I refuse to say the "G" word

Today was so much harder than I anticipated. I guess it didn't really hit me until today that I would actually be leaving. I have been dreading going home. It's not that I will hate America, it's that I won't like that I am no longer in Africa. Life is so simple here. I have worn the same clothes for 3 months. It takes me 15 minutes to roll out of bed and get ready. Everyone is so kind and loving and they don't care what you wear, look like, or smell like. They just love. REALLY love you and accept you just the way you are.The thought of taking an hour to get ready seems so foreign and unnecessary . It felt like it was just another day, going to lunch at Kapkwata's (our favorite little restaurant) Going to Mbale Shoppers (our favorite grocery store) but as the day progressed, I realized more that this is not just another day, it is my last in Uganda.  I may or may not have had a breakdown in Mbale Shoppers...... don't judge. Then we went to Namatala and I bought a necklace from sweet Martha. The children surrounded me saying "Safe journey, Safe Journey"  I stopped by and said goodbye to my little friend Deborah, as she hung on my arm and said "Let me go with you, let me go with you!" my heart was breaking! I teared up looking around Namatala from the back of a boda, listening to the children saying " Muzungu Muzungu" and waving for the last time. This place has changed me so much in ways that are hard to describe. As I watched the town pass me by on the way back I tried to soak it in and take a mental picture of the moment. Then we came back and I had my last meal made by Sam. And then of course had to say goodbye to him as he left. With every goodbye of the day, my heart got a little heavier and it hit me that I am really leaving. I am a different person than I was when I came. I can't explain it. I just hope that I will not fall back in to the old me when I get home and forget what I have learned and experienced here. I would like to thank the makers of cadbury chocolate for giving me chocolate hope for the long days, Pringles for giving me a taste of home, and of baby wipes for providing me with a small version of a shower when I didn't have time or energy for one.The people I have met, the things I have seen and experienced here have changed my life. I am so grateful to my Heavenly Father for allowing me to have this experience getting to serve His children, even in small ways. I feel selfish, because I have definitely gotten much more from the people of Uganda than I ever could have given them. This is not goodbye (I hate that word!) it is see you later. As much as I am looking forward to having cereal and my other favorite foods back in my life, I can't wait to come back to Uganda someday, see my friends, and maybe do some more volunteer work. God be with you till we meet again

Last Sunday in Uganda

Today was my last Sunday in Uganda. It was obviously very emotional and hard for me to realize that I will not see these people for a very long time, if ever. I have grown to truly love these faithful saints over the past 12 weeks. They are so strong, incredibly knowledgeable and trying so hard to do God's will. The circumstances in which they live are incredibly humbling. They rely on the Lord for EVERYTHING. I realize that my life is so easy compared to theirs. I sometimes take God for granted in my life when it is running smoothly. I have food, shelter, clothing, education and it becomes easy to forget Him. But these people who have so little, they rely on god EVERYDAY for EVERYTHING. And that makes them so close to Him.

Anyway... they are incredible people and I will miss them terribly! I gave out my email address to lots of ward members and I hope through email and Facebook we can keep in contact.

The cute Branch President- what a sweet man! And he has only been a member of the church for 1 year and branch president for 6 months of that year!! He is doing a great job. 

Tyrell and Emma. What a hoot! They are going to be great missionaries. 

Esther is so cute! Love her

Oh Reagan. Looks very serious in this pictures but he is a crack up. 

God be with you till we meet again! 

Just call me Moses- Rafting the Nile!

NO big deal or whatever... I just RAFTED the NILE this weekend with Carlee and Yeko... and it was AWESOME! It was incredible to be in a place with so much ancient history. And not just at the river... IN the river!

We took a taxi to Jinja on Thursday night. When we checked in that night they said that the dorms (a room with bunkbeds you share with 10 random other people for $5 a night) were full, so they upgraded us to the Safari tent ( a super nice fancy tent with two really soft beds that is usually $50 a night) for free. So great! They had American food at the bar and we shared a pizza. Haven't had one of those for a while! The next day we got up early and watched about 10 people bungee jump over the Nile. It looked way scary to jump but the bouncing around after that looked really fun. The sunrise over the Nile was incredible. Then we left for rafting. The company we went with was great and fed us a breakfast of fried boiled eggs, sausage, and amazing fresh pineapple. The temperature of the water and the weather were both perfect. Chris, our guide did some safety training when we first got in the water, teaching us how to protect ourselves and how to better hold an oar, including how to hold the oar when we hit a rapid in order to not hurt the people around us (He said "HOLD ON THE MOTHER FLIPPIN T-GRIP" many times!) I learned that the Nile is very safe to raft, because even though they are class 5 rapids (the most intense) the river is so deep that you will not hit a rock. You will just get thrown around in a whirlpool for a second and then surface again. So our guide was from Australia, we had three people from Singapore, Yeko was Ugandan, and then Carlee and I were American. It was fun to get to know each other in the stretches between rapids. We had about 30 minutes of calm water between every rapid and the weather was perfect for swimming. I was still very nervous about swimming though, because they said they had never seen a crocodile in this area of the Nile because the water moves so fast, and there are villages along the banks. But... let's be real.. this is the NILE river.. I was still scared! We didn't see any though, thankfully. We were on the river for about 5-6 hours. At the end, we all got out and they fed us a tasty BBQ. SOOoo good! That night we walked around Jinja (a really big tourist town) for a while, and that night they had room for us in the dorms (unfortunately) because there were a room full of very drunk Australians in the room next to us... who were very loud and I heard them yelling and screaming and throwing up all through the night. Lovely. Not as lovely as waking up the next day with vomit all over the porch. TMI? Sorry... Ha ha. 


The next day we watched the sunrise over the Nile (so beautiful) and walked around the souvineer shops in Jinja for a while then caught a Taxi home. Then Carlee and I went to Chat and Chino's and got some good American comfort food (French Fries and a Burger- SO good!) Then we all went out dancing at a place called Thatch Gardens. (Don't worry Mom, we were in a big group and it was very safe) It was so fun to let loose and have fun! What a great way to spend my weekend in Uganda.

Sunset on the Nile- INCREDIBLE!

Chillin outside our awesome Safari tent!

Riding the bus to get to the source of the Nile

This is my "OhmygosharewereallygoingtodothisIamgoingtodie" face

These awesome monkeys were wandering all over the Adrift resort where we were staying. So cute!

Insider our Safari tent! It was soooo nice!

The rafting company took all these cool professional pictures but they were charging $10 for a copy of each. Ridiculous, right? So the Singaporians and I split the cost for 1 photo. And that was all I was willing to pay.

Anyways we rafted the Nile and survived!

Installing Water Filters in the Namatala Slum

I think I can speak for the team when I say this has been one of the most rewarding experiences of the summer. Cami and Kara are the team leads on this project, but they have been kind enough to let all of us be involved. We have raised money for about 30 water filters we are installing throughout the Namatala slum. The people at Child of Hope know the community really well so they have been helping us get the best sites for the filters. Every Wednesday and Friday we go to areas and teach. The first week is a basic sanitation class, the second week is about nutrition/first aid (and talking about the water filters), and the third week is actually bringing in the Water Filter and training the "manager" on how to use it and keep it up. This is always an incredible experience, seeing the joy on the faces of the people in the community who are so grateful to have clean water. I couldn't agree more with Cami when we were riding a boda-boda back from Namatala on Friday (after installing a water filter) and she said "If I could do this everyday I would be happy for the rest of my life"

 Dancing with the kids :) 

Teacher Training

Here in Uganda a lot of teachers do not have formal training that they go through to become a teacher, and they don't really know about effective teaching methods, so a lot of them rely on "chalk and talk" which is basically writing notes on the board and having the kids copying it down. This isn't necessarily the best way for kids to learn. So last weekend we taught about 50 teachers of a Secondary and Primary Schools in the Manafa district on classroom management, teaching strategies, and assessment! I felt the pressure writing the curriculum because my course was on Classroom Management and I took that class last semester. It was harder than I though remembering the most important parts without my textbook! But I hope (with the help of the internet) Holly and I got the basics.

So the time management isn't a strong point of a lot of Africans..... The teacher training workshop was supposed to be an all day thing from like 8am to 5pm. We figured that nobody would show up until 9:30 because African time is usually an hour behind. We were way off and nobody showed up until 11am! This totally threw off our schedule but we managed to plan accordingly! Holly and I ended up only teaching 2 classes before lunch, instead of 4. Then we were monitoring the other classes after lunch. But after the morning sessions, we suddenly had a "guest speaker" that nobody really knew about and we ended up listening to this man speak about who knows what for a good 90 minutes. (Half of  it being in Lugisu so we didn't understand it..)

That's me leaning over to Holly saying "What is going on??" and all of the other teachers and parents.. sleeping.

Just waiting for teachers to come!

Getting our lessons ready

Us with some of the teachers at the end of the day!

Overall it was a great day and the teachers were really receptive, interested, and participatory in class. It was awesome. We hope they can implement some of the things we taught them in the workshops. And after lunch, we also had a parent meeting where they were taught about ways to be involved in their childrens education and the importance of it. What a great day!

Power OUTTT

Sorry about the lack of blogging lately... 

the power has been on for only a few hours a day for the past four days. 

Don't worry everything in our fridge rotted and it was nasty. Ha ha. 

Anyhoo, the power has been on for a while today so hopefully by the end of the day I can get some blogging in and get some pictures uploaded! 

P.S I am going to raft the Nile on Friday. Yes. Let's hope that I don't get eaten by a crocodile. 

Come Come Ye Saints

This is one of the favorite hymns of our ward in Uganda. I have heard this hymn many times throughout my life, especially at Trek. I have always thought this song was about the faith, strength and courage of pioneers crossing the plains in North America in the 1800's. Hearing the members sing it here, however has given me a new perspective on the hymn. It is almost like it was written about saints in Uganda in 2012. Now I will think of the faithful saints in Uganda whenever I hear this hymn. It will remind me of their strength and courage as modern day pioneers. It will remind me of their strength and courage in the face of trials and their humble life circumstances. The saints here are incredibly faithful and strong, even only having been members of the church for a short time. If they can say "Why should we morn, or think our lot is hard? Tis not so, all is well" then I definitely can. 

"Come, come ye saints

No toil nor labor fear

But with joy, wend your way

Though hard to you,

This journey may appear,

Grace shall be as your day,

Tis better far for us to strive

Our useless cares from us to drive

Do this and joy, your hearts will swell

All is well! All is well!

Why should we mourn?

Or think our lot is hard?

Tis not so, all is bright

Why we think to earn a great reward?

If we now shun the fight

Gird up your loins

Fresh courage take

Our god will never us forsake

And soon we'll have this tale to tell

All is well! All is well!

We'll find the place

Which God for us prepared

Far away, in the West

Where none shall come

To hurt of make afraid

There the saints, will be blessed

We'll make the air, with music ring,

Shout praises to, our god and king,

Above the rest these words we'll tell

All is well! All is well! "

My favorite part of church....



St. Kizito's Orphanage

Cami and I read about an orphanage last year's team partnered with in town. They had good reviews of it, so we went to check it out! It was awesome and I am excited to volunteer there. Normally our organization is focused on sustainability, and making projects that will last long term. But in this case, just care of children at an orphanage, we will use it as a time filler and supplement to our other projects. The kids at the orphanage/preschool were well taken care of, it is clean and the workers there are awesome people. I just want to take all the kids home. Ha if I was married and had means of supporting them, I would. Ha ha I guess for now I will just bring a few for Dave and Jenn!

 

Eating posho and beans for lunch!

Adorable. I am bringing some home, that is final.

4th of July in Uganda

We and all of our white friends in Mbale (the missionaries and the people who used to live in our house...)

and some of our Ugandan friends and partners (which ended up being like 25 people!)

had an AWESOME Fourth of July. 

The FEAST!! So good.

The missionaries playing volleyball in the front yard!

It was a fun night full of American music, food, good friends and nice weather. The feast was complete with hamburgers, potato salad, sweet potato fries, a greek salad, corn on the cob, watermelon ( one of my favorite items), a pineapple and banana salad, and for dessert a friend brought brownies, pineapple upside down cakeand we made rice krispies. We played lots of volleyball, listened to American Music, and had tons of fun. At the end of the night, we realized we had a TON of leftover food. Which normally wouldn't be a problem in America, but our problem is our fridge is tiny and can't hold much. We were figuring out what to do, and Freddie (our Ugandan friend) said "better not waste any, there are starving children in Africa!" We laughed and told him that people say that a lot at home. And then Alexis said something like, well, since we are here how do we get the food to the starving children?... She said it sarcastically but Freddy took it seriously. And thats when the greatest idea began. Freddy said that last year he had gone with the other HELP team once a month to LITERALLY feed the starving children in Africa.They actually gave their extra food to what they call the "street children" (orphans on the street in a certain part of town) You hear stories here about people going out and giving food to people and the people getting very aggressive in getting their food and fights happenings. So  I was a little nervous about going, and it was getting late at night, but I trusted Freddy. When we got to where we were going to give out the food it was so great! Freddy told the children to get in a line and they immediately formed into a line. And then we gave them a paper plate and then they went down the line and we gave them food. The faces of these sweet sweet children. I don't know how to describe it. They would just stand there with they plates and stare at the food as we put in on. Then once their plate was full they ran and sat down on the ground and just started eating. It was so overwhelming to see just how many kids there were that were living on the street. Who literally have no one to look after them. Most of them had runaway from home because of abuse or other reasons.

There was a few of the boys that came up to us after they had eaten their food and in the most sincere voice said  "Thank You". These boys live on the streets, they don't go to school, and I just recently saw them riding in the back of a truck that was literally full of garbage that they rummage through to find any food that they can get. They don't have a mother to tuck them in at night, they don't even have a place to sleep that is protected. BUT they were grateful for the food that we were able to give them and came back and said Thank You. I wanted to take them all home and tuck them into bed, and give them the care that they need, and sent them to school and give them food so that they will be healthy. It was a great experience. It definitely was a great end to the Fourth of July and put the holiday in perspective!