When you need a friend....

Sometimes when you get a call from someone they manage to say just the right words to send you into a mini panic. Today that happened. There is a woman here that I work with often. She has one of the most sincere and determined spirits ever! She has recently returned to school to finish high school after having 3 kids. Because of this decision she has had a rough road in the home life department. Her "husband" was less than thrilled about her going to school and in the past 3 months has been very vocal about it. He has told her on multiple occasions that she shouldn't go to school and that  she is too old and stupid to be able to finish school and that he will kick her out of the house if she doesn't quit. however, despite these threats her thirst for knowledge is too strong because she want to make a better life for her kids so she can't stop.

So today the call came that i guess i had been waiting for since learning about her home life. She called to inform me that her husband had officially kicked her out of the house and she has no where to sleep and she doesn't know what to do. Basically she has hit rock bottom and doesn't know how to climb back out. 

I have worked with a lot of people to help them in really crummy circumstances, but sitting on the bench with her as she crumbles under the thought of possibly loosing her kids because she wants to be educated so that she can provide for a better life for her kids was something that is hard to process. Because the laws here in Uganda give no rights to the mother over her kids. So even though she carried each of them in her belly for 9 months and has been working hard to scrape together enough money to provide for them food and school fees so that they can be educated, the man still has all the rights to do whatever he wants with the children. which means if he is angry enough at her to kick her out, he has all the "rights" to keep her from her kids as well arg, i could talk about how messed up that is, but it would just make me even more infuriated. so ill get back to the story.

I went and met her at the slums to talk with her about what was happening and see what i could do to help, So as i was sitting there trying to figure out how to help her i finally began to see her as a person. let me explain that. Being here in Uganda it is often hard not to look at a problem and see all the ways that money could fix it. and i think having been here for 3 months already my first thought is how much it would cost to fix such and such problem. So at first that was my initial thought. I was thinking, well, i wonder how much rent costs. I think i have 50,000 shillings in my wallet i wonder if that would cover a months rent and then we can figure out what to do. And then i would need to give her some food money so that she can feed herself and then her kids probably need food money too... and as i am thinking all of these things through i catch myself and think. Wait cami, if you were in America and one of your friends came to you with her problems what would your first thought be to do? it most certainly wouldn't be, well how much money do i need to give her to get her stable. It would be to LISTEN. listen to her problems, don't try to automatically fix them yourself. grieve with her as she opens her heart out to you about her concerns and worries and fears, and then help her to find her own solution. Listen and ask questions, but don't solve the problems for her, because she is the only one that can truly get herself out of the situation she is in. 

So i realized i was just a friend with a shoulder to cry on. She didnt' call me because she wanted me to throw money at her trials. She needed someone to talk to that would help her figure out what options she has. And so that is what we did. We talked and she was able to identify someone that might be willing to let her spend the night. And she was able to solve the immediate problem of where to sleep. Her heavy trials and burdens didn't automatically and magically get fixed because i talked to her. but she was standing a little bit taller when we walked out of the church we met it. And she seemed a little more confident in her ability to handle her situations. 

So, who knows what exactly will be her solution, but its nice to know that sometimes the thing that is most needed in a time of crisis, trials, and hardship, is a shoulder to cry on and  a listening ear. Not that i wouldn't mind giving that husband a piece of my mind and being the one that comes in and saves the day for a friend, I was able to help her see a little bit more of the incredible person she is and the amazing strength she has. 

I hope she continues to remember that. 

two cuties from church

i love the intensity in his eyes. 

This is Bella Megan, She was born just a few weeks ago and was given the name  by a former volunteer. Shes so cute!

A tender AHA moment

So, there was a really Amazing thing that happened a few days ago at and Executive Board meeting with HIV/Aids Support Network Namatala or HASNN for short.

So, I was meeting with the board and discussing about the demonstration passion fruit garden that we were going to begin the coming monday. We were going to begin digging because we had FINALLY procured a plot of land whoot whoot! So about half way through the meeting while we are talking about the logistics of what we need to do, someone brought up about how the woman that come to dig should be fed and given water. Now, this is something that is very common in Uganda. When there is an activity, the person hosting the activity feeds the people attending. It is VERY important to these people and causes A LOT of money to be spent to keep up this tradition. However, the person that was making the budget for the passion fruit had not budgeted a lunch. Which for me was completely ok, because this was a project for the people themselves and i didn't want to provide something that they couldn't provide for themselves. Because this is a demonstration teaching garden and they will be expected to do this on their own once they have finished the program. So, bringing up the need to feed all of the people that will show up became the main focus of the rest of the meeting. The conversation started like this.
"we need to feed the woman porriage, and water, and we need cups and plates to be able to provide all of this to them" the entire board turns to me and says "Cami, we need (insert an big amount of money) more money for the budget so that we can feed these woman" to which i replied, "because it wasn't in the budget we don't have the money to do it. I don't know what you want to do but this is something you will have to come up with." So they began brainstorming how to make it happen, but most of the brainstorm was how it wasn't going to work unless i gave them more money because of XYZ... to which i just sat back and didn't contribute deciding they were going to have to come up with something, i wasn't going to fix this problem with providing more money. so the conversation lasted for about 30 minutes...

The back of Fred, as he carries the hoes to dig for the passion fruit.

This is John Peter in the plot of land we got for the passion
Fruit before we did the digging.

And then the miracle happened. Fred, one of the SWEETEST men i know got a HUGE grin on his face and raised his hand saying, i have the solution that everyone is going to agree on! His face literally lite up! so once the others quieted down he got very serious and said, " These are our people, we as the board have decided that we want to help the people in this community. And WE are the solution. What we can do is pool our own money together to be able to provide the porridge and water to the women. We made the commitment to help these people. it is not Cami's job to take care of them, it is us" This made me choke up, these are OUR people. He was starting to take ownership of HASNN and the organization and what they were trying to do. Not what the muzungu's were trying to do, but what the board of HASNN wanted to do for the people of Namatala. And the response of the board almost make me cry (ok, lets be honest i shed a few tears, but i didn't let them see) because every single person on the board agreed to this. Not ONE raised an objection each of them were so excited about the AHA moment that Fred had.

Charles ready to shlash the weeds! 

So each in turn wrote down on a piece of paper what they could contribute to be able to get the porridge and water to the women that were going to dig. between the 6 of them they got the money needed to provide the food they felt the women deserved.

They were finally getting the picture. THEY ARE THE SOLUTION! that is one of the hardest things i have seen in development work. Getting the people you work with to take ownership of what they, and you, are trying to do. They always come to you with the problems, and then expect you to just throw money at it as the solution. But like Fred said, " WE are the solution" and that is 100% true. The people in the community that have the heart, desire, and usually the skills to make a difference are the ones that makes lasting change. "Muzungu's" come in trying to make changes but generally don't stick around long enough to make it happen, or just throw money at it until their funds dry up and say, welp, it was a valiant attempt. But at least it helped them for a bit.

John Peter slashing while we dig right behind him

But it is the people that are a part of the community that are going to make the biggest and lasting changes. They are the ones that will make it last, so that when the "Muzungu's" money runs out, it doesn't matter because....
THEY ARE THE SOLUTION!

It was a great moment to see them catching the vision!

The group that is officially part of the HASNN demonstration passion fruit garden!
In the the newly dug field, they worked SO hard! it was amazing!

Oh yeah, PS, we started the passion fruit demonstration garden, i will write another post explaining that whole AMAZING project..... :)