal wi-fi from the UN. I sit in a dirt alley between a hotel used by the Catholic Diocese of Torit and a razor-wire-topped brick wall that borders the UN compound and connect there. The file is very large and the internet connection very slow, so it takes a long time to download the program. I go each day and download as much as I can before my battery runs out. After three days, I currently have about 55% downloaded.

Unfortunately, Ross has been really busy working on some reporting stuff, so I have not had a chance to talk w/ him about some of the kids’ stories. Hopefully, I will have some more to share soon. The language barrier has been a little greater than I had expected, but I am finding ways to connect w/ the kids and love on them.

One final note, the other night we had a celebration w/ dancing and singing. We even bought Cokes for the kids so that they could “take soda.” There was a strange part of the program where one kid sang a song and several others did backup dancing and singing. If the performer or his backups did an especially good job, the other kids would go to them and put bottle caps in their pockets. Apparently, it’s like putting money in a street performer’s jar, but since they don’t have money, they use bottle caps. After it’s over, they return the bottle caps and repeat the process w/ new performers. It was fun to watch, and the kids loved it. Also, at one point, most of the dancing evolved (devolved?) into group dancing, by which I mean line dancing, by which I mean the Electric Slide, by which I mean absolutely hilarious. I had no idea it had made such inroads into the equatorial states of Africa. Apparently, it’s not just for 90’s middle school dances and current weddings where a middle-aged man who’s made too many trips to the open bar bribes the DJ to play it. Who knew?