Mold, Mice, and Sugar

Life passes in an ordinary way here is Gulu Town. Days blur together mostly due to the fact the sun is always shining and the temperature remains relatively the same from day to day. The only change is the occasional downpour or crisp morning air (crisp is relative). It is on the crisp mornings that the ladies show up in large jackets and fleeces and we laugh because we are finally cool enough in our tank tops.
Our latest adventure has been trying to capture an elusive mouse that has been pooping on all our things. We began our quest with rat poison smothered in peanut butter and Nutella. Even though our Costco size Jif peanut butter is like gold to us here, the mouse had been menacing us for weeks and weeks (and weeks before we came as well). After of week of poison and no effect, we purchased five traps. Not American traps. Ugandan traps. Seriously, these traps would snap a finger clean off. So, on those traps we decided to put not only peanut butter but also banana chunks. After carefully placing our bait on the traps our project manager (an Acholi woman) laughed hysterically at us and said we were dealing with Ugandan mice, not American. We needed dried fish. So that’s what we got, a whole smelly bag full. Not only that, but we also added to our trap collection some sticky glue. We put the fish on the finger eating traps (which by the way were empty because, as it turns out, Ugandan mice like peanut butter and bananas) and we covered a square foot of cardboard with glue and put a huge pile of fish in the center. After all of this, we checked our traps religiously for weeks without success. But, we would find clues everyday that he/she was still around. In fact, the little varmint decided it would be a good idea to pee in one of our yarn bags (which apparently wasn’t sealed good enough, but to our defense was sitting on the top bunk “out of reach”). So, weeks passed and finally, when we were dealing with a termite issue, we smelled a smell and knew that something was no longer living. The monster mouse/rat had chosen our unfinished shower room (yes, we are still without power and water) in which to die. A week later we smelled the same smell in our yarn room. You should have seen us. We both wanted to run out and close the door but knew we must locate the smell and remove the victim. We sniffed everything and investigated the directions from which we though the smell was coming. Finally I headed for what I had been dreading, the brand new, freshly made hats (labels and all), stacked neatly and firmly on the top shelves. Sure enough, the mouse thought that being tucked between two hats would be a good place to die. The next day we found another underneath the bunks, dead and stuck with sticky glue that had accidentally been scattered away from the cardboard covered piece. What have we learned from all this? Peanut butter is the way to go for sure, dead fish only smell and we are still finding little remains of the fish out and about around the house. Also, although we have nice shelves to store all our yarn and hats, plastic bags are probably the best option (don’t worry, we took care of all the contaminated hats and smell tested every skein of yarn and hat). Beyond mice we have had many other episodes of mold, termites, sugar, ants, hitting cows with buses, and of course power and water.
All of this to say, life here is an adventure, little things take lots of time (mice) but it’s all worth it in the end. On the administrative side of things, we have been spending a lot of time with the ladies and have been talking with our Ugandan board of directors as well as the states about the programs, training, and future of our project over here. It is exciting to see an amazing potential in every lady and also to see the potential for growth here in Uganda. Life is finally calming down in Gulu after the war, but there are still so many displaced and without jobs. The need is still here.

The picture is something that happened on the road outside our house. It's been sitting there, just like that, for days. In fact, when I rode by this afternoon, two men were playing cards in the shade created by the cab.