Please be in prayer for Uganda.  Yesterday, some riots broke out in Kampala.  There were a couple of people killed and over a hundred injured.  Over three hundred were arrested.

We knew about the elections in February.  As we understood it, it had gone pretty well.  However, they think now that there may have been some corruption in the vote counting.  The president was re-elected.  His biggest opponent is now leading a "walk to work" protest for the nasty inflation that everyone has incurred.  Inflation has gone up over 14%!!  I guess the major opponent was approached in his vehicle on Thursday by the police.  The situation got heated, his car window was broken and the police sprayed tear gas in his face and arrested him.  His followers have since raised the level of protesting since.

Thankfully, we are far enough away to not be involved.  We had to find out via the internet that all this was happening.  The only thing that prompted our concern was that there was some police down on the main road warning vehicles of the problems.  Of course we had no idea what they were saying so we had to look on the internet.

For those of you who are going to read this and over react... we are doing our diligence.  We are checking with the embassy to follow what they advise.  Currently, there is little concern.  These protests have been going on for some time.  They have been in different cities and far from here.  So hopefully it will go away or at least stay in those locations far from here.

So again, pray for stability.  We have little need to go to Kampala so until we are pretty well certain of the safety, we will refrain from going there.

So this past week, I had my first road trip to north Uganda, to the town of Paidha.  The title of this blog implies that I got there faster than any other person has, and that is not the case.  I am sorry for the misleading title.  However, I have to confirm with Guinness Book of World Records to see, but I am sure we made a record.  It was the longest distance traveled at a speed greater than 50 mph on a road wide enough for one and one half cars in a commuter BUS.  The real record is how fast you pass another vehicle from opposing traffic having a distance between the vehicles to slide one's hand, or less!  Not to mention the speed maintained while the Nile River fell from the sky, going down a mountain on a one lane road that is dirt.  Quite honestly, I have no idea why people pay to jump out of planes or bungee jump.  Come to Uganda, sport the $10 bus ticket and take a ride to Paidha.  The consolation prize is going thru the Murchison Falls National Park where you will likely see some sort of African wild animal.  (I saw two elephants and a herd of Kob.)

Paidha is a town that a person imagines when they think of Africa.  It is very quiet.  There are a lot of homes with grass roofs.  The mode of carrying your groceries, firewood, merchandise for sale, etc. is on your HEAD!  It was really a beautiful place.  The rolling hills/mountains were majestic.  You could really see God's glory in his creation.

My purpose for going was to meed with a group of people organized to build a Christian school.  This committee has been organized for a little over a year.  Their main focus has been to organize a community to build a school in Christ's name.  And they have doing a great job!  They have already acquired a plot, roughly 2 acres in size.  They have built a preliminary budget and made a vision for the school and its structure.  My job was to consult with them and take into consideration what they have and what they want.

I got to the site on Tuesday morning.  All of the teachers, the head mistress of the school (currently held in a small church), the school building committee, and the Mayor of Paidha were there to greet me (and the social worker Prossie who was there to give some training to the teachers).  It was quite honoring to have the mayor meet you and express his excitement in the work that is to come.

This school has been organized with the idea that this will be a self supporting school.  In other words, they are supposed to raise the funds necessary to build the school.  However, the minute people see Americans they see money.  So they basically make every effort to get money from the US.  Once I managed to convince them that I do not have the means to get the funds they need, we got to business.  We walked the property, measured the boundaries, discussed the building priorities, and made a plan for how construction should start.  Then, more impressively, we came up with a plan for them to raise finances to build the school they want.  There are compromises and prayers needed but there is also hope.  We developed a plan, with little outside investment, that would have the first phase of construction complete by January 2013.  It is really exciting!

The coolest thing about meeting with all of them was that you could see the Lord working... one of there problems was that they had made 10,000 bricks to date.  However, before we met, those bricks were not completed.  They still required the last process to make them construction ready, burning.  Well as we met, a man volunteered to burn (which is a skilled trade) 4,000 of the bricks!  That would allow them the ability to sell some of the bricks to attain more money to burn the rest.  (they will continue this process until they have enough bricks to build the school)  Also, before we met, they had never had a plan of how to raise funds to build the school.  As we were discussing how they can use the plot while they are not building (to grow produce to sell) another man volunteered 10 acres of his own property for the committee to use for harvesting a cash crop.  It seems like something little, but it was HUGE!  It opened a door that was otherwise closed.  It was halting all further planning of construction until then.  It was really a blessing!

In the meantime, on the home front, we had lost water and electricity while I was gone.  It was a huge bummer.  There are few things that we appreciate as luxuries here, but those two are really high on the list.  Thankfully for me we had it restored by the time I got back.  But Lizzy, the kids, and Azeda had to bear the brunt of having to haul water to flush toilets, do dishes, laundry, etc.  What a pain!  Pretty soon our kids will have the ability to walk with 5 gallons of water balancing on their heads, too!

We had another "new" experience yesterday.  One that is right up our alley... Liz and company went to the market to pick up some necessities (one includes de-worming medicine for all of us, which is a whole other blog entry).  As they made their way through the market, there was a vendor selling a "delicacy".  One that can only be described as fried grasshoppers without their wings or back legs.  (cue upset stomach)  In typical Lizzy fashion, she bought a bag to take home to the naive.  With a big smile on her face, she presented me one of these morsels saying, "try it, Azeda says they are good!"  Of course we could not pass this up.  Everyone consumed at least one of these things.  The best is watching Isabel chewing on one with the head hanging out of her mouth.  The antennas tickling her upper lip!  Protein!!!!

Well, this has been a long entry.  Sorry.  I am still nodding my head in awe that we consumed those bugs, but hey we lived through it!

Toodles for now...

So for the next two days we are on our own.  Azeda's mom was hospitalized with Malaria and she has gone to help.  She said she would be back Saturday morning, but we will see.  Please pray for a quick recovery of her mother.  I am not sure how old her mom is, but her father died from Malaria 18 years ago.

So what can a family of "mozungu's" (translated... white people) do without a house maid?  Well laundry is out of the question!  She has an amazing ability to get almost every stain out of our clothes.  And as you can imagine, four kids with red dirt/mud everyday can produce some serious laundry.  Oh yeah, that and the Ugandan version of Montezuma's revenge is reeking havoc on poor Isabel.  I tell you what, you cannot pay someone enough money to deal with the amount of cloth diapers that we have had.  They are all washed by hand!  Holy crap... literally!

Actually, Isabel is just starting to get over it.  It was a combination of her body adjusting and cutting teeth.  She had a couple of bad days there.  But it is getting better, quickly.

Sorry for jumping on subjects... but everyone knows I am a little ADHD.  (a little?)

Yesterday was a pretty fun day.  After home schooling, Liz and I took a motorcycle taxi (bota-bota) to the "mall."  At the mall, there are European style groceries available.  Hence the ability to make cookie dough now.  The first bike was a little older.  If we hit a bump you could feel the motorcycle grind a little.  I am pretty sure that motorcycle was not rated for three (and a half) people, one of which is a fat guy.  (my tail bone still hurts from the ride!)  After that four hour excursion, we played outside the gate with the neighbor kids.  It was a ton of fun!  It first started with frisbee.  Of course, the neighbors did not have frisbees, they used the tops of butter containers!  I am pretty sure that between the 30-40 kids outside our gate that there may only be three balls (a mini soccer ball, a plastic wiffle ball, and a real soccer ball).  I have only seen the real soccer ball here once.  It is probably because they cost around $15 here.  So these kids make do with everything. 

I often see the kids playing with bicycle tires and sticks.  They will see how far they can roll the tire with the stick before it falls.  There are a couple of kids who have sticks that resemble guns.  So they have their little mini gun fights.  After a little while, I got out Isaac's mini-football.  The neighbors love seeing that.  Most of the time, we just have a big circle of kids and we play catch.  But yesterday was different.  After a short while, one kid, Louis, volunteered to be "in the middle."  From that, we probably had three hours of the craziest game of monkey in the middle I have ever seen!  It was a ton of fun, until mom said I had to come in for dinner   (j/k Lizzy).

By the way, we realized yesterday that everyone will have to pray for the poor work groups that come here.  The language barrier here has halted my ability to make jokes.  So besides Lizzy, I have no one to joke with.  Poor Azeda must thing I am a lunatic!  So the work groups will have to be my opportunity to vent my jokes.  They are all getting pent up.  I may have to find a padded room.

Now for the good news... It is official, we have all of the ingredients to make chocolate chip cookies.  Oh yeah, except and OVEN!  Do not worry though, Lizzy will get her fix just by eating the cookie dough.  Oh the sacrifices...!

Well, I guess that is all for now.  Please keep praying for us.

Who would have thought having a goat would be entertaining?  Oh wait, I forgot there are a lot of friends of 4H from Lizzy's past.  Ok, for those of you who never have had a goat... it is entertaining.  Being in a tropical climate there are a lot of fresh foods.  So we have been entertained by what the goat will and will not eat.  Most surprising endeavor is cooked rice.  Most surprising refusal is watermelon.

The best part about having the goat is that Lydia is learning responsibility.  She is getting up at the butt-crack of dawn.  As soon as she hears the goat bleat, she gets up.  Not only does she get up, but she quickly gets dressed too!  There is no more slumming around in PJ's for half the day (except for her mom)!  Then she goes out and lets the goat our of it's bedroom.  (bedroom = latrine)  We realized that we had to start putting the goat in a covered area because at night is the most common time for storms.  And when it storms here it is crazy!  So back to the responsibility... when she lets the goat out, she even goes up and cleans the latrine out!  Holy crap, Lydia is growing up!

Now if we can stop the goat from sneaking into the house, we would be all set.  The most common thing I say to Lydia is "Lydia, your goat is in the kitchen!  Please get it out of here."  Oh yeah, that and "I love you."

I asked Grace, yesterday, what she wanted for her birthday.  Thankfully, she said she wanted a chicken.  If she wanted another goat I would go nuts.  They are pretty big dogs that poop a lot of little turds everywhere!

On a side note, we have one more week before the work starts.  The Monday after Easter, I head up to Paidha in northern Uganda.  There is a prospective school there.  So a group of us are taking a bus north to visit the people there and assess the plot where they desire to build the school.  It is just northwest of the Karuma Game Reserve.  Maybe I will see some exotic creatures. 

In the meantime, Monday school starts.  Pray for patience!  I think Liz will need it.  She/the kids are so used to being in a hurry and entertained often that being cooped up and bored is taxing.  So I pray that it goes well.  Thankfully, Lydia has a good portion of her curriculum that is computer based.  So tandem teaching is hopefully easier.  However, first grade is a big deal for Gracie.  It is the grade where a good portion of reading is taught.  Of course Gracie is pretty bright, so I have faith that it will go well.

Lastly, an update to the Adjusting blog post.  We have found a new means to get clean water.  We bought a dispenser for the big water jugs that are used commercially, the ones that hold 5 gallons of water.  So now, there is no more lugging two gallons of water at a time, it is now FIVE GALLONS!  I have only had to do it once so far.  I figure it will need replacing every three to four days.  Thank God for a strong back and healed knees!

So it was made pretty apparent yesterday, when Liz and I went on a walk, that we are in Africa.  Surprise, right?!  We went for a walk up the hill from our house, just to see what and where it went.  As we approached the top, utterly exhausted from the crazy incline we had just conquered, we saw a monkey just walking around.  A monkey!  The funny realization was made when I read a funny post on my Facebook after noting the observation.  Someone posted "You are in Africa, remember?! I hear they have lions & elephants, too. Just an FYI!!" 

Not much has changed in the past couple of days.  There is still "sticker shock" when it comes to shopping here.  You would think that food would be more inexpensive here.  I can't say that it is.  We got a whole chicken for dinner tonight and it cost a little over $7.  It was actually pretty funny.  Lydia and Grace went with Liz and Azeda to the market to get groceries.  Before they had gone, we made the decision that chicken was for dinner.  So as they walked through the market, they were looking for chickens.  Finally, they found a vendor selling chickens.  Azeda looked through the offerings, feeling to find a nice meaty bird.  She found the right one.  Lydia then said, "we are going to take that chicken home!?"  Yeah, it was a live bird.  The vendor then went and "prepared" the bird immediately following Azeda's decision.  Talk about fresh food!

I want to add a new definition for those who do not live through a Rainy Season.  A rainy season is when you WILL have rain every day.  It does not rain all day everyday.  It will just surely rain at least once a day.  It may only be for 5 minutes, but could last for a few hours.  Let me tell you, when it rains it really does pour.  There is a benefit here for all of that rain.  Most of the better houses have a rain collection reservoir.  So do we.  It is nice.  We do not have to pay for the water used to flush toilets or for laundry.  It is very efficient.

For the record, I am certain that Isabel will never walk.  She absolutely, positively does not want to walk.  You can coax her to walk holding your hand for hours.  Immediately after you pull your finger from her clamping grip, she drops to the ground anxiously WANTING to crawl.  She is a turd!  So for those of you who are worried about not seeing the kids grow up, don't worry.  Isabel will still be crawling when we get back!

So how do you celebrate an eight year old's birthday while in a third world country?  There isn't a lot of cool things to do or toys to buy.  We considered buying her a refrigerator but it is a little out of our price range and we didn't think she would want that.  So we went on line and found a pizza joint in downtown Kampala.  We took a taxi to the taxi park in Kampala and then we debated about how to get the rest of the way.  Traffic was very heavy and we weren't sure exactly where the restaurant was.  Azeta suggested a bota bota.  We decided it would be the fastest and most reliable way to find the restaurant.  We hired three motorcycles to take all seven of us to the restaurant.  They drive on sidewalks and weave in and out of traffic jams.  It was terrifying to see my children ride a motorcycle but it is so common here.  They don't even think twice about it.  We celebrated with pizza and milkshakes.  The milkshakes were actually just milk shaken with chocolate.  Not the creamy treat we were hoping for but it was ok.  For a present we ordered her a baby goat.  It will not arrive until Monday but we are very excited to see her reaction.  We didn't tell her yet.  So that is how we celebrated our first born turning eight.

Today we met a bunch of the neighbor kids.  It was nice to have playmates for the kids.  Until now all the kids have just yelled stuff and pointed and laughed.  Our kids were scared to talk to them because the only time they did, they kept poking them and touching their hair.  They were fascinated with Grace's glowing body.  One of the kids even picked her up and tried to walk away with her.  I had to rescue them.  Today went much better though.  We brought out balls and Isaac's nerf gun.  The kids, about 25, laughed and played for hours.  The girls were very excited to have found some playmates. 

We still don't feel settled because the house is still being renovated.  They are still working on the kitchen, bathroom, and some misc. painting.  We were able to get furniture on Thursday.  It felt great to sit in a chair and not on the floor.  We have made lemons into lemonade, though.  The other night, prior to getting the furniture, we decided to have a movie night.  We stacked all of our mattresses together to have a make-shift sofa.  We stacked some luggage to place the computer and we watched "How to Train Your Dragon."  It was a nice little doing for the kids (and Azeta, she really likes movies).

This morning, Grace was writing a few of her friends some emails.  She is such a bright shining star!  Every email started with "I miss you, but I love living in Uganda."

So from all of the Ugandan Neeley's, thanks for the prayers and keep them coming!

That is a loaded title.  All we have done since we landed is tried to adjust.  There are so many things to adjust too after living a spoiled American life for so long.  Here are some adjustments we have had to make:

Food - There is not much for variety here.  There is rice at almost every dinner.  There is plain bread at every breakfast and lunch.  There is always fruit (good stuff).  There is VERY LITTLE meat.  There are potatoes and beans... occasionally pasta.  Our favorite breakfast, that we have had religiously since we landed, is eggs/bread/fruit/tea.

Grocery shopping - First of all, imagine not having a refrigerator... now imagine not being able to drink from the tap.  This task is exhausting!  There is a run or two to the store every day.  We have been averaging about 10 liters of water a day.  That is over 2 gallons!  Now go home and pick up two gallons of milk, carry it 500 yards up a hill that has a 35 degree grade.  That is our workout, daily.  Keep in mind, there is other food needed every day also, so it is a two adult task.

Culture - W are the only white people for a good 3 mile radius.  Enough said.  LIterally, we are an attraction to all of the local children.  They are always yelling "Bye Muzungo" as we walk past.  Everyday, after school, there is a crowd of children outside of our gate peeking their heads and hands through our peek hole.  It is about 4 inches square.  So far, there has been atleast two faces and three hands... we are keeping track!

Cooking - Not for the faint of heart.  You have to really like food to cook here!  We have acquired two stoves, yes two!  One is kerosene for the quick meals, like breakfast eggs.  The other is a charcoal stove.  This beauty can cook for hours.  They both sit about 12 inches off of the ground and are about as wide as a dinner plate.  They are used to cook each course of the meal, one at a time.  So for the folks who cannot appreciate this, go home and crouch down to where your butt is about 3 inches off the ground and sit there for two hours while stirring rice or meat.  It is not easy.

Transportation - So far, we have relied mostly on a hired driver who carts us all around.  However, that is very expensive and cannot be sustained.  Lizzy went to the market the other day and got to experience the highly sought after bota-bota ride.  It is just a motorcylcle with an extended banana seat like on the old-school bicycles, but padded.  She went with Azeta, so that put three people on one motorcylcle.  I cannot wait to strattle another man while riding in 85 degree weather.

So that is a little taste of the adjusting we have done.  Liz and I are conscious of this, but the kids have to do it not knowing of the greater good.  Praise God for such amazing children!  So for now, enjoy the little things!

We think we have done it!!  We went and looked at another couple of houses today.  Both houses were listed at one million shillings per month.  That is about $415 per month.  Like I said before, we have only budgetted $300 (per month.  However, the Lord was with us (and Prossie, WWCS Uganda's social worker). 

The first house was AMAZING!  It had a fortress for a wall with barbed wire fence all around and security lights in front and back.  Thlie doors and windows are all top of the line with decorative bars protecting them.  Every door and window has screens to keep out the malaria ridden mosquitos.  There is a garage/extra bedroom, because we will likely never have a car.  There is a good sized kitchen with the ability to receive a stove (not likely we will buy one).  There is a dining room, which is not common, a sitting room (aka living room) too.  There are the bedrooms that are very large, all having wardrobes/closets.  The master bedroom, the fiesta de rennaissance (screw spellcheck), has an immaculate bathroom with a jacuzzi.  Yes I said jacuzzi!!!  The house sits high on a hill, which does not bode well for transport, but makes up for it in an amazing view!

The second house was very nice.  It is undergoing "renovations", which include completing the kitchen, by adding cupboards.  The main bathroom needed the shower head installed.  The exterior needed the entrance paved and the wall needed to be plastered and have a barrier installed (barb wire, glass, electric wire, etc.).  However the rooms were very large, all three of them.  This also had a dining room and sitting room.  This house is located in a prime area.  It is merely 50 yards on a level path to the main road.  That is very important here.

Anyway, we left the first house after doing some negotiating on the phone.  We left with the understanding that the land owner was coming in person to negotiate.  But the other house was close, so we left to go to that.  Once we got to the second house, we realized that someone was keeping up the house by living in it.  (kindof a problem when we need to move in immediately)  However, that live-in person was able to negotiate with us... and he was willing to compromise and come down to 800,000 shillings, about $330.  Which is a little above our budget, but managable.  However, as you can tell from my description above, we were really into the first house.  So we chose to leave the second house to see what options we had with the land owner on the first house.

We arrived to the first house again, and the landowner was there.  She was probably in her mid-50's and well dressed.  Keep in mind that the first time this house was viewed last week, she refused to negotiate.  Well we got there, and Prossie jumped into house-hunter mode.  She spent a few minutes dealing with the landowner in close contact, very quietly.  About 5 minutes later, she came and told us that the landowner conceided to 800,000 shillings!  Holy CRAP!!!  We are buying the amazing house that we really liked.  As a matter of fact, when the house was viewed originally our house help was there to see it.  She has mentioned several times that she liked that house.  So Azeta, a-zaa-ta, was pretty happy to hear that we successfully got the "nice house."

Anyway, that is just a small part of our Sunday.  I left out the three hour church service that we showed up to one and one half hours late.  And yes, we showed up late and it still lasted 3 additional hours!

Tatta for now,

Chad

So we landed late last night, 10:15 Kampala time (7 hours ahead of Grand Rapids)!  What an adventure it was.  I cannot believe that the kids made it the whole way.  There was relative peace among them.  THANK GOD!!  We actually got praise for how good our children were.  Imagine our suprise...

We finally got to sleep around 2 am!  Yes, that is all of us!  We had to wake Isabel at 11:30 am.  The other kids got up just before us around 10:30.

We are currently staying in a motel.  It is definately not the Ritz, but it has beds/pillows/mosquito nets!  There is even a little heat in the shower, praise God!  We did some running today.  We got hooked up with some Ugandan Shillings and we are multi-millionaires! It sounds nice to say that, but things are not any cheaper here.  An Iphone 4 costs $800, a soda $0.75, you get the jist.

The kids are adjusting well, or at least as you could expect.  Grace is really adapting well.  She is incredible.  Isaac and Lydia are struggling.  It is either sleep deprivation or the shock of it all.  But there is little making them happy.  But they are warming up to the idea.  Once we get a house, and settle in a little, I forsee it getting much better.

We also met our house help yesterday.  She is awesome!  The kids absolutely love her.  It is really nuts how quickly they warmed up to her.  Even Isabel likes her a lot!

The house hunt is on... we looked at two today, but our budget does not allow for the mansions that we all dream about.  We could get a pretty sweet house, from what I hear, for about a million shillings a month.  However, that is about $115 per month more than what we budgeted.  So either pray for the exchange rate to increase drastically, or for a similar house to come available in our price range.  We cannot afford to stay in a hotel too long.  Ten days expense is equal to our budgetted house payment!

Keep in mind, we are seven hours ahead of you, but Skyping is free from one computer to another.  If you so desire, I can email you our cell phone numbers.  We cannot afford to make calls from them, internationally, but we can receive them.  I hear that it is only $0.17 per minute if you Skype a phone.  Not too shabby if you ask me.

Anyway, for now, that is an update.  Please continue praying for us.  We will need quite a bit of moral support with the cultural adjustment.  Things are DIFFERENT.

T minus 3 days til unemployment!  This is wierd!

15 days until departure from the US.  Things are coming together on the Ugandan front.  Praise God!

Thats it for now...