700 pairs of shoes and a couple of elephants...

I am so sorry that I have not written for so long! Nathan's computer with the cheaper internet access has gone funny, and last week I was rather tied up looking after Pam. The day that I last wrote about, when we went to Kigali, to take Pete back to the airport, Pam woke up with a temperature and feeling dreadful. So, after we had dropped Pete at the airport, we went off to what is called the "Polyclinic" but because it was still before 7am it wasn't open. Suspecting that she had malaria, we then called in at the hospital and I was very impressed with how quickly she was seen. In fact the whole time we were there, we never saw another patient…I'm now wondering if that is because the majority of the people here can't afford the consulatation fee. Hmm…that hadn't occurred to me, and in a way I wish it hadn't, but it has now, so you can all share that thought with me. Well, anyway, Pam had blood taken and pulse and temperature, and an hour later I went and collected the results…by this time she was fading rapidly and stayed in the car. I had to fend off a doctor offering me a field full of cows for my hand in marriage (I managed to fob him off with an email address as opposed to my phone number!!) – mind you the most I'd been offered up to that point was five cows, so perhaps I should have taken more notice!! Anyway, the results showed that she didn't have malaria, and they prescribed her some codeine to take down the fever and take away the pain. By the time we had made the two hour drive home, she was very very poorly, so I put her to bed and stayed in the house, praying that she didn't die in her sleep! I think I woke her up to bathe her down with cold water a couple of times – because her temperature came up to 39 degrees when the codeine wore off!! Through the night we were probably up roughly every hour…I kept creeping in to check that she was still breathing…I texted Grandma to check that if your temperature rose dramatically you would actually wake up, as opposed to just expiring and she said I would notice her sleeping "fitfully" before that happened! I was actually quite relieved that if necessary I can sleep lightly – because normally I can sleep through a herd of pink elephants having an aerobics class in the bathroom – I now feel it might actually be safe for me to have babies and wake up if they cry in the night! Anyway, so we spent a lot of the night awake, and a lot of the next day asleep, and she wasn't really much better by the day after that, so we went to a local clinic to get tests for typhoid. Now, that was another experience. For those of you from Woodlands reading – you can imagine how surprised I was to see them using a catheter as a tourniquet round her arm to take blood. In fact Nathan sent me out of the room because I was laughing so much! They did all sorts of tests in this place, with a small microscope and a bright light, and a whirring thing that he had to wind manually to separate the blood…and everything without a sink!! Neither the man carrying out the tests, nor the doctor can wash their hands at all during the day! Nathan who has a degree in environmental health pointed out to the tester man that this wasn't really good enough, while Pam and I sat outside, waiting to be told eventually by the doctor that it wasn't typhoid – thank goodness – but a bacterial infection. So for the last week I have been giving her two pink tablets three times a day, and two white ones twice a day…perhaps I will go and do my nursing training after all…

Tracy had also moved in with us, after the first night, because our Tremma house (as it is now called) was a bit empty with me being away and my space was gradually being filled with fanged spiders (though thankfully not my bed, because I left the mosquito net down!) I have really enjoyed staying at Pam's house, especially when she began to improve and I was less worried about her chances of survival! However, all good things must come to an end, and I think Samuel (Pam's house-help) is probably quite glad that I have moved out and taken my pants with me.
Usually once a week Tracy and I make pants stew, and leave it marinading in hot water overnight, with soap seasoning…and you'd be amazed at the delicious result created by morning!

To conclude this entry - I never want to see another pair of shoes, ever, ever again! Yesterday we spent ALL DAY fitting trainers on the Sonrise school children. It turned out that not many of the measurements which people had laboriously taken about a month ago, bore any relation to the shoes that were in front of us, due to a stange combination of US sizes, UK sizes and Japanese sizes (which I can tell you are a law unto themselves!) We had spent the entire day, the day before laying out these shoes in pairs, and lacing them…to the extent that our fingers hurt from lacing! And the smell… well, 700 pairs of shoes do not smell good – I can tell you! We laid them out in the chapel and the entire place reeked within minutes…a sort of chemical smell – perhaps water-proofing spray or something on them, which was soon all over our hands. I'm actually wondering if it had side effects when breathed too deep…yesterday was certainly the only day that I have seen a herd pink elephants doing aerobics in the chapel bathroom…an uncanny experience, though not one I slept through…

One last thing…I think I told you that my laptop died, but there is another one coming out for me with the men in exactly a week (big big cheer!) It will be incredibly useful – some day I shall tell you about the website I'm creating, but for now I must sign off. If anyone wants to write me an email, I should be able to check it on my very own computer sometime next week! Hurray!

3.30am!!

Sorry - that title is the time we have to get up tomorrow. It's just occurred to me that I ought to be in bed...but I just wanted to show you my hole! (Though it transpires after half an hour that this picture hasn't downloaded and I will have to try again tomorrow!) It ended up being about two and a half metres, and then we filled it with porous rocks and it will act as a soak-away pit for a sink and shower, I think. It's named after me...though I'm not sure there will ever be a plaque that says "Emma's soak-away pit" and no-one knows its there now its been covered over, but I do! Gosh, it seems like a long time ago that I was doing this! So much has happened since, and its high time I did some more manual labour! I ended up jogging round the house and doing star-jumps the day before yesterday, because I had spent so long sitting down in front of the computer designing the Tubakunde website, on an incredibly slow internet system!! We might go swimming in Kigali tomorrow which would be fun - we are going so early because Pete is leaving and his flight is at 6.40am. Still I can sleep in the car...unless I'm needed to drive! Ooh, I forgot to tell you - I drove the car yesterday because Pam and Nathan were both away. It is a massive four-wheel drive and quite unlike the corsa I learnt in (and as you know I only passed last May and haven't driven since, apart from at Christmas - and thank goodness for that week of driving Grandma's little car - it was an experience that enabled me to feel almost confident getting in this huge beast of a car and rattling off down the dirt roads!) We went for a little drive in the morning and Tracy also had a go, and in the afternoon I drove her to school. Actually apart from the pedestrians who walk anywhere they like and are very difficult to avoid hitting at times it wasn't nearly as difficult as I was expecting. Considering the size of the car, and the fact that we drive on the other side of the road here, and the gear stick therefore being in the other hand, it went jolly well. And no casualties - a bonus! Anyway, I must sleep...it's nearly time to get up!

Gorillas!

So - here is finally a picture of the magnificent animals we saw in the Virunga mountains. Unfortunately I have loads of good video but not so many good photos...because my camera kept making a dinging sound every time I took a shot and I couldn't stop it and I didn't want them to get angry and rampage at me...so I didn't take many! You'll be pleased to know that no rampaging did take place and eventually I will work out how to capture still shots from the video - and then I'll show you the babies playing! You'll also be pleased to know that Pam is back from Uganda safe and sound - she was there two nights longer than she intended because it took all that time for the shoeshop keeper to collect up 700 pairs of shoes from his and other establishments, so it was a very long and tedious three days spent sat in a shoe shop by all accounts. I wished I had stowed away on the back of the truck so that I could have kept her company...unfortunately there wasn't room for me and the shoes! On Monday we will be distributing 700 pairs of shoes to 700 children...and possibly on Tuesday...and Wednesday...
I told one of the girls today that we were coming in on Monday to sort the shoes and that she would probably get her pair by December...she looked at me with wide-eyed disbelief and after some time said, "Oh, you're joking!" and jumped up and down!

The tale of the guard...

Well, Juvenal – our first night guard gradually arrived later and later and left earlier and earlier until the night before last he didn't turn up at all. So we decided that rather than be sacked after the warnings Nathan had given him, that he had decided to sack himself. So Nathan found us another guard, and oked it with the landlord who was the one paying for him anyway…however the landlord obviously hadn't let Juvenal know that he no longer had a job, so last night the new guard and Juvenal turned up. The new guard – Jean-Pierre – had the new key and obviously didn't let the old guard in, so when we got home he was standing waiting to talk to us…but didn't know any English with which to ask "What is going on?"! In the end we had to ring Nathan to ask him to speak to Juvenal and after five minutes of grunting, which is what Juvenal seemed to do best, he left… It was quite an awkward situation really, with the Jean-Pierre standing there and with no-one having the means to communicate with each other. Anyway, Jean-Pierre is lovely and he sings for the Hosianna choir who are so good they have been on tour to America! It was so nice to get up to his smiling good morning as opposed to Juvenal's grunt….though it still worries me that now Juvenal has no job and may find it difficult to get another one – but he was absolutely hopeless at letting anyone know what was going on and we're much safer now we have someone who will actually turn up to work!

I have got the picture of my house to work this time - the connection speed was a bit faster, so if you're lucky I might even manage to put a gorilla on sometime this week! The window on the left looks into my bedroom and the front door goes straight into a palacial lounge!

Things remain manically busy here – I'm currently working on a Tubakunde newsletter, compiling a mailing list, sorting out uniform measurements for Sonrise and working out how to make a Tubakunde website. We are also supposed to be filming a short documentary at some point to send to England…that's if I can work out how we can transfer it from my camera to Pam's computer without the software! Today is a national holiday – called "Hero's Day" – so no-one is working…actually that isn't true. Rachael is currently gutting the vicious fish from our freezer to make food for six for this evening – she insisted she wouldn't have the day off. Oh, I perhaps haven't told you about the vicious fish – it drew blood!! I reached into the freezer to see what she had bought and it spined me with a big long spine!! So, I'm going to eat it later…revenge is a dish best served fishy…