Greetings from Soroti!

Well, now that we have no visitors things have been a bit different. We are free to camp in the bush without feeling bad about not taking proper care of visitors (I don’t count anymore :-P), so we spent another night there. We went in the early afternoon and started at the dam. From there we walked to the village and to the army barracks. We discovered that a good amount of people are moving around back there during the day… either gathering firewood or grass for roof-thatching or making charcoal. There are some “paths” that go from near the dam to the village that Punzel must be using to move around. It seems like she’s staying in that area but there’s still no sight of her. The land looks so vast when you’re wandering through the bush… grass up to your shoulders, thorny trees as far as you can see and mountains in the background. Seems like she should be right there on one hand but it seems like she could be anywhere on the other. So we search and search, calling out into the sorghum fields and across the plains. This time we brought her son, Tutu. When we first got there and Val called out for Punzel, his ears perked up and he looked around as alert as I’ve ever seen him. He even stood up from the spot he had found in the shade of a tree… which was quite an accomplishment considering the effort it took us to get him going in the heat of the day. We literally chucked him into the pond to get him all wet where he proceeded to just lay and drink water in that position until we almost dragged him out. Once we got going, though, he was alright and he followed along in the “paths” we created through the grass. After searching around there we proceeded to the Army barracks and wandered for a while to leave Tutu’s smell for Punzel to recognize. We saw a bunch of footprints in the area, but probably the same ones as from last week. As we followed them, they led us in circles and under trees and into piles of rocks or sticks and we concluded that Punzel was getting some hunting in. They had recently burned the grass, which should have released lots of little game (mice, lizards, etc), providing Punzel with, hopefully, some good meals. Tutu would stick his nose right into the center of the footprints and take in the scent of his mother. Unfortunately, he’s not exactly a tracking dog and that’s pretty much where he left it. We’re gonna need someone with some more experience (I hear Val’s sister, Holly, may have a candidate?! Can’t wait to meet you soon! :-P) to help us out in the search…
That night we stayed in our mosquito coffins again. Luckily Limlim decided to keep the rain away :-) and we only got a few drips before we went to bed. We spent some time in the vehicle… on our computers and listening to music. I played a song for Val - Nielly, that’s why I asked about the name of our song… Worth it All by Rita Springer. It was very fitting for the occasion as frustration set in at our lack of success. We don’t always understand why things happen, but God does have a plan and I think He knows a bit more than me anyway :-P Funny background fact for the rest of you… Danielle and I always listened to this song while studying for orgo tests at about 3am the night before. There’s NO way you’re going to know it all and you don’t want to care, but we figured if God wanted us in med/vet school then He was going to take care of it. We didn’t need to overstress about it – just put forth the effort we had and it would be worth it! “I don’t understand your ways… but I will give you my heart, give you all of my praise” So that’s what Val and I did. We know that God knows best – that He will take care of Punzel and He can bring her to us if that’s His plan. But we just need to trust Him and thank Him for what He’s doing and know that… It’ll be worth it! (I would copy the lyrics for you but I have no internet, so feel free to google/youtube it with your super fast connection that I’m jealous of :-P) Anyway… the next morning we couldn’t stick around too long but we did one last loop and then dropped the Army men off because they wanted to help. We dropped them at the dam and they walked back to the barracks from there. Can you picture six armed guys in camo walking in formation through the bush calling “Punzel, Punzel…”?! I think it’d be a funny picture.
Oh, two more interesting facts from that trip. So Val and I have this thing… we need some more research done. During the time we were out, Val got about 28 ticks on her and no mosquito bites. I, on the other hand, found ZERO ticks on myself and got about a thousand mosquito bites. This has been consistent over the whole time I’ve been here. I have a total of one thousand bites on each of my feet (yes, I totally counted :-P) and Val hardly has any. I’ve never once in my life found a tick on me (I will now that I wrote this, but I’m risking it) and Val finds them literally all the time. It’s quite strange. I think someone should do some research on this. And fact two… while we were sitting near the dam letting Tutu get some rest in the shade I decided to play with this little weed that was growing nearby. I broke it off and some white stuff came out (like a dandelion). So of course the (logical?) thing to do would be to smell the white stuff. Okay, so no idea what made me do that, but it’s a good thing I did because otherwise I would have missed out. The second I lifted it to my nose I was transported back to my childhood. I felt like I was sitting at the kitchen table, just getting over a cold, with a bowl of chicken noodle soup sitting in front of me. The weed smelled JUST like Campbell’s chicken noodle soup. I’m not even kidding. (Though I may be about my childhood, cause I don’t really remember getting Campbell’s so often… I think Progresso is much better. But it didn’t smell like Progresso. It smelled like Campbell’s) I looked confusedly down at the weed, broke off another piece and handed it to Val. I could see the facial expression as soon as she lifted it to her nose. Guess what she thought it smelled like?! CAMPBELL’S! I think it’s there secret ingredient. Though since we had that thought, we decided to take a taste. So that was not the smartest idea, because it totally didn’t taste like chicken noodle soup – it was SO bitter and it actually made Val’s tongue hurt for the next couple days. But anyway… it was ridiculous how much they smelled the same. SO random.

Last weekend there was an Ordination at church. CLIDE works with the Church of Uganda pretty often and that’s where Val and I go while in Kangole. So four men were being ordained that day – it was a HUGE celebration. One man was becoming a deacon and the others were lay readers. I don’t entirely know what those mean but they’re pastors or church leaders of some sort. Basically they were completely committing their lives to ministry, which is a big deal because from then on they will pretty much get no income and be very poor. The ceremony was about 6 hours… mostly of speeches and singing/dancing. Val and I brought our little 10ish year old friend, James. He’s the one who we have do random things around the house because he just wants to help out. He also feeds some of our random pets while we’re gone. We give him some food or something little once in a while, but it’s cool how he really just wants to help out – with nothing in return. He speaks very little English, so communication is limited with him, but he was around in the morning before Church started… standing there barefoot in his little ripped up tan shorts and t-shirt – just like always. So we decided to bring him along to the ceremony. He sat next to us in the district officials section. They always make us sit up front with the “important people” so it was cool for James to be able to join us. He is pretty unexpressive, but it was fun to be able to take him past all the other kids and bring him up front. I was thinking how if it was in the US… the kid would have thought you were punishing him for something. He sat there for five hours listening to people talk. I was on verge of falling asleep (then again, I also had no idea what they were saying :-P) but James just sat there listening. During some of the Bible reading, I handed him the Karamojong Bible I had acquired and Val led him through word by word as they spoke. James doesn’t go to school – I’m not sure if he has at all, but it’s very likely that he hasn’t – his family probably can’t afford school fees. It was so neat to see though… when they had finished the reading, James continued to look at the Bible and try to read the same passage. You could see his little brain hard at work trying to decipher the words he just heard.
After the ceremony there was a feast. Which, of course, brings up some interesting foods. They had everything and it was a gigantic buffet table kind of thing (which was good because I could choose a bit what I wanted to avoid). But then Val told me of something I just had to try. I knew this was bad news, but I couldn’t actually avoid it – then what stories would I tell you all?! So it’s called Emuna. It’s a traditional “food” of the Karamojong… they used to make it for their long nomadic journeys because it would stay for a year. (I say the reason it “stayed” was because it was already rotten, but you can be the judge of that). So… Emuna is made by first taking a slab of meat and removing all the fat and tendons from it (not so bad!), then hanging up the strips in the shade outside for three days so it can dry with flies all over it. Then they boil the meat to remove the rest of the fat (or it would go bad), then dry it and pound it into meat powder with a mortar and pestle. After drying it again, you end up with a nice fluffy mound of meat to which you add gee. If you don’t know what that is, it’s fermented butter. Niiiice and oily and… well… fermented tasting. Then you pound cucumber seeds, sesame seeds and/or ground nuts (aka peanuts) into powder and add it. When in season, termites are also pounded and added in for a delicious additional flavor (thank God, they were not in season). Then you add sugar to taste and stir it together for… ummm… a… taste SENSATION. Awesome. And there is your high energy travel food, ready to go on a long raid or nomadic journey!
A couple days later, the emuna may have been put to use when we heard gunshots in the center of town. What a surprise! Raiders had come to steal the hundreds of cows that they gather together in one unprotected area in the middle of town. In the safety of our foot-thick cement walled hut, we listened to the raid go on down a couple of blocks. You can almost see the whole story play out… first there are some real fast one-after-another gunshots from the army’s machine guns. Then a few single shots shot by warriors who have to conserve their bullets. They are not so accessible these days because there is a disarmament project where the Army takes away all the Karamojong’s guns (and then sometimes sells them back to make some money :-P). So they have to get them from Sudan and it is harder than it used to be. So you can tell who’s who pretty easily during the raid. The gunshots would stop for a while and then a few more and then they slowed down as the raiders ran into the bush and hid from the Army amongst the tall grasses. Then we heard an APC (armored personnel carrier) drive by, pursuing after the raiders and the animals they had managed to capture. I’m not sure how many they got in the end but luckily the army did find them before they took all the cows of Kangole. I don’t think anyone got killed, either, so that’s good. But it made for an interesting night, listening to what would be fireworks in the states under a nice protective grass-thatched roof. We did stay inside, though we don’t have any appealing animals in our compound, so there’s not much of a temptation to come in.

So now… a week or so later… we are down in Soroti. Val had some meetings here and then on the way, the vehicle decided to fall apart, so we stuck around a bit longer than expected! The stabilizer bar for the left rear tire just kinda fell off (the bracket broke). So that was when we were about 2 hours from Soroti. We couldn’t really stop there, so we tied it up with rope and prayed that it would hold the tire on! It was a bit of an interesting drive… going about 10mph and we couldn’t turn right or it would pull on the rope and break it. And then after a little, the bar moved forward more and was stuck so we really couldn’t turn right even if we wanted to. And the bearings were all worn out from this little issue, so basically our rear tire was barely held on. About 1.5 hours later we got to the next town (amazingly still with four tires!) where someone was going to rescue us. We parked the vehicle with the police and carried all our stuff to a restaurant where we waited for our ride. Eventually we made it to Soroti, where we’ve been since last Thursday or something. The vehicle finally got fixed… well… “fixed” and was brought back yesterday. It was a miracle they found the replacement part here in Soroti, but it still needs some work, so we’re going to go to Kampala this weekend and get it serviced. Hopefully we’ll make it without a problem! So Soroti has been relaxing… I’ve been running in my running skirt, bringing my Ipod so I can pretend I can’t hear all the hollering as I run by the guys. There are also lots of cute little kids who yell – which is… better… but still not entirely appreciated cause you can’t go ANYWHERE without feeling like a one-person parade! The word “bye” turns into a two syllable word around here. “by-yee, by-yee… mzungu by-yee” I hear over and over. Or “mzungu how are you? How are you?”. So I say “I am fine, how are you?!” and they get SO excited to use their four English words that they know. “Fine!” “goo-d by-yee!” The ladies are sweet because they get really excited/embarrassed if you talk to them. It can be fun… but tiring to do so much interacting when you just wanted to run. Or walk to church about 50 feet away – it can take like 20 minutes to get there!

Anyway… my hope is that maybe with Kampala internet connection I’ll be able to put up some pictures?! Not sure if that’s true, but I will try my best! I hope things are going well back in the states. I miss you guys. Thanks for the prayers and everything!