Muzungubye... the keiki's think its one word...

Quick update on deborah

She has started school!!! yahoo. a few of the girls here have decided to sponsor her... i helped a little and then Carlee is going to set up an account. it only costs 160 dollars a term for her to go to school... so Carlee is really excited about that!

We also have been working with a great group of woman and the Slum in Namatala. They come from the Karamajong tribe. They are the lowest of the lowest group of woman. they are also in their own specific woman's group and it is really fun to get to know them. 

i was really nervous before our lesson today because we had tried to teach them about family planning and the lesson went horribly wrong! They were really upset because we weren't going to give them free contraceptions. which we actually could have done but we didn't know that they wanted that. and our translator was having trouble telling them what we were saying and we walked out of there feeling like we had failed. it was my first reality that we are dealing with real issues and i have no qualifications to teach these people about the lives that they live every single day. I need to learn so much from them. sure i come from a place that is "more developed" but that means that i have no idea what kind of struggles these people go through everyday. It was a huge reality check and to be completely frank it kinda made me feel like i shouldn't be here… I'm  just wasting time trying to do good when its not going to make a difference and i felt like i was just making it worse… if that is possible. 

This sweet girls name is Gifty... how cute is that!

So even though i felt like i should give up, my stubbornness i guess wouldn't allow me, so the following week we brought in a local organization that works with family planning and it went great. So that gave me the idea that we should just partner with the local organizations that are trying to deal with the issues that we come across and then the people we work with will have a place to go once we leave. Yahoo

This was a pamphlet on Family Planning with pictures and everything.. the children liked the paper  

so our next lesson was going to be on HIV and i was so incredibly nervous for it because we had found an organization that would do the free HIV testing but they weren't going to be able to come with us as we taught it so me and Kara asked the organization all the questions we had and asked any advise that they would like to give us because to be honest i was completely terrified that i would completely botch it again. So with a prayer in my heart and as much information as i could get into my brain me and Kara set off to teach the Karamajong woman again about a topic that was very much a reality in their lives and something i didn't really know much about personally. I have never met someone that has HIV and i don't live my life with the risk of getting it. So yes, i was completely feeling like i had nothing to teach these woman but then the other side of me felt like maybe there were some misconceptions about it and even in they did know about HIV they must not know enough to go and get tested… so they really did need it! Which gave me some comfort. So Kara and I talked and taught them and the lesson was actually going really fast and I got a little worried. Then when we had talked about all of the material that we had prepared. we asked if there were any questions and one girl raised her hand and said " when can we get tested"? seriously that was music to my ears! The organization that we had talked to wanted to do a HIV testing and so we told them that we would talk to them and let them know next week when the testing will be. The best part about it is that they will give the testing and then  counsel them no matter what the results and if they test positive they will give them the medication they need too so that they aren't left high and dry. Its really exciting that it was a success because i was really actually worried about it. so i am glad that it went well. 

Also, great great great news! we got donated 5 water filters and they are already in country so we can get the implemented quickly! AND…. our indiegogo website has been able to raise almost all the money that we need to be able to implement almost 36 water filters in the slums as well. Im so excited to get this project off of the ground and be able to see it change so may people's lives! i have been teaching sanitation in the slum community that pass couple of weeks and i have really gotten to know the people that we will be implementing the filters with and they are some incredible people!!! 

These are the devoted men that come even when we are talking about a women's cycle... they are troopers!

Starting young 

I look deep in thought... about family planning?....

This is Kalei, i love her smile, and she has a great laugh

This woman i can't remember her name but she is always so animated when she talks i almost get worried that she is mad about something. but he just likes to speak very sternly

Pastor Philip, a man that make Child of Hope run so smoothly and who is AMAZING and has the biggest heart and Great people skills... i feel like i could go on about how incredible he is!!!!!

ill have to take some pictures of the groups of woman and post them. They are such great people that i wish i could talk about each of them individually because they have such great lives! 

Feeling at Peace

                                     




We traveled to the Bunabukoya Village to continue to help build the health clinic, they had already dug the outline for the foundation (pictured above) When we got there we helping in getting the mixtures of the foundation together. This consisted of mixing small rocks with some cement and putting it along the outline of the clinic and then also bringing the bricks that were made previous to the site to set it. We were the manual labor that brought the rocks, cement, and sand to the building sight. Which we were able to do pretty successfully thanks to the help of a man named Henry Ford who invented the assembly line.

We put that assembly line to very good use. Throughout the days when we were doing this we would get a little grumpy because we were tired and it was really hot outside and usually just when you thought you couldn't handle it anymore…. the kids would have recess time and come and join us in the assembly line with all of their little sacks and lighten all of our spirits. i don't know what it is but when you see those kids hauling cement, bricks, sand, rocks, whatever it is i would get the strength to keep going. They were so eager to help! i don't know if it was because they wanted the clinic or if they just liked being around the Muzungu's but ill take either one because i know i wouldn't have been able to do half of the labor without their smiling faces. And if the work was too hard for them, meaning their parents told them they couldn't help they would just sit on the side and watch us, which was pretty encouraging too!!!!! AHH I love these kids!!!

        

Sarah the incredible host!

Also, Sarah taught us how to cook, i learned how to mingle posho.

She is the most excited and happy woman i have ever met! she always greets us with the biggest smiles and warmest hugs! i love it! she probably only understand 10 percent of the conversations that i have with her but her bubbly personality makes me feel like i could sit and talk with her all day! She was telling us about her life and how she and her husband Timothy, (a man that African men should follow example from because he treats his wife how she deserves to be treated) are able to provide a living. We asked her how she is able to get money to buy food and she just looked at us and was like… if we need food and i cannot grow it i sell a chicken and then go and buy it. mind you this woman is the one that we live with 3 days of the week and she has 10 -12 "guests" staying at her house sleeping in her living room and she goes out and sells a chicken so that she can make us posho and scuma (which is like spinach) and then kills another chicken so that we can have a protein to eat with our meal. And asks for NOTHING in return. We always give her money as a contribution but she never asks and i know she doesn't expect it. 

Timothy, Sarah's husband

When her husband timothy found out that i was thinking about staying in uganda longer than august (yeah that may be a spoiler for some of you its just a thought and who know if i can actually afford to stay here longer anyways)  he got so excited that he had the translator tell me that if i stay and were to come to the village i will always have a place at their home and that he would accept me like a daughter. He doesn't have any men to marry me off to so i'm pretty sure that he has no ulterior motives in offering his home to me. They this family is so incredible. i think one of the reasons why i love sarah so much is because she is a woman after my own heart. Her home is place where you can feel instantly welcomed and she takes in "stray" people every day. in Sarah's blood family there is only her, her husband, and her daughter vikki. But her home is always filled with people. there is always laughter, happiness and bodies of people strewn about the floors finding a place to sleep. She cooks to feed the masses and it is always eaten up. 

Me attempting to mingle posho

One of the many people that stay at Sarah's often

Each of these people are not immediate family to Sarah but they come and go  as if they are!! I love it!

Vikki and Sarah, can't you just feel the happiness coming from them!!!

i want a home like hers where people feel welcome to drop in to say hi. or if they are in need of a place to rest their head they know that there is always a spot at cami's house where you will be welcomed with a warm smile and a BIG hug :) 

We gooo we go uganda cranes we go!

This was a really bad snap shot of just how crowded it was

We goo we go uganda cranes we go! that is the phrase you need to learn if you are going to go to a Ugandan Football game you must know this phrase. I was really excited to go to a football game here in uganda. We bought uganda crane jerseys so that we wouldn't stick out, which isn't actually possible considering there was our group of muzungu's and a couple that were not african in the entire stadium.

Im so excited! and for some reason my eyes look really really blue

It was a world cup qualifier agains Senegal and so i was really excited to be in a stadium in Africa for a world cup qualifier game! The quality of the game was actually a little disappointing. i felt like we were watching a high school game in relation to the quality… BUT….. it truly was a great experience. 

Uganda Cranes warming up!!

I got really into the game because i was so frustrated with how they were playing, both teams had HORRIBLE first touches, and they were lazy and didn't make runs off the ball, and they fouled like it was the goal of the game to see who could take out the most players. which don't get me wrong i like a good shove now and then but when you have people flopping all over the place and it messes with the flow of the game i get a little upset. 

but it was so much fun! we actually landed in the front of the sports section of the newspaper. Pretty cool huh!?! 

It was my first time in Kampala which the biggest city in uganda so it was weird to be where there were so many people and to be honest i don't think i liked it very much, there were so many armored guards and people were getting things stolen right out of their hands, but we were with very trust ugandans who actually saw that someone was trying to steal a phone and began hitting the guy with his plastic horn. the guy didn't get away and the phone was returned safely. 

We are in the Newspaper!!!!

Me and Lex were both wanting to play soccer SO bad!!

There is another game this weekend that i may or may not go to, i haven't decided yet.  i liked being there but i don't know if its worth the 5 hour bus ride… i guess we will have to wait and see. 

This is why our team is so awesome, because we have rebecca and holly as our country directors.

disclaimer:   AND I CANNOT FIGURE OUT HOW TO MAKE THIS LOOK DECENT! THE PICTURES DO NOT STAY WHERE THEY ARE SUPPOSE TO, SORRY

Truly Heart Breaking

So, I have been working with the people in the namatala slums and each time that we go out into the community there is a girl that follows us. At first I didn't realize that she would follow us, but when we were finished doing what we needed to in the community, without a fail she would come up to me and in the sweetest, most timid voice, averting her eyes to make sure she doesn't make contact would say " I want to go to school" my heart broke the first time she said it and i was a little overwhelmed with the other things that had happened that day and so i said, " you see that man i am with, he is a teacher you should go and talk to him" and left it at that. i am a little ashamed that i didn't stop to get the whole story, but i didn't. about 3 days later we were back in the community and were doing some water filtering surveys and i was all wrapped up in getting the information that we needed and then this same girl comes up to me and in the same timid voice says " i want to go to school" this time thankfully i was more receptive to stopping for a moment and i asked her how old she was and what her names was. She kind of  got really shy and just wouldn't respond. So i walked up to the man we were with. His name is Pastor Philip and I told him that this girl just told me she wanted to go to school and she has come up to me each time that i was here and said the same thing. He got a quizzical look in his eye and decided to investigate. So he walked over to the girl and greeted her in her local language and was able to get her name, which is deborah, and he asked about her parents and she said that they had died. as soon as she began speaking to him she started to cry. They were shy, scared, sad, tears and that is really and truly where my heart BROKE.
There have been so many sad stories of peoples lives and my heart hurts for all of the people that i meet but for whatever reason this girls demeanor struck a chord with me and i started to cry. After Pastor Philip spoke with her i asked him about it and he said he couldn't enroll her in school because they only have P1-3 and she has completed up to P4. But i could tell he wasn't done working with her and that helped my heart a little bit.
One of the team members that was with us has continued to follow up with Philip in figuring out what to do to help her and she blogged about it today. so i am going to include the link here because her description is better than i can tell it. http://colorlessclassblog.wordpress.com/2012/06/08/deborah/

I don't yet have a picture of Deborah, but i will post it when i get one. but there are kids from Namatala 

Raftin the Nile!

SO.. this weekend we also decided to travel down to jinja to do white water rafting down the nile! yeah, i have swam in the NILE!!!!  it was so much fun! our guide's name was Duncan. He was originally from england but had lived in New Zealand for the last 5 years and he does rafting as a job just because he thinks its fun!! after rafting and experiencing the excitement myself i think i could take that life on.  except it only pays 60 dollars a trip... which is livable here in uganda so that works...

i think me and kelsey (the girl to the right of me) have the best faces on!!!

when we hit this i was in the very back left and eventually every fell on top of me... IT WAS AWESOME!!!!

This was the the funnest rafting trip, it will always be remembered.

Also, sadly i dont' have a picture of this but when we got back to our hostel there was a kayak that was tipped upsidedown on the roof of the restaurant and there is a rope tied around it and i grabbed the rope and lifted myeslf into the kayak and hung upside down for a bit. it was so much fun! and i did it all by myself... yeah i felt pretty strong, but it was late at night and no one had their camera so we weren't able to take a pic of it. sad day, cause it was really fun!!!

True African life

So there is so much to blog about and so I will attempt to explain in as much detail as possible why my heart has been sold to Mbale Uganda.

On Monday of last week we prepared early in the morning to go to the Bunabuyoka Village. I’m pretty sure I have mentioned this place. It is where we are going to be building a health clinic and finishing a school and doing some Entrepreneurship classes. So we are preparing to take all of the gear that we will need to survive 3 days living in an African village. We talked about how we were going to be True Africans by the time of this trip. So we decided to test out how we were going to take our mattresses on our Boda Boda... This is our practice round....

And then we decided we would let the locals figure it out!! our ideas weren't the best...

When we got to the village i loved every minute of it!!!  When we got there we had so much fun. We hauled rocks down from this hill so that they could make the foundation for the health clinic and the floor of the school. We were so tired and the kids during recess wanted to help us so they picked up rocks that were often times bigger than themselves... But they were so excited to help!!!!

Also I am loving the local food here... we get to eat with our hands and i am really liking the posho( which is the white stuff) and matoke (which is smushed bananas).... can you tell?











Then there is a boy named joseph, at first we thought his name was yusef... but upon further investigation im pretty sure it is joseph.

He was the most excited and happy boy! I would squeeze him till his eye pop out. He became my best buddy. My favorite thing was when we would be walking up the hill to go and get more rocks i would feel this hand slip into mine and i would look down and see him staring back at me with his inquisitive eyes. my heart melts every time!
He is also a huge dancer! Every time music is on he cant stop moving his body and he doesn't move the way an african usually does. He goes crazy and moves all of his body parts. i love it! we had so much fun together. It got to the point that i would wait to feel that sweet little hand to reach for mine and then i knew i could climb that treacherous mountain again to bring more rocks down ( i realized at that point that i was getting a glimpse of what it was like to build the Salt Lake Temple)
He started to be my guide and out walk in front of me and hold my hand so that i wouldn't fall... He is only 4 years old! how do these kids get to be so old at such a young age. they are so incredible and sweet i don't think i will ever find kids like this anywhere else! I love them!!!!

This is vikki and Brenda, their english is great and they loved to teach us all of their games.. one was like tug-o-war and i couldn't stop laughing. i

The pile of rocks that we carried down from the mountain

i think they were trying to do the Shaka but couldn't quite get their fingers to cooperate  :) 

My man Jospeh! i love him!!!!