"You are most welcome here"

Being sick far away from home is rough. Crystal woke up this morning with a pretty sore throat. Throughout the day it progressed into quesiness(sp?) dizziness and a fever. Its a little scary when your wife gets sick out in the bush in Africa. We rested this morning and then walked to lunch with one of our roommates where we ordered some much needed american food. I got a "beef burger" crystal got spaghetti. But believe me, whatever picture is brought through your mind right now of beef burfer and spaghetti is not what we got served. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't bad, but it wasn't In-n-out or Buca-di-beppo either.

Crystal took a turn for the worse after ordering so we got our plates to go (they charge an extra 500 shillings for take out boxes--not much motivation to save some in a doggie-bag) and walked 15 mins back home. It felt like we were walking in a giant dusty tanning salon and I have a white-trash tank-top tan that any red-blooded american hick could be proud of.

I talked to a friend in Kampala that is a nurse this afternoon and ran Crystal's symptoms by her for some feedback. She said it sounds like a minor flu that has been going around Kampala, nothing serious. Praise God. We stocked up on the Immodium and the Cipro before leaving thinking that diahrea would be our arch-nemesis, turns out to be the opposite. Getting fiber is near impossible on a diet of white rice and poshu (sp?) an bland pot of corn flower that looks like angel food cake but tastes ironically like a bland pot of corn flower.

Last night we had 16 of the students from the Restore Academy over to the Restore office and held a video conference with 200 people supporting Restore in Washington. It was amazing to bridge the gap across the world. The kids introduced themselves and talked about how much they enjoyed being able to go to the Academy. Before the conference call we all watched the movie "War Dance" which is about a group of students from Patongo (pronounced Pa-Tong) primary school (in an IDP camp) that wins a national music award. A moving picture that I recommend, the kids stories place an unavoidable lump in your throat. It was an honor to watch the film together.

On our first day in Uganda last week we bought a local cell phone. The phone was 45,000 Ush (about $22), then we bought 5,000 Ush of pre-paid minutes to use (ends up being about 4 mintues, "airtime" in uganda is expensive). If you do the math that makes a nice round 50,000 Ush (no sales tax in Ug). I handed the woman 3 bills of 20,000 each and the woman put them in the desk gave me my receipt and moved on to something else as if the transaction were complete. "Umm... lets see, 45,000 for the phone, plus 5,000 for the minutes," I announced, pretending to be doing the math for the first time, "makes 50,000." Studbornly, the woman reaches into a drawer to pull out change as another employee tells her what she owes me. She hands me 5,000 in change and then looks at me. I stared back into her dark eyes without moving the hand that the cash was in. Reluctantly she gave me another 5000.

Today when we were walking back from lunch we passed a late-elementary age girl dressed in school uniform who greeted us with a smile and a hello and then unashamedly said, "You give me money." Not 2 minutes later we passed an older ugandan woman about 50 yards from our house who looked at us and then looked down. As we passed each other she muttered, "We don't need you people here."

How does one reconcile these encounters with the tremendous hospitality that floods northern uganda? Nearly everyone we pass on the streets smiles and every time we enter a room we are greeted with handshakes and the warm greeting "You are welcome!" The nation is abundantly friendly--far more friendly than my own. The teachers and students we have met have embraced us as their own in only a matter of days. We are served tea at every stop and it is always insisted that we are served meals first. We are taken care of and looked after and constantly asked, "How you like Uganda?" The hospitality is overwhelming, I feel embraced by people that are not my own. And yet still I struggle, wondering if we are doing some good here.