Safe and Sound!

The weekend has been awesome, but very eventful!
Saturday was the HIV/AIDS fesitval that we have been planning all summer and it went fairly well. It didn't go exactly how we imagined it, but it all turned out! I won't bore you with the details, but there were many bumps in the road and many stressful headaches, but there were so many incredible moments as well. Our children's choir from Ssanyu school sang their songs that they had prepared and they did AWESOME! I was so proud of them! There were 11 kids in our choir and Ally and I had so much fun taking care of them all day! We had a mad dash to buy them bananas and had a little picnic outside after their performance. It was so adorable because after they would sing, I would run back to the area where they came off stage and they would all just run and cover me with hugs! Such a happy moment! It was just so amazing to think back to where we started with the project. No, it didn't turn out like anything we planned. We had hoped to start it for children with disabilities and that wasn't successful. But through the process, we had stumbled accross some kids who loved to sing, but didn't have a choir at their school so I still consider it to be very successful! Although after meeting with the children with disablities, I keep thinking there must be something that we can do for them, even if it is just to make them smile or feel loved.
We also performed our Mzungu african dance! ha ha . . . . . it was very interesting! We had ginormous skirts with a ton of layers to accentuate hip movements! But we did it and we had the whole audience falling out of their seats from laughter! But it was a lot of fun!
After the festival, we headed out to have a sleepover at Rose and Paul's orphange to say goodbye! It was so great to be out there with those kids again! We had a great time playing volley ball with them, singing, dancing, and after dinner, we introduced them to Smores and they LOVED it! I was passing out marshmellows I couldn't get them out of the package fast enough! We also brought a laptop and watched Aladin with them and read books. It was possibly one of the best days ever!
If anyone is wondering about the terrorist bombing in Kampala, we live about 50 miles away so we were all very safe and took many precautions. We are all safe and very happy to get back to work! All I can say is that being in America and hearing about a terrorist bombing on the other side of the world is very different then being there.
This week, is our eye camp! It has been amazing so far and super busy! We have had tons of people show up and have done hundreds of vision tests, about 60 surgeries, and handed out tons of glasses and medications. I was just thinking today as I was watching the nurses remove the bandages from people's eyes about how it felt being there. Ever since I have come here to Uganda, I have seen so much need everywhere! It is very overwhelming at times! But usually, there isn't a whole lot that we can do in one day. You can help them start projects, but you don't get to see their happiness when their quality of life gets better. With cataract surgeries that is exactly what you get to see! One moment, someone is blind. The next day they remove the bandages and although the eye is sore and swollen, they can see! Or when a school kid tries to read the eye vision chart and can't get passed the second row, but you hand him some eye glasses and he can see!! It has been such an incredible two days so far and I'm so glad we will be able to continue until the beginning of next week!
Pretty much every day, I will just be working and thinking to myself, "how did I get so lucky to come here and have this incredible experience?" Although everything has been so incredible lately, it has been so hard at the same time. I am meeting and spending time with so many amazing people knowing that I only have one more week here before I leave. It's probably going to be one of the hardest things ever, especially because they just look at you and say, "please don't forget us."

Gulu

This past weekend, about 7 of us headed up to Northern Uganda to visit Gulu. Gulu is one of the main areas that was affected by the war in Uganda involving the Lord's Resistance Army. It was such an incredible experience! Instead of giving you all the details, I am going to just write the story that was told to us by a guy we met named James. He was asked to write his story, but they had him do it under a different name for safety reasons. So here it is:
"My name is Kilambus Charles. I come from Gulu district, which is found in northern Uganda. This district has been affected by the continuing civil war that has made great impact on the people living in the region.
"I was abducted by rebels together with my wife in the middle of 2003 and stayed with them for 3 months.
"It was around 9:00 p.m. and I was asleep in my room. Suddenly we were surrounded by rebels and I heard a kick at the door and was ordered to open it. Two rebels forced their way inside my room and tied my arms behind my back using my shirt. They looted my clothes, mobile phone, camera, bed sheet and many other things including the original of my exam certificate. They ordered my wife to carry all those properties and bring them out while the other rebels were busy looting properties from my mother's and brother's house.
"They took us to join about 70 other people who had been rounded up. I was tied around the waist with one person and they put my wife close to me and ordered me to take care of her. If she escaped, I would be killed.
"They too k us to the next village and put us there while other rebels went back to collect food that was given to us and carried it with them.
"We walked a distance of 50 kilometers that night without resting and carrying bean seeds of 75 kg. THose who were unable to carry such weight were killed.
"On our way, two of the former rebels whose feet were swollen and the skin was peeling off were killed and they told us that the same thing may happen to any one who could not walk.
"We were going towards Sudan straight away. We walked for four days without eating anything and with the heavy load. I got tired and my feet started to swell and peel off as a result of walking a long distance. I was weak already. Life was terrible.
"The rebel commander ordered that we had to increase the speed of walking because the Ugandan army, UPDF, was following us. But I couldn't walk. So I was beaten seriously and they ordered me to run quickly if I didn't want to be killed. SO I had to do it.
"During the process of beating, I was given dislocation in the bone and seriously injured in my body.
"When we entered in the campe, we were welcomed by other rebels. In the morning the rebel commander ordered us in line. They started selecting young girls who were 10 to 15 years old to be the rebel's wives, which is a violation of children's rights and at the same time is child abuse. Thos who were not beautiful or had problems in their legs or body so that they could not manage what ever was needed, must be killed and they did it.
"Now, with those serious killings we found it normal. Staying with them, I started learning from them how the rebels behave compared to home. But there was no way I could escape.
"Once day around 10:00 am we were attacked by an army helicopter gunship. We continued moving and taking cover in the tall grass and under trees.
"The rebel commander ordered killed people who were dressed in white and red since those colors would eaisily be seen by the soldiers in the helicopter. Two of the abducted girls were killed there and then. I had on white shorts and a green t-shirt. I feared I was the next person to be killed. But I was ordered to remove the shorts and remain half naked. I had to walk like that in the tall grass until we arrested some civilians who had a good pair of trousers.
"This is how I escaped from the rebels: One day I was chosen to be among the 150 people to participate in a battle with army soldiers. When we met with those soldiers and the battle was terrible, I was among the 30 abduted who luckily narrowly escaped death."

James was one of the very lucky ones. Most of the people who were abducted were children because then the LRA could brain wash them into thinking they were the good guys and that their families at home were all dead. We met another man when we were in Gulu named John. He also was kidknapped into the LRA, but he was only 12 when it happened. They told him that his family was all dead and that there was no point in returning. So he stayed with the LRA for 9 years and worked very closely with the leader Jospeh Koney. He ended up getting shot in the leg and because he had been such a good soldier they let him go home instead of being killed. He was very lucky. But because he had been in the rebel army all that time, the whole community looks at him as an enemy now. It is so sad.

It was a great experience going up to Gulu and learning more about Ugandan history. It is just incredible that it was only a few years ago this was still going on.

On a happier note, this Saturday is the Youth Megafestival! We have been so excited getting ready for it! Our little choir however, didn't exactly go as planned. It was frustrating because once the parents realized that we weren't providing free medical treatment, they stopped bringing their children. But there is a group of kids at a nearby school that love it when we come and sing with them, so we worked with Sandra and she taught them a song in Luganda to perform. It is so adorable! I will have to post a video of it once I get home. We also taught them "You are My Sunshine" in English and Sandra translated it into Luganda and they love singing it. SOmetimes you will just be walking around and hear some kids singing it! Also, TYOM is teaching us a traditional dance to perform at the festival. It was funny because they taught us the footwork which was very manageable, but then they through in all this hip shaking which made things to much harder! ha ha but we are ge tting it! And once we get our "dancing skin" on, I'm sure we will really be able to shake it!

Being at a tourist attraction while being a tourist attraction. . . .

This past weekend, we packed up and headed out on our Safari. It has been something that we have been looking forward to all summer long. So we drove up to Kampala and stayed the night in a hostile before heading out on a 5 hour bumpy taxi ride to the middle of nowhere! It was an awesome drive though. Along the way, we stopped at Murchison Falls which is an incredible waterfall! It looks like an entire ocean is being poured down a tiny canyon so water is literally exploding everywhere! It's pretty amazing! We were also shocked to see tons of baboons and wart hogs or pumbas as we preferred to call them. The best way I can think to describe what it looked like was you know in lion king when simba goes off with timon and pumba to the junglish area? Well that's exactly what it looked like.
Finally we made it to our Red Chili camp site and settled into our little tents. Before we arrived, they told us that there were going to be wart hogs all over and that, "they think they are domestic, but they really aren't". They were everywhere!!! Kind of like squirrels back home up the canyon. So once we were settled we came back up to the main area to order dinner. Then my family called and so I was so excited to talk with them that I just left my food for awhile. But as I was talking I thought, I can eat and talk at the same time! So I went and sat in this little chair, with my food, talking on the phone when suddenly, my chair fell backwards, I did a summersault over the back, spilled all my food, and managed to keep talking to my mom through it all! I guess you could say it was done with quite the skill! But the whole place was laughing it was rather embarrassing. . .
The next morning we went on our first game drive! It was so so awesome! We saw TONS of giraffes, elephants, deer things, more baboons and wart hogs etc. However we missed seeing lions by a few minutes! Apparently, they were just walking down the road earlier and we just missed them! Then in the afternoon, we went out on a boat to see all the animals coming to the shores of the Nile to drink and get cool. We saw all the same types of animals but we also saw tons of hippos and crocadiles. There was actually one crocadile that was lurking near some hippos and our tour guide said it was probably getting ready to attack.
The next day, we headed over to the rhino sanctuary. There are only 9 hippos still in the wild today and they are all in the rhino sanctuary here in Uganda. I had been super sick the night before so I didn't actually hike to go and see them, but my group said they were able to see a mother rhino and her calf. Once there are 30 rhinos in the sanctuary which will take about 10ish more years, they will be able to release them into Murchison Falls.
Well it was a great weekend and we have another busy week ahead of us! Can't wait!

Success!!

So first off, apparently I am beginning to fit in here a little more than I expected! On Tuesday, I was walking hom and I ran into Pastor Francis. So I stopped to say oliyotia and he said, "O you look black!" ha ha it was a funny moment! I must be getting a little tanner than I thought!
Just like always, this week has been absolutely incredible! I could go on for pages and pages, but I think I will just tell you about the highlight which was our first meeting for the disablity choir and the support group. We hadn't been having the best of luck so in all honesty, I was expected very few people to actually show up. However, I was so suprised to see about 50 disabled adults and children along with their parents there waiting for us! I was so happy to see all our hard work amount to something! We began with Sandra introducing everything to them in Luganda (which is always a little scary because we don't have any idea what she is telling them). Then we spoke to them for a few minutes before inviting all the kids to come and sit in a circle on the grass to begin singing and dancing.
I don't know if I am just getting weaker or the experiences here are continually getting more amazing, but I seem to have more and more break your heart moments and this was definitely one of them. They were the sweetest kids I have ever seen and they were all so excited to sing some songs. When we were thinking of songs for them to perform in the Aids Extravaganza, we thought of many options, but felt like we should have them sing something in their native language. So we had Sandra come up with a few options and we thought it would be fun to have then sing "You are My Sunshine" in Luganda. The plan was that Sandra would come help us teach them. But, the parents began bombarding her with questions so we were on our own. So we tried to teach them it in English, but realized that without any teaching aids it was rather difficult. So we ended up making up actions on the spot. . . . ha ha if anyone knows a good action for "when skies are grey" it would be greatly appreciated! Then we ended up just singing some fun songs with them that involved a lot of actions so that the children who are mute could participate. It was so much fun and when you saw the kids smile it just made everything so worth it!
After we finished we were all just around the church talking and I went over to these 3 little boys about 10 years old who sang at our practice. They were very shy and didn't say much. I decided to try and teach them "Down by the Banks" as a little game. It took awhile for them to catch on to the hand motions and we moved very slow, but it was so rewarding to see how happy they were when we got it down. I ran over and grabbed some members of our team to perform it for and the kids got so excited! I can't wait for them to be able to perform their song in a few weeks! I know that it will be something they don't get the opportunity to do normally and that it will make them so happy! We are having another practice with them today and we have some homeade instruments for them if they would rather! I can't wait!
Our other practice with another group of children was supposed to be yesterday, but unfortunately, no one showed up! But there were a ton of school kids there so we just decided to stay and sing with them anyways and it was a blast!
Things are still going great here! There are hard, frustrating, emotionally draining, and painful moments, but it is all so worth it! A common phrase that is heard numerous times in our house is, "How come our lives our so great?" I'm just so grateful for this experience!

So this weekend, a bunch of our team was going to Sipi Falls and although I was very tempted to go back we decided to do something else! I remembered that Wilson had mentioned taking us to some places in Kampala and so we called him up and he was excited to take us exploring! For those of you that don't know, Kampala is the capital of Uganda and although I prefer the smaller areas, I wanted to experience Kampala sometime before I left as well! It was very different that Lugazi that's for sure but still not very much like home! He took us to the National Theater, the Parliament building, and to Garden City which is one of the only Malls in Uganda. It was weird to be in an actual city again! He took us to Garden city for lunch and we were so suprised to see. . . yes a food court! ha ha but it didn't take us long to realize that it was still very different from the average food court. Instead of going up to the place you want to eat and ordering, you sit down and every food place shoves a menu at you and tells you to order! It was so funny because after we ordered we asked Godfrey (another member of TYOM) what he ordered and he said chuckling, "I don't know, I just picked something!"
After lunch, we headed over to the Ugandan zoo! It was the most interesting zoo I have been to because although there were animals that were in a semi-fenced in cage thing there were some that just went freely in and out like these little monkeys! I'm kind of ashamed to admit, but we had some cookies and bananas and so we put them in our hands and the little monkeys would just reach up and grab them! So fun! However the wild life that wasn't so fun to see were these ginormous and I mean GINORMOUS spiders!!! I have never seen spiders like that ever and I hope I never do again! They were everywhere! At one point we were walking under this tree and we looked up to see a huge spider web covered in tons giant spiders. . . . gross! Then we went to the beach of Lake Victoria and it was beautiful!
Although we had an awesome time seeing and experience more of Uganda, my favorite part of the day was riding in the taxi! We were all just talking with Wilson and Godfrey and learning more about them! We had so much fun laughing and talking with them and we even got Godfrey to tell us all about Wilson's secret love life! It's quite interesting because apparently in Uganda it is really bad if you parents know that you are dating anyone unless you are engaged. . . . so everything is a secret! I was talking with Wilson about random things and it came up that he said if he could go anywhere in the world he would go to the USA. Now I hear this all the time and sometimes I get frustrated because all the people here have such idealistic views of the US. They think it is perfect and everyone is happy etc. But he began explaining that it was because of all the help he has recieved from the people there and how he believed that now he could fulfill those dreams that he has. He really wants to continue to expand TYOM and their goal is to get to the point where we have an HIV/AIDS free generation. He said that he just needed to save a lot and mabye someday he could make it! I just began thinking about that and I realized that although it was really expensive to get here and that I worked so hard to get the money, it is near impossible for someone here to raise enough to make that same trip. It was just one of those moments where I wonder how things are fair?
On a lighter note on the way home, I was talking to Godfrey and he is absolutely hilarious! We found out that he loved singing and so he started singing us some of his favorite gospel songs. I love how here in Uganda people are never afraid to sing for you. It isn't even half heartedly. They always do their absolute best and get their whole selves into it! Then he asked us to sing some songs for him and we just had a little musical ride home! It was so fun I was so sad to pull up to our gate and call it a night!
We asked Godfrey if we could come with him to church on Sunday and so he said he would come pick us up in the morning! Now everyone who complains about 9:00 church, just be glad you don't have to go at 6:30 am!! I couldn't believe a church started that early! But sure enough we showed up and there were people there singing their hearts out! It was an awesome experience to be there with them!
There's the weekend in a nutshell! This past week I have just been thinking about some things that I have learned so far being here and learning from the friends we have made. There have been three things that really stood out to me.
1. You don't need alot to make a big difference. When Wilson started TYOM he didn't have any money. He just realized that their was a problem in that many teenagers were getting HIV/AIDS and so he decided to do something about it. He had no money, just a desire to make a difference! Now he is still in college with no job but his organization has grown and they even have an office now. They have reached out to thousands of kids throughout Uganda and have definitely made an impact on their lives. If he can do that, it just makes me wonder what we can do with all the resources we have?
2. Being idealistic is not always a bad thing. Many times we will be working with people in the community or partner organizations and they will tell us their ideas for the future or ways they would like us to assist them. They sometimes set aside different problems that could happen and just see all the potential benefits that could happen. Unfortunately, I am sometimes that person who sees all the potential wrong things that could happen. But I started thinking, where would we be in the world if it wasn't for people who put aside all the bad things that could happen and saw how much good could come? Those are the people that really make a difference. So I have decided to try and shift my mind set a bit.
3. It's ok to live off of faith. I have seen this so much here! You will talk with people and they will say, "This is what I am going to do, I'm just waiting for God to help me!" I know I mentioned already about the story of the Ssanyou school, but that school along with many others and TYOM all began that way and have successful that way as well!

"Birungi, you have to kick the ball!"

So I have been thinking that I am turning each of my blog posts into a novel. . so I'm going to limit myself to writing about one fun thing and then one project story for each post.
I am going to tell you about the soccer adventures that we have had here. So The Youth Outreach Mission helped set up a soccer team for some street boys who are orphans. The hope was that by getting them together to play soccer and teaching them a health lesson, they could keep them out of trouble. Their next project is finding them a place to stay. but for now they have a team of about 24 boys between the ages of 8-12 I think. On Thursdays, we attempt to help their team practice by getting some of us together and playing against them. . however, we get our butts kicked each time. Even when we have Wilson, Godfrey, and their two coaches on our team. . we lose! But it is super fun anyways! But many of you probably already know that I am really and I mean REALLY uncoordinated at soccer and since everyone is so good here, they can't really understand what is wrong with me! Hence the reason that Wilson always tells me, "Birungi, you have to KICK the ball" after an attempted kick. That was when I discovered my version of playing soccer is throwing myself at the ball, covering my head and hoping to block it somehow! But we have a good time! Although the people here think it is very strange that girls are playing soccer. . . they give us very strange looks! It's still something I am trying to figure out. If it is just not culturally appropriate for girls to play soccer or if they just don't want to!
This week me and Ally have still been working with coordinating things for the people with disabilities (PWD). We started out just hoping to do the choir thing, but it has expanded and now we are hopeing to create support groups for adults as well as the parents to try and sentitize parents about how to take care of their children with disablities as well as teach business classes and hopefully introduce the Ability Soap project so that they can have some sort of income generating project. It is going to be lots of work, especially after what happened Wednesday. So the pastor at the Lugazi House of Miracles invited us to come back and collect the names of people on Wednesday morning. They had a bunch of doctors and dentists there from Oregon and so there were tons of people from surroudning villages there to recieve treatement! He announced it to them and we ended up with a list of 45 people in that area alone who are interested (we were planning on 8-10) plus we have a whole other group of people who are going to be meeting on Thursday! We have so much work to do! For the most part if you have disablities you are left to fend for yourself in Uganda. They have no way of generating income or friends that can help support them. We are working with the members from the town council and so we are hoping that this project can go someplace! It's just difficult having so much to do and so little time!!
O I know I was only going to write about 2 things, but I have to just mention one more thing. We are planning an eye camp coming up from July 13-15 and we currently have enough funds to screen 1000 people, perform 40 cateract surgeries, and hand out some glasses and eye drops. However, if we had $1000 more dollars, we could double the number! If anyone is interested they can visit the HELP website to participate. Just include Lugazi Eye Camp before you submit!

Fluffy Bunny: aka The Bad Place

Ok the end of last week was awesome and so was the weekend! Here is another quick update! Beginning with Friday. I began the day by going with Ashley and the Education Committee to go and promote this writing contest that they are doing throughout the Lugazi and Mucono Districts. We went to this all girls school with Wilson and it was quite the experience. It was by far the richest school I have seen since being here in Uganda and they even had an assembly room with a stage! Anyways, we didn't really have to say much because Wilson took the reigns on this one, but we did have to stand up and introduce oureselves. Now apparently it is tradition for the team to announce their African name with their real name and so since I didn't have one, Wilson took the liberty of giving me one! He said he had to think long and hard about it so that it would be a good name. So not going to lie, I was expecting something really meaningful! Some other members on our team have names that mean, "someone important" or "rainbow" etc. ha ha then he said, I got it! Birungi! I found out it means, "good". ha ha so yay I have a Ugandan name! But it was hilarious because all the students bust up laughing when you tell them your name! After we finished, Ashley, Ally, Sandra and I went to a few of the churches that are going to help us find children for the Ability Kids choir. We went and brought them our letters and even though we thought we were prepared, we found out we weren't. We were bombarded with questions we couldn't answer and realized we had a lot of work to do. It was kind of hard to take the news since we were so excited about it, but it was a learning experience. Two of the churches however asked us if we could come and announce the choir in their church meetings. . . . a tad bit out of my comfort zone again, but we agreed. That night, most of our team began preparing to go river rafting down the Nile. I wasn't planning on going until a few weeks later, but at the last minute, I decided to just go!
So we woke up bright and early and the bus came and picked us up! Once we got to our destination, this Australian man named Sunny came on the bus and began briefing us on the adventure. I wasn't really too nervous about it until they began having us fill out liability forms and everything! I also didn't really know much about river rafting before this, but they told us that when classifying rapids it goes from 1-6. 1 being calm water and 6 being if you take a raft down it, you will be severely injured if you even come out at all. But they reassured us that they would just take us up to class 5 rapids. Then we loaded up in our rafts with our helmets and life jackets and we were off! They told us we needed to practice flipping the boat so we would know what to do WHEN it happened out in the rapids. Our guide reassured me that I wouldn't get stuck under the raft if it flipped, but if I did it would be in an air pocket so I could get out just fine! So we flipped and yes I got stuck under and no it was not in an air pocket so I seriously thought I was going to die drowning! So after that experience I became terrified about falling out of the raft which made the rest of my experience a little more scary!
Well luckily all the rapids were amazing ( until the last one, but I'll get to that in a minute)! We went right through them and they were awesome! We didn't flip or anything! The only trouble we ran into was when we were going over a waterfall, we got stuck on a rock and had to bounce off! After each rapid there was about 15 minutes of flat water to just relax and enjoy the incredible scenery! As we neared the final rapid, rumors started coming around of a place in the rapid called The Bad Place. Apparently it is impossible to go through it without flipping so of course that is where my team wanted to go! Our guide knew that I was scared so he was like, I'll change the name to Fluffy Bunny. . . didn't help! So sort of against my will we came face to face with The Bad Place. All I really remember about it was paddling, hearing our guide scream get down and then flying! After that I was just rolling around in the water gasping for air until a kayak came and rescued me! I thought I had a rough time, but after talking with my team I was a lucky one! Many members on my team got sucked down in the water and said they felt their lungs heaving from holding their breathe so long! So moral of the story, I am very glad that I had the experience of getting to know the Nile on a personal level (since I swallowed about half of it) but I don't think I will EVER do it again.
After that some members of our team went bungee jumping and out to dinner, and were going to spend the night in Jinja, but Ashley and I had to head back because we had to visit the churches with Sandra the next day.
I haven't ever been to another denominations church on a Sunday before, but I loved the experience! We first went to Mass at the Cathedral! I imagine that it was very similar to Mass in the USA, but the choir was complete with African drums and everything! It was awesome! Then we went up, gave our announcement and after the meeting headed over to the Lugazi House of Miracles! It was a completely different experience there! We could hear singing and 80's style music booming as we walked there! It was basically a big party in there! And it was interesting because there were actually a group of Bzungu there from Oregon. They were doctors and Dentists hear for the week to treat people in the area! The pastor there was awesome and so willing to help us. He even offered his church as a place for us to practice.
That night the second wave of volunteers came. It was a rather bitter sweet experience because it was so excited to see everyone and have more man power for our projects, but it means that my experience in Uganda is half over! I can't believe how fast time is going! I wish it would slow down! But it did help me realize a little better, that we can't lose steam with our projects. We have so little time here and so much work to do!
Monday I didn't have any set plans in the morning so I tagged a long with a few people who were going to the Ssanyou school because we are wanting to build two classrooms for students with disablities and so Nicole is writing an article to send back to Canada to raise some money. So Pastor Francis and Sister Ssanyou who own the school told us the story of the school. It was such a touching story! They have worked so hard and have had to have faith to make it through their struggles with it. The schools here require students to pay school fees to attend and then additional fees if they want to have food at school. If they can't pay the fees they can't come or can't eat! However, at the Ssanyou school, they only have about half of their students who are able to pay school fees and they give each child porridge every day regardless of wether they pay or not. So needless to say, they are very behind in paying the teachers and other fees. It is amazing though because the teachers don't quite even though they are currently receiving about 30,000 shilling a month (which is about $15) because they know Pastor Francis and Sister Ssanyou are honestly trying their best to provide a good education for the students and pay their fees.
We also talked with a girl named Angel. She is an orphan now and she was telling us all her dreams of the future. How she wants to be a journalist! But she doesn't know if she can continue her education because once she leaves the Ssanyou school, she will be at a school that won't allow her to just not pay school fees. It was such a touching moment and I think all the experiences so far had just built up so I just lost it! Then the rest of our volunteers there lost it too and it was such an emotional experience! It's just sad to think back to all the times I would have rather been any where at school when kids here would do anything to be in school! Then we went out and played with the kids during their break! Then I went to teacher training again, which was awesome! We did all these activities that were hilarious! The teachers are great! Then we headed over to Hope Children's Home and hung out with the kids there for a little while! I love going there! I don't remember if I mentioned this earlier, but there is a kid there named Mark and he is so adorable! He is five and an orphan. If I could, I would honestly adopt him! Anyways, we played games with them and I talked with a girl named Florence. She was telling me her story and how she ended up at Hope. I love it when the kids open up to tell you their story, but it is hard to hear at the same time because they are always sad. But she loves to sing and so she taught me a song in Luganda!
Which brings me to today, Tuesday! This morning we met with some people from the Cathedral who are interested in either joining a support group for people with disabilities or joining our children's choir. A man named Frances came and told us his story. He was orphaned when he was very young and since then his siblings haven't really helped him. We told him about the business classes and income generating projects we have and he seemed excited to learn to support himself. We also met with a lady named Rose who has a some who lost a leg and has severe epilepsy. We were asking her questions and she said her son was so excited to sing! All the hard work we have done finally felt like it was worth it, even though we just met two people!
Sorry this was so long! I'll end now! O and just something funny, everytime I tell people my name is Kate since they can't pronouce katelynn, they kind of laugh. Don't even worry that k-a-t-e in Luganda means "little cow". They told me that suits me. . . whatever that is supposed to mean! ha ha I love it!

O the situations I get myself into. . . . .

It has been another fantastic week in Lugazi! We have been busy as per usual, our projects have finally started happening, and I have learned so much! On Tuesday, me and Ally went and met with Sandra about starting up our children’s disability choir! We wrote out some letters to give to the local churches and parents and decided to name the choir Kids Ability. Sandra is currently going to school and studying about child development and she is so knowledgeable about it and I can tell that she loves the kids so much! She has helped us so much and I am so excited to go out with her again on Friday so that we can get the letters to the churches before Sunday. We are hoping to have a parents meeting next week before we gather all the kids together for our first practice. We are just a little bit rushed though because we are hoping that we can have the kids perform at the HIV/AIDS extravaganza that is coming up in less then four weeks!

Later on Tuesday, Peggy (Page) and I went and met with some members from The Youth Outreach Mission because they invited us to come and help them teach some lessons about HIV/AIDS with them. We already had a lesson prepared, and so we were very excited about coming to help them. However, it wasn’t exactly what we were expecting. That has been an ongoing struggle here. You think that you know exactly what they want you to do, but they really expect much more. When we got there, they handed us this huge study guide thing not only about HIV/AIDS but about reproductive health and career guidance. All I could think was, “what did I get myself into?” I had barely gotten to the point that I could explain HIV/AIDS to an audience but not a huge broad topic like reproductive health and I am the worst example for kids to look to for career guidance since I think about changing my major all the time! O and they said, most of the students are girls, so that’s why we were hoping that you girls could do the talking to make them feel more comfortable (stress level rising)! Well they could tell we were nervous and we like, “don’t worry, just say whatever you feel!” ha ha. . . o funny joke! But they went through the study guide with us which made us feel a little better!

That night we were supposed to train our team about HIV/AIDS since we are doing so many projects with it, and it was supposed to kill two birds with one stone because it would give us an opportunity to teach the lesson we were planning on teaching to the schools. When we taught our team, everything went super well and it was awesome because we invited our guard, Morris, in to come and listen so we could make sure everything we id was culturally appropriate. It was so awesome because afterwards, he was asking us all these questions and it was just a great feeling to know that we had educated someone who might be at risk of HIV/AIDS about how to keep himself safe! Anyways, then we had to brainstorm how we were going to teach our broad topic to the secondary school. . . .i suppose it went alright!

Wednesday was a super busy day! We started off with an early appointment at the hospital! I don’t remember if I have ever described Kowolo hospital to you before so I’ll try and explain now. It is VERY old! They don’t have any modern equipment, technology, or even indoor plumbing. They wash and dry all their linens outside, have 3-4 outhouses, and burn their trash outside on the lawn. Every time I go there I am just so taken aback! Anyways we got there and Becca and I decided to walk around and talk to some of the kids that we just sitting outside! We talked with them and took some pictures which they loved! They were so adorable! Then we just waited for some people to show up for our next meeting! O funny random thing I have learned while being here in Uganda is that when you find yourself in weird situations, (because many people want to date white girls here) you just tell people you are married! Anyways not long after Wilson and Alan from TYOM as well as some more people from our group came and we waited for our meeting. While we were waiting, we had a very interesting experience. So Wilson asked us what our plans for for the upcoming weekend and a bunch of people in our group said they were planning on going rafting down the nile. We explained to him our plan and he was like O that’s fun, how much is it? So we told him, “it’s about 200,000 shillings ($100). He got the most surprised look on his face ever and said, “O you mean 200 shillings?” and we said, “No 200,000 shillings.” At this point the guilt started setting in. He said, “If I had 200,000 shillings to go river rafting I couldn’t do it. There are too many other more important things I would need to put it towards.” Pretty sure if you compiled every ounze of guild I ever felt in my life and put it in this one moment, it wouldn’t equal what I felt. It definitely gave me food for thought and I’m still wrestling with my conscience a little to figure out what would be the right thing to do!

Soon Becca, Peggy, and I had to leave to get ready to teach our lesson at the school so we grabbed a chapatti and headed over to the TYOM office. They were waiting for us and quickly ran over everything again and we were off! I still didn’t really know what we were doing or anything, but I was pleasantly surprised when we got there and TYOM stood up and it was like all their serious, shyness went away and they did so awesome!! The kids loved them and they were so entertaining! It made the mood so much better and everything went great! It’s so awesome that you can tell just how important it is to these college students to educate students throughout their community! After the lesson, they had us answer some of the questions that the student’s wrote down throughout. Not going to lie, it was slightly out of my comfort zone, but I knew that I had very knowledgeable people behind me to help me if I said something wrong or got stuck in a bind! Overall, it was an awesome experience and I’m excited to do it again on Friday!

As we were walking home, I was talking with Sandra’s brother Timothy. He was telling me how since he was a little boy he has wanted to be a doctor. He said that because the University’s have such high requirements and are so expensive he is having to take a very round about path to finally fulfill his dream. Something interesting though, the medical workers in Uganda get paid very low wages!! In fact, it is almost hard to make a living off of them. So it is touching when you hear someone who wants to have that job because you know that they really want to help people. So he was telling me all his plans and everything and I told him that sometimes even in America people have a hard time paying for school and finding a job and he said, “but America is the land of opportunity. Even if you don’t get the job you want, you can still find something.” It just really emphasized the fact that we really do have so much. It made me start to think about what exactly I have done with the things I have been given. I know I haven’t taken advantage of all the blessings I have. Although I have been grateful for them, I didn’t really think, “What can I do to make the most of this?” It was yet another eye opening moment for me! Well I still love every moment and everything I have learned so far! Walaba!!

I left my heart in Sipi!

Ok ready for the longest update ever in the shortest amount of time! It has been a busy past few days but it has been really incredible! So beginning with Martyrs day. For those of you that don't know what that holiday is, I will explain it to you. So In the 1800's the main religion in Uganda was Muslim. Then Christian missionaries began coming and spreading christianity among the people. The king at the time was scared that the people would begin worshipping Christ more than him and so he decided that he would just start killing them. He decided to start with the people that worked in his court. There were about 25 of them I believe. He began by forcing them to march to a village called Namugongo all chained up together. Once they got there, they were tortured, and burned alive in an attempt to have them denounce their religious beliefs. However, none of them did. Instead they sang hymns. Contrary to the king's hopes, this actually caused Christianity to spread and the man who ordered their martyr actually converted to Christianity as well on his death bed. The story is a little more complex then that, but that is the fast version. So now it is tradition for Christians throughout eastern Africa to make the same trek to Nomugongo in honor of those men. Since it was a national holiday, we decided to go experience it ourselves! So we woke up super early and headed to the site! It was incredible to see how many people there were gathered together. I couldn't understand anything that they were saying because it was in Lugandan, but it was still amazing to be their with them. There were two places that people gather. If you are Catholic, you go to this giant Cathedral and if you are Protestant they gather at this church. We visited both and were able to learn a lot about the Ugandan culture.
Then on Friday I went on an outreach to a village called Kayunga. Five of us went with Emanuel to do some HIV/AIDS screening and some physical therapy things. I ended up helping two girls on our team who have experience in physical therapy help some elderly patients who had back, knee, ankle, or shoulder pain. I learned a ton!! We also screened 45 people for HIV/AIDS and had 3 positive results. There was also a child there who was dying of AIDS and it was so hard to see her suffering!
On Saturday, 8 of us woke up super early to head to Sipi Falls. We had a reservation of somewher to stay, but we didn't exactly know how we were going to get there or anything, but we decided that that was all part of the adventure. So we headed off! And everything went great! After about 4 hours of driving, we pulled into the Ugandan mountains and it was absolutely amazing!! By far the most beautiful thing I have seen in my entire life!! We got to our sleeping reservation and met our guide, Fred. We had a lot of confusion though about everything and we ended up having to switch over to another camp site, but it was well worth it because the place we ended up staying was so incredible! It was located on this cliff that overlooked the falls and a picturesque landscape that allowed you to see hundreds of miles of rural Uganda! And we were going to sleep in bandas wich are mud huts with a straw roof! Needless to say we were very excited! Then Fred took us on a hike to see two other waterfalls. However cheesy this may sound, all along the trail everyone kept saying, "I think I just died and went to heaven!" It was just incredible how beautiful it was! Words can't even do it justice so I'm not going to try! Pictures can't really either, but I'll try and get one still anyways to show you! At the first waterfall, we hiked to this area that was directly behind the waterfall. There were dense green plants everywhere and a mist that covered the whole bottom! After taking about a million pictures, we headed off to the next one! The next one was equally as beautiful and we continued to the top! Once we got to the top, it was a little plateau area and there were all these little kids at the top playing games and cattle grazing! I'm not even kidding when I say it felt like a dream! We all wanted to stay up there, but Fred hurried us along because we were already late for our dinner reservations. (O just so you know, we imagined Sipi looking very touristy, but it wasn't at all! Everything is super small and it was all just so. . . perfect!) When we got to the hotel (relative term) where we were having dinner, we were just blown away again! It was this hut on a cliff overlooking all the beautiful things already mentioned, lit by lanterns!! It was so. . . romantic I guess you could say! There was only one other group in there having dinner becuase there were only two tables and it was a cute family from the UK. So we sat up there and ate our dinner watching the sunset! It was just incredible to say the least! Then we headed back to our banda where the guys running the place for the summer had built a fire on the overlook area and invited us to come and sit around it! So we did and it was so much fun! We sang songs and told stories and laughed at each other! And then in unbelief at how amazing the day went, we headed to bed!
The next morning, I woke up super early for some reason and grabbed a few things and headed out to sit on the overlook! It was still as amazing as ever! I also talked with one of the guys there about our next adventure in Sipi which was repelling down the falls! I was only slightly nervous about it until he confirmed to me that the falls was 100 meters high!! I started getting nervous and he was like, you can do it, just don't get to the top and chicken out! So I made up my mind to do it! After eating our African french toast (it is very interesting by the way) we hike up to the repelling area! When my turn came I walked over to the guy with all the ropes and he was just harnessing me all in and I looked down and freaked out! Comfortingly he said, "It's a long way down". Why he thought that was a good time to tell me that, I have no idea!! But I climbed over the edge of the cliff and started going down! It was pretty good for the first five minutes until my feet wouldn't reach the cliff anymore! I didn't know if that was supposed to happen so I kept trying to reach it, which ended up causing me to spin, which twisted the ropes, which made me REALLY freak out! I sat there for a moment trying to take in the scenery but slightly distracted about falling hundreds of feet to my death! But since I was in the middle of the cliff, I couldn't really do much so I just decided to go down spinning! It was quite nice actually seeing all angles of the waterfall and the view! So amazing!!!! I wished I could have taken a picture from where I was! Unfortunately or fortunately depending on how you look at it, I reached the bottom and got soaked by the mist coming off the waterfall!!
After everyone took their turn, we began hiking back! We met these two little kids Isaac (about 10) and his little brother Joe (about 4) and they led us back along the trail! They were so adorable! A girl in our group took off her shoes so that she wouldn't be slipping so much and Isaac picked them up and carried them for her. Once he reached some water, he began washing them for her. It was such a touching moment!! After reaching our campsite, we had to pack up our stuff and get ready to go! As we gathered our stuff together, the people up there asked us, "So when are you coming back?" It's pretty heart-breaking to be at the most amazing place you have ever seen and admit to yourself that you are most likely never coming back. But it was such a great experience and I'm so grateful for it! As we were waiting for the taxi to come get us, I was sitting in this little hamock on the overlook, listening to African music, marveling at the wall I repelled down and this monkey we named George jumping through the trees wondering how life could get any better!
It was a long drive home, and when we got there, we had our sight visitor here. He is from the HELP office and he is just out here for the week making sure that everything is going ok. After our meeting he broke out this bag of American candy (6 pound bag, 150 pieces) and I am not kidding when I say the whole bag disappeared in a half hour! Every felt so sick afterwards, but it was quite the treat! We also reviewed all our plans for the week (which is going to be super busy!) and began getting things organized! Coming up this week, me and Ally are going to go around and get things set up for a choir for children with disablities that I am super excited about and we are going to do an assembly for a secondary schoo here in Lugazi with the Youth Outreach Mission. They want us to go and give a little lesson about HIV/AIDS so the public health commitee has been frantically getting proposals done for funds as well as perfecting our lesson plan. It's going to be an awesome week and I"m so excited about it!
This past week, I have just been thinking about the things that I have enjoyed the most so far about being in Uganda, and I think without a doubt it has been meeting the people! I love just talking with them and getting to know their life stories, goals, and dreams for the future, etc. I wish I couls tell you about all of them, but as I said before, I don't have much time today unfortunately! But it has been incredible and I know it is going to be hard to leave!

I don't have much time today to blog, but I just wanted to let you all know that our team has a blog with pictures if you are interested. It is help-uganda.blospot.com (I think)

Indian Africa. . . . . .

Well. . . I am sitting here and for the life of me, I can't remember what I did on Friday . . . so I will begin with Saturday. We didn't have any set weekend plans for our days off, so we just decided to wing it and head to Jinja and figure something out. So we hopped on a taxi and went on our way! I still love just driving in the taxi's and watching all the amazing Uganda sights, sounds, and smells pass by! We told our taxi driver to take us to the source of the nile because we heard that it was a cool place from a guide book, but we didn't really know what to expect. When we got there, we saw tons of little shops that were in traditional African huts and little boats floating in the Nile and we decided that we would just go on a little boat ride! It was very chido ;) But it was kind of weird in a way because I have heard about the Nile my whole life, and now that I was there touching it, I just couldn't believe it! But it was beautiful! It seemed like a jungle and we even stopped on a few little islands along the way that we name Gilligan's Island! O and we saw monkey's hanging out in the trees for the first time since we have been here! So in case you are curious, the Nile river is 4000 miles long. It begins in Lake Victoria where 90% of it's water comes from. The other 10% comes from an underground spring. The water (where we were at least) was moving very slow and we found out that it takes 3 months for it to make it all the way to the Mediterranean Sea! After our little boating excursion, we were all hungry and so we separated into different groups to go find food. The only problem was 1. we didn't know where we were in Jinja and 2. there was no public transportation nearby. So we did the only thing we could do, started walking! ha ha we didn't even know if we were going the right direction! Soon we just started flagging down bodas one by one to pick us up! You know, it still seems so odd to me that to get around in Uganda, you go up to some random guy on a motercycle and ask him to take you somewhere and hop on! But that's what we did!
Random fact about Jinja, although it is obviously majority Ugandan, there is a large percent of Indian people here that work in the sugar factories so it is rumor that the Indian food is amazing! So we decided to check it out! So four of us told our boda drivers to take us to this random Indian food place and it was super small! But we were excited becuase everyone in there was Indian so we figured that was a good sign! We ordered our food and waited. Now it seemed logical to us that when you order Indian food it would come with rice to put the sauce on. Apparently that isn't so! So they brought us out little bowls of sauce and we were so excited to eat it because it smelled delicious! After a few minutes of staring at it we asked if we were getting rice too and they laughed and said. . um no! ha ha so we had to order some, but it was so worth it because it was amazing!!! We will definiately be going back there before we get home! After we ate, we decided to continue our Indian Africa adventure and head over to the Hindu temple. It was awesome! we talked with the Hindu priest and the care taker and they were telling us about the way they worship and everything. Then the priest came over with the bowl of the most disgusting cheese looking chunks and offered it to us! I definately hesitated a bit before putting it in my mouth, but was pleasantly surprised when I discovered it was practically pure sugar! Then we decided that since we were in a bigger city we would spoil ourselves and go to the supermarket before heading back to Lugazi.
Sunday we were back in Jinja for church. A few of us have been going to young womens lately because they invited us the first day and we have loved going ever since! We had the manual and weren't exactly sure if we were teaching or not but didn't worry too much about it! Well I walked into the room and it said next to lesson Sister Kate! So I had Ally come teach with me too and we tried to teach a decent lesson about sharing the gospel. It went alright, we talked about all the ways that we can share the gospel. However, it never occured to me that maybe we missed part of the point of the lesson. Once we finished one of the young women got up and said, "It is important for us to share the gospel because Heavenly Father wants us to to bring souls back to him." I just sat there for a minute and thought, ya know, that statement alone was more meaningful then our entire lesson! All I can say is that the young women in that branch are awesome! I look up to them so much! That night, we had a team meeting about planning out our projects. We were reminded that we need to be searching out different ways to help among the people instead of taking our western world beliefs and trying to implement them here. But after we finished, we watched a documentary called War Dance and it talked about all the kids in Uganda who have been victoms of the war in Northern Uganda and how they cope with it through music and dance. It was incredible!
Today is Monday and it has been a great start to the week! I began it by heading to the Buikwe district this morning where we visited some school who we are thinking about helping. The people who work there are so amazing! There was a school that had 87 students who were either orphans or were being raised in single family homes. We wanted to see if they had a mucic curriculum since me and Ally are interested in doing that and whenever we asked the schools they would say yup we have a choir and go round up all the students! The students would sing us songs and they are so adorable!! There is one song that they love and it goes, "Jesus is a winner man, a winner man, a winner man. A winner man, a winner man, a winner man. . etc." With a second verse that goes, "Satan is a loser man, a loser man, a loser man. A loser man, a loser man, etc." They all were so happy!! Then they had us sing for them! ha ha believe it or not, we sang "Jesus wants me for a Sunbeam" and "popcorn popping". Yes they looked us like we were crazy mzungus but. . I like to think they secretly enjoyed watching us humiliate ourselves! We all laughed together and it was so hard to leave! The kids actually chased us down the street and the pastor had to go tell them to go back to the school! But, the teachers there are all volunteers!!! Then we had a teacher training and I could just see how much the teachers there love their students!! They were all experienced teachers and were asking us such hard questions about what they should do. I felt so inadequete!!! I tried to answer best I could. Part of me wanted to just say, you know so much more than I do about teaching, can you just teach me instead? But seeing the hope they had that we could help them, I just tried to answer the best I could. I just felt so much love for them and their determination to better the lives of their students! Through today's experience, I know without a doubt that I want to be a teacher and the teachers I met today will always be some of my role models.

I thought I was dreaming. . . .

Oliotya! I can't believe that it has been another week here in Lugazi! As I see more and more of the scenery and people I continue to think it is more beautiful every day! It has been busy again just trying to get more projects set up and talking with partner organizations but it has also been very fun and eye opening. On Tuesday, chairman Livingston invited us to go on an outreach with him to some rural villages nearby. So eight of us hopped on board along with 2 nurses and 2 guys who recently graduated in clinical medicine. It took about an hour and a half to get there along a very bumpy road but as long as you looked out the window you didn't mind one bit! It was absolutely beautiful!! It was like a jungle, just like you would imagine the heart of Africa to be like and here and there there were little clay huts with straw roofs! Then as we pulled up to the first village, there was a huge crowd waiting for us. Now the plan was that since we had four villages and there were eight of us, at each village we would drop two of us off to spend the day. Knowing this I began panicking. Seeing all the people waiting for us to come and teach I felt so inadequate and immediately began wondering what I was going to do! But we all got out and began unloading supplies and we went into a little meeting building where the chairman spoke to the people and we all introduced ourselves. This was the first place I have been where hardly anyone speaks English. . . which made me even more nervous. But the chairman continued to talk and then they all stood up and sang the Ugandan national anthem. It was so awesome to see how much pride they had in their developing country! It turned out that they were really interested in agriculture here so one of the guys in my group stayed with them to talk so the rest of us loaded back into the bus.
The next stop was me and Ashley's stop. We had a very similar greeting, but they didn't have a building to go in. They were just sitting outside. It was interesting because the men and women were segregated on different sides and the men had the chairs. All the women were sitting on the ground. I found out they had been waiting for us for hours! This time when we introduced ourselves, we did it in Lugandan. "Nze Kate. Ndi Mumerika" ha ha they immediately busted out laughing! They love it when us Mzungu's try and speak their language! After the chairman spoke, the rest of our group left and me, Ashley, a Ugandan nurse and health worker stayed behind to get started. Since they mostly just speak Lugandan, the nurse and health worker began teaching them lessons about HIV as well as family planning etc. Once they finished they sent me with a man named Wilson to do some medical things and Ashley stayed with the nurse. I had no idea what we were going to be doing! It turned out that we just did more HIV/AIDS screening and I was in charge of doing all the paperwork for it. All I can say is I got very good at spelling African names! We also tested many children and I remember hoping so bad that none of them tested positive. It took a few hours, but once everyone was tested, Wilson and I began looking at the results and we discovered we had two men test positive. It was really sad and even though I couldn't understand what they were saying once they found out their results, I could tell it was heart breaking news for them.
We were doing all this in a woman's house and once we were done, she came out and brought us food! This was the first time I someone we were helping offer me food. Guess what it was? Yup Matoke and G-nut sauce! ha ha I had to laugh! Although it was a little strange, I manage to finish it up and we through the bumpy streets back home.
On Wednesday we went and built an adobe stove for a school that is near our house called Sky Way. It was so much fun to get all the supplies ready and build the stove! Especially because all the kids were there wanting to help. They worked so hard to help with the clay and everything! However, we ran out of clay when we were almost done and so we had to tell them we would come back the next day to finish. As we were getting ready to go, the headmaster came out and was thanking us and just asking if there was something he could give us. We told him no and he said, "how can you give us such an amazing gift and not want us to give you something in return?" It was so sweet of him and he eventually went and got us these papers that had information about their school on it and said that it was to help us remember their school when we go back to the USA. That is something I have noticed since being here. The people worry so much that after we spend the summer here with them, we will go back to America and forget all about them. It's really sad.
On Thursday, I didn't have much going on so I hopped on board with other commitee's projects. In the morning I went to a savings and loans meeting, then I wrote the proposals for a new design of handwashing stations, researched the prices for supplies, finished the stove and ended the day at this Children's Home in Lugazi. Our neighbor Dennis works there after school every day and on the weekends and he wanted to take us there. So we hopped on a Boda and had the most beautiful ride ever! It was amazing when we got there because the kids were all so happy! There were 47 of them and they had a farm with cows, pigs, chickens, rabbits, pineapples, sweet potatoes, jack fruit, carrots, maiz, they were all taken care of so well it just made me so happy! We met all the kids and they did a little preformance for us with drums, singing, and dancing. Then we all just played with them for a little bit and talked. I talked with a girl named Jackline, Norah, and held a little boy named Mark. Dennis told us that if we can in our free time, come and spend some time with the kids to help them feel loved. We all fell in love with those kids and I'm sure that we will be back!
I had a little down time yesterday and so I was looking through some of the contacts from last year and I cam across a man named Jefferson and a lady named Sandra who each have run children's choirs in the past to help give youth something to do! I got so excited about it and I am trying to track them both down. Along with holding choir practices for the kids, they teach different health lessons about HIV/AIDS and other things and I can't wait to get involved. If it works out, I think it will be a project I work on for awhile!
Something I have noticed since being here is the incredible people in the community! We have met so many people who are my age, still in college who have seen that people in their community are struggling and so they give of their time to help! Some of these people are a mane named Wilson who is in college but also runs a non-profit organization for orphans called the Youth Outreach Mission, Sandra who runs a place for women called Musana, Dennis who we met yesterday who works at the Children's home, Kizza who spends his time building adobe stoves, mushroom houses and gardens for his friends and neighbors, along with so many other incredible people! It just helped me realized that you don't need to go abroad to find ways to serve people in the community. There are things that you can also do to make a difference!

Counterfeit money, winter coats, soccer, Ugandan music videos and dominos

On Friday, we didn't have much planned, but we needed to go and pick up some HIV/AIDS information from Emanuel. Our country directors were busy and so they told us to just go by ourselves. We were a little bit nervous because we had never did the whole boda thing alone. So we show up where all the boda drivers and we were too scared to just go up to them. It's funny now to think back on it, but eventually we hopped on and headed up to the Lugazi Univeristy. Once we got there however, we realized that we needed a jump drive to save all the information on. . . so we had to turn around and go back and get it. Needless to say we are now experienced boda boda travelers! Once we finally had everything we needed, Emanuel showed us all the info he had gathered for us (which was a ton) and now we have all the info we would ever need to know about HIV/AIDS! ha ha it was funny, after we got the info he started to show us all these Ugandan music videos!
On Saturday, we heard that there was a Kenya vs. Uganda soccer game at Mendela Stadium in Kampala! We were all super excited about it and so we decided to make a day out of it. Just like many other areas around the world, Ugandans LOVE soccer! The game didn't start until 4 and so we were able to stop in Kampala (which is the capital and so it's more like the western world) and we went to Dominos! ha ha it was a little (alot) different than it is in the US but it was a nice change from our usual matoke, bread, bananas and our newest invention banana sandwiches! However, after we had eaten and were heading back to the taxi, I started feeling kind of guilty. I was thinking about where we live in Lugazi where people are barely able to feed their families much more than one meal a day and here we were endulging ourselves in everything that we had missed while completely gorging ourself and it only ended up costing a little more than five dollars a person. It just helped to remind me of why I am here! Although it is an exciting adventure being in a completely new environment I am here to gain a better understanding of development and the role that I can take to help them change their lives for the better. It was just a little eye opening experience for me.
Once we got to the game, I immediately was able to take in all the enthusiasm the people have for the game! It was sooo loud and instead of cheerleaders, they had a group of people playing African drums and dancing. They came in at one point with the huge drums balanced on their heads while kicking their feet up to play them! It was awesome!! It was funny, before the game we were jokingly just wondering what the concessions would be like and we had to laugh when we got there are realized it was exactly like the "drive through"!
On Sunday, we went to church as usual in Jinja! During sacrament meeting, they had a few of the youth give talks. I was so impressed with them. They are so strong in their testimonies and their faith! Although they didn't have their talks written out on paper, they were completely confident and organized in their thoughts. They said exactly what they thought and felt and even though they were young, you could tell that they shared exactly what their branch needed to hear. After church, we were invited to stay for the baptism of two girls. We had to go and make sure that our driver was ok to wait and when we went out to talk to him, we ended up inviting him to come and watch it as well. It was awesome to come to a baptism because eventhough I live in Utah where people are baptized all the time, it had been awhile since I had been to one! It was amazing because almost the whole branch stayed after to show their support to the newly baptized members of the church. After the baptisms, we asked Godfrey (our driver) what he thought about it and if it was different than his church and he said that it was very different than his church but that it was just like it is written in the Bible, baptism by immersion. It made us so excited to hear him say that and he ended up giving his number to the missionaries!
Well that is the update of the weekend! O and about my title, the ATM randomly gives out fake money, if it gets below 70 degrees all the boda drivers put on ski coats and say that it is freezing outside, and people love taking pictures of us. . . it is kind of weird sometimes, especially since they aren't subtle about it. ha ha they just go stand by you and take your picture! But we take so many pictures of our surrounding here so I guess it is even!:)

Projects so far. . . . .

It has been a busy week setting up appointments with partner organizations and starting to get our projects figures out and everything! For the public health commitee our main projects for the next few months are going to be the eye camp and the HIV/AIDS extravaganza, but since those aren't until the end of June and July, we have been working on a few small things until them. On Monday, Emanual invited us to go to an HIV/AIDS screening. We didn't really know what we were going to be doing, but we went with the intention to just observe what was going on. Well. . . he had slightly different plans. When we got there, he took us to the room where there were about 40 college students waiting for us. He got out the equipement and began telling us about the test they did. There is a strip of paper and when you put a few drops of blood on the tip and wait, lines will appear. If there is just one line, the person is negative, but if there are two, someone's life is about to change forever. After he explained it all he was about to hand us needles. . . needless to say we panicked!!! We explained to him that we didn't have permission from our organization to work with needles, and he was like, "well I'm giving you permission." We finally convinced him that unfortunately we needed to talk to head office before we did that so he settled for us to assist him in everything else but the actually pricking.
My whole life I have known that HIV/AIDS is a serious disease, but I don't think it hit me how much it impacts people who actually deal with the reality of contracting it. The tension in the room was so so great and when people came to me, I would take down their names and I just felt so bad for them seeing them under so much mental stress. Once everyon had been tested, we waiting around for the results. The room was completely silent and we felt so uncomfortable. . . yet we were about to get even more so. Luckily, everyone we tested was negative. Emanual said that he had only had 6 people test positive since he has been testing at the University, yet you could tell he was very dissapointed because he knew that the reason everyone was so worried was because they had been pariticipating in risky behaviors that put them at risk. So rather than just tell everyone they were negative, he gave each person an individual counseling session on how to keep themselves HIV/AIDS free. He let us sit in and listen and after he had done a few counseling sessions, he was like, now Kate (that is what they call me since that can't say katelynn) is going to give you a lesson and reveal your results. ummm. . . not only did I only know a minimal amount about the virus I had someone absolutely terrified for their life looking to me for advice! I didn't do so great at first, but it was an incredible experience! Very eye opening!
After the screening, Emanuel invited us over to his house to have a coke! It was really good to try and get the mood a little lighter after that experience! We went over and just talked with him for a little bit and he was telling us that he hopes to come to the USA to go to medical school. He is incredibly smart and I hope he gets the opportunity because he would do awesome and I know that he could do so much good here! But he also told us that that morning he had tested two people that were HIV/AIDS positive. He said it just wears him down when he has to reveal that kind of news to someone. We are planning on helping him with more screening and testing and I hope that I never have to reveal that kind of news to anyone!
I also had my first boda-boda ride! FOr those of you that don't know, that is just a motorcycle basically! It is tradition that girls ride sitting side-ways since they are all wearing skirts, but I wasn't about to do that. . . I was already a little nervous! ha ha so I full on climbed on boy style and told them to go really slow and held on for my life!! I'm sure that the driver was just dying laughing and that everyone we passed by did the same but I felt much safer that way!
Yesterday, we were really excited because we were going to meet the mayor! however, time/meetings in Uganda, are not taken quite like they are in America. It is very normal to 1. be a few hours late or 2. not show up! So he didn't show up! But we finally just met with a lady named Peggy instead after a few no shows!
We are also getting ready to build a stove at a school next week. Me and another volunteer went and visited the school to try and get things ready. It was a boarding school and I found out that out of 200 kids staying there, 125 of them only get porridge in the morning and that is all they eat for the rest of the day! I just can't imagine how hungry they must be and how hard it must be to learn with so little food with hardly any nutrition. THe porridge here is called poscho and it is basically a paste made from corn flour stuff and water. We had it and it really isn't that good and is basically just meant to act as something to fill their stomachs since it is soooo heavy. We are thinking of building gardens at these schools to help the kids learn how to have a garden, practice math, provide better nutrition, and a little extra income.

Weekend trip to Jinja

So, since we have the weekends off, we decided to take a trip to jinja which is the tourist destination in Uganda. It was so funny to go and see many other Mzungu's as well as places that sold hamburgers and pizzas! It was awesome! And the souvenier shops were so much fun too. It was quite different then anywhere else because most things are around one dollar! It's crazy! After we shopped for a bit, we headed over to this resort and went for a swim. It felt AMAZING after the week in the dirt and heat. So there is something very interesting here that we call the "drive through". What you do, is tell your taxi to pull over to the side of the road and immediately you are bombarded with vendors selling meat on sticks, water, pop, sambosas, and my personal favorite, gonjas which are roasted bananas. It's so fun, but kind of overwhelming. So this week since we already were introduced to many of our partner organizations, we selected commitee leads and began planning projects. Me and two other girls on my team are heading up public health and I am so excited about it. Today we went and met with sister Josaphine from the hospital as well as another man named Emanuel. We are planning some village outreach programs and a curriculum to teach HIV/AIDS awareness in the schools. I don't know why, but ever since we got here and learned about the problems HIV/AIDS has caused, I have wanted to spend my time in that area. We also met with a man named Wilson who is charge of the Youth Outreach Mission and he is going to help us teach about health and HIV in schools as well as help us plan an extravaganza for a community awareness day dealing with HIV/AIDS. Also, we will be planning things for our eye camps that will hopefully be starting up in June. That is just what has been going on with public health! There are five other commitees on our team who all have amazing projects they are planning. I am just so excited for all the work we are going to be doing this summer.

Oliotya!

Oliotya! That is the greeting here in Uganda that just means "hello how are you?" which you them respond "Bolunji"! It has been so much fun to start picking up on more of the Ugandan phrases and words, and they love it when you try and use them. It has also been interesting because they speak very simple English and carefully pronunciate each consonant, I realized that in the USA we talk very slurred together and if you talk like that anywhere else in the word, no one will understand you. They also say "mmmmmmm" which is like saying "uh-huh". ANyways for the update here, we have been doing a TON and meeting with many different partners. We met with the womens group that makes Musana jewelry, went to the local hospital and school, and met many fun people along the way. It was really eye opening to go to the schools and the hospitals. I knew that they would obviously be different since this is a 3rd world country, I just didn't know how different. They way that the hospital is set up is that there are different buildings (women, men, children, natal care, etc) and also a lab and an out patient area. They had us just walk around through the giant rooms where all the patients are. I felt very bad just walking around because if I was sick in the hospital, the last thing I would want is to have people come through and stare at me. But we went into the area that the women go after they have their babies and there were three women in there and they let us see their babies who were only a few days old and they were so adorable (mom, you would have loved it!). We also were able to go into the lab and it was funny, they seriously showed us everything, even the collection of urine samples! But the man working in there had a blood sample of someone with malaria and he let us look through the microscope to see what the parasite looks like. It was very interesting and made me very grateful for my malaria medication. The lady who we are working with is named sister Josephine and she was awesome! So funny and friendly! They actually will let us do whatever we want. . which is kind of scary in a way! They asked us if we wanted to deliever babies and all these other things! When we told them that we didn't have any medical experience, we told them we would just be cheerleaders for the women to help and they thought it was so funny! Also, they will let us observe surgeries and everything!
Then we also had the opportunity to go visit the school. It was just a long building that had about ten really really small classrooms in them. I hope to spend lots of time helping out there. They have a bunch of ideas of ways that we can help them. I think one of the main things that they need help with is sustaining their school, making sure that there is enough money to pay the teachers and such. Right now, they are trying to support the school with about 23 chickens and when we calculated everything, we realized that they weren't making close to the profit that they need to sustain their school. We have many projects that we are working on to help this school.
We were also able to build another stove for a widow and her children. They were so excited about it and we had a blast building it. When we were almost finished, we began molding things out of the clay with some of the kids. I made a caterpillar that was rather obese! ha ha but the little boy I gave it to loved it and at first I couldn't figure out why. Then I realized that these kids don't grow up having toys like kids do in the US, so anything to play with was exciting for them. It was really sad to realize.
As far as more cultural things that we have experienced here, we had our first "rolex"! It was delicious! I can't wait to come home and make it for my family (family, be excited)! It is basically an omelet inside a tortilla. The man who runs the rolex stand is very happy that we moved in I think because people from our team get them every day now. I now know why they say that everyone gains weight when they come to Uganda. Also, it is completely normal for the water and power to go out all the time for long periods of time. So we wake up each morning and hope that we have running water, otherwise, we take showers in the rain, or bucket showers. But clean or muddy we are having a blast! I used to feel like 3 months was such a long time to be living in a 3rd world country, but being here and seeing all the things they want us to teach them, I feel like 3 months isn't enough time at all.

Lugazi: noun the most beautiful place on earth

I lied. I thought that Mukono was the most beautiful place every, but when we arrived to our house in Lugazi, I discovered that it was more beautiful! It is a much smaller town than Mukono and so it feel a little more relaxed since there are less things going on. But we live in a village called Nakasade and we are literally in a village. It is amazing! There are goats, chickens, cows all just running around with a ton of kids. The roads are all like little trails and when the Muzungo's (us) walk down the road for any reason, it is like a parade! Everyone comes out of their houses and yells to us or the children run up and grab your hands. Once we arrived at our house, we did a lot of cleaning to get everything set up. It is actually brand new, although you would never know it. We also were able to go to a restaurant for the first time, called the Patron. They gave us the VIP room and were so kind to us. I ordered fish and chips because I heard that it was good! I was suprised however when they literally brought me a whole fish, bones, scales, eyeballs, and all! People were eating their fins and I could hear them crunching. . . . but I did finally get the guts to pull off the fins and eat some! It actually wasn't bad at all! On sunday we had an amazing experience because we were able to travel to JInja to go to the branch there. I have never felt the Spirit like I did there. It was a beautiful building and they left all the doors open so throughout the meeting, you could hear tropical birds in the background and roosters crowing. IT was also amazing to talk to the missionaries who were there. Some of them were at BYU! We also had the opportunity to go to Young Womens. It was awesome! We had a lesson about family history and they took it from a different angle than we would in the states. I learned that each person in ugand belongs to a clan. Each clan also has an animal that they consider their sacred animal. It is important for them to know the name of their clan so that they won't marry anyone from their same clan, because that is considered disgraceful. It was awesome though because the Young Women remembered some people who I know who cam in the past and they were just asking about them. After the lesson, they actually asked us if we would prepare the lesson for next week. It is going to be quite the experience but I am excited! ha ha but it was funny to hear their leader hassle them about personal progress. . . . young women are the same everywhere! O also as we were driving to church we passed through this amazing forest (more like a jungle if you ask me) and we crossed the Nile river! That night, we had our first Ugandan feast! Our cook spent about 9 hours preparing it for us. We had chicken (which we walking around our yard that morning. . . I couldn't really handle that), matoke ( plantains that are cooked in bannana leaves all day) Irish potatoes (homeade tator totts) beans, noodle stuff, fresh fruit, cabbage and I can't even remember what else! But our cook Rose did an amazing job and tonight she is cooking us Chipatti which I am very excited about! Then today, we were able to go and do our first project. We buildt an adobe stove for a family! It was super fun!! by the time we got to the site, there were at least 20 kids following us and they were such good helpers. We had to get all this clay and pour water over it, take off our shoes and stamp it! The kids had a blast and so did we! It is just amazing to see the people who already have these stoves and see how much they have impacted their lives. It helps not only limit the amount of smoke they inhale, but allows them to boil their drinking water, cook breakfast ( because it shortens cooking time) and cook more than one thing at a time. With the time they save they are able to plant gardens or find other ways to help earn money. I really wish that I could upload picatures onto this blog for you all to see the amazing village we live in, but because of computer viruses, it isn't really possible! But the houses have cloth doors and are made from homemade bricks they make from the soil. We have some great plans for the week! Can't wait to share them!

Hello Uganda!

I made it! So far it has been the most amazing experience ever! Of course along the way, there were little pit falls, such as, one of my bags got lost, my shampoo exploded, and at customs in London, the passport checker held up my passport and asked said, "Doesn't she look crazy?" ha ha it was great! But once we landed in Uganda I was taken aback at how beautiful it is here! The people, the culture, and the scenery. There is just one main road and there are all these little shops along the sides that are completely outside. There are even furniture stores outside which I thought was interesting! It was really sad though, as we were driving (O the driving is INSANE here) we were stopped in a jam that happens quite frequently and this little boy runs up to my window and hold his hand up to me. He wasn't speaking English, but I knew that he was begging. Soon, some other children ran up as well and I didn't know what to do! I wished that I could give them everything, but I didn't have any coins and they told us that we shouldn't always hand out money. ANother thing that is very different here is that we stick out like a sore thumb times ten! Everywhere we go, you hear people muttering mzungu this and mzungu that which means white person in Lugandan. It is also interesting to see that the people all dress so nice. Eventhough they live in an area that isn't, they dress in collered shirts and skirts all the time. This made us stick out even more, you can only look so good after three days and two nights of traveling with no change of clothes or showers and no sleep. I have never been so tired! As we left the airport my eyes were glued open as my eyes poured over the sights and sounds of the cities we passed through, but eventually I had to give in to sleep and I was out! We also learned that sometimes they sell contaminated water in normal bottles. We learned this the hard way. . . we bought some water and our country director got this worried look on her face and ran over and told us that they drill holes on the bottom of some of them and sure enough. . ours had a hole! But (mom and dad) don't worry I am not sick! We are actually staying in Mukono tonight because our house is currently under construction. But it is new apparently, but very small. I'm so excited to see it and Lugazi! We are venturing there tomorrow and I can hardly wait! Lugazi is where I'll call home for the next two and a half months! Wahoo!

Goodbye USA!!!!

After months of preparing, researching, and getting excited, the day has finally come!! In just a few short hours, we will be leaving to start our Ugandan adventure! It takes us a few days to get there, but considering I haven't been to any of the places that we are stopping, I am excited to see them all! Our country directors have been keeping us updated about the different things they have experienced as they have started to become familiar with the Ugandan culture, people, and the beautiful country. They tell us over and over that we are going to love it! I'm just so excited about this opportunity that I have to not only experience a new country and culture, but to get to know the people and about their life stories and experiences while we serve them. Well . . . I'm off!