still alive : )

ok, just to reassure you that i did in fact survive my solo trip to town...although i have to admit it wasn't a great act of bravery, i cheated in the end - Masiu was driving Patoni, Lupe and baby Nia to the doctor's in town because Nia had a fever (she's fine now but Masiu's son Sione now has malaria...please pray!) and they passed me and offered a lift! God must have been chuckling to Himself about my scaredyness...He could have just let me get on with it and make me tougher, but i'm so thankful He provided a car to rescue me instead, that was much more fun!

i am still home at Hopeland, we still haven't gone (it's a standing joke now, it's amazing how many people here ask me if i'm still here when they see me...maybe they have hologram people in their country?) yes, we should have left on Monday but we didn't, there was no church for us to work with until someone agreed to host us yesterday, so we should be leaving tomorrow, hurrah!! it seems there were still some things God wanted us to sort out here before he moved us on, and one big thing was tidying up our area of the base - so we have been doing lots of weeding and it looks a lot better! We also managed to get some rest and take time over packing, and all that's left now is to move our stuff that's staying behind to a storeroom and clean our dorm room. And tonight for dinner is sweet potato and peanut sauce, one of my favourites - yay! also a good reason to still be here : )

i have nothing else to write, there's only so much i can say about weeding and cleaning...

hope y'all are doing well! maybe the next post will be more eventful when i can tell you what we've been up to in Fort Portal - i might not be able to contact anyone for a couple of weeks as there's probably no power where we're staying there, i'm told it's "deep deep in the village" -sounds fun, real Africa!!

keep taking care of those cows, enjoy the coldness - i miss it so much! never thought i'd get bored of summer, but it's just wrong to feel hot in november!

love alex : )

silly stresses...

this is going to sound so pathetic, but i my biggest fear today is having to go into town alone!! most of you won't know me at all when i get back, i think i've changed so much here and become a scaredy girly girl....but i just don't like being on my own when i still have no idea how things work here, and people still confuse me by the way they behave, so i never know what to expect or what to do...i'm sure i'll survive though, all i have to do is walk the 15mins down to Wairaka village, get the bus and then a boda to the national office...

oh, i'm about to be locked in the office, better go...let you know if i survive!!!

I'm back!!!

Hey everyone, I've had lots of news to post up but haven't been able to do it, so let's see if i can summarise the last few weeks...

firstly and most excitingly, i was almost useful a couple of weeks ago when our best cow, Angel, aborted - probably the most helpful contribution I made in the end was to stop Robert from panicking that she had placenta hanging out of her - never thought i'd be giving an anatomy lesson about cotyledons and telling a Ugandan that with the stress of abortion, RFM is normal! She's doing fine now - she had a course of penstrep (not sure if that did anything...) and we tried to give her pessaries but we couldn't restrain her - all we had was some rope to tie her legs to the rickety wooden rail in her stall, and while that's probably fine for milking, it really wasn't any help when she was protesting! they were TMPS or whatever it's called, and i'm still not convinced pessaries are much benefit, so i'm sure it was all for the best that we couldn't get near her...it was just fun having an excuse to be near a cow again!!

This week one of the families on the base is away so I'm helping take care of the pigs and sheep, and I am once again the bucket lady as I have to carry the kitchen scraps across the base twice a day! The dogs have also adopted me as mum as the housesitters have small kids and the dogs are not very welcome there for now - i'm not complaining, i love being pack leader, it makes me feel special to have friends who never leave my side!! what really makes me laugh is that Poppy, the older one (they are both German Shepherds) will even get up with me to move from one part of the classroom to the other - she's so paranoid at being abandoned!

I marooned myself on the base for over a month as I had no reason to go into town, but last week I had some jobs to do as we're leaving for our practical bit of the course next weekend - we will be working with churches in Fort Portal (Western Uganda), Kakira (our neighbouring village) for 2 weeks each and then 3 weeks in Arusha, Tanzania! So one of the jobs on the list was getting some US dollars for the visas to Kenya and Tanzania - we have to go via Nairobi, as there's no transport across Lake Victoria any more.
As we were sat waiting in the "taxi" (like a minibus) for it to fill up so we could go home, we not only had the usual sellers thrusting their water, peanuts and watches in our faces, but this time we also had the company of a very smartly-dressed man who opened his suitcase and gave a speech about the benefits of wormers, and passed some packages of human wormer around - it just made me giggle, you know I'm into parasites and i'm glad people are taking prevention and treatment seriously, but wormers sold in a taxi like sweets?! It's too weird!

Think that's all for now, it's pig-feeding time!

Sorry if I've missed your birthday or am about to miss it....for those of you whose mobile numbers don't work for me, i'm a bit stuck at getting messages to you...even for those that do, my memory is not exactly great!

thanks again for all those emails, they always make my day : )

love alex xx