African Adventures With Mark!

Yes, I will admit that it may be time for a lighter cultural blurb for my part of the newsletter. In Uganda it seems like everything grows and being a guy who likes to toy outside in the garden I enjoy the fact there is no snow like back home to disrupt things. About a year ago we decided to plant a few sweet bananas and matokee (plantain) trees in our back yard. We harvested some Matokee a little while ago, but my prize was the sweet bananas. They are similar to the typical yellow bananas one buys back home in north America, but about half the size and sweeter.

Finally just last week, our first sweet banana tree was ready to meet its fate. The upcoming four suckers shooting out from beside it were a sign of the Ugandan fertility. Seth was excited to see the bananas finally come down. We had been waiting for them to ripen on the tree but after several months our night guard, Francis, kindly informed us they would never turn yellow while on the tree but must be cut down first. Good to know. So for the big occasion we brought the video camera and panga (machete) to do a little chopping. Seth took a few turns with the panga and of course Jodie had to have a turn too. (All swings with the sharp tool were guided by dad.) Finally it was dad’s turn and with a few chops things began to move a little quicker than expected and the tree started to come down. Seth who had been looking up at the tree, bright eyed, saw what was going to happen and began to run. Not fast enough…. The timing was such that he made it far enough from the trunk to be struck on the face by the clump of the much awaited bananas and was flipped to the ground under the light weight branches. He was very traumatized and did end up with a significant scratch from his forehead, across his eye and down onto his cheek; A direct hit from the bananas. Needless to say daddy felt very bad and tried to apologize while Seth wailed. Jodie ran around saying, ‘Bump-on-da-head! Bump-on-da-head!’ And unfortunately the video camera was rolling and caught it all. Seth received an all purpose Band-Aid and now looks a little tougher around the face. Currently we are waiting about a week for the bananas to ripen and turn yellow so we can eat them all up.

As a dad I felt very bad about Seth, but also was very excited just to do something fun with him, Jodie and Sarah. I will admit that I enjoy the kids more and more everyday. Seth and Jodie are a lot of fun and keep us hopping all the time. God has blessed Seth with some good friends and the picture here is with two brothers who live about 100 yards down the road and love to come and play with Seth. They are a little bit older, but are great boys who treat him with lots of love. We have been blessed with a great family, a good home here in Uganda, food to eat and friends for us and our two wonderful children. God is good!