Louise and Jason in Uganda

Louise and Jason and Lily leaving Uganda

Dear friends and supporters,
You are all friends and you are all supporters and Louise and Lily and I need to, once again, express our appreciation for all you’ve done for us over the years we’ve been in Uganda.
Some of you have been around since it was just “Jason in Uganda.”  Some came aboard when it was “Jason and Louise in Uganda.”  Some have come along recently since it’s been “Jason and Louise and Lily in Uganda.”  Whether for five years or a few months, you’ve all made contributions of all kinds that we have felt in significant ways, that have kept us going, kept us smiling, and made us smile some times when smiling has been difficult.  You’ve played essential roles in the unique relationship of dependency, faith and love that characterizes the call and the life of overseas mission work.
God has taken control of planning and strategy for both Louise and me--and all of us--from the very beginning, and has often taken us places and accomplished things that have surprised us, pleasantly.  One part of the plan we’ve both known since we left our homes for Uganda, is that we would one day leave Uganda.  That time has come.
Louise and Lily and I are flying to Belfast on Monday April 13th.  We made this decision after several weeks and several conversations with each other and family and friends in Uganda and Ireland and the U.S., as well as lots of prayer and listening to God.  My primary task as Athletic Director at Uganda Christian University has been to establish an Athletic Department with a foundation of staff, coaches, teams, equipment, facilities, scholarships and policies and procedures that will govern and maintain the Department and allow it to continue to grow.  I have done this.  And I’m confident that the people who are now in place have the vision and the skills to continue building the Department into an efficient and successful and integral part of Uganda Christian University.  Even more importantly, I’ve been able to participate directly in the discipleship and building of young men and women who will be the future leaders of families, churches, businesses, teams and communities in Uganda and across East Africa.
For Louise and me, and even Lily, life at UCU has been full of opportunities to contribute to building of God’s Kingdom.  All of the opportunities are blessings, but many of them are also very big challenges and come with responsibilities that can be physically, mentally and spiritually draining.  Over the last year, the work has taken a noticeable toll on my physical well-being.  Combining this with the fact that we’ve accomplished the specific tasks we’ve been given, Louise and I agree that it is time for us to move on.
Our lead missions agency, CMS-Ireland, is flying us to Belfast and will take care of us for a period of up to four months in Northern Ireland.  We see this as nothing short of a God-given gift of a much-needed Sabbath.
We’re not sure what God wants us to do after getting some rest.  But we’re sure He’ll let us know when we need to know.  I’ve applied for a couple teaching and coaching jobs in the U.S. and will continue to look for such openings as they come up, either in Ireland or the U.S.
Regarding financial support, money given to CMS-USA will still be channeled to CMS-Ireland and will help with our living costs while we’re in Ireland.  If any of you have been supporting us financially and would like to continue supporting work in Uganda and/or at UCU, please email and let us know and we can give you several good options of people and projects that need support.
We know we won’t be able to see all of you in person, and that even if we could we would not be able to offer adequate thanks.  But we hope to get the chance to try to thank as many of you as possible.  May God bless you all, mightily.
Jason

Year End Update

As always, a lot’s happened between me stopping to write it all down.

After a very nice month of rest and restoration in Ireland, we landed back in Uganda.  The day after we landed was the first playoff game for both UCU ladies and men.  The ladies had no trouble qualifying for the playoffs, and then men qualified only because they won their last four games straight--two of those while I was in Ireland.

By winning out, the men ended up finishing in 3rd place, so we were matched up with the #2 team, Power.  The men won game one of the best-of-three semifinal series by 1 point.  We lost game 2 by 19--we were thinking too much, getting out of our game plan, just like we did in the playoffs last year.  Game 3 we were focused, I was determined to keep us to the game plan as much as possible.  We played a zone defense the entire game, and allowed them to shoot 3 pointers from the corners all game.  I gave a calculated talk in practice the day before about how the only way Power could beat us is by shooting 50% from the three point line, and scoring 40 points in at least one quarter.  We’d been holding team to an average of 62 points/game--no way we’d give up 40 in any 10 minute quarter.  Everything was working until the end of the 3rd quarter.  Our top scorer and 2nd best ball-handler picked up his fourth foul with three minutes left.  We were up by 15, Power started pressing, we didn’t handle it and they surged to tie it at 60 at the end of the quarter.  4th quarter, Power conintued to press.  Our #1 point guard was out of the entire series with a stretched achilles tendon, and our #2 point guard had to handle the press by himself.  Power didn’t score 40 in the fourth, they scored 37.  We lost 97-78.

Power went on to beat Falcons (last years champions) in the best-of-five Finals, 3-1.  So we’re left with that the flimsy consolation of saying, “We lost to the champions,” while we get ready for next year.

The UCU Ladies, however, are in need of no consolation.  Under the direction of Robert Mugabe, one of our men’s players who coached the Ladies all year--his first year of coaching in any league--the UCU Ladies won the Championship of the FUBA League.  They beat a team called A-1 Challenge, who won the league in 2006.  The Finals series went to all five games and the ladies were down by 9 at the beginning of the 4th quarter, but came out in a defensive frenzy, forcing turnovers, then Celia Asila, who’s probably our fourth best three-point shooter, hit two quick threes.  Within 4 minutes, the ladies had taken the lead and never let it go.

It could’ve been sweeter to have both the UCU Men and Ladies hoisting trophies at the FUBA League closing ceremony, but it was sweet enough to share the joy with the Ladies.

The day after the ladies won their championship, Louise and Lily and I were up in Luwero (2 hour drive north) for Denise’s wedding (Denise is Lousie’s sister) to Rory Wilson (a fellow CMS-Ireland missionary who’s a doctor at Kiwoko hospital, near Luwero.  We all shared in their festive day, and Lily larked about in her fantastic little dress and had a ball.  Immideately after the wedding, we were happy to spend a few days with a small visiting mission team from Christ Church Savannah, our home church.  The highlight of their visit was grilling out burgers one night, sharing quality time with Clark and Carol Smith, and Marc and Alice Robertson, while itunes shuffled between all my Christmas music.

A couple weeks later, the semester came to an end, students traveled home, and we were able to ease into a few weeks of quiet Christmas break.  The most fantatic thing we’ve done over Christmas is take it easy.  The month of rest in Ireland was enourmously helpful, and we’ve tried, successfully so far, to keep things in perspective and not get carried away by the action and uncertainty of life in Uganda.  It’s been really nice, these last couple of weeks, to enjoy the relative calm and growing foundation of love in our little family.

Thanks for checking in.  Happy New Year!

Voice, Self, Ireland

A couple posts ago, I said, “Louise and I think that stress and anxiety are contributing to the slow-healing of my voice, and we’re doing what we can to keep me relaxed and focused on accomplishing necessary things only.”
 
I wanted that to be true when I wrote it.  But the fact is, Louise and I were not able to do enough to keep me relaxed and focused on accomplishing necessary thing only.  The voice didn’t get better and this combined with other factors to produce some heavy duty anxiety over the course of several weeks.  This anxiety reached it’s height when I saw an Indian doctor, visiting the International Hospital of Kampala from Dubai--he looked down my throat with a dental mirror and told me there’s an “area of swelling” and recommended that I come back the following week for surgery--they’d put me under and go into my throat through my mouth and take a “piece of the swelling for a biopsy.”  All I heard was “blah blah blah TUMOR, blah blah blah, CANCER.” 

The days between the doctor visit and the surgery were very difficult--fear, apprehension, and anxiety often overcame faith and trust and hope.  The procedure went very quickly, and within an hour I was being walked to the recovery room where I literally bumped into the two Ugandan doctors who were assisting the Indian doctor--they were all smiles--“Have you seen the doctor yet?  We’ll let him tell you the news.”  I was pretty happy to see them happy, and went to my bed.  Louise came in a few minutes later and told me, “There was nothing to cut!  They went in and found nothing!”  I was as happy as I’ve been in a long time.  Not only did I not have cancer, I didn’t have to wait a week for test results to come back and tell me that.  The doctor came and told me he’d been afraid that he’d find something “sinister,” but was very relieved to get in and see only swelling that should reduce with rest, and my voice would come back.

With rest.  I tried to get rest--tried to stay away from the office and only attend two practice sessions a week.  I didn’t see how I could stay totally away from basketball--we were in the middle of the playoff hunt--every game a must-win game if we were to have a post-season and a chance at a championship.  I’d try to go to practice and just talk to captains and let them run the drills, but I couldn’t keep myself from correcting and advising where needed.

Meanwhile, the time away from basketball and work wasn’t easy either.  Chest pains, pain in my left arm and shoulder--things that had nagged on-and-off for weeks, began to be on more than they were off.  It was difficult for me to just trust God for health and get on with life with Louise and Lily, let alone get on with social and work life on campus.

My voice wasn’t improving, my anxiety was growing.  Louise was feeling the pressure of helping keep me together, as well as keep Lily alive and keep a handle on all the other things she juggles.  Three different doctors in two months had told me to take three weeks off--total voice rest.  I hadn’t done it.  Again, we were sitting down to a big discussion about how I can get time off, and again we were agreeing that it’s so hard to get that kind of extended time off in Uganda.  Louise’s phone rang--a friend from Ireland--Louise went outside to talk.  Within 30 minutes she came back in and said, “They’re offering to fly us home for a month.”

I won’t drag you through ensuing conversations.  We’re now in Bangor, N. Ireland.  I was able to coach the first of our last three must-win games (we had to win that one by 11 points and won by 23), but I missed the second one (the guys won by 5) and the third one is this Friday night.  I shuffled a few things with the Creative Writing class I’m teaching for Uganda Studies Program students, and arranged to take care of some assignments over email.  Louise postponed the monthly Bible study she hosts until the end November.  We’re in Bangor.

Sabbath.  The last few weeks before we left Uganda, several friends--in encouraging me to get real rest--used the word Sabbath.  That’s what we’ve been getting.  We’re seeing very few people.  My main responsibility is to light the fire in the fireplace in the morning, and keep it going all day--I wash the occasional dish and play with Lily and give her the occasional bath.  Louise is still with Lily a lot and taking care of the house (we’ve been staying in a house left for us by the owner, who’s out of town for a month and graciously let us move right in), but she’s doing it all at home, with the occasional visit with friends who are thrilled to see her and catch up on things.  In addition to rest, I’ve been seeing a fantastic counselor, name Dick--a retired Church of Ireland (Anglican) priest and a counselor by trade, who also spent 15 years of his early life as a missionary lecturer at Bishop Tucker Theological College in Mukono, Uganda--what is currently UCU!  Truly amazing.  So, besides being a very gifted therapist, he literally knows where I’m coming from in so many ways.  God’s used Dick to teach me many valuable things the last two weeks.  These sessions, along with some intense and valuable prayer sessions with the same people who paid to bring us to Ireland, have helped to make this a restful, but productive Sabbath.

Most notably, my voice is back.  It’s probably only about 80%, but it feels like 100%.  It was at about 70% within 6 days of being in Ireland--one prayer session and one session with Dick--Dick says the voice and the self are very closely connected, that I started to give my self the proper attention and my voice improved as a result.  I’m a believer.

We still have 7 days of Sabbath before we fly back to Uganda.  We trust that we’ll continue to reap the full benefit of these remaining days and be ready to head back to Uganda to with the necessary energy to work and live and enjoy the healthy life everyone is supposed to enjoy.

Bridge

Before I can do the normal, healthy stuff--I feel I need to account for the nearly six months that have gone by since my last binge.  I’m sure, if people are severely interested in Lousie and Lily and me, they’ve gotten whatever information they’ve needed from somewhere.  Regardless, it wouldn’t make sense to just start talking about now, without bridging the giant gap. 

1.  Denise

Denise Kane, Louise’s sister, came back to Uganda just before University Games in December 2007.  She arrived and quickly became Lily’s favorite aunt (sorry Anne, access is key).  Denise came to work for the Kampala office of Fields of Life, and to hang out more with Rory Wilson (CMS-Ireland missionary bush doctor in Kiwoko)(see point no. 12).

2.  January

A team of 15 or so men from Ignite--the Charity Louise and other started in Ireland in 2000--came out to paint a school they’d raised money to build up in Lira.  We stayed here in Mukono, but they came over one night and we grilled out burgers and everyone hung out with Lily and talked about how big she was.  This might have been the first time I talked to anyone except Louise and Lily and Denise after University Games.

3.  Ireland

Louise, Lily and I flew to Ireland January 21st for a month in N. Ireland.  We stayed at a nice little place in Portadown (courtesy of Jeanette and Noel Gibson), met several times with CMS-Ireland people in Belfast, establishing the particulars of what it meant for CMS-Ireland to take the lead in our support.  Lily loved the cold weather.  We hung out with Louise’s old friends, Steven and Julie Hamilton and had some major laughs.  Walked to shops in Portadown with Lily--sometimes for baby clothes, sometimes for chinese, sometimes for pizza, sometimes for fish and chips.  I think I ran twice.  Got together with Louise’s family a couple times.  I took a train to Dublin for a basketball tournament--got VIP seats from a Irish Federation guy I’d met the year before--pleasantly surprised at the level of Irish Basketball--a couple steps above the Uganda League, with guys who are more disciplined, shoot better, though are less athletic.  Still reassured that some of my UCU guys could play in Ireland, frustrated that coaches only seemed to be interested in NCAA Div 1 guys or 6’ 10” Africans.  CMS-Ireland tried to send us a way for a nice Valentines Day in Donegal, but our borrowed car blew out the water pump 17 miles short of Derry--but luckily found a great place, Dungiven Castle, with a room and had a very nice night and morning after, before the three of us piled into the front of the tow truck at noon the next day and rode back to Portadown--Lily had a ball.  February 21st we borrowed another car and drove into Belfast to see Nanci Griffith--really good show.  The next afternoon, we flew back to Uganda, very refreshed and newly CMS-ed, February 22nd.

4.  Earl and Rosemary 

February 26th, I drove out to Entebbe to pick up my parents at the airport.  In probably the wildest development of my time in Uganda, Earl Mehl is the UCU Bursar (CFO, Controller in US terms).  Earl and Rosemary came out in November last year for two weeks to visit and see if the job would be a fit.  It was great, and crazy enough to have them here for 2 weeks--but it was really crazy to pick them up at the airport, knowing they’d be here for 2 years.  All I can say is Earl’s doing a very difficult job, and doing it well, and Lily and Rosemary dig each other with equal excitement whenever they’re together.  And it’s great for Louise to get to know Earl and Rosemary with more than the typical daughter-in-law, every other Thanksgiving and Christmas arrangement--we get together for dinner at least once-a-week, and that often involves at least one game of Rook--can’t get any more Mehl than that.

5.  Makerere Open

The Ugandan National Basketball League didn’t actually start until April 18, but there was plenty of action going when I got back.  I’d been appointed as a FUBA (Federation of Uganda Basketball Associations) executive member the previous year when a completely new group of Federation Executives had been elected.  So I had a year under my belt of frustrations, combined with a few accomplishments, and was eager to get involved in more accomplishments with FUBA, as well as, of course, the UCU team.  Before the league started, I almost closed a huge deal by almost transferring the biggest player in the League from the team who knocked us out of the playoffs and won the championship last year, to UCU.  Long long story (actually still ongoing), but we didn’t get him signed before the deadline.  We didn’t play in one poorly organized tournament, instead opting to put two men’s teams in an even more poorly organized tournament--Makerere Open--and annual tournament hosted by Makerere University, the largest and (arguably) most disorganized university in East Africa.  We now have a J.V. team at UCU playing in the 3rd Division of the League, but instead of entering the 1st Division team and JV teams in the tournament, I thought it’d be good to divide the teams equally between 1st team and JV guys.  Both of our teams qualified for the semi-finals.  One of them was beaten by the Makerere Team (all guys from different 1st Division League teams), the other team won their semi-final game so it was UCU B against Makerere in the Final, which began under the lights on Makerere’s outdoor court at 11:30 pm.  Again, long long story, but our team of combined 1st Team guys and JV guys was beating Makerere’s team by 12 with 5 minutes left in the 4th quarter.  Makerere called a time out, we came back on the court and there was no ball.  A Makerere fan had come onto the court, taken the ball, and run back to his dorm.  Rationale: no ball, no game, no loss for Makerere.  Makerere guys asked if they could use our ball, I said no.  There’s no way to keep that guy’s buddy from doing the same thing with our ball--people line the court on all sides like it’s a huge cock fight, but with no fences or rails to stay behind.  When fans started realizing the ball was gone, they started crowding the court.  A fan who’d threatened to kill me last time we were beating Makerere, came up to me, with respect, and said, “You need to leave now.  Anything can happen.  Get your bus to drive somewhere else to meet you.  You should all leave.”  I didn’t trust the guy, but then a Makerere Administrator found me and said the same thing.  We weren’t really in danger, it was more our bus, and the driver.  We followed instructions.  The next day I got a phone call from the same administrator apologizing, and informing me that we’d been declared winners and asking if I could come to Makerere and pick up the trophy.  I’ve been in Uganda long enough to know that you don’t just go to some office and pick up a trophy.  The official declaration of the Makerere Open Champion has yet to be made.  We’re never playing in that tournament again.

6.  3-on-3

The UCU 3-on-3 tournament will hopefully become an annual, pre-season event.  This year it was well-publicized, and we had fantastic t-shirts, but the turnout was poor.  Even so, the tournament was fun for all until a really disappointing thing happened--another long long story (that can be read at www.cmsireland.org/blog/mehl). Next year we hope to host a UCU Invitational pre-season tournament, as well as the 2nd Annual 3-on-3 tournament--hopefully less eventful.

7.  Opening Night

Opening night of the league was April 18th.  The featured game was UCU vs Falcons--last year’s regular season champions, against the Champions.  Plenty of hype and anticipation.  We beat Falcons by 13.  At one point we had a 24-point lead.  Plenty more hype after the game.  Lot’s of people thought this was going to be the year UCU would be truly unstoppable.  The following week, we were stopped--by Kampala International University--same team who beat us by 10 in the University Games Championship Game.  A couple of our guys had to leave for various reasons over the course of the next few games.  We lost two in a row at one point, one player was suspended four 4 games for shoving another player--an action that deserved a technical foul, but not a suspension.  We won a couple easy games, but lost a couple we really should’ve won.  It’s hard not to go into it all with names and situations, but I can’t try to explain it all.  We finished the first half of the season at 5-4, in a third place.  Three teams are tied for 2nd place at 6-3. The second half begins July 27th.

8.  Graduation

June 3rd was UCU Graduation Day.  Before the big events of the day, the night before found us hosting Bishop Muneer Hanna Annis--Bishop of Egypt and North Africa and the Horn of Africa (referred to at www.cmsireland.org/blog/mehl), an incredibly humble and discreet and committed man of God.  The next day, Bishop Muneer quoted me (though thankfully without naming me) as the guy who told him the night before that most of the graduates will be thinking more about celebrating than about his speech.  I was really just trying to get a laugh--he got a bigger one.  Later that day we had a graduation party at our place.  Six basketball players were graduating, most of them didn’t have family or money to throw them a party, so Louise and I had both ladies and men’s teams over for burgers.  A great afternoon, and emotional as we wrapped things up with speeches by the graduates, all of whom emotionally explained ways in which their basketball experience impacted their UCU time, for the better.  It was important for everyone to hear, not least of all, me.

9.  Murchison

June 12th was Louise’s birthday.  We celebrated by going up to Murchison Falls National Park for two days of safari.  Aunt Denise came out to Mukono and split Lily time with Grandma Mehl, so Louise had almost three full days without diaper changes and nighttime feeds and head-bump cries (we missed Lily, but not so much those things).  Louise had never been on any kind of safari, I’d been on a small one in Kenya, and a decent one at Queen Elizabeth National Park back in 2004, but everyone says Murchison is the place to go if you’re in Uganda.   We went, and weren’t disappointed.  One lion, many buffaloes, water bucks, Uganda kobs, Jackson’s Heartbeasts, hippos, many elephants, many many giraffes (at one point we stopped and had a panoramic view of 40 giraffes at once), baboons, monkeys with neon genitals, and a dung beetle.  We also took a 3 hour boat trip down/up the Nile to the waterfall where the entire Nile squeezes through a few yards between rocks, on it’s way from Jinja up to the Mediterranean.  Saw many hippos and alligators and great birds.  Louise was thrilled with the whole time.  Though we both missed Lily like crazy and were just as happy to see her as we were to see the mama lion the day before, and as she was to see us.

10. All-Star Break

The day before we left for Murchison was the last day of the first round of the League.  Normally, we take a week off, have an All-Star game, then pick things back up again.  It’s been six weeks now.  Still waiting.  One noteable event that’s happened during the All-Star break is I resigned from my position as an Executive Committee Member of FUBA.  There were many contributing factors, but the main one was that I found myself feeling like I wasn’t able to give FUBA the energy it deserved, while also giving UCU and my family the energy they deserve.  If anyone’s gonna suffer out of those three, it should be FUBA.  Also, the Executive Committee was dragging it’s feet on a serious issue involving UCU and I was finding it difficult to be part of team that was unable to legislate justice or even take any action for, or against, another team I’m part of--again, UCU is more important than FUBA.

11.  Laryngitis

In spite of my FUBA resignation, I was asked to help coach the Under-18 National Team in the upcoming FIBA Zone 5 U-18 Championship being hosted by Uganda.  At the same time, I lost my voice.  Not from a lot of yelling, just a slight cold, and laryngitis and the voice disappeared.  I went to a couple meetings and practices, without the voice hoping it would come back in 2-3 days like the doctor told me.  But it didn’t.  I was by the doctor not to work at all until the voice came back.  I realized that, again, I needed to put UCU ahead of non-UCU stuff.  So I told the FUBA guys I needed to back away from U-18 until I could get healthy.  Still, my voice is very weak.  FUBA moved on and replaced me and it’s been good for me to be able to stay in Mukono and work with UCU guys and pray for my voice to recover.  Louise and I think that stress and anxiety are contributing to the slow-healing of my voice, and we’re doing what we can to keep me relaxed and focused on accomplishing necessary things only.

12. Dependance Day

4th of July.  Denise said yes when Rory proposed.  Wedding in Uganda in early December.  Everyone’s thrilled, no one’s surprised.

13.  Senegal

July 6-16, Uganda hosted All-Africa University Games.  This is the same event in which I coached the Uganda University National team in 2006 in South Africa.  This time, I wasn’t asked to coach, and I didn’t give anyone any hints that I’d be interested.  I knew the event was going to be poorly organized and didn’t want to have any official part in it.  The event was poorly organized, but it still allowed for some fun.  The basketball part of the Games had only four teams (in South Africa in 2006 there were 16).  Women: Mozambique and Uganda, Men: Senegal and Uganda.  So the teams played each other twice and that was it.  The first Uganda v Senegal game was huge.  Everyone was out to see what Senegal’s two 7-footer’s were gonna.  The 7-footer’s weren’t nearly impressive as the whole Senegal team was--well-disciplined on offese and defense, focused, trusting each other, well-coached.  Good basketball.  Basketball that doesn’t exist in East Africa--UCU might be the closest to it, but we’ve got a long way to go.  Senegal won by 24.  The second game, two days later, Uganda played very very well, the refs looked away a few times, and Senegal slowed the game down and missed several key opportunities and Uganda won by 6--it was a huge triumph.  I talked to the Senegal coach after that game--he blamed the refs--I asked if he was willing to come to UCU for a scrimmage the next day--he said o.k.  So Senegal came out to UCU the next day.  We had more people there for that scrimmage, without advertising it, than for any other single sports event UCU’s ever hosted.  And it was embarassing.  The 1st quarter score was 24-8.  We couldn’t score.  Our guys were nervous and thinking too much about their size.  We put together a decent fourth quarter, lost 24-23, and lost the game by 31.  But all of our guys played and it was a great chance for them to see how good we’re NOT--yet.  I like to think we could’ve cut it to 25 or so or even 20 points, if I could’ve talked during a time-out.  I’m not much of a coach with my voice, but even less without it.

There.  Bridge.  Anyone willing to read all that must be my mother.

Confession

I think I blog for the wrong reasons.  I don’t wanna do anything for the wrong reasons.

When I sit down to blog it’s after about 12 times of thinking I should do it and then not doing what I should.  Each of these times then carries with the “should” obligation an extra layer of guilt.  So by the time I sit and write (besides the expanse of time that’s impossible to adequately cover) I’m doing it mostly out of guilt--to avoid that 13th or 14th layer that’ll come if I don’t.

So that’s my confession.

Missionary kid at 6, grew up in church two/three days a week, spoonfed the Gospel and never once gagged.  I’ve known about confession and repentance for a long long time.  But I just got a little refresher from “Desperate Housewives.”  Lousie and I bought the bootlegged 1st season of the show from a street vendor in Kampala.  The confession and repentance lesson didn’t involve buying a pirated TV series; nor did it involve watching a risqué and inappropriate TV series (some might think confession and repentance is due for both those reasons--but it’s not possible to find genuine dvd’s for sale in Uganda, and so far, we’re intrigued by the realistic--though disturbing--moral perspectives of the people who sometimes do risqué and inappropriate things, but the show itself is a decent morality play that’s as much of a video page-turner as 24 or Prison Break).  So the little refresher was a priest telling an unrepentant woman who doesn’t want to confess, but also doesn’t want to go to hell, that her confession, if made, must be followed by genuine repentance and genuine effort not to sin again.

I’m stretching a bit--I don’t wanna qualify my unfaithful and guilt-ridden and sometimes binge blogging as sin.  But I’m confessing those faults, and I’m now going to try to live in genuine repentance and get something out here on a much more healthy, weekly basis.

alternative blog

Louise and I are now just as much CMS-Ireland missionaries as we are CMS-USA.  Maybe the only noticeable difference to those of you on the outside, is that we now have a CMS-Ireland blog.

I'm gonna try to update this here typepad one more frequently with brief things and photos, and the CMS blog will be more "missionary" oriented stuff.

Long Version - 12th NUSFU Games (pt 1)

Two historical facts:
1.  In 2000, an outbreak of the Ebola virus killed over 200 people in Uganda.
2.  University Sports in East Africa is a jungle of confusion. 

A. Inter-University Games, University Games
B. Uganda, East Africa, All Africa, World

Take any one from line B and put it in front of one from line A and you have a valid competition that exists somewhere in the world in which UCU participates on some level.  Each of those possible combinations warrants at least one paragraph of explanation.  One reason why it’s been so long since I’ve written something out here is that everything that happens in Uganda warrants at least one paragraph of explanation before any narrative makes sense.  Nothing’s easy, but it’s easier to just live it and talk about it all with Louise, than to try to explain it and tell it.  But I should still say more.

Another reason why it’s been so long since I’ve written something out here, is we at UCU have been planning/preparing to host the NUSFU Games and things have been pretty hectic since September.

I’m not aware of any nationally recognized University Sports leagues for any sport, anywhere in the world, outside the US.  Internationally, university students play sports, but they play for whatever club they chose in whatever league that club competes in.  Then, if they wish, they play for their University in various forms of Inter-University competition.

Most of you know that we at UCU have teams in National Leagues.  In addition to our basketball teams, we have men’s and women’s volleyball teams and a men’s soccer team, all competing in Uganda National Leagues. Those National Leagues are not University Leagues.  They are made up of clubs sponsored by different individuals--a few Universities like us, but mostly private companies or organizations.

I explain that, to explain the importance of Inter-University Games.  In East Africa, Inter-University Games happen annually, the first week of Christmas break.  The odd-numbered years, each country is responsible for holding it’s own Inter-University Games--in Uganda that means NUSFU Games (National University Sports Federation of Uganda).  The even-numbered years, the region comes together for East Africa Inter-University Games, hosted by a different country every year.  So, for me it’s been: 2003 - 10th NUSFU Games (Kampala, no host institution), 2004 - East Africa Inter-University Games (Nairobi, Kenyatta University), 2005 - 11th NUSFU Games (Luwero, Ndejje University), 2006 - East Africa Inter-University Games (Kampala, no host institution -- Rwanda was supposed to host but pulled out three weeks before the Games because they weren’t ready), 2007 - 12th NUSFU Games (Mukono, UCU).

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There’s a story worth telling about each of these editions of each of these games in each place.  The stories are worth telling--not just because I’m a mzungu who thinks almost everything that happens in Africa is a story worth telling.  I’ll tell you the story worth telling about the 12th NUSFU Games that just finished a few days ago here on campus.

It was announced at the closing ceremony of the 2005 NUSFU Games that UCU would be hosting in 2007.  At the time, I wasn’t yet officially Sports Director.  I didn’t know we’d even put our name in the hat, but I was excited about the opportunity to right the wrongs I’d experienced in the ‘03, ‘04, and ‘05 versions, and also about the opportunity to sleep in my own bed and shower in my own shower the week before Christmas.  I didn’t think so much about the hugeness of it:  2,400 students, coaches, officials, referees; 17 Universities coming to one campus to eat, compete, shower and sleep every day for one week; men’s and women’s teams competing in 14 sports; a separate tournament set up for each men’s and women’s division of each sport--all beginning on Monday and ending with a Championship in each division in each sport by noon on Friday.

We weren’t aware in 2005 that the 2007 Games in December would work out to be the perfect climax of a year full of Celebration for UCU.  UCU was founded in 1997.  Much of 2006 was spent planning a calendar full of 10th Anniversary Celebrations to stretch across 2007.  Toward the end of 2006 I spent a lot of time with Stephen Noll, and Johann Nietzsche (German Projects Director) talking about what kind of facilities we’d need to host the Games and where we could put them and how we could pay for them.

Many details later, we knew we needed a soccer field and running track, new courts for all sports and we knew we had $250,000 to work with.  As much as we wanted an indoor facility (there’s only one indoor gymnasium in all of Uganda) we agreed that it’d be more practical to spend the money on several courts that could be used simultaneously instead of two spectacular indoor courts that would  need to be shared.  Johann and Steve and I did a lot of measuring and drawing and erasing and internet research and finally came up with a plan for 4 basketball courts, 3 volleyball courts, 2 tennis courts, 1 netball court, a soccer field surrounded by an 8-lane running track, all cut into a slope that would allow us to make 5 - 6 levels of pavilion seating for spectators along one side of everything.

It’s impossible to explain the immense-ness of such a project.  Construction in East Africa is as confusing to an outsider as anything else.  There are dozens of buildings--big buildings--in Kampala alone that have been half-finished since I landed in 2003.  It’s difficult to find an indoor or outdoor staircase in Uganda with all the stairs an equal height.  Deadlines don’t exist.  Johann was coordinating the construction of the Sports Complex, as well as many campus improvements needed to boost things as part of the 10th Anniversary Celebration, as well as the construction of a Uganda Studies Program house for Mark and Abby Bartels, as well as a new building for the Mukono Diocese in Mukono Town.

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All this, in the middle of an incomparable fever of construction going on in and around Kampala in preparation for CHOGM (cho-gum)(The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting) that was hosted in Kampala for three days at the end of November--Special Guest: The Queen of England.  At least a dozen new hotels were built in Kampala, many more were re-furbished, all to prepare for 5,000 or so people and the Queen landing in Kampala for three days.  Every road the Queen’s motorcade might have taken was re-done--formerly chaotic round-abouts were turned into intersections with street lights.  Pre-CHOGM was wild, CHOGM for the most part was mild.  But it complicated construction because so many materials were hard to come by, as was the usually easy to come by cheap labor.

Combine Johann’s pile of work, with Uganda’s tendency to never keep time, with CHOGM, and with an unusually long and wet rainy season (there was record rainfall and terrible floods in Eastern Uganda in September) and the Sports Complex was pretty far behind schedule.

In 2005, before the Games at Ndejje University, Louise and I were in Luwero for something else and we drove over to the Ndejje campus to check on facilities.  It was about three weeks before the Games were to start, and they were just breaking ground on a basketball/volleyball court and putting the finishing touches on their soccer field/running track.  They were no where near ready.  They were willing to admit that the basketball court wouldn’t be standard even if it was finished in time, and they took Louise and me over to a high school nearby where they were planning to play basketball (one rim was a foot high, the other six inches low--I came up the next week with a few guys and we spent a couple days replacing rims and fixing backboards). 

As construction was going on at a slower and slower pace, I became more and more worried about us being in an Ndejje situation.  Originally, we’d planned to be finished with everything in September.  Mostly to give us breathing room to work on unforeseen things that always pop up, and also to give our teams a chance to practice on the new courts and get comfortable and create some home-court advantage.  But September came and went and we were no where near ready.  Readiness for the Games became a regular topic of conversation in offices and classrooms and dorm rooms around campus.  Besides the facilities, there are a million things that need to be in place in order for the Games to come off well.  We had a Local Organizing Committee (full of subcommittees) overseeing all these details that had been meeting on campus regularly since March.  Officially, I was the Chairman of the Technical Subcommittee (responsible for scheduling all games, identifying supervising and paying referees, securing all necessary equipment, and providing all necessary facilities) and a member of the Finance Committee.  Unofficially, as Sports Director, I was the final person who was supposed to have answers when no one from any subcommittee had them.  The Chairman of the L.O.C., Dr. John Senyonyi (Deputy Vice Chancellor of Development and External Relations) was Chairman of almost everything else regarding the 10th Anniversary and wasn’t able to give us much hands-on direction until the Games were about to begin.
Probably the biggest day of the 10th Anniversary Celebration was the Graduation Ceremony, Friday, October 5th.  In the British education tradition, graduation ceremonies are not held immediately after classes and exams are finished, they’re held a month or two later.  George Carey, who came and officially dedicated the first foundation stone of UCU when he was Archbishop of Canterbury in 1997, returned as the keynote speaker at the Graduation, and to dedicate another stone at the new Main Gate at the new UCU entrance.  That Friday, Graduation was the only thing happening on campus.  Offices were closed, classes weren’t happening.  I chose to leave the suit in the closet, not attend the Graduation Ceremony, not even shower, and just hang out and relax at home with Louise and Lily.  At about 2:00 I got a call from Vincent Kisenyi, a Business Department lecturer who ran the Sports Department on a voluntary basis before I stepped in as Sports Director.  Vincent was telling me WBS, a major television network, was on campus covering the Graduation and the visit by George Carey, and also wanted to talk to me about the development of the Sport Complex and the preparations for University Games.  I showered and shaved and hurried down to the soccer field.

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Louise has joked that she’s the Uganda version Victoria Beckham, wife of mega-sports-celebrity-media magnet David Beckham.  We’ve got a ways to go before we rival the Beckhams, but with the combination of Basketball League success and game highlights being shown on news stations and then the publicity surrounding the Games, I’ve been told I’ve been a regular on TV and radio.  We wouldn’t know really, our TV is dedicated to movies and shows (Seinfeld, 24, Prison Break, and now Baby Einstein).  We need to get an antennae.  So the WBS cameraman/interviewer was asking me what plans we had for the Sports Complex and when I expected everything to be finished and about our basketball teams and other teams and the preparation for the games in general.  I said things about UCU being a center of excellence (UCU motto: “A Centre of Excellence in the Heart of Africa”) and how our goal is for the Sports Department to achieve the same level of excellence as other Departments and I told them people should expect the 2007 Games to be the best ever.  The last two questions the guy asked me, with the sparsely grassed soccer field surrounded by an uneven oval of stony dirt and mud steps cut waiting to be evened and concreted all exposed over my shoulder, were, “When do the games begin?”  Etched in my internal calendar was, “December 17th.”  Then he asked, “What kind of guarantee can you give us that these facilities will be ready by then?”  Without flinching I smiled and said, “If we’re not ready, you can take me to Luzira.”  Johann was interviewed next.  We shook hands with the WBS guy and he walked away and Johann looked at me, “You have more confidence than I do.”  “Then I’ll give you some of mine,” I told him.  Luzira is the feared prison in Kampala--the Ugandan version of Alcatraz.

A huge boost of progress was expected when we ordered $13,000 worth of equipment from Porter Athletic in the US.  I’d been working with an equipment supplier in South Africa who was really dragging his feet.  Stephen Noll and I had a conversation about equipment we’d need and the possibility of having things shipped air-freight from the US.  Within a few days, we’d ordered backboards and rims, volleyball nets, tennis posts and nets.  That’s when I was sure we were building what was going to be the best outdoor sports facility in East Africa.  Everything from Porter arrived at Entebbe before CHOGM, and was cleared soon after.

The week before, I’d spent three full days with the construction guys navigating the grueling though fascinating process of getting the two 4” steel pipes we’d fabricated to make basketball goals, into the ground so they’d be level from all angles and the right height for the backboards.  Huge 5’ by 3’ holes were dug to house each pole.  2 or 3 huge flat stones were dropped into the bottom of each hole, to prevent the poles from sinking, then we had to add or subtract big or small stones to make everything the right height and the right level.  Then concrete had to be mixed by hand and brought down to the courts in wheel-barrows and then poured into each hole while the rest of the goal (3” pipes fabricated to hold the backboards) was supported by eucalyptus poles.  This was accomplished by about 10 Ugandans working for $2/day.

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When the Porter stuff arrived and I opened the backboards and rims, it was like a hundred Christmas mornings.  We couldn’t use UCU carpenters during the week because they had a schedule full of things they were already working on.  So I got 4 of the carpenters out and we worked all day Saturday Dec. 1 and 8:00 am to noon Sunday Dec. 2 putting up the backboards and rims (Stephen Noll and the UCU Chaplain and a few others came down at 2:00 that Sunday and had a worship service in Luganda for all the workers who were being asked to work--about 30 guys--8 of them stood at the end to say they’d accepted Jesus as Savior--I pray it wasn’t so they could get two Cokes at the end of the service instead of one.)  Thursday Dec. 6, we had a press conference.  I’m told it was one of the most well-attended sports press conferences in recent years.  I wore a tie.  People asked lots of questions about preparations for the games, we announced that Stanbic Bank was coming on a sponsor, we announced that the $250,000 was not sponsor money, but UCU money committed to developing sports, I answered several technical questions, and facilities questions and then gave a tour of the Sports Complex.

Games were to begin Monday Dec. 17th--11 days from the press conference.  We had Porter backboards and rims up on three basketball courts (we’d decided to leave our old court as the 4th court and re-surface it and put the Porter stuff up after the Games) and the entire basketball area surfaced with a nice, fine asphalt and that was impressive.  But we had no lines painted on any of the basketball courts.  The volleyball courts had only the first layer of surface finished.  There were no volleyball poles up.  Of the two tennis courts that were to be clay, one was just leveled, the other was a mound of mud that had been excavated to cut more seats into the hill.  The five levels of seating that were to line the courts had been cut into the hill, but only the bottom two or three were finished, the rest still needed stones and concrete to be laid and leveled and dried and finished.  The grass on the soccer field was growing enough to look good from a short distance, but there were obvious gaps when you stood on top of it.  The track was leveled, but still full of small rocks that would make it impossible to run on in spikes.  The seating along the hill side of the track, like the one at the courts, was cut, but nowhere near finished.  Reporters stood with cameras filming me and the unfinished Sports Complex behind me.  One guy said something about “half-baked facilities.”  I had very uneasy feelings about being compared to Ndejje in 2005.  I told the guy without smiling, “UCU doesn’t do anything half-baked.”  I didn’t say anything about Luzira.

Saturday and Sunday the 8th and 9th were all about painting.  Stanbic Bank, a big South Africa-based bank with an established presence in Uganda had given us 10 million Uganda shillings (about $6,000).  In turn, they wanted to “brand” basketball and volleyball courts.  We decided the best thing would be to paint their blue and white logo on all the courts.  I had lots of talks with a paint guy in Kampala and we decided we’d paint the entire court surface to seal it against rain and sun, and also to make things look good.  Our plan was to paint the courts black, the lanes and center court blue, and boundary lines white, and to paint the center section of one volleyball court blue, to give Stanbic a place for their logo.  In between all the courts, the asphalt would be painted maroon, like you often see at hard-court tennis courts.

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The guys came out to paint.  Things were moving quickly, the rain stayed away long enough for the paint to dry.  I went into Kampala to check on an order of shade cloth we’d planned to use to fence in the volleyball courts and the tennis courts.  The shade cloth was supposed to have arrived a week before.  I got in and they told me it wouldn’t be available until Tuesday or Wednesday.  I got back to the courts and found out that they’d already gone through all the maroon that we’d ordered and it only covered about 1/3 of the space in between courts.  But more importantly, it wasn’t maroon--it was pink.  Bright pink, like Barbie’s Camero.  Sunday’s sun went down with one court fully-finished.  The rest of the courts still needed lines, lanes and half-court circles painted and the volleyball courts needed everything. 

When Sunday’s sun went down, 40 guys came to our house.  Earlier, when I checked on the shade cloth in Kampala, I also bought about 100 hamburger patty’s at Shoprite.  I’d bought about 60 the day before.  I’ve promised all UCU teams that if they win a major championship, I’ll do 2 things: 1) get them championship t-shirts, 2) throw them a burger party.  Men’s basketball and Men’s volleyball both won the Championship of East Africa Inter-University Games in December 2006.  I’d taken care of the t-shirts when I was home in February.  But Louise and I had never found a right time to have everyone over for burgers.  I knew we had to do it before the 2007 Games.  So we did it the weekend before.  I promised all the guys at the beginning that there was enough meat for 4 burgers each.  Two American students here for the semester with the Uganda Studies Program who’d been involved with both teams throughout the season, came over to help me cook.  They couldn’t believe the amount of meat.  Throughout the night, they couldn’t believe how fast the meat was going.  The UCU dining hall serves better, more balanced food than any other University dining hall in Uganda.  But still, there’s a lot of bony chicken and bony goat and bony beef and bony fish, and even more of rice and matooke and posho and beans and cabbage.  These guys don’t get straight red meat unless they pay for it, and most of them don’t have money to pay for meat.  After the meat was long gone and the charcoal was all grey, we were talking about who ate the most burgers.  Biggy, 6’ 8”, Kenyan big man who rebounds like crazy and plays monster defense, had 9 burgers.  Daudi, 5’ 4”, Muslim, Tanzanian point guard who practices hard but rarely plays, who had a career game in the 3rd place playoff game (20 minutes, 13 points, 10 assists), had 10.  Someone else said he’d had 10.  I looked at Daudi--smallest guy in the crowd, bigger only than Lily, smaller than Louise.  Daudi shrugged, “6 with the bun, 4 without.” 

After that, guys started waddling back to their hostel.  A few guys hung around and we talked about the upcoming Games a few days away.  One guy from Nairobi, Adams, said his mother was concerned about Ebola--wanted him to come home as soon as exams were over, before the Games.  Ebola had been in the East African news for a week or so.  People were saying that it had probably been around before CHOGM, but that it was kept quiet.  Now that the Queen was gone, stories were breaking about people dying--a few individuals infected in Bundibugyo District in Western Uganda, and then a few medical workers who’d treated them, one who had come back to Kampala and died in a central Government Hospital.  Just that day, Sunday, there’d been information in the paper encouraging people to take precautions against Ebola (not shaking hands with anyone, avoiding public transportation if possible, staying away from big public gatherings).  Ebola is spread by exchange of bodily fluids, so it’s not as contagious as cold or flu, but for a few days, there was at least one death/day in Bundibugyo and there were rumors of suspected cases all over Uganda, including Kampala.

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Monday morning:  I called Stephen Noll and asked him what he thought about the threat of Ebola in regard to the Games.  He asked me to come to his office.  He and John Senyonyi had just been talking about Ebola and Steve had written a letter to the Uganda Ministry of Health asking for advice about hosting the Games.  John was going to take the letter to the Ministry and hopefully come back with an official response.  Until we had a negative response, we needed to proceed as planned (meaning continue going wild with construction and painting and praying away all the rain).

Monday afternoon: I got a call from John saying, “I’ve just been with the Minister of Health.  Things don’t look good.  We’ll talk when I get back.”  An hour or so later I left the on-going paint job at the courts to meet with Steve and Johann at the soccer field.  Johann was leaving the next night to fly to Germany for Christmas.  He’d originally planned to leave on the 5th with his family, but Steve convinced him to stick around another week.  We were talking about what needed to be done to prepare the track surface for the Games.  We already had a 100-meter stretch covered in stone dust (a bi-product of breaking and grinding masonry stones--stone version of saw dust), but it was too thick and needed to be thinned-out and spread over the entire track at that thinned-out level.  But all 8 lanes of 400 meters needed to be graded one more time before this could be done right.  Johann said everything was ready for the work to be done but we needed at least one full day with no rain--we hadn’t had that for a month at least.  With that, we moved into talking about the communication from the Ministry of Health.  There was still no official word, but Steve said that the Ministry had told John that hosting the Games with the current Ebola situation didn’t sound like a good idea.  We were supposed to get an official response to our letter the next day.  I’d been sweating the whole project and was now really sweating the track situation.  I felt a heavy burden lighten a little with the possibility that the Government might tell us that we can’t go ahead with the Games in December.  We’d postpone to a later time, maybe April 2008, and everything would be ready and we’d be able to relax into Christmas without so much stress.  Clearly I wanted to host the Games, but I wanted to do it “right” and “right,” by my definition, was beginning to seem impossible.

Tuesday morning: I met with Steve and John and Johann at the track to discuss the hand-over of the oversight of the construction from Johann to John, and to talk to contractors about what still needed to be done and when.  Walking away from our plastic chairs on the patchy soccer grass, I asked John what he thought about the whole Ebola thing.  He again said that things sounded negative the day before and he expected to get negative news when he went in to the Ministry of Health in the afternoon.  We made a plan to meet in Kampala after his meeting with the Ministry, and we’d go and meet the President of NUSFU at Makerere University, and talk about the possibility of postponing the Games until April.  All that, IF, we heard what we expected to hear from the Ministry of Health.  I left that meeting and went to the basketball courts and volleyball courts, and didn’t say much and didn’t call the painter who hadn’t shown up yet.  I was really thinking things weren’t going to happen.  I went home, talked to Louise, filled her in about the latest and how Steve and John felt about everything.  She knew how much pressure I’d been feeling about construction and all the other things I was working on and she knew I’d be relieved if things were postponed.  She was excited, and I was excited about the possibility of getting some relief.  But we were also both aware that we couldn’t look at such a big thing from such a narrow personal perspective--this thing was 2,400 people, not just us.

Tuesday afternoon:  I prayed and checked my motivation as thoroughly as I could.  I truly wanted the right, and safe and healthy thing to happen, and to happen for the right reasons--not so I could enjoy more of Christmas with my little family.  But in my mind, I’d already started coming to terms with the fact that postponing the Games was the “right” thing.  I got a call from John as I was driving into Kampala--conference call connected also to Steve.  I put the phone on speaker and John read the letter from the Ministry of Health.  In short, it was a green light.  At the end, they threw in the caution that we should be prepared to deal properly with any case of bloody diarrhea or internal bleeding.  They also threw in the statement that “Ebola is only spread by someone who is showing symptoms,” suggesting that as long as we eliminate anyone who might be showing symptoms from getting on a field or court and sharing sweat with healthy people, we should be o.k.  John and I had already set up the meeting with the NUSFU President at Makerere, so we said we’d meet there and discuss the letter and continue on with things as scheduled.

Tuesday evening:  John and I sat at Makerere University in the office of the NUSFU President, who holds a dozen various posts in Uganda and Kampala pertaining to Sports and Politics.  We read the letter to her.  John and I hadn’t talked since the conference call in the car.  He was already there before I walked into the office.  He was sharing his thoughts and, even though we’d agreed on the phone with Steve that we should suck it up and go back to work preparing things, he was frank with the President about how uneasy he was to be told in conversation with the Minister of Health on Monday that it wasn’t a good idea, and then to be told on paper the next day that it’s o.k.  Knowing he was feeling that made me more uneasy about hosting.  I kept having a flash in my head of one person on a soccer field suddenly bleeding from his/her eyes and nose, everyone panicking, no one treating the person, and the Games being shut down and everyone scattering not knowing who else might have been infected by that person.  “It’s not worth the risk,” I said over and over, in my head and aloud.  Vincent Kisenyi arrived a few minutes later and echoed what John and I had been saying.  A few more NUSFU representatives (Sports Tutors from other Universities) had been called and they came to the office and we all shared ideas.  The UCU people were in favor of caution and postponement.  The other Sports Tutors were in favor of the Games happening in December.  The NUSFU President said, very diplomatically, “I don’t want to go against the conscience of the host.”  We agreed that we’d try to contact other Sports Tutors in the morning and then get a consensus the next day.

[I’m gonna interrupt facts for a second to hint at the crumbling core below the surface of University Sports in Uganda.  Sadly, I think it might be the same crumbling or crumbled core below the surface of many things in East Africa.  Like anywhere else, in East Africa, decisions regarding University Sports are made by Sports Tutors (Athletic Directors), and other University Administrators.  But most of these decisions are made directly by the Sports Tutors.  Unlike in the US, in Uganda, Sports Tutors (Athletic Directors) are not generally seen as big shots in their Universities, and are definitely not paid as big shots.  But they usually receive allowances, per diem, for traveling to meetings, going for things like University Games, at home or abroad.  It’s my perception that most decisions made regarding University Sports in Uganda, are made based on the potential financial benefit to the Sports Tutors or other Administrators involved.  Not based on the potential physical/educational benefit to the participating students.  Leaders serving themselves, not leaders serving the people they represent.]

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Tuesday night:  I got back to campus and went straight to Steve’s.  He’d been thinking since the conference call that things were going to move ahead as planned.  So he was jarred from his Scrabble game with Peggy and a little surprised to hear that John and I were still proposing the postponement.  I again said, “It’s not worth the risk,” a few times and told him frankly that it was hard to make a decision about this without considering the impossible construction task ahead, but that I really thought it wasn’t worth the risk.  I told him something I hadn’t thought to say in the meeting at Makerere.  “What if one person shows up with Ebola and happens to pass it on to a Kenyan or Tanzanian and that person takes it home to Nairobi or Dar Es Salaam?  International incident.”  He called John and John told him what he thought.  Steve said, “O.k.  Both of you come here tomorrow morning at 7:30 and we’ll talk and make a decision then.”

Wednesday morning:  I walked into Steve’s living room.  He handed me three papers: a press release, a copy of his email to all 17 University Vice Chancellors, and a copy of his statement to the UCU student/athletes.  All, in various ways, declaring that, due to the Ebola threat, we were canceling invitations to the Games and proposing postponement until April 2008.  He’d made the decision and was surprisingly firm and final about it.  John walked in a few minutes later and we talked about the way forward and that was that.  I walked home and told Louise.  We both smiled, but with an uneasiness.  Life was going to get easy quickly, but it didn’t seem fully right--like we’d just cut a wire on a ticking bomb when there’s still 3 minutes left on the timer.  I left and emailed and called all Sports Tutors, urging them to talk to their Vice Chancellors about the email Steve had sent earlier.  John called an urgent meeting of the L.O.C., and he announced the news to all of us there.  I sent text messages to coaches and players.  Games were going to be postponed.  I visited the construction site and talked only to the top foreman and told him the pressure had just decreased.  Of course we wanted the work to continue, but I wanted to make sure things were done as right as possible, and not rushed when they didn’t need to be.

Wednesday afternoon:  I met with all student/athletes and read them Steve’s communication.  I told them we were planning to host the Games in April and told them to finish their exams and travel home safe and have a Merry Christmas.  I didn’t know what kind of reaction to expect.  Almost everyone smiled, several people clapped.  Everything was over.  I went down to the new courts, still not fully painted, and played 21 with a few of my guys until dark.
Wednesday night:  I got a text message from Vincent Kisenyi:  “I’ve been called to an urgent NUSFU meeting at Makerere.  I’ll keep you posted.”  Around 10:30 Vincent called.  He told me NUSFU people wanted to meet with Steve at UCU the next morning at 8:00.  “They’re going to take the Games somewhere else if we don’t change our position.  No one wants to postpone.”

Thursday morning:  Steve called at 7:30 and told me he knew NUSFU people were coming to see him, but he’d been called by the Minister of Education to go to an urgent meeting in Kampala.  “I’m sure you and John can handle it.”  John and I sat and received the NUSFU contingent in Steve’s conference room.  People I’d never seen in anything other than track suits and t-shirts, were wearing full suits and ties and with sparkling shoes.  They were doing all they could to convince UCU to reconsider and accept to host the Games.  They had a 2 page letter with 12 reasons why the Games must happen in December.  No one expressed any concern about the Ebola threat.  John did almost all the talking, and stuck by the decision Steve had made.  The President, apparently over her dislike of going against the conscience of the host, but still diplomatic, informed us that if we wouldn’t change our decision, they were going to have the Games at Makerere University, on the same dates as scheduled.  This was Thursday, Dec. 13th.  They were going to put the Games together in 4 days.  Makerere is the oldest university in East Africa, has about 40,000 students, a large campus full of buildings, but the only sports facilities that would be considered standard are two soccer fields and a swimming pool.  The Games would be an absolute disaster--at least by my standards.  By Ugandan standards they would be below average but below average is acceptable.  But the Games would go on and the few people who might complain wouldn’t be willing to risk demanding anything better. 

The rest of Thursday:  Some of the NUSFU people stayed around UCU for an hour or so.  They needed all registration information we’d collected for the 2,400 participants--forms and photos we’d be using to make accreditation cards for the Games.  And there were many other pieces of information I needed to hand over in order for NUSFU to begin setting things up at Makerere.  It was strange.  I still thought we were doing the right thing based on the Ebola threat, but  I was becoming more and more disappointed that NUSFU wasn’t willing to at least try to postpone the Games until April--that the Games would go on, in unacceptable conditions and we wouldn’t have a chance to make a difference.  I was relieved not to have to worry about the track surface and painting the courts and getting the shade cloth and having everything perfect by Monday morning, but I was unsettled.  Steve called in the afternoon and asked what I thought about making a goodwill gesture to NUSFU and offering to let them use our basketball and volleyball courts for the games.  I told him I didn’t think it would be a good idea--the risk would still be there.  I told him our goodwill gesture could be to make the accreditation cards for all participants like we’d planned to do in the beginning.  He thought that was o.k.  It came out in Thursday’s paper that UCU had decided not to host the Games, and one unnamed NUSFU official conjectured that it was because the UCU Sports Complex wasn’t ready.

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Friday morning:  Steve called and asked me to come to his office at 9:00.  He was asking again about letting NUSFU use our facilities.  He didn’t like that people were saying we weren’t ready.  I told him I didn’t like the risk and also had to say, “We’re not ready.  We haven’t spent any money since all this Ebola talk early in the week. Painting has stopped, and things have slowed down … a lot.”  Steve hadn’t been down to the courts in a couple days.  “O.k., I wasn’t aware we were that far behind.”  I left his office.  We’d agreed that our goodwill gesture would be the production of the accreditation cards.  I went to our Sports Office where our guys had been working all night the night before on the cards.  They looked great--very professional.  Not that it’s a huge deal, but the accreditation cards the guys were making were nicer than what we’d received at All-Africa University Games in South Africa in 2006.  I sat in my office, talking to the captain of the Track-and-Field team, who helping me coordinating all the transportation needs of our International Student/Athletes (transportation costs increase right before Christmas, and since we’re asking people to stay around for the Games and miss out on going home a week early, we pay for all their transportation home).  We talked for an hour or so, sorted out all the needs for all the people who needed bus tickets to Kenya or Tanzania, and I went home to get Louise.  We were planning to go to town with Lily, buy the bus tickets for Sunday, and eat a relaxed lunch somewhere.  When I got home, I told Louise I was heartbroken looking at the accreditation cards.  I was realizing as I was saying it, “We’re more ready to host now, than anyone’s ever been.”  We were ready to produce, start to finish, the best NUSFU Games ever, and it was all being taken away from us.  It suddenly felt terrible.  Lousie agreed that she’d never really felt right about the games not happening.  She suggested I call Steve and tell him what I was thinking.  I did.  Steve asked me to meet him in John’s office.  In the time it took me to walk down to John’s office, John had talked on the phone with the Minister of Health and with an World Health Organization official, both on the ground in Bundibugyo District.  They told John that the chances of an Ebola infection at The Games was “virtually zero.”  That’s all we needed.  We smiled and shook heads a few times and rolled up our sleeves and agreed to go back to work.  A flurry of phone calls were made from me and John to various NUSFU people, asking if we could bring The Games back to Mukono because of new health information we’d received.  I knew there was no way they wanted the burden of putting everything together in 4 days, but I also knew they weren’t going to just fall into our open arms willingly.  They told us to go ahead with our preparations, but that there was an emergency NUSFU meeting that night at Makerere.

The rest of Friday:  Text messages sent to all coaches to call back players who might’ve already left.  Frantic construction work that everyone was surprisingly happy to do.  I figured construction people who’d been under pressure and then had the pressure relieved, wouldn’t be eager to go under it again, but I was wrong.  Stone dust was being laid and leveled on the track.  The sky was clear blue.  The paint guy came out and I told him exactly what we needed and that it needed to be done by the end of Saturday.

Friday evening:  I drove into Makerere for the NUSFU meeting.  Politics.  Silly.  I was never on Student Council at Brunswick High, but I imagine there was more maturity in their meetings.  A whole lot of petty comments about UCU “confusing” everyone and “disorganizing” everyone--again, nothing mentioned about Ebola--like it was never a factor and the new information we’d received in the morning wasn’t a factor.  After two silly hours of accusations and me miraculously biting my tongue, it was agreed that the games would be at UCU as originally planned.

Saturday morning: I was at the courts at 8:00 and all the painting personnel were there.  By 10:00, I was approving final measurements of the unpainted basketball courts.  At 10:20 Ahmed Hussein, the Dan Patrick or Jim Rhome or other premier sports radio personality, of Uganda called and we talked on his weekly Saturday morning show about the whirlwind of The Games leaving UCU and then coming back to UCU.  Hussein is the only person in Uganda who calls me “Mehl.”  I like him and I think he likes me.  I know he likes UCU and he was excited, I was excited too, Louise was sitting on the couch and she was excited.  I hung up with Hussein, changed clothes and drove into Kampala.  Had another press conference.  NUSFU had demanded the evening before that UCU call a press conference announcing the changing of the venue back to UCU.  It was supposed to start at 11:00.  I was out the door at 10:30 to make the hour-long drive to Kampala.  The press conference waited for me, started at 11:30, finished by 12:30.  I took a boda-boda (scooter) through crazy Saturday city traffic, to the center of Kampala to meet two of our Sports Office guys to select the styles and sized of track suits we were buying--for all our teams, for the Games and beyond.  I was there in time, and long enough to ensure that we’d get the same colors and to ensure that we were getting all Puma and Adidas and no Adi-b-as.  I then took another boda-boda up to do another Saturday Sports radio show--not as good as Hussein’s, but longer--I was on for about 20 minutes talking about UCU sports and basketball in general.  Pity though, they waited until our segment was over and we were off the air, and it was some guy giving predictions for all the Premier League football matches happening the next day, to ask me the good question:  “How is it that UCU is able to put up such nice facilities?”  “Those are the questions you should ask on the radio,” I said.  “Commitment.  UCU is committed to developing sports, and UCU knows you can accomplish a lot by sacrificing a little.  We built our Sports Complex with UCU money and we’re a private University with no Government funding.  The only reason the other larger Universities are unable to do the same, is lack of commitment.”  Then I finished my coke and walked out and took a boda-boda back to where I’d parked the car.  I drove out to the International School of Uganda (Private American-operated school for rich kids and diplomat’s kids) to borrow their chalk-marking machine for the track.  No rain all day, track surface was ready to be marked by the time I got back with the machine.  Miracles were happening.

Sunday:  Adrenaline and more miracles.  Shade cloth had been brought, I had to go back in to buy more because the original order wasn’t enough--but it was all there by Sunday afternoon.  By 5:00 Sunday afternoon, most Universities had arrived.  Everything was happening, and it was real, and it was good.  We were ready.  And we’d been told not to worry about Ebola.

The opening ceremony would take place Monday morning at 9:00.

Short Version

The year is almost over.  Lily was born healthy.  She now smiles more than anyone should at any age.  Louise and me smile more now than we used to.

The Ugandan National Basketball League is over, UCU men finished in 3rd place, UCU ladies finished in 3rd place.

The 12th Edition of the NUSFU (National Univeristy Sports Federation of Uganda) Inter-University Games is over.  UCU hosted the games.  But UCU tried to postpone the games due to the Ebola virus, then the games were going to go on anyway without UCU, then UCU got more Ebola information and had to beg to be allowed to continue as planned.  During and after the Games, it was widely agreed that this edition was the best ever.  The UCU ladies basketball team won the championship.  The UCU men’s basketball team finished 2nd.

(long version coming soon, and long)

Lily, Cubs sleep through game 3

I'm up at 4:30 in the morning listening to the Cubs lose.  I'm doing Louise a favor.  I brought Lily out to the living room at 1:30, fed her some of a bottle, walked around a little bouncing and whistling that carnival song, then put her down to sleep.  I signed onto Mark Bartels's MLB.com audio account and got Ron Santo and Pat Hughes on the WGN broadcast of game 3 of the NLDS.

Lily slept all the way through from the lead-off home run through Soriano's weak fly-out.

Lily's got more sense than me.

But it was good to spend some time goofing around with this here website--organizing photos into albums and adding several Lily photos.

Life here, even before Lily, just isn't condusive to spending a lot of time online posting things.  But I do hope to get out here tomorrow and tell a little bit of a story about Lily's birth and a little bit of a story about where things are with UCU basketball.

Now, I'm going to bed.

Sunset September 23rd

The sun is setting on the other side of Kampala, so outside, all in front of us, out a bay window, lights are flicking on in houses, shops, cars and huts spreading out between Tank Hill and Lake Victoria.  Lights are flicking on where light is for whatever reason necessary.  Light is necessary here inside the bay window because you can’t see Lily in the dark.

You want to see Lily.