Gulu

The supplies I was able to buy for the churches with the money raised in the US. These are the pastors of the churches and also my african parents on the left.

This is how Ugandans carry their children around. Because this little child didn't have a diaper on when she was attached to my back, she peed on my back. lol.

One of the churches!

My chicken!

The church where I recieved my chicken!

At the displacement camp. These kids are sooo precious!

Eating some cassava on the way back to kampala from Gulu! Even though it tastes like a bunch of nothingness, its okay if it's roasted!

Beautiful african scenery

This is the church where the pastor asked for us to pray for his wife who had just given birth (explanation in my blog)

Because there are no sinks out in the villages to wash hands, this is how people wash their hands!

2 men who were captured by the LRA and forced to be child soldiers. I met them at the displacement camp.

At one of the churches listening to the pastor speak but having no idea what he's saying since they're speaking in Luo.

My trip to Gulu has probably been the most emotional and life changing experience I have had in my life. It is in Northern Uganda, and is the main location that the Lord’s Resistance Army(LRA) has terrorized for about twenty years. The people of Gulu are just now experiencing freedom and peace for the first time in most of their lives because the LRA has moved into the Congo. The purpose of my family's trip to Gulu was to give the 6 churches that are under my african father's church farming supplies that I was able to buy using the money that I raised. In all, each church got 7 hoes, 7 forks, 21 machetes, and some corn, cabbage, and tomato seeds and tarps for the churches who do not have a sturdy enough roof. All in all, those supplies cost around $800. The churches were then supposed to take those new supplies and farm together and the money made through the produce would be used to fund the churches,provide food for the needy, and also to help pay for any necessities that the church members need.

My African parents and I headed to Gulu on Friday the 3rd of July. Thank the Lord the roads to Gulu are not as full of potholes as most of the roads in Uganda are, so the trip was fairly smooth and relaxing. On our way, we passed through Murchison National Park and I saw baboons for the first time in my life. There were also some little monkeys on the side of the road too. When we arrived at Gulu, we rode around Gulu and it was amazing the amount of Non-governmental organizations that are working there. I saw offices for Invisible Children, Worldvision, UNICEF, UN World Food Programme, Feed the Children, Save the Children, and so many others that I can’t even remember now. My family and I had lunch with Pastor Charles, the head pastor of my African dad’s churches in Guluand discussed our itinerary for our trip and then we just rested for the rest of the day.

On Saturday we woke up bright and early and headed to Pastor Charles’ church. When we pulled up to the church, some church members came out of their huts and started making a high pitched noise that shows their excitement at us coming. Pastor Charles’ church is like a traditional hut but larger. Since there is no electricity in the villages, the inside of the church was really really dark. After visiting Pastor Charles’ church, it was time to visit 4 other churches that Pastor Charles started.

One of the churches was right beside one of the displacement camps in Gulu. A displacement camp is where people who were trying to stay safe from the LRA would stay. Because those affected by the war were forced to stay in the displacement camps in an attempt to stay safe, they had to leave their homes and also their main source of income (their farms). So, in the displacement camps, organizations like the United Nations provided food for them, although from what I hear the rations they were given were not enough to satisfy everyone’s stomach. Walking through the displacement and seeing the few families who were still staying there (most families had already returned back to their native homes) broke my heart. We in America do not realize how blessed we are to have the freedom to move around town and around the United States while also feeling safe. We have never had to worry about our family being slaughtered and our children forced to become child soldiers, which was a very real worry in Gulu before the LRA moved into the Congo.

When we visited one of the churches, the Pastor told my family and I how in Acholi Culture, you’re not supposed to have visitors without providing them with some food. Now, this is very polite and I nice gesture, BUT with us visiting five churches in one day, it proved to be quite a problem. At every church that we visited, they at least provided a soda for us to drink or tea and bread. Some churches even fixed us a whole meal. At the end of the day, let’s just say that I could not look at food anymore because I had stuffed my face to the max. If I or my family were to have refused any food or drink we were offered, the church members would be extremely offended. On Sunday when we were delivering all of the new farming supplies to the churches, at the first church we visited we stayed too long and when we were getting ready to leave, the pastor said that they had made tea for us. My dad had to tell them that we didn’t have time to take any tea because we had five other churches to visit. So, as me and my family were getting in the car, one of the elders of the church came up to the car and started chewing us in the native language for not accepting their gift to us. So, we had to get out of the car and sit for about thirty minutes and take tea and bread. It was quite the experience.

At one of the churches on Saturday, I received a chicken as a gift! It was so hilarious how the lady who gave me the chicken just handed it to me like I held a chicken on a daily basis. I’m pretty sure I have never even held a full grown chicken before so holding one was interesting. I was so overcome with emotion when I received the chicken, though, because in Uganda, especially in Northern Uganda, they are a very important part of daily life and a sign of wealth. It was such a blessing to receive such an amazing gift from that church and it is definitely something I will never forget.

When my family and I stopped by one of the churches, my dad asked me to speak to the members but after only saying my name and where I was from, I began sobbing because of all of the things I had seen that day and all of the people I had talked to who had told me about their experiences with the war. Because I was sobbing, I was unfortunately unable to speak at that church anymore but then the next day my dad told me that I had to speak at the main church that Pastor Charles pastored. Right before it was time for me to stand up and speak, I went to the car and sat out there and let all of my tears fall so I wouldn’t cry while I was speaking. As I was crying in the car, about twenty kids crowded around the car and just watched me cry and of course that made me start laughing because of how awkward it is to watch people watch you cry. When I felt like I was okay to speak, I went back into the church and spoke for a couple of minutes about my experiences in Uganda and about how much the people in Gulu had changed my life. While I did start crying while speaking, I was able to still say everything that I wanted to.

At the very last church that I visited on Sunday night, the pastor’s wife had just given birth to her 7th child. The pastor asked for my dad to NAME THE CHILD! Can you believe it? And the pastor wanted the child to be named after my dad, so the kid’s new name is Bukenya Harry just like my African dad. After my dad dedicated the child to the Lord, the pastor asked my family and I to pray for his wife because while she gave birth to the child 3 weeks before, she was still feeling a lot of pain from the child birth, especially with her heart. When my mom told him that childbirth can cause women to get worn out so easily and asked him how many children he wanted his wife to have, his response was “God knows”. I have never heard anyone respond that way, and for him to say that even when his wife is now having health problems from birthing so many children was just pure ignorance. I have realized that people living in the really rural areas of Uganda need to become more educated on health risks associated with giving birth to so many children and proper means of birth control. If the pastor’s wife were to keep having children, eventually it is going to wear her down so much to the point where she is going to die at a young age and will leave all of her children to the father’s care. That would be a really really bad situation for the father to be in, trying to farm while also raising children.

If you don’t understand why my experience at Gulu was such an emotional one, I will leave you with one story that I was told about what the LRA did to the people of Gulu. Sometimes, the Lord’s Resistance Army would invade a random village and line up the villagers. While in a line, the soldiers would pick people at random and begin to dismember them and once they were dead, they would cook them on a bonfire. Then, they would force the other villagers to eat the dismembered bodies. What kind of sick people would make other human beings do this?

i love africa!

i got to write in some cement that is going to be at dad's church. it says "hannah green was here". how original. lol

a group of kids at sanyu babies home having snack while in class.

me and courtney, another volunteer from texas, with some children at sanyu

here is francis.. he can't hold his head up by himself.

making pancakes for my family!

So, my trip to gulu has been postponed until next weekend because my family had some
engagements pop up for this weekend. we should be leaving next friday really early and come
back home on monday the 6th. my ugandan family has told me that gulu is a completely
different culture than here in kampala so i am eagerly anticipating experiencing a new
place.
i can't believe that i only have one and a half weeks left. while the trip has been amazing,
i am ready to come back home and see all of you again! mom and i went the other day to a
craft shop to purchase some bracelets, rings, and keychains for me to sell to anyone who is
interested. the proceeds of these purchases will go toward buying fire extinguishers for
the dormitories at the school. unlike in america, there is no requirement for dorms to have
fire extinguishers but now after a lot of dorms have been burning down the government is
requiring all dorms to have them by the end of the year. they need 4 of them and they cost
about $150 each. this is $600 that the school does not have, so God willing, these items
will help finance the purchases.
My past week has been fairly uneventful. When i arrived back home from the schools, i
became sick for the third time, so for a couple of days i was confined to home to
recuperate. i can't believe that i have been sick so much this trip especially considering
that i barely ever get sick back home. my immune system better be super super strong now!
On saturday i visited FOCUS and sat in on a primary class. the man teaching was talking
about the different forms of child abuse and what to do if you are a victim of child abuse.
i have noticed that here in uganda they talk about these issues to children so much more
than they do in the united states. it was so sad to look at all of those children and to
think that some of them were probably victims of child abuse themselves. one issue that you
hear about so often here in uganda that you rarely hear as an issue in america is child
sacrifice. i was tallking to the physiotherapist at sanyu babies home the other day and he
told me that his father actually sold him to a witch doctor as a child sacrifice. while he
had no idea at the time that he was actually sold to be killed, when the witch doctor made
him strip down and then left the room for a minute to get a knife, the boy ran away as fast
as he could and reported it to the police, who took him back to his father's house out of
all places.
on sunday which was FATHERS DAY, i got my ugandan father a photo frame with some pictures of
the ugandan family and i. i think he really enjoyed the pictures, especially since some of
them were pics of cathy (their daughter who is my age who is now in college in connecticut).
i can tell that they really miss their little girl!
on monday and tuesday i worked at sanyu babies home. i also talked to the program
admnistrator about francis, the boy with cerebral palsy. she told me that he not only has
cerebral palsy, but also epilepsy, and problems with his sight. she told me that they
would take him to an orphanage for children with special needs, but none of the orphanages
will accept him because the orphanages which are considered special needs specialize in
children who are lame. when i asked her what orphanage francis will be sent to once he
grows too old for the babies home, she said that no other orphanage will accept him and so
she's praying that a family will adopt him. apparently the orphanage used to have a child
with a more severe case of CP than francis and an american family ended up adopting her. i
am just so worried about that child and the quality of care he is recieving at the
orphanage. one of the volunteers who is adopting told me that every night before bed, the
caretakers give the babies bottles to drink and that one time one of the caretakers asked
who had not recieved a bottle because there was one full one left. when someone said that
francis had not gotten his bottle, the caretaker took all of the empty bottles and francis's
full bottle to the kitchen to be cleaned and washed out. she was not going to give francis
his bottle! the volunteer told me that as the caretaker was walking away, she snatched
francis's bottle and fed him herself. isn't that completely horrible?!
so for my birthday which is on sunday by the way, my american mother gave me some money to
buy a new african dress because she says that the one that i bought last time was ugly.
lol. on wednesday, i went with my african mom to purchase some material and to get sized
for a new african dress. i am really excited about how it is going to look and will post
pictures once it's finished being made next wednesday!
yesterday, i went to the babies home again for an afternoon visit. rather than using the
public transportation system to get home, i decided that i should walk so i can familiarize
myself better with kampala and just because i love walking. so, after two and a half hours
of walking i arrived home. im not gonna lie, i am still sore this morning from walking so
far. changing the subject, it is amazing how some ugandans will just start talking to you
in the strangest of situations. as i was walking home, a girl who is apparently in her
fourth year of secondary school named jane came up to me and introduced herself. right
after she asked me what my name was(which i gave her a fake one) and what country i was
from, she straight up asked if i would pay for her school fees. i honestly do not
understand why so many people here in uganda are so blunt about wanting money from white
people. i have had some people walking on the street say to me "Hi, give me money."
Seriously, it really upsets me and sometimes it makes me want to start lecturing them about
how just because i am white does not mean that i have all of the money in the world.
today i am just chilling at home and resting! i made my family some american pancakes with
a new recipe i got online and oh my goodness they were delicious! right now, i am craving
some cake like the kind we have in america. here in uganda, the people in general do not
eat very sweet cakes, so although the cakes look very rich and sweet, when you bite into it
you are disappointed. well thats all for now! see everyone soon!

time for school!!!!

me and most of the girls in the dorm!

the sign for the school

the girl's dormitories

me and the first year of secondary school students that i taught english to.

a group of secondary students in class.

despite the fact that this is an extremely unattractive picture of me, this is me trying to do the kiganda dance. notice how the students are finding this quite entertaining

how i took a bath for 4 days!

grace (eva's maid), me, and eva outside her living quarters.

pumping water from a boarhole for the first time in my life!

part of the primary school

aa bunch of students watching a movie on sunday. lol!

the secondary school. isn't the school beautiful?

this is posho and beans, the meal that the students eat everyday

the girls loved playing with my hair

roy and i with cassava chips (or fries). that was the first time i had tasted them.

on sunday singing with the students in the choir!

one of the families who has had a very hard time providing the funds to send their children to school. imagine a family that large living in a house that small.

a grandmother, grandchild, and i in front of their house. the grandmother has a hard time paying for her grandson's school fees as well.

officially handing two of the balls i had bought for the children to the primary school headmaster and another teacher.

me and some of the adorable primary students being extra silly

The four days spent at Mt. carmel (a private, christian school that my african parents started) has probably been the highlight of my trip thus far. The school is in a very rural area about an hour and a half north of Kampala. It is both a primary and secondary school, although i spent most of my time with the secondary school students. Because the school is in such a rural area, most of the incomes of the parents of the students are made through agriculture, which is a very unreliable source of income considering that weather conditions define the amount of crop they are able to harvest. Many students have either been disowned or orphaned by their parents and are left in the care of a grandmother or a set of grandparents, who have a very difficult time feeding all of the students, much less pay for their school fees.

I arrived at the school with my family on Friday morning. Using some of the money I raised for charity, i purchased 4 soccer balls, 2 handballs, and 2 net balls for the students. As we were pumping up the balls, we realized that two of the balls had holes in them and hence would not hold air. David and I also realized that the store clerk at the store we bought the balls from did not give us a receipt for the transaction, so the likelihood he will exchange them is very slim. I think David and I are going to the store either tomorrow or Friday to try to exchange them, though. Everyone please pray that the clerk will be honest and exchange them for better balls.
After pumping up the balls, a teacher took my family and i on a tour of the school. Since the school is in such a rural area, the students do not see very many white people, so the younger kids would wave to me and yell "bye mzungu" literally until they could not see me anymore. it was so precious. yesterday as pastor bryan and i were waiting on a bus to take us back to kampala, some little kids said "bye mzungu" continuously for about 15 minutes. no, that is not an exaggeration at all.
Even though I stayed in the girls dorm, i ate most of my meals at Eva's house. Eva is one of my parents' daughters and now she is married with a beautiful 8 month old daughter named divine. She teaches agriculture at school and is also the bursar for the secondary school. The school provides housing for all of the staff, so she lived in the staff quarters. Her living space consisted of a living room and a bedroom. All of the cooking was done outside on the front porch area. It was so neat how since all of the staff lived so close together and spent so much time together it felt like one big family. kids of other teachers would just walk from house to house, visiting all of the teachers and their families.

At the school, dorms, and staff quarters, there is no running water, so whenever you want water you have to walk with your yellow jerrycan to the boarhole and pump the water. Because there was no running water, I had my first experience bathing out of a basin and using a small jerrycan to pour water on my hair. Surprisingly, I kind of enjoyed bathing that way because you do not waste any water and because the water is naturally warmed by the sun before the bath. As for the toilets, they were holes in a cement floor and you have to squat to do your business.

On Friday night when I finally got to sit down and talk to the girls, they were so surprised that i was only 18, especially since i am so tall. once they realized that i was right around their age or even younger than some of them, they really began to open up to me because they knew that I could relate. My hostess in the dorm was named Ruth, and in some ways she really reminded me of my best friend from the US Ruth. Ruth is the daughter of one of the pastors at daddy's church. While I tried to talk to all of the girls, there were about twelve girls who I really formed relationships with and who made an effort to get to know me better.

The dorms at most if not all secondary schools in Uganda are not at all like dorms in America. Rather than having two or three girls living in one room together, all of the girls in secondary school who are boarders live in one very large room. There were about 35 girls in the dorm I was staying in. Because dormitories often mysteriously burn down in uganda and because some of the girls were afraid of the dark, they left the lights on ALL night. And, the girls often wake up at about 3 AM or 4 AM to study and prepare for the day!!! Most of the girls did not even stop talking until around 11-12 pm so in all those girls got VERY LITTLE sleep at night.

The students in secondary school have school on Monday-Saturday from 7 AM to 4 or 5 PM at night, then have a two hour break for dinner, and have to go back to school to do some independent studying from 7 pm to 9 PM. Can you imagine having to go to school for that length of time every day but sunday?? i know that if americans were forced to go to school that long that there would be some type of rebellion or something. These students were all so dedicated to their education.
In uganda, there are 7 years of primary school and 6 years of secondary school. unlike in america where you can drop out of school, get your GED and then go to college, in uganda you must go through all 13 years of school before going to the university. Also, after your fourth year of secondary school you are forced to either choose to focus on arts or sciences. On friday night i decided to go to the 6th year secondary school class where the students whose focus was on the sciences was doing math. I thought that I would for sure be some help to those students, but when i walked into their classroom and saw the problems they were working, i was amazed that they were harder problems than i have ever worked in my life. i thought they would be doing some simple calculus 1 stuff, but they were doing work that is equivalent to what i will be doing next semester in linear algebra and one other math class. i could not believe that they were working such advanced problems and they weren't even at the university yet!!!!!! to say that i was impressed is an understatement for sure.

on saturday the headmaster of the primary school and two teachers took me around to some of the homes of the students so i could see how much in need these families really are. we visited ten homes of students who are in desperate need of assistance in paying their school fees. Most of the houses that we visited were little huts like we would imagine african houses to look like. The need here really is legitimate. There was one home with only a grandmother caring for about 6 or 7 grandchildren. this grandmother does all that she can to support the family, but she is unable to pay for her precious grandchildren to get a quality education. How much does Mt. carmel cost to attend per year? About $105, thats all... many families have to pay the cost of the tuition in installments. I was in the bursars office one day when a grandmother came in to pay part of her grandchild's tuition and she pulled out a little bag of coins, about 20 of them worth less that 25 cents each.
one of the saddest things i saw the whole time i was at the school was during the school day break at about 10;45 am at the primary school. those children whose parents have paid for the school term (there are 3 terms in a year) were given porridge to fill their tummies, but the children whose parents have not paid were left with nothing but water to drink. most if not all of those children come to school everyday with no breakfast, and to have to leave school in the afternoon with no food in their stomachs still must be so hard.

On the students off day on Sunday, they have a church service at 730 in the morning. The service was so amazing because it was completely student run. The students preached, the students sang, and the students danced. I was even an honorary member of the choir and sang two songs with them. After the service and after lunch, every sunday the students get to watch a movie. Please let me tell you how these 50 or more students watch the movie. they set a computer screen up in a classroom and they all crowd around so they can see. We in America take way too many things for granted, especially things like televisions and nice computers and laptops. at mt carmel, if they need something typed up and printed they must either go to an internet cafe about three miles away or they must do it with a TYPEWRITER! can you imagine? they have no printers at school at all, so although they do have very old computers, they have no way to print their work. there were no copy machines at the school, so rather than the students getting worksheets with information on it, a student stands up at the front of the room and reads the worksheet while the students write it in their notebooks. i sat in one class where they were taking an enormous amount of notes about the netherlands, and i even wrote the notes while the student in the front was dictating them to the class. i got restless after writing notes for one class period, so i have no idea how they do it in all of their classes.

while at the school, i taught two different english classes. I taught the students in their third year of secondary school how to write a composition and the students in their first year of secondary school how to have a conversation and how to write it on paper. in the class that i taught how to write a composition, after teaching them i gave them an assignment to write about a day in their life they would never forget. When the students decided their topic, they were required to stand up and say what it was to the whole class. Out of about 40 students, about 5 or 6 of them said they were going to write about the day that a parent of theirs died. Standing in front of that class, i was almost brought to tears as i realized that having a parent die during their child's childhood is so common. that is another thing that we as americans take for granted. while one of my best friends from home does have a deceased father, that is not very common at all. we expect our parents to be alive at least until our children are grown and they get to experience the joys of being a grandparent or even a great-grandparent, but here that is more of a dream rather than a reality. how sad...

Because the school really tries to make the cost of schooling as cheap as possible, the boarding students eat porridge everyday for breakfast, and for lunch and dinner they have posho (it's made out of flour) and beans. the only day that they get something different is every other sunday they get meat and matooke for lunch and an egg for breakfast. i get tired of eating the same thing two days in a row, i can't imagine if i had to eat the same thing every single day. i remember at roanoke college some of my friends and i would complain if we ate the same meal within two weeks of each other.

In government schools, students are allowed to go to primary school for free and secondary school for a lower rate than private schools. The quality of education in the government schools are very poor, though. The student-teacher ratio is very high, sometimes with about 100 students per teacher. Because of the poor standards in the government schools, parents really try to save money for their students to go to private institutions such as mt. carmel. for these children to not end up in the same financial situation as their guardians are in, it is important that they recieve a high quality education. after meeting the teachers and the students at mt. carmel and have witnessing the need and the drive to learn found there, i can't just stand around and not do anything about it. so, when i come back to the US i am going to start a program that helps pay for students school fees at mt. carmel. the amount of money it costs to send just one child to school is one that most americans could afford if rather than eating at a restaurant three times with their family, they eat at home. if anyone reading this blog is interested in sponsoring a child to go to school at mt. carmel, please email me at Hannah-Green@utc.edu and i will be more than happy to provide you with more detailed information.

On a different note, one night i woke up at about 3 am and had to go to the bathroom so i told ruth that i needed to go so she could wake up the matron of the dorm and have her unlock the door so i could walk to the latrines. well after telling ruth that "i need to go to the bathroom," she started leading me to where the girls take their baths!! lol. im sure she was wondering why i wanted to go take a bath at 3 in the morning. it's so funny howw we can be speaking the same language but have different definitions for the same words just based on where we are from.

on the last night of my stay at the dorms, the girls wanted to see me do some american dances and since i really do not know of any traditional american dances, i showed them how to crank that soulja boy and i also did the hoedown throwdown from the hannah montana movie. LOL. Afterward, a girl showed me how to do a traditional bugandan dance called kiganda. the girls tie something around your waste so it will shake as you shake your hips. they were just about in tears from laughing so hard as the girl, joyce, showed me how to do that dance and as i failed miserably at trying. but it was completely worth it to give them a good laugh and some entertainment.

the day that i left, i gave all of the girls my mailing address for the states and told them that i would love for them to write me. a muslim girl i became particularly close to named mariam wrote me the most beautiful goodbye song. that brought a couple of tears in my eyes because although i had known the girls for only a couple of days, we had bonded and become so close. every night we would talk for a couple of hours about life in uganda, life in the united states, school, God, and pretty much everything you can imagine. when they found out that i was leaving on july 7th to go back to the US, they did not understand why i didn't just stay for another week or so.

Apparently when whites come and visit the school, they really distance themselves from the students. Although they may help in the classrooms or the communities, they do not spend time outside of school with the students. The girls in the dorm had never had a white person stay in the dorm with them before. The one time that I ate lunch with the students, most of them just stared at me in amazement that i was eating the exact food that they were eating and that i appeared to be enjoying it. i think that's what really helped me form a bond with the girls is because i lived pretty much like they did for five days. when the whites who come to visit distance themselves from the students, they make the students feel like the whites think they are better than the students and should not have to live in the same conditions as them. i really hope that any other teams of whites who come visit the school will spend more time getting to know the students because the students love it.

next week, i am going to GULU with my family!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The one place that i have really wanted to visit this trip has been gulu and i am so excited that i will be able to. this will be the first time i ever really get to see a place with people who have been affected by a recent war, with some people still living in displacement camps. all right well that is all for now but God bless and everyone please pray for the students at mt. carmel and at all the schools around uganda who really struggle to pay for their school fees that they will find a way to do so.

walking walking everywhere!

1st and second pic--the dinner that i made for my family
3rd pic-all of the stuff i delivered to the babies home!
4th pic-me and the workers and some of the babies at the home
5th pic-me and oh so cute daniel at sanyu
6th pic-angela, me and elizabeth at sanyu


Walking around kampala and its surrounding area has become a new favorite pastime of mine. If kampala was more of a walker friendly area, i swear i would walk everywhere and not even take a bus. On monday i walked aimlessly to kalerwe, an area somewhat near to my home, walked through the market there, and then took a side road just to see where it would lead. then, i turned around and headed back for home. it's times like my walks where i wish that i were invisible because if i were invisible then people would let me be at peace on my little walks. instead, about 50 different boda boda drivers pulled over and asked if i wanted a ride and all of the store owners that i passed begged for me to just walk into their shop for a second so i could take a look around. when i told them that i had no money with me (which was not a lie) they still insisted i looked around. sometimes i want to scream "just because im white does not mean i am made of money!!!!!!!!!" Man, people can be frustrating.

After my walk to kalerwe on monday, my african dad and i delivered all of the supplies i bought for the babies home to the babies home. as we were unloading them and sitting them outside, the workers at the orphanage came out and hugged me and were just so happy about all of the new supplies they were blessed with. since most of them do not speak english, they were not able to say much in english to convey their feelings about the gifts, but the amount of hugs i got and what dad said they were saying in luganda proved that they genuinely felt the gifts were a miracle. dad said that with the way they were acting, they had not recieved a gift that size in a long time. A true miracle that came out of it, though, was that the other day the program administrator had gone to the market to buy a type of baby formula that the newborns need. well, when she went they were all sold out of it, so she couldn't get any. the type that she needed was the exact type that i had bought. God works in mysterious ways... anyway thank you to everyone who either donated their time and/or money so i could buy the supplies. you have helped these children more than you will ever know and i knnow that each of you will be blessed for blessing these kids.

On tuesday, i went to the babies home for about two hours and then had a taxi come pick me up and take me to garden city, a shopping mall, for some rest and relaxation. while i was there, i bought some maple syrup so i could make some american pancakes for my family. i also went to see "i love you, man" at the cinemas. after the movie, i walked from garden city to wandegeya to catch a taxi home. on my walk to wandegeya, i heard some really weird sirens so i turned around to see what the commotion was and sure enough, there was a motorcade with the president of uganda inside. i was in shock and didn't have enough time to get my camera out to take a picture. i am a little upset, though, that he didnt make his driver pull over to pick me up.

when i got home on tuesday, i made my family some pancakes. in uganda, they do not eat american pancakes at all, so seeing david and chizito try their very first pancake was amazing. david put some maple syrup on it and then preceded to pick it up and try to eat it like a taco. i couldn't help but laugh out loud when he did that. one thing that i have noticed about ugandans is that other than fruit, they do not like very sweet things. so, rather than being like americans and smothering their pancakes with syrup, they barely put a little dollop of it on their plate and would dip it in there just a little bit before each bite. david completely quit using syrup all together.

yesterday, i woke up and got ready for the day. as i was getting ready to leave, i realized that i had lost my house key. so i searched high and low in my room for it but it wasn't there. i was already trying to figure out how i was going to break it to my parents that i llost their house key, but THANK the lORD somehow it got downstairs and when i walked downstairs it was in the key hole. i have no idea how it got there, but i am very thankful that it was there.

once i found the key, i traveled to the babies home and worked there a couple of hours. there is a little boy there named francis. he is almost 2 years old i think and he has cerebral palsy. it is rreally sad to see how the workers mostly ignore him and he spends most of his day everyday in his crib lying on his back just lying there. he can barely move his head even a little bit. one of the other volunteers at sanyu has really grown a liking for francis and so her family back home had a dinner at her house to raise money to buy physiotherapy supplies for him. she raised about 500 euros. i pray that those supplies will be used and will help his overall quality of life. i try to sit with him in my lap as much as possible because i know that he really needs attention. when i touch him and he's not expecting it, he flinches so hard and tenses up. if i do not hold his head up while i am trying to feed him his bottle, he will not be able to swallow and if i don't hold his head up while he's in your lap, his head will just hang there like a puppet. please everyone pray for this little boy and his well-being. i am worried that one day he may just die.

after working at the babies home yesterday, i decided that i was going to cook breakfast for dinner for my family. so i stopped by a market to buy eggs and sausage. can i please tell you that rather than having cartons to put the eggs in, they gave me a bag with 24 eggs in it that i had to carry with me all the way from sanyu to home. i don't think i have EVER handled an inanimate object with that much care in my entire life. climbing on and off busses and walking through the bus park was quite a challenge to say the least. for dinner, i cooked eggs, sausage, pancakes, and a fruit salad that everyone enjoyed. it was quite delicious, im not gonna lie.

today i am preparing to leave for mount carmel, a school that my african father has started about an hour away from kampala. i will be staying there for about four nights with the kids who attend the school and stay in the dorms with the girls. i am going to be helping them with their schoolwork and also just ministering to them. please pray for me as i go to this school and fellowship with these teenagers. please pray that as i form relationships with them, that they will be able to see Christ in me and will be able to talk honestly with me about their issues if they so choose to. Thanks everyone!

this past week...

1st pic--all of the kids at focus and i playing duck duck goose

2nd pic--looking at one of the children's drawing

3rd pic--davids birthday dinner

4th pic--some boxes of diapers balanced on a man's head

5th pic--all of the supplies i have bought for the babies home

I have bought all of the supplies for the Sanyu Babies Home and will deliver it monday!!!! I am amazed at how many supplies can be bought with $1400. Exactly how many, you ask? 5,028 diapers, 192 cloth diapers, 84 plastic pants (they go over the cloth diapers), 15 packs of 200 count wipes, 24 tubs of butter, 18 bottles of Jik (cleaner), and 24 tins of baby formula. It has taken three trips into town to buy these supplies, and let me tell you that they are very interesting excursions. See, if I were to go to a large grocery store and buy all of the supplies, I would have only been able to purchase about half as much as I did. So instead of doing that, I shopped the Ugandan way.

For three days this past week, David and I took a bus into town and hired a taxi to take us to Kikuubo, an area in Kampala with small wholesale shops. These shops sold everything in bulk, but they each specialize in having different materials so for each item that we needed we had to go to a different shop and bargain with different workers. After going from shop to shop asking about prices and bargaining with people, once we found the best prices we bought.

The first two days that we bought stuff, nothing interesting happened. But yesterday, the day that we bought 11 boxes of diapers, I had some experiences worth mentioning. While David and I were waiting for the taxi man to come pick us and the boxes up (which ended up being over an hour by the way) i decided to sit down on the side of the street while guarding the boxes. well as i was sitting there, a woman comes and sits directly beside me and eats her lunch. it was so funny because she had many different places she could sit and she decided that the spot right beside me was the best. so, she sat there and ate. she didn't talk to me or touch me or anything, she just sat there and then after she ate she got up and left. when we got home david told me that she had actually been sitting on the opposite side of the street and when she saw that she could sit by me, she got up and moved. i hope she got the thrill she wanted sitting beside a white person for a bit. while sitting and waiting for the taxi, i realized that white people really do not shop at the wholesale shops and instead use the grocery stores for their supplies. so for them, seeing a white person buying stuff was quite weird. the first two days, we had to carry the boxes that we purchased quite a distance, so we hired some men to carry them for us. i am absolutely amazed at the amount of stuff they can balance on their head. not only can they balance it on their head, they are able to walk so so fast in the process. i was barely able to keep up with them as they were maneuvering through the crowd.

on a different note, this whole past week i have been sick again so i was unable to visit the babies home any. i have had a really bad sore throat and cough all week, but i am better now thank the Lord. One day I felt so bad that I just stayed at home all day and watched a television show called The Unit that my african dad has on dvd. after watching the whole first season, i am officially addicted and need to ask him where he has hidden the second season dvd so i can get to watching that one.

on thursday was david's birthday, so the family and i went to eat at javas, a restaurant that has alot of american food. i had quesadillas and a brownie for dessert. one of the main foods i really miss when i come to uganda are cakes and cookies and brownies because although they do have somewhat of an equivalent here, they are not nearly as sweet as they are in the united states. that brownie at javas, though, was amazing!!!! im going to have to go again just to buy another one.

today i went to Focus again and i am already looking forward to going again next saturday. i worked in the youngest kids class yet again and while they do not understand much english at all, i am learning how to communicate much better using body language and hand gestures. today, nelson put me "in charge" of teaching one of the lessons, of course with some translation help from him. first, i gave them paper and crayons and they drew their favorite fruit and also whatever else they wanted to. as we were all drawing, nelson was drawing masterpieces and i was drawing pictures that looked even worse than what the kids were drawing. i have really always hated drawing. anyway, after that nelson had to go clean off a kid's cut that he got while running around or something so i was left with the kids alone. they pretty much mirror exactly what i do so i started doing some jumping jacks and some stretches and then some silly things i made up along the way. i really love being able to be silly with kids that age because they just laugh and go along with it. we then went outside and i taught them how to play duck, duck, goose. that might have been a mistake on my part because now everytime i go im pretty sure they are going to make me play that with them the whole time. i think we seriously played that for an hour today and they didn't get bored of it at all. i was really really really tired afterward, though, because all of the kids thought it was fun when i was the goose.

well that is all for now. i love how we are getting the food prepared to eat dinner while most of you in america are just waking up! ta ta for now!

another update...

Camilla and i at sanyu babies home.

me and some of the children at focus. most of these kids were in the class above the one i worked with.

me and beautiful irene at the babies home.

emily felt no need to eat the food when she could spread it on her face instead!

the children at the babies home enjoy taking a quick swim after class.

On Friday, I witnessed the first set of kids from the babies home being adopted out. Apparently, right before all of the kids leave to go to their home, the parents who are adopting put on a little party for everyone. The two families who got to take their new children home brought cake, juice, and apples for all of the babies to munch on. I can't imagine what the older children think when one of the kids goes home. Do they realize what is happening? Do they wonder why they weren't the child chosen? Some of those answers I will never know. While working there, i have become very educated on what parents look for when adopting. In most situations, children who are HIV-positive or have sickle cell anemia or are even carriers for sickle cell (meaning they actually do not have it themselves) can kiss their chances of being adopted goodbye. The younger and more physically attractive the child, the more likely they are going to be adopted.

One of the little babies that i have grown to love is named Irene (shes 8 months old). Just two days after being dropped off at the orphanage, a single woman from alabama came to adopt her. I am so excited that she will have a good family and will get a chance to live it out in the south. the lady adopting her says that they are going to call her willa rae. what a typical southern name...lol.

On saturday, i went to something called FOCUS. It is a christian organization that pays for very poor children to go to school and in return the children go every saturday to the FOCUS compound and the staff gives them some supplemental instruction and also feeds them. I spent my time in the little kid's class, they were between the ages of about 6-10. The kids in this group are mostly fluent only in luganda because they are just starting to learn english in school. Their knowledge about the bible amazed me, though. One of the questions that the teacher, Nelson, asked them was who bought joseph as a slave when his brothers sold him off? the answer was potipher but i had absolutely no idea! Nelson tries to teach them alot through competitions because it encourages them to know the answer. So, most of the time spent learning in class was a two way competition between the students on their knowledge of bible and if they know the english words of pictures shown to the class. Right before the kid's break where they were fed breakfast, Nelson was praying for the food and the children and he said something along the lines of i know these kids are hungry because most of them have not had a real meal for a whole day so bless this food as it goes in their stomach. When he said that, I was shocked. I started looking around the room and began to wonder what kind of background these children had and how they really must know what hunger feels like. once the prayer was over with, i went and talked to nelson about him saying that and he said that most of those children only have one meal a day. he also said that soome of the kids are orphans or living with extended family.

As I was talking to some of the older children who knew a little more english during the break, i came upon one boy named paul who when i asked, said he had no brothers or sisters. in ugandan culture, that is EXTREMELY odd. Im not sure what the circumstances are around that, but i told him that i would be his sister. so now, i have a new little ugandan brother named paul. i think he found it really humorous that his new sibling was a white american.

after the break once everyone's stomachs were full, i got back together with the younger kids and nelson led them in some games. i have noticed that ugandan children games are heavily based on strength and not so much on running, which dominates american games. at one point, nelson told me he had to go somewhere for a minute so he left me in chaarge of the game. so there i was trying to organize 40 kids to play a game using only motions and tone of voice to get my point across bc most of them sure as heck didn't know what i was saying otherwise. i successfully accomplished what i was trying to do, though, so i was pretty proud of myself. next saturday, nelson told me that i am going to teach the children an english lesson. that should be interesting... by the way, while i was at FOCUS i saw these 3 middle aged white men there. when i heard them talking, i knew they had to have been from the south. so i asked them where they were from and out of all the places they could be from, they were from KNOXVILLE! they had come to donate some supplies to focus and also to sponsor some of the children. they had brought some tennis shoes for the children who did not have an appropriate pair of shoes.

when david and i got home from focus, we had every intention of getting ready and going to a wedding reception of a church member, but the weather told us otherwise. a storm came that was so bad that it tore down some power lines and so we were left without power from about 4 oclock saturday to 3 oclock today. so instead, chizito david and i just lounged around. i've been reading a lot of the books that i brought from america so i've been able to keep myself occupied.

today, i went to church at around 11 and returned at about 2 and then ate and went for a walk around the area that i live and just lounged around again. i have began to read the testament by john grisham and so far it has proved to be quite interesting. when i go for walks or jogs, ive gotten to the point that i wish that i would just look ugandan so peopple would not always be trying to talk to me. it's cute when little kids run up and say something to you, but when grown men do it, it's not cute at all. i have learned to just ignore most of what is said to me and keep walking. i can't believe i have already been in uganda for two weeks and have only five more weeks to go! timee has flown so fast but it has been so amazing thus far!

eat eat eat!

Eating in Uganda is a very central and important part of life. While there are unfortunately so many ugandans who because of drought or other reasons are unable to eat even two meals a day, i instead feel some days like all i do is eat. for example, on Sunday after church my family and I went and ate at this really nice kind of american restaurant and i was STUFFED! afterward, we visited a family from church's house and the grandmother made us some chapote (it is somewhat like tortillas but thicker). We were all so full, but had to eat some of the chapote bc if we didn't it would be very disrespectful. so there i sat, forcing myself to chew on that chapote and force it into my alreaady full stomach. the husband in the family that we visited name is Jeff and he is a professional basketball player in uganda which i found to be very interesting. in uganda, though, basketball is not nearly as popular as in america. let me tell you that one of the funniest things to watch is some ugandans watching a basketball highlights video. they were so amazed at some of the basketball moves of american bball stars.

on monday and tuesday i have worked at the sanyu babies home. i have noticed that there has been some improvement since i visited last. there are so many volunteers there and the place just seems overall like a happier place. in the morning, i play around with the kids around age 6 months - 2 years and in the afternoons i spend time loving on the newborn babies.

on tuesday, i rode the taxi (they call busses taxis) all by myself to the taxi park!! i am really working hard on conquering the kampala taxi routes. those taxis are so confusing and often times the drivers do not speak much english, which makes it alot more intimidating. as david and i were sitting in a taxi at the taxi park waiting for the taxi to feel up with people, these two guys came to the window trying to sell some stuff. now, this is a common occurence especially when they see a white person around. but, these two guys who were maybe 16 years old, just walked up and tried to sell me something but when i said no they didn't go away. they just stood there for i swear ten minutes staring at me. it got to the point that it was getting really awkward and i just had to turn away and laugh. i think situations like that are God's way of getting a good laugh since i find myself staring at people without realizing it and now here in Uganda it is coming back at me 100 fold.

the past two days i have been jogging up to the bahai temple and back. it is a very beautiful building, and is the largest one in africa. today, after jogging up to the temple i decided to do some exploring and just walked around the surrounding area for a little bit. the scenery here is so beautiful with the dirt roads, palm trees, and little houses scattered all over the place. if i could, i would just walk around for hours but then i know that i would end up lost and that would not be good at all!

i tried my first mango yesterday and have already decided that i do not like the taste of mangos but do love the taste of mango juice. weird huh?

hey, obama's sister!

1st pic-amanda (i talk ab her in this blog), daddy morris, mommy christine, david and i

2nd pic-beautiful ugandan scenery. since i am staying in the capital city i don't get to see this beauty very often

3rd pic--This is what happens when you are a litter bug in uganda. no one is there to pick up after you.

4th pic--me and some kids at the mulago slums which is right beside the mulago hospital



The title of my post is one of the many names i have been called so far this trip. I am still amazed at what an obsession people here have with Obama. It's so much more than in America.

What i love about different cultures is that they view events and happenings in their lives so much more different than we as americans do. one of the pastors at eden revival church, the church that my african daddy pastors over, has just had his fourth child. he told me on tuesday about how he would pray so diligently to have twins but how he never got them. here in uganda, having twins increases the status of a family. a family is considered to be quite blessed to have twins. i found this to be really interesting mostly because i am reading poisonwood bible right now, and it is based in the congo, and if you have twins there you sit them out in the forest to die because it is a curse to have twins. i have never really met any americans who pray to have twins either.

On wednesday, i took my first trip to the sanyu babies home. the little girl named diana who i had absolutely fallen in love with my last trip has been adopted and so while that is a blessing that she has a family now, i was really sad that she wasn't there anymore. i bet she has grown so much. the home is currently at its top capacity with 50 babies, 3 of them newborns. i talked to the program administrator about items that they really need, and she said that diapers are definitely the most needed, and also margarine, disinfectant, and a couple of other things. at lunch time, i was given a plate with some food on it, a spoon, and eight little babies staring at me to feed. they kind of reminded me of little baby birds waiting to be fed. after lunch and their naptimes, i was in the 0-3 month old room with 7 little babies to watch over. at one time, 3 of them started crying at the same time!! so, i had to sit down and had one in each arm and one laying on my legs. finally, some other people came to help thank the lord because i wouldn't have known what to do with myself if all 7 of the babies started crying. they workers told me that there has been an increase of babies being orphaned and they have been having to turn some babies away to go to other orphanages.

On thursday i went with mummy and daddy and david and a woman from seattle named amanda to the raphae medical centre about an hour and a half from kampala. before we traveled there, though, we had to go pick up an oxygen concentrator that amanda raised money for while in america. it took THREE HOURS for them to process the order so david and i were left sitting in the car for that long. i think that might be the record for the longest i have ever been patient. i saw my first ugandan rain though. and when it rains here, it pours. it reminded me of hurricane rains. it was so funny because 3o minutes into the rain we saw these 2 white mormons who were dressed up in their suits running so fast trying to find something to stand under during the rain. i wonder if they ever found anything haha. when we finally got the oxygen concentrator we headed to the medical centre. while there, i got a tour of the hospital and i also tried traditional ugandan tea. they use milk rather than water to steep the tea bag in. it was pretty delicious. the area that the hospital is in is very very rural. the scenery was so beautiful because there were just miles and miles of grasslands all around.

the roads here have not improved since my last trip. there are still potholes in all of the roads. the dirt roads are so horrible i am very glad i don't get car sick easily because i would be having to carry a barf bag with me everywhere i go. and garbage is still all over the place. kids go and fill up water jugs with the same water that other people dump their trash in. it's no wonder that it is not safe to drink the water here.

on friday, i was supposed to rest but instead i woke up soooo sick. i had really bad chills, my left ear hurt, i had a headache, and i was so weak i just wanted to lay in bed all day. i went to the doctor and he said that i have the flu and for me to lay in bed all day so i did just that. mummy made me drink lots of water and juice. this morning, i feel so much better though. i still feel kind of weak and also my ear hurts a little bit but other than that i am back to normal thank the Lord. Today we don't have any plans because also mummy and daddy are sick and so we're just going to lazy around all day. I may go running later tonight! I hope everyone has a good day!

UGANDA, here i am!

1st pic-some kids and i in the village david and i walked around in before the graduationnn party

2nd pic-i gave this little girl my sunglasses during the church service and she started prancing around with them on. it was hilarious. and i couldn't tell her to stop bc she didn't speak english

Hey everybody I hope that your day is going well. So far, my trip has been amazing. The flight to Uganda was very peaceful and my prayers paid off about having good seatmates or no seatmates at all because I only had a seatmate one time and from DC to Ethiopia there was a seat between me and a junior who attends Libterty University named Alex who was traveling to Uganda as well. she was going to visit her boyfriend who was interning with the International Missions Board in northern Uganda. It was quite ironic that she went to Liberty considering that it is so close to Roanoke and since I visited there this semester and went ice skating. But, just for future reference, Ethiopian Airlines might be the worst airline to fly on. EVERY flight I went on with them was very late and unorganized. The food left much to be desired and they rarely offered refreshments. The last meal that they served on the flight I could not even eat because the smell of it made me sick. On one of the flights I also met a Dinka woman from southern Sudan. It is so neat to actually meet a person from a tribe of people that I learned about in Anthropology. I would highly suggest everyone to take that class, some people may even want to take it twice(haha ruth!)

When i got off the plane at 1:30 PM in Uganda, I was greeted by a couple of nurses who made me fill out information about the past countries I have visited and if I had a sore throat or runny nose in an attempt to try to make sure the swine flu doesn't make it to Uganda. After picking up my luggage, I found mummy and pastor and we went to eat at a Ugandan restaurant where i filled up on all sorts of native goodness and then we drove home. I wasn't really tired at the time so I agreed to go to a wedding reception after showering and freshening up, but oh my goodness one thing i have learned about ugandan receptions or parties in general is that they are filled with LONG speeches, often spoken in luganda. so there i sat at the reception, my eyelids forcing themselves closed because i was so tired, with no idea of what was being said. we got home at around 930 pm and from there i went straight to bed.

on sunday morning i woke up an hour before i thought i was supposed to because david, my ugandan family's nephew, misinformed me about what time it was so when i woke up at what i thought was 9 am to get ready for church, it was actually 8 am. it was good to see the church family again! after church we ate at nando's, a fast food restaurant in kampala, and then we went to a graduation party for a pastor at church who just graduated from bible school. i had my first squat and pee experience of the trip that day. when i told mummy i had to go to the bathroom she had a little boy direct me to the latrines behind the house. when i first looked at them i thought, man i can wait till i get home, but then i realized that i really had to go so i was a big girl and went. it is really interesting how here most people do not have seat toilets like we have back home. it is normal to squat. mummy and pastor left early and so david and i stayed there by ourselves. one thing to learn about ugandans is that they always start everything later then they say they will so david and i walked around the surrounding village before the party started. apparently some of the children were calling me an albino!!! lol. i've never heard myself called that before but i can imagine that i might be one of the lightest ppl they have ever seen before. once the kids found out that i was from the US they asked me if i knew obama. these kids were like 7-9 years old and they were asking me about obama!!! i found that to be quite funny. oh and there is a butcher shop here called obama's butchery. there's a big picture of him beside the name of the store. i asked david why everyone loves him here and he said that it's because he has kenyan roots and is black. we left before the ceremony was over with and walked back to our house. when we got home, i just spent some time talking to david and chizito, the gatekeeper here. they are so much fun to talk to and i am very blessed to have them to entertain me.

today i woke up and fixed chizito and i some scrambled eggs. speaking of breakfast food, i am hoping that i will be able to make the family pancakes one day since chizito and david have not ever had them. i hope they like them! anyway, after breakfast david took me to exchange my money to ugandan shillings. the exchange rate is so much better than last trip! for every dollar, i am given 2268 shillings i think. It was SOOoO hot outside today!!! even though i did put on alot of sunscreen i really felt like i was going to end up as red as a lobster after the day was over! thank goodness that didn't come true. we also went and compared prices for baby cloth diapers called nappys. i feel like they are trying to quote a higher price when i am around because my skin is white, so tomorrow david is going to go into a store alone and ask them how much they cost. after we compared prices, we rode a bus back home and the plan was to go running but we were both so tired that it didn't happen.

tomorrow i am planning to go to the us embassy to register and then go compare nappy prices again. i will wake up early and first go to church with pastor and wait for david to come pick me up, though. on wednesday i plan to go to the sanyu babies 'home.'i have found that more children and even adults are more interested in me giving them money as a "mzungu"(white person) than ever before. on sunday when david and i were walking around a village and talking to some of the kids, a woman told me in lugandan to go buy all of the kids some popcorn. i really really do not find that humorous at all and it almost made me want to stop being around that woman since obviously all she was interested was my monetary donations. some other young children, probably around 3 years old, told me to give them some money too. it's really sad.

anyway that is enough for today! it is time for me to head to bed!! good night!

Q&A b4 my trip :)

Hey everybody! In about 52 hours I will be boarding the first plane of 3 to take me to Uganda! I will be traveling from Atlanta to Washington DC, from DC to Rome, from Rome to Ethiopia and then to UgAnDa! I am so so so excited but I do not feel prepared for this trip at all. The first time I traveled to Uganda I know my suitcase was packed a couple of days beforehand but now procrastination has gotten the best of me so only one of my suitcases is packed :(

Before I leave, I figured I'd answer a couple of popular questions asked to me about my trip for any of you who might be wondering urself.

Q--What's ur purpose in going to Uganda?
A-- I go to work in the Sanyu Babies Home and also to visit my african family. After college, moving permanently to Uganda is a very big possibility. I hope to start my own orphanage.

Q--What are you most excited about?
A--Seeing my ugandan mom and dad for sure and also spending time with the babies at the orphanage. I can't wait to see how my favorite little girl Diana has grown. Also, the food is AMAZING!

Q--What are you least excited about?
A--It would definitely have to be the flight there and back. I hate hate hate sitting for long periods of time. Also, I really don't feel comfortable with how the police over there walks around with AK-47 guns. That is scary for real!

Q--Whats the funniest thing anyone has told u about your trip?
A--One of my relatives very seriously told me not to marry an african while im over there because they all have more than one wife.

Allrighty well it's time for me to hit the hay but I will talk to yall soon!