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
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