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

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!