The well overdue update of joy!

Ok so what has been going on in the life of Le Tiff?! A lot... so sorry I haven’t written for so long!

The majority of this update is all about my foot, the accident and the progress of its healing. There are pictures so be warned!! The last two months have been a continuation of learning and adjusting to life here. Working in the office, doing admin, working on prayer updates, news updates, annual reports etc etc. I’ve kind of slipped into a secretarial type role knocking off all the little jobs that nobody else has time to do. I’m learning a lot- some things the hard way but it’s all been good. I’ve had more lessons in just learning to ‘be’ rather than everything working around what I ‘do’. I’ve had time and space to rest, read and to receive. Although it hasn’t always been in the way I would like, God has certainly answered every prayer I prayed before coming here about been taken to a point where I could only rely on him and not on my own strength and abilities. JENGA continues to be a really exciting organisation to work for with much promise for its future.

The View from our office!

Early in the month Amy and I begun the arduous process of visa applications in Kampala. This is an insanely stupid process that takes multiple trips to visit a window in the Immigration building to be greeted by an indignantly moody woman who takes it upon herself to make the process as difficult as possible. She decides what documents you need and depending on just how bad her day is going will throw in the demand for the odd random item that you didn’t expect and so didn’t bring. No kidding. You leave your documents there for them to process then you go back 10 days later to see if you’ve been accepted and then provided you’re successful (which we weren’t initially!)you take a piece of paper to a bank in town and then wait a day for them to fiddle about with a few things then return to pick up a receipt and take that back to the moody lady in the window at immigration where she will stamp it; If you’re lucky! We are pleased to report that eventually with the help of a JENGA director or two to sweet talk said moody lady we have been allowed to stay in the country until our return to the UK in August.
In the midst of all of that was Safari time. The group of us volunteers decided to go to for a ‘Big 5’ safari trip. You start in Kampala and then leave early Monday morning to drive 6 hours north to Murchison Mark. Simple. Well... not quite!! Sunday evening, with the Arrival of Anna’s friend Joy we decided it would be a good opportunity to take advantage of Kampala’s cuisine selection. Kampala is a lot bigger and further on than Mbale in terms of what’s available. Chinese was our choice given that none of us had had it in months and so off we went. As I’ve said before, the main way of getting around here is by motorbike taxi. In Mbale they go a lot slower and the roads are much much quieter but in Kampala it is a different story as the city is more developed and there are an insane number of cars about! So anyway off we went, leaving our hostel to go to Fang Fangs. Joy came on a picky with me and we followed in convoy. Then our picky had a minor disagreement with a pothole and swerved a bit over to the other side of the road. Oooops. Joy came off first but I managed to stay on a bit longer. The driver bless him did his best to try to slow down as much as possible but then I came off. And the bike landed on top of me. Nice! All I felt at the time was the heat of the exhaust on my toe. Little did I know!!

Amazingly there were no other cars coming the other way and ‘all’ that we came out with was Joy having a badly twisted ankle and a few cuts (her foot went into the wheel- thankfully she had shoes on so it wasn’t as bad as it could have been) and me.. well I had cut my right ankle pretty badly- what we now think happened was the metal foot-rest went into my foot thus resulting in a wound about 7cm long by 4cm wide and then pretty deep! WOOP! So what does one do in Africa with a hole in your foot?! Well our programme director Jo, previously a Nurse in the UK, was with us on the trip and she was quite frankly a saint that night-(and incidentally for the following 5 weeks!) We waited by the side of the road for a little while to put pressure on my foot and Jo kept everyone calm. Bizarrely I was pretty chirpy and not crying my eyes out; there was just an amazing sense of relief and thankfulness to God for his protection. I did have a minor freak-out when I saw the blood but because I hadn’t seen the wound and I didn’t really understand how there was that much blood everywhere!! Anyway...after a some reassurance from anna and jo, and again amazingly, a friend of ours from mbale called Ian was in Kampala that night and so came and picked us up and drove us to ‘The Surgery’ a 24hr clinic run by an English doctor dude. The doctor on duty managed to do a great job of pulling it all together and 6 internal and 13 external stitches later I was on my way back to the hostel. I never saw the wound in its original glory- think that was for the best! Just another war wound to add to the collection!

The next day we went via the clinic for a quick check-up and then drove the long journey up to the safari camp. This was actually the best place to be post injury as I was able to have my foot elevated for hours!! We were up early for the safari and saw loads; Baboons, antelope type creatures, Ugandan Cobs, Elephants, Giraffes, Warthogs (yes we sung the tunes from the Lion King the whole way!) lions, hippos, crocs, buffalo etc! It was amazing! There was a boat trip in the afternoon where we saw even more. Absolute stonker of a trip and we loved every minute- despite the crippled-ness and crutches! Everyone was incredible at keeping my mind off things and were brilliant all week!

On the way back the others went rhino tracking. Which was definitely not an option for me- walking through tall grass trying to find whopping great rhinos was not something I could really partake in- I could barely move on the crutches at that point let alone run from a charging fatty mammal. They had fun though!

So we had a day or so again in Kampala to say goodbyes to teammate Emily, an overdue trip to Fang Fangs and to welcome a couple new visitors. Another trip or 2 to the surgery, a visit to the immigration window and a quick stop at the joyously stocked supermarket (well I watched while everyone else shopped!) and we were on our way back to Mbale!

So since all that palaver it has just been a case of recovering sloooowly. The wound has gone through various different shapes, colours and sizes as stitches came out, infections came and went etc. I still couldn’t walk after 16 days so I was referred to some orthopaedic doctor dude about an hour away in a hospital in Kumi. It was still painful to try and weight bear at all and so we needed his opinion. He seemed to know what he was saying so I was then given a back slab plaster cast thing for the next 12 days. Thankfully it was a half one coz flippin eck it was heavy!! I still had to have dressings changed on the wound every 2 days so it was regular trips to the local clinic in Mbale called J.O.Y hospice. They now know me well! Then back to Kumi for plaster slab removal and check up.
Now it’s looking a lot better, the wound is being dressed every day at the clinic and although there’s still a bit of a hole the healing is finally on track! The last week has all been about learning to walk again but that is coming along nicely and I no longer need crutches.
So all in all life has been pretty crazy.

Work has been limited as I couldn’t really get far. The steps to our office are really steep so once I got up I stayed up till the end of the day! As frustrating as it has been to not be able to walk, drive or carry anything for 4 weeks it has been a really good time. I don’t think I so much needed a lesson in slowing down as before the accident I really was managing to balance things and not to over-work, but it has given me space to think and pray more and to see what God was up to. I realised more and more how much I love it here and although there has been some raw character development in the process and some frustratingly slow adjustments to life in Africa, the time has confirmed I’m exactly where I’m meant to be. So after a month’s break in the UK in August, I am coming back longer term to Mbale. I have no idea what to do specifically but I know it’s where I’m called to ‘be’ – God will fill in the rest! There is just too much going on here to walk away from. I don’t mean the obvious practical world peace things that anyone would struggle to turn their back on but on a different level I feel so excited and expectant for everything here and not being a part of it wasn’t an option! God has stirred in me such a faith and desire to work here with the people and ministry. I am more reliant on God than I have been before and that is a really exciting place to be. I believe there must and can be change to the situations here and that I want to be a part of helping to make that change happen. I don’t really know what I personally can do but I know I want to try and I hope that God will use me in any way he can!

So that is me! Tiff Vale, international woman of calamity, expectancy, faith and hope!
Please keep praying for healing and for wisdom as I prepare for the next season! Thank you for your support on this journey!

Tiff x
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