Matoke and Posho

We found (okay, Linda found for us) a little restaurant we eat at pretty frequently. They make all the food the girls are most familiar with, and I want them to be able to have matoke, posho, and the like while we're still here.

That I get to have chapati may also be a factor.

This restaurant is around the corner from where we're staying. Unfortunately, the street we're living on is both narrow and busy, and people are really scary - one bodaboda driver who was carrying some boards knocked Mirah's arm while he passed by. The cars aren't better. They get so close to you, sometimes even when there isn't a car passing the other way.

What's Lusoga for smorgasbord?

It's nice to go in order to get out of the house as well. Because we're staying in a house, there are no other families nearby (who speak English). Just across the street is the market. Americans, I don't mean a grocery store; think a flea market but with food vendors. So much gorgeous food!

Oh my heart! What a little stinker! Love her spunkiness.

Tonight was a little difficult because I'd actually made dinner, but I used a pepper I didn't know, and it was incredibly spicy. I think they were habañeros... #oops
I didn't have time to make something else, so to the restaurant we went, at the busiest time on the road.

On the way home, I was hurrying because both of the girls needed to potty, and a car came really close to Stella (who was walking, holding my hand). A man walking the opposite way on my side gave me a dirty look and said, "take care of that girl!"

I know it shouldn't have, but it made me cry. Really hard. I have gotten angry and hostile looks, but no one has said anything to me until today. And I know a lot of Ugandans don't like foreigners adopting because they don't know the adoption process; many believe we can just walk into Uganda, shower people with money, and walk out with a kid. So it makes sense that they would be suspicious.

And that man doesn't know how hard I'm trying to "take care of that girl," or how close the one I was holding came to dying because others weren't taking care of her. That man didn't see how his face and tone affected "that girl" after he said those words. I wonder if he would care. I know to some, I'm a thief; I'm stealing children. To some, I'm a trafficker. Really.

And I in no way want to make light of all my daughters will lose by leaving their home country, and have lost already by my involvement in their lives. But to those people, I wonder what they would say if I were to ask them: would it have been better for Mirah to have died at the age of two of a treatable disease in her home country, or grow up to deal with that loss as she matures?

Maybe I'll ask her. In thirty years.