Update: 2 Weeks

We have been here 2 weeks now. Some days it feels so comfortable that I think we’ve been here much longer, and other days I feel like we must have just showed up because I have no idea what I am doing!

Thankfully, the Segner Family is feeding us most meals because cooking here is so much harder than I imagined. I felt pretty good the day that we purchased things from a specific woman in the market who we knew would give us good prices. We got some staples; rice, flour and beans. We got some produce; green beans, peppers, pineapple and bananas. And then we got home…and realized that preparing all of these things is so much different than at home.

I have made rice 2 times, and neither time has it tasted as good as it does at the Segners’ house. It has tasted dirty. Rice from the market needs to be sorted, and although I have attempted sorting it, I really don’t know what I am looking for. Luckily, when you add enough salt to it, it doesn’t taste so bad. The kids have even complimented me on the rice, so I know it must be so bad that they don’t want me to feel badly about it. They are so sweet.

Dave attempted to make beans. The directions are to soak them overnight and then cook them on a little charcoal grill, called a sigiri, for 3 hours. Easy enough, right? Dave worked on those beans for 3 ½ days before we decided it was just best to give up this round and try again another day. We think that our problem is that we are not keeping the fire hot enough. Dave is out there stuffing charcoal in and blowing on it and poking it with a stick, but evidently we need a little more practice!

The produce is amazing, and we are thanking God for that every day. Even I can’t screw up peeling and slicing a fresh pineapple or a cucumber. The kids have been eating cucumbers and carrots for “snacks”, and I couldn’t be happier about that. Snacks are not a thing here, in Uganda, but it is hard for our American bellies to understand that they don’t always need to be filled to overflowing.

We knew that we would struggle with Wren and her picky eating. She does not care for any of the main sources of protein here; beans, peanut butter, or g-nuts. She is living mainly on carrots, rice and bread and butter right now. I do make her try some of every meal served, and when there is a “sweetie” on the line, like the cake that Mimi made a few nights ago, Wren will clear her bowl. I need to decide when it is time to bring down the hammer and just make her eat a good portion at every meal. Those battles are never fun.

(I wrote this Saturday, and am just getting to post it today, Monday. I am so happy to report that Wren ate ALL of her beans at lunch today! Just 2 weeks in and I consider this major progress!)

Another surprise has been the difficulty of drying our clothes. Hand washing them is not exactly fun, but trying to hang clothes to dry when rain storms are an almost daily occurrence is much worse! The first time, Dave spent a morning washing a week’s worth of clothing, got it hung up around noon and at sunset, when we had to bring it in, realized that we needed many more hours of sunshine to actually get it dry.

The second time, I got up early to wash clothes and get them hung as early in the morning as possible. As we finished lunch around the block from our house, a storm began rolling in, and we had to run home to quickly grab our damp clothes off the line…3 lines actually…it takes three clothes lines to hold our wash. When that storm passed, we hung them out again. Until the next wave of rain came. At that point we decided to hang them all over our house and let the fans blow them dry. Our couch was covered in drying underwear, each of the chairs were draped with towels, and every hanger was drying some garment. It took about 2 days for most of the clothes to be dry enough to put in our drawers.

(Again, progress has been made since the writing of this entry. I washed all of our clothes today, hung them out to dry before 10am, and it has been a beautiful sunny day all day! It is 4:30 now, and I think all of our clothes will be dry by the time I bring them in before dinner! God is good!)

Our hearts were so ready to just jump right into ministry work when we arrived, and in some ways it would be easier for us to see progress and success in accomplishable tasks each day, but we so need this time to figure out life. We are learning, just slowly. The kids are excited about the adventure of learning to do all of these tasks, so that is motivating for me.

We do go into the villages a few times per week, and seeing our kids interacting and caring for other children as if this is exactly what they were created to do in life is truly a gift from God. When we go around the giant circle to introduce ourselves and quiet, meek Wren shouts out her name so loud and proud, I also know that God is growing us all in great big ways.

What a journey we are on.