Exchange Rates

Hopefully, everyone got the forward of the email from the Trust Fund, officially approving Okweyo. I went rummaging through the budget today, updating this and that, and re-evaluating our situation.

 

On April 25th, a Euro bought you 2,637 Ugandan shillings, and 40,000 of them bought us 105 million of them. 

 

Today, a Euro buys us 2,519 shillings, and our budget has shrunk to UGX 100 million. Fluctuating currencies robbed us of:  annual school fees for 15 kids, or two motorbikes, or money to facilitate 2.5 healing seminars.

 

...Probably we'll cut something less important.

We went to the same junior high...just saying...

NY Times: On the Court and on the Trail, One Aide Looms Over Obama:

"He's quick and he's strong," Mr. Love said of Mr. Obama. "A lot of people still don't know that he's left-handed, so he can get to the basket and get his shot off, even though he's not the most explosive or tallest player on the court."

We were in 8th grade Science together, tried out for the same JV Basketball team (I made the first cut), and I played Varsity football and he didn't.

Still, Reggie, if you're looking for an economist, East Africa expert or spiritual advisor, you know we're still close...

An Exciting Night

A funny thing happened to me the other night. I'd been enjoying a nice conversation and meal with Rev. Patrick and his family at his house, just stone's throw from mine. Usually one of us has an excuse for me to stop by, food is brought out, and I'm happy to be eating dinner around a table with a family. The news was on, the kids were catching bugs by the flourescent light. Good times. I remembered from before there was a pretty big heifer with horns tied up somewhere near my path, and I was pretty relieved when I made out his glowing eyes and resting frame as I passed him. I must've let my guard down a bit, because I ran into the pitch black 3-year-old like someone had moved the couch around while I was out. "Oh! Sorry, sorry!", I said, as he/she stumbled humbly out of my way. "mmMMMPh" he/she responded.

Now, I can rarely pass towards home without stopping by the house of the archdeacon Rev. James Okoyo. Most nights you can find he, his wife, and some of the nieces and nephews he's taking care of, sitting outside taking supper or evening tea. And despite adamantly protesting that I had just left Patrick's having eaten my fill, I can't leave without doing some damage to a bowl of beans and millet bread. One of those nephews, David, recently got some school fees assistance from my good friend Elizabeth Duncan in Charlotte. That night we were doing some picking on the guitar, which David's become particularly keen on. While David and I are playing and eating, mom is lying by the candle light grabbing the slow trickle of white ants - insects with large white wings that come out of the ground searching for light after a big rains - settling near her light. Two households collecting insects, but this was small scale compared to what I'd find at home.

Just around the bend I enter the gate to the bishop's compound to find the entire front side of the house lit up like a rock show. Two of the house staff, Helen and Apiyo, are patrolling the walls with brooms and buckets in hand, and as the white ants swarm to a particular light, they swat them down, make them into a pile, and scoop them by the handful into the baskets! They invited me to try my hand at it, and I successfully nabbed a few of them, but they kept swarming my reflective head and neck, and I just couldn't cope with that.

The next day, you could see evidence of the magnitude of the infestation, or harvest, by the wings which littered the ground, not just where people had lights on, but everywhere. And those who had harvested them were ready to capitalize, drying thousands in the sun, then sorting them and roughing them until their wings fell off. The sell for about 500 shillings ($.33) per cupfull. When boiled and shaped, they make a meal not unlike hamburger patties with a salty soup, and with a gritty crunchiness from the exoskeletons and legs and such. It can be a satisfying meal if I can just shake the image of what it is I'm really eating. That's tough to do.

So, I got malaria.

It was about Saturday, May 31st that I first started feeling dizzy and fatigued, and after a couple days feeling pretty lousy, I went to the hospital and it turned I had full-blown, no-joke malaria. My parasite count was serious and I was admitted that day.

From Tuesday to today Saturday, I mainly tried to keep down food so many kind people brought in. It wasn't my version of comfort food, but I helped down what I could, making sure to drink more water and juice than I really wanted. The quinine drip ran for four hours with a four hour break. All in all it was a miserable time, despite having a private room and self-contained bath

As scheduled, they discharged me today, and I traded an IV drip for tablets and home.

Thanks for all of your calls and prayers. You pulled me through a very lonely, miserable time.