Monday, February 2, 2009

the jinja ninja and other stories...

life in jinja is quiet, quiet today. we said goodbye to volunteers katie and dan this morning who were escorted by jon and jacob to kampala and entebbe. watch out for their hysterical videos and superb photos (links to follow). the suubi meetings went well this weekend. everything has slowed down a little with the rain and the mud.

on sunday, josh, jon, and i walked over the hill to masese: a village-esque part of jinja similar to danida. we waited on chairs outside of josh's friend, clement's, house for him to return from church. we intended to assist in filling holes in clement's roof. we sat on chairs brought by a jja-jja (grandmother) and were watched by the village children as we picked our nails and chatted. after a little while, dark clouds gathered and it began to rain. clement's brother let us inside the house where we got to witness first hand what it is like to sit in the dark staring up at dripping pinpoints of light. by the time clement returned, the rain had become torrential and the children had removed their clothes and begun dancing and sliding in the mud. i'm not sure if its something they do all the time or a special performance for us. we had to leave to get to the suubi meeting on time so we walked in the blowing heavy rain back home.

later at the suubi meeting, i was attempting to expain to one of our ladies, mama rachel, that her necklaces were always too loose and i would like to come to her house . i asked daisy, our translator, to explain this to her. i noticed that daisy was speaking to agnes who was speaking to mama rachel. i noticed that agnes was translating daisy's luo into luganda. so i was speaking english to daisy, who was speaking luo to agnes, who was speaking luganda to rachel and the reverse back to me. we all found this exceedingly funny. it will be interesting when we go to mama rachel's house on friday with daisy and agnes and whichever other volunteers will come.

oh shoot, i'm out of time and didn't even get to talk about the jinja ninja...i'll save it for next time...

1 comment:

Rachel said...

Amberle - thanks for consistently surrendering yourself to the people around you and for literally soaking up every moment there in Uganda! You are amazing and inspiring! Can't wait for the jinja ninja blog!