On Monday, I went to a networking meeting for people who are interested in “member care,” i.e., supporting the missionaries in their organizations. This is something that I’ve become really interested in pursuing for our office, so it was helpful to make some contacts in other organizations. I was able to talk to one person about work permit questions, another offered her organization’s “Welcome to Uganda” info packet, and a couple people are willing to meet with us so we can swap ideas about how to care for or be helpful to the new folks who come to work with us.
I think my favorite part about the meeting, though, was just realizing that I’m not alone in this. There are other people out there just like me, working in Kampala! We at EMI don’t need to figure everything out on our own. There are other organizations that we can share ideas with! This was the first time that I had really met with people from other missionary/aid organizations in Uganda (other than the ministries that EMI works with). It was refreshing to realize what a large community of organizations we are, even if we don’t get to see each other very often.
It also served as an encouragement to try to reach out to other organizations and to share our resources and knowledge with each other. We don’t have to keep reinventing the wheel. This organization that hosted the meeting is based in Nairobi, and a network of Christian aid organizations has just started meeting there. They were encouraging us to start doing something similar, or at least to start an email list that we can use to share information, etc. We’ll see what happens, but it’s exciting to think about the possibility of continuing these networking-type of gatherings. It reminded me a lot of when I was involved with running an AmeriCorps program. There are hundreds of organizations all over the US that are running AmeriCorps programs. I loved going to conferences and trainings and realizing we were part of a larger movement and also getting the opportunity for different programs to share questions, ideas, and lessons with each other. It was extremely helpful and encouraging. It would be great if something like that could start happening in Kampala amongst Christian and/or aid organizations.
In other news, the power has been going out a lot more often lately. For the first couple of months I was here, it seemed to go out only once or twice a month, but for the last few weeks, it’s seemed like it’s about every 3-4 days. I’ve been getting a lot more use out of my candles and flashlights. Fortunately, my laptop battery is usually able to last through two TV episodes before I have to turn in for the night.
The power has often been going out from around 8-10pm, which is when most people are using it all at once. It could be that our area has just hit that point where so many people are using the power, that the system just can’t take it (like New York City several years back). But I’m also wondering whether it’s “load shedding.” This is where they intentionally turn off the power to a whole area to prevent overloading the system. I think maybe they rotate areas each night. I hope this doesn’t mean that we’re on some rotation and that it will keep going out every 3-4 days…. Oh well, it makes me grateful for the electricity that I do have. (I’m so thankful for refrigerators and hot water showers!)
The plumbing, on the other hand, has been driving me crazy! My shower faucet has been leaking ever since I moved in 3 months ago. And my toilet has been overflowing for the last 2 months. Fortunately, the plumbing is installed with easy-to-access shut-off valves. Every time I flush the toilet, I turn the water valve on, wait for the tank to fill, flush, and then turn it off again. Every few weeks, I forget to turn it off at night and I wake up to a flooded bathroom…. =( Fortunately the plumber is here right now with new parts, that should (supposedly) fix everything! (I’ve heard that about 20 times before.) In all fairness, this is somewhat my fault. I wasn’t getting enough water pressure for my shower to work (because they installed the water storage tanks too low), so I had a plumber re-route my water supply to come directly from the city water so that I could take a shower. Now I have a TON of water pressure, which I guess fixtures in Uganda aren’t made for…
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