The last month was jam packed with good times. I lost track
of time in between work, birthday celebrations, trips for fun, trips for work,
training, and a surprisingly full social life. At first I struggled with
adapting to the slow pace of life in Uganda and it felt like time was going
slowly. Now time is flying and I don’t feel like I have enough of it. Funny how
those things go. The fact there isn’t a real change of season here (apparently
the dry and hot season is coming in Dec-Feb) makes it hard to keep track of
time. I didn’t realize how much the changing of the seasons marked the passing
of time until I came to Uganda. It’s November but it is still warm and sunny
everyday just like it was in June when I arrived. Even though I sometimes don’t
realize it a whole month has passed and it is time for some updates.
Work
I am increasingly more comfortable
in my role at work and I am really enjoying my work. I am a little worried
about becoming too attached to the kids. The other day I teared up when one of our
girls, Viola, came home after finished her primary leaving exams. It was like
she was my own child. The primary leaving exam is the national test every
student must take at the end of primary school. If you don’t pass the exam you
can’t go to secondary school. Students study very hard for their exams so it
was a big accomplishment and a huge relief when Viola (and all of the other
kids) finished the exam.
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A few of the girls in Mengo home. From the left we have Sumaya, Charlotte, Kevin, and Praise |
Besides spending time with the kids
in each of our five homes I take care of various other tasks. I am responsible
for monthly updates on each home. I
address any specific issues that happen in the homes; those issues might be
general home operations or a problem with one of the kids. For example, in one
of the boy’s homes the boys were not eating breakfast because they could not
manage to wake up early enough to make themselves breakfast. They would argue
about who should wake up early to make breakfast and at the end no one would do
it. I believe breakfast is the most important meal of the day so I wasn’t happy
about them not eating. I decided to deal with the issue by having a meeting with
all the kids and as a group deciding what was the best solution. The kids all
agreed on who should cook and on what day and from there I made a time table
and we hung it on the wall of the living room. The kids are now eating
breakfast on a daily basis.
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Makerere Boys - Ferdinand and Connia |
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Timetables! |
I also facilitate art projects in each home. I
am currently working on gathering materials for the art projects I want to do
with the kids before the end of the year. I will take some of these projects
home with me in December so the HALO branches can have art from the homes they
support and use them during events and auctions.
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We made collages of things we love. One of the boys cut out letters to form the phrase 'stories with wonderful endings'. It made me really happy. |
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Henry and Ferdinand working on their collages! |
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All of the boys working on collages |
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Ali focused on his collage. |
Another big project that has
consumed a lot of my time and patience is the scholarships the children are
eligible to apply for in order to attend vocational school or in some cases
college. There were numerous obstacles I faced during this process but I don’t want
to bore you with the details. In general it was a struggle to get the children
to fill out the applications and fill them out adequately. Once the kids do
their part it is up to the mentors to fill out all the financial information.
Ugandans tend to do lots of things by word of mouth so the mentors simply asked
other people how much tuition at the various institution is and used those
numbers on the applications. When I followed up on the information presented in
the applications I discovered the numbers on almost all of the applications
were wrong. I was and still am pretty disappointed and frustrated. I don’t
understand why this process was not taken seriously and why they used
information they did not know was %100 accurate. I am now working on finding
the correct information.
We are also working on establishing
budgets for each of the homes for 2013. This has not been easy either. Although
work has been busy I love keeping busy and I still manage to get out and have
some fun.
Jinja
A few weeks ago I desperately needed to get out of this
chaotic city and relax so I went to Jinja with two of my roommates. Jinja is
about two hours to the east of Kampala by public transportation. Jinja is a
small quiet, beautiful town on the banks of the Nile River. It is actually the
source of the river which is super cool considering the Nile is the longest
river in the world and it is the most unique, in my opinion, because it flows
north. The Nile is also a major source of water for the ten African countries it
flows through and ancient Egypt depended on the river. We spent Friday night at
our friend’s house and had a wonderful dinner prepared for us by our friends. We
chatted the night away and went to bed at a somewhat decent hour.
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Sarah and Jess |
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Me and Ale |
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Group shot |
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Our camp site - not a bad view, eh? |
We woke up
early Saturday to head to a small island in the Nile called Hairy Lemon. Hairy
Lemon is really small but really cool. The island is owned and operated by a
man from South Africa. The island has cottages and dorm style rooms but we
opted for camping. We set up our tents on the edge of the island so we could
hear the river roaring.
We spent the day sun bathing, swimming, wandering the
small island, and watching monkeys play in the trees. It was an amazing day
that ended with dinner by lantern light and socializing with the other island
dwellers. The area of the Nile that we were near is one of the best spots in
the world to kayak so there was a group of 15 professional kayakers staying on
the island. The best kayaker in the world spends a few months out of the year
training on The Nile in Uganda. See article for more information - http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/14/sports/on-the-nile-in-uganda-the-source-of-kayakers-biggest-thrills.html?_r=2&hpw&
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A calmer area of the river where you can swim |
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The raging Nile River! |
We drifted off to sleep soothed by the sounds of the river
flowing nearby. We left Hairy Lemon early the next morning to head back to
Jinja. We spent the morning walking around the town and checking out the
various coffee and craft shops. After lunch we reluctantly packed up and hopped
on a bus back to Kampala. The weekend was exactly what I needed to reinvigorate
myself for city life.
Birthdays
Normally birthdays wouldn’t warrant an entire sub-headline
in my blog but these birthdays are an exception. Two of my good friends in Uganda
had birthdays close to each other in October. First was Maggie’s birthday.
Maggie’s birthday happened to fall on a public holiday so we had an all day
birthday bash organized by Maggie’s awesome boyfriend (and one of my
housemates) Aaron. We had a pot luck style lunch during which I ate too much
because everything was too good to resist. After lunch was game time. We
competed in various events like a human wheelbarrow race, water balloon toss, and
water limbo. We also played musical chairs and ended the day with a friendly
game of volleyball.
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My group won this game |
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Trampoline fun! |
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Maggie's present - a juicer! |
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Musical chairs |
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Volleyball |
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Water balloon toss |
I personally believe no birthday party is complete without a
delicious chocolate cake to indulge in so I took it upon myself to bake a cake
for Maggie’s party. Baking a cake might seem like a simple task but leave it up
to Uganda to make simple things exciting. I don’t have an oven in my house so I
had to mix the batter at home where all my ingredients are and then transport
the batter to a place with an oven. I decided to just go to the guest house at
the Cornerstone office and use that oven so I could kill two birds with one
stone and bake the cake while working. Here is the sequence of events that
followed:
- * Mixed bake batter – easy.
- * Hailed a motorcycle taxi (boda) and explained
that I had a bowl filled with liquid in the shopping bag so I needed him to
drive slowly and carefully. He understood and we set off – still pretty easy.
- * Drove to Cornerstone which is roughly 20 minutes.
The first half is dirt roads filled with rocks, pot holes, and speed bumps. The
second half is major roads on which bodas are always bobbing and weaving
through cars and other bodas. Nothing about driving on a boda is calm and the
ride is never smooth. Trying to hold the bowl so the batter didn’t spill during
the ride – not easy.
- * Went to meeting - easy
- * Slipped out of meeting to start preheating oven
- easy
- * Put cake in oven when meeting was over - easy
- * Did some work in the office - easy
- * Checked on cake and realized we lost power -
problem
- * Waited patiently (for about 5 minutes) for power
to come back on – somewhat easy
- * Asked a friend if I could go to her house to
bake the cake. During my rant about why things can’t just be easy in Uganda the
power comes back on. I shut up and go back to work – easier said than done
- * Cake is done and smelled delicious! – Success!
* Too impatient to wait for the cake to cool I
attempted to figure out how I can hold the cake that just came out of the oven
and drive home on a boda. Told the boda driver the thing I was carrying was
very hot so he needed to be careful. Boda driver gives me an are you crazy look
but agrees to take me anyway.
- * Boda driver and I fight the traffic home.
Traffic in Kampala is impossible to predict but you are guaranteed to run into
a massive traffic jam on Friday afternoons, whenever it looks like it is going
to rain, and after it rains. I was driving home with my fresh from the oven
cake on a Friday afternoon with some seriously ominous clouds approaching the
city. Traffic was horrendous. Nevertheless the boda driver weaved his way
through the gridlocked cars and got me home safely – even though the driver did
all the hard work this part wasn’t so easy.
The cake was delicious and everyone at the party appreciated
a good chocolate cake. Cake in Uganda is typically terrible so a good piece of
cake is a real treat.
The next birthday was the Monday after the last party. This
celebration was less exciting but equally fun. We had a quiet dinner at home
with our good friends. I again decided to make a cake and did that whole long
process describe above one more time. Life in Uganda is full of unexpected adventures!
Too much happened in October I can’t even fit it all into
one blog. I don’t want to overwhelm you guys! Look for another blog post in the
next week or so. I’ll be telling you about my training and the trip to Gulu.
Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoy my stories! Feel free to mention anything
you are interested in hearing about. I love input!
And here are some more pictures of the kids!
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Emmanuel |
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Little monkeys named Abdul and Witness |
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Karim flipping |
