A rare and lovely day.... off

Carole and I are having a rare and lovely day off. So we slept in – ish – although carole was up at 6:00am!

I ate a quick breakfast (Carole and I got an offer by the hotel owner to be fixed up with his brothers and had to disappoint him with our unmarriagable status) and then I hand washed my laundry. We walked to town and to the bank. We love the bank because it has a “sindica” sign on the door, translating to “push” and this is the lugandan word we are quite familiar with in our work. (along with “to sindica” [don’t push] and “wega wega” [pant])

The bank was packed on a Saturday morning, so we decided to just head onto the internet cafe to wait for Cathy and Prossy (our Ugandan midwife friend) and Irene (our Zambian nurse-midwife friend). We paid $1000 shillings for 22 minutes of internet time (about .50 cents US) and checked our e-mail.

Then, Cathy, Irene and Prossy arrived and we CROSSED THE BUSY STREET (which we have never done) and went down crumbling concrete stairs and through a narrow alley to the market area. We have been here almost 2 weeks and had never ventured in that area. It was full of colours and so many stores selling cloth and caftans and scarves and sandals and many, many places selling very frilly little girl dresses. Prossy helped with the prices, because no prices are actually attached to anything. There was much negotiation . Prossy also held my hand to cross the streets, taught me how to hide my money and took Carole’s pulse when we commented on how tired Carole seemed.

A little girl (about 3) came running up to me with total delight on her face and I thought she was going to jump in my arms. She was so happy to see me, it was kind of like when my daughter Hannah sees the A&W Rootbear Mascot at the Billy Barker Day’s parade. This was somewhat more fun of an experience than yesterday evening (we were so tired after our day at the hospital), when a group of school children pointed and laughed at us trudging up the hill to the hotel and the guys on bicycles at the top applauded when we made it to the top. Har har. But like I said to Jody, we are funny looking.