Just what the doctor ordered

It was so nice to have a change in scenery and escape Mbale and the MAPLE House and head out to the village (which village you might ask? well to answer this African style, "a village", people love answering questions here by simply rephrasing what was asked). Every moment and outing is always an adventure here. One simply never knows what's going to happen. So our adventure began by buying water for the day, and since we were going to the village we opt for the larger bottles only to find out that the larger bottles are have simply been filled with boiled water and we find ourselves chuckling over this. . ."of course they would be selling boiled water in a store here, for it would be to logical to simply sell imported bottled water!" Then we head for the taxi park to what? . . .bargain! (that's another African mannerism, throwing in questions words in your sentences only to answer them before the other person has a chance). Anyways, the taxi park is a hustling and bustling place. Taxi drivers yell out to you as you're walking through to see where you are going and if it's not the place they're driving to then they try to convince you to change your destination and go with them. And then once you've made the deal and bargained down from the mzungu tax, you climb into this taxi van that probably seats 9 comfortably but will soon be filled with no less than 15 and probably more like 20 people. And while you wait and wait and wait, slowly getting squished and squished and squished, vendors come tapping on the taxi windows trying to make one last sell before you depart. Anyone up for a sweet banana to go, or a briefcase, candy, chipati, maybe some bed sheets? And just when I thought we were finally about to depart, one last salesman comes up, this time actually inside the taxi, and with this booming voice begins giving this speech. And of course it's not in english so I have no idea what's going on what he's selling or if he's even selling something at all but everyone's attention is drawn to him so I know it's something important- medicine. And what is this new exciting medicine that has caught everyone's attention? Well I soon get a whiff of it as the sample goes by and I am instantly reminded of Vick's Vapor Rub. So after about half the taxi buys this product we finally began our hour and half ride to the village.

Florence's oasis

We arrive in the village and it seems to be one of the more desolate areas of Uganda, and meet one of mama Veronica's friends, Florence. Florence's house is anything but desolate. It is an oasis amongst this village. Her house is surrounded by beautiful flowering trees and has a wonderful garden and veranda to sit on to enjoy it all. She is quite the entrepreneur. She cultivates g-nuts (very similar to peanuts, and quite delicious), raises chickens, has a bread oven and teaches local women how to cook bread to become entrepreneurs themselves, and then is planning to plant orange trees. She and Veronica are probably the two most professional and educated women I've met here but yet have no formal education- amazing.me and mama Veronica

After sitting on the veranda and enjoying some delicious g-nuts, we head into town and enjoy some local beans and rice and take the five minute tour of the village (the three of us girls had a new found appreciation for living in Mbale, because there is nothing in the village). As we struggle to push through our local food food-coma we soon encounter a group of local kids- this is when the day gets fun. We get the usual greeting, "Mzungu! mzungu! How are you?!?!", but these kids aren't satisfied with, "I'm good how are you?". They want more, so they follow. So the three of us do the typical white person in Africa thing, we whip out our cameras and begin taking pictures with these kids- they LOVE it! It is so fun to watch these children pose for the camera and then hurry up to you to see how it turned out- they can't get enough of it. There giggles are music to my ears, and their smiles are the biggest smiles I've seen. So after about 45 minutes of playing with the cameras we scramble for new entertaining ideas- the sunglasses. These couple hours we end up spending with these kids involve many cultural exchanges, and we must remember they do not speak english so that of course makes things more interesting. The three of us teach them london bridges falling down, ABCs, twinkle twinkle little star and any other typical American children's song or game. But the best was when the kids sang one of there own local songs and clapped and danced to the rhythm.



All in all, the day was actually unsuccessful for out purpose of going to buy millet, why? . . . because of course we were a day too early. But these two hours spent with these kids needless to say greatly made up for it.

our oasis in Mbale: Mt. Elgon Resort