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!!