Accents

About three weeks ago I took a cab from the bus station back home and I was trying to give the cab driver directions. For some reason I had to repeat myself 2 or 3 times before he figured out what I was saying. I thought maybe I was not audible enough, when I finally reached home the cab driver got out of the vehicle and said to me "I'm sorry mom, I wasn't able to understand what you were saying because I don't speak French".
He basically left me speechless, I mean, now my English sounds like French?!
It's now a household joke, if we go some where and Sam has to repeat himself, we just say "anti your speaking French".


Mich however is in a league of his own, it's been three months of cold and winter and poor kid has not been able to go out and play with other children except in Sunday school. He has however been watching his favourite TV shows faithful, Sesame Street, Bob the Builder, Dora the Explorer and Diego.
But now he is rolling his 'r's like crazy, waterrr, carrr, hearrr e.t.c. It only gets a little out of hand when he starts saying things like bananarrr, and sodarrr, we are trying to keep a check on that though just so he knows that not everything needs to roll with an 'r'.

Dallas (Part 2)

So we called our friends the Okoboi's and told them our flight had been cancelled and told them the soonest we could get back to Philly was Monday night. That meant Mich would have to spend two extra nights at their house. We felt bad about the unplanned extension but there was nothing we could do to change the situation.
We also called the Hotel and told them we were coming back, that was not a problem for them.

What did we spend the extra days doing?? touring the city, what else?.
Dallas is a very beautiful city, the streets are very clean, the people are very friendly, the weather at the time was very good, not hot and not cold just right. It's very green, the trees and flowers are well groomed. I thought Uganda would look like Dallas fifty or so years down the road, but only if we stop being selfish, cut the corruption and focus on the good of the country as a whole.
I also discovered that Dallas is the Bible belt, I was amazed that there were scriptures inscribed on the walls of some buildings. I saw this specifically at a place called the Thanks Giving Square, that really blessed my heart. There were also lots of churches in the area that we were living, down town.

Talking about the Train transport, there are machines at every stop for people to buy tickets depending on what kind of ticket you want. There were some for just one trip, some for a day and then for longer periods. We bought the ones for the day, got on to the bus and I was looking out for the "conductor" or ticket guy to come checking. No one showed up, people were getting on and off as they pleased, that's when I asked Sam (he always knows) whatsup? no one is checking. I found out that people are responsible citizens, tickets don't need to be checked, everybody knows they need a ticket that's all. I thought about my beloved Uganda and how that would have been abused thoroughly. Later in the day I saw a notice at the station that stated that if you were found without a ticket you would be fined handsomely may be about shs500,000 (UG cash). I was just too impressed anyway.

On Sunday we took a trolley tour which by the way was free although time and again people give money out of appreciation. The trolleys are really old but kept very well, they try to keep them as original as possible so the chairs and everything are still as they were several decades back. We met a lady on the trolley and started talking about moving to Dallas (she was moving to Dallas too) so I guess we had that in common and she was a student too. She was so happy to talk with us, she even invited us for some progii that night, a rollerskating party. She gave us her number asked us to call later so we could get together, then she called her cousin to find out if he could arrange transport, I thought how nice. Turns out the function was going to be miles away, it was starting at 9pm, she wasn't able to get transport and.... oba we are just growing old?! Anyway we didn't go, too many things to think about.
That just goes to show how friendly the people can be and I haven't mentioned the conversations that were started by people in lifts and along the road.

Finally Monday came and this time the taxi driver was from Ethiopia. How did I find out?, he asked as we were leaving the cab which country we were from, he was really excited, he rapped some Swahili there but I was only able to say one or two words back. He said he had learned it sometime ago and then said he was from Ethiopia.

Sadly I forgot the camera at home so there are no photos to show.

Dallas (Part 1)

Last Thursday Sam and I were able to arrange for a trip to Dallas, Sam had to meet with the colleagues he will be working with in Mercer and we thought it would be a good time to go house hunting.
We had a trip scheduled last month but we didn't make it because of lousy weather, it was snowing heavily, after getting to the airport and waiting for about seven hours the flight was cancelled.
This time round we had good weather, got on the plane and landed in Dallas safe and sound. Mich dearest went to spend time with our friends Felix and Candy, he has lots of fun with their girls besides the company was only able to pay for the two of us.
We got in to Dallas about 9pm, caught a cab and headed to our hotel, interestingly the cab driver had strong African looks and an accent to go with it so Sam dryly asked him where he was from. Turns out he was closer to home than we expected, well he was from Sudan and has been here for five years. It was nice because after telling him where we were from he took it upon himself to give us a guided tour of the city.
We were booked into one of the MagnoliaHotels, apart from the fact that it looked wow! the staff were very courteous, opened the cab door, took our luggage, opened the door to the hotel e.t.c I couldn't stop smiling I don't ever remember being pampered like that except on my wedding.

I had planned to sleep in the next day while Sam went to the office to meet the Partners and staff, then we would meet up later in the day to go look at housing. In the event I came with only casual clothing and sandals, I knew the weather would be fantastic here. Well, lets just say my plans were thrown out of the window.
Sam's colleagues were expecting both of us, since it was a Friday I figured my dress code would survive because in most offices Friday should be a "dress down" day. I was more concerned about meeting all these people, I was now thinking I need to ask intelligent questions and be energetic (which I wasn't feeling, not in the least). I was thinking interview mode, anti this is internship and you need to be at your best, I didn't want to get in the way of Sam getting a full time offer, anyway I also wanted to leave a good impression. I don't know why I felt under pressure, why I felt like I was going for an interview??! beats me too. Considering that I haven't been on the office scene for about 7 months now, I guess the work mode was kicking in.
Anyway so we go, the office looks quite impressive kind of reminded me of Price Waterhouse Coopers. As we took a walk around the office and got introduced to the staff (the few who were there) I noticed lots of empty desks and chairs, the setting was cubical like and of the roughly 20 cubicles only four people were actually there. You might think it was Ugandan style civil servants and some other offices we know where people leave coats on the chair and go doing personal business, no way. Majority were out at work, by the way not like down the street or something but in other states and countries. That's when it hit me that Sam will be in the same shoes, travelling like crazy. I'm told the average consultant travels every week, out on Monday and back on Thursday, not easy on the family I must say. I'm already praying to God about it, it's not going to be easy if he has to be away so often, but I trust God will look after us as He always has.
After meeting guys in the office we were invited to lunch with six of them, I was thinking damn, now the talk is going to be about consulting and complicated stuff which I don't have much knowledge on. I was wrong again, much of the conversations at the table centred around, family and travelling to Africa and China, that was nice because then I was able to talk with some authority. I was also amazed at how young the other consultants were, some were still leaving at home, but my guess is the average age is about 27 years.
Lunch was great, we had it at Neiman Marcus, I didn't bother sweating the menu, I just asked my neighbour what he was having and ordered the same, that was certainly a wise choice.
I decided to take the afternoon off and head back to the hotel while Sam stayed for some more meetings.

When he came back to the room later in the day he told me we were going out to dinner with one of his colleagues Matt and his wife. Oh oh!, I didn't have any dinner wear, remember I came with jeans and sandals and just looking at the ladies in Dallas they dress to kill, somewhat like kampalans. Then Sam's colleague calls to say something about how it's a really top end restaurant, that didn't help the situation. There was nothing I could do about it anyway, I put on what I had and that was it. We were picked up from the hotel and ooh! was Matt's wife dressed up or what?!
I tried to keep my mind off the matter but I noticed how she kept checking us out, again there was nothing to do about it. They gave us a brief tour of some of the places we could find housing, then we went to dinner at a five star restaurant. It was really great, nice food we are talking about five course meals here, excellent service, great conversation, it was a good dinner.
We got back to the hotel about 10:30pm and immediately went to be bed.

Saturday morning was ours to basically do some more research on housing, our flight was scheduled for 2:45 so we had about 5 hours.
We got on to the train and went to the different areas we had in mind, spoke to the management in charge and had a tour of the sample apartments that would be available. We ended up liking the apartments in a place called The Village. Reasons, close to the train line, shopping areas, enclosed and family friendly, Mich will have lots of running space. We were not able to make a payment since the lady wasn't sure which apartments would be available in the summer but she asked us to keep in touch closer to the time we are scheduled to come.
That pretty much took up all the time we had and now it was time to head back to the hotel, pick up our luggage and head to the Dallas Fort Worth Airport. We got a cab and interestingly this time the driver looked at us and asked if we were from Africa (we must look real ... and I guess we also don't have the accents). We told him and turns out he is from Ghana, looks Ghanaian, talks like a Ghanaian and how long has he been in Dallas? 27 years. If after 27 years he spoke like that, I guess the case is closed for some of us, not that we are trying anyway.
We reached the airport in good time only to be told that our flight had been cancelled, bad weather in Philly, snowstorm and stuff. The earliest we could get back to Philly was Monday evening, that is literally 2 more days in Dallas.
I told you how we failed to leave Philly some time because of bad weather, and now we could not leave Dallas because of a snow storm in Philly.
The dilemma is, either we are not supposed to be in Philly or we are not supposed leave Dallas.
I'll tell you more in the next blog.

My Girls

About a year and a half ago God brought some three ladies into my life, certainly well worth it. It's not like I didn't know them before then, I did but some how I think God brought them closer for that time in my life.
I met Sheila way back in 1995 when she was in charge of the dance group for the Christmas cantata, she was such a bully, as in if she didn't like you chances were very slim that would be considered. I was lucky I got into her good books, we danced together and were also in the choir but life led us down different paths from that point.
Then there is Flash, let me just say we literally knew each other from our nappy days. Okay maybe that is stretching it but on a serious note we were in the same class from primary one to seven. We went to different schools after that and met again in church several years later. This time she was in charge of the choir, ho! serious woman I tell you.
As for Ed, she is one of those people whom you just find in your life and can't quite mark the time you met. I actually think we met in choir apart from her being friendly and outgoing we had a few friends in common.
I'm sure by now you have noted that we are all in the choir. On that scene, Sheila is a worship leader, Flash sings soprano, tries alto sometimes but lets just say we keep that to practice times because..... Ed is the alto very strong and clear and yours truly was the tenor.
Now that Easter is round the corner I remember the times of intense practice, all the new songs we had to listen to and learn while at work just so we got our parts right.
Practice with the choir almost every evening, I appreciated Sam more and more because he allowed me to be involved and he knew it was something I loved to do.

I remember once we led worship for almost three months in a row, we were Sheila's backup's much of the time and she loved the song "For all you've done", the chorus lyrics were "you lived, you died, you rose again on high...." we sung this song like 500 times. The next rotation Pastor Doug asked us to back him up and he loved the song that had the chorus "you lived, you died, you said in three days you would rise, you did, your alive". Can you picture the drama we had having to unlearn Sheila's favourite?, they had different tunes but it was so easy to slip into one instead of the other. The band was not helpful knowing that we got all confused they teased us alot on the intro's but it was all fun.

The girls came home once or twice for practice and Sam was happy to have them around, I guess that goes to show how nice their company was.
We celebrated birthdays together and at times it would be a bunch of girls then two guys Sam and Bash, that was fun.

Flip the page again to the girls as my buddies, my! their energies were on an all time high, it was interesting to see them excited, screaming, jumping, dancing, I was usually a note off because all I did was smile. They didn't say it but I'm sure they wondered what was up with me.
Sheila was the passionate one, she was 101% into what ever she put her heart to especially regarding her relationship with God. I loved the way she would worship God like it was just the two of them even when the congregation was looking on like "what on earth is she talking about?". I can't miss the fact that she is very very very stylish, always on top of the latest fashion and hair styles. She was a great resource for some of us, I'm sure Flash would agree. Hehehe, Sheila was also the Blondie, well she said it her self, for example, Ed would crack a joke and then labour to explain the joke and then she would get it like a day later (well something like that).
Flash was the hardworking one, very committed to her duties. She is very dedicated and serious about life which makes her look tough for those who don't know her. Of course for the rest of us who know her, she is fun loving, can be naughty at times and she certainly loves God. She is the kind of person who if told to jump she would ask how high?
Ed was the intelligent one, very precise and accurate with every thing she did, very dependable too. Tell her to be at a place at 2:00am and she would be there at the strike of 2 or even 1:58am like she said. She was usually the life of the party, had lots of stories to tell, jokes to crack and information about almost everything.
If you asked Ed to jump she would first think, if all was well she would ask how high and then jump higher than you asked. Other times she would tell you how that is not the sport she had planned for the day, or tell you how faulty the measurements were and for that reason she wouldn't jump and there was no changing her mind.

These ladies were no angels and I guess that's what made them so much fun to be around, they were real and spoke honestly about their struggles. They respected the fact that I was married but it didn't affect the way we related.

And now for the quacks, Flash was like Chipper Adams (Rally driver) on the road, hung on to your seat belts everybody. Sheila was a little worse, she was Chipper Adam's squared. You would wish the seat belt would wrap round twice because she didn't know what pot holes were.
As for Ed, she was just annoyingly clever, she would say things that would leave our heads spinning for a bit then wonder what was wrong with us (Sheila was an exception).



And that ladies and gentlemen is all about my girls, just thought I would say something about them. I miss them a lot and when that happens I resort to writing.