updates of the glory and gory variety

• Swizen, the kid that no one thought would survive but left a few weeks ago, walking and dancing to the ring tones on his plastic cell phone, is now a whopping 9kg and looking absolutely fantastic! He came for his first follow up/weight check today and granted he's 4 1/2 years old and only weighs about 20 lbs but considering where this kid came from, he looks phenomenal...he looks like a big boy, like his face is filling out to catch up with the size of his belly, and well, see for yourself. He sat on my lap for a while today as I registered other nutrition kids waiting for food. If only you could have seen him from my vantage point just before this photo was taken - I was talking to him (the few Lubwisi words I know and then mostly in English) and he was looking up at me with his cute big boy face and doing his "mm" responses in just the right places like he understood just what I was saying even though I'm sure he had no idea...
  
• The case for men - the day after I wrote the post about what I had been thinking about men and their need for reform, I found out some really devastating news that certainly doesn't help your case, guys...I found out that one of the men that goes to the church here on the mission with his wife (they both work in people's homes here on the mission) beat his wife after deciding to "take a second wife" sometime in the last several days...you hear that a lot here, that men decided to "take another wife" and it wasn't until yesterday that I really processed what that means for him and especially for her...it means that he decided to sleep with another woman and plans to continue; that he left his wife and kids alone and went to sleep somewhere else with someone else or he brought another woman home and slept with her in his own bed. Yesterday his "1st" wife lay up at a neighbor/friend/relative's home black and blue from her husband's loss of control, and their 4 kids were wandering aimlessly around the mission as they didn't really know what to do with the situation...I can't imagine being in their shoes...Unfortunately, I'm sure some of you can imagine...in many ways this phenomenon is not unique to Bundibugyo. Here, however, this is culturally acceptable and encouraged, and that leaves me here tonight as I write, outraged!