Warning: work in progress. By Bethan.

I feel I am being worked on.  Maybe it’s the New Year or maybe it’s just my time.  I have been growing more and more frustrated, annoyed and generally hard to live with over the weeks leading up to the New Year.  Everything that Ugandans do annoyed me.  Everything Ugandans don’t do annoyed me.  The weather annoyed me.  The insects annoyed me.  Samuel annoyed me.  Even little Jonah began to annoy me!  I started thinking that everyone else can’t be that annoying: maybe it’s me who has to change my attitude.

So I started to change without really knowing how I would go about it.  On New Year’s Eve we were at a friend’s house in Kagando, in the grounds of a mission hospital in the mountains.   Our friends are doctors there and they have a 3-year old son and he and Sam enjoy playing together.  Along with some other medical staff Gareth, Sam, Jonah and I enjoyed a lovely BBQ.  We just about made it to midnight, pulled the cord on the three-foot party popper that one of the Doctors had bought, thinking it was a roll of wrapping paper, then went to bed via a quick feed for Jonah!  The next day, we went together with the doctors and their son to our Australian friends’ house, who also have a boy of 2 years old – and a swimming pool!  The three boys played and swam together (Jonah just watched) while we ate pizza freshly baked in the Australian’s pizza oven.  De-li-ci-ous!  The sun shone and the water glimmered.  Samuel learned to swim by himself with only arm-bands and was so proud of doing it “by self” and life seemed rosy again.

The next day (2^nd) was business as usual.  People in and out of the compound (we live in the same compound as the Ugandan Christian Lawyers Fraternity offices), ‘phone calls with conversations that don’t make sense, people asking us for things but we’re not sure what the local etiquette is for giving… My heart sank again.  It took me a few days but this time I caught it.  Something in me sort of clicked and I decided that I was going to make the most of living here and not go home in x years time saying “I wish I had made more of my time in Uganda”.  I decided to be open for opportunities and to talk to strangers and find out how God wants to use me here.  I decided not to be a typical mzungu living life by my watch.  I felt like someone had taken my black dog* for a walk so that I could emerge from the cloud and walk out into the sunshine.

This all happened over a day or two and by Saturday 5th January I was in the garden with the boys when I heard a brass band.  With my new zest for life I said “let’s have an adventure and go and find that brass band!”  Sammy caught on: “Yay!  Yes go orange-chair (adventure)!” So we spent fifteen minutes putting on sun-cream, rounding up hats, finding a sling for Jonah, getting shoes on… and we left the house.  We followed the sound of the dubious harmonies on the ever-so-slight breeze as it wafted into our ear-drums.  “That way, think!” said Sam.  By the time we reached the end of the road where the digger-park is (the local council tractor ground) the music had stopped.  Typical.  But with my new thirst for adventure we carried on regardless with no particular goal in mind except to offer Samuel an ‘orange-chair’.  We went into a shop to greet a girl I knew.  “No mummy!  Me need orange-chair in fishing boat!”  Hm.  I was not sure how the fishing boat had got into it but alas we were now looking for a fishing boat a good 40km from the nearest river!

Needless to say we didn’t find our fishing boat adventure.  However, Gareth and Sammy decided to take a boda-boda while Jonah and I began the ascent by foot up the hill to home.  As I was walking I heard a man’s voice shout out “Let me see your baby!”  This is a common occurrence and, this being the case, I would normally have ignored it and groaned inwardly.  However, something nudged me inside and said “you need to meet this man”.  I stopped and showed him baby Jonah.  We got to talking and he said his brother rented a place and was running an internet café.  “ I am looking for a place to rent too, for the ladies I am working with who want to start a business.”  He said he knew a few places that were coming up for rent so I went with him round the next road to see.  He said his dad was a landlord and that we would go and talk to him.  I entered into a courtyard behind a pharmacy and was greeted by another world.  It reminded me of what I have seen of the 1950s East End from ‘Call the Midwife’!  Children were playing with sticks and tires, women were sitting around holding babies and little charcoal stoves were boiling water.  I was greeted by everyone, but the father was not there.  I gave Edward (the original man who had called out to see Jonah) my number and told him that if he found any places for rent I would be happy to hear from him.

I didn’t think anything more of it until Edward called me later that evening.  Contrary to what many of my Ugandan friends do, he stayed on the line and didn’t just ‘flash’ my phone and expect me to call back.  He said there was a place on the main street that was for rent and the price was within the budget I was hoping for.  I said I would meet him on Monday with some of the women from the co-operative.

When we went to meet him I saw the place.  It was next-door to the first place I had set eyes on and wanted to rent a year ago.  That place has been rented already but the neighbouring room was for rent.  It was small and had no tap but we negotiated that if we rented we could put a table outside and put a tap and sink inside.  The location is ideal since it is near town and near the places where tourists come to (banks, supermarkets and the post-office) and it is actually better to start small until we are sure of the business.  The first thing the landlord said was “Cakes?  We need that here – we have to order cakes from Kampala.”   That was very reassuring indeed.  As we talked I realised that the landlord is the Muslim neighbour of my mzungu friends who live on the same road as us!  He has a son who played with Samuel and we arranged that I would take Samuel to their house sometimes to play!  My neighbours know this man to be a good man so I know I can trust him as a landlord if we manage to rent his property for the Women’s Co-operative Cake Shop and Café.

So I am not promising that everything smells of roses now and that everything is sorted out.  We are not sure about renting it – we need the other four members to agree and for the details to be ironed out.  The women also still have three hundred thousand shillings left to save (£75).  But what I am saying is that I had opened my heart to God’s leading who had in turn prompted me to talk to this stranger who led me to what might eventually turn into the women’s cake shop!  A little moral here would be that in order to be led we need to keep our eyes and ears open to follow the directions of the one we want to follow!**

 

*Black dog is a reference to Winston Churchill’s depressions that my dad often uses and sums up a certain low mood that is not easily shifted.

**I shall keep you posted about the cake shop and café – it is getting closer!