Thursday, July 14, 2011
The comical nature of the language barrier
So Marissa and I were riding on a boda earlier today and we told our driver to take us to BAM Shopping Center. Well, I guess he forgot that we had said that and as we were going along he said, "Red Cross?" to which Marissa answered "yes, very close" - then we start taking this weird path off the road that we have never taken in our lives and we both start asking him where he is going. He doesn't answer, but then we pull in at the Red Cross. That is when it hit me that he had said Red Cross before and I shared the revelation with Marissa - we got a good laugh! Gotta love the language barrier!
Quote of the day
The other day I was with Rem, one of my favorite team members EVER, and we stopped in town after a long day of work so that I could buy these new sweet kicks I had been admiring. After getting them, I walk back to the boda and this exchange occurs:
Rem: So how much did you end up paying?
Me: 13,000 shillings - I tried to gamble, but... wait, is that the right word?
What I MEANT to say was "I tried to bargain, but it wasn't too successful" (they were originally 15,000 shs) ... it was slightly embarrassing as all the locals around us started laughing and I will not lie that Rem and I laughed the whole way home too!
Good times in Africa...
Rem: So how much did you end up paying?
Me: 13,000 shillings - I tried to gamble, but... wait, is that the right word?
What I MEANT to say was "I tried to bargain, but it wasn't too successful" (they were originally 15,000 shs) ... it was slightly embarrassing as all the locals around us started laughing and I will not lie that Rem and I laughed the whole way home too!
Good times in Africa...
You know you've been in Africa for a long time when...
... you find 1,000 shillings in your pocket and think you are RICH!
Let me just clarify that that is equivalent to about 40 cents in America. But hey, here in Uganda that gets you a boda ride to town and back home and we do that A LOT!!
So lets just say when I found that 1,000 shs I was one happy mzungu ;)
Let me just clarify that that is equivalent to about 40 cents in America. But hey, here in Uganda that gets you a boda ride to town and back home and we do that A LOT!!
So lets just say when I found that 1,000 shs I was one happy mzungu ;)
Sunday, July 3, 2011
Latest on Development Work
As awesome as food might be, I should probably update you on what I came to Africa to do. Let's talk about projects.
1. Babies Home: so we stopped working with the preschool, but we started volunteering with the babies. There are about 12 of them and they are seriously the cutest! I want to adopt one in a second! Especially Muwana, she is seriously the smiliest baby with the most gorgeous eyes ever! I mean, just take a look for yourself...
Makes me melt. I have so much fun playing with her and I think it's safe to say we have both grown attached to each other - I only want to play with her now and she cries whenever I put her down which results in her having to be in my lap constantly! I love it! Anyways, every morning we go from 8-11 and help bathe the babies, change them (which ends up being every 10 minutes about since they pee into washclothes which aren't very absorbent...also why I'm now doing my laundry a lot more often...), feed them, and play with them. There is one baby that has been super sick and is 6 months old, but looks like he's 2 months... see for yourself...
It breaks my heart. They feed him raw egg, probably in hopes to help him grow, but raw egg is never good so we have been trying to teach the "mothers" a thing or two about nutrition for babies. We are also looking into donations to get more colorful mats so the babies aren't playing on concrete and hurting themselves and possibly a boom box with nursery rhyme tapes. They just need more stimulation in general... Also, if anyone has old baby clothes/books/toys please let me know b/c they could use A LOT more of that stuff.
2. Volunteering at the hospital: Some of us have been volunteering in different units of Mbale Regional Hospital. I personally have been volunteering in the maternity ward b/c well, I love babies. But I bet you all know that by now! They have us shadow the nurses, cut and prepare gauze, cut string for umbilical cord ties, make cotton balls, and clean. One time I was in the sterilization room cutting gauze and it was taking forever b/c the scissors were horrible and the nurse comes over and says "let me show you.. use this book and wrap around and then cut a lot at once... faster, yes?" however, it was the visitors book that I was wrapping the gauze around that was supposed to be sterile. It wasn't really adding up to me, but luckily I found out that they put it through the autoclave after! Phew! Anyways, in my shadowing of nurses, I have seen two births - literally witnessed babies coming out of mothers with my own eyes!!!! It was seriously insane and I couldn't believe what my eyes were seeing, but it was incredible.... it was all I could see in my head for the next three days after it happened... I even brought a baby over to its mother after it got cleaned off! Only in Africa!
3. Sanitation outreach: this has been on hold for a while, because we've run into the issue of lots of schools not having the funds for soap b/c they don't think it is very important/them already knowing about how to wash their hands but not caring enough to do so. We have been racking our brains as to what to do next and for this next week we have decided to continue doing the outreach with schools that really need it, but we are going to teach a segment on clean water (many of them don't understand that you have to wash hands with cleaning running water and often kids wash their hands in one big basin that ends up full of dirty water) and we are going to get the teachers more involved so they are more dedicated. We also are going to grill the headmasters about the importance of hand washing and before we agree to teach any more classes about it, we will require the schools themselves to provide the soap for us to teach - that way we will know if they care enough to provide it for themselves in the future hopefully. Development work is hard, but we'll see what happens with this....
4. Crafts: we have learned how to make paper bead jewelry and we have set up seminars to teach it to mothers of disabled children from Prossy's organization and also women from the Namatala slum who sell alcohol for income and battle alcoholism. I am super excited for this! We also are working to set up an Etsy account with all of these women hopefully so they can sell internationally and have more of a market and we are setting this up with CURE hospital too, which is the hospital we learned how to make the beads from. Since they sell the jewelry for such a good cause, it would be nice to expand their market so that more babies here survive hydrocephalis and spina bifida. We will see how it goes!
Ok well that's all for now... thanks for reading. See you in 17 days! Did I hear that right??? Yikes!!!
1. Babies Home: so we stopped working with the preschool, but we started volunteering with the babies. There are about 12 of them and they are seriously the cutest! I want to adopt one in a second! Especially Muwana, she is seriously the smiliest baby with the most gorgeous eyes ever! I mean, just take a look for yourself...
Makes me melt. I have so much fun playing with her and I think it's safe to say we have both grown attached to each other - I only want to play with her now and she cries whenever I put her down which results in her having to be in my lap constantly! I love it! Anyways, every morning we go from 8-11 and help bathe the babies, change them (which ends up being every 10 minutes about since they pee into washclothes which aren't very absorbent...also why I'm now doing my laundry a lot more often...), feed them, and play with them. There is one baby that has been super sick and is 6 months old, but looks like he's 2 months... see for yourself...
It breaks my heart. They feed him raw egg, probably in hopes to help him grow, but raw egg is never good so we have been trying to teach the "mothers" a thing or two about nutrition for babies. We are also looking into donations to get more colorful mats so the babies aren't playing on concrete and hurting themselves and possibly a boom box with nursery rhyme tapes. They just need more stimulation in general... Also, if anyone has old baby clothes/books/toys please let me know b/c they could use A LOT more of that stuff.2. Volunteering at the hospital: Some of us have been volunteering in different units of Mbale Regional Hospital. I personally have been volunteering in the maternity ward b/c well, I love babies. But I bet you all know that by now! They have us shadow the nurses, cut and prepare gauze, cut string for umbilical cord ties, make cotton balls, and clean. One time I was in the sterilization room cutting gauze and it was taking forever b/c the scissors were horrible and the nurse comes over and says "let me show you.. use this book and wrap around and then cut a lot at once... faster, yes?" however, it was the visitors book that I was wrapping the gauze around that was supposed to be sterile. It wasn't really adding up to me, but luckily I found out that they put it through the autoclave after! Phew! Anyways, in my shadowing of nurses, I have seen two births - literally witnessed babies coming out of mothers with my own eyes!!!! It was seriously insane and I couldn't believe what my eyes were seeing, but it was incredible.... it was all I could see in my head for the next three days after it happened... I even brought a baby over to its mother after it got cleaned off! Only in Africa!
3. Sanitation outreach: this has been on hold for a while, because we've run into the issue of lots of schools not having the funds for soap b/c they don't think it is very important/them already knowing about how to wash their hands but not caring enough to do so. We have been racking our brains as to what to do next and for this next week we have decided to continue doing the outreach with schools that really need it, but we are going to teach a segment on clean water (many of them don't understand that you have to wash hands with cleaning running water and often kids wash their hands in one big basin that ends up full of dirty water) and we are going to get the teachers more involved so they are more dedicated. We also are going to grill the headmasters about the importance of hand washing and before we agree to teach any more classes about it, we will require the schools themselves to provide the soap for us to teach - that way we will know if they care enough to provide it for themselves in the future hopefully. Development work is hard, but we'll see what happens with this....
4. Crafts: we have learned how to make paper bead jewelry and we have set up seminars to teach it to mothers of disabled children from Prossy's organization and also women from the Namatala slum who sell alcohol for income and battle alcoholism. I am super excited for this! We also are working to set up an Etsy account with all of these women hopefully so they can sell internationally and have more of a market and we are setting this up with CURE hospital too, which is the hospital we learned how to make the beads from. Since they sell the jewelry for such a good cause, it would be nice to expand their market so that more babies here survive hydrocephalis and spina bifida. We will see how it goes!
Ok well that's all for now... thanks for reading. See you in 17 days! Did I hear that right??? Yikes!!!
Food in Uganda
So, to be quite honest I have been pleasantly surprised with the food I have been able to partake of here in Uganda. Most of it is pretty decent in taste and there have only been a couple things I couldn't choke down. The biggest difference is that a lot of the main foods are pretty bland, which is sad because I am a girl that LOVES flavor. Ya know, the one that orders a sub at subway and puts almost all the veggies on it instead of just ham and cheese. You get my drift. Anyways, here are some local delights/undelightfuls(?) I have experienced here:
1. Chapatti: this is basically fried dough and they cook it in TONS of oil - their signature. Oil. It is just like fried bread I guess, but bland in flavor and I don't really like it on it's own although a lot of people do. It is a snack you can get off the street (note the man we always buy it from in the market in the picture below) and our cook used to make it for dinner once a week with rolex... which leads us to the next food...
2. Rolex: this is chapatti with fried eggs rolled up in it. Hence the name - rolled eggs, which the people pronounce here as rolex. Mercy used to make this once a week and put plain chapatti with it and I got so sick of it I started eating just the egg out of it - shh don't tell. I love fried eggs, but for some reason putting chapatti with it takes away almost all the flavor! Which is probably why they do it!
3. Chikka rolex: Lets spice things up a bit and put beans with our rolex, as you see below. We mzungus actually invented this one - one of the team members was ordering rolex from our main man in the market and asked "do you ever serve the rolex with beans?" and the man looked at him like he was crazy and said "oh no.. no no" almost like it was forbidden. But then Dane said "well can we try it?" and he thought for a second, shrugged, and did so hahaha. For some reason I found this encounter really funny. I followed this one down with a coke to kill the parasite that may or may not have planted itself in me b/c of the dirty dish I may or may not have eaten out of.
4. Samosas: these are kind of like Japanese egg rolls. They are just pastries filled with veggies or meat - although one time I got some off the street in Namatala slum and I think they were filled with potatoes, or at least that's what it tasted like...? Ya never know. They are actually super delightful - all the ones I've had have been good!
5. Matoke: this is banana mashed up and mixed with..... something.... that makes it taste kinda like potato. You would think it would be sweet, but it isn't. It is decent, but only with other things.
6. Posho: I actually haven't tried this one, because the only night our cook made it I was experiencing the BRAT diet (Bananas, Rice, Apple Juice, and Toast) b/c I was sick and had (forgive me) diarrhea. But it is kinda like porridge with no flavor. Yum! Our guard David was eating this the other day with white ants - apparently delicious! Who wants some?? Check out the biggest pot of posho known to man:
7. White ants: David cooked us some white ants one night as a side dish to our dinner. These are not your typical ants - they are huge and have big wings, but he takes the wings off and cooks them in butter and oil so they end up tasting kind of like a salty chip. We made the second wavers eat these upon initiation into Africa - mwahahaha. If you can't eat a white ant, you can't survive Africa! It was actually pretty cruel, because all of us first wavers didn't have to eat white ants, we just chose to. Since I ate the one I did, I have been worried that other little white ants have hatched inside me.......... okay so I'm not that worried, but that would be pretty pleasant, yes?
7. Beef, rice, cabbage, and potatoes: This is a standard meal that you often get served in Uganda I have noticed. We got this at Impact Ministries Primary School during an assembly once and the rice and cabbage tasted like they'd been in a sewer and the beef was pretty fatty... lets just say Devin ended up eating a lot more rice and cabbage then he probably wanted to! Thanks Devin!
8. Chicken eggs and beak: Okay so we haven't really eaten these, but our cook Mercy and our guard David eat them! Apparently it is the part of the chicken with the best taste (which probably means tasteless). MMMM!
9. Cake that smells like wet dog: For Whit's (country director) birthday we got a lady from church to make her a cake. It smelled like wet dog, and that is not a lie. Because of this I only had a little taste after others assured me it did not taste like wet dog, but just (surprise surprise) wasn't very flavorful!
10. Rice and beans: we have started to eat at a little restaurant every now and then for lunch that sells tons of rice and beans for cheap! Although come to find out, after open communication, three groups of us have gone and been charged different prices.... haha. They are supposed to be 1500 shillings, which is equivalent to like less than a buck! What a steal! And that is why since then we all catch each other eating there a lot - in fact, one day four groups of us went there and oddly enough there was hardly any overlap!
11. Disappointing desserts: basically, no matter what dessert you order here, you are hardly ever satisfied. You order crepes with nutella and you might get crepes with brandy in them OR they might get it right, but you only get a teaspoon of nutella... :( but beautiful tomatoes on the side since tomatoes go so nicely with crepes and nutella. ;) You order apple pie and you get bread with minimal filling. You order brownies and they don't come. Which is why I have been craving brownies since week 3 haha. Although, apparently you can get a stellar brownie with ice cream in Jinja (a few hours from Mbale)!
12. The best pineapple, mango, and avocado on earth!
This list doesn't include the 50+ peanut butter and jelly sandwiches I have consumed for lunch nearly every day since I have been here... rest assured I will not be eating those when I get home!!
Anyone hungry?
1. Chapatti: this is basically fried dough and they cook it in TONS of oil - their signature. Oil. It is just like fried bread I guess, but bland in flavor and I don't really like it on it's own although a lot of people do. It is a snack you can get off the street (note the man we always buy it from in the market in the picture below) and our cook used to make it for dinner once a week with rolex... which leads us to the next food...
2. Rolex: this is chapatti with fried eggs rolled up in it. Hence the name - rolled eggs, which the people pronounce here as rolex. Mercy used to make this once a week and put plain chapatti with it and I got so sick of it I started eating just the egg out of it - shh don't tell. I love fried eggs, but for some reason putting chapatti with it takes away almost all the flavor! Which is probably why they do it!3. Chikka rolex: Lets spice things up a bit and put beans with our rolex, as you see below. We mzungus actually invented this one - one of the team members was ordering rolex from our main man in the market and asked "do you ever serve the rolex with beans?" and the man looked at him like he was crazy and said "oh no.. no no" almost like it was forbidden. But then Dane said "well can we try it?" and he thought for a second, shrugged, and did so hahaha. For some reason I found this encounter really funny. I followed this one down with a coke to kill the parasite that may or may not have planted itself in me b/c of the dirty dish I may or may not have eaten out of.
4. Samosas: these are kind of like Japanese egg rolls. They are just pastries filled with veggies or meat - although one time I got some off the street in Namatala slum and I think they were filled with potatoes, or at least that's what it tasted like...? Ya never know. They are actually super delightful - all the ones I've had have been good!5. Matoke: this is banana mashed up and mixed with..... something.... that makes it taste kinda like potato. You would think it would be sweet, but it isn't. It is decent, but only with other things.
6. Posho: I actually haven't tried this one, because the only night our cook made it I was experiencing the BRAT diet (Bananas, Rice, Apple Juice, and Toast) b/c I was sick and had (forgive me) diarrhea. But it is kinda like porridge with no flavor. Yum! Our guard David was eating this the other day with white ants - apparently delicious! Who wants some?? Check out the biggest pot of posho known to man:
7. White ants: David cooked us some white ants one night as a side dish to our dinner. These are not your typical ants - they are huge and have big wings, but he takes the wings off and cooks them in butter and oil so they end up tasting kind of like a salty chip. We made the second wavers eat these upon initiation into Africa - mwahahaha. If you can't eat a white ant, you can't survive Africa! It was actually pretty cruel, because all of us first wavers didn't have to eat white ants, we just chose to. Since I ate the one I did, I have been worried that other little white ants have hatched inside me.......... okay so I'm not that worried, but that would be pretty pleasant, yes?
7. Beef, rice, cabbage, and potatoes: This is a standard meal that you often get served in Uganda I have noticed. We got this at Impact Ministries Primary School during an assembly once and the rice and cabbage tasted like they'd been in a sewer and the beef was pretty fatty... lets just say Devin ended up eating a lot more rice and cabbage then he probably wanted to! Thanks Devin!
8. Chicken eggs and beak: Okay so we haven't really eaten these, but our cook Mercy and our guard David eat them! Apparently it is the part of the chicken with the best taste (which probably means tasteless). MMMM!
9. Cake that smells like wet dog: For Whit's (country director) birthday we got a lady from church to make her a cake. It smelled like wet dog, and that is not a lie. Because of this I only had a little taste after others assured me it did not taste like wet dog, but just (surprise surprise) wasn't very flavorful!
10. Rice and beans: we have started to eat at a little restaurant every now and then for lunch that sells tons of rice and beans for cheap! Although come to find out, after open communication, three groups of us have gone and been charged different prices.... haha. They are supposed to be 1500 shillings, which is equivalent to like less than a buck! What a steal! And that is why since then we all catch each other eating there a lot - in fact, one day four groups of us went there and oddly enough there was hardly any overlap!11. Disappointing desserts: basically, no matter what dessert you order here, you are hardly ever satisfied. You order crepes with nutella and you might get crepes with brandy in them OR they might get it right, but you only get a teaspoon of nutella... :( but beautiful tomatoes on the side since tomatoes go so nicely with crepes and nutella. ;) You order apple pie and you get bread with minimal filling. You order brownies and they don't come. Which is why I have been craving brownies since week 3 haha. Although, apparently you can get a stellar brownie with ice cream in Jinja (a few hours from Mbale)!
12. The best pineapple, mango, and avocado on earth!
This list doesn't include the 50+ peanut butter and jelly sandwiches I have consumed for lunch nearly every day since I have been here... rest assured I will not be eating those when I get home!!
Anyone hungry?
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Updates on my 9-5 life in Mbale
Here is what has gone down from 9-5 this past week:
These pictures for some reason are being stubborn, but should go down with the Babies Home update under #3.
Amulamu and I and then Paul and I - the ones who should be twins! By looks and personality! I was constantly chasing these two around and just happened to hold them down for the two above photos and I absolutely love them. Amulamu sticking his tongue out (typical) and Paul smiling and laughing trying to get away (also typical).
Anthony is seriously the CUTEST! I will miss this kid! He was the perfect mix of fun and rebellion - he went a little crazy sometimes but always obeyed me and just has the cutest smirk!
Jen and I with our cute little students
Anywho, the determination to finish got Rem, Linds, and I through, but Jen decided it was not for her and stopped at an earring. We liked that because now we can show our teacher, Mama Miriem (the Mother of Miriem - she has a daughter named Miriem), how cool we are in that we made an earring instead with her wisdom. The creativity is flowing! We were supposed to meet with Mama Miriem to learn how to curve the basket (we just worked on the base) on Thursday but we failed to give a reminder call so she forgot :( so now we have to finish tomorrow, Sunday, again. Since this craft is so time intensive we also set up an appointment to learn how to make paper jewelry at CURE hospital. They make it there and when they sell it it goes towards curing all the babies with hydrocephalis (enlarged heads). In fact, we are thinking about helping the workers at CURE set up an Etsy account so that even those in America can purchase this jewelry. It is REALLY fun and cute! Here is a pic:
These pictures for some reason are being stubborn, but should go down with the Babies Home update under #3.
Amulamu and I and then Paul and I - the ones who should be twins! By looks and personality! I was constantly chasing these two around and just happened to hold them down for the two above photos and I absolutely love them. Amulamu sticking his tongue out (typical) and Paul smiling and laughing trying to get away (also typical).
Anthony is seriously the CUTEST! I will miss this kid! He was the perfect mix of fun and rebellion - he went a little crazy sometimes but always obeyed me and just has the cutest smirk!Jen and I with our cute little students 1. Craft update: Rem, Jen, Linds, and I went to learn the art of basketweaving on Sunday so it was indeed not a day of rest to our dismay. We learned how incredibly time intensive basketweaving is... but we also learned that it is not that complicated. You just take the dried banana fibers and loop hay around them ... 3 loops, 1 stitch with the needle, 3 loops, 1 stitch, 3 loops.... you get my drift. The hardest part is that you run out of hay so quickly and the hay gets SO tangled and messed up and breaks a lot and.. lets just say then I am not a happy camper. In fact, after we learned the technique we continued to work on our baskets at home during the week and one day I got frustrated and said "this is the worst hay ever" and everyone around just started laughing at the fact that I am frustrated about hay! Who even ever talks about hay? Only in Uganda!
Anywho, the determination to finish got Rem, Linds, and I through, but Jen decided it was not for her and stopped at an earring. We liked that because now we can show our teacher, Mama Miriem (the Mother of Miriem - she has a daughter named Miriem), how cool we are in that we made an earring instead with her wisdom. The creativity is flowing! We were supposed to meet with Mama Miriem to learn how to curve the basket (we just worked on the base) on Thursday but we failed to give a reminder call so she forgot :( so now we have to finish tomorrow, Sunday, again. Since this craft is so time intensive we also set up an appointment to learn how to make paper jewelry at CURE hospital. They make it there and when they sell it it goes towards curing all the babies with hydrocephalis (enlarged heads). In fact, we are thinking about helping the workers at CURE set up an Etsy account so that even those in America can purchase this jewelry. It is REALLY fun and cute! Here is a pic: It doesn't look like paper huh? I was shocked when I saw it - definitely not what I was picturing. They look like shells to me! Anyway, it is a lot easier to make and can be done cheaply. If any of you are interested in buying a necklace/bracelet/earrings to go towards the babies with hydrocephalis let me know and we can work it out. You will be saving children! We will also be working with the unskilled women in the villages to teach them this skill so they can sell them for profit.
2. Sanitation outreach: Whitney used to be the project lead for Sanitation, but she left after the first wave so the baton was handed to me! I am now project lead for this and Rem is my sidesick - it is fun! Side note: This trip is divided into 3 waves, 6 weeks each. Each wave some volunteers leave and some new ones come - we just lost 2 and gained 11 so lets just say it is a full house now! I moved up to the Sebo (sir or man) shack with Jen - this used to be inhabited by all the boys but with the new volunteers coming we got kicked out. This house is more ghetto but all our beds are pushed together so it like a huge slumbie (girls in one room, boys in other rooms - no worries). Side note finished. On Tuesday we finished the Sanitation outreach with Impact and taught P5-P7. They enjoyed it! They understand us better than the youngest ones so they didn't answer every question we asked with "soap" like the young ones hahaha. I decided the kids needed some more visual aids so we made handwashing posters with pictures for all the classrooms and will continue to do this at the rest of the schools we do outreach with. They loved them! Sadly we evaluated the tippy taps and they weren't in the best condition - kids stole the soap so they could use it with their family (this breaks my heart) and the cans are pretty much empty every time we go. They did invest in thicker rope for the pedal so the kids don't ruin it which does mean they care. We talked with them about the soap dilemma and they said they would switch over to powdered soap to mix in with the water in the can. It seems to be the only plausible alternative, even though it is still not the best. We will most likely be implementing this at all future schools too. We are going to be doing the outreach at two more schools this next week - should be fun!
3. Goodbye Babies Home: so we were working with the orphanage at Sister Mary's in the preschool like I have talked about, but sadly we are about to make our exit. We felt we were needed in the beginning to help set up structure for the children and facilitate the hiring process for the new teachers. We succeeded in pushing Sister Mary along to hire new teachers sooner rather than later and after working with them to help set up their classroom and help with the discipline we feel it is time to let them take over. They will be great teachers and this past week we made a surprise visit to the preschool and the kids were doing so well! We are happy with the work we did there, but sad to leave the kids even if they are crazy. We are probably going to start volunteering with the babies at the Home now though b/c they hardly ever get any loving and social stimulation is very important for babies. I love babies so this is awesome for me!
Other projects in the works: we visited a school that our Branch President George works at (yes, Mbale just became a branch! I thought it was a branch before but I was wrong - we just barely grew enough in size to be a branch as of a couple weeks ago! Soooo cool) and the children there are required to bring food from home for lunch. Sadly, many of them have no food at home so they go hungry during the day. I think it would be good to possibly teach about agricultural and plant them a square foot garden. Also, a few of us went on an outreach to visit with some families in different communities with children with disabilities. They all had cerebral palsy and learning about their stories broke my heart. Disability is feared here and the people treat those with disabilities as outcasts. The father always leaves and people in the community blame the mother and the child for the disability. Mothers lose their jobs and since the children are feared so much they basically become vegetables and sit around all day everyday. Schools will not take them in and they receive no education whatsoever. It is disheartening and we are hoping to set up some workshops with the families and the communities to battle this stigmatization. Stay tuned!
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Photoshoot
Here is a fun photoshoot I had with some kids at Impact. They kept saying "mzungu, mzungu!" and so I went over and had some fun with them...
Smiling
Gangsta
Blowing a kiss
Making me laugh
Fishy face
Sticking tongue out
Angry - hideous!
I asked what they wanted to do this time - strike a pose!
Love these kids!
Smiling
Gangsta
Blowing a kiss
Making me laugh
Fishy face
Sticking tongue out
Angry - hideous!
I asked what they wanted to do this time - strike a pose!Love these kids!
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