This is My Life

Gah! It’s been over one month since my last blog. It is my goal to do a blog update at least once a month. I was hoping I would want to write updates more than once a month but it doesn't seem like that's going to happen. That being said if anyone reading this blog would like more updates please feel free to e-mail me. It is easier for me to respond to questions as opposed to rambling about my experiences in Uganda on a blog. It’s hard for me to know what people want to hear about. To me this is just my daily life and it seems strange to update people on day to day activities. Anyway, it’s been one month since my last update so I am sure I can think of something interesting to write about…

Really in the last month I have just been trying to live my life because this is my life now. I live in Uganda. This past weekend I moved to a new home! I was living in the guest house below the office in which I work. I moved to a real house in another area of town. My new house mates (3 girls, one guy) are all great people and I could not be more excited to live with them. I think I will feel much more like Uganda is my home once I actually live in a home and not a hotel that people are constantly moving through. I will definitely update the blog on how life in the new house is after a few weeks.

Most of the people I’ve talked to about their transitions to life in Uganda shared similar feelings to mine. They all said that the first few months are pretty rocky and that after three months things smooth out. I’ve been waiting for the smoothing out part and at just past three months I think I made it there. I feel more relaxed and more confident. I know settling into my new abode will solidify these feelings for me. It is one thing to visit another country and it is a completely different thing to make a life in another country and it is even a completely different thing to make a life in another country alone. I have made friends here and my family supports me but my family is on the other side of the world. I made this journey by myself. The title of this blog is “this is my life” because I have found myself saying that to myself a lot recently. Reality has settled in. Good thing I like my reality. Ok enough of that stuff. Let me share some actual details of my reality.

Two major events have occurred in the past month. The first is when my friend got her appendix removed. I guess that is more of a major event for her than me but it’s still a good story. The second is the visit by HALO’s Portland branch directors.

Operation Appendectomy

My friend Jess had to have an emergency appendectomy, and I stayed by her side during that fiasco. Long story short is about two weeks before the appendectomy Jess had sharp pains in her side and generally felt sick. The doctors told her she had a bacterial infection and gave her antibiotics. She took the medicine and felt better in a few days. Two weeks later the pain returned, so she went to the clinic again. This time they held her overnight because they said they needed to be able to monitor her pain. In the morning the doctor said she had to have her appendix removed immediately.  Having emergency surgery in Uganda isn’t so great in the first place but add on the fact that Jess was supposed to be on a plane to the U.S. the very next day and it becomes a whole new mess. I met Jess and our other friend at the hospital for the surgery. We waited with her while they prepared for surgery and continued to wait while she was in surgery. The operation didn’t take very long and soon enough a doctor emerged and told us everything was fine. Jess came out of surgery in a very cloudy state, but we had to transport her back to the other clinic where she would stay overnight. This is when I get to ride in an ambulance. The hospital drove Jess, me, and our friend to the clinic in an ambulance with the sirens and lights on and everything. Finally we got Jess back to the clinic and into bed. She was able to leave the clinic and go back to her house the next day. Of course she had to take it easy and could really only watch movies in bed for a few days, but she had plenty of visitors and we did our best to entertain her. After a week of rest Jess was able to fly home, and all is well.

Portlandia Meets Kampala

Each HALO branch supports a home in Uganda, so all the money the Portland branch raises goes directly to the Bukesa boy’s home. One of the co-directors, Chris West, spent a year living in Uganda in the early 2000s and has returned every year since then. This year he came to visit the Bukesa boys with his new co-director (Clif), Clif’s wife, and a friend and HALO supporter. Chris has known many of the Bukesa boys for many years so they were all very excited to see each other and the reunion was beautiful.

Nothing but smiles :)

The boys quickly took to the other three visitors and we all had a great few weeks together. We spent a few days just hanging out with the boys, playing soccer, dancing, sharing meals, talking, and playing games. One day was devoted to the Bukesa version of the Olympics. The kids were divided into four teams and each team chose an African country to represent. They painted their country's flag on paper. I wasn’t able to attend the Olympics so I’m not sure what events they did but in the end everyone got a gold medal that we made.

Just hanging out.

Two days of the Portland crew’s trip was consumed by the building of an awesome garden. Clif and his wife Sulie kindly donated the money necessary to make a garden happen at the Bukesa home. Because the boys have chickens on their property we could not simply plant seeds in the ground. We needed to build some sort of fence to keep the chickens from eating the plants. The plants also needed to be protected from the soccer ball and the 25 energetic boys running around the compound. Clif and his creative mind decided we could use the broken bed frames to build a fence.

As we were building the fence one of the mentors saw the opportunity to build a bench on the front side of the fence. This is why planting a garden turned into two days of hard work. While the men and boys worked on the fence I spent most of my time picking trash out of the garden area. Uganda doesn’t have a great trash disposal system yet so most people just pile all their trash in their compound a burn it. Our homes are no exception. The boys do have a trash pile but the trash seems to migrate all over the compound. The younger boys helped me with trash removal. Finally after removing most of the trash and successfully building a fence bench we were able to plant seeds. We planted tomatoes, carrots, green peppers, kale, onion, and cabbage.  We had the kids paint rocks and write the names of each plant on the rocks so we could label the garden.

With that project finished we could move on to art. Clif is a professional artist so he again took the reins. One day each boy made a journal out of the papers they had done an art project on a few weeks back but weren’t interested in keeping. The other project was painting on canvas and fabric tiles. Both projects turned out great, and the boys had an awesome time as they always do when we do art.

I had a great time with the Portland branch and look forward to their next visit. I’m sure the kids will be asking about them until they come again.

The month of August was a month long break from school for all of our kids. Most of the Bukesa boys stayed at the house during this break, but the majority of our other kids went home to be with their families. So I got to spend a great deal of time with the Bukesa boys but hardly anytime with any of the other kids. Needless to say I miss them and can’t wait to see them this week. 

All in all, life is good! Thanks for reading!