Chickens, Snakes and Chameleon Funerals

The kids hanging out with the chicken 

We had the opportunity to go into the market yesterday to pick up some items for the upcoming week.  Kari sent me with a list of things to pick up from the market; one of the items was a chicken.  No big deal right, just go to the frozen section or the meat market and grab a chicken.  This market is an open air market, much like a farmer’s market back home.  My only option…. a live chicken.  The grand total of live chickens this boy from College Station, Texas has brought home is zero.  However, always up for a new challenge I went into the market to get myself a chicken.  I got some help from one of the locals who told me a fair price and helped me to pick out a good one.  So off I went with my live chicken, feet tied together and a firm grip behind the wings.  I do not know who was more nervous or was in a more awkward position, me or the chicken.  Now imagine that two Muzungos (white people) in the market already draw a lot of attention, but a Muzungo carrying a live chicken with a terrified look on his face draws a lot more attention.  We loaded up in the truck, the chicken and I riding shotgun and made the journey back home.  First time I bought a live chicken and the first time I rode with one in my lap.  When we got home the kids were very excited to have a chicken and we named it “Dinner.” 

Everett having a discussion with Dinner

We decided the chicken should not spend the night tethered to the porch since there are stray dogs that roam around at night.  So I walked, yes walked like on a leash, the chicken to our shed.  I opened the door and did the obligatory sweep with the flashlight for any creepy crawly things.  Thinking the coast was clear, I started walking the chicken into the shed, just as I was passing through the door that’s when it stuck it's head out.  A snake!  There was a snake crawling on the backside of the door and it stuck it head out between the door and the door frame about 6 inches from my shoulder.  I froze with fear; I just do not like snakes.  Breathlessly I backed away and got some words out, enough to alert Kari that something was wrong.  She and the kids came to the window and kept yelling for me to get inside.    I kept the light on the snake, stayed a good 6-8 feet away and called our local snake wrangler.  With one green mamba already to his credit I called Uncle Matt from across the street.  He came armed with a flashlight and a big stick.  After about 30 minutes of searching since the snake crawled to the back of the shed, we finally had success. Uncle Matt found the snake curled up in the back corner.  He thought the snake was non-venomous since it was non-aggressive, but my thoughts on an unidentified snake here in Africa are that a good snake is a dead snake.  They have snakes here that will kill you very quickly.  The locals call the Black Mamba and the Green Mamba two-step snakes, because if you get bitten by one you will get about two steps before you are finished. So with that in mind, Uncle Matt now has two confirmed snake kills in Uganda.

When all the excitement of the great snake hunt ended, we realized that our littlest chameleon Zachius was not doing too good.  Kari got him out of his tree and tried to nurse him back to health with some water.  She even tried to force feed him a small fly, but it was to no avail.  Zachius went to that big tree in the sky.  Everyone was very upset so we had a small funeral service for Zachius.  We wrapped him in a leaf, put him in a small box and buried him under the big tree in our front yard. We came back inside and did some eulogies on video and let the kids talk about their 3 weeks with Zachius and what he meant to them.  It was very sad for the little guy, but the kids interviews were very cute and they even made us all laugh in the end.

We had quit the night here, but that is a typical Saturday Segner Family night here in Uganda. 

We are all Teachers.....

We are all teachers…….even though you may be a lawyer or an accountant, chef or businessman; in everything you do you are a teacher. You may not be writing on a blackboard or grading papers, but you teach everyday. In everything we do, we are teaching someone else. Those of us who are parents have an enormous role as a teacher. We are teaching and molding our children in all that we do. They watch our actions, they listen to our words and they mimic us.  Good or bad.  We are shaping their lives and their walk with the Lord

I do not have children so I am off the hook.  If you are thinking that then you are dead wrong!  People watch the way you act at work and they imitate or take cues from you.  They do the same thing in your personal life; they imitate you and your actions.

How many of us call ourselves Christians?  Once you proclaim yourself a Christian many people will watch you more closely. They will look to you for advice, they will watch your actions and your words. Some will want to be more like you, others will wait for you to make a mistake and hope for you to stumble.

“¹Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my bothers and sisters, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. ² We all stumble in many ways. If anyone is never at fault in what they say, he is a perfect man, able to keep his whole body in check.” James 3:1-2

When we enroll our children in school we often ask the question “What curriculum are you teaching?” We want the best curriculum for our children because we want them to succeed. My question to all of us is this: What curriculum are we teaching at home? What curriculum are we teaching at home with our words, our thoughts and our actions?  We have the perfect curriculum left neatly packaged for us in the Bible. It is up to us to teach from this curriculum. We also have the perfect teacher to emulate. We can not be the perfect teacher, but the good news it we do not have to be by the Grace of God. There is only one perfect teacher.  The One who was, who is and is to come.

God continues to teach us through all that we do.  He teaches us through the triumphs and the struggles.  Are we willing to learn from His teachings?

“Mistakes of doctors are locked away in the grave with the dead, mistakes of the lawyers are locked away in the prisons but the mistakes of teachers are roaming amongst us all.”

96 Glorious Hours

We had 96 straight hours of uninterrupted electricity!  This was by far the longest stretch of continuous power that we have had.  We had electricity from Sunday after lunch to Thursday after lunch; we finally lost it when a storm rolled in this past Thursday afternoon. It was amazing! We all started making jokes “Don’t talk about the electricity; it will go away if we talk about it.” We all kept expecting it to go off any minute and were even shocked every time we walked in the door or flipped on a light switch and still had power.  I began to worry and wonder when it was going off next.  I even started to not enjoy having the power because something must be wrong if it is on this long.  If it is on this long, does it mean that next time it goes off will it be off for long.

It made me think about a passage Kari taught on during our training.

II Corinthians 4:16-18

¹⁶ Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. ¹⁷ For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. ¹⁸ So fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, for what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

This made me think that we all cling to these earthly things. We often worry about what if I lose a loved one, what if something happens to my kids, what if something happens to Kari?  We spend all this time worrying about these things instead of enjoying the time we are given and focusing on the long term promise. This verse encouraged me that even though we will have hardships in this life, that there is hope in Christ.   We will all face hardships and have to endure tough times here on earth, but we should fix our eyes on the eternal promise. Our time here on earth is short, only a flash in time when compared with eternity. We should all let God be our strength during these times.

Right after we enjoyed the long stretch of power and were all worried about it going out again…we lost it for 4 days.  This simple example of electricity is a great example of living out our lives.   And guess what?  We have it back again!

Culture Club

We are learning a great deal about the culture here in Uganda. Here are some of the things we have learned so far….

Greeting… it is all about a proper greeting.  If you do not properly greet someone you are considered very rude. It the States it is not uncommon to walk into a room full of people and wave and say “hello everyone.”  In Uganda, that is socially unacceptable.  You are expected to greet everyone with a handshake and proper greeting which includes asking how they are doing, how their night was, how things are at home, how are the children, how are the cows/goats.  You get the picture?  Greetings can take a very long time.  Even if you have been sitting right next to someone in class for a couple of hours, if you have not properly greeted them you are expected at the first break to greet them and everyone else in the room you have not spoken to.  It is also not acceptable to just wave to someone as you pass by or to start your greeting before you have reached that person. If you do that it is a sign that you are rude and want to get your greeting over very quickly.  If you are passing someone on the road, you are expected to wait until they completely reach you, stop and go through the whole greeting process. It is also very important to teach your children to properly greet someone, so that you are not offensive to someone because your children won’t greet them.  The kids are catching on, even Pierce says hello and sticks his hand out to greet now.

Crossing your arms when someone is speaking is considered rude and disrespectful. By crossing your arms you are saying this person is boring and does not have anything important to say.   I cross my arms all the time; this is something I have had to be conscious of, especially when Ugandans are teaching.

My cute little monkey; How many times have you said that to your little one?   Kari called Pierce her little monkey for the longest time.  He even had a shirt that says “Mommy’s little monkey.”  Cute and harmless right…WRONG!  A group of westerners was visiting New Hope and was with one of the family groups where a couple of young Ugandan children were being bathed in wash basins outside.  One of the ladies said “Oh, look at those cute little monkeys” just a simple term of endearment.  Well the word spread like wildfire through the community that this group of westerners thinks that Africans are monkeys.  Another example was when a man from the UK was praying for a group of Ugandans.  He began is prayer with Lord bless these folks. What the Ugandans heard was fox, and again they were offended wondering why this man though that the Ugandans were a group of animals.  We are being very cautious in our wording and trying not to make mistakes.  And then there is Everett. Those of you that know Everett will just understand that it is Everett being Everett. The Head Master of the School had a birthday today and Kari made a very cute card for all the staff to sign.  Everett, just being Everett comes running up to Uncle Simon to sing him Happy Birthday. Sweet and harmless right, a 5 year old singing happy birthday; what could go wrong?  So Everett starts in “Happy Birthday to you, you’re 102, you look like a……..at which point Kari slaps her hand over his mouth.  Everett keeps trying to sing, muffled by Kari’s hand “You look like a monkey and you smell like one too.”  Thankfully Kari was able to stop E from getting the words out. Can you imagine?  I can see the headlines now “American student calls the Head Master a monkey and thinks he smells like one too.”  Oh Everett you cause me more grey hair each day.   

It is customary in some cultures to fatten the bride up before a wedding because a skinny wife is an unfit wife.  In the States bride’s work hard to lose weight before the big day so they will look good in the wedding gown. Can you imagine in the States “Honey, does this dress make me look fat…..yes dear…..Great!’

If you say “what” in response to someone it is considered rude, your response should be "yes please."  Your conversation would go like this “Kari……….yes please…….can you come over here.”

If someone comes into your home you should invite them in, have them sit down and immediately serve them juice.  You do not ask if they want juice you just bring it to them.  It is rude to ask because it is like you are saying I am asking but I hope that you say no. So when I am back home in the States, I expect “juice” each time I come to your home.

Do you hate when someone drops by the house unannounced?  Not Ugandans! It is considered an honor when someone shows up unannounced. At which point, you guessed it, you need to bring them juice.  It is also expected that if it is near a meal time that you feed them as well. So when we get back to the States our family of six is going to drop by unannounced and expect juice and meals……Is that a problem?

“That’s okay” means yes.  For example do you want more posho (to which your answer should always be NO) if you answer that’s okay, you better move over because there is a heap of posho coming your way. 

Daily dress is nicer than most of our church clothes.  Most people dress very nice for their daily attire.  In our class the women are expected to wear skirts everyday that cover their knees.  Men are expected to wear nice pants and at minimum a collared polo shirt. Workers will dress in nice clothes to go to work and take clothes to change into for work.  There was a group of construction workers building a small apartment near our training classroom.  They would come to work dressed in slacks and button up shirts, take them off and change into work clothes, and put on the nice clothes at the end of the day to go home. When it comes to shoes you had better dress to impress.  If your shoes are not nice, you obviously do not know how to take care of your feet. If you have on dress shoes they better be polished or you should just not wear them. Flip-flops are considered shower shoes and you would not be seen out in public with your shower shoes on. So 99% of college students would be considered to have on shower shoes when they go to class in the States. 

Whew, we have a lot to learn.  This is just a few of the things we have learned so far and the list of things we have not learned yet is even longer. Slowly but surely we are learning.

We have a huge praise report;  we got our Visas renewed with no issues!  We have heard reports that this can be a very big hassle and can take hours or even days.  Thankfully I walked right into the immigration office and would have been done in five minutes if I would have had copies of our passports. I went and got copies made, paid money and "Stamp" we were done. No hassle, no worries and we have new 90 day visas. 

Week of Firsts...

Week of Firsts…….

This was a week of firsts for me.  First, I rode a Bota bota for the first time.  A bota bota is motorcycle taxi and they are everywhere.  I would say they out number cars on the road at least 10:1.  It was literally the first time in my life I had ever been on a motorcycle, ever. Working as a Paramedic I am not a big fan of motorcycle, but it was either take the motorcycle taxi or walk to our destination.  So I jumped on the back, one hand secured to the handle on the back and one arm wrapped tightly around Kari. It is no uncommon to see 2-3 people on a Bota plus the driver.  We actually saw a bota with three male passengers, plus the driver.  Four grown men on one motorcycle was a crazy sight.  Off we went, white knuckled I clung on for my life.  I said a prayer before, during and after our journey.  I leaned forward during the ride and told Kari not to close her eyes because it made it way worse.  When I finally opened my eyes, I noticed that everyone passing by us was laughing, probably due to the shear terror on my face. However, we survived our journey and made it safely to our destination.

Another first for me was ox plowing; it is a required part of our training here at New Hope.  Growing up in College Station, Texas oddly enough we did not do much Ox plowing.  I had been very anxious to “help” in the fields and prepare them for planting by plowing with oxen.  Imagine a city raised boy behind a plow being drug by two enormous oxen.  After two passes I was out of breath and panting, between drops of sweat I looked back at my lines in the soil and they were none too straight.  I sat down to take a break and allow the men to get some actual work done; I am convinced that one of the oxen kept eyeing my down every time they came by.  After a few minutes of rest they called me back and had me do a couple more passes. It was a little easier this time, but wrestling with the plow to keep it in a straight line was hard work.  I sat back down and one of the experts, a 17 year old boy named John, took over.  I looked up from catching my breath and he was holding the plow with one hand and strolling along behind it like it was a leisurely walk in the park. He told me he had been plowing for about 12 years, so that means he was 5 when he started.  Can you all imagine Everett plowing??  Needless to say, they got a lot more work done once I was done “helping” them.

We also had our first encounter with a Mamba this week.  Our friends we are in training with had the first hand run-in with the Green Mamba. Thankfully nobody was hurt, well except the snake……..you can read the whole story complete with pictures at: http://mattandjamie.4cornersministries.org/2012/03/green-mamba-dead/

I scored my first goal playing Futbol with the Ugandans this past week as well…sorta.  On Sundays the Institute students have been challenging the school teachers in a game.  The first challenge was Volleyball and this past week was soccer, which they take very seriously.  It brought out a large crowd to watch and cheer. I was playing defender and our team made a run to the goal, so I ran with them.  There was a bit of a scrum and the ball shot out towards me, I stopped it and tried to pass it to one of our better players (which was anyone on the team other than me) to shoot.  I kicked it and it ricocheted off one of their defenders and squirted into the goal.  I also stopped one of their better players on a one-on-one match up.  He broke loose and it was me and him between our goal, I stood my ground and pretended to know what I was doing.  As he dribbled up to me and made a soccer move, I just stuck my foot out and the ball actually hit it.  The ball bounced right off my foot and shot between his legs.  I was able to run behind him and kick it back up field, all while pretending I had some clue as to what I was doing.  This came with a huge roar from the crowd that this Muzungo (what Ugandans call white people) stole the ball from a Ugandan. We played a full 90 minutes a came to a 1-1 tie.  It was debatable about whether I was going to be able to get out of bed the next day, but amazingly I felt great.

I have also been working in the clinic in the afternoons, which I will blog about more soon.  However, I had another first there last week.  I worker came in with a big splinter deep into his thumb, no problem, nothing some Lidocaine and a big needle can’t cure. We injected his thumb with Lidocaine to numb it up and dug the big splinter out with an 18 gauge needle.  Can’t say I have ever done that in the US.

This is only a few of the things I am doing for the first time in Africa, but these were some of the highlights.

Spider Man

So I woke up last night about 1:30 am to go comfort Hadlee who was crying out. This is not unusual since at least one kid is up at least once a night since arriving here in Uganda. I tucked her back in and half asleep I walked back to our room ready to climb back under the mosquito net and cuddle up in bed. That’s when the adventure began……..  There perched on the wall about 10 inches from where my head lays on the pillow each night was the largest, creepiest, ugliest, keep going with your own description, spider I have ever seen.  It was about as big around as lemon including its legs.  It had huge pincers that it kept clicking together when it saw me and realized we would have a confrontation and hairy legs.  At this point Kari was awake, probably due to me freaking out.  So the showdown was on…… after a carefully concocted plan that included a piece of orange construction paper and a Tupperware container, I made my move.  Now Kari might say that it took a long time for me to work up the courage and that there was a bit of hesitation on my part, but don’t believe her since I am the one telling the story. I made an attempt to trap the giant beast against the wall in the Tupperware container, I then planned to slide the construction paper along the wall and collect the spider in the container.  The spider must have read my mind because as soon as I slammed the container against the wall the spider side stepped and just stared at me.  It then dropped down off the wall onto the night table onto my shirt.  With great bravery I came up with a new plan……. This plan was to get a giant plastic box, the ones we packed in, push the shirt with the spider into the tub and run it outside.  Again, the spider must have read my mind because it leisurely climbed back onto the wall.  Back to square one….  So we did the whole Tupperware plan over again, you guessed it, same result.  This time the enormous spider jumped down onto the floor and began to scurry away.  Now at this point Kari is huddle under the mosquito net, which provided a false sense of security, she was yelling to get it or she would never be able to go back to sleep.  With all our combined bravery, which would have filled up a thimble, Kari moved the night table and found the beast crouched down.  I actually thought it was a different one that was dead; however the spider was just playing possum.  At this point I had enough; I went and got the all powerful Doom.  Doom is the Ugandan version of Raid, just a lot less powerful and smells a lot worse.  I sprayed the spider down with a fog that would have grounded the most seasoned airline pilot.   After the fog cleared literally, the beast had the audacity to move again and run behind the cabinet.  I then proceeded to let loose another fog that would have made an NBA arena proud.  At this point the spider was shriveled up and dying, for good measure I gave it another blast.  After this great adventure, I tucked the mosquito net into the mattress and crawled back in bed.  Kari reached over with her hand to say good night and grabbed my hand, at which point I freaked out and smashed her hand thinking somehow the giant spider had survived the assault of Doom and had crawled in bed to ambush me.  Once I was assured it was just Kari’s hand, I settled in to go back to sleep.  I only lay awake for an hour or so thinking everything that moved or touched me was the revenge of the spider.   I can deal with broken bones and bleeding wound, but a giant spider is not my forte.

Giant spiders were not part of the deal when we moved to Africa.  I can handle the poverty conditions we encounter and the sickness and injuries people come to the clinic with, but come on man spiders?

Karson’s Kreepy Korner will be posted today if we can get the pictures to upload.  The enormous spider would have been a great addition, but it met its demise when it met with the Spider whisperer or spider screamer depending on who it telling the story. 

Daydreams of food

So we spent this afternoon at lunch daydreaming about what foods we would have if we were back in the States. Here is the list of what each person came up with; we each named an appetizer, drink, main dish and dessert. Hadlee’s is most interesting, but it was word for word from her mouth.

Kari- chips and salsa from Ozona, Route 44 Diet Dr. Pepper “easy ice”, Sam’s 3 meat pizza, movie theater butter popcorn

Everett- hot dog on a bun with ketchup, mustard and relish for an appetizer

Chocolate milkshake for his drink, cheese pizza from Papa John’s, and Spoons frozen yogurt for dessert.

Karson- Shipley’s Donuts for an appetizer (warm glazed), a Sonic sour apple slush, soft tacos with juicy chicken and home-made brownies to round it out.

Hadlee- hot dogs with syrup, ketchup and mustard to start things off, apple-orange juice, hot Chucky Cheese- cheesy macaroni pizza, and for dessert what else but a cake with Hot Tamales spicy candy and chocolate chips (not the Black box  she says those are too spicy, but the red box; you Hot Tamale lovers will know what she means)

Jason- Fried pickles from Chicken Oil Company and chips and queso, Big pile of wings and tenders from Wing-n-More with lots of ranch, Cherry Lime slush from Sonic to cool things down, and Blue Bell ice cream anything with chocolate.

Pierce really didn’t voice his opinion but I would assume peanut butter, since that is what he lives on here.

Since we could not have these things we settled for the spaghetti they made us  for lunch with chunks of “mystery meat” and mushrooms. For dinner tonight Kari made an incredible home-made chicken noodle soup.  She even cooked and cleaned the chicken herself, this job is usually reserved for me.  Luckily we did not have to prepare the chicken ourselves; Kari was able to get  a frozen whole chicken from one of the family groups that was already plucked and ready to cook. She added some egg to the soup which made it delicious!  She made some Texas sweet tea to go with dinner, thanks Mom for sending Lipton Tea bags! For dessert, since they were fresh out of Blue Bell ice cream on this continent, she made Snicker doodles from scratch. The boys each ate four bowls of soup,  I would venture to say they liked it! Kari has become quite creative in the kitchen having to make everything from scratch.

It has been raining a lot here lately, which is a good thing.  It has filled our cistern enough for us to pump water back into the tank so that we can have water for shower and dishes again. I sure took running water for granted back in the States.  We had a storm blow in on Friday that was crazy.  The adults were all playing volleyball and Karson was at futbol practice.  It started lightly raining which was not a big deal because it had been doing that for the last few days.  All of the sudden the bottom let lose and it was pouring down rain.  We could not make it home, but luckily there was a covered porch near the volleyball court, we all took shelter under that with the 3 younger kiddos.  However, Karson got stuck at futbol practice and ran to a friend’s house.  While the wind was howling and the rain was coming down we realized we had left our windows open.  So I ran home in the pouring rain and hail to find our bed, bedroom floor, Hadlee’s bed and Everett’s bed already soaking wet.  I closed the wooden shudders on the inside and moved everything away from the windows.  There is no glass in the windows, only screen, so you are at the mercy of the wind to determine if the rain blows in.  We called and found out Karson was taking refuge at Uncle Keith’s house with a towel and dry clothes, so we settled in and weathered the storm.  We got everything dried out and it even stopped raining in time for us to walk down to dinner.

With all the rains means we can start working the fields with the Samuel Family, on Monday we are going to plow the fields with Oxen.  It should be an adventure, stay tuned for pictures of me Ox plowing...

If you follow Karson’s Korner he has a great one planned for this week, if you don’t you should check out his stories.  A little teaser for next weeks story from Karson….. Karson’s Kreepy Korner.

           http://www.healingfaithuganda.org/category/karsons-korner/