Ground Breaking

Last week we received an invitation for a ground breaking ceremony. Because we take Fridays off from home-schooling, this was the perfect morning outing for the kids and me. We brought our quiet and obedient Rottweiler along for the walk, as the event was in our neighborhood.

The local government has hired a Chinese road construction company to repair Church Road. Hopefully they'll pave it, and pave it well. Sometimes a badly paved road is worse than a dirt road. Here are the kids and Ellie, our dog, in front of some of the construction vehicles.

Events usually have tents set up to protect the guests from either rain or hot sun. Fortunately, on this day, the tents gave us relief from the sun, not the rain. We never know which we'll have. In classic fashion, the guests of honor were seated at a table in the front. In this case, I know one is the mayor of Entebbe, and another is the Commissioner. I didn't catch the names and titles of the others. What surprised me was watching how many of the special guests talked/texted on their phones during the ceremony. Do they do that in America as well these days?

This local band played while a few groups of school students marched to the celebration site. We missed the marching, though we could hear the band from our house. The invitation said 9:00am, but if ten years in East Africa has taught us anything, it's to arrive an hour and a half later, which is when things actually started happening as the guests of honor had arrived about that time as well.

All events here include "some small speeches." This phrase can actually mean "many lengthy speeches" The event started with an opening prayer, followed by the speeches. In this case, the woman here is the LC, or liaison with the government, for our neighborhood. She also helps solve disputes. She did a nice job of welcoming everyone and kept it pretty short.

Then the band started playing again. Imagine our surprise as we were focused on the band, when we turned around and found this young girl! Wow! Not only was she a serious contortionist, but she was performing on a slippery tablecloth on top of a small table! I kept worrying the cloth would slip right off while she was in the middle of posing.

Luckily, she did it all perfectly while everyone snapped photos or videos with their cell phones (having stopped talking/texting). The next speaker asked what she eats to stay so flexible. Behind her you can see several photographers/videographers as well as 3 groups of students in their uniforms, grey/white (L), pink/white (C), and green/white (R). The building behind them is a private kindergarten, but to the left of the photo, beyond what you can see, is also a public primary school.

This is the head engineer giving his speech, and introducing the Chinese construction crew. This was the last photo I got as Cooper became increasingly uncomfortable about two things: the length of his time at the event, and the concern that they would fire up those huge construction vehicles and run us all over.

Honestly, my longevity at these sorts of events is rather pathetic as well. To my credit, it runs in my family; just ask my dad. It's nice to have a small kid as an excuse to leave. Whatever will I do when I've no little tikes to take me out of this sort of thing? All that aside, we're thankful that someone is doing something about our roads, even if it's one road at a time. No one likes to get stuck in a pothole which is inside of a speed bump!

In Celebration of Ugandan Independence Day

Today is Uganda's 52nd celebration of independence, having gained independence from Britain in 1962. In honor of this day, I'd like to take some time to learn and share some information about the country where we've been living for nearly three years.

1. At 241,038 sq km, Uganda is slightly smaller than Oregon. A good portion of that is water.

2. The biggest export is coffee! We enjoy it every morning and can testify to its delicious flavor.

3. President Museveni has been in office since January 1986 - wow! The State House (like the American White House) is just down the road and up the hill from our house.

4. The highest mountain in Uganda is 16,763 feet, Mount Stanley. Apparently we even have snow here, though I've never seen it. We have been able to hike around a few crater lakes though.

5. We have about 36 million people living here, and our family was just interviewed by the Census. That was an interesting morning - two ladies in Census aprons came and asked us about our religion, our computers, and our mail among other things.

Some of the fine people of Uganda, specifically those from our SIL office. ;)

6. According to the Ethnologue, Uganda has 41 languages. The reason we live here is to help bring God's living Word to people in their own languages.

Go to www.ethnologue.com for a better view of this language map.

7. Uganda is one of three countries (Kenya and Tanzania are the other 2) blessed to share Lake Victoria - the second largest fresh water lake in the world. Many Ugandans work as fishermen to support themselves and their families. Every week I cook Nile Perch from Lake Vic, and it has the highest content of Omega-3 fatty acids found in any fish. Unfortunately Lake Vic also has the parasite bilharzia, so we don't swim in it.

Tessa and Jack on the shores of Lake Victoria (before Cooper came along)

8. Here's a kicker: according to a recent edition of National Geographic, grasshoppers are 40% more expensive than beef in Uganda! Cheers to Uganda for eating "alternative" protein!
Tessa's arm has a protein-packed visitor

9. Uganda has the third highest birth rate in the world, following Niger and Mali. 49% of the population is under the age of 15. Life expectancy is 54 years. UNESCO cites the literacy rate at 65%.

Some of the kids at the church we attend

10. Entebbe, where we live, is just a smidge above the Equator, but since we also sit at 3,800 feet elevation, we have a fantastic climate. On the thermometer we're basically between the 60's and 80's all year round - yep, we're spoiled. Another nice thing is that because of our location the sunrise and sunset are basically the same through the year too, getting light a bit before 7am and darkish around 7pm. There are about 80,000 other folks living with us on this peninsula jutting into Lake Victoria. That's just enough to have a lot of diversity, but not enough to have much traffic; a perfect combination.

We love where we live and are thankful that the Lord has brought us here! Come visit us and enjoy some great people, beautiful geography, and amazing animals.

* Some statistics, facts, and photos gleaned from:
http://www.ethnologue.com/country/ug/default/***EDITION***
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uganda
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ug.html