Last week my sister Alyce came to visit us in Nabilatuk! I want to thank her for being an amazing help and blessing to me and to the team. She arrived to find Summer and Miriam malaria stricken and most of KACHEP out or sick too. It was such a crazy week with so many fun things that happened!
I had just
spent the week with Dr Val and upon hearing that my beloved teammates were
practically dying in Nabilatuk and so probably wouldn't make it to come get us,
Val and I went and picked Alyce up (Mon 2nd) from the small airstrip in Moroto
where she was flying into. So 2 hours from Nabilatuk and not sure how we're
going to get back there, we hear that Miriam had driven up to a hospital near
us to get tested for malaria and bruscellosis. So we spent the morning in
Moroto, Alyce did some souvenir shopping and we had lunch while we waited to
get another update of the situation. Miriam came to Moroto, picked us up and
somehow we arrived safely in Nabilatuk later that afternoon.
Miriam's
malaria count was 180. People have malaria at anything higher than zero. People
feel sick and unable to get out of bed at a count of 4. Miriam had 180 and
drove 240 km that day, she shouldn't have been walking or talking let alone
driving. Hmm the things you discover after the fact.
The day
after, Miriam was on an intravenous drip with malaria medication and fluids for
extreme dehydration, rotated for three days. On the second night the IV line
came out and when she went back to the clinic to get it put back in, the nurse
had to jab her in about 10 different places because her main veins had mostly
all collapsed. It was a scary time for all of us, especially Summer and I in
fear for her, let's put it that way.
So Alyce
came in perfect timing and we were still able to spend quality time together
despite the crazy circumstances. 
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| Alyce came bearing gifts. I've got a licorice allsort in my mouth. (in case you were wondering) |
Wednesday
was, for all who are American or who have ever watched an American TV show
would know, 4th of July, aka Independence Day. Alyce and I tried to make the
day as special as we could for Summer. We have of course never celebrated the
day so didn't really know what to do but we still had fun. Together the three
of us (between checking on Miriam) drew an American flag (50 stars & 13
stripes and all!), made garlic bread and pizza for dinner and cinnamon rolls
and a peach pie for dessert (which took most of the afternoon to do as all we
have in the way of a kitchen here is a small fire), had fun singing national
anthems together, Summer sung hers very passionately and played cards (4
corners, which became a game Alyce loved to play but never won until the last
day she was here :).  |
| Summer, Alyce and I making the American flag |
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| Alyce's swishy skirt. |
On Friday
we started a project that we'd been wanting to do for a while but was catalysed
by the fact that we wanted to share it with Alyce who would be leaving the
following Wednesday and Miriam who would be leaving the following weekend. So
we got together with our Karamojan girls (Nabor, Valentina and Christine) and
we all sewed traditional K'jong skirts! See photos :) We bought 7 large cloths
of blanket-like material all of different patterns to make 7 skirts for us all.
Working together we cut the blanket in rectangle panels and sat down and made 7
skirts that had 14 panels in each, all completed in a day! It was sooooo much
fun! We are officially Karamajong now with our swishy skirts :) The best part
about it was seeing Valentina, Nabor and Christine really get into it as well.
They were just as excited, if not more excited about the whole thing!
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| This is me choosing the best cuts of donkey meat for dinner. |
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| Our cooking stove. |
So change
of plans! We took our donkey meat with us but they had prepared hotdogs, so
there was plenty of food to go around :)
Sunday was
another crazy fun out of the blue opportunity in which Summer, Alyce and I went
to a prison in Namalu, about 1hr from Nabilatuk. I gave my testimony of how
Jesus has changed my life and Summer spoke about Zacchaeus the tax collector
and how, although he was a thief, he was
forgiven when he made the choice to change his life and give back what he had
stolen, asking Jesus for forgiveness, (Luke 19:1-10) "For the Son of Man
came to seek and save the lost." I won't mention that we didn't get home
til around 9:30pm because we put petrol in our diesel land cruiser and then had
to empty and replace it all again. Fun times!!
On Tuesday
the three of us went to a local primary school and we were warmly welcomed with
a song from the students with bongo drums and impressive harmonies. Alyce is a
primary school teacher at home and so had brought 200 pencils that the students
from her school had donated to give to this Karamajong school. We spent some
time with the whole school (around 200 students) in their assembly and then we
went into a classroom that had 20 kids of equivalent grading to Alyce's
Australian students.
Alyce's students had all drawn pictures for these children
and wrote a few sentences about themselves. Alyce had taken photos of each of
her students and attached them to the drawings so the K'jong could see their
Australian student counterparts. It was nice to see their faces devouring these
photos of fair, blonde haired, blue eyed children and read about their families
and pets and favourite sports. We got the kids to write messages back to the
Aussies with things like, My name is..., I have... people in my family, In my
garden is... (all the children will have family gardens they work in with maize
or sorghum or beans in them, etc.), at home we have...animals, etc. Then they
also drew drawings and we took photos of them with their pictures. It was
really fun to have such a reciprocal activity and I can't wait to hear what Alyce's
Australian students say when they see cute Karamojan children holding up the
drawings they have drawn! It'll probably blow their minds to think of their
drawings all the way in Africa!
Tuesday
night we had a massive party together with the KACHEP members and the four of
us singing and dancing.
We were not really celebrating but
commemorating Miriam for her time serving in Karamoja and also saying goodbye
to Alyce as well, as she flew out the following morning. I'm not going to lie,
I cried when she left; having family visit you in such a place as Karamoja gives
you a teasing taste of home that is both wonderful and horribly sad when the
time comes to an end.
For a short
time we were four! Now as I write this I am down country in Jinja and when we
return to Karamoja tomorrow (Sunday), we will be two.
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