First we have a new night guard. We are used to this as we had one last time in Uganda. We are using Saracen guard company and so far we've mostly had one guard, Lawrence, except for when he has days off, and then the company sends someone else. He is friendly and seems to be doing a good job. He is usually all smiley but I think he wanted to look fierce for the photo below. His family does not stay here in town, so he is away from them much of the time. His three year old daughter, Mercy, has some kind of bad sickness so please pray for her. Lawrence comes from 5:00pm to 7:00am each day. We always feed him some kind of snack, like fruit and ground nuts (peanuts).
One thing that is new for us this year is that we have people who are at our house for security during the day as well. This is necessary because we are muzungus (white people) and people think we are rich, and might watch the place to steal things while we are away. It's not anything to be afraid about, but it's good to have someone around just to watch the place as we will be often away for week-long evaluations or trainings. This is also helpful in that it provides someone to watch our animals while we are away. They also help with cleaning the compound, cutting the grass, and other similar outside the house chores. It's a bit uncomfortable for us as it makes us feel like rich, lazy muzungus, but we make sure to treat them as people rather than servants. And sometimes we insist on doing chores ourselves even though it can be hard for them to let us do so :) We felt better upon learning that even Ugandans often have people like this to watch their places and take care of their compounds while they are at their jobs.
Even though it's somewhat uncomfortable, it's proven to be a very helpful system already, freeing up some time in our busy schedules and having good people around to ask questions to. We also can practice Ateso with them. We have two men, Herbert and Paul, who take alternate weeks, so that each ends up working two weeks a month. Someone is always around, either one of these workers, or the night guard, at all times. It's not best for us both being introverts, but our compound is big enough that it is not so bad. Here is a photo of Herbert below. He used to work for Jim Zylstra years ago, so he came with good recommendation. He is very skilled and though not a carpenter, built an excellent chicken coop for us which is housing a couple hens already. These pictures show the work while still in progress.
Here is a picture of our other day person, Paul. He has been mentored by one of our pastor friends from the Pentecostal Theological College and so came with our friend's recommendation. It turns out he also was one of the cooks at Pentecostal Theological College while we were there! This week is his first week at our place.
Last week, I sent Herbert around to ask about puppies, so that we could get one. He found a home that had one last puppy, the last to go of his siblings. I drove there with Herbert and we bought him for 5,000 shillings, about $2.00. He was quite filthy and it was hard to even touch him at first because he was infested with fleas and who knows what kinds of little biting things. He was all covered in scabs. But we cleaned him well. I haven't had much time with him yet because we were away this weekend at the village, but I named him "Caleb" before we left, which means "dog" in Hebrew. I'll start training him this week now that he is comfortable with me and the place. Dogs here eat posho (kind of like mashed potatoes consistency but made of corn meal) and small fish, and as puppies, some milk. He is very playful and fun. Enjoy these pictures and a video. (Now you have even more incentive to visit us).
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