Home, Sweet Home

The verandah of our home in Kuluva looks across a valley dotted with small settlements of round grass roofed mud houses. Beyond, the land rises to a tree-edged skyline marking the border of Uganda with DR Congo. Our vantage point means that we often have the benefit of breezes which blow up quite suddenly, cooling the midday heat and, quite often, heralding a thunderstorm - as today. In the evening the wind can be more of a nuisance, blowing the curtains such that they wrap themselves around the head of anyone unfortunate enough to be sitting on the chair next to the window. Clipping the curtains to the louvered glass windows with bulldog clips is quite effective at controlling them - and keeping our friends.

We are delighted with our little house which gradually we’re making more homely. We’ve decorated the walls with photographs of family and friends, batiks, maps, ‘welcome to your new home’ cards and a poster we’ve constructed of our link churches to remind us regularly to thank God for their support and to pray for them.

Some of the furniture was already at the house when we arrived, including the ‘easy’ chairs which leave marks on your bottom if you sit on them for too long. (We really must get some new foam for them – soon!) In addition we have bought a second-hand dresser and even had some ‘bespoke’ furniture we designed made for us in Arua – more about that in a later blog, perhaps.

We have pretty reliable electricity from a hydro scheme, running (cold) water (most of the time) and an inside toilet and ‘shower room’. Actually it’s a ‘pour’ room as showers consist of standing in a bowl and pouring water over oneself from another bowl using a redundant margarine container (Allan is thinking through some more advanced technology). But really, we do feel blessed. An AIM missionary couple we’ve got to know who live half-an-hour’s walk away have to depend on inadequate solar power, a pump for water which they have to collect and an outside toilet whose dimensions suggest it was designed for someone with extremely long legs (not to mention every other part of the anatomy!).

Loneliness isn’t something we experience here. Monkeys continue to visit and entertain us, whilst goats and hens are also prepared to climb the hill to greet us; cockerels too, but they come much too early. We have had a frog in the house, several geckos, a one-legged grasshopper (not hopping very well), and a few nights ago we were awoken by scrabbling noises in the ceiling. We can’t be certain of the provenance of the scrabbling, but the best suggestion to date is a galago (a sort of bush baby) – Anne thinks she got a sighting the other day.

Incidentally, we are still waging war on the ants, so Doom shares continue to be a good investment tip!