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!
Sipi Falls and Futbol Game
For the weekends here in Uganda, we often get away and do fun things to take advantage of the fact we are here in Africa. A couple weekends ago we hiked up Sipi Falls and it was absolutely BEAUTIFUL! Some of the prettiest lush greenery I have ever seen and the waterfalls were breathtaking too. The hike was harder than we anticipated and it started raining a lot so it got WAY muddy. My supposed amazing keens were not so amazing and I was slipping EVERYWHERE! I biffed it a few times and that's when these 10 year old fierce Ugandan boys started holding my hand and helping me up and down the mountain. They are so incredibly tough, I couldn't believe it! I would have biffed it 100 more times if it weren't for them haha. We also saw a cool cave with bats and scaled some rocks at the base of the waterfall. It was intense and we were all covered in mud completely by the end of the day! It was a lot of fun!! My camera died so here are just two pics:
Aubrey, Remmik, and I in front of one of the falls. Love these girls!!
In front of one of the smaller caves. Some of us volunteers, as well as Janet who is a board member for HELP.
The next weekend The Twisted Sisters (the four of us that got braids) went with Suz and the boys to a futbol game in Kampala. It was seriously INSANE. We drove up with some people who won VIP tickets through MTN to see the game (which was supposed to be us btw - it was a mess getting our tickets to say the least - lots of broken promises and heated words). Even though we didn't get the VIP tickets we still got a bunch of the food that they were handing out to all of them so that was awesome. It took about 3 hours to get to Kampala and the WHOLE way these men were blowing on these obnoxious horns and chanting "We go, we go, Uganda Cranes we go!" while us twisted sisters just wanted to sleep. :( I understand team spirit and getting into games, but can't we just contain it to DURING the game?!? It was crazy. The game itself was pretty tight although I nearly got trampled by a stampede trying to get into the gates. It was seriously a free for all, fight to your death to get in those gates. You'd think you were getting into the world cup for a million dollars by the way these people were fighting to get in!! But nope, it was a 7 dollar game and just a game! NUTS! I almost lost my arm, but don't worry, it's still here with us. The Cranes won the game 2-0 which was AWESOME and I have never seen so much spirit during a game! It was seriously so fun - the guy sitting next to me was drunk off of booze and he picked me up like a baby when they scored the second time! YIKES! Too bad I didn't get a photo. And you are probably wondering if during the 3 hours back home everyone blew in their horns and chanted because of the victory? The answer to that would have to be a yes. I'm pretty sure I heard horns in my sleep that night...... ask me if I'm happy about it. Here are some pics:
The Twisted Sisters with Mike, a previous player of the Uganda Cranes. Whit (the one next to him on the right, one of our country directors) has a secret crush on him! Ok I guess it's not secret since I know!
The Stadium! Huge and so much red, yellow, and black!!
Me, Rem, and Jen. Excited for the game to start!
The drunk dude next to me gave me this horn. Fun fun.
After the first goal. We love the Uganda Cranes! So much spirit!
On our way home - triggers to our heads because of the stupid horns haha
Here's to fun weekends in Uganda! The best part: Whitney and Paul were featured in the newspaper after the game!! :)
Aubrey, Remmik, and I in front of one of the falls. Love these girls!!
In front of one of the smaller caves. Some of us volunteers, as well as Janet who is a board member for HELP.The next weekend The Twisted Sisters (the four of us that got braids) went with Suz and the boys to a futbol game in Kampala. It was seriously INSANE. We drove up with some people who won VIP tickets through MTN to see the game (which was supposed to be us btw - it was a mess getting our tickets to say the least - lots of broken promises and heated words). Even though we didn't get the VIP tickets we still got a bunch of the food that they were handing out to all of them so that was awesome. It took about 3 hours to get to Kampala and the WHOLE way these men were blowing on these obnoxious horns and chanting "We go, we go, Uganda Cranes we go!" while us twisted sisters just wanted to sleep. :( I understand team spirit and getting into games, but can't we just contain it to DURING the game?!? It was crazy. The game itself was pretty tight although I nearly got trampled by a stampede trying to get into the gates. It was seriously a free for all, fight to your death to get in those gates. You'd think you were getting into the world cup for a million dollars by the way these people were fighting to get in!! But nope, it was a 7 dollar game and just a game! NUTS! I almost lost my arm, but don't worry, it's still here with us. The Cranes won the game 2-0 which was AWESOME and I have never seen so much spirit during a game! It was seriously so fun - the guy sitting next to me was drunk off of booze and he picked me up like a baby when they scored the second time! YIKES! Too bad I didn't get a photo. And you are probably wondering if during the 3 hours back home everyone blew in their horns and chanted because of the victory? The answer to that would have to be a yes. I'm pretty sure I heard horns in my sleep that night...... ask me if I'm happy about it. Here are some pics:
The Twisted Sisters with Mike, a previous player of the Uganda Cranes. Whit (the one next to him on the right, one of our country directors) has a secret crush on him! Ok I guess it's not secret since I know!
The Stadium! Huge and so much red, yellow, and black!!
Me, Rem, and Jen. Excited for the game to start!
The drunk dude next to me gave me this horn. Fun fun.
After the first goal. We love the Uganda Cranes! So much spirit!
On our way home - triggers to our heads because of the stupid horns hahaHere's to fun weekends in Uganda! The best part: Whitney and Paul were featured in the newspaper after the game!! :)
Projects 101 cont.
Alright peeps. Here's some more project talk:
3. Sanitation Outreach. This project included building tippy taps at both St. Kizito's Babies Home and Impact Ministries (with a trial run in our yard first) and then doing a sanitation lesson for 4 of the classes at Impact. We covered what germs are, why they are bad, showed them some hands on demos of how germs spread (covered tomatoes in flour and then passed them around - flour gets all over everyone's hands), and then discussed the steps to handwashing and then when you should wash your hands. I covered the when part with Jen and it went well. We taught Primary 1 - Primary 4 this past week and will be teaching P5-7 this next week. The kids loved it, but the younger ones didn't respond as much or get as into it, but it was cute taking them out to the tippy tap and helping them wash their hands. The kids at Impact just LOVE visitors, and they always sing these chants when we arrive and I love it! It is a lot of fun. They always say "Visitors, you are most welcome" along with pretty much everyone else here too. We hear that on a regular basis. Here are some pics:
Trial run of building the tippy tap in our yard. David our guard, Whit, and I. David was the branch splitter and Whit and I were the pro branch finders.
Building 2 of the tippy taps at Impact. The locals were involved a lot so that was good! They were a lot better at digging the holes than we were that's for sure. 
The kids learning how to use the first 2 tippy taps we built. There were SO many of them and they kept leaving class to watch us build them haha.
Tying off the twine to bind the branches together. Hard work!
Jen and I posing in front! All the hacking at the wood and tying off the twine produces the lovely tippy tap - a can hanging on a cross bar that is tied to two branches that are planted into the ground. Then you cut a hole in the can and then tie twine around the bottle of the can and to a smaller stick near the ground. That is the stick you step on and when you step on it the water comes running out! We tied soap onto the cross bar as well and voila! You have a handwashing station!
The kids in P4 showing off their clean hands to us after we showed them how to use the tippy tap! We gave them a handwashing certificate to put on their wall. :)
Teaching the kids in P1 how to wash their hands - wet hands, use soap, scrub, wet hands again, and air dry!
4. Using crafts as an Income Generator. We have just done research for this project so far, but tomorrow is the big day that we learn how to make the crafts! The thought behind this project is that many women in the slums around here are unskilled and have no way of making any income. From what we have heard, some sell alcohol for a living and then there is a problem of alcoholism and abuse. To tackle this, we thought we would learn how to make crafts and then teach these women in different villages the crafts and teach them how to sell them so that they can get on their feet. We figure this is a good skill to have not only so they can make money, but also so they can make these useful things for themselves. We are going to some basketweaving techniques so that we can make baskets, tablemats, and change purses. We will possibly learn some beadwork as well. I am so excited because I love crafty things!! Stay tuned for what happens with this one.
5. Another project in the works is Science Teacher training. We are planning a few big seminars for teachers in the district and municipality here in Mbale. We are coming up with practical experiments to show the teachers so that they can implement them in their schools and keep kids interested in science. With the rote learning that often happens here, kids become disinterested in science and often don't seek out science related careers. We are hoping with this things will change. In August, some of the volunteers will run a science fair with different Primary classes as a competition so that the kids have a chance to create their own experiments as classes. I am excited for this one too, it should be good! Stay tuned!
K, that's pretty much everything that is up and running at this point. I will keep everyone updated! Love you all and thanks for the support!
3. Sanitation Outreach. This project included building tippy taps at both St. Kizito's Babies Home and Impact Ministries (with a trial run in our yard first) and then doing a sanitation lesson for 4 of the classes at Impact. We covered what germs are, why they are bad, showed them some hands on demos of how germs spread (covered tomatoes in flour and then passed them around - flour gets all over everyone's hands), and then discussed the steps to handwashing and then when you should wash your hands. I covered the when part with Jen and it went well. We taught Primary 1 - Primary 4 this past week and will be teaching P5-7 this next week. The kids loved it, but the younger ones didn't respond as much or get as into it, but it was cute taking them out to the tippy tap and helping them wash their hands. The kids at Impact just LOVE visitors, and they always sing these chants when we arrive and I love it! It is a lot of fun. They always say "Visitors, you are most welcome" along with pretty much everyone else here too. We hear that on a regular basis. Here are some pics:
Trial run of building the tippy tap in our yard. David our guard, Whit, and I. David was the branch splitter and Whit and I were the pro branch finders.
Building 2 of the tippy taps at Impact. The locals were involved a lot so that was good! They were a lot better at digging the holes than we were that's for sure. 
The kids learning how to use the first 2 tippy taps we built. There were SO many of them and they kept leaving class to watch us build them haha.
Tying off the twine to bind the branches together. Hard work!
Jen and I posing in front! All the hacking at the wood and tying off the twine produces the lovely tippy tap - a can hanging on a cross bar that is tied to two branches that are planted into the ground. Then you cut a hole in the can and then tie twine around the bottle of the can and to a smaller stick near the ground. That is the stick you step on and when you step on it the water comes running out! We tied soap onto the cross bar as well and voila! You have a handwashing station!
The kids in P4 showing off their clean hands to us after we showed them how to use the tippy tap! We gave them a handwashing certificate to put on their wall. :)
Teaching the kids in P1 how to wash their hands - wet hands, use soap, scrub, wet hands again, and air dry!4. Using crafts as an Income Generator. We have just done research for this project so far, but tomorrow is the big day that we learn how to make the crafts! The thought behind this project is that many women in the slums around here are unskilled and have no way of making any income. From what we have heard, some sell alcohol for a living and then there is a problem of alcoholism and abuse. To tackle this, we thought we would learn how to make crafts and then teach these women in different villages the crafts and teach them how to sell them so that they can get on their feet. We figure this is a good skill to have not only so they can make money, but also so they can make these useful things for themselves. We are going to some basketweaving techniques so that we can make baskets, tablemats, and change purses. We will possibly learn some beadwork as well. I am so excited because I love crafty things!! Stay tuned for what happens with this one.
5. Another project in the works is Science Teacher training. We are planning a few big seminars for teachers in the district and municipality here in Mbale. We are coming up with practical experiments to show the teachers so that they can implement them in their schools and keep kids interested in science. With the rote learning that often happens here, kids become disinterested in science and often don't seek out science related careers. We are hoping with this things will change. In August, some of the volunteers will run a science fair with different Primary classes as a competition so that the kids have a chance to create their own experiments as classes. I am excited for this one too, it should be good! Stay tuned!
K, that's pretty much everything that is up and running at this point. I will keep everyone updated! Love you all and thanks for the support!
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Projects 101
Hey everyone! Things are getting pretty busy here in Uganda, but here are two of the projects that have been going on as of late:
1. We painted the classrooms at Impact Ministries. They were bare and dirty walls to start with and here are some of the finished products! It was fun and took a couple days to do.
2. Implementing classroom management at a preschool at St. Kizito's Babies Home. This is an orphanage and we are helping run the preschool on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from 9-12 am. The kids are absolutely nuts - one minute they are laughing, the next they are crying and often it is because they are hitting one another, stealing each other's clothes, sick, or getting toys stolen away from them. They pee everywhere and run absolutely wild unless we sing Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes. For some reason, they stare at us in awe when we sing. Things aren't only crazy though, slowly but surely they are getting better and we are getting more of a structure going and now it's only chaos sometimes. I love them! Here are some pictures:
Me and Paul. This kid is seriously crazy, one of the ones I always have to chase around, as well as his nearly exact lookalike friend Amulamu!
On Martyr's Day, June 3, we didn't have preschool, but instead went to this catholic church for prayers - we rode there in this truck. It was an interesting cultural experience to say the least!
Andrew, the head teacher trying to herd them in! This man goes off on the craziest tangents I have ever heard - we think that he should be a philosophy teacher instead. We love him and he loves the kids, but it has been a challenge to work with him!
This is a testimony that things are getting better - they are actually sitting in their seats!
We taught them how to form a line by getting them to do a choo-choo train! They actually are getting the hang of it!
I don't have enough time to finish up, but stay tuned for more about projects in a few days! Life is hard and totageya (crazy) here at times, but I love it!
1. We painted the classrooms at Impact Ministries. They were bare and dirty walls to start with and here are some of the finished products! It was fun and took a couple days to do.
2. Implementing classroom management at a preschool at St. Kizito's Babies Home. This is an orphanage and we are helping run the preschool on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from 9-12 am. The kids are absolutely nuts - one minute they are laughing, the next they are crying and often it is because they are hitting one another, stealing each other's clothes, sick, or getting toys stolen away from them. They pee everywhere and run absolutely wild unless we sing Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes. For some reason, they stare at us in awe when we sing. Things aren't only crazy though, slowly but surely they are getting better and we are getting more of a structure going and now it's only chaos sometimes. I love them! Here are some pictures:
Me and Paul. This kid is seriously crazy, one of the ones I always have to chase around, as well as his nearly exact lookalike friend Amulamu!
On Martyr's Day, June 3, we didn't have preschool, but instead went to this catholic church for prayers - we rode there in this truck. It was an interesting cultural experience to say the least!
Andrew, the head teacher trying to herd them in! This man goes off on the craziest tangents I have ever heard - we think that he should be a philosophy teacher instead. We love him and he loves the kids, but it has been a challenge to work with him!
This is a testimony that things are getting better - they are actually sitting in their seats!
We taught them how to form a line by getting them to do a choo-choo train! They actually are getting the hang of it!I don't have enough time to finish up, but stay tuned for more about projects in a few days! Life is hard and totageya (crazy) here at times, but I love it!
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Did it really take all day? How I got BRAIDS
Hey people. So this past Saturday I went to a salon in Mbale just down the road from where we live with our cook Mercy and three team members including my cousin Jen. I will say it right now......... it was an experience. We all got braids with extensions and lets just say that our hair all ended up a LOT longer than we thought and it took a LOT longer than we thought too. Like 5 hours longer than we thought. I wish I was kidding, but I am not!! Here is them starting:
Probably about three hours later it looked like this:
And then probably 5 and half more hours later it looked like this:
Yeah, that's right, it took NINE HOURS to end up with hair like this:
It was a very cultural experience to see how the salons work here. Also, to know that their concept of time is a lot different from our concept of time. Our cook told us it would only take 4 hours! We had NO idea we would be there pretty much all day. It was ridiculous! And sadly, I had to sit on the concrete floor on a mat to get this done... after 6 hours on the floor I seriously wanted to die. I was scheming the negative blog post I would write about the experience and how all that came of it was me looking like I had dreds. I was wishing I could just take it all back because:
A. My butt was about to fall off
B. I was sweating buckets
C. My head had never been yanked at so much. I seriously had to grit my teeth to get through that pain.
D. I was starving and
E. MY BUTT WAS ABOUT TO FALL OFF!
Kudos to the African women that get this done all the time!! The lady that was doing my hair made me sit on the ground so that she didn't have to stand up, which I understand b/c she was doing strenuous work... but seriously after 6 hours I basically told her that I had to sit in a chair. And let me tell you... once I was in the plastic chair it was like a different experience all together. I was so happy! I have never been so happy! My mood PLUMMETED! That might sound retarded, but my bum was in serious pain. Haha, so now, I have long long braids and it is great. Sadly none of the pictures show how long it is... but lets just say it is a little longer than my hair was before I got it cut a couple months back. The beauty too is that it can be styled a million different ways! I have never had so much hair in my life and sometimes I feel like I have a mop on my head and would really like to yank it off. But hey, it is fun, and now I am more African and all my team members kept telling me how greatly I am pulling the look off so that is good! Here's to having long hair again!
Probably about three hours later it looked like this:
And then probably 5 and half more hours later it looked like this:
Yeah, that's right, it took NINE HOURS to end up with hair like this:
It was a very cultural experience to see how the salons work here. Also, to know that their concept of time is a lot different from our concept of time. Our cook told us it would only take 4 hours! We had NO idea we would be there pretty much all day. It was ridiculous! And sadly, I had to sit on the concrete floor on a mat to get this done... after 6 hours on the floor I seriously wanted to die. I was scheming the negative blog post I would write about the experience and how all that came of it was me looking like I had dreds. I was wishing I could just take it all back because:A. My butt was about to fall off
B. I was sweating buckets
C. My head had never been yanked at so much. I seriously had to grit my teeth to get through that pain.
D. I was starving and
E. MY BUTT WAS ABOUT TO FALL OFF!
Kudos to the African women that get this done all the time!! The lady that was doing my hair made me sit on the ground so that she didn't have to stand up, which I understand b/c she was doing strenuous work... but seriously after 6 hours I basically told her that I had to sit in a chair. And let me tell you... once I was in the plastic chair it was like a different experience all together. I was so happy! I have never been so happy! My mood PLUMMETED! That might sound retarded, but my bum was in serious pain. Haha, so now, I have long long braids and it is great. Sadly none of the pictures show how long it is... but lets just say it is a little longer than my hair was before I got it cut a couple months back. The beauty too is that it can be styled a million different ways! I have never had so much hair in my life and sometimes I feel like I have a mop on my head and would really like to yank it off. But hey, it is fun, and now I am more African and all my team members kept telling me how greatly I am pulling the look off so that is good! Here's to having long hair again!
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