Meeting the In-Laws

A few weeks ago I went to meet my future in-laws. Humphrey's family live in a village called Bumeru in the south-east of Uganda, less than a mile from the shores of Lake Victoria. Getting there was an adventure in itself! First we took a taxi (which here is a public minibus with 14 seats, although there are usually at least 20 people on them!), for about 3 hours, when we reached the end of the road! Then we took motorbikes for almost an hour along narrow paths through the bush, in the dark. I was very relieved when we finally got to Humphrey's home.

Humphrey's home



There were a lot of people there, some of whom seemed to have come from some distance to meet me. Only one or two people spoke English, so I spent a lot of time smiling at people as we sat in silence. Humphrey has 17 younger brothers and sisters, and a lot of them were there, as well as cousins, uncles, aunts, nieces and nephews. We were also visited by a lot of neighbours and folks from Humphreys's church. According to Humphrey, I was the first white person to ever visit the village, so I attracted a lot of attention! Everyone was very friendly, and I felt incredibly welcomed. They were just disappointed that I wasn't staying for longer than a weekend.






Humphrey's dad and step-mums






Humphrey's father was very kind to me, although we didn't talk a lot because of the language barrier. Before I left, he presented me with a chicken. Much to the amusement of everyone there I was quite reluctant to hold the creature, not being overly fond of chickens. In the end I had to just grin and bear it, even posing for a photo with it! I dropped the poor animal as soon as the camera was lowered. On our way home, we visited Humprey's grandfather, and I went through the same ordeal there, and we ended up travelling (on the motorbikes again) back to Jinja with two chickens!







The chicken and me








Humphrey, his grandfather, and me



It was a lovely weekend and a great opportunity to see where Humphrey comes from and to get to know his family. We are planning to go and spend some time with them again over christmas, just before coming to the UK.

Weddings, friends, and broken things...

Hi folks, it is time for the next (eagerly anticipated, I'm sure) installment of my life in Africa blog. Last time, I promised to share with you all my plans over the next few months. So here goes...

I guess the big thing is my wedding, taking place in just under 6 months time! I'm getting very excited, but I have never realised just how much work goes into preparing a wedding! Fortunatly I have wonderful parents who are helping to organise everything, otherwise I would be planning across continents. That's right, the wedding will not be here in Uganda, but in the lovely village of Thaxted in Essex, England, where my Grandmother lives.

My fiance, Humphrey, a Ugandan man who I work with here, will be coming to England for the first time for our wedding. We are hoping to travel together to the UK after Christmas. He is currently taking a break from YWAM and has been at home with his family for a couple of months, so I don't get to see him as much as I would like!

This weekend I will be going to meet my future in-laws for the first time. They live quite far off the beaten track not far from the Kenya border in the south-east of Uganda. I'm looking forward to the visit - I will let you know how it goes soon.

Between now and my return to the UK, I will be continuing with the health promotion project. The school is not running until next year, but we are working in a nearby village, particularly with the women, to continue encouraging them to live healthily. I'm also kept busy with lots of admin work: fund raising, policy writing, and lots of meetings!

Now that I have fulfilled my promise of updating you on my plans, here are some snippets of what has been happening since my last blog...

Last week I had a week off work and my lovely friend Steph came to stay. I had planned to show her some of the sights of the Jinja area, but unfortunatly it rained almost the whole week! We did get a chance to visit some places, getting exceptionally muddy in the process. I enjoyed the chance to go into town several times and eat really good food (by which I mean western-style food) at some nice cafes.

On a less positive note, I have had a frustrating week in which both my computer and my mobile phone stopped working. I now have a new mobile, but the laptop is not so easy to replace. I'm hoping that the problem is fixable, and in the meantime I am very grateful to my roommate Penny for sharing her laptop with me.

Well, that's about it for now, thanks for reading and keep in touch!

Until next time, Farewell

PS. Sorry that there are no pictures on this one, they are all on my broken computer!

My first blog - The Last Few Months

Hi everyone! If you are reading this because you know me and I've sent you a link, this blog will now replace the newsletter that I (infrequently) sent. If you are reading this because you like reading stranger's blogs, welcome to my life!

I will try to keep this blog well updated, and will send out emails every so often to remind you to read it. I hope you enjoy my ramblings.

To begin with, here is an update of the last few months:

The School of Health Promotion for Development, which began back in January, ended in July. It was an amazing six months. It was the first time that we have ever run the school, and we only had four students, but they worked very hard and God used us more than we could have imagined. We struggled for a while to raise the finances to complete the school, until suddenly the money startedpouring in, and we had more than enough! Isn't God great! We went on outreach to several different locations in Uganda, where we spent time teaching health topics and practically promoting health in villages, schools, prisons, hospitals, and other YWAM bases.

By the time the school ended, I was utterly exhausted, so I took two weeks holiday. I stayed here in Jinja, but went out lots to the swimming pool, to town for good food, and once for a horse-back trek along the river; a great way of seeing some incredible countryside that is not accessible any other way.

After my holiday, I was on the move again, this time to Tanzania for an East Africa staff conference. The journey on a bus was long, tedious, dusty and bumpy, but it was (just about) worth it, as the conference was really good; about 300 YWAM staff from around the region gathered together for worship, teaching and fun.

On my return to Uganda, I set off again, to visit our base on an island in Lake Victoria. The island is about 2 hours away by boat, and very isolated and undeveloped. While I was there, I managed to fall down some stairs and break my ankle. Getting back to Jinja by boat was quite an adventure, although a very painful one! Fortunately there are fairly good medical services in Jinja, and I was able to get an x-ray and plaster cast quite quickly.

That was about 6 weeks ago. Since then I have done nothing except any work on the base which does not involve too much walking around, while I wait for my ankle to heal. The plaster cast has been removed now, so hopefully it will be back to normal soon. Although it has been annoying and painful, it has been nice to stay in one place for a while after all the travelling around of the last few months.

I'm going to stop here, in the next installment I will let you know my plans for the next few months, as well as keeping you updating on anything happening here.

God bless you all,

Rachel