10 Days in Uganda, Day 10, The sun falls from the Sky
Isaiah, the smallest baby was just a couple of months old and slept most of the time like any other baby. As I gave baby Elizabeth her lunchtime bottle I wondered what would happen to these children if places such as this did not exist. Some of the babies were HIV positive and very vulnerable. The toddlers held up their arms to be picked up or took us by the hand. “Push me on the swing, Uncle”. “Pick me up, Aunty.” How could you say no? They were safe for the first five years of their lives, but what then? Their individual personalities left their marks on our memories and their leaking nappies left their marks on our clothes. Rain poured down as we approached Kampala. Moses relished the opportunity to demonstrate his skill at driving in adverse conditions. It was impressive. He drove through the deluge of blinding rain and rivers of mud The slow lorries ahead were a challenge that could not be resisted. Even the congestion at Kampala didn’t slow him down. He sliced his way through the traffic, overtook at junctions and took short cuts to avoid queues. Every gap was an opportunity for advancement. He was on his home turf and he was the master. We drove up a mud alley and stopped in a small courtyard. “This is my house”, Moses proudly announced. It was superior to the make-shift shanty huts we had seen in rural villages and along the roads. We jumped over the ditch, nearly squashing the chickens, to greet the girl in a smart, black dress standing at the door. This was Victa, the maid. She had been bought by Moses when she was 7 years old. “I got her cheap in the village”, he said proudly. It was the custom, apparently, for a poor family to place a child with a better off family to improve its social status. There was, presumably, a fine line between this and selling your children. Victa, though shy, looked happy and cared for. She was sometimes visited by her family. We returned to the Red Chilli Hideaway for our last night in Uganda and sat by the small jacuzzi pool to enjoy the last of the evening sunshine. As usual we moved our chairs around to avoid the shadows. Suddenly, we found that we were moving back in the opposite direction. The sun was moving backwards. I looked up. No, the sun was falling from the sky. We had been warned that some malaria prophylactics caused hallucinations. Ours weren’t supposed to. This was no hallucination. Something strange was happening. The sun was actually falling from the sky. I suppose, being on the equator, the sun doesn’t sink in an arc but sinks directly? What do you think? If you have a better idea, please let me know. Our cottage in the grounds didn’t boast a TV, so we didn’t even have the option of turning the football off. One feature it did have was a generator just outside, which simulated the sound of a washing machine stuck on the spin cycle all night. It made a change from squawking frogs.