NEW BEGINNINGS

Greetings from Gulu

October 13, 2015

Jo Ann has remained busy in the Maternity Clinic.  The good news is that a third mid-wife, Vicky, has been hired!  This relieves the original mid-wife, Nighty, to not only get some rest while the second mid-wife, Pamela, is on maternity leave, but also allows her time to take care of her other responsibilities as head mid-wife and in-charge of both the out-patient clinic and maternity clinic.  Although Nighty is very capable, we also have to remember that she is married to a wonderful man and is mother of four small children!

The Maternity Clinic seems to be thriving as more and more people are showing up there.  Several are asking how long it has been there.  Lots of new babies are coming! Bibiana works in the Outpatient Department next door to Maternity, and rotates through Maternity.  She "rotated" in a different way this time! Below are Bibiana and her baby.  Her husband, sister and mother had accompanied her on the day of giving birth. These photos were taken on their Day 6 check-up.

See me wink!

Bibiana and her baby boy

Patty and Pat need to remember that things move more slowly than we might expect here in Northern Uganda.  On 25 September Patty and Pat met with Charles (Associate) who volunteered to help us get started.  Although Patty and Pat had made a variety of plans, these were soon unnecessary with Charles at the helm!

Morris and our buckets

The next item on the water project agenda was to purchase the buckets needed to attach the filters we had brought with us.  This was accomplished with the help of Bernard, our driver, who knew of good places and prices.  Although we will eventually need 40 buckets to match the 40 filters, we only bought 20 on this first trip...  Storage is a problem.  Each bucket needed a hole large enough to fit the filter.  We were unable to use the small drill bit provided, so we ended up having them drilled by Morris (up the road at "For God") with an electric drill. The picture shows his method of transporting them from here to there and back again!

We’ve been back in Gulu about 4 weeks and have only had this one gathering with women who are interested!  At the gathering Patty spoke about the program while Santa Rita (Associate) animatedly translated so the people would understand what would be expected. 

Women with children under age 5 were then invited to volunteer to be a water woman and were helped to sign up. 

It is interesting to notice the seeming age of the mothers and the many, many children around the area.  The children here were lined up by some male community leaders to see how many were under age five (and probably to convince us that the filters were greatly needed!)  In the meantime, many of the women were volunteering to be water women.

Their papers were put in the large bucket to be drawn out by a child, but Santa Rita wanted the group to see them laid out as you can observe in the picture.  This may be the customary way of drawing names.    

Below you can see the early crowd.... The numbers grew as passers-by stopped to see what excitement was going on. It may be that they had not been told of this gathering. The next pictures show the crowd from the left, center, and right....

In her enthusiasm, Santa Rita read off the three names in Acoli (below)!  The following picture shows the three women chosen by the Holy Spirit standing to be prayed over by the group. 

Reading the chosen names

The three women chosen by the children

Following the meeting, a group of the youth gathered to practice a few of their cultural dances.

On another front, our Associates gathered here at our home on Sunday, 27 September.  Jo Ann had discovered a DVD about the origins of the Congregation, and believing that it would interest our Associates, showed it that afternoon.  Along with prayer that had been prepared by Fran before she left for her home visit, the DVD was well-received.  Afterwards, we all enjoyed “big bread” with butter and jelly and hard-boiled eggs.  This was a simple but satisfying meal.  We scheduled another Associate gathering for this Sunday afternoon, 18 October, but now realize that the date conflicts with the annual pilgrimage to Paimol to honor the two martyrs killed in Paimol in 1918.

Charles, Santa Rita, and Elizabeth 

And finally, just this morning, a beautiful snake was discovered by Obita Charles, sunning itself on the top of our hedge!  Since it was a poisonous variety, it is no longer living.... Alas!

Dear Readers, this is all we have for this blog entry.  Thank you for joining us.  We hope you will return for future editions!