Well folks I have to start out by saying.. I am so glad that one I am part Puerto Rican and two that my parents have been able to take me to Puerto Rico.. because I have never eaten or seen so many plantains in my life!!! Uganda has been amazing, and in the last 4 days all I can say is that it has been a whirlwind. We have been to numerous schools, completed one entire library, repaired and redid another library, been to one orphanage and on about 5 home visits. ( and now I can add been to the mall and markets here in Uganda)
I will begin with my first library that I have helped put together. We arrived at a military base with Ugandan soldiers that had machine guns and uniforms on. It was a little unnerving especially when they began to check the car and ask us if we were press. Everything was fine once they realized that we were not press and that we were there to do the library. We went to the school that was on the base called Bombo Army S.S. school. This is a secondary school that is much like our high schools. The area around the school is barracks and training areas. You would think that it would be a nice area because it is military, when in all reality it looks like slums or a true ghetto three stories or more high with apartment like homes that have been built and never once repaired in over 20 plus years. Usually, the older students do not pay attention to what the team does but almost immediately as we were getting out of the car, students wanted to know all about what we do and why we were at their school. They were very friendly and although we didn’t know what they were saying, it did seem like they may have been making fun of us a tad bit. We walked into a room where students were in a study hall like class, and there was a green cage with textbooks locked up. On the opposite wall there were the shelves that had been built for this library and had already been put in. Our task was to unload over 2,000 plus books and categorize them for fiction and non fiction. There had to be over 150 boxes of books, and at first it seemed like an overwhelming task. Once I learned the system that they had in place it went very smoothly. The students in the room were able to help us once they were finished with their work, and one of the students in particular Ronald was going to be library helper. He helped us and I could tell was very proud to be bestowed this honor.
It is so interesting to me the way the culture here treats visitors. You feel very honored to be their guest. They spoil you with a mid-morning break of samosas( really great baked pastry with some type of green pea mixture inside), tea, bottled water, etc. Then comes lunch which is filled and piled on with food of all kinds. Usually there is a fried chicken and grean bean with carrots, matoki( steamed platains), white rice and red beans, and the list just keeps going on and on. Then comes more bottled water and sodas and even sometimes more food. The people here are just so wonderful and polite, and even when meeting them for the first time will say, “ Thank you for loving Africa or Thank you for loving Uganda.”
I know I got off subject but here we go back to Bombo Road school... So we are tirelessly working in the hot afternoon without a lot of windows and all of a sudden there is a ribbon on the door to the library and a big group of people are outside of the door. They explain to us that we will be having a big assembly and grand opening ceremony for the library, RIGHT NOW! Forget that we are not even done, we were very close but not completely, but they want us to take pictures and be on stage in front of the entire school. We are hot, sweaty, and our clothes are drenched. Everyone else is in their what we would call dress up clothes. ( No wonder they don’t understand the crazy myzungus-white people) So we go and we walk into an assembly hall that is filled to the brim, I mean even kids were standing outside and coming in from the windows filled. They sat us on the stage and I felt like I was at a concert. The hype man as we would call him begins and gives us a run down of the entertainment, who is giving speeches, etc. Since this is a school on the military base, the big high head man was there as well. I think the celebration was more for him which is better bc I don’t like the attention. So we begin with dancing groups or troupes, and singing, then come the acrobats going up to the ceiling, and all the while these are high school kids from the school and local kids from the neighborhood entertaining us. It was so overwhelming to see how excited and appreciative they were just to be given a library. It really touches my heart to see the love of reading I try to instill in my students, come through and touch people all the way on another continent.
As the week continued we visited other schools and got to do many tours. We also went into a school called Bat Valley and basically re-shelved their entire library to make sure things were in order again. The schools are enormous to me, and I wonder how the teachers here do it. Most teachers are sitting with at least 100 students in their class, and that is a small class. They have hand made teaching posters up all around their walls because a teacher’s store is not even a concept here. It amazes me how they have created each thing by hand so that students will be able to learn. It again touches my heart to see their dedication to their job, their country, and their students.
Another day was spent going out to an orphanage called Oasis of Life that has been looked into by a woman here from the states adopting a little girl, Mercy. I have been a follower of her blog ( ) and you need to check out her story. You will want to keep reading and reading and reading more about their journey. She was asked to look into this orphanage, and when we had found out about it our team decided that we wanted to contribute some things to help make this a better place. We knew walking in that it was going to be a hard time, but I never expected to see what I saw that afternoon. You walk into a small courtyard that has a small house maybe by our standards a 2 bedroom home. This is where the girls sleep at night. There are about 60-80 children and I would say about 25/30 are girls. You immediately walk into the home and the smell of how unclean and not taken care of just punches you in your face. There are hardly any windows so it being dark doesn’t help much. We saw how most of the girls are sleeping 2 to a bed, and the bigger girls in jr. high/high school were sleeping 16 to one small room. They would pull in mattresses and sleep on the floor at night. The bathroom conditions are terrible. I don’t even consider it a bathroom since if you could imagine a toilet being put underground and the only way to use it is to squat. The worst part is that many of the children are young and have not been trained to use this latrine. They were able to just get fresh water being able to be used, and had a small storage room where they put their things. At this point, my mind was just blank. All I wanted to do was cry but knew that I had to hold it together because the children here were looking to us. I do have to say that this has been the hardest thing I have had to do in awhile. I had to keep my composure because these kids were looking to me and the team to see our reactions or how to be. They seemed like happy children, and do not know any better but what really tears up my heart is that they deserve more. They deserve to sleep in their own beds, and have nutritional food, and learn life skills so that they can be responsible young people as they grow up. I wanted to take care of all of their problems right then and there, but knew that at this moment it was not my job. Thankfully, Melissa has been able to do a lot for this orphanage as she has been here adopting her daughter, Mercy. She has answered many prayers for this place and these children. We were able to give them brand new backpacks for school, toys, cloth diapers, balls, jump ropes, and candy. I felt that we were able to do some good for those children. Who knows, maybe we will find more things to be able to do to help this orphanage.
While visiting a school called Namagoona, we wanted to be able to do a few home visits. There are quite a few children that are sponsored by people we know at home, and this gives us a time to visit with their families. In years past, we have brought them bags with plastic plates, bowls, and silverware. This year we did the same but had a wonderful woman named Sarah Natunga who helps us make sure these children are taken care of, help us at a local market shop to get some of the basics for food that families could use. We got them tea bags and sugar, posho which is like a thicker version of cream of wheat, beans, flour, and bread. When we went to visit each home we gave the family each bag of their own so they could eat well. I really enjoyed being able to go into the local homes and visit. Again, the ladies would welcome you in and no matter how old they were they would want you to sit and be comfortable before themselves. I had trouble with this because as a guest, I want them to be more comfortable than myself since it is their home. They would say thank you about 100 times and truly be so appreciative and grateful.
These homes were small mud brick homes that had maybe 2 or three rooms. There was the living room maybe no bigger than 2 closets, a bedroom right off of it and possibly another bedroom off of the first. Usually we did not go any further than the living room but was able to see that the living situations here were not good. The people here take a lot of pride in their country but usually do not have any organization skills. They seem to pile things on top of one another and just leave them that way. They usually just throw things like garbage on the ground and don’t seem to flinch about it. There is a lot of garbage all over but people don’t seem to be doing anything about it anyways.
Onto my favorite part so far other then the libraries and kids.. of course SHOPPING! There are a bunch of shops everywhere you look. Each one seems to sell a little bit of this and then next door a little bit of that. Some shops only sell eggs whereas the neighbor next door only sells bread and milk. There are shops where you can buy airtime as they call it but really its minutes for their cell phones, as well as paying to charge your cell phone because many people do not have electricity in their homes. The supermarket type of shops have cigarettes but not in packs, you can by them in 1s, so how ever many you want. It seems that most people do not smoke but I have seen some just buy one cigarette at a time. You can also get your tea leaves/bags and rice or beans, etc. by the pound or how ever much you need or want at these shops. Of course, being people not from the country we were looking more for gifts/crafts. We went to a craft market in Kampala that had two different sections. It was very nice and there are a lot of different kinds of things to find. They have some very beautiful prints and clothing. I have really enjoyed seeing all of the beautiful clothing that many of the women here have. I was able to buy a few souvenirs and my favorite unusual one is a cap opener. It looks very much like a judge’s gavel except it has a nail in it to open soda cans or glass bottles with caps. The soda pop here comes in glass bottles that are opened with this fun opener.
We have also moved on to Mbale which is the other bigger city in Uganda. We are here until Thursday then will travel back to Kampala for a night before heading to Merchasin Falls for the safari and game drive until Sunday. Sunday evening we sleep one last night in Kampala then it is back to Entebbe on Monday for our flight to London before heading home.
I feel like I have learned a lot about myself as a person. When traveling with such a small team you get a chance to really learn a lot about others and yourself. I have found that while I have opinions about many different things, I tend to be more of a listener when others talk. I have really been trying to keep gossiping about others and their stories to myself because I do not feel like I have a right to tell other’s stories unless they have shared with me that is okay. I do not try to fill dead air with noise just because I like to hear myself talk or feel uncomfortable with the silence. I have found that I really like my quiet time and am soaking it up now before I come home and have to get back into the swing of things. I also have felt how a very strong heart tug towards one particular student at one of the schools as well as a travel bug that I have ignited. I want to travel and see many things and immerse myself in others’ culture. I want to be able to have an open heart and mind about other people and respect that their culture is different and not try to change them.
I am sorry for the long delay, in Mbale there was no wifi that I could find so I had to wait until now to send these emails.
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