Our mechanic reminded me when we were in Entebbe that it's good to 'grease' our truck on a regular basis. Slight oversight on my part. I took the truck to a service station the next morning. Greasing involves injecting grease into various moving parts on the underside of a vehicle. This helps prevent wear and tear. I watched the guy do the greasing, and then he proceeded to ask whether I wanted 'spraying' as well. Hmmm...I thought, 'greasing & spraying' sounds like some kind of routine maintenance, so I agreed. To my horror, the guy took an air-hose and a quart of motor oil and started spraying motor oil all over the moving parts under the vehicle. After getting over my initial confusion, I told him to stop and asked him why one would do such a thing. He said "to get rid of the squeaks". Okay. Whatever. Aside from making a terrible mess, I wondered if their weren't better ways of lubricating, perhaps more strategically. Unfortunately, on our trip back up to Kaabong we discovered that 'spraying' not only gets rid of squeaks, but if you're not careful, it will get rid of an assortment of nuts, bolts, and expensive parts. Ten hours into our trip, the truck developed a worrying bumping sound. As it got worse, we pulled over and I applied my extensive and enviable knowledge of mechanics (not) but didn't find anything. That's when we literally prayed ourselves the rest of the way to Kaabong. Several times since then, I've had to get under the truck and tighten nuts and bolts. But today, Medair was kind enough to let me use their service bay, where hopefully I was able to exercise enough torque to keep us out of trouble.
Although we didn't expect to find ourselves in Timu today, we got there and we got down to work. The Patrol made some funny sounds but it drove. The Lord provided safety through the 'bush' (wilderness areas). We wondered if we'd run into any trouble because the Karimojongs just raided the Turkana across the border yesterday. Nothing unusual happened. So...the objectives for the day were to clean and paint in the houses. Both were filthy from cement dust and an accumulation of dirt. I also uncovered a nest of mice. I squealed when the first ran out while I was moving a brick. I squealed in a higher octave when the second almost ran over my hand. The Ik were standing near the fence outside and burst into laughter at me. Needless to say, we either need mousetraps or a cat. Terrill helped me clean the dust off the barrier wall in our house. Ron & Beth Moe (Wycliffe friends who are staying with us while working on a dictionary project) worked on the guesthouse.
The guest house is getting a nice pistacio-green coat of paint. The four of us were exhausted by the end of the day. We left Timu at 5:30pm and arrived in Kaabong at 7pm. Thank the Lord for a little joint called Riverside. They're the only place in town we ever treat ourselves to. The food is tasty and comes out in five minutes. It's become a Timu, traveling-day tradition. After a plate of beans and cornmush (atap)...I was ready for bed. We hope to move furniture to Timu on either Wednesday or Thursday. We'll go up again on Saturday for more cleaning. Move-in date is drawing near.
Oh yes...we saw these fires along the way. The Karimojongs are burning the grass in Timu forest to make way for new grass at the first rain. When we drove to Timu this morning, nothing was burned. By the time we went home, several miles were blackened. 
We're seeing more progress on our compound and it looks almost livable. This is the water tank that we'll either fill from a well (down the hill) or store rainwater within.
Aleper. The precocious daughter of our cook. Can you see it in her eyes?
