Capture Life 365–week 15

Nature journals resurrected – sketching under the shade of a tree

Looking for alternative drivable routes through flooded roads to get to the dentist who comes once a week.

No more sore teeth…!

Impromptu P.E class… High jump – Gordon style! No rules. Inventing our own ‘special’ techniques. Yeah – we’re all class!

You can never tire of the beauty of daily village life – the colours, the activity, always something different going on… Saw a huge pig on a motorbike go past the window outside church today – true story!

A distant shot of one of the communities we’re based in on the shores of Lake Victoria. The scenery is simply stunning.

Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Happy Palm Sunday!

(and yes, this is where the pig drove past!)

Peer pressure, Shelly, Simba & diaper clad monkeys

People say being a kid is hard with all the peer pressure and stuff, but I say it’s not all easy being a parent either, and last month it was Pete and I that caved to the peer pressure –twice. Only they weren’t really peers, they were more like um ..... ok, they were our kids. We now have an apparently 130yr old tortoise called Shelly that someone was selling on the side of the road and a kitten. On top of the 2 dogs, 4 chooks, rooster, I don’t know how many fish and occasional birds and chameleons we find living in Drews room, and the tiny frog I just discovered today that came back with us from holiday in a drink bottle nearly 3 weeks ago.

I should get points for saying no to a crocodile – I know, sounds like it’s an impossible request anyway, but no, I live in Africa and the boys know someone that knows someone that has a couple for pets, it’s totally doable here, I jest not. But with six kids that never ever quarrel, I can picture the numbers getting whittled down quite quickly. Either by themselves or a mama on a bad day. One has to draw the line somewhere.

There’s a campaign going on by some teenage males in the family to get a monkey, not just any monkey but this tiny one that’s trained to do it’s business in diapers and lay on the couch and watch movies. Those same teenagers plan to open a zoo when the oldest has made his millions by the age of 30 something and the next one is a successful vet. Not just any zoo either, but a supposedly highly interactive one where you can go into the monkey room and lie on the couch and watch TV with the monkeys (who will of course be wearing diapers), they’ll watch Animal Planet & National Geo and be trained to cover their eyes at the scary bits when zebras get eaten by lions. They’ll also be trained to make their monkey hands into circles, turn them upside down and put them over their eyes to make it look like they’re watching TV with spectacles on, and the one that almost made me say I’ll help them start their zoo are the monkeys that’ll be holding fake moustaches on sticks up against their upper lips. Ok, it looked really funny when I pictured it, but if it’s not your thing, I get it and that’s ok. We can still be friends.

Anyway, I’m worried. Really worried. Is my house turning into a zoo? And when do you actually go from just having pets to having a zoo. What if the self declared millionaire doesn’t actually make his millions and I cave to peer pressure once again and find myself selling tickets for people to come lie on my couch and watch TV with monkeys?

Might just have to train them to watch Miranda I’m thinking.

 

yes, that would be tortoise eggs she's checking. It seems we have a female, just hoping those eggs aren't fertile!

Simba

...and I'm already on babysitting duty...! Like my cat sling?!

 

 

Where all the cool missionaries shop

Or maybe just the ones that need a real bargain.

We needed 8 bargains. Going back to visit New Zealand in the middle of winter after not being in a winter for 2 years might not exactly be the smartest decision we’ve made. But we don't care! We’re excited about going back and freezing our butts off while catching up with family and friends and getting to share about all the awesome things God is doing here – and hopefully raising a bunch more support to continue doing it!

Anyway, I digress - back to our shopping.  At Kampalas biggest outdoor market.On a rainy day. Over 500,000 vendors covering more than 7 hectares, selling absolutely anything and everything.  We arranged to go with just the older 3 kids as we didn’t want to lose the younger ones – literally, like people are pulling and grabbing at you constantly. (Don’t read this as we were happy to lose the older ones, cos we actually quite like them and while some days I might reconsider, overall I think they can stay). 

Owino isn’t a place to wear fancy jewellery, flash clothes or take your big handbag. Muggings are common and can sometimes be violent. Hundreds of thousands of people are jostling about, pushing you out of their way, pulling on you to buy something. It’s like a rabbit warren in breeding season. Needless to say, I used super spy type methods to conceal my money - aka, hiding my purse strap under my cardigan (how genius is that?) so no-one could see it and slash it from behind, and wearing pants with impossibly tight pockets to hide my phone in. I think I could've had a career as an undercover agent or something equally as exciting.

I’d love to be able to provide stunning photos taken by myself of the experience to give you a better idea of what it’s like, but it’s really not the kind of place you can be flashing a camera around or even my phone  – though I did manage to get a few sneaky pics while pretending to be talking on my phone and holding it as tight as I could! I have however done 2 minutes of research on your behalf and found some other brave souls pics on the internet that I will borrow and give them credit for. Thankyou The Guardian.

we'd already put time aside to go, so we were going rain or shine!

The photo that I’m sure most of you would enjoy (if I had one) would be that of the contents of one of the rain filled tarpaulins that provided some shelter from the sun and rain somehow completely emptying straight onto my head. Came completely out of the blue (but in retrospect I wonder if it might’ve had some help!). Right onto my innocent little head, then shoulders, then rest of my body. I quickly became the entertainment for the morning with not only the many people surrounding me laughing and pointing hysterically at the soaking wet white girl, but people coming from all directions to see what the joke was. So after I recovered from the shock of ‘what on earth just happened?’ I did the only thing I could think of to maintain my dignity and took a deep bow then joined in the laughter and told them they needed to find me some real good bargains now.

All this to be with you – dear NZ friends.  8 jackets, 1 pair of jeans and 3 cardigans for about $100, then time ran out. Next week – sweatshirts – if it’s not raining.

Sunday afternoon fun

A few Sundays ago we had the brilliant idea to dig a fire pit in our yard. The thought of sitting round the fire catching up on the days events, having a drink, cooking meat on sticks was enough motivation for the kids to get out the spades and begin! Slight bummer that the rainy season started the day after we finished it so we're still waiting to use it. Never mind, the kids all had a great time making the pit which soon turned into a mud fest - rather gross really for this mum who's really not at all into dirt. Though at one stage Charlotte and Lily really did look like they were covered in chocolate which made it all ok!

now doesn't that look like chocolate?!

and voila... one finished fire pit!

Blackout with the Gordons - go on, try it!

After nine months of having the power out usually every second day, I've decided we can officially call ourselves ‘power outage experts’! Apart from a few groans, there’s no surprise when the power goes out and no cries of 'the powers out, the power's out' followed by everyone fumbling to find matches to light candles and lanterns when it happens after dark (7pm – every night year round). We’re so used to it that we'll sometimes sit in the dark for 20 minutes or so continuing our conversations before someone gets up and lights a lantern. The kids are pro's at getting ready for bed using a torch (flashlight for US readers!) and we’re also getting quite good at bathing in the dark – murphys law – the power usually goes off when someones trying to bathe!


The battery life on our laptops aren’t so good, so we can’t do any work on the computer. It’s too dark to do housework, can’t watch a dvd, so shock, horror - the only thing we can do is spend time with each other, or go to bed. Candlelight card games, indoor spotlight, statues or hide and seek, sitting round talking and making up pathetic jokes have become our favourite things to do.

I thoroughly recommend it! Turn your power off one night a month even, call it a 'blackout with the Gordons' if you think you’ll get some complaints, and tell your hubby life will go on if he doesn’t get to see the news for a night. Have dinner by candlelight. Have some fun – boil your water on the stove for a hot drink, get the candles and cards out, or go hide then yell for everyone to come find you - and to make it REALLY fun, in the middle of the night get up and turn all the lights on in the house and quickly hop back into bed (we don’t have to do this bit as they often just magically turn on for us if we forgot to turn them all off when the power went out!) Then get up again and turn them all off and plug in your flat laptop or cellphone to charge, quickly send the email that needed to be sent that day and go back to sleep. Or, just stick with the candles and cards!

Last card tournament

(yes, I know, I really need to learn how to take decent photos in the dark!)

Impromtu rite of passage into manhood

I know I said I’d do some catching up on my blog, but when so much time passes between posting, it’s hard to know where to start! So I’ve decided I’m not going to do lots of backtracking because then I’d just get behind on current life happenings, but I will share about Drews birthday from early January (yip, a wee while ago!) not just because he’s so awesome and deserves being blogged about but because his birthday was a bit of a disaster that gives a little insight into the unpredictability of our life and makes for a good read!

We had big plans for Drews 14th birthday. But plans don't always go to plan... we got the first glimpse that things might not quite go our way when everyone piled on our bed bright and early to give presents. All was going well til we noticed our usually full of beans Lily asleep on the floor beside the bed, burning up. Not long after putting her in our bed she started vomiting. I don’t know what it is with this girl – she hardly ever vomits – except on birthdays! (You can read about our last vomiting birthday here.)

 

So Lily and I stay home while Pete and the rest of the kids go out to find some icecream for our traditional birthday breakfast. Lily actually perks up by lunchtime - fever gone and vomitting stopped, which is just awesome because thanks to Gran in NZ, just after lunch the plan was to go to a paintball place we’d found in Kampala and shoot each other – I know, we were amazed they have one here too! So off we go with friends, and I’ll just throw in that it’s the middle of the dry season here. Dry season meaning it doesn’t rain for several months and it’s hot. Now I didn’t make this next bit up, honest…. Just as we’re arriving at the paintball place, smack bang in the middle of the dry season (where it just never rains) the heavens open, and not only does it rain but it hails. We’ve been here a year and this is the only time we’ve seen hail. The dirt road turns to absolute slush and we’re sliding around, with our friends sliding in their car behind us trying to get up the road to the gate. The sad decision has to be made to ditch paintball and get outta there before the road becomes impossible to get out of and we have to spend the night there.

Pete and Drew enjoying birthday brick moving in the hail to make a way to get the van out

finally on our way back home

So plan B, barbeque dinner at our place - make some burgers, eat cake, maybe have a dart tournament or watch a movie – still the makings of a good birthday. Or go to plan C when the power goes out halfway through dinner (it’s dark here by 7 in case you were wondering). Dart throwing in the dark as appealing as it sounded to the boys was ruled out by the sensible mum/nurse who was lacking in wound dressing supplies and artificial eyes. The movie was ruled out by the power company who obviously hadn’t consulted with us to see if we were ok with having a no power night. So we did what any other slightly abnormal family does when the power goes out and they need to come up with something party worthy that can be done by lantern light, we got out our Moringa Miracle Tree powder. I read about the super powers of this mowed rotting grass smelling powder on the internet so rushed out to buy some for about $2.50 (that should have been a sign right there) a few weeks prior. It promised wonderful and oh so energising results and could even be used for treating malnutrition that it practically begged me to buy it. I had big plans for this powder that now sits sulking in the back of my cupboard, big plans. Pete and I had both tried it and agreed it truly is a miracle powder. In less than 5 minutes of drinking it (you mix it with a little water) you literally feel like vomiting. Your stomach hurts, you feel tired and you really just want to die for several hours. Depending on how much you take. Well after telling our friends about this miracle working wonder, they decide they need to see it for themselves. And as it was a boys 14th birthday, it seemed this would be a good initiation into manhood for Drew! Well, it brought buff, rugby playing men to their knees. In fact we really thought Corey might have to stay the night. What is it with guys and dares anyway? Was a great laugh – for me, who wasn’t groaning on the couch for the next couple of hours.

Will, enjoying the miracle tree experience

Corey, straight after trying it

Corey, about 5 minutes after trying it

 Drew's big brave face after first mouthful...

...and when he thought the camera was gone!

told ya you didn't want to try it Lily! (Don't worry, hers was only very diluted!)

And that’s how our birthdays roll here. They might not always go as expected, but memories are still created, photos taken and candles blown out. My boy did get to go paintballing a week later in true Africa style where the minimum age is 5 and we could have our guns set on high power (the boys request of course). I think I still have bruise remnants a month later and I almost think I’d rather drink my miracle powder!