So I come to the end of my work from home and get loads done week in which the adult literacy curriculum was going to be well on it’s way and I was going to feel far less stressed about it. However this is Africa and I should have known I was kidding myself! A couple of days this week have been successful on the work front and I even managed to go out twice in the evenings and connect with something other than my computer. Yesterday it all got a bit interesting though…
Our gardener Peter came to tell me that he’d found some baby snake eggs and by the look of them they were cobras. We lost a dog to a cobra just before I moved in here so they make us a bit nervous and having met my first snake only a few days ago I’m over the fascination. Peter had decided he wanted to keep the eggs to show my housemate as he thought she’d be interested! I texted 3 people to say we’d got cobra eggs and all replied instantly – Jo gave a list of instructions to solve the situation, Tiff said we should get praying as snake are often seen as spiritual here while Viv’s instructions were ‘get photos!’ In the end I got photos and then our night guard opened one of the eggs up and we watched it squirt like a cadbury’s creme egg. Funny thing is that it reminded me of when I was a child and I was told that the more bright yellow the egg yolk was the more free range the animal was. I remember a cake mum made that had used extremely free range eggs that had come from a farmer patient of dad’s, this cake nearly glowed in the dark! Well turns out we have free range snakes as that egg was luminous!
So that was part of the excitement of yesterday and today was my last day at home so I planned to work really hard. The morning sort of began ok except for a sick cat who has not made a sound all day which is worrying when normally she doesn’t shut up. I managed a bit of work until I was told that the inside of the house needed to be sprayed against snakes. Not entirely sure why my room which is far away from the front door needs protection and why we can’t just spray around the doors but apparently every room needs doing and then the house needs to be sealed for an hour against the poison. That led me on a cat hunt because I didn’t particularly want her being finished off whilst hiding away. Finally found her just as Peter said he’d spray in the afternoon instead! So I managed a little while longer before being told the neighbours house was on fire. Wasn’t quite sure what he meant until I looked out the window and saw that in fact our neighbours house had smoke pouring from the roof. The house is rented by American friends who are currently on sabbatical in the US for several months. They’ve lived there for 15 years and so it’s a hugely blow to them. It took a while for someone to raise the alarm and even longer for the fire service to get here. Turns out there is only 1 fire engine in Eastern Uganda but at least it’s in Mbale. However there is no mains water system to plug into and so it kept having to leave everytime it ran out of water. In the end it was about 5-6 trips to get enough to put out the flames. Thankfully the rain came and helped out a bit but was a bit scary watching an 80 foot column of smoke and 20 foot flames. Before the fire brigade came I had asked our housegirl whether the service existed here and she had said they would not come which had prompted me to try and phone my housemates to ask for any suggestions! Although there is a road between us and the neighbours there are several trees in between and so my housemates hurried home and we began a quick packing session in case our house went up as well. Quite funny looking around your room and genuinelly trying to answer the question of ‘imagine your house was on fire and you could only grab a few things, what would you take?’ Turned out to be my computer (photos and adult literacy curriculum!), contact lense solutions, passport and money. Later on I couldn’t believe I’d forgotten my guitar! Thankfully between the rain and fire service our evacuation plan was not needed and so bags were unpacked and in true English style we had a cuppa to relax our nerves.
And so after all the craziness and upset of watching a house burn down I went back to work and made a video of our holiday programme to send to the church that raised money for it. My attempt to be super organised and high tech failed when I discovered that you can’t send files that big over the internet and so therefore the royal mail will have to help me out through a friend who leaves next week. Well it’s now 10.30 on a Friday night and I’m exhausted after my day of activity. In the end the house didn’t get sprayed that’s another adventure for Tuesday when I’m going to Musoto for some peace and quiet, I hope…
