Back in Action

I am the worst at updating this thing! It wasn't my new year's resolution but I think I am going to change it now. New new year's resolution - blog more. There it's done. Now I’m going to have to ease into this so this blog is going to be short-ish. 

Basic overview of the last two months:

Mid Nov – Mid Dec = a blur of activity! I was rushing around trying to organize art projects. I spent a lot of time with the kids and got a lot of paint all over myself. It was great. I wanted to bring lots of art back to the U.S. so HALO can use it during their art auctions.

Thanksgiving in Uganda was better than I ever could imagine. The kind parent’s of one of my friend’s hosts a huge Thanksgiving dinner every year for all the expat kids. It was a wonderful gathering of about 25 of my friends. The food was incredible and we stuffed our faces with no shame (well at least I did). I was (and still am) so thankful to have such an amazing community in Uganda.

Mid Dec: I think I finally got all the paint off my hands and then things slowed down at work because all the kids finished school and went home to their relatives for the holidays.

I went on a staff retreat with HALO's partner organization in Uganda, Cornerstone. We went to Jinja, Uganda which is a beautiful small town an hour east of Kampala. Jinja is a major tourist attraction as it is the source of the Nile River, and Jinja offers all sorts of fun activities like white water rafting and bungee jumping. I did not participate in any of those activities but I did have a great time with the staff of Cornerstone. We stayed at a nice resort on the banks of the Nile. The retreat was very peaceful and great way to end the year. Cornerstone staff members work incredibly hard all year and definitely deserve this special treat. The retreat was a combination of relaxing with friends, meetings, and a Christmas party. Everyone had a great time. 

After the retreat I headed back to Kampala for a few more days before I flew home. I was very excited to go back to the U.S. and see my family and friends. I got home on Dec. 18th even though I left Uganda on Dec. 16th. Longest journey ever! I had crazy long layovers in both South Africa and New York so it took me awhile to get home. But the long journey was SO worth it. 

Home was wonderful. My time there was filled with family, friends, and good food. What else could a girl as for? The first thing I did was have a warm homemade meal with my parents. Then I went to bed around 9pm. The next day I had lunch with my Grandma, and saw my friends that night. By the second day I had hit all the basics of being home, family, friends, food, so I just continued with that pattern for the next four weeks.

We had Christmas dinner at my parent’s house with my Grandma, Aunt, Uncle, and cousins. My parent’s hosted another family gathering at their house when the rest of my cousins came to town. Both gatherings were wonderful. I had such a good time hanging out with all my cousins.

I rang in the new year with a few of my closest friends at our friend’s cabin on a lake about an hour outside St. Louis. It was perfect.

A few days later I headed to good ol’ Indiana to see my friends from college. We all gathered in Indianapolis and proceeded to have an awesome weekend together. We spent Thursday night at our friend’s house doing what we do best - hanging out and talking for hours on end. Friday we hit up the Indianapolis Museum of Art for some culture. Friday night we hit the town and had a blast as we always do when we’re together. Sadly our time together ended on Saturday afternoon. I headed back to St. Louis to recoup and get ready for my next road trip.

Two days later I was heading west towards Kansas City, MO to spend a few days at HALO headquarters. It was so great to see the US part of the HALO team! We spent our time together catching up, having meetings, and strategizing for 2013. I left Kansas City feeling very inspired and ready to get back to work!

The last week and a half of my time at home was spent relaxing at home and eating good food. My brother was also in town from school so we hung out. My parents took us out to some of our favorite restaurants. The weather turned warm for a day so we took advantage of the situation and spent a Friday hiking around the nearest state park.

Eventually my time to leave came and I spent many hours strategically packing my suitcases to fit as many US food products not available in Uganda as possible. Three pounds of chocolate? Check. Two bags of quinoa? Check. Vanilla extract? Check. The list goes on.

The fun didn’t stop there! I still had one more special trip before flying back. New York City with my bestie! Flying out of NY to Uganda is about $500 cheaper than flying out of St. Louis so I like to monopolize on this situation and spend a few days in the city with one of my best friends, Rachel. Lucky for me another one of my best friends lives in NYC right now as well. The three of us spent the weekend bouncing around the city. From the upper west side to the lower east side to Brooklyn we had an amazing time. I also was able to see a friend from Uganda who recently moved back to NY. We had a super fast but super great catch up session at a bar in Brooklyn.

Finally it was time to fly out. I re-weighed my bags (50lbs exactly) and headed to JFK. It was sad to say goodbye to everyone, but I am happy for the time we had together. Twenty two hours later I was back.

I loved every minute of being in the US, but I am glad to be back in Uganda!  

I happily said goodbye to the cold and the snow!

The Adventures of Living in Uganda - October Update

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.  

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.

Makerere Boys - Ferdinand and Connia

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.

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.

Henry and Ferdinand working on their collages!

All of the boys working on collages

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. 

Sarah and Jess

Me and Ale

Group shot

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&

A calmer area of the river where you can swim

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. 

My group won this game

Trampoline fun!

Maggie's present - a juicer!

Musical chairs  

Volleyball

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!

Emmanuel 

Little monkeys named Abdul and Witness

Karim flipping

Contributing a Verse

Oh me! Oh life! of the questions of these recurring,

Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill’d with the foolish,

Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)

Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the struggle ever renew’d,

Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me,

Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me intertwined,

The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?

                                       Answer.

That you are here—that life exists and identity,

That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse

-          Walt Whitman

Living in Uganda makes you think a lot. Sometimes I can’t even participate in group discussions because I am overwhelmed with new thoughts and ideas both positive and negative. The potential for this country, the potential for my organization, the potential of the children we work with, and the potential for humanity is so strong yet demanding and dependent. Sometimes it is easier to shut down rather than to open up and listen. I have strong urges to just shut down and hide but I fight them (most of the time). At the end of a long day in Uganda, or really any day in Uganda, unwinding is crucial. Everyone has their own ways of unwinding and I find that is really helps me to talk about my day with friends. I am so thankful I had the opportunity to move into a new house with great people because they really help me unwind at the end of every day.

Most of us foreigners living in Uganda face so many troubles and problems in our daily lives (mostly other peoples troubles) there is a point when it all becomes too much. I cannot bear to hear another tear jerking story about how one of our kids ended up on the streets and what happened to them while they were on the streets. I cannot bear to hear about another death that was caused by a preventable disease. I cannot bear to be presented with another problem I don’t have a solution for. I cannot bear these things, oh me, oh life. I see so many problems and so few solutions and this hurts me. I want to find a solution, I want to fix every problem but I can only do so much. One of my new goals is to try hard to see solutions rather than problems. I tend to look around me and see the problems and get overwhelmed by the problems so my goal is to see solutions.

My heart is heavy and my brain confused but I will tread on and I will continue down this road I have chosen. I have read and heard this poem by Walt Whitman many times before in my life but the other day the poem really spoke to me. I can feel the pain and anguish in his words and I feel them in my life right now. His answer to the struggles he sees and faces is the same as my answer to the struggles I face. The play will go on and I will continue to play a part. No matter how small my role in this world may be I am contributing a verse and that verse makes a difference.

I don’t want these thoughts to make my friends and family back home nervous or scared for me. I am an eternal optimist and while I have times that are dark the sun is never far from my mind. Having emotions is a good thing and this blog is an insight to some of the unique emotions I have had while living in Uganda. Just to show I really am happy and loving my life I will include some fun pictures. I’m not very good at being in the pictures but trust me I was around and I was smiling! More life updates to come soon. 

Playing with the albino Ugandan girls that live across the street. They bring a smile to my face every time  I leave the house and every time I come home. They are the cutest.

Popping Abdul's collar for him

See! Happy times 

With the Bukesa Boys

Celebrating John's 30th birthday!

Plastic jugs on bike. How can you not smile at this?

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!