Happy bathday!

    On Saturday evening, Maital and I attended Stephen Wandendeya’s birthday party. We have become pretty close with Stephen during the past few weeks, as he is the one in charge of the container where we have been sorting through books and he has been coordinating the library that Maital started last time she was [...]

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Shopping

            On Thursday, Mary, Anne’s 17-year-old daughter, accompanied me to town in search of a black skirt. Ok, I under-packed. Even if I might have the bare minimum that I need, I have realized that I need another outfit or two, because clothing takes longer to wash, dry, and iron here. The drying has been [...]

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Library updates

            My apologies for taking so long to write. Sometimes I think that I don’t have a lot to write, but as soon as I sit down to start typing and begin reflecting on the days here, I realize that each day a lot happens. So, I will try to be more diligent in writing.
            [...]

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long-sleeved… x-rated

Yesterday afternoon Adam and I were having a conversation with Levert, the clinical officer at BCC that lives with us at Anne’s, about his uncle’s wedding. We asked if his uncle from Kenya married a Kenyan and then I asked if they were both from the Luo tribe. Levert said actually his family is Luhya, [...]

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cleaning out…

August 20, 2007
            For those of you who received my mass emails during my first visit to Uganda, you might remember my description of entering a mouse infested metal container to sort through hundreds of donated books. Well, I guess some things don’t change, because earlier this week Adam and I had to gather our [...]

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Back to Uganda

After passing through the Rwanda-Uganda border, exchanging money with a “legit” money exchanger on the side of the road, we finally made it to Southwestern Uganda. Upon getting off the bus, we were immediately bombarded by boda and private hire drivers asking us where we wanted to go. One can only say “I am fine, [...]

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Jews in Canada?

Kigali is a much cleaner city than Kampala. There seem to be sidewalks on every block. Not only do the motorbike taxi drivers wear shirts with numbers (i.e. they are licensed and registered) but they wear helmets and even have one for their passengers. (In Uganda, most of the drivers don’t have helmets. And I [...]

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Cheering for Kibuye

The bus from Cyangugu brought us to Kibuye (pronounced by many Rwandans as “Chibuye”). Before we actually got off the bus, we prepared for the worst: Chaim and Maital would push their way to the back of the bus to retrieve two of our bags, while Adam would make his way to the front of [...]

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Miracle of Birth

Yup, that’s right. I saw a birth in the maternity ward of the BCC clinic yesterday. I made it pretty clear to the attending midwife here that I was very interested in watching a birth. Recently, the births have occurred once I have already left for the evening, or while I was in Rwanda. But [...]

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reflections on genocide

The genocide in Rwanda took place in 1994, a mere 13 years ago. So, what we found there was a country recovering from a terrible and horrific episode in its history. The genocide is still fresh for all those people who experienced it, both the perpetrators and the victims. As we walked down the street, [...]

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