It's a Wonderful Life II

With the year drawing to a close, unceremoniously as it were for me, and despite me not really prone to reflect on the passing year or conjure up resolutions for the new one that will inevitably be forgotten before spring, it would be a bit sophomoric if I didn’t look back on 2009 and acknowledge what an extraordinary year it has been for me personally; what a life-changing and life–affirming set of months it has been learning all the glories and horrors of Africa, and trying my best to be mommy to five needy children.

I would also be remised to not thank each of you have supported me during this year: all of you who have read the blog, all of you who have given generously, all of you who have offered kind words of encouragement. Just yesterday, after receiving another donation from a friend in the States, one of many from some of you whom I haven’t seen in years, some of you whom I don’t know well, some of you in fact who are total strangers, I felt like I was transported into the body of Jimmy Stewart in It's a Wonderful Life dumbfounded and touched by all of the people coming with assistance for me and my orphans especially during this holiday season.

My work here could absolutely not happen without your help in all its forms and for that I truly am forever grateful. A special debt of gratitude goes out to Rachel Stankowski, Mari Giusti, Woo Jin Shim, Brian Stai and my sister, Melanie for organizing fundraisers that occurred in recent months, and of course to my Ugandan family, the Balazas, and my real family in America, the Cranes, without whose bi-continental support none of this could be possible.

Thank you again for all of your kindness and Happy New Year!

Natalie

It's a Wonderful Life

My Christmases are usually spent at home nesting, my family and I lounging by the tree, unwrapping dozens of presents, cooking a massive meal, baking plates of cookies. My Christmas in Africa passed quite differently: I moved in taxis and bodas to visit family members, I didn’t open stockings and boxes, I fumbled making a meager dinner, I didn’t touch a single baking sheet.

On Christmas Eve Ester was at the hospital in Buikwe with Richard helping him recover from his surgery performed two days prior, and my girls were in the village with their father, extended family and tribal elders as customary during the holiday season. While visiting the hospital that day I asked Ester if it was alright for me to take her daughter Peanut, whom I was looking after while Ester was in the hospital, to Mukono to have dinner with some buzungus. Ester’s face lit up.

“Yeah, she will really like that,” she said laughing.

“That’s what I thought,” I said envisioning the girl enjoying eating foreign food and being surrounded by the strange, but enchanting buzungus.

As suspected, Peanut did have fun Christmas Eve dinning with the Europeans volunteers; she got a Santa hat from one of the women, practiced her photography skills with another woman’s camera and played soccer with some of the men; she did not like the holiday meal though.

“Peanut. Are you going to eat any of this?” I asked her after everyone else finished eating, eyeing the girl’s plate still piled with lasagna, quiche and pasta. She shook her head. I took the leftovers unable, especially after living in Africa, to let anything go to waste; it was also a welcomed and rare opportunity to taste Western food. “Let me get you more chapatti and kebobs,” I said fetching for her the only two African dishes on the spread.

My namesake and I ate our meal then spent the night at the well maintained property filled with wide bandas and tall trees and floating birds and cackling monkeys resting on a hill overlooking Lake Vic and Kampala – a former children’s home that now serves as housing center for a European charity. We awoke the next drizzling morning and walked through the fog along the hillside toward town; the roads were quieter, the taxi conductors a bit friendlier, but it was generally an ordinary morning; it certainly didn’t feel like Christmas.

At home we found some of my little friends: a group of young girls who visit on occasion, sitting on the floor of our main room quietly watching me amused and intrigued, sometimes I have them do my wash or help me clean the house; they are good friends to have indeed.

“Hi ladies! How are you?” I asked the foursome.

“We are fine.”

“Merry Christmas!” I said entering my bedroom. “I am sorry, but I have to leave now for the hospital. I just came to drop off my things and change.”

Peanut and I then went for town to purchase some gifts and supplies and boarded a taxi for the Buikwe. After jumping along the dirt road for twenty minutes we arrived at the hospital to find Richard drugged up; eyes swimming; face placid. I tried to greet him but he stared at me blankly. I smiled at his confusion, stroking his head.

Soon thereafter the nurse administered more medication through his IV. The boy had to be sedated during his daily dressing since the surgical wound was so deep, penetrating well into the bone, he could not to be conscious while it was flushed and repacked with iodine-soaked gauze.

I accompanied the boy to the dressing room as he fell under, head and eyes rolling back, fear and pain vanishing from his face. I then watched the doctors pour hydrogen peroxide into the large, unsutured hole pink fuzz bubbling and pouring out of his leg like a child’s science experiment; the doctors informed me they had removed a six by two inch section of dead bone during the operation. We had to go very deep.

When Richard was again coherent, gazing at me in recognition, I pulled his gift from my bag.

“Look Richard, I got a car for you,” I said handing him a yellow toy car. He smiled and played with it dully, still weighted by narcotics.

“Mommy! I want a gift!” Peanut exclaimed to me looking at Richard’s present and the remaining gifts in my bag.

“No Peanut. Those dolls are for Rachel and Sylvia. Your Christmas present was going to Mukono and staying the night in a nice place and eating good food and taking pictures with buzungus.” Apparently that wasn’t enough: Peanut started crying. Ester laughed at her daughter’s stubbornness, and eventually another doll was bought.

Peanut crying on Mama Ester because she didn't have a doll

After spending a couple of hours with the Richard and Ester, Peanut and I had to make our way to the village to check on the girls. We boarded a boda and traversed the back roads of Buikwe to the children’s ancestral home. The ride took nearly 30 minutes, but was peaceful and beautiful; we floated over the red mud under the grey, but lightening skies, villagers waiving at us while they prepared their Christmas dinners on charcoal stoves outside, village children frolicking barefoot in their tattered soiled clothes, goats and dogs running through the thick green vegetation blanketing the rolling hillsides. We finally arrived at the children’s plot. The girls ran to me screaming, “Mommy! Mommy!”

I handed them their $0.25 plastic dolls. They threw their hands in the air with elation. Then I noticed Taka was hobbling on one leg.

“What happened here?” I asked grabbing her foot.

Apparently she had caught her foot in a bicycle. The open wound covered nearly half her foot, was partially scabbed over, oozing and Christmas green.

This father is a total and complete idiot. He can’t even look after the children for a couple of days.

We stayed a short time then I told the father I was taking Rachel back because she needed to go to the hospital.

“You take B2 to help you with Rachel,” he suggested. I wasn’t sure why I needed Beatrice to help me look after Rachel, but I wasn’t thrilled about the girls staying with their irresponsible and addicted father, so I didn’t protest. As the four of us climbed on the boda back to town, Sylvia’s face fell, she cried wanting to come with us.

“No, Nabu. You stay here a couple of more days with your family and Agnes,” I reassured her. “Here play with your dolly. Mommy will see you soon.”

The three girls and I returned to Lugazi as dusk fell and the town’s few lights blinked on. I made a face disembarking from the motorbike: I now had two more mouths to feed and the Balazas were in Kampala visiting other family members and I didn’t really know how to cook in an African kitchen; I would just have to give preparing an African Christmas dinner my best shot.

I bought some meat, rice and vegetables and began chopping in my hands with a broken knife, fetching water from the bathroom faucets, picking stones from the low-quality rice, pulling bananas from cupboards for boiling. After a few hours we sat down to eat and I pleasantly surprised the girls and myself with an unburned meal.

B2 eating Christmas dinner

“It is good?” I asked them as they shoved food in their mouths at our undecorated table.

“Yes!” The answered merrily, Rachel sticking her thumb in the air.

“So did you have a good Christmas?”

“Yes!” They exclaimed again. I looked at my children’s happy faces; it was wonderful having them back after their being gone just a couple of days.

“Good. I had a good Christmas too.”

Peanut and Rachel playing with their dolls

Christmas Come Early

It has been blazing hot here these last three days, the kind of heat I had always associated with Africa, the kind that cracks landscapes, coughs dust, destroys crops, emaciates wildlife, starves villages. Contrary to the song that I haven’t heard since last December, but many of you no doubt have an uncountable number of times recently, it is not beginning to feel anything like Christmas; I am in an oasis of wreathless doors, lightless windows, cookieless kitchens, treeless family rooms, stockingless mantles; no gift lists, no holiday sales, no mall trips, no baking bonanzas, no present exchanges. In fact, I am not planning on giving or receiving any gifts this season besides maybe biscuits and samosas to my Ugandan friends and family, and I was actually very much looking forward to experiencing the holiday simply, sans the extravagance and materialism.

I have been a bit curious how the holiday season would unfold here asking Ugandans about their Christmas plans over the last several days. They casually smile, excited about it as we are in the West, but just as they approach life generally, are without excessive stress and high expectations; it’s an African Christmas.

“What are you doing for Christmas?” I’ll ask.

I don’t know. Mass in the morning then Christmas lunch. I will visit friends.

“What do you have for lunch?”

Meat, Irish [potatoes], rice, chicken.

“You have meat and chicken?”

Yes.

“That is very nice. Do you exchange presents?”

No.

And so are African Christmases: visiting an ancestral village, attending Christmas mass, eating a special meal of freshly slaughtered chicken and produce from their gardens, and maybe wealthier Ugandans exchange some simple gifts; their houses aren’t adorned with mistletoe and wreaths and bows and knickknacks, their airwaves aren’t choked with commercials and songs beckoning them to shopping centers, they don’t worry about spending too much or too little on friends and family, they don’t stuff themselves with chocolates and cookies and cakes and candies. As such, I knew my Ugandan Christmas would be unlike any I’ve experienced before, but, as it has delightfully turned out, will not be without at least one cherished and much appreciated early Christmas gift: Richard has finally had his surgery.

After months of care and commuting between the Lugazi and the hospital in Buikwe on dusty, curving, and probably dangerous dirt roads, consulting with countless surgeons, and him already having one unsuccessful surgery, the boy has finally had the operation that will hopefully end the infection that has for the last two years wreaked havoc on his leg, mobility and self-esteem.

I had gone to the hospital in Buikwe this past Thursday to consult the surgeon and we had tentatively scheduled Richard’s operation for Monday.

“You have the x-ray done today and I will look at it on Monday and let you know if we can do the surgery,” the Slovak doctor told to me as he rushed out the door for a long weekend at Mount Elgon.

“Oh. You mean you might not do it after all?”

“It depends on what the bone looks like. It needs to be strong enough.”

“Oh. Okay. I’ll call you Monday morning.” I was a bit disappointed, but had learned to question all assumptions and expectations here; African life was like driving down a road blanketed in fog unable to see two feet in front of you; you really never know what you are doing, never really know where you are headed, never really know what is going to happen.

I called the surgeon Monday.

“Yes. The bone looks strong enough in the x-ray. We will do the surgery. You bring him tonight to be admitted and we’ll do it tomorrow.”

YES!!!

So Monday afternoon I boarded a taxi to Buikwe hospital with Richard where he had a second x-ray taken and was admitted in preparation for the following day’s surgery then I left the boy behind and Ester came to be with him; remember, you have to have your own nurse with you at African hospitals to clean you, feed you, dress you, care for you; there are African nurses, but despite my being here for nine months and having spent much of that time in hospitals due to personal illness and that of others’, Ugandan nurses’ exact job duties remain elusive to me; I see a lot of mulling around, lounging on chairs, slowly moving through halls.

The surgery was to happen on Tuesday. I received a call from Ester at the hospital in that early afternoon as I ran around Lugazi managing the snack shop and trying to sell off the first round of chicks from the Maama Muzungu Poultry Farm in time for Christmas. She sounded typically calm when she greeted me, then:

“They are doing the surgery tomorrow.”

“Okay,” I replied trying not to feel rejected. Patience, patience, patience; patience is virtue.

I waited patiently yesterday for today to arrive. I waited patiently this morning for Ester’s text confirming the operation had begun. I waited patiently for Ester’s call confirming the operation had been completed. I finally called her.

“He’s out now, but like last time needs to be held,” she said to me. My mind flashed back to Richard's summer operation when the boy was only given Ibuprofren for his excruciating pain.

“Okay. I am still waiting for Vegas to help us sell the chicks, but I’ll be there soon,” I said feeling sorry for the boy, but lifted from an incredible sense of relief. I hung up the phone and soon thereafter Margaret, my Ugandan Mummy came to the snack shop.

“Richard has had his surgery!” I exclaimed to her.

“Oh that is very good!” She responded with a huge smile and lightening shoulders; we've all felt the burden of the boy's discomfort.

“Yes, and it was just in time for Christmas!”

“Yes, just in time for Christmas. It is a good Christmas indeed.”

Indeed.

Sense & Sensibility

Dearest Sensibility,

I beg you not take offense to this open correspondence and its communal nature; however, I have long since been aware that your tendencies, quixotic and impetuous as they are generally regarded, have done you, and therefore I, some ill will during the course of our existence this score and a half.

Whilst we are two distinct spirits forging a single individual, one can only characterize our engagement at times as disagreeable and disharmonious, and one can only describe our self as more often than not divided and perplexed. Owning to no greater interest than that which is ours, I am compelled to expound upon your worth, and it is, to be sincere, all that is charming, glorious, destructive and absurd.

Africans are not unlike us in their duality of disposition and we have had the most unpleasant of interactions with the sort whose gentle countenance disguises vastly divergent temperament and aims. Those nearly most trusted have regretfully proven otherwise and the ensuing disappointment has been a most unwelcomed surprised despite being forewarned of what one has come to expect of Ugandan charity and goodwill.

With this and the welfare of the motherless souls in keeping, I implore you to step with greater trepidation and exercise vigilance of the highest degree, which is to say, that it is imperative that you restrict your influence so as not to exist. Permit me, Sense, to offer full guidance of our shared thoughts, words and deeds, and allow your impassioned whims and gay imprudence to lie dormant for the duration of our stay in a property and populace familiar, nonetheless utterly foreign in speech, dress, tastes, and behavior, not to say anything of work ethic and integrity.

I pray you not take my expression, admittedly direct and abrasive, as a type of defamation or degradation of character; rather, to see that my situation, as it is forever bound to yours, as such, our situation, requires my full inspiration and instruction. Our endurance and that of those entrusted in our care, depends upon our decisions, of which you have proven time and again unfit for seriously making.

So, please, dearest Sensibility, heed this call to lay down your unsuitable arms, and with my complete directive I can assure us an ease of mind and accomplishment of action hitherto unseen, as I am as confident in my abilities as much as I am not in yours.

Yours truly, your most common,

Sense

Quiet Faith

“We need to help Sharif look after her baby," I said to Ester last week of the Maama Muzungu Poultry Farm caretaker. "She is trying, but I don’t think she quite knows what she is doing.”

Ester nodded. Ester had been a young mother herself; in fact, younger than Sharif when she had Peanut, just a teenager. Maybe Ester made similar youthful motherly mistakes, but I suspected not to the same degree; I knew Ester to be very competent and bright. Ester and I both realized after becoming acquainted with 20 year-old Sharif we would have to guide her through some maternal duties.

Sharif and her baby in front of MMPF

Ester and I had just been to the poultry farm checking on the chicks’ health, taking inventory of feed and monitoring Sharif’s performance; the woman was hard working and serious about her job, she was doing well looking after the chicks and trying to properly care for her baby; but, it seemed, she was facing some challenges with child-rearing.

We spoke with Sharif outside the farm as she held her crying son, the baby sick as usual. My mind wandered during our conversation attempting to recall an instance when upon my asking about the welfare of her child Sharif had replied he was well.

Sharif handed the boy to Ester and entered the wooden structure to tend to the chicks. The boy continued to wail in discomfort. Ester and I inspected him; he still bleed from being circumcised a couple of weeks back. Sharif emerged from the farm.

“You can’t clothe him in jumpers,” Ester instructed her in Luganda tugging on the boy’s trousers. “You need to put him in a shirt and wrap him in cloth.” Sharif nodded. Ester touched the boy’s vaguely discolored face. “He has a rash here too.”

“Yeah, it’s gone away though,” I said to Ester. “She got treatment for that one and the circumcision last week, but his little wee-wee is still not good.” I pouted.

"It will be okay if she doesn’t clothe him like this,” Ester told me as Sharif took off the baby’s pants swaddling him in cloth.

Sharif seemed to understand how to better care for her baby after being instructed; I didn’t see him in pants until the wound had healed; however, two days ago when I again inquired about the baby’s health as Sharif and I mixed the chicks’ feed, she replied “He’s not well. He’s sick. Malaria.”

I squinted. “Are you getting treatment?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“No money.”

“Okay. When we finish here, we go to town for treatment for the baby."

“Thank you auntie,” Sharif replied genuflecting and returned to shoveling hundreds of kilos of maize bran mixed with nutrients.

Sharif and I passed through the dirt and paved roads to town, her with baby in arms. We stopped at the fat, kind woman’s pharmacy, the neyabo who always waives at me eagerly when I pass, the madam who never forgets to ask about my children.

"Mama. How are you?"

"Fine."

“Good. This one has a sick baby,” I said pointing to Sharif. “I am going to first check the blood, but we think it’s malaria. I am leaving now for the hospital with my boy, but please make sure she gets whatever medication she needs. I will pay you tonight.”

"Okay,” the woman replied and led us through her back door to the lab on the other side of the courtyard.

I approached the short woman at the lab.

“Neyabo. How are you?”

“Fine.”

“Good. Please give this one a malaria test for the baby. Here is the money.”

I handed the woman one thousand shillings then turned to Sharif.

“Sharif. When you are done here you go back to the pharmacy and get your treatment. I have to go to the hospital in Buikwe now. I can’t wait any longer, but they will help you.”

“Thank you auntie.”

“No problem. Bye.”

I ran off with Richard whose infected leg was emitting a foul odor and was cause for concern. I rushed to the hospital some twenty minutes from Lugazi only to wait an hour for the muzunugu surgeons to emerge from the theatre. The surgeons removed the gauze and looked at Richard’s open wound.

“The leg smelled before, but it is worse now,” the surgeon explained unconcerned. “We will do the surgery on like the 17^th.”

“So this isn’t a problem?”

The surgeon shook his head. “Just be sure to keep him on the Cipro and have the dressing changed every other day.”

“Okay, but you just told me you and the other muzungus are going to Mount Elgon in 10 days. You’ll be gone on the 17th.”

"Oh, yes. That’s true. We’ll do it when we get back.” The surgeons inspected the calendar. “We’ll do it on the 21^st.”

Fantastic! I was relieved that the smell wasn’t as dire as imagined, and that I was a step closer to having Richard’s surgery completed, although I remained cautiously optimistic.

Still celebrating one medical accomplishment, the following morning I inquired about Sharif and the baby with the fat, kind pharmacist.

“No. She didn’t come back this today for the injection.”

“What? You told her to come back though, right?”

The woman nodded. I went for Sharif.

“Hello Sharif. Where have you been?” I asked the girl as she approached the poultry farm after my waiting for some thirty minutes. She replied in Luganda.

The woman on whose property the farm resides explained to me, “her mother called her urgently this morning.”

“Okay, but it’s important the baby gets treatment. When people don’t complete their doses, that’s how they die. You finish here then go right away for the injection.”

Sharif’s eyes were wide. She nodded enthusiastically. She quickly filled the chicks’ drinkers and off she ran.

“That one has too much going on,” said the property owner as we watched Sharif leave. “She has the baby, the mother, the chicks.”

“Yeah,” I agreed thinking how she wasn’t unlike other Africans, mainly other African women, working hard at a job that doesn’t quite make ends meet, attending to her children and parents without spousal support; I agreed thinking how occupied one was looking after five orphans, including a child with a debilitating medical condition, and providing for an African mother and her daughter while running two new businesses and managing six workers in a land rife with cultural differences, exasperating efficiency and inconsistent logic. “But…she’ll be okay,” I shrugged assuredly.

Sharif with her baby and some village kids in front of MMPF

Navigating Africa Surgically

I have taken to telling people that I will only know Richard has had his second operation when he is wheeled out of the theatre and the surgeon confirms the operation was successfully completed and actually involved penetrating Richard’s tibia. Then and only then will I confidently say “Yes, Richard had his surgery.”

Richard’s first operation was performed this past summer. The days following I accompanied him to the hospital in Buikwe, a rural area near the shores of Lake Victoria, for post-op care. It was then that I learned firsthand of the procedure’s precise nature.

I stood outside the hospital with Richard under the glaring sun, on the red dirt road waiting for a crumbling taxi van to pull up and send us into a cloud of whirling dust. Richard’s attending physician walked by and greeted us. The gentle conversation and my light mood swiftly collapsed when the doctor told me blank-faced that the surgeons “only cut into the boy’s skin.”

I jolted. “What?”

He repeated himself.

“That can’t be. They went into the bone. All the doctors told me that is the only way to effectively treat chronic osteomyelitis.”

“Yes, but it was superficial. They didn’t have the right instrument to cut bone.”

I shut my eyes. My stomach dropped. My head shook. Nobody bothered to inform me that the required surgery as originally planned was not performed due to lack of proper mechanisms until it was casually mentioned to me several days later. Another, only in Africa moment.

The doctor saw my disappointment; I am unsure if he recognized my disgust.

“We will do it in October. Another surgeon will be coming from Europe then.”

“But will you have the right instrument?”

The doctor’s face lifted in surprise and contemplation. Apparently he hadn’t thought of that.

“I’ll ask my administrator.”

“Okay. I need to know soon because then I will have to take my boy to another hospital and start the procedure of queuing for another surgery all over again if you can’t get it.”

The doctor nodded and crossed the dusty road.

Calls and visits to Buikwe hospital over the next few weeks were more of the same non-answers. Yes, a surgeon is coming in October. Or. Maybe November. I have requested that we order the instrument.

I was contemplating not waiting till the fall for the elusive Czech surgeon and surgical instruments for fear of another mishap. But this hospital, despite its gaffe, was seemingly more trustworthy than the other option: the government hospital, Mulago.

I was told that one needed to “know somebody” to be effectively treated at Mulago. And the surgeons there didn’t have what the surgeons at Buikwe hospital had, Western medical training and practice. I had a choice: gamble and wait on medical practitioners and instruments to be flown into Buikwe from abroad and have a surgery performed at a low cost or start over and try my luck with the notorious government hospital where the total costs could be considerably more and the quality of care significantly less. I decided to wait it out.

“The surgeon will be here the first week of October,” Richard’s doctor had assured me in September.

“Okay, so I will plan on coming a couple of days after he gets here?”

“Yes.”

I came the agreed-upon day. The surgeon had just arrived, but wasn’t actually at the hospital yet. Come back tomorrow.

I returned the following day and entered the dressing room; shimmering blue eyes and glowing fair hair and skin greeted me. I had long since taken to staring at muzungus like Africans. They look so strange and what are they doing here in Uganda?

The Slovak doctors introduced themselves. The surgeon was of the general variety, but had been to Africa and performed orthopedic surgeries on chronic osteomyelitis patients previously. They unwrapped the bandage and looked at the boy’s oozing leg.

“Yes. I can do the surgery. We will do it Monday.”

“Okay, but the last surgeon didn’t have the correct instrument. Do you know if they’ve gotten it?”

“I think so. I am like 90% sure we will do it Monday.”

Richard and I were at the hospital Monday, but the instrument was not.

“I will see if I can order it,” the doctor told me through his Eastern European accent.

I was deflated, but not surprised. I was coming to understand African life as a menagerie of the exotic, sluggish, insincere and incalculable; it could only be reliably defined as careless and unexpected.

The doctor was going to text me with an update. A week later a message from Dr. Mark blinked on my phone’s screen:

“Hi Nataly. I am sorry, but we still don’t have the instrument and any information when we will have it. When I know more, I will let you know. Maybe on Friday. But it will take some time.”

That week I began mobilizing for Plan B. But then I received a call. It was Richard’s attending African doctor.

“Hi Natalie. Can we meet in Lugazi today? “

“Is this about Richard?”

“Yes. I will tell you.”

I met Richard’s doctor at a hotel in town; the instrument had been ordered and would arrive in a few weeks. They would be able to do the surgery.

I jumped up and down in the hotel’s bar. A few days I received another message from the Dr. Mark:

“Hi Nataly. I’m sorry I haven’t answered, but I still don’t have the instrument. Hopefully your boy will get proper treatment in Kampala.”

What is going on?!?

More calls and another visit to Buikwe confirmed that the instrument was on order to arrive mid-December. The surgeon currently at Buikwe would only be there until year end. Come January, I was told, another European doctor would be coming. But what if he couldn’t do the surgery? What if the instrument arrived late?

I was getting anxious, but the unpredictable nature of Africa could make one perpetually nervous, it could aggravate ulcers developed from a bacterial infection contracted during one’s stay. I was forced to learn to live with the chaos.

Why? Why? Why? Is often the chant from Americans on the other end of my phone, wondering why instruments take so long to arrive, wondering why swabs of infected legs can’t reliably be taken during a surgery, wondering why medications are prescribed incorrectly or expired.

Whatever. I say. This is Africa.

So, as of this moment, as of my last conversation with the doctors at Buikwe earlier this week, yes, the needed instrument is to arrive in less than two weeks time, and yes, Richard’s operation is to take place sometime around the December 18, but as I have taken to telling all who ask, I will only believe the surgery has been successfully completed when Richard is in the recovery room and the surgeon is standing over his leg, showing and telling me the procedure has been performed as prescribed. Then and only then will I know my boy has been properly treated after five months of care and nearly two years of suffering with puss and drainage constantly emitting from an open wound on his right shin. Only then will I say, “Yes, Richard has had his surgery.”

Lugazi Images

Market at Morning
The vast majority of Ugandans either grow their own food or purchase it at open air markets such as this one in Lugazi.




Hanging on the Stoop
With no TVs, no toys, no electricity, no movie theaters, etc., most Ugandan kids hang out on their stoops in the evenings. The first two pictures are of a nice home; made of concrete and well-painted.




This girl resides in a more typical Ugandan town living arrangement: one or maybe two small rooms for a family, no yard, no plumbing, no power, etc.


Sitting in the yard
These children are fortunate to live in a comfortable house with an actual yard.

Up Another Level

I was looking over my electronic diary yesterday. I smiled at the August 15 entry:

“Other recent stuff: kids done with school, now on holiday. Got report cards – R and B doing okay, in the 70s, but Agnes not doing well - around 50. Def need tutor.”

Agnes was barely passing P5 this summer despite having taken P6 twice already in the village; despite being a 16 year old squeezed into a class overflowing with 10 and 11 year olds. I was worried about her morale. Would dejection slink in, poisoning her passion for learning? Would sincere appreciation and elation for her second chance at school fade as failure and embarrassment loomed?

How strong was she? How strong is a girl forced out of her home by her parents to marry a man decades her senior? How strong is a girl who has endured suppressive poverty, sleeping in the dirt of a mud house, barely attending school, usually not eating enough, most often going without medical attention? How strong is a girl who cared for her four younger siblings, feeding them, washing them, watching them, guiding them, while tending to her mother as she wasted away and succumbed to AIDS?

Agnes was not unlike other Africans, taking her life in stride, not questioning the unfair and the uncontrollable, doing what had to be done; surviving.

But passing exams and levels were not requisites for life. Could Aggie persevere in the face of obstacles not necessary for her very existence? How strong was she?

During the last holiday in September all of the children, except little Rachel, went to school for private tutoring five days a week. The teachers all remarked on their improvement when they began the school term a few weeks later. The kids continued to receive coaching by their teachers in the form of extra nightly assignments through the fall term. This past week put the months of labor and learning to test: it was exam time.

“Mommy! Mommy! I got a 93 in math!” Aggie told me excitedly a few days ago when I was visiting the kids in their home.

“What? That is fantastic Aggie!”

“And English. 76.”

“Very good, Aggie. Very Good.”

Aggie floated back to the food she was preparing for her younger sisters and brother, happily bending over the charcoal stove the size of a child’s stool, tending to the sauce bubbling in the pot. A bright smile spread across her pretty round face.

A couple of days later I went to visit the kids again at their new place in Nkoko. As per usual, I was greeted enthusiastically; screams, hugs, running, laughter.

“Mommy. I am going to P6,” Aggie said in her stilted, but perking English.

“Very good, Aggie.”

“Mommy! Me P1!” Sylvia exclaimed to me thumping her chest.

“You are going to P1?”

“Yes!”

“Very good, Nabu. You have done very well and you have worked very hard. You couldn’t even count to ten before, but now look at you. You can count. You know your letters. A,B,C, what. You can add and subtract.”

“Mommy. Two plus three is five.”

“Yes, Nabu. Two plus three is five.”

As I spoke to Sylvia, the other children started yelling their new levels to me.

Mommy! Me P3!

Mommy! Me P3!

Mommy! Me Top Class!

“No, Rachel. You are not going to top class. You are going to middle class.”

“Mommy! Middle class!” Rachel shouted smiling, thumping her chest like Sylvia had.

“Yes, middle class.”

I turned to Aggie.

“So your teacher said you passed?” I asked her.

“Yes,” she said through an enormous grin.



“She can’t,” Mama Ester later told me. “She can’t know yet. They only know if they passed when they get their report folders on Tuesday.”

I laughed. All of the kids thought they passed, but apparently they couldn’t know for sure yet according to Ester. It didn’t matter though. I had been talking to their teachers. I knew my kids were passing. Tuesday morning would just confirm what I already knew.

Tuesday morning, this morning, offered another bag of surprises. I was at the snack shop putting out another fire: the power had been turned off for nearly 24 hours; no electricity meant food was going bad and little could be cooked on charcoal stoves; it meant we were losing a lot of money.

Get me the contract with our landlord. I need to talk to him again about getting our own meter. He can’t deny us after not paying his electric bill and forcing us to lose this much money.

Cooks. Next time tell me when food is starting to spoil. I can bring it to my refrigerator at home. We threw out too much.

Has the town council paid for yesterday’s delivery?

We already used 8 bags of flour? How?

I was sifting through a lot of chaos with my staff. Ugandans aren’t known for their strong planning skills; the weight was falling on me. I was working hard to get us more efficient, to make us more profitable. Managing through the web of cultural differences was delicate and navigating African contractual obligations was yet another lesson in gratitude: no, there are basically are no real contracts with landlord, you just draft up something small. And yes, they can turn off the power for days.

This isn’t acceptable!

Then. Brightness.

Aggie came to the shop door face glowing.

“Hi Aggie! How are you?” I welcomed her with relief.

“I’m fine.” She was wearing her school uniform. She had a pale pink folder in her hand, which I recognized.

“You got your report folder?”

She nodded happily and made a slight gestured indicating she wanted me to see it.

“Let me see.” I opened the front page with the teacher’s notes on her test scores and his comments on her performance.

“93 in math. 76 in English. 48 in SST. 40 in Science. Very good Aggie.” I searched for the note saying she passed. I didn’t see it. Other notes filled the page: Balance all subjects. Buy one ream of paper. Term starts January 1.

There it was: Promoted to P6.

“Promoted to P6! Very good Aggie!” I hugged her and kissed her forehead. “I am very proud of you!”

Aggie smiled and tuned from me slightly, biting her school sweater folded in her arms. She was bashful; unaccustomed to attention, unfamiliar with praise.

She was shy, but she was strong. And she was moving on.

Bread and Butter

My sister and I can, on occasion, share the same mind.

“Natalie. I think it would be fun if my kids and your kids were pen pals,” Melanie had said to me a couple of months ago.

“Yes! That is so great! I had envisioned forming a partnership with teachers in America and developing a lesson plan about African culture that included the kids communicating with one another.”

And so a couple of months ago my sister Melanie, a school psychologist with LA Unified School District, printed pictures of my African babies and made presentations about them to some of the classrooms at her elementary school. I, in turn, told my kids they now had friends in America that would be writing to them.

The children’s reaction to one another thus far has been slightly surprising and certainly comical. My kids’ faces lit up when they learned they had new friends from the enigmatic land of Obama and streets of gold; they were excited, but in their reserved Buganda way. From my sister’s description, however, the American schoolchildren are absolutely thrilled and intrigued by their new African friends; my little Ugandan orphans have unexpectedly become superstars at an elementary school in Watts.

“They come up and ask me about your kids all the time and want to know when they are getting their letters! They ask every time they see me!” Melanie told me about her schoolchildren. “I made my first presentation ten days ago to one class and when I went back yesterday, they remembered everything I told them. They are so interested. They keep asking all kinds of questions.”

I received the first set of letters from the Americans a few weeks ago. I began reading them at the quiet internet café in Lugazi during a lazy afternoon; I soon began receiving curious stares from other users sitting behind out-dated, massive monitors in response to my outbursts of laughter. The Americans’ letters were filled with phrasing and questions only designed by the mind of a child.

My sister’s description of the second-grade class’ reaction was equally amusing, as well as poignant and eye-opening:

“Although I didn’t write these questions down the kids wanted to know why Sylvia had short hair and why people in Africa don’t have shoes. We talked about money and food and this led into an interesting conversation about how the students at our school waste their food during lunch time. It was very interesting to see their expressions change. Before I came in the kids were bouncing off the walls. And then we started talking and they were so interested, and their expressions became very serious. They want to see more pictures so I’m bringing in the poster board we used for Rachel’s fundraiser.”

I collected the American letters to my children and organized a meeting with me, the kids and a translator, and began capturing my kids’ responses. Some words were lost in translation, sometimes my kids would go on long tangents; it was taking longer than expected, and my schedule was full. A few weeks had passed and my kids and I still hadn’t finished our letters.

“Natalie. I know you are busy, but my kid are still waiting for their letters and keep asking about them,” Melanie had written to me in an email last week.

Sorry, I’ve been busy, but here they are.

Below are the best of the exchanges between the Africans and Americans. The American letters are written first, and my kids’ responses are bolded with my explanations and notes to my sister parenthetically written.

Best of Sylvia (paired with a second-grade class)

Rebecca- How do you buy a tooth brush?

My Mama Muzungu and Mama Ester buy me toothbrushes now. We didn’t use toothbrushes in the village. We didn’t brush our teeth.

Jaidyn- How do you get on a roller coaster (The teacher asks him if he thinks they have roller coasters, he says ‘yes’, and she says maybe they don’t so what can he ask Sylvia instead…) Do you have roller coasters?

I don’t know what roller coasters are.

Daniel- How many languages do you speak?

I know one language. I know Luganda. I am learning English.

Carlos- How do you get food?

If I get money, I buy food.

Mariani-How did your mom die? (Do the kids talk about their mother? Maybe a good opportunity to talk to Sylvia about it, and the other kids. The class was also very curious about how they live on their own without an adult so this may be something she could talk about too.)

My Mummy died of malaria. (The mother actually died of AIDS, but Sylvia and Rachel don’t understand.)

Alex- How do you grow food?

I use to grow sweet potatoes and bananas. For a sweet potato, you dig a heap of soil and take sweet potato stems and then push them in the soil and you cover them and they grow. To grow a banana, you dig a hole two feet deep and put in fertilizer then the banana sucker in it and cover with soil. I don’t grow anything now. (May want to explain that they don’t grow anything now that we’ve taken them out of the village.)

Adriana- Do you have cars?

No we don’t have cars. We just foot to school.

Nicole- What kind of food do you eat?

When I lived in the village I ate beans and vegetables and pohso. Now I eat rice, meat, posho, beans, matoke, sweet potatoes and fish. My favorites are fish, meat and rice. (When they lived in the village they grew their own food, which the children helped grow. In fact, the children weren’t going to school because they didn’t have money and they were needed to work their land. Also, matoke is a dish native to Uganda made of boiled unripe plantains and posho is a spongy white dish made of maize flour.)

David- Do you have a lot of friends?

I have a lot of friends. My friends are Peanut, Melie, and Nalwadda . At school I have friends Odoconyero and Sheppard.

Virgina- How do you get money?

Sometimes my auntie gives me money for breakfast at school. My uncle Godrey use to give me shillings, but now a-days not so much. (Right now they have money to buy clothes, food, shelter and go to school unlike before because of the donations I have received. Before their father paid for the few items they owned with the surplus crops he sold at market. Although, of course, he wasn’t buying much because the kids didn’t have shoes, had just a couple of clothes, hardly ate, didn’t go to school, to the hospital, etc.)

Eric- Do you guys celebrate Halloween in Africa?

We don’t celebrate Halloween. I didn’t hear of Halloween until now.

Daniel- How is your behavior in school?

I have good behavior. I share with my friends and I greet my teachers and aunties. I kneel and ask “how are you?” (In Uganda children, and occasionally adults, will greet their elders by genuflecting before them and sometimes holding their hand.)

Jose- How do you make friends?

I stick on them and just befriend some of them. (This is hilarious!)

Rebecca- What kind of chairs do you sit in at school?

We sit on small benches. We call them desks. (There are usually at least one hundred kids in a class and they sit cramped on long benches next to one another.)

Adriana- How do you get to school?

We walk to school.

Alex- How do you play with your brother?

We play hide and seek and sometimes football (soccer).

Jaidyn-How do you celebrate Jesus?

We celebrate Jesus on Christmas Day.

Erick- Does it snow on Christmas?

It never snows in Uganda. (It lies on the Equator.)

Alexandra- How do you buy shoes?

We never had shoes until when Mama Muzungu came and now she buys us shoes at the market on Wednesdays with Mama Ester. I like the ones she bought me recently cause they are so easy to wear I don’t have to tie them. (May want to explain that muzungu means “white person” in Africa and that she calls me and Ester her “mamas” out of respect as many children call caretakers that aren’t actually their mothers “mama,” or “mommy.” Also may want to tell them that most Ugandans don’t buy items at regular stores, but at open air markets. Also, I just bought her shoes that Velcro, which I am sure she had never seen before so doesn’t know what to call them.)

Andres- Do you have to take the baby (Rachel) to school?

We walk with her to school. (Rachel isn’t really a baby – she’s 4 and is in nursery school – kind of like preschool in US.)

Evelyn- How do you celebrate Christmas?

We go to church and then eat good food like meat and chicken.

(Incidentally, I recently asked the kids if they ever ate meat before in the village and they said only on Christmas. Also, the meat here is different in Uganda in that it’s a huge slab of cow they just cut in any old way for you; it’s not nice pieces of meat like in the US. It costs about $2.50 a kilo, which is enough to feed a family.)

Best of Agnes (paired with a fifth grade class)

Dear Agnus,

My name is Porsha Harrell and I am ten. I’m in the 5^th grade and I want to know about you. I have one brother and one sister. There name is Trevon and Ijan. I am in football, basketball, and volleyball. I watch TV. I like Disney channel and BET. My favorite show is The Game and That so Raven.

I have saw you before in a picture. I will send you a picture if you want me to, just tell me. Is Uganda fun to you? Do you have a brother or sister? How many kids do your mom have? When you send me a letter tell me about yourself.

Your Friend,

Porsha

Please send a picture. Uganda is fun. I have one brother and four sisters. I like playing with my friends a lot. I love my sisters and brother so much. Most of the time I am reading or in books.

Dear Agnus,

I like riding my scooter down a big hill. Also I like doing tricks on my scooter. Then I started to like sports. I am ten years-old. I am a boy and my name is Justin. What about you? How old are you? What do you like to do?

How are your brothers and sisters doing? I hope you don’t get sick. Do you have a lot of animals? Do you like animals? Are you active?

Your Friend,

Justin

I am sixteen years old. I like studying and playing. My brothers and sisters are doing well. We don’t have animals. I like animals. Yes, I am active. Do you like animals? What do you like to do?

Dear Agnus,

“Hello”, my name is Ricky Sebastian.

I am 10 years old. I like school because I want to get a good job. Then I would like to go to college and be a basketball player. My favorite subject is Math because I am good at it and I like drawing and coloring and play basketball, videogames, and I am sometimes lazy or I watch TV.

Do you have colleges? Do you guys have something to play? Do you have a favorite sport? Do you have any plans for schools? Do you like schools? Are there colleges in Uganda? What do you like? What is your favorite color? What is your favorite sport? Do you have any friends? How many sisters do you have? How many brothers do you have?

Sincerely,

Ricky Sebastian

After Senior Four, there are colleges and you can go to college. Yes, we play football and netball. My favorite sport is running and netball. My favorite color is red. I want to go up to university. Yes, my friends are Birungi, Lillian and Brenda. I have three sisters and one brother. Thank you for being my friend and for writing.

Best of Richard (paired with a special day class - ages vary)

Since the letters sent to Richard were identical, Richard sent the following message to his friends:

My leg is feeling better. I love basketball and school. I love all of you because you are my friends. I feel good when you send me messages and I would like a photo of you. Uganda is interesting because it has water sources, a wet and dry season, and you see wild animals like monkeys in the village. I like to garden. I want to study up to the university so that I can get a good job so I can look after my parents. I want to be a lawyer. My favorite meal is rice, chicken and matoke. Matoke is special cooked bananas that are only in Uganda. I like to play football, but I can’t play because of my leg. When my leg is better I want to play again. I love all of you very much and thank you for the interesting messages and I hope they keep up. God bless you.

Best of Rachel (paired with a kindergarten class)

Because of her age, Rachel sent the following message to her class:

I like to play with my sisters and my brother Richard and my Mommy Natalie. My sisters are Sylvia, Beatrice, Agnes. I like to jump.

Best of Beatrice (paired with a fourth grade class)

Dear Beatrice,

Hi Beatrice I am a boy. My name is Marco Vargas. I am 9 years old. I love to play basketball. I like Pokeman. That is my number one thing I like. I collect Pokemon toys, cards, books, and I play it with my friends. I have a brother and a sister. My best friend is Anthony he is going to write to you. He is in my class. I love the color red. I also like lions, monkeys, and sharks. Have fun Beatrice, good bye.

Sincerely,

Marco Vargas

PS. I will like writing to you.

My favorite color is red too. I fear lions, and I like monkeys and there were some small ones in my village we would make fun of. I like you Vargas and want to talk to you again.

6) Dear Beatrice,

Hi my name is Jayzon. I like sports. I am 10 years old. So I like to play games and watch TV and I also like to be nice to people. I collect seashells at the beach. The most thing I really like to do is play with my dogs teddy and princess, they are good dogs they only bite if hold their nose. My favorite food is tacos with water. Water helps my body get strong muscles. I love to eat. I don’t like to eat a lot of junk food. My question was what happened to your parents?

Sincerely,

Jayzon

In fact, I like all the same things as you. I like playing with dogs that don’t bite, but won’t touch dogs on the nose. I like eating, but they don’t have tacos in Africa. But I think I would like eating a taco. (After I explained it to her.) I like to drink water and drink it 3-5 times a day. My mom died. My mom was taken to the hospital and had no help and died. My dad is a gardener in the village. He plants tomatoes. (May want to explain that the father is incapable of taking care of them because he is ill and too poor.)

7) Dear Beatrice,

My name is Jeff Garcia and I’m nine years old on November. I’m going to be ten and I’m the only son in family. I don’t have brothers or sisters so is only me and my mom. Where your dad and mom? I don’t have a dad because they were divorce and I hope you have a good day.

Sincerely,

Jeff

In November I will be 11 years old. There are four girls and one boy in my family. My mom died and my dad is in the village. I have a good dad, but he isn’t able to afford the things we need. I am sorry you are missing your dad.

8) Dear Beatrice,

My name is Joshua Castro. I am 10 years old. I like to play soccer, basket ball, kick ball, and baseball. Here in United States it’s fun. What do you do in Uganda? Do you play? Can you walk? Do you see wild animals?

Sincerely,

Josue Castro

I like basketball, but I don’t get to play it because there is no ball. I go to school, do chores at home and play. Yes, I can walk. I have seen a lion and elephant in the zoo. I see pussycats, cows, monkeys, rabbits and big snakes in the village. (She didn’t go the zoo until last month when I paid for the kids to go on their school trip to Entebbe, which is a three hour drive from Lugazi. I actually don’t think the kids had ever been anywhere besides Lugazi and their village before.)

9) Dear Beatrice,

Hi Beatrice my name is Jasmine Cartagena. I am nine years old. My favorite game is tetherball. Tetherball is a pole and a ball and you have to hit the ball. Your life seems interesting to me Beatrice. I have some questions to ask you. What is it in Uganda? What grade are you in? Would you like to live here? Can’t wait to hear from you. Please write back. J

Sincerely,

Jasmine Cartagena

I have never seen tetherball. I like your character. I want to sing you a song “Bread and Butter.” It means you are my bread and butter. Uganda is beautiful. What makes it beautiful is it has music and wild animals. Yes, I would like to live in America. America is very interesting to me. Everyone is happy and has fun. (Beatrice actually sang this song in Luganda as we were talking about Jasmine. The song is one kids here sing about their friends.)