October News

Well, it’s been too long since we last wrote for the blog. Hopefully, most of our readers have heard at least some of this from other sources. We apologize, but maintain our claim that this is the best we can do under the circumstances! Please forgive us….

Well, Barbara Moore and Toni Temporiti, CPPS, arrived in Kampala as planned and welcomed us to the overnight accommodations. (We were “bumped” from our original accommodations without our knowing it until the day before we left. We were disappointed in the fact that no air was stirring in several of the rooms since the windows opened onto an indoor area. We even had to share a room on the return trip – with no moving air again.) However, the time in between those Kampala visits were full of rest and good times, Gulu style. Attached are a few photos from those days…. A supper in our kitchen; a hot game of rummy (Contract, Liverpool, etc.), doing laundry,…. Oh… and a flat tire on our journey! Thank God for the good driver, Olanya George, who handled the car well, and was able to replace it with the spare which he has kept in good condition.

Amazingly, the electric power remained stable until their final evening here. They had to pack by flashlight and candlelight. Both Barbara and Toni were “good scouts,” without complaining. The longest we have been without power was six days. At that time we did lose some of the food in the freezer, but since then we have frozen medium size bottles filled with water, then left one in the freezer and put the other in the refrigerator portion to keep foods chilled until the power returned. Very successful!

Jo Ann has usually been working at Gulu Hospital Clinic with Dr. Alice. This has become a warm and happy relationship in which the patients are also benefiting. Dr. Alice has said that Sr. Jo Ann’s clinics are too crowded! The word got out among the people attesting to the fine care they are getting, and everyone wants to come on her days!

Jo Ann says: This has been a very different experience for me. There are no charts kept on any patient. They have these little 6x8 paper Budget Exercise Books that they carry with them to any /every medical visit – so you can imagine what some of them look like and what shade of white/yellow they are. This booklet is their chart. So you must do all your charting while you see them. There are no prescription pads – they take the book to the pharmacy and they fill what you have prescribed if they have the drug in stock. As you can imagine the list of stock drugs is very short. Often they have none in some categories. They do have a lab and can do some things with fingersticks but don’t have the reagents to do chemistries etc. They have an ancient EKG machine that doesn’t seem to work and no one seems to know how to read them. Gulu Hospital is a government hosp. that is a referral hosp. for the more complicated cases. Needless to say it’s been quite an adjustment. But I just love the patients and can’t seem to move on to where I know things are so much better. Dr. Alice is a great woman and cares so much for her people, I want to do all I can to help. Of course I still need a translator, but have a few phrases down pat. One is “Atwero konyi ningning.” How can I help you. Unfortunately then they answer very quickly and most of the time I haven’t understood nary a word. Enter the translator who I am very grateful to!

Fr. Santo has returned from abroad and will be going to Amuru this week as pastor so hopefully things can move there on our housing soon. Marion is working in the Pastoral Office with school fees for children sponsored by Team Africa in Denver. She also started teaching a class on Mondays and Tuesdays to 103 candidates at Sacred Heart Secondary School who hope to be Baptized and complete Christian Initiation before the term is up. This is short term at the request of our language teacher who was overwhelmed with all sorts of responsibilities.

Pat has been working at St. Joseph’s Primary School which is quite near the Cathedral area where we live. The headmaster turned over the two P7 classes to her on the second day. This wasn’t what she had anticipated! There are approximately 100 students in one class and 86 in the other. Students come late and leave in the middle; there is no bell to start or end; many of the students have neither exercise books (paper on which to write) nor writing tool. They are preparing for their exit exam from Primary which will take place in November. While they are supposed to understand and speak English, many of them do not…. They haven’t been in school all that much. Since she speaks and understands very little Acoli, there is much frustration on both sides of instruction. (There is no desk!) Test results should be interesting!

Speaking of the Acoli language development…. Here is a challenge for you:
Match the Acoli words with their English meanings
Ceng Sunday
Ru-piny Dawn
Cabit Day
Wor Year
Mwaka Night
Answers at the end of this post!

Or, here is another: Sort out: myero, twero, tworo, maro, mero, moro, malo, mato, mere, etc. Then there are the words that have different meanings according to whether your voice is high or low.… Our classes have not been as frequent as we had hoped, but folks say we are doing well. Is anyone interested in our dictionary? All of the words to which we have been exposed in classes are now in a spreadsheet so we can sort them by Acoli, English, part of speech, etc. We have over 830 words already!

Barogal Clinic has finally opened! The nurse who will staff the clinic on a regular basis has moved to a nearby camp with her children. The doctor will visit the clinic periodically, from what we have learned. The people in the area are quite happy to have the clinic so much closer than Gulu which is where they used to have to go. People would walk for miles/kilometers, even though they were sick, in order to wait most of the day to see a medical practitioner. Those in two camps will be close, now.

There was a huge celebration for Bishop Sabino and four of his classmates on September 13th. This was big for the whole Archdiocese! They were celebrating 25 years as priests. Actually, six of them were ordained in a single class, the largest ever for this place. One has died, and one is in Rome and didn’t come for this. The other four were fondly honored. The three of us offered to help decorate, and worked for about three hours. The lady “in charge” was new at this task, but a young man was very helpful. When he realized how much older we were, he was concerned that we were working too hard. Folks just aren’t very healthy by the time they reach our age in this culture. He was extremely grateful for our assistance!

Speaking of Bishop Sabino…. Can you imagine this happening with the Bishop in YOUR area? …. Friday evening the three of us, Marion, Jo, and Pat, were sitting at the kitchen table studying, when Pat noticed movement elsewhere. Something had scuttled from the counter behind the propane burner, down to the floor behind the propane tank. We all jumped up. (We have been trying to get rid of our mouse population since we arrived!) Marion and Pat moved the propane tank out from the wall, but as they did so, the mouse scooted under the tank. They dropped the tank and we heard “Eek! Eek!” several times. When we looked closely, we could see a furry tail sticking out. ??Furry?? Yes! Well, we couldn’t decide what to do. We prepared the trash can to capture it, but realized that none of us had the heart to kill it. We thought of getting “Bura Puss” from one of the workers, but about that time we saw car lights near the garage…. It was Bishop Sabino’s garage. Pat went out with her flashlight, braving the dogs, and enlisted Bishop’s assistance. Marion had the push broom by this time. Bishop immediately lifted the tank, releasing the mouse. We all jumped back at first, then Bishop cornered the poor creature, who had lost the fur on its tail by now, whacked it with the broom then stomped on it. Pat then used the brush part of the broom (which had separated from the handle) to throw it out the door. Did you notice that Jo wasn’t mentioned in this saga? Can you guess where she was? Yes, standing on a kitchen chair to observe! Bishop Sabino was our hero! The mouse was very small! We do hope this is the last one for the duration.

In the midst of all of this we had our second birthday celebration. Pat had a birthday on September 19th. We started with prayer, followed by supper, and then gifts.
There are two other photos this time. One is of the two resident donkeys. This photo was taken from our open door… They are almost house residents… One day they tried to follow us into the house!

The other photo shows a building under construction. Look closely to see that the supports that look like scaffolding are simply pieces of tree trunks. It is amazing to us that the structures don’t collapse!

Answers: Ceng=Day; Ru-piny=Dawn; Cabit=Sunday; Wor=Night; Mwaka=Year