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!