A Weekend in The Village

For the record I was going to post this on Monday morning, but the internet was down until about now. So I am doing it now.

On Friday I made Chapati with Mary. That was a good time. Directly following that I packed up and shipped off to the home of George William. We left right at 11:00 AM. We then took a bus to Soroti. From Soroti we took a truck to Oditel Trading Center. This is in the Kapelebyong sub county. Then we took a motorcycle to George's house. We arrived there at roughly 7:30 PM. That a long journey, at the end of which I was rather hungry since we didn't lunch in that time.

George's home has 2 sets of houses. His parents live about 100 yards from his place. Each set of buildings has about 4-6 structures. His guest house is located where his parents stay. That is where Julius and I stayed. We shared a mosquito net. It was exciting, and in other news I believe that the mosquito net was actually more useful for keeping out the frogs. When we woke up on Saturday we had 5 frogs, and 6 on Sunday morning. They were just hopping around our house. I think they were Julius's guests.

During our nights together Julius gave me intensive Ateso lessons. I am quite sure that if I spent more time in the village I would be quite proficient by time I left. I have many more phrases now than I did when I left.

Then on Saturday Julius biked into Oditel to... well now that I mention it I have no idea what he did, but he returned at about noon. Meanwhile, back at the ranch... I hope someone in my audience knows the childrens book that just ADHD'd its way into this blog post... ANYWAY... While Julius was pedaling to town and back, George William and I walked around Apedu village.

About villages: So a village is a distinct portion of land. Apedu is 2 KMx4 KM. There are multiple villages in a parish, a number of parishes in a subcounty, and so on up to districts. This division of land would put itself analogous to either a township or a section. The village is not a group of families living together, it is like our rural, country, sort of idea. There are houses and then another down the path another KM or what ever.

We walked around, and he greeted all of the neighbors and things, he also checked his crops. Then we returned to his house, and prepared for our Saturday "Programme." We ate prior to leaving. We then walked to GW's sister's house, but she was not there. We then went to see if she was at the neighbor's house, but alas she was not there either. Then we were out of time and went to the location for our preaching. Then we ate again, the exact same thing we had eaten an hour before. Chicken soup and atapa (sp?)(Casava flour and millet flour in a large sticky brown lump)(It is mystifyingly chewy and gritty all at the same time)(The chewy is similar to like bread dough, and then as if there were sand in the bread dough). I do like those things though, so it is OKAY.

Then after eating we waited for the people to arrive. They had announced it to begin at 2. We arrived at 3:30 and we were the first ones there. We waited until about 4:15. We started with about 20 people, we had about 50 by the end. It was my first church service held under a tree. It was nice.

Then we went back to GW's place, we ate and talked, then went to bed. Bed occurs early in the village. Since there is no electricity, there is not a lot to do after dark.

On Sunday we got up, ate plain rice for breakfast, and then journeyed into Oditel. This was more challenging than we had planned. The motorcycle that dropped us off was supposed to pick us up. He was there in time to have breakfast with us, that went perfectly. He left with GW. Julius and I waited.... and waited... and an hour later GW calls. The motorcycle broke down just outside of Oditel. They had sent bicycles to get us, and we should start walking. (Note that the only motorcycle in the town was now broken down.)

We got to church just in time for me to preach. I did so. Then we were escorted to the elder's house who lived right outside the church. We ate chicken and rice, and then were about to leave after a good time of fellowship, then he said we should stop and greet the pastor on our way out of town.

If I had known that I was going to be forced to eat a second lunch, I would have more firmly resisted the amount of food the host forced on me in the first lunch. So 1 minute 23 seconds after eating copious amounts of chicken and rice, I sat down to just as much beef and rice. Then a bottle of coke. (The soda is in glass bottles, so those older readers will more likely understand this. As I was drinking the aforementioned coke the carbonation got all caught up with me and forced a backup of soda to come out my nose. This was not amazing.)

Then we road the motorcycle down cow infested roads to Amuria, a journey of roughly 40 minutes.

We then took a car to Soroti, then a taxi to Mbale. OH WAIT!!!!

HOW COULD I FORGET!

As I was about to leave on Sunday morning GW's mother gave me a chicken because she had wanted to cook it for me but had failed to do so because of a lack of time. Then GW's wife said that she had one tied up in the house for me, so as I left, I left with 2 chickens, and all of the journey I just told you about, the 2 chickens were with us.

So that was my weekend. PS today we ate one of the chickens. She was nice.

On Friday I believe I am going to go to Kampala to go back to the Ministry of Agriculture (So here is a confession; when I was writing, and when I say, Ministry of Agriculture I almost always nearly say/write Ministry of Magic. I know, I am a nerd.). I may stay there with Julius (A different one than I spent my weekend with.).