New House Snippet

Leslie sent the following email out a few days ago.  I thought others would enjoy this snippet of our life:

Yesterday was moving day to our house up the hill... exhausting!  But all in all, a really good day with some funny stories to go with it.  The guys who came to help us move put 50 lb trunks and suitcases on their heads and hiked it up the hill like mountain goats - Travis was impressed!  He offered to load it all in the van and drive up, but "No," they said, "this is faster."  My househelper, Sharon, arrived at 10am and that girl is a work-horse like I've never seen - in an 8 hour day, she went to market, bought rice, beans, cabbage, tomatoes, onions, etc... charcoal and a large knife, came back, hand sorted and picked through all the rice and beans, and cooked over two little stoves in our back yard house (like a garage for workers to sleep in) - the food was excellent - so much for the rice-cooker I bought in Kampala - don't think I'll be needing it after all!  After lunch, she scrubbed the entire bathroom with an SOS pad, then mopped the entire house (when I say "mopped" I mean on hands and knees with rags - our floors are dirt and concrete)  She washed up all the dishes from lunch and scrubbed the kitchen sink and shelves!  She came back again today to do the same - washed and hung up all the laundry by hand (probably 4 loads worth), cooked lunch again, washed up all the dishes, mopped floors again and washed windows, including scraping off splattered paint with a small knife!  Her wages are about $50 per month and she is one of the higher paid house-helpers b/c she is so diligent and reliable and trustworthy.  I am feeling a lot better about life here in Kabale now that we have Sharon - what a jewel!  I hope to send a photo of her soon so you can know her too.  The funny & sweet story from yesterday is that after all the men had moved everything - including heavy furniture from the other house we were in - they were all sitting around the living room and front porch and Travis didn't know if they were waiting for lunch or to be paid, or what... so finally he asked Jovahn (our friend and vice-principal at BBUC) and Jovahn said, "they are waiting for you to pray for them!"  Travis clarified, "you mean pray - not pay?"  So "the Reverend" went in and prayed a blessing over all of them and then they left.  So today we have some crazy curtains and some crazy plastic mats on the floor and a crazy wall clock to go with it -  this house is really making me laugh, it's going to be so mish-mash white-woman tries to make it work in Africa!  Today we also got out our iPod and speakers so we could listen to some music and that was refreshing... I was thinking about the words from one of the worship songs, "We give all honor and thanks to Your Name, We trade our sorrows for garments of praise!"  Tonight we saw 2 crested cranes - the national bird of Uganda - it's on the Ugandan flag - right outside our front door in the top of the tree... ran in for the camera and they took off.

 And now for some pictures:

Hiking up Rugarama Hill, where we live...

A little farther up the path...

And farther...

Even farther...

Almost to the top

Kids on the grounds of their new school

Anyone want to raise funds for a new playground?  Anyone?