I bought some hot chips from one of the local stalls, and seriously, they were fantastic! So after I had eaten them, I went out and bought some more.
At Primary school, I finally experienced the Ugandan expression of listening. When Westerners want to show that they are listening, we nod our heads. When Ugandans want to show that they are listening, they raise their eye-brows repeatedly, doing what I term in Australia as “dodgy eye-brows”. At first I was thinking, are you sceptical about what I am saying (I was talking about Australian animals, as they featured in the book we were reading), and then I realise what Louvisa was doing. It’s pretty funny.
I’ve started on working on memorising passages again. While walking to Primary School over the last two days, I’ve memorised psalm 24. Don’t be too impressed – it’s a short psalm.
Because I’ve read all but one of my books, and all of the books here, and one of Britt and Andrew’s, Lisa brought over 4 books for me to read. I read one before work, and 1/3 of another one at lunch. So after work I went to buy some more.
I got on a boda, and asked them to take me to the nearest Christian bookshop. He took me to the tiniest little Catholic stall that had about 3 bibles and half a dozen prayer books, and a whole bunch of icons and rosaries. Not what I wanted. So I jumped on another boda, and said the same thing. He drove past THREE Christian bookshops before stopping at a small second hand general bookshop. I went in, but there wasn’t really anything I wanted. Luckily I knew where 2 of the other three bookshops were, so I started walking back to them. The first had almost no books (about the same as the little Catholic stall, only spread out over a whole shop, and with no icons or rosaries), and by the time I got to the second (which was the one I had gone to with Unia) it was shut. So I started walking back to the 2nd had bookshop, and passed another, general bookshop. So I went in, and bought a book I’ve been wanting to read for a while and a Luganda phrase book. I then hopped on yet another boda and went back.
It’s really funny, lots of people do not know where our place is. My homeward boda asked another one, who knew. He explained it as: you go out of town to (some place), and then you go down the hill. My boda said “Down the hill?” as though he just could not believe that people would go to such a place. And then he took me back.
After dinner, Britt shared a little about the clinic. HIV rates are high in this community. Britt was saying how at the medical clinic, even though a significant proportion have HIV, they keep the condoms in a sealed box in a locked cupboard. They won’t give them out, not just to promote abstinence before marriage, but because they don’t want to be seen as “promoting sex”. The crazy thing is, the person who told Britt that has a young baby… and no husband. Now, I’m not for contraception, but it’s kind of funny here, because a lot of the males have several households in different towns, and there is a very high spreading rate amongst these people, most of whom are extremely poor. It’s a huge worry (for Britt especially, I’m not dealing with it directly). Apparently, even if the condoms are available, it isn’t culturally acceptable to take them, because that implies that you are loose. So there are a whole lotta babies without daddies and a whole lot of spreading of HIV.
And finally, some random cute pictures:
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