Dan and Jodes… in Gulu, Uganda

Welcome to our largest local supermarket in Gulu: Ucumi.

Now this is what you do when you hardly have any items left in stock: you just spread the one item that is left all down the isle. We rarely visit this supermarket (since it regularly looks like this), but today there were limited items, minimal staff in sight (because they were all crowded around the television listening to the election news), they had no change in the cash register and they were out of bags (recyclable ones).

Thanks Ucumi, you bring a smile to our face every visit.

Dan & Jodes

Last Sunday was ‘youth Sunday’ in church. One of the young guys preached the sermon. There were a few things about the sermon that were, let’s say a little ‘sketchy’, but the phrase that really got under my skin was that women are the property of their husbands and how husbands own their wives. This was clearly what this young lad had been told and had seen around him. I am not one to buck on too many cultural trends but this is one that I thought needed addressing, particularly within the church. At the end of the sermon there was a little ‘interlude’ whilst the youth were counting tithing. The service leader clearly wasn’t happy with a bit of silence and waiting, so she called up a couple of random people and asked them to share something. I was one of those people. She asked me to share a short word, I tried to be a little bit funny and say the word ‘one’, a joke that was lost. She then said something about me being the property of Daniel and how Daniel owned me. ‘Hold on, I have a word now’ I said. I then just shared briefly how I was married, but how Daniel did not own me, and how I was not his property. I also said that I prayed that the women in the church were not the property of their husbands and that their husbands didn’t own them – I got a little cheer from the women at the back. Let’s hope and pray that this is an attitude that can change, particularly amongst the youth here.

Jody

We ducked to our local pork butcher in town to get some meat. 1/4kg is 3000 shillings (around 50p/$1.20) or one kilogram is 13000 shillings. We said we wanted four quarters, rather than one kilogram. He then persisted to say that that was the same as one kilogram, so we would pay 13000. Instead, we said we wanted 3/4 and 1/4 (still cheaper than 1kg). We got our 4/4 in the end 🙂

The price of pork is sky-rocketing in Gulu at the moment. The pigs are ‘not there’. Local butchers are having to pay high prices in transport fees to get meat from other districts. Let’s hope that the piggery part of the agriculture project will inspire locals to invest in building their own piggeries, it’s certainly a great market at the moment.

Dan

Hello world,

Just a short note to say we’re back from a lovely little getaway with some beautiful friends in Kenya. Rested, well fed, well sunned (a little too much for Dan), and back in Uganda. Stopped off for a bout of training in Jinja, will be back to Gulu tomorrow night. Be in touch with you all soon.

Dan and Jodes

This blog will have a little sleep for a couple of weeks as we have some well yearned for R&R. See you back here soon. 

Got a big bill from the Ministry of Internal Affairs today which means… MY VISA IS APPROVED!

Can legally stay in Uganda for another two years (sorry Mum and Dad!)

Jody