January 22

In the late afternoon on Friday, I noticed some of the staff were out on the grass by the work site where Rick and the boys were “digging.” I decided that I would join up with the group and see what all of the excitement was about. , Anne, Selena, Michael, Sam (all Global Care staff), and two children were watching the goings-on, while sitting under the mango tree. It seems that the boys were able to dig many meters below where they should have hit the rock layer. Oh, this is such good news!!! The deeper the “rocket” is able to navigate, often, the better the water supply.

There was such a spirit of, celebration and hope. When Rick “called it,” for the day, he gathered his team together for a short meeting. This very wise man used this time as a platform to publically affirm their hard work (3 of the guys even got raises), and to highlight how building a team equates to unity, fluidity, and greater efficiency. Rick is building Biblical principles into their lives—teaching skills to become sustainable, while operating with business ethics.

The meeting concluded with the pastor in the group leading us in a Teso praise song, during which, there was a tangible oneness in Spirit.  The harmony and clarity of their voices was a cause for pause. Joy unexplainable.

After the group disbanded, Anne, asked me to bring the beef we had purchased at the market, to the outside kitchen for an African cooking lesson. It was a lovely time of building relationship, and yet another peak into their daily existence.

To prepare the beef for cooking, you need two people (analogy here?). One person holds the meat taut, and another does the cutting. I was informed that you cannot cut the meat well unless someone does the “holding” for you. They do not use cutting boards.

The beef is cooked with onion, garlic, tomatoes, and green pepper over a charcoal stove for about 2.5 hours. As the sun-set, and the stew simmered, we shared tea and chatted.

Off in the distance, there was music playing from a recorder of sorts, the chatter of children winding down for the day, and occasional crow of a rooster.

The earth is indeed full of His Glory.

You’ve probably been wondering about the progress with the repair of the previously dug well on the Global Care property. Following is a run-down of the project currently underway:

16 meters is nuthin’! We’re now past that and right about at 17 meters! We dinked around this morning, with me trying to let the guys do things their way and thus wasted most of the morning trying to get the hole moving again. First they insisted on putting all 5 pipes on to try to pull out the water and mud that had settled in the hole over the weekend; that didn’t go so well, as they kept ramming the open pipe into the mud at the bottom of the hole. Finally, I convinced them that the way to do it was little by little and thin the muck so they could get some drilling mud moving up the stem. Then they insisted on putting on the “rocket” (which is what they call the drill bit), so of course once it was on, they started slamming it down into the bottom of the hole . . . and of course stopped it up again. So, finally after pulling the entire rig about 4 or 5 times, they agreed to try it slow and just allow the rocket to barely touch the bottom and pump it quickly. As you know, it finally started working great.

By the time we got past all the preparing, it was nearly one o’clock before the real drilling started again. We get about 6 inches an hour, pounding through really fine light-colored sand. We’ve used over 2 bags of bentonite now, but they see the value in the clay over the poly-sal “snot.” Everyone here is stunned at how deep we’ve gone; the village borehole (coming in at over 15 million Ugandan shillings) is at about the same depth as we’ve now reached.

Everyone is encouraged; everyone is hopeful and all the neighbors are beginning to take notice. Today we started something sort of interesting . . . one of the guys Joe really liked is named Omiat Solomon. He’s the one who produces music here in Soroti. I asked if he could take a verse of scripture and make a song of it, so we are now singing and memorizing Joshua 1:8 in Ateso! These guys get the verse within minutes, so for a couple of hours this afternoon, we were singing and learning Joshua 1:8. They seemed to like it, so I think I’ll see if we can continue!

January 16, 2011

So the best laid plans. . .

I was so excited to prepare my first real dinner. Boy was I ever going to “wow” Rick with my resourcefulness, and tenacity in finding meat for dinner!!I could smell the goat meat cooking on the stove, and salivated while thinking about how delicious our meal would be. . .Let me tell ya. The anticipation was way better than the reality.

Problem #1: Rick walked into the door around 6pm and announced that an hour ago, he had eaten a meal of posho and beans with “the boys” he was working with. Big party foul. I mean, handn’t I been planning this candlelight meal since late morning when I went on a hunt  for goat meat??? Hmmm.

Problem #2: Sometimes it works to look-up recipes on the Internet, right? Where else would you go to find a recipe for cooking goat—especially given there is a food channel website??? So I found a delicious-sounding recipe. Now, maybe it was significant that I only had one of 7 ingredients that this particular recipe called for. Wait. I didn’t really have even one of the ingredients. I was substituting calamanzies for the  lime juice and thought they would work. After all, I had used them daily in the Philippines. So if a little of the juice was required, maybe I should just throw in the whole calamanzie???

Problem #3. After about an hour of “stewing,” I ventured a taste. Nuts! Bitter as can be!! The calamanzie rind, apparently, was bitter and so was my goat gravy. Okay, Sher. You are a back-packer, and you can be innovative! How would I begin to balance the “bitter?” We’ll, given a limited pantry, I decided to experiment. I sprinkled in some stevia (from home), a couple of tablespoons of peanut butter (after all–anything with peanut butter tastes good!), and some apple vinegar. Wouldn’t the vinegar mask the bitterness? Surely it would. So I confidently proceeded with the stew and added cabbage, carrots, green peppers, and a whole lotta garlic powder. I put the lid on the pan, and waited for the magic to happen.

Still waiting for the magic. IT WAS SOOOOOOO BITTER, and to make matters worse, I was the only one eating the stuff. Rick, remember was full of posho and beans. I could only manage to choke down a couple of bites before I pronounced the dinner as a Complete Failure!

So, we moved on to finish up our last dark chocolate bar, made popcorn, and went to bed. And the candles never got lit!