Tuesday22.11.11 16th full day in Uganda

Nursery school mostly went as normal. Elijah (from top class, not the Elijah I’ve talked about previously) was holding his arm, rubbing it. Justine, the teacher, looked at it, and then dismissed him back to his line for the concert rehearsals. A few minutes later I went over to look at it, and saw that it was quite badly infected. What’s worse, is because it would have been sore, he was playing with it. Given how filthy kid’s hands get in even in Australia (let alone here, with a general lack of hygiene understanding) it was only going to get worse. So I took him back to our house, cleaned away the oozing pus, sprayed it with Dettol, and covered it with a bandage. It won’t help much, but it will stop it from getting more and more infected.

I stayed home from Primary School because Britt, Lisa, Doreen and I were going to go to the craft markets. We went, and I wanted a bag that says Mzungu. Doreen said, “But everyone can see that you’re a mzungu.” I told her that that was why it was funny. I couldn’t buy one, but I bought a black kids t-shirt and two black beaded necklaces that I shall turn into a bag. It will be cool. Though, I should probably work out how to use a sewing machine for that. I also got a puzzle of Africa.

After that, Doreen and Britt needed to buy some fabric and beads for the Gold Group (HIV positive women), so they can make things to sell in the West. After a mere 5 minutes, both Lisa and my eyes were glazing over, so Lisa mentioned that she was meeting a friend, Pesh, for dinner, and I went along too.

Dinner was lots of fun. It was nice to meet a Ugandan who is really doing well. While I know that ministry is needed much more amongst the poor, it can give a skewed vision of what Africa and Uganda are like. Pesh spent most of the evening aiming to convince me to come back and stay in Uganda. About ¾ of the people I speak to want me to stay. The other ¼ think I’m completely crazy to leave my nice house in Australia to come to such a difficult place as Uganda.

After dinner, Pesh bought Lisa an ice-cream and me an icy-pole, and we walked with him part of the way to his girl-friend’s house, and then Lisa and I walked all the way back to Lugala. The next morning when we told people that’s what we did, everyone looked at us like we had completely lost our minds. Bur it was actually only an hour’s walk. I didn’t get bitten by any mozzies (not one bite here – I get much more in Australia!) and lots of guys kept on saying how they wanted to be our friends, how we were very beautiful (one even said we were very beautiful from the back… hmmm…) and someone even dashed at me and told me that he loved me. Ugandan men are very good for self-esteem of this particular mzungu. Lisa joked that I’ll go back to Australia all convinced of my invincible powers over all things male. I told her I was not at all convinced, and that I doubted that I was any more beautiful than I was in Australia.