One Short of a Dozen

On Sunday, Joline, Jessica, and I hopped on a flight out of Los Angeles bound for Kampala.  Since we returned from our six-month sabbatical in Uganda, Jessica and Joline have been yearning to get back to the medical clinic work with which they were so heavily involved previously.

Jessica graduated from High School (bound for Pepperdine) on Thursday, so Sunday was the earliest reasonable date we could travel.  As some of those reading this will recall, we spent our six months here in 2012 with a wonderful family of five from Oklahoma (our Twin Family – The Gregstons) who operated a mobile medical clinic all over Uganda.  During this transformative six months, our oldest (Jessica) fell deeply in love with their oldest (Jake) and the two have been “together” in a long-distance relationship ever since.  Jake flew in for Jessica’s graduation and then joined us on our flight to Africa where the rest of his family had flown two weeks earlier.  Our younger two, Joshua (15) and Jennifer (13) are cousin surfing for the 25 days we are gone – three sets of cousins and one set of grandparents for roughly one week each.

While this was my eleventh flight to Uganda since January of 2010, it doesn’t really get any easier.  The thirty-hour door-to-door odyssey is quite taxing on my aging body.  Joline adjusted to the time change quite well, as did Jessica and Jake – they are happy wherever they are as long as they are together.

The Gregstons picked us up from the Entebbe airport late Monday night and brought us back with them to the Guest House where we are staying on the shores of Lake Victoria in Gaba.  Ambien whispered me to sleep, but I was awakened a couple hours later by my sleepwalking daughter, who is still an ambien rookie.

On Tuesday, I parted company with my wife and daughter, as they headed west with the Gregstons for a medical clinic about four hours away.  I reconnected with David (law school alum and Nootbaar Fellow in Uganda), our seven Pepperdine Law students who are working for various Ugandan judges this summer, and with my good friend, Justice Geoffrey Kiryabwire, who manages the Pepperdine internship program from this side.  David and I also met with the Deputy Head of Prisons for Uganda and received the final sign-offs for our deep dive into a rural prison filled with those charged with capital offenses who are still, after several years, waiting for a lawyer and a trial.

I ended the day with a dinner at one of my favorite restaurants with our students and David, as we finalized plans for the pilot program we are going to initiate next week.  A team of Pepperdine lawyers flies in on Friday night.  Saturday morning, we leave for an overcrowded adult prison in the foothill town of Fort Portal somewhat near the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo.  More on that program in the coming days.  On the way home from dinner, I, of course, got lost as I drove myself home in the Toyota Land Cruiser I rented earlier in the day.  So a thirty-minute drive home swelled to ninety.  I did, however, get back into the swing of driving on the wrong side pretty quickly, even if I accidentally climbed into the passenger seat a couple times – “Hey, who stole the steering wheel.  Oops!  It’s over there.”

On Wednesday morning, I was unceremoniously awoken by a neighboring rooster announcing it was time to get up and begin the day.  I rolled over and clicked on my phone – 3:38 a.m.  Apparently, this rooster is one short of a dozen himself – sunrise was not for two more hours.  The others roosters responded by threatening to kick him in his is cock-a-doodle-pie-hole.  I could swear I heard one of them call the premature announcer “Punxsatawny Short Bus” in a rather derisive tone.  I, for one, don’t approve of that sort of insensitive humor.  I think PSB got his revenge, however, by head-butting his heckler with his helmet-protected noggin.

Sleep eluded me from that point forward, however, so I caught up on e-mails and wrote this first daily trip report.  Today will involve a series of meetings with judges and other judicial officials as we prepare for another juvenile prison session following our trek to Fort Portal.

I covet your prayers, especially for the safety of Joline, Jessica, and the Gregstons as they gallivant all over Uganda trying to bring relief to the suffering.  Joline will also be providing daily reports under her tab here.