Monkey Stories

 By Sara:

A few weeks ago, Anthony and I traveled to Moyo, in northwestern Uganda, for a Helping Without Hurting in Africa training and agriculture trainings. 

While we were there, I discussed with the farmer pastors about some of the pest challenges they have in their areas.  One of the biggest issues is monkeys and baboons destroying their crops.  This is especially difficult because those animals are protected by the government, so it is illegal to kill them.  And at the same time, they are incredibly destructive to food crops, which endangers the lives of the people depending on that food for their survival.  I have read a lot of articles and studies on ways people try to keep monkeys away from their crops and there really aren't any non-lethal fail-proof methods, so I asked the group if anyone had tried anything that worked.  Here are a couple stories.

An old man who was always drunk was annoyed that baboons were eating his crops.  Then it came to him: if baboons eat people food, maybe they'll also drink people drinks!  He put out some alcohol where the baboons always came and watched to see what they would do.  They sniffed it, tasted it, and liked it.  By the time they were done, there were a bunch of drunk baboons around.  The old man chose a big male baboon and since it was drunk, it followed him willingly home where he tied a bell around its neck.  When it got sober, it ran off to rejoin its friends, but chased them away by the ringing of the bell.

A similar story came from someone whose family member caught a monkey and tied a bell around its neck.  When he released it, it went directly back to the other monkeys who are "still running from it to this day"!

After telling these stories, someone said, yes, but just remember to be careful trying to catch one because they are very dangerous.  There was a guy who would sit on a big rock where he was above the surrounding land and could see baboons coming from far off.  From his perch, he would shoot them with a slingshot to chase them away.  But the baboons observed him closely and one day, some distracted him by coming at him from the front while two big ones snuck up from behind and pushed him off the rock.  He broke his back and was lame as a result.

So...next time you're around monkeys or baboons, watch out!

Counseling Ministry With Jane

By Sara:

Anthony and I are so grateful for our friends here in Uganda who support and care for us in many ways.  One of my friends, Jane, and I have been working on counseling materials to share with church leaders as well as general trainings we can do to help people improve and build relationships in their families.  Jane has a lot of experience and wisdom in informally counseling people; it is one of her passions.  So, when I was invited back to some churches in Apac to teach women, Jane came with me.  We divided up our time and each shared on different topics.

Jane did a great job teaching about parenting issues and having good hygiene at home.  I really appreciate how free she is to share openly about topics a lot of people shy away from.  And as a Ugandan, she has a cultural perspective on all of these home and family matters that I don't have. 

I enjoyed the decorations at one of the churches.  This group brought shiny plastic garlands and draped them over me and Jane when we came into the church to welcome us!

The second church had organized a group of couples - church leaders and their spouses.  They had lots of good questions and stories to share out of their experience in ministry.  My topics to teach were on honoring the image of God in other people and forgiveness/reconciliation.  Since these were church leaders, they were eager to take what we discussed and put it into practice in their congregations.

Baking Bread Without an Oven

By Sara:

I recently did some experiments with friends to see how we could teach people a simple method to bake bread without an oven.  It was a fun time and we were successful in figuring out different options.  We started out by making yeast bread dough and letting it rise.  We put sand into a large pot and put it over a fire.  Then, we set our pan of rolls inside that pot, on top of the sand, and covered it.  We discovered that we needed to keep the fire pretty low to prevent the rolls from burning, but they did get ready and browned nicely like rolls in an oven.

We also made a loaf of bread using the same method.

After that, we also made "salty buns", my grandma's recipe, on a frying pan.  You put some oil or cooking fat on the pan with salt sprinkled on it, then let the rolls rise on top of it for 30 minutes.  After that, you fry the rolls on both sides.  This one was my personal favorite, but other people preferred sweet bread to salty.  Perhaps it would be more locally acceptable if the salt was left out.

 

By the end, we still had dough left over, so we fried some of it like traditional Ugandan mandazi (sort of like doughnuts).  Those turned out well too although they might not be cost-effective for someone to sell and make a profit. 

All in all, it was a productive day and now we have more skills we could share with other people who want to learn!