Ron and President Okut (local district president) at Borehole Ceremony
The Village Children at the Handover Ceremony
More Children at the Ceremony
Dancing with the Children (Nana and Sis. Huskinson get down and get funky)
Speaking at the Handover Ceremony with Interpreter Ssymbwa
Dear Friends and Family:
The Christmas Season is upon us, but it doesn’t feel much like Christmas here. It is very warm. We have had a District Christmas Party at the Kololo branch and that was fun. The Primary put on a nativity skit, which was very good and very funny. They had a real African baby for the Christ child and Joseph said to Mary “So Mary you are going to have a baby, well then, let’s get married, so let’s go get the certificate”. The little angel was dressed in a baptismal jumpsuit and ran around the stage flapping his arms. It was so very cute and funny and we laughed and really enjoyed it. The kids here are so cute and they love to touch us, very softly on the arm. I think they just want to see if our skin feels the same as theirs. The primary also sang some songs and the kids here have very nice voices. It is fun to hear them sing the same songs as our Primary kids. The couples and the young missionaries sang some carols and then all went outside and stood in a very long line for an authentic African dinner. The ladies in the district had prepared Matoke (cooked green bananas), some mystery meat (we didn’t eat any) and posche and vegetables. They cooked the food outside the Church and it did smell delicious. We are always just a little afraid to try some of it because of the consequences. So far we have not been sick and we want to stay that way. Santa Claus even came. One of the couples, Elder Nye, found a Santa suit at one of the local stores. He is about six feet five in height and very thin, so he didn’t look like the typical Santa, but the kids didn’t seem to mind. Santa Clause isn’t a big thing here.
We have a small Christmas tree in our apartment and we decorated it in African décor. The ornaments are handmade by the ladies in the villages. They are small zebras, elephants, giraffes, lions, etc made out of banana husk and tied on a red ribbon with a green and crystal bead threaded on the ribbon. We also have some small red beaded baskets and some little brown huts hanging on the branches. Although it is small, it reminds us that it is the Christmas season. We have a missionary Christmas party at the Mission home this Saturday and a couples Christmas dinner at the Mission home on Christmas day. So we are experiencing an African Christmas this year. Except for missing home and family, it is very wonderful to share a Christmas with the African church members, as well as Kami and Brent.
Most of the people in the Church are very poor and so Christmas is not like it is in the states. The chapel is not decorated and Ron and I have to insist that we sing Christmas carols for our opening and closing hymns. The district president gave a talk last Sunday and told people not to spend money on Christmas and then go without food the next week. One of the traditions here is to buy your wife a Christmas dress and husbands save up all year to buy it. This is very important and Ssymbwa told us that she can use it as a reason to get a divorce. She just needs to tell the judge that he did not buy her a Christmas dress and then everyone understands why she wants to get rid of him.
We are anxiously awaiting Kami and Brent’s arrival. They arrive on December 24th at 8:30 a.m. We will pick them up at the Entebbe airport and bring them to our apartment for a few hours of sleep and then we have many plans for them. We are going on Safari at Murchison Falls for three days and then to the Source of the Nile and other attractions. We have three official project handovers arranged for the time that Kami will be here and we think she will really enjoy going with us. Two of them are way out in obscure villages and the houses are mud huts with thatched roofs. One project involves seven villages where the women have been organized in groups of 30. The Church is providing them with farming equipment, seeds, fertilizers, plants, etc., which is designed to provide them food as well as some agriculture to sell for their medical and school needs. The handover of this equipment will be held in the poorest village, but they want to provide a program in appreciation and we understand that as a part of the program, they will dance and sing for us. So this should be very interesting. Ron has strong-armed the water district to rehabilitate the water sources for the people in that village. One is broken down and the other one is contaminated. Since we are going to rehabilitate 46 boreholes in the district, it was fairly easy to get the district to agree with our request to also help this poor village.
We recently held the handover ceremony on completion of 15 boreholes in the Mpigi water district. There were two ceremonies held at two of the boreholes. There were over four to five hundred people in attendance. The boreholes were decorated with banana leaves and flowers and they even had Ron plant a tree by one of the boreholes to commemorate the occasion. They had us cut a ribbon and then pump the first water out of the borehole. It was very stressful because we pumped and pumped for about a minute, it seemed longer, and no water came out. Finally, at last, the water came out, we were so relieved. Ron spoke a couple of times and I said the closing prayer. Loud speakers had been rented and so even people living far away from the area walked up to see what was going on. We were fed African food and soda and were treated so very nicely. The kids sang and danced for us and many dignitaries were in attendance. Special songs had been written and dances performed for the occasion thanking the Church and us for the clean water. The school kids would sing “Good Job, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” and then put their thumbs up. They would dance a little more, then stop in front of us and sing “Thank you so much, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” and give the high sign. They would then use our names and thank us. What a great day. Most of the time, the long name of the Church is not pronounced correctly or part of it is left out, but this time, it was correct. The Church got a lot of good publicity out of this handover. It was wonderful to see how appreciative these people are for clean water. Even though some of them still walk many miles morning and night with a jerry can on their heads to get to the boreholes. The kids also help carry water. We were told later that this was on the TV evening news, so the Church gets a lot of good publicity out of these handovers.
We also did the official launch of the banana project. The mission president and his wife came with us. We toured the laboratory where the disease free banana tissues were started and saw how the whole process worked. Bananas mature from a little four inch tissue to actually producing bananas within a nine to twelve month period of time. After visiting a few of the twenty model farms the Church has funded, we drove to the ceremony site and Ron and the Mission President spoke, as well as a few other authorities and the head of the organization we are working with. We are always amazed at how beautiful the women are dressed. Their clothing is very traditional and very colorful and they have elaborate hairdos or tied turbans on their heads. Sister Christensen and I were admiring all the dresses, when a lady, whose husband was a former ambassador to the UN from Uganda, approached us and told us she wanted to make us a traditional African dress. She asked us the colors that we liked. We are going to her home on Sunday to receive them. We are excited about that.
We are very proud of Ryan, who is still at the MTC. He has been made zone leader for his group. He loves the MTC and said that he has learned more Spanish in the month that he has been there than he learned in a whole year in high school. He is happy and excited about the work. We are very proud of him.
We also need to inform everyone about the change in procedure in mailing letters to the pouch. They no longer will accept a letter in an envelope. They want a single sheet of paper, folded in three parts, with the address and a stamp on the back of the sheet, with a piece of scotch tape holding the fold together. We dislike this new rule as we cannot receive any pictures or anything extra in an envelope. This also goes for greeting cards that require an envelope.
We wish all of you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and next Christmas we get to tell you all in person.
Love, the Beans
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