It’s been an interesting night – as evidence by the fact that it is 3:02 AM and I am doing what? as the Ugandans would say?  I am blogging.    It’s the new cure for insomnia.

So it is the first night in about a week I’ve been able to just nod off.  Friends came over and by the light of a few candles (thank you Travis), a kerosene lamp and a little micro-lantern  (thank you Brett) four of us managed to cook a really nice meal of Jambalaya (courtesy of Karla’s Zatarain’s Jambalaya mix and the good friends who sent it) and Chocolate pudding.   There was even wine (Jena and Nemat)!  We all caught up on the week’s happenings – Karla regaled us with her description of getting her ride to Gulu , but only after they stopped to put a goat in the trunk.  Yes – that’s right – someone’s dinner I suspect – not our’s though in keeping with the aversion of having to kill it to eat it.   We’ve had a great meal and good conversation, chased a mouse,  hauled water for the night and fallen into bed.

Miraculously I fell asleep fairly quickly, but kept flopping over smelling smoke. This is the time the crops are burned so we are always smelling smoke and I’m thinkin’ dammit why do they have to burn at night?  This, however, is suffocating smoke.  Finally I open my eyes and discover that it is curiously bright outside.  Now that is unusual, because it’s black as the inside of a cat here at night – save a little moonlight and moonlight is not typically orange.  I go to the window and see that the side yard is on FIRE.  Not just a little fire – a growing grass fire covering about a third of the yard, moving in the direction of the house, beginning to lick at the trees and of course there is the breeze fanning it and throwing embers  20 feet up and into the brittle arms of the overhanging trees.

Did I mention there is no water???  Except for the two small Jerri cans I have hauled before dinner?    And – no electricity – which might only have helped us get around.  So – find my head-lamp, put on fire-fighting clothes, wake Karla- unlock door and investigate.

We are wondering if we should wake the men (David and Joseph) who live on the compound only to discover they are already there – standing with their hands on their hips WATCHING the fire.  One has only a towel wrapped around his waist and both have on rubber flip-flops (not fire fighting shoes).  I managed to say, “Is anyone thinking of doing anything to put out the fire?”   “Well – there is no water….”   “Well I have a few gallons, shouldn’t we try???”  Hmmmm – there is an idea.  So I go get my water and a bucket and one man says – “just sprinkle it.”    I’m thinkin’ – as an ex-fire department volunteer on the scene of other grass fires “sprinklin’ ain’t gonna work here.”  They are not listening, nor are they going for water.

You are probably thinking about now “Silly girl – why didn’t she just call the Fire Department?”  Well – we ARE the FD, because there IS no municipal fire department.  Karla and I begin tossing water on – the flames are really kickin’ up now as the breeze has picked up and fires tend to create their own wind anyway.  The guys decide to add their sprinkles to the mix.  I wake Jaron – surely he won’t want to miss this excitement  – but in retrospect I may have been wrong about that  Nothing much is getting done, so I suggested we get a shovel or a hoe to smother the fire with dirt.   Plenty of dirt around here, but they don’t actually know where there hoe is.    “Where’s your ho(e)?”   Now’s there’s a question you don’t get to ask every day…

Neither David nor Joseph can find their ho – I meant hoe.     A ho – I meant hoe – is a terrible thing to lose.  So I walked over to Diana Garden’s (you know – the noisy neighbors who are – tonight – absolutely deserted) and asked if they have a hoe….   no really – like a shovel and a hoe? Now he gets it…  No they can’t find their hoe either.  See?  Where’s a good ho(e) when you need one?

OK – I’ve milked that one as long as I can, but they did finally find their hoe and I left with her – I mean it – and a shovel.  The ground is hard as a rock so we are literally just scooping up the inch of dust we can find in patches.  But things progress and now with the hoe Joseph began rearranging the fire and dragging burning logs to the dirt driveway.  He’s tromping around in their  making piles of embers in rubber mud boots and I’m hoping they don’t melt.  Another trip to Diana Gardens yields a couple of Jerri cans of water, and by the end of two hours,  we have the fire under control, having moved most of the burning logs, doused the dry leaves around, moved debris into piles and poured water on them.  It’s hard to fight a fire with 50 gallons of water.  I must remember to thank a firefighter when I get back to the States.  Although I think Joseph has FF potential.

I’m sure the guy at Diana Garden’s is happy.  I took his ho (I meant hoe) back – oh yeah – and his shovel.

Nighty night ya’ll

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