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)