Squire Uganda Missionary Blog: Ndere dance troop

Oh that I were an angel, and could have the wish of mine heart, that people would come to Africa to see what good people they are. We are amazed each and every week as we come across more and more people who just have a sweet spirit of Christ. Our branch is small but the people serve and work hard to make the best of what they have. Nancy is such an inspiration on how to teach and serve in the Primary. The children love her and she loves them. She played the Piano in Sacrament today and did a great job. They don't care if it is perfect or not, they just love to sing the hymns and participate. There are four elders assigned to the Lugazi Branch and they have a desire to serve and do what they can to further with work of the Lord in this part of the world. We plan to make dinner for them in the next couple of weeks so that should be fun. We had the three Sisters working here in Kampala over for dinner last Sunday. I didn't have the heart to tell them the roast beef had been on the floor as the plate fell off the counter as I was cutting the meat. I think the 5 or 10 second rule doesn't respect borders but just in case...help me keep my secret. We made our traditional beef, carrots, onion and potatoes in the crock pot with mushroom gravy. The African sister are not as fond of gravy as we Americans.

The four elders in our building will be coming to dinner tonight. We are going to have some type of chicken fajitas with tons of guacamole as the avocados are huge here. So here is recap of our week.

Nancy will get a couple of phone calls every day from sick missionaries. She will diagnose and get them back to work with whatever they need to get feeling better. It could be eyes, stomach, UTI's, knees or any other part of the body. I am trying to build a spreadsheet to track the vehicle maintenance for the past year. That will take up much of next week.

On Wednesday we went to Ndere, a Polynesian Culture Center type dance troupe from Africa. One of the senior couples has their daughter here for a couple of weeks and we all went to the show. It is expensive, $30,000 shillings each. Ok that is only around $12 for a three hour show so we will be going a few more times and it is only 15 minutes from out apartment (less than two miles but traffic is always interesting).

He can take his arms all around his body without changing the position of his hands

He took one look at me, while I was flexing in the audience, and I think it scared him a little bit...

Photo-op!

They balance these heavy drums on their head while playing, marching and kicking

They start out with just a couple of jars on their head and then work their way up in number while dancing

Nine jars was the top and then the ladies will walk up the stairs in the back with them still on their head

Not a native but still very cute!

Other exciting events this week include taking our elder that had knee surgery to get his stitches out. It was interesting to see how things work here. We would walk right into the operating room to see where to go next. I don't have a picture of his wound but it was very interesting to see how they do stitches here.

I also gave my first bribe. We were driving to the market on Saturday and I didn't do the left hand turn right. A traffic officer was waiting for me and signaled me over. After she had me pull over she had me get out of the vehicle and asked why I was trying to commit suicide. I had to listen to a long lecture and she pointed out that my ticket would cost $100,000 shillings. Nancy is trying to give her $20,000 but she wanted nothing to do with that. At the end of the lecture we found the proper way to pay an officer is for her to put her ticket book in the vehicle and we slip the money into the book. All was forgiven and off we went to the market.

Finally, some of the random photos for the week,

Here is Nathan with Sister Squire. Nathan is the son of the sister that cleans once a week for us. She straps him on her back and away she goes.

Life is good here, Nelson is the Elders Quorum President and is also a guard for our complex. He washes my vehicle every Saturday, inside and out, and does an excellent job.