A couple of people have asked me about what our housing is like here in Mukono. We had warned our kids to expect a tiny flat with few amenities. After 2+ hours on the road from the airport at Entebbe (just 60 km/35 miles away; traffic in Kampala is legendary), our van finally stopped and we were surprised and delighted to see a three bedroom house with a two tiered garden and a view of twinkling lights across the valley. Turns out we would have had something more like what I anticipated had it not been for our having teenage children of opposite sexes. Thanks, Luke and Jo, and UCU!
Speaking of Luke and Jo, most thrilling to them at the moment is that the trees in the yard are regularly visited by monkeys. Two different varieties, though I haven't got the species names down yet.
Back to matters of the house, we were surprised to find we even have a washing machine, because most people around here hand wash their clothes. The only question is how to dry them. The U.S. embassy suggests that Americans who line dry clothes should iron all of them down to the underwear to kill any mango flies that might attach to them. Jim got a mango fly once in Kenya when he travelled to a rural area. The larva burrowed under his skin and raised a saucer-sized red, infected area for a few weeks. We named it Sam, after an old boyfriend of my sister's. She insisted naming a parasitic worm after him was appropriate. (Jim wanted to name it George Steinbrenner.)
Still, we have gotten the impression from folk here that Americans are overly concerned about the issue, so I'm going with letting the sun and wind do their thing and forget about the ironing. The line at the back of the house runs between some bushes without a lot of sun, so today I brought the indoor laundry rack out and sat it in the front yard. It blew over after about 20 minutes. (See photo.) If any of us gets infected with a mango worm we'll send out a call for names of former boyfriends/girlfriends.
We do sleep under mosquito nets, which I have always loved. For those who haven't used them, you have to be careful not to roll over in your sleep and leave one of your limbs resting up against the side, otherwise you wake up with a concentration of little red dots from where the mosquitos bit you through the net. I'm hoping to bring a couple (nets, not mosquitos) back to the U.S. and hang them up over our beds in Oviedo.
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