Our neighborhood

So yesterday I brought the nice camera out with me on our way to the market, and tried to take pictures of the ordinary things around us.  The variety of pictures is slightly limited because I tried to ask everyone permission before taking their picture, and about half the people declined.  I know, I'm never going to be able to be a good photojournalist if I allow myself to not take pictures of most potential subjects, but so be it!  In case you didn't know, as I had not recalled, Muslims do not allow their pictures to be taken.  There is a small but noticeable community of devout Muslims around here, although you will not see that represented in the pictures!

So first of all, I will present of overview of the general geography.  Gaba Road is a tentacle coming out of Kampala, until it goes straight down into Lake Victoria.  The actual traffic stops a short distance before that, and a road comes out to the side, making an L.  We live perhaps a quarter mile down that road, which might be called Gaba Close.  The area between where the traffic stops and the water is a busy market area, where vendors lay their wares out along the side of the street, and nearer the water there are tent-like shelters to provide cover for dozens of fruit, vegetable, and produce sellers.  On the actual quays are fish sellers and firewood.  At the junction of the L and slightly up Gaba Road, there are many little shops crowded together.  Once you turn at the L, the shops spread out and are interspersed with schools, other small alleys leading in, and some neighborhoods.  As the road starts to climb a slight hill, the shops become much farther apart and there are more residential buildings, although they are mostly off the road behind trees.  A couple of "blocks" up (of course there is no grid to provide real blocks) is the turn off to our apartment, which is a short brick route -- I am not sure if it is just a driveway or THAT is what is called Gaba Close!  You pass three houses and a small banana grove on the right, and just meadow on the left, before our apartment.  So these photos are walking out from our building, down the road into the village, and into the market.

 As you walk out of the gates to our apartment, this is the house next door.  It is a very nice house by Ugandan standards.

 This is at the top of the driveway, looking back towards our apartment.  The meadow-y area is on the left, the swept courtyard to the houses on the right, and Lake Victoria straight ahead.

 This is out on the main road going by our house, looking toward the village.  I never fail to smile at seeing Lake Victoria right out beyond us.

 This is a little boy on the road, to give a better idea of the road itself.  The very very main roads, such as Gaba Road itself, are paved, but this is the condition of a pretty good secondary road.

 Entering the village area, this is the shop where we have our copies made.

 Entering the village area.

 A woman roasting maize to sell as a snack.  Sometimes I was naughty and used my telephoto to snap a very quick picture of someone who didn't know I was doing it, but at least she doesn't look Muslim.

 This is one of the high schools.  In our short walk to market, we walk directly by three different schools, and I know of at least four more that are just a short distance off the main road.  This is also one of the tallest buildings in this area; almost everything is a single story, and only a notable few go above two stories.  They are not getting the population for all those schools by  building UP.

 Examples of some of the ordinary little shops.

 More ordinary shops.  these ones are both internet cafes.

 Looking back on the village area, towards our house, just to give an idea of it.  This is one of the huge holes that the cars always try and drive around, meaning they are suddenly swerving way over to where you thought you were safe walking along.  Luckily, they are also going very slowly at that point, given the condition of the road.

 This is our local supermarket, where we can buy things like eggs and jam and toilet paper.

 This is the L junction.  TTo the left the road decends to the market, and to the right it becomes a real road going into town.  These are all the boda-bodas hoping that someone wants a ride.

 If you look up the street you can see all the taxis (mini-busses) waiting to collect passengers.  This is our main mode of transportation.

 Along the road.

 Someone grilling meat, one of the many many roadside snacks available.

 This is how to buy clothes: sorting through these giant piles arranged on tarps.  Some of the sellers have a theme, like men's pants, and other times it's total luck.

 More food options.  These are grilled bananas, which I think are excellent.  Behind the women, a small alley leads off filled with other shops.

 Now we are looking down towards the water, and the market itself.  You can see some umbrella-like coverings for the fruit stands.

 One of the last buildings before the market itself.  It sells plastic goods below, and I assume the people live above.  THis is not at all a typical building for the area, both in the living/shopping quarters, and how small it is.  I always think it's cute, though.

 They load everything, but everything, onto the boda-bodas.  In this case, dozens of live chickens.

 Turning to the left, we enter the vegetable area.  There are about four rows like this, and they extend for about a block.

 Here you can buy some "Irish"!

 A view down the general aisleway.

 Beansand grains ready for sale.  We bought some peanut butter here, and shopkeeper didn't want his picture taken but invited me to photograph his wares.  This is how most dry goods are sold, in these giant rolled-down bags.

 You can buy dried fish in the central area of the vegetable rows, although fresh fish are sold by the water.  I got some scolding wagging fingers for taking these pictures, although I didn't think it was possible that the fish themselves would be insulted, and I carefully excluded any humans.

 Fish.

 This row has bananas in many shapes and sizes.  We bought our bananas here, and received permission for this portrait.

 We've walked out of the vegetable area, and are in the fruit-y-ish area across the street.  These are the famous matoke, the staple food of Uganda.

 Oops, pictures out of order.  This is back in the vegetable area.  This nnyabo (respectful title for a woman) permitted her picture, and wanted the champion tomato-bargainer in it too.

Back on the other side of the road.  This is the stand where we always get our fruit: watermelon, papaya, mangoes, and pineapple.  About as much as we can carry for around $5.  This gentleman remembers us and lets Emerson do the ordering and paying, and he carefully selects the best fruit for us.... so we keep coming back!  By then our backpacks were too full and heavy to add more, so we headed back home again.  Goodbye!

On the Lighter Side

Two Funny Moments

I made a visit to the orphanage this afternoon while Emerson was at the beach with his friends, and have these two stories.

I was playing a jumping/throwing/"where did he go" game with three of the little children: Buttercup, Violet, and Dandelion.  They loved doing it over and over and over, and I had the quiet Buttercup and Violet laughing out loud and the energetic and irrepressible Dandelion waiting his turn (sometimes) and enjoying laughing at the girls, because he knew his turn was coming back again.  Well, I wasn't wearing a very low-cut dress, but I guess if you are tossed overhead it was enough to look down and see some cleavage, and after a while that is exactly what Dandelion noticed.  He was fascinated.  Curiosity quickly turned to action, and as I put him down he pawed in my dress.  I stood up and moved on with the game, but he was determined, and after a time or two the girls noticed and had the same wonder that he did, and Violet helped him try to look down my dress.  I knew what their childish minds were thinking, so I didn't mind, but I did put a stop to it before Dandelion managed to actually grab a breast and pull it out.

This is a culture where breast-feeding is a simple part of life.  One frequently sees a mother feeding her baby, and I'm sure that many poor toddlers continue to get milk for a long time for the simple reason that it is free and they are hungry.  So probably Dandelion and Violet actually remember nursing, and they certainly have seen it all around them for their whole lives.

And they were suddenly face to face with the most peculiar things: pale white breasts.  What are they?  Are they actually breasts?  Could a baby latch on? Actually, what about me, could I have a sip?  Are there nipples on those things?  And goodness, if there are nipples, what color are THEY??

And just to prove that my mind was on the right track, for his next turn, Dandelion came at me with his mouth open!  I wasn't willing to just bare all in the courtyard, but I'll have to pull aside one of the English-speaking nannies tomorrow and get them to let the children know that white women do indeed have working equipment.

The other moment was on my walk home, and this isn't so much unusual as just one example of some of the little interactions that I have with the children almost every walk.  The children in our village are getting to know us, and figure out we are friendly (at least I am; Emerson is a little unpredictable) so their courage and friendliness is increasing.

As I passed a little group of children, one little girl grinned and darted out right over to me.  I recognize her and she often comes up to hold my hand and laugh happily for a moment, and I think she's even one of the ones who has given me a bear hug.  Today she had her hand out, so I took it and shook it and greeted her politely and formally in Luganda, which made her puff up with pride and laugh.  So then all the other children wanted to have their own special moment too.  A little boy came up to me, and with the general eagerness that children have to show adults things, held out what was in his hand and said "mzungo look, look dis."  It was a knucklebone or something like that which he had been chewing on, and his hand was running with bloody cooking juices as he held it out to me.   I tried to duly admire it, and heard one of the women in the background laughing with half a sigh as she said "a meat!"  Apparently it isn't just me who thinks that knucklebones are not the most interesting gift in the world.  As I moved on from the fascinating knucklebone, I almost knocked into an older child carrying jerrycans of water.  Before I could apologize he had moved, but the next jerrycan-carrier had gotten an idea, and he swerved over so his face was right next to mine, with dramatically raised eyebrows, and in a comically deep voice intoned "bye."  It all happened in just a second and he had walked on.  Then I was past that group of lively and creative children, but all the other children nearby had seen how friendly I was and called and waved busily, and of course I smiled and waved back.  

At least no one dived at my cleavage with his mouth open!

Buttercup is starting...

Buttercup is realizing...

...that I have some kind of particular interest in her.

She has known who I am and recognized me from the beginning, so it's not a matter of understanding who I am, but having the idea that anyone at all might take particular notice of her.  I assume that she even has understood that I am her new mother, as she was told that repeatedly at the beginning and hears her sister saying it all the time.  Meanwhile, we have been forming a relationship, and she remembers and says things or does things that we had done together the time before, so she is also learning something about me.

But from what I can tell, the idea that any adult -- mother or otherwise -- would seek her out and create a particular bond with her, and care about her over any other child around.... is totally beyond the scope of her little life.

It is not a secret that the girls' mother was deficient in her care-taking.  It is partly because she abandoned the family that the girls meet the international definition of "orphan" and can legally be adopted.  No one will ever fully know what took place in the family, unless and until Hibiscus gains the confidence and the English skills to tell us more, but there is evidence that there have been problems for years before the mother left the family.  Perhaps when the older one was little, there were times when things went smoothly and she got normal care, at least briefly, but I suspect those times were gone by the time the younger daughter came along several years later.  Buttercup obviously had some care from her older sister, her father, and other neighbors or relatives, or she wouldn't have survived -- or she wouldn't have gained even the skills that she has.

Her skills are quite reasonable for her age, and they tell a story.  Her language abilities seem to be normal: she turns and listens when someone speaks to her, she obviously understands what she is told, and when she speaks it is in fluid phrases or sentences.  She picks up new words to communicate with me, and understands and engages in the back-and-forth nature of conversation.  So evidently she has had plenty of chance to listen to older people talking, and they made a point to talk to her and encourage her baby babblings.  Her fine motor skills are also in the range of normal for her approximate age -- in fact, she has a better pencil grip than Emerson does!  She certainly has not have much chance to stack blocks and draw pictures and experiment with all the pushing/turning/flipping toys that are considered necessary for American babies, but she probably has been given sticks and leaves and spoons and household items to experiment with.

The first thing that I notice that is different is a very subtle skill: being carried. When a baby is carried by his mother, he naturally has to constantly adjust his position and his angle to stay upright, and then to be able to look around to see what he wants to see.  With these constant adjustments, he develops his neck and core strength, and his proprioceptive sense (of where his body is in space).  This is one reason that American parents talk about the importance of wearing the baby in a carrier instead of putting him always in a carseat and stroller.  While I agree that it's better for the baby to be carried more often, any baby of earnest American parents is going to be carried around often enough to fulfill normal development -- from one room to another, handed between parents, rocking while nursing, and so on.  

A few good rounds of horsey rides on my knees with the orphanage children tells me so much about their lives.  I do "Trot trot to Boston" (and thoroughly appreciate the irony of indoctrinating these little Ugandan children in colonial Massachusetts geography!!) and "This is the way the ladies ride" and "My little pony, Macaroni!"  (Which, not coincidentally, are three different lengths which can be used to correspond to the number of children waiting to take a turn!)  These horsey-knee games, which are so often pulled out to calm a fussy child or to be friendly and silly, actually teach babies and young toddlers important skills.  One is that it is heavy exercise for those core muscles and proprioceptive skills.   Another is working on rhythm, both linguistic and physical.  It also teaches them order and anticipation, which  is one beginning step on the long road to logical thinking -- whew, is it ever a long road!  The adult says a certain combination of words, and then at a specific point, the physical action changes in a fun way -- they get faster or tip over backwards or fall off the side (when you get to Dover you fall over, of course).  After a certain number of repititions, the child starts to anticipate the fun thing, and at this point the adult can dramatically pause or make an excited face or one of many cues to the child to become even more excited.  With so many children crowded around playing one after another, they learn about the anticipation before they even get their first turn!

Many of the children here are around 2 or 3.  Some of them sit right up and are bounced around and are pleasantly solid, and some of them I actually need to hold by the torso instead of the hands as I bounce them so gently.  It doesn't seem to matter if the children are small or large or solid or thin for their age; some of them just do not have the strength to hold themselves steady.  I doubt that any of them got a chance to play lots of rounds of horsey-knee games or the core strength games they do at Emerson's gymnastics.  There could be exceptions, but the simple answer is that the older toddlers who easily manage this challenge to their core strength, are the ones who had basic practice at core strength by being carried regularly as babies and young toddlers.  The ones who start flopping like a much younger child are the ones who were laid on a bed or in a box to fend for themselves for much of their babyhood.  Buttercup not only flops in the horsey games, but when I pick her up or move while I'm carrying her, I feel her working a little bit to maintain her balance.  Not like I have to think about supporting her head or anything like that, but just like she is younger than she is.  

I am not sure the enjoyment of the anticipation leads so directly to telling me something about how the child was brought up, but it is interesting to see as well.  Some of the children, especially the older ones, start laughing hysterically as soon as the song starts -- they know that something fun is coming, and they are capable of enjoying the anticipation the entire time!  That's probably a pretty good skill when you get only a couple minutes of adult attention each day.  Violet, who is quiet and clearly unhappy at the orphanage and mostly just wants to be held, starts to grin as soon as the song starts, and smiles pretty consistently throughout, although sometimes I get a giggle out of her when I tip her over.  She is more entertained by the act of playing the game than the punchline itself.  Some of the children learn the point of anticipation before their turn even comes around, from watching the others, and some of them take several repetitions before they start to trust that it's going to come in the same place.  Some of them make the most exuberant expressions when the moment of anticipation comes, that it makes me laugh out loud.  These children are determined to enjoy their moment of fun with all the intensity of their beings!

Buttercup, meanwhile, watches me incredibly seriously and intently.  One day, after I had been here a week or so, the other children weren't around and I had the chance to ride her on my knee over and over and over again.  She held my fingers in her little fists and stared into my eyes as though she was going to find the solution to the mystery of the universe -- or at least the mystery of this new human being who kept smiling at her.  Making eye contact is actually one of the first and most important goals for children with complex backgrounds, so I encouraged it and kept her trotting.  I could see her brace herself differently or glance around at the moment before the tip-over came along, so she knew it was coming, but apparently didn't feel like she had enough energy left over from watching me in order to giggle.               

I try to tell if she wants to keep playing a game like this, and I think she does, but the signs are very subtle, and I think also tell a story of her expectations of adults.  Take a different game I play with her: playing "this little piggy went to market" on her fingers and toes.  Maybe she's sitting on my lap or in the sling and I do it a few times, and perhaps someone else says something to me and I get distracted and stop.  How would a non-verbal little toddler try to indicate to the grown-up that she would like the attention back and the game to continue?  If you have such a child around, you can think about what they might do.  Probably grab my hand and pull it back to theirs, or stick their fingers back in my hand or towards my face.  They might use whatever words or sounds they have, like "mama" or even just grunting, or making the rhythm of the song again.  I remember when Emerson was little he would put his hands on my cheeks to turn my face back to looking at him.

What does Buttercup do?  She watches me for a little while, to see where my attention is, and if I'm going to look at her again.  (She might be watching carefully to see if I'm suddenly mad at her or someone else, or if there are any signs that I might start yelling or do something to her.)  She might glance at her fingers, and then back at my eyes to see if I'm looking at her fingers.  After a minute or two, there might be a little tiny movement with her hands.  What is she doing?  She is holding one straight finger with the fingers on her other hand.  After a minute she holds the next finger.  She is playing This Little Piggy by herself, with her own hands.  Whether this is because she has decided that she has lost my attention and she needs to entertain herself again, or that she is trying to draw my attention back to the game but only if I decide to look at her first, I'm not sure.  I think it is the latter, because she acts pleased (not surprised) when I take her hand back and play the game again... but with a good dose of expecting-to-entertain-herself thrown in.

So this week, she has started to notice that she has some claim on me.  When I came to get her on Monday morning, to bring her along to the Probation Officer's, when I picked her up she not only looked pleased and cooperative, she reached her arm around my neck and actively held on.  She was just tickled pink to ride in the car and sit on my lap while we waited and waited.  On Wednesday when I came on the same errand, she had an even stronger sense of expectation and belonging.  She grinned and held onto my neck, and she remembered our routine too.  She remembered that I always put a diaper on her, so as soon as I stood her on the table where I have done that before, she pulled up her own little dress for me.   

She smiles at me when we get ready to go or I put her in the sling or get ready to do something else, instead of just staring in wonder.  She's starting to understand that she knows what I'm going to do next, and it's going to involve her.  She still doesn't push through a crowd of children to get to me (quite the opposite), but if I reach down to pick her up, she doesn't look over her shoulder to see who I'm looking for, either.  And when I brought her to our apartment for the afternoon, she was not only happy -- she was comfortable, and she even ran back and forth and jumped up and down several times and made some happy excited sounds that were actually loud.

It's a long journey toward trust, let alone to love, so these are some of the baby steps.

The Church Adventure

Church

Today Emerson and I were surprised by being invited to come to the front of the church, where the priest introduced us and handed me the microphone so I could "say something more about myself" extemporaneously in front of about three hundred people.  Even more surprisingly, after the service a number of people came up to me and thanked me for the work I was taking over for the youth ministry, and when should they bring their children by?  So our journey of church-going in Uganda becomes even more exciting!

When I first decided to look for our local church, I was following some vague directions and ending up nowhere near a church.  A young girl of ten or twelve offered shyly to walk me to "the church," and I agreed.  I quickly guessed that she was leading us to the big Pentecostal church, which I already knew about, and not the Anglican Church I was searching for, but she was so earnest and pleased to be of help that we went together to the church and she showed me around.  It was Saturday, and I decided vaguely to give up on the Anglican church for the week and just go to the Pentecostal church the next morning.  Large, charismatic Pentecostal churches are very popular here, and I figured we would treat it as a Ugandan experience.  But in the morning I quailed; I am not very modern and evangelical at the best of times, and I doubted my ability to appropriately shout "praise Jesus, oh yeah oh yeah, pah-RAISE the Lord!" for three hours surrounded by several hundred Ugandans.  (Okay, I doubt they shout that for all three hours, but I have evidence of all three of those items being independently true!)

So we walked the other direction, and eventually encountered other people dressed for church and followed them to the Anglican church.  At home, we are technically Episcopalians, and this is technically the Church of Uganda, but African English ignores all these petty ex-colonial subtleties and calls us all Anglicans.  But this Anglican is a world away from being an Anglican in Eugene, Oregon!

There are resemblances.  The people leading the services wear vestments, and there are sometimes prayer books, and some of the prayers talk about the same things, and the priest blesses the host and we all go forward and kneel and receive it.  There is a sermon and singing and announcements, although those are not specifically Anglican.

The biggest difference is just the overall feeling of informality and enthusiasm. In America, Anglicans are stereotyped as being the buttoned-up, wealthy, reserved denomination, who sing ancient hymns to a full choir and organ and don't talk about impolite things like the blood of Jesus and the fires of hell.  I don't think the casual critic would ever get that idea while attending St John's, Kawusu Parish, Bunga!  I don't know if different churches around here are more High Church, but this is what it looks like in a village at the edge of Kampala.

First of all, it's a large church, and it's packed for the middle service, which is the one English service sandwiched between two Luganda services.  I estimate that between three and four hundred people are there, up to the ushers pulling in plastic lawn chairs at the back and some men standing up at the edges.  People all dress in true Sunday best, with all of the men in buttoned shirts and some suits, and the women in shimmery or long dresses or traditional gomesi.  The building is some multi-sided shape like an octagon, so pews fill around most of the sides but the pews on the edge are right next to the front area.  There is a school on the church grounds, and students from the school, in their uniforms, fill flanks of side benches.  A robed choir is up in one corner, backed by instrumentalists on synthesizer piano, electric bass, and drumset.  The front area is separated from the pews by a couple of steps, but I am not sure it could properly be called an alter area.  The side opposite the choir has a nice solid wood table and chairs, like where you might hold a small meeting.  A fancy carved pulpit is out in front of that, but no one even comes near it; whoever is making announcements or giving the sermon stands at a small lectern in front of the steps, holding a bulky microphone.  There are simple vestments on the two main people leading the service (one is the priest and I'm not sure about the other; he gives announcements but isn't involved in Communion), but no acolytes or deacons or Lay Eucharistic Ministers or Bible-readers or candles or banners or anything else.  At the wall directly behind the speaker in the center of the church, there is a simple cross on the wall, an altar (that looks like if the altarcloth were removed it would be transformed into a dining table) with a green altarcloth with the name of the church in gold letters.  It usually has two white lumps on it, which are the bread and wine covered with plain white cloths.  The altar is flanked by some large and impressive chairs, which contribute to the table-like effect.  There are two large roll-up screens that come down from the ceiling flanking the main area, so the congregation on all sides of the octagon can read them, which display words and pictures during the hymns, and some small words about the state of the computer at other times.   So that is the physical setting.

The music is striking.  It is something like, but not exactly, modern-style hymns, and praise music, and gospel, all mixed together.  The text is always a basic, strong, positive message, like "I rest myself in Jesus" or "I walk with Jesus on the sand" or "I love Jesus and he loves me even more" (and there is no shying away from Jesus' blood, either!).  There are always several hymns as well as solos and anthems from the choir, and some of them are quite long, so a large part of the service is music.  The words for the hymns comes up on the big screens and the choir starts singing, and people just join in when they get the hang of it.  For the lively songs, the choir and congregation start clapping and bouncing and waving their arms and even dancing in the aisles -- and even shouting "hallelujah! praise Jesus!"  If the congregation or the soloist is really getting into the music, the musicians keep repeating choruses and verses and going along.  When "the congregation" sings, you must remember that this is several hundred voices, and at the most there might be three individuals who only feel up to humming or mouthing the words today.  Everyone loves to sing, and even the littlest children can clap enthusiastically and rhythmically.  During Communion today, there were two anthems, led by a group kind of like a barbershop quartet or a lead singer and his back-up ladies (one of each, for two songs).  The lead singer murmured a couple lines about loving and putting our faith in the lord, and as he gradually gained momentum he added in "sing it evver-body" or "sing it out, brothers and sisters" and the whole congregation gently sang the ostinato. There were some verses that the singer and his back-ups sang, and then the intensity built as the congregation sang the lines over and over and the back-up singers (and perhaps the whole choir) added harmony and the lead singer sang the same words in a descant over and around everything else, with the instruments gaining strength in the background.   It was quite powerful and lovely, and a very far cry from the music at an Anglican church at home!

The sermons are similar to the hymns: they are clear and direct and positive.  The messages are along the lines of: God loves us like a father loves his little child, or Surrender yourself to the power of God.  They make this point with clear examples, and no distractions like talking about historical context or current events or the current liturgical celebrations.  (Well, it is the middle of Pentecost, which is not exactly the most compelling time to discuss the liturgical year.)  The priest speaks calmly and fluidly with no notes.

There are prayerbooks for the English service only.  The once we attended the Luganda service, there wasn't any equivalent, or any saying of group prayer.  As it is, the prayer books are barely more than pamphlets, and the prayers included are a few incredibly straight-forward translations of the most common elements of the Anglican liturgy -- and our church barely uses them as it is.  The books also include suggestions on how to use these prayers in your worship, as though they don't expect the reader to be familiar with them.  The prayers are short and in the most basic language imaginable, which makes a certain amount of sense considering they are for Ugandans who speak English as a second language, except that many Ugandans actually use more complex and formal language on a regular basis than Americans do.  I find it difficult to even speak along with the prayers because the rhythm of the Episcopalian translations is drummed into my head, and the prayers here don't have enough words to get into a rhythm.  (Which I would think the Ugandans would enjoy, actually.)  For instance, the whole Nicene Creed is about half the length that it is at home, and the entire final paragraph about the Holy Spirit is wrapped up in one sentence.  I don't even recall that the sentence has dependent clauses; we might just say "we believe in the Holy Spirit"!  The prayers when the priest blesses the host are also much shorter than what I am used to.  So basically, the liturgy and the communal prayers are not a central or pivotal part of the church experience here.

We do usually have Communion, although one week there wasn't any.  The congregation comes forward in a very general, floating way towards the front, and kneels anywhere all along the several sides of the front rail.  There are no neat lines or circling back out of the way or ushers indicating who is allowed to proceed!  However, although it is a very large congregation, there is no tangling or confusion; people just kind of come up when there is room and they feel like it, I guess.  The priest is the only one giving out Communion, and he walks along the inside of the rails with a plate with the chalice on it, and a large pile of pre-dipped wafers next to the chalice, so he drops a couple in the waiting hands of each person as he passes, which keeps things moving quickly.   People dip their heads to eat from their cupped hands.  Emerson, of course, pops right up to the communion rail as soon as he can convince me to get out of my seat!  He is the only young child who comes to the front, for communion or a blessing or anything, although some children around ten or so come and receive.  I didn't know if the priest would allow it, but the first time he gave Emerson kind of a bemused look, and then provides him with a wafer that hasn't been dipped in wine.  Which is just as well, because although the wine is blessed and I appreciate it as spiritual food, it is either vinegar or something very like it, and rather shocking on the physical tongue.

Then there are parts of the service which are not included in American-style services, which seem to me to intensify the focus on community-building.  The other person in vestments leads most of these.  Usually someone in particular comes up and talks at great length about some particular project that they are involved in and everyone is invited to.  This person usually has a stronger accent and doesn't compensate for the sound system and the huge stone space by speaking more slowly and clearly, so I never have the slightest idea what their pet project is.  Another interesting routine is that the leader encourages the congregation to "organize ourselves" and everyone stands up as their particular neighborhood is mentioned, and everyone looks around and claps at the people who are standing.  One that is more surprising to American sensibilities is that the leader goes into detail about exactly how much was raised in donations in every category, from every group at each service, and then they add up all these numbers together exactly -- this exact number of hundreds and thousands of shillings, and one British pound and two US dollars.

There are announcements, when we are all encouraged at great length to come to this parish celebration and that funeral, but anyone involved in these announcements is brought forward and talked about and invited to talk -- like the way I was introduced this morning!  A newly married couple was similarly pulled up and gently interviewed, or other people might be asked to stand for some reason -- no polite "you may stand and introduce yourself if you feel called, but you don't have to"!  One week, I think after the married couple, a young man from the choir area was pulled forward, and generally teased, I believe about when he was going to get married.  He ended up called three friends from the congregation, all well-dressed and confident young men, and they all stood there and people whooped and laughed, and were asked to announce the date -- again, I think it was of their marriages.  The first one said "the second Sunday of August -- of next year."  The second one couldn't think so fast on his feet, but joined in the general merriment, and said the Sunday after that, and the next fellow offered the Sunday following that one.  The last man was more clever, and apologetically said that since that month was so busy, he would oblige by waiting until the following year entirely.  Everyone laughed and clapped and they went back to their seats.  

If that sounds like a lot, it is; the services are quite a bit longer than American services.  Usually at about an hour and a half, the priest closes the program, but that's when the person is invited up to talk about their pet project, followed by some other announcements and a collection for something, and then more singing.  I say "about" an hour and a half, but that is so vague because it is hard to tell exactly when the service starts.  I have been told anything between 8:30 and 9:00 for the service which is listed at 8:45 on the board, but it seems like it really does start somewhere in that vicinity, and it depends on how much of the gathering quiet prayer and singing and greeting your neighbor and watching the processional you feel like calling "church time."  If you arrive at 8:30, you can find something to occupy your spiritual self, but if you arrive closer to 9 you can decide that the other people have just been busy finding their seats!

(And as a post script, I still don't know what I have signed up to do with the church's children!  The Father had offered to "show me around" on Tuesday, so I do have an appointment with him.  And he said that my letter of introduction from my home church said that I had worked especially with the children of the church.  And needless to say, a church this size has a youth program, which I promptly got invited to since I am also helping out with the children.  So I guess I will figure out the details on Tuesday!)

Solved -- the Name Mystery!

Solved! - the Name Mystery

When we first heard the names of some of the siblings here in Uganda, we were confused why their last names were different from each other, and thought they had different fathers.  After seeing a number of siblings, all with different names, we guessed that there was some different naming custom, but didn't know what it was.  I think I have finally pulled together all the pieces and solved the mystery!

Most people in Uganda have two names.  In Kampala, most people are from the Buganda tribe and use those naming practices, and I get the idea that nearby tribes have similar but not exactly-the-same ideas, and I will write about the Baganda way.  Basically, these two names are more parallel to our first and middle names, not our first and last names.

I will use Paul Bayiira as an example.  I have no idea who he is, but his name is on a building nearby, so whatever he is honored for can be continued to be honored into this writing!  He might just as easily be called Bayiira Paul, as it doesn't seem to really matter which name goes first; I see the same name written opposite ways on different papers all the time.  One of the names is his religious name, so in this case Paul is the Christian name. I don't know Muslim names as well, but many of the Christian names really do seem to be Christian names taken directly from the Bible, or about Biblical things such as Immaculate.  Non-Biblical names seem to be of the type that were popular in America in our grandparents' generation.  Paul's parents picked that out for him when he was born, just like American parents pick out what used to be called Christian names as well.

The other name is his clan name, and this is where it gets interesting.  There are about 45 clans in the Buganda tribe, such as the Cheetah and the Lungfish and the Lion and the Grasshopper.  You cannot eat your clan animal nor marry another person of your clan, and all clan members are considered your relatives.  (On a side note, it is possible for someone from anywhere in the world to become Muganda and join a clan!)  The children take the clan of the father, but the wife does not take her husband's clan, so children and their mothers continue to belong to different clans.  

There are many names for each clan, and the parents pick any one of these names for each of their children.  I believe each of the names have a certain meaning as well, so parents might choose something significant for the child, or name them after an older relative.  There are also apparently a few names with a very significant meaning that are available for any clan, so if your child was born right after a major battle was won, children might be named "Victory," or if it was a very bad year for weather they might be named "Growth After Big Storms" or something like that.  I don't know exactly what those names are, either in English or Luganda, but they refer to significant events like that.  Those children wouldn't have any name that signified what clan they belonged to, since their second name was available to all clans.  But most people have a name that identifies them with a particular clan.

I am told there are "many, many" names for all the clans, and with 45 clans that is a lot of names.  The number is small enough that other Muganda recognize the names when they hear them, and that they sometimes recognize what clan it is, but large enough that they can't always identify the clan when they hear the name.  I am sure people would recognize names from their own clan or close relatives' clans, so if you met someone at a business meeting you could immediately ascertain that you were "cousins!"

(In fact, there is no word for "cousin" in Luganda.  "Baaba" means a sister or a brother or a cousin, and there is no further differentiation.)

Children belong to their clan, and since clan is passed on patrilineally, they are considered to "belong" to the grandfather or the patriarch of the clan.  Therefore, traditionally, it was the grandfather who selected the clan name.  I am told that now the pregnant parents might respectfully ask, "father, we need a name for our child," and he would give them three or four clan names to choose from.  The parents then pick a religious name and one of those clan names for the baby.  Children are often named after other family members with their clan name.

This means that each of the members of the immediate family have different names.  I find this interesting on a couple of counts.  First of all, it means that culturally, organizing people by the large clan which they belong to is more important than organizing them by individual family or lineage.  Secondly, it implies that the community is dealing with a smaller number of people.  I think the system of having two names, each semi-randomly chosen from a large group of names, would not hold up to classifying the number of people in the US or a similar large country.  (As I think about it statistically, I could be wrong as there could be a similar number of combination of names... but they can't be sorted down into small groups.  They would only be able to divide into the 45 groups, whereas we have hundreds of family names in any community.  Hmm, I wonder how a phone book would be organized?)

From what I can see, most people in daily life are called by their religious name, but sometimes they use their clan name as their daily name.  

Apparently, if the family does want to be identified together, the modern solution is for the whole family to adopt the father's clan name as a "last name," in which case everyone has three names.  But unlike our three names, all the names are used all the time, since both of the first two were extremely significant.  From my observation, this father's name system is mostly used by political families, or those who travel or have connections abroad.  Children may use the father's name "if they choose to," which perhaps also means in honor of the father for some reason.  I am told that some families use the father's clan name for the children, but this is related with a sour face and shaking head --  children need to each have their own clan name!  

So this explains the names that children have, but leaves a mystery for what to call people.  This is a very respectful society, where it is important to show respect at all times (and behave respectfully!), and yet they always use what seems to use to be "first names," and it was hard to find the equivalent of Mr Smith.  Mr Bayiira is not at all the same, since essentially Bayiira is his alternate first name.  

First of all, everyone is addressed generally as Sir or Madame, or Ssebo and Nnyabo.  Each phrase to a vendor in the marketplace or a plumber in your bathroom should have its "Ssebo" at the end of it.  An interesting variation on how this type of address is used in Italy: in both places children must certainly use the respectful address with adults, whereas adults can use a more informal one; but here it is also appropriate for adults to address children as "Ssebo" or "Nnyabo," if they so choose.  It might be half-joking, or it might be acknowledging that the child is trying very hard or doing a good job of being polite.

If you know someone better, you address her respectfully by her family title.  So to be both friendly and polite, my neighbors would call me Mama Emerson!  I absolutely love this, because American moms often get together and remember all the children's names but forget the other adults' names, so say so apologetically "Jacob's mom, I'm-so-sorry-I-forgot-your-name, could you please hand me the cup?"  It would be so much easier if we just used that as an honest and respectful form of address!  It also explains that when vendors want me to buy something and call out "Mama, look here" they are using the most respectful form of address they can, since they don't know my son's name to put in.  I have heard the orphanage staff call me "Mama Buttercup" as well, and at first I thought they didn't remember my name  but now I realize that they called me that because we weren't first-name-friends yet.  Come to think of it, that's probably why in every greeting, the person asks Emerson's name but rarely asks mine.  I had felt like they were being more friendly to him as a little child, but I see that if they knew his name, they would also know how to address me properly.

If a woman doesn't have children yet, or you don't know the names of her children, it is also acceptable to call her by her husband's name, so if our example's wife was childless she might be Madame Paul or Madame Bayiira.  That sounds like a secondary choice, probably because having children is still of prime, central, defining importance in a woman's life.  In western culture, it is getting married that changes a woman's status (changes her name, Miss to Mrs, etc), but here becoming a mother is more important than merely becoming a wife.  

And now that I think about it, I don't know how to use a title for a man, so I guess I will have to come back to poor Bayiira Paul again later!

I find the whole subject of names and titles absolutely fascinating.  I think it reveals so much about a culture, and a whole way of thinking, to understand their names, and then the subtleties of language!  But I think I would have to study here for a decade before I can grasp a great deal about the language, so we shall settle for a discussion of names at the present!

The Administrative Process

The Administrative Process

Remember when I gave an example of the way business works in Uganda, as three men sitting there intently watching the washing machine wash?  Keep in mind the "sitting there," part, although there are no more washing machines in this story.

I think I have mentioned that about three weeks ago, Miss B and I met with the Probation Officer for the district which the girls come from, to ask for a foster care certification for me to take care of the children.  As part of the adoption proceedings, potential orphans need both a care order and then a report written up by their local probation officer, who is supposed to look into the children's situation, interview potentially interested parties, investigate if there is a suitable placement within the child's family, and then recommend the foster or adoptive placement as in the best interests of the child if that is the result found.  It is a good safeguard for children and families, as the probation officer is a neutral party who should not be influenced by financial or emotional interests, as the orphanage workers or the lawyers could be.  I absolutely support the idea and the principle of the probation officer's investigation and report.  However, it also creates a huge potential for bottleneck, if the officer is overworked, prejudiced, or wants to exert personal power.

In our case, the girls are from Kampala, which is divided into five districts -- which sounds like it is already way too many cases for each probation officer (who handles a great deal more than adoption investigations, although I'm not sure what the full scope of their job is).  Furthermore, all the probation officers have lately been replaced with new ones, so no one really knew them personally or their working style.  The new officers are probably eager to do something different than the previous group, in order to avoid their fate, but it's also unclear yet what they are trying to do differently.

Miss Z, the officer for what I'll call District F, agreed to meet with us the morning after Miss B called her -- which now seems quite surprising.  But rather than asking us questions or examining our paperwork or making appointments to meet the parents, she gave us a very long lecture, basically about how terrible international adoption is, except in extraordinarily circumstances such as the child had been totally abandoned for more than five years, was blind, physically handicapped, mentally delayed, and adopted by missionaries who had already been living in Uganda for years.  I absolutely agree that international adoption should be a last resort for children, but the longer she went on the less realistic her examples sounded.  Not to mention, we weren't asking to adopt the children (which wouldn't be her decision anyways), we were asking her to investigate whether she thought there was a valid reason to consider adoption as an option for the children!  In the end, despite her negativity, she told us to "think very hard" about the children's situation before we came back to her.

We spent the next week doing research and compiling documents about the children's situation.  This, apparently, is actually exactly what the probation officer is supposed to do when a case is brought before her, although to her credit (from what we can tell) Miss Z is doing the jobs of at least two people already.  In this area, we have been fortunate, because the parents live in the same area of town as the orphanage and our apartment, and have been very willing to work with us.  (I use "us" in the general sense; I have not and will not see the parents, as then it could appear later that I had bribed or otherwise influenced them.)  In other cases, this type of research could take weeks, with going back and forth to a distant village and not finding people there.  I don't want to disclose personal details about the children, which are not mine to share, so I will just say that every layer that was uncovered showed that the situation at their former home was even worse than had been originally noted.  The simplest but most important feature is that both parents are dying of AIDS and its complications.  As in, will-they-make-it-to-next-month kind of dying.

When we had the appropriate documents, Miss B called Miss Z for an appointment.  Miss Z told her that she was busy doing someone else's job for the next week, to call back a week later, and hung up on her.

A week later, Miss Z did not answer her phone.  She continued not answering her phone every day, except occasionally she would answer to say she was in a meeting, and hang up.  After several days of this, Miss B and I decided to just go into her office and hope to meet her there, and perhaps she would take us more seriously in person.  We went in on Wednesday.  Miss Z was not there, but we left our portfolio of documents with a somewhat officious secretary-type figure, who told us we had to make an appointment, and to call at lunchtime or after five when Miss Z was not in meetings.

After which, Miss B discovered that Miss Z turns her phone off at lunchtime and after five.

So we went back in on Friday.  The secretary-type person told us that Miss Z was out for the whole day, we had to call her and get an appointment, and that she had delivered our file and Miss Z had read it.  On the positive side, she did give us another phone number to try reaching Miss Z; unfortunately, after answering it, she started to talk with someone else and dropped the call.

So we went back in today, Monday.  But before I describe what happened today, let me describe some of these simple phrases.  Like "printing out documents," or "going to see."

So as for documents, I had some papers from Miss B, some things that my husband had sent via email, something I wrote out on the iPad, and pictures both on my camera and that Miss B printed out.  I needed to make several copies, for Miss B, myself, the lawyer, and of course the Probation Officer herself.  (Actually, I will probably need even more copies later, but I decided that four was enough at a time!)  I took my stack of papers to a little shack in the village, generously stocked with a full-size black-and-white copy machine, a computer and printer, a shelf with ink, staplers, pencils, erasers and so forth, and two very nice ladies behind the counter.  My job was to sit there politely while the senior lady put everything carefully through the copy machine, which took about an hour and a half.   To make color copies of the pictures, she put them through her inkjet printer, so each copy took several minutes.

Meanwhile, I saw the plumber walk by carrying some tall and shiny pipes.  I was pleased to see him, as the day before he had started to fix my shower but stopped due to having the wrong size parts, leaving the shower in worse condition than it started.  He was happy to see me, because as they do not believe in making appointments, if he arrives and I am not there his trip is wasted.  So he went ahead to the apartment building and waited for me there, and when my copies were done I needed to go directly home instead of continuing to the photo shop.  Later, I spent another hour sorting everything into the proper piles for the proper people, and making it somewhat organized.

The copy shop was just a copy shop, and since it did not have internet access (and the computer probably dated from before the internet was invented) I had to go somewhere else to get documents from email onto paper.  So at home you would just click and press control-P; here it involves going to an internet cafe, getting set up at a station, waiting for the email program to load, waiting for each individual email to load, asking the shop-owner exactly where you should download the documents, waiting even longer for each document to download, perhaps discovering that one of them has downloaded into gibberish and needs to be repeated, confirming that they are formatted properly, THEN pushing the control-P.  Then the shop owner brings the pieces of paper one by one, the documents have to all be carefully deleted from wherever they were downloaded to, the shop owner carefully counts the pieces of paper and decides on the fee, and then of course the obligatory minute or two (or five) to find change.  (The only businesspeople who have change in Uganda seem to be those in the marketplace; the ones who are so poor they carry their entire shop around on their head -- they produce change quite quickly and effectively.)  The whole process takes no less than 20 minutes.  On the up-side, it has worked quite smoothly every time I've done it -- and so far, I haven't felt the urge to print out documents when it turns out that the entire internet is down, or the entire power grid for that matter.

Working smoothly is more than I can say for printing out pictures.  To print out pictures, you must go to a photography studio, and in this age of digital pictures there are hardly any photo studios around any more.  It just so happened that in my wanderings around, I found one on a side-street off the Gaba market, which is the one near our house.  The first time I went by, I hadn't taken the pictures yet, but I asked about prices and when the pictures came out.  It seemed that he could print out a couple of pictures pretty quickly, needed a day for larger orders, and charged 500 shillings per pictures (about 25 cents).  I cleaned up the house to take pictures showing our little domicile at its best, and then it took a few more days to get back to the photo studio.  That was when I had just found the proper equipment to download pictures onto the ipad, and the very morning I planned to go back to the photo studio I mistakenly cleared the card on the camera.  The photo man and I could not figure out any way to get the pictures from the ipad, and after a while I thought that it would be easier to just re-take the pictures.  Since I had to tidy the apartment for some of the pictures, and for the others go up to the orphanage when both children were there and have someone else photograph us all together, it took some days to do the pictures again.  I freely admit that was all my fault, and not a Ugandan complication, but then it turned out by the time I had the pictures it was a day before we planned to submit them.

I wasn't concerned, and we went down to the village.... to find that the local photo shop was inexplicably but quite firmly closed.  I thought that Miss B would have some ideas, but she said there were so few photo shops that they take them all the way into downtown to print them out there.  We had an appointment in the afternoon, so I didn't have the two hours for the round trip -- let alone trying to find the right place in downtown.  So I walked to Bunga, the village on the other side of us.  I found two photo shops, one of which was out of ink and the other one required 24 hours to print out even one pictures (and I wasn't absolutely sure it would be done by then, either!).  So the next morning on our way to the Probation Officer's office, we drove into Kabalagala to try and find a photo shop there.  Kabalagala is a bustling area just outside the main city, full of bars and shops and tourists, so we figured we could find a photo shop, and we did.  He said it would take him 15 minutes to print out my five photos, but it was more like 45.  And what did we do in the meanwhile?  That's right: we sat and waited!  In the end, we had five very poorly printed pictures (all the pictures around here are printed very poorly), which cost 5,000 shillings apiece -- which you will note is a mark-up of TEN TIMES the price of poorly printed pictures in the village market.  

So, speaking of being on our way to the Probation Officer's, let me describe the trip.Village F is a village somewhat adjacent to Gaba Road, only a couple miles as the crow flies, and not even very far considering the winding roads and traffic; since you don't have to go through downtown, it isn't even traffic-jam type traffic, just ordinary things like goats in the road, or a banana truck backing up, or swerving around the 12-foot steel rods on the back of a bicycle. Yet for each of these trips, I have left the apartment around 7 am and not come home until after 11.

I wake up early, get everything ready, awaken Emerson at the last minute, brush his teeth and bring him upstairs where he can stay with the neighbors.  I walk to the orphanage to meet Miss B, and half the time I wait a while for her to arrive (only half the time, though!).  Sometimes she has her car, but on Friday it needed to be fixed so we took regular transportation.  We walked down to Gaba Rd and caught a mini-bus and took the hour-ish trip to downtown.  Then we walked a few blocks to the taxi park and got on another mini-bus forVillage F.  (Side note: the minibusses, which are public transportation, are called "taxis" here; what we would call a taxi is a "special hire.")  The taxis wait until they are full to start, so we sat in the taxi park for a while before it started.  The traffic police near the taxi park want to keep the major roads open without being innundated with mini-busses, so all the mini-busses drive to the first intersection, turn off their engines, and wait.  Meanwhile, vendors run around trying to convince all the passengers that they need sodas and fried bananas and lollipops and handkerchiefs and so forth.  After waiting somewhere between a few minutes and an hour, the taxis are all allowed to enter the road and move off in a giant river.  Then it was perhaps a 20 or 30 minute ride to the right area of Makyinde, and fortunately we got out right in front of the official building, because it was pouring cats and dogs.  I have described our somewhat fruitless meeting with the secretary; after which followed the whole process in reverse: waiting for a minibus with space to come by on the road, riding into downtown, walking to the area where the Gaba minbusses park, waiting for the bus to leave, waiting for the intersection to open, and then the drive back to the very end of Gaba Road.  This is but one example of how a brief meeting can take fully half of the day.

Today the meeting was more productive, so I will describe the morning.

First of all, Miss B was very sick this weekend, and looked very weak and tired when she finally arrived this morning.  We brought Buttercup with us as Exhibit A (the potential Exhibit B was in school), and I don't know if it helped soften any official hearts, but I'm quite sure Buttercup thoroughly enjoyed her morning out of the orphanage, complete with an extravagant amount of lap time.  Which is one benefit of waiting; if you are two years old and lonely.  This time we took the car -- some gentleman who has not been introduced to me usually drives, and inevitably stops at a gas station and asks me for 20,000 shillings for gas money, which would take us well out into the countryside if he actually spent it on gas, but he puts only a couple thousand shillings in the car and we drive off.

We got to the office before anyone else, and Buttercup got to watch the man mopping for a while.  I agree that it was somewhat fascinating, because the moppy part was so worn out it was only attached with a couple of strings, and so he had to use a special technique in order to not break the entire thing apart.

Eventually the secretaries arrived, and some of them greeted us cheerfully, as if we had become great friends with all our recent visits, and the snooty one more abruptly.  Someone else with a folder and a hopeful look arrived and sat in one of the chairs, and eventually a man with a business-like demeanor came through into the other room and sat behind a desk.  Various other petitioners came in, and either got their paperwork or waited for the man to see them.  Eventually someone told us to go in to him and explain why we were there.  He was able to get ahold of Miss Z on the first ring, and told us that she was on her way and to wait for 30 minutes.  To my surprise, she did arrive in precisely 30 minutes, although she was in no rush to see us.  By now, the room was quite full, with someone flipping through a giant 2-ring binder to find a certain record, others going in and out and waiting, and the full complement of secretaries, who work two-to-a-desk.  The important people have their own desk, but were still both in the same room.  So all around people are moving back and forth, and talking on the phone and getting their tea (for the secretaries), and having conversations in Luganda or African English -- I think even all the Luganda-speakers felt the need to converse in English in such an important building.  It was good that Buttercup is a calm child, and I was very glad I didn't have either of the others with me!  But even Buttercup was getting very gently bored, so I started playing This Little Piggy on her fingers, very very quietly.  

Miss Z came out, and this was more or less our conversation:

Z: "You told him you left me documents, but you didn't leave me any documents.  I haven't seen anything."

Me: "We left them last week."

Z: "I have a very good memory, and I would remember if you left me something.  You didn't leave me anything when you came in."

Me: "No, it wasn't then, we left them last week."

Z: "What do you mean?  None of my files are from you!"

Miss B, weakly: "They weren't in a file, it was an envelope."

Me: "We came in, and when we didn't see you we left them with the secretary."

Z: "There are no secretaries in this office!"

Me: "I'm sorry; I don't know their titles, I mean --"

Z: "Do you mean that lady?" (who wasn't at her desk)

Me: "Yes --"

Z: "The brown one?" (gesturing, which is good, because I find that description absolutely perplexing, as the lady in question is a bright dresser, and everyone in the entire building besides myself was more or less "brown")

Me:"Yes, the one with the curly hair."

And Miss Z strides off to find the "brown lady" and enquire about the documents.  So much for the not-actually-a-secretary's assertion that Miss Z had received and looked over our documents!

Then followed a time where I think they looked for our folder in the other room, and they must have eventually found it and taken out the papers.  Then Miss Z sailed back to us waiting on the couch, pointing to my cover letter.

 "This is addressed wrong.  This is not right," she scolded us.

Miss B and I were totally confused what could be so incorrect at the very beginning, so she decided to allow us a few more details.  "It says Miss Z, Probation Officer, Makyinde District.  But I am not the probation officer for that district, I am the (some other title I didn't quite catch).  He is the probation officer for this district.  You must address it to him.  This is wrong."  And she dropped the file on our laps and stalked off again.

It turns out that the gentleman we had spoken to an hour before, and never heard of before that moment, was actually the one we had needed all along.  I am not sure if their titles and positions had recently been shuffled, or whatever possible other reason there could be for her previously meeting us in the capacity of local probation officer.  By that point, we ought to have been somewhat indignant that we had spent three weeks trying to chase down the wrong person and no one had made the slightest effort to correct us, but we were just relieved that we did not have to deal with Miss Z any more!

So after another wait (during which I neatly crossed out Miss Z's name and wrote the new one in, which I think is relatively acceptable given that everyone knows how difficult it is to print out a new copy!), we met with Mr H.  He asked us a number of questions that were actually germane to the case, and made another appointment with us for Wednesday morning, so he would have time to look over the documents.  He asked for a couple more papers specifically, and indicated that he would need to visit the parents and my house before he could make any decisions.  So that means that nothing in our lives is going to change immediately, but it will be a great relief if he actually does the visits and the investigations and everything like the probation officer is supposed to.  

So we are going back Wednesday morning.  Meanwhile, I have a couple more things to print out and send home, so it looks like Tuesday is full too!