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!! :)

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!

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!

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!

Observing flies

Again, NOTE: I just did two posts in a row. Be sure to see both!

This post may be a little retarded, but I just have to admit something....

Life in Uganda is much more simple than life in America. I get excited about being out at night. Yeah, walking around at night and taking a boda home in the dark is the highlight of my week every friday night. Get the point? It's just because the fact of being in Uganda is SO COOL in and of itself. Anyway, I have a lot more time on my hands now because we often have to be IN before dark (except for friday and saturday nights usually, hence, the excitement). This means I have time to read, write in my journal, and yes........ observe flies. They are EVERYWHERE so it is not hard to miss them. I have noticed something about flies that I never noticed in America... they often lift up their front legs and rub them together almost as if they are cleaning themselves with the air or being mischievious... they also do it with their back legs too. I find it so funny and entertaining.......... is that so retarded?! Probably :) So if you can, observe a fly sometime. Although, I know there is not much spare time in fast-paced America.

The art of boda boda riding

The most common mode of transport in Uganda is riding on a boda boda. This is similar to a motorcycle in America. Now, there are three ways to ride the boda. Let me explain.

First you have onesies. Let me depict:


As you can see, I am riding on the boda by myself with the driver. This is my favorite way to ride the boda because there is more room and I get to ride like a lady, which means sitting with both legs on one side of the boda. If you don't ride like a lady, the people laugh at you and it is very awkward. Hence, I ride like a lady 99% of the time. It is nicer that way too because you get a better view of beautiful Uganda.

Next, you have twosies. I cannot depict this sadly, but it involves my cousin Jen and I riding together. Since we are small, we can still pull off riding lady like this way and I always sit on the back, which means my bum is hitting the metal bar on the back. Not as comfortable, but doable. One day we did this in the rain and here is a picture with our boda driver after - sadly he is SOAKED!
It is also more fun riding in the rain, for obvious reasons.

Last, you have threesies. By this point, you are probably getting my drift. On this occasion Jen, Whitney, and myself rode together on the boda with the driver which sadly REQUIRES sitting like men with one leg on either side of the bike. People laugh, it is awkward, and I am not a fan. But hey - you do what you gotta do sometimes. The nice thing about adding more people is the cost goes down! So Jen and I have been doing a lot more twosies lately.

Moral of the story: boda rides are great. I don't think I will ever get sick of them. It is always a thrill, whether you are doing it in the rain or in the dark and almost skidding to your death.... which yes, did happen to me. Don't worry mom and dad, I survived and did not fall off. Such a trooper, right?!

White Tile

NOTE: I did two posts today so make sure you see/read both!

This post is dedicated to my mom. She has lived in Spain for the past couple years in a little apartment with my dad. In their apartment, they have white tile floors and she says they get so dirty that she has to clean them every single day. I thought this was a little crazy and didn't think it was possible for floors to get THAT dirty every day. Well, our house here in Uganda has white tile floors too and since we've been here we have nightly chores we have to do. All of them somehow involve sweeping and mopping the white tile floors and we do this *don't be shocked* EVERY DAY! And if you can believe it.... they DO get dirty every day! Seriously - it is a good pile of dirt that we clean up everyday. So mom... I now believe you that you had reason to clean those white tile floors everyday!

The things you learn in Uganda...