Happy New 2008!

A very Happy Happy New year everybody.
We get to see another year woohuuu!!! How exciting is that?!

I’m thrilled to see what 2008 has in store, just looking at those numbers brings a smile to my face. I think they look splendid together 2 0 0 8, maybe it’s because they are even and I like even numbers.Can you imagine we've closed the chapter to '07? and it's Never coming back again?, wow!
I’m thinking damn! another year down, girl is getting older, but luckily these days they say, 40’s are the new 30’s, 30’s are the new 20’s and my favorite 20’s are the new 10’s.


So the Common Wealth Heads of Government Meeting (what a long title) was a success, congratulations to those who were there to see it unfold, put UG on the map you know?!. That was shortly followed by Ebola but hey, we can't get things good all the time.
‘The Last King of Scotland” , go UG go!! Something else to make the world remember we exist.
I know there are countless things that happened over the year, I'm hoping you had a personal victory/victories of one kind or another.

’07 was a blast for me on different fronts, I can’t enumerate them all here but it was a wonder full year (and by that I mean it was a year full of wonders).
I made new and interesting friends.
My brother, his wife and daughter came to visit me.
We had a wonderful time with Uncle Enock.
I got some good ‘binyebwa’ from home that have lasted quite a while, helped me whip up a quick sauce when I was not too thrilled to cook.
I finally found a supermarket that sells ‘matooke’ yeee!!! and it is not too far away, nice!!
My brother Peter got married, (and so did a number of friends).
I got in trouble with the law regarding my parenting skills.Mich started preschool. He is learning so many new things and is very excited about life. Yeah, we continue to have our fights and many times I’ve been close to pulling out my hair but it’s all good.
Twice I have had near death experiences that had me hospitalized and I survived :-).
Now I know it ain't over until God says it's over.

I think life is like a blank check, you can choose what to eat, where to sleep, what relations to cultivate, heck these days you can even choose what you look like, you choose what to believe in but you can’t choose when to be born or when to die. When you die then what? all the hustle in this life for nothing?!. Surely there has got to be more and I guess that depends on how we use the check, right?!.’08 is here and I’m looking forward to; Sam finishing school, seeing mum and dad again, watching God’s plan for my life unfold, Mich taking a shower and dressing himself… and so on and so forth. That aside I'm constantly reminded, we make our plans but God has the final word.

Make the most of what you've got and live life. HAPPY 2008!!!

Christmas

It's interesting how much less thought goes into planning for the holidays especially when one is away from home. Unless invited it's pretty straight forward, you do your own thing, what ever that may be. Travel to another city, do mega shopping and have a feast at home, check in at a hotel or in the case of a student without much color just chill in your apartment and try to keep warm.
The challenge comes when people are getting ready to travel home to be with their families. They are all excited, you can see the sparkle in their eyes, they are cracking their heads for what presents to buy for family members and then they ask, " so what plans do you have for Christmas?", you smile and say " uh well, we haven't thought about that yet" in other words, we don't have any plans. This is a week before Christmas. All over sudden they wish they hadn't asked the question because they can't exactly say, come on over to my parents house.

When Uncle Enoka was here, he made contact with a distant relative who lives in Hershey Pennsylvania. They didn't know each other but Chris invited him to his house for a few days. I admire Uncle Enock for his courage, he just has a way of making things work and he is very friendly.
When he came back from that visit, he encouraged Sam and I to keep in touch with Chris, he said he was a nice guy, they had established the relationship and he had a nice family.

So Sam sent him an email and Chris invited us over for Christmas. We had originally planned to rent a car for the journey so that we could leave at our convenience but Chris offered to pay for our ride. We got a reply from Chris the night of the 23rd saying he had booked the tickets and made all the arrangements.

On the train ride I wondered how we would know who Chris was when we finally got to the station. We walked out and then I saw a man holding up a piece of paper with the name Ongwen boldly printed. I almost bust out laughing because it was really a strange situation. This guy doesn't know us from Adam but he has paid for our train ride to his home. By the way I didn't tell you how he mentioned in his email that after we got there we could decide when we want to come back. What??! this is such an open invitation, it was too good to be true. I thought tell him we will be there for a week, you know Christmas into the new year (obviously I'm kidding about that). We said we would stay two nights.

The time at Chris place was fantastic, his wife Sandra is Jamaican and they have two girls Mugisha and Mutoya who are 17 and 13 respectively.



Plenty of love to go around, as usual Mich got a triple portion. Food was exquisite and all home made (by the way that is a big blessing in this place where people want already made meals).
We had oxtail, goat, salmon, mac & cheese, rice & beans, lots of veggies, it was food heaven and that is not mentioning the desert Jamaican Ram cake, easy orange-cranberry trifle, cookies and many other snacks you wouldn't click from me just explaining. You needed to be there and we had all this yummy food for two days running man!!!


Sandra had invited two other families, a Chinese couple and their 5 year old daughter and a black American couple with their 13 year old daughter, as you can see Mich was in business. We had a wonderful time.

On the 26th we took a trip to Hershey town, we visited the Hershey Chocolate World http://www.hersheys.com/chocolateworld/, Mich nearly got a darker skin tan from all the chocolate that he ate. We visited the Hershey Hotel, saw the Hershey schools and ended the day by visiting Penn State hospital where Chris is a researcher and Sandra is a nurse.

On 27th we said our good byes and Chris gave us a ride home.
About an hour after we arrived home and were settling in I got a call, some one called Chrispen was at the door to see us. He said he was Sam's cousin, we couldn't believe it, we knew that he was in the Philly area but since we never got responses to our emails we forgot all about him. Now he was at the door without any prior notice, what a pleasant surprise. He came with his two children, one just finished college and the other is just starting.
He has invited us over for New years day, how nice, one less occasion to worry about. God is just the bomb!!!!

Lets see how this one goes.

Only in America

I never felt so important like I did about a month ago.

This is how it all begun, I walked into the big supermarket four blocks away from home and guess what I saw??. Hawaii Maya plantains, for those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, that is just another name for 'matooke'. I couldn't believe it!
I was so excited I bought as much as I could, and we enjoyed some nice home cooked meals of matooke and binyebwa, mm mm mm.
I run out of stock and unfortunately so did the store, I'm assuming that I was the only one who was buying it anyway.
I kept checking from time to time and there was no sign that they would restock it in the near future.

I decided to ask, I walked in and approached a guy who looked like he would certainly be of help. I tried to explain to him what I was looking for and for a while he wasn't getting it. Then I remembered the name 'Hawaii Maya plantain" and immediately he knew what I was talking about. He asked me to hold on while he went to check in the store, came back and told me that unfortunately there was nothing. Then he asked me to hold on while he made a call to the dispatchers, unfortunately they were out of stock too. He then told me, it would probably take one or two weeks before they got a new batch. He advised me to keep checking.

Talk about good customer service, I was impressed that he stopped what he was doing to attend to me. Now even though I didn't get the food immediately I walked out really happy that he had taken the extra effort.

Two weeks later I walk back into the store and there it is, my matooke, specifically ordered for me.

On this good day

On this good day, some hours ago, my brother Peter took a bride.
I wish I could have been there, but that was not for me to decide.
I can't wait to hear all the stories about how the day went
But one thing I know is it didn't rain and so the reception venue wasn't wet.

It's funny, when I was much younger I thought people married their siblings and Peter had been my choice. I realised later that the whole sibling thing was not a good idea.
We have always been good friends growing up, I looked up to him for guidance and approval for decisions I made.
I kind of feel cheated not being their to see him take his bride but I know all is well.

Congrats to you Peter, on this your special day.

It's not safe anymore

So what have I been up to lately?
Playing scrabble on the Internet, and uhh, playing more scrabble. It's so much fun and very addictive too, before I know it, an hour is gone. Then I have to clean the house, shower, read the news, check mail and it's time to pick Mich up from school.

Mich is a whole story on his own, he has been up to lots of mischief lately, at some points I'm tempted to ask him "do I know you?".
We have had a wonderful time hosting uncle Enoch, Mich loved playing with him and there was lots of laughter and tears ofcourse. It was sad to see him go but he has a family of his own and work and a life... but that will be for another post, for now I want to focus on Mich.

He wakes up the night after uncle Enoch left at around 2am, (maybe two days ago). Knocks on our door saying he couldn't get to sleep and that he was hungry, he wanted to eat bread. Sam told him to pick a slice from the fridge and then go back to bed, he quickly agreed. Then for the next 5 or so minutes I heard drawers opening and closing, loud bangs, anyway lots of nagging noise. I knew at this point it wasn't just about getting a slice of bread. It would subside and start all over again, I decided to check out what was going on.
I found Mich in the kitchen, all the lights in the house were on, he had turned on the microwave fan and the microwave was giving a beeping sound like something was being warmed and had timed out. Turns out the young man was not ready to have just a slice of bread, he had gotten a bowl, poured in some milk and weetabix and was ready to have something substantial. I was speechless, the weetabix is way up in one of the cupboards out of reach, he had to have climbed on the counter to get it (that explains all the loud banging). That he was able to put the stuff in the microwave was one thing, it's out of reach too, the kind that are built above the cooker. He had to have climbed to do that as well, how he managed to press the timer and know which buttons to press, beat me, no wonder lots of other functions were running at the same time.
But I have to give it to him because he didn't spill anything, he got adequate potions of what he needed and warmed it to just the right temperature.
I just thought, after this nothing is safe anymore. I need to be extremely careful what I put where because he can get to it and that is scary. I know he is growing to be independent but with all the ideas in that little head there is no limit to what he will do.
I need to find a balance between giving the freedom to do certain things but keeping him dependent as well. These days if you insist that he doesn't have something, he will go get it himself. I miss the days when I was totally in control, no cookie until I get it for you, kind of thing.
It's not safe.