Maybe you can "polish a turd"?

I am not sure if I have ever shared the phrase, "you can't polish a turd" before. (Sorry if anybody finds a reference to poop offensive, but it's a pretty descriptive way to think about life.) It always pops into my head when I think about trying to "fix" anything, whether it is cleaning up a mess, organizing a stack of documents, or something as big as helping out with projects like some of the ones here. When you start with a foundation that is broken, you can do things to make it look different on the outside but underneath it will still be a messed up foundation. No matter how hard you try, poop is going to be poop and you have to do something about getting rid of the crap in order to really make a change.

(This post is describing what we did on Monday of this week, 4/28/14, so a couple of days have already passed)

Part of what we have been doing in Kayunga at the House of Peace is to fix up the house so that the kids can hopefully come back. We have visited quite often since my mom arrived and have also been meeting with Pastor K in town when we have to exchange money. It would be so nice if we could just transfer money in bank accounts or that there could be a credit system to make payments easier. Since that is not a possibility, Pastor has to travel by Mtatu for over two hours one way every time that we need to meet. The money is always difficult to keep track of because the amounts are so large. Instead of dealing with maybe a couple of hundred dollars, we end up using millions as our numbers and all the zeros get a little stressful to keep track of after a while. Maybe I need to work on my math skills? It makes me happy that our system of money is a little simpler. At the same time, I think I will miss feeling like I have a lot of money when I pay 100,000 shillings at the supermarket (the equivalent of $40)

The kids gathered outside of the House of Peace Home in 2012

I had been worried about this project from the start. Not because I don't think it is a good idea. In fact, it is a great thing to work on fixing this house so the children can come back to live together. After the past month or so, I am confident we are doing the right thing. I guess it is a little different than what I had to say about Little Angel and sometimes it is better to be apart. In this case, Pastor K is great and the kids are getting treated equally and they are all taking care of each other. It feels right that they should be going back to their home. Even tonight I was reminded of the fact as my mom and I watched the Muppet Movie (yes, I still watch it to cheer me up) and Kermit decided that they needed to save Muppet studio because it is their home. It matters when kids can be together as a family and I think it has been very difficult for them to be apart and fairly far from the village. Pastor K started working with the children after he had been away from the village for many years but felt that he was being called back to help his village, even though it held a lot of sad memories for him and he could have stayed away for the rest of his life if he wanted to.

The kids outside of the school in Jinja, about an hour drive from where they used to live

On Monday, we came back to see how the progress was coming on the projects we had been paying for as well as putting our own skills (which are really not that many) to use in painting the house. It was amazing how much progress has been made in about a week and a half. The garbage pit and dish drying rack were completely done. The walls have been mostly all fixed, the floor is completely refinished, and they are re-using some parts of the floor to fill in the outside porch. Almost all of the broken windows had been replaced and should be done by now.

Plate Stand for Drying dishes next to the outdoor kitchen

Garbage pit

The latrine pit is coming slowly but surely. It really is the most impressive part to me. We were told it would be 60 feet and that a man would dig it by hand. Paul and I both had a hard time believing it and were sure that it would cave in. I am happy to report that we are totally wrong and the man has dug over 29 feet so far. He climbed down into this grave-sized hole in the ground in the morning and only comes out for lunch. He digs with his pick, shovel and a trowel of some sort. His friends at the top lower a jerry-can on a rope and he fills it up with dirt. The process of raising and lowering continues all day as he keeps going lower. When you look down in the hole, you can only see the top of his head because he is wearing a white hat. He is almost completely lost in the dart pit. I just keep praying that the walls will hold as he finishes the job!

The digger is somewhere down there. You can't see him unless he is moving around, but you could always hear him singing

Imagine emptying that pit one jerry-can at a time

During the day, we got to paint. The rollers were normal paint rollers like home, but the paint starts out as a thick paste and is mixed with water in the same buckets we can use for washing clothes until it is a fairly thick coat. First we put an undercoat paint that reminded me of Elmers glue consistency on the walls and then went around with yellow paint. I have to say that after completing two hallways, the meeting room, main entrance, and 3 bedrooms, things are starting to look a whole lot better. It is amazing how a little paint can really brighten things up!

Mixing paint

I thought they were ruining the paint by adding water, but apparently that is how things are done in Uganda and it worked well

My favorite part about painting was that the poles we put the rollers on were made of tree branches because they were available for free. They are probably 4 times heavier than the light metal or plastic ones we are used to so my arms were definitely tired after all that rolling. Also, my ability to stay clean and keep paint off the floor was severely decreased without proper paint tins and really runny paint, but it all seems to work out and it was looking really nice by the time we left.

My trusty tool for the day

During the day it was also really great to see the response of the village to what was going on at the home. It is not often that there are large construction projects going on and lots of people working on one place. Everyone in the village knew Pastor K and the kids and that they were closed down because of the disrepair of the house. While we worked, groups of kids kept gathering in the yard to watch. There were groups of women walking by that kept stopping to see what was going on. They only well near many of the homes in the village is at House of Peace so there is a constant line of jerry-cans to be filled and people coming around to see the progress.

The inside window after being patched with filler

Overall, I think this 'turd' is being polished quite nicely, as it started out as a home that was in "total illness" as reported by the government offices. Maybe it never was a 'turd' to begin with but by the time were were seeing it, it was having too many problems. This process of restoring the home seems to also be restoring life and excitement to the children and men that live there and also to the village where it is located. Now we just need to pray that the work we have done will make it possible for the home to re-open.

Fresh paint fixed it nicely - the wall behind is still needing some help

I guess I should remind anyone that reads this that although I feel like what my mom, Paul, Medicine for Sick Children, and everyone else is doing is really good work, we aren't looking to take credit for being anything special. We have the money that we do for the project because of really generous friends, family, and even strangers who have graciously shared out of the goodness of their hearts. Above all, I do believe that God had a plan for this place and this trip. Usually we don't have anywhere close to this amount of money to work with and somehow people offered without a lot of asking. I am very thankful and will continue to be humbled by the generous hearts giving around me. Strangely enough, the budget and what we have to offer is looking like the amounts will be within less than $100 of each other which I think is a sign that the money was meant to be used here. We never said the exact amount we were going to pay to Pastor K, but it just happened to work out. As I sat down with all of those crazy extra zeros, I feel like it should be a guarantee that mistakes have been made. Then I think back and realize how we never told anybody the amount we had to share and find it to be more than just coincidence that the amount was almost exactly what was needed.


Sunday will be our last full day here and we are planning for Pastor K's church to meet in Kayunga instead of Jinga and we will have a big lunch with food that they normally do not get to eat. I am excited to see how things look by Sunday and I think that it will be very fitting to have the service and the children there to pray for the future of their home.

Clearly some of us are more excited than others to be working

Better or Worse or the Same When I Do This?

If you grew up in Eveleth, MN you probably went to the same optometrist that most of us did. In fact, I still go to see him even though I haven't officially lived in Eveleth for over a decade. During every appointment as he checks different lenses, he always repeats, "is it better or worse or the same when I do this? How about this?" As I was trying to sum up how I feel about yesterday, I find myself asking if things are better, worse, or just the same as we visited the former house mother and most of the children that used to stay at Little Angels since the time we started getting involved.

I actually started writing 3 or 4 times yesterday and found myself too frustrated to even finish anything so I decided to sleep, run, and think about my feelings before I put them in writing. I often find myself saying that I shouldn't have even asked questions about what really goes on at orphanages because the more questions you ask, the more you reveal things that aren't going well. We went through a similar experience with Need for All in 2007-2010. It was really rough with lots of tears and shouting but now, as you can see, the Woolies are at Watoto and are thriving. It might be different than where they started but they are in the best place possible, so I need to remember that there is a hope for things to be better, but I have a hard having faith that it will happen sometimes.

Judith, one of the boys, and Judith's son outside of her restaurant. Because the other kids stay in large children's homes, we weren't really allowed to take pictures when we visited.

So, there are lots of posts, especially towards the end of my last trip here in 2012 talking about Little Angels and the man who was in charge. I will refer to him as "M" for now but I am sure I have used his real name in previous posts. We started out just providing medicine kits for the orphanage and minimally being involved but when my mom visited the first time we realized that they needed a lot of things. Since we weren't allowed to talk with the house mother, Judith, because "M" doesn't like donors to hear any truth about what really goes on, we didn't realize how bad things actually were. After a couple of years we realized that things never looked better at the house itself and the kids never had the things they needed. When "M" showed up at the gate to meet us, he always had a brand new very expensive car, very nice clothes, and last year we met his extremely well dressed children. He claims that he treats the orphanage kids just the same as his own, but when you put them side by side, you can see his children with brand new clothes and shoes, with healthy body fat and clean teeth while the Little Angel kids had holes in their clothes, no shoes, and lots with rotting teeth.

Because there is so much to say and there is probably reference to it in previous posts, I will just list a few things we found out about last year during our visit:

• "M" locks all the food in a closet and measures out exactly enough for an individual meal. Sometimes he doesn't come back and the kids only got a meal per day or sometimes less
• He hasn't paid the landlord in 2 years, therefore, she refused to fix anything that went wrong including broken glass, locks that don't work, the outside wall completely falling in, and the latrine falling in
• When the latrine finally fell in and wasn't fixed, the solution was to tell the children to go outside and dig holes so they could go to the bathroom in the yard. Nothing like camping-style toilets in the middle of the city, right?
• Judith hadn't been paid in over 1 year
• One of the older girls ran away and locked herself in a sponsors room who later found a letter she had written to "M" asking why he was abusing her - the nature of the letter assumed it was sexual abuse, but the details are still a little unclear
• When donors tried to pay school fees directly to the schools, "M" went to the school and told them nobody was allowed to give them money and he needed to be paid cash directly, so then then kids just didn't get any school fees paid and were often chased away from the schools

The front of the house. It keeps looking more and more run down, but inside is actually better than you would expect. In fact, Judith said on the inside it is a really nice house.

Garbage pit in the foreground and way in the back you can see a little dirt mound that used to be the latrine. It wasn't much to start out with and now is nothing.

The fallen fence. It used to be a brick wall, but has been this way for at least 3 years. We almost fixed it two years ago, but then realized it was supposed to be the landlady's job - and led us to discover that "M" hadn't paid the rent in months at that time.

Okay, I think I could at least double the length of the list, but it will just get to be monotonous after a while. We visited Judith, who explained more of what was going on now and took us to visit some of the children. "M" called the police to take Judith away from the home but she explained that she hadn't been paid in year and he was ordered to give her the money in a lump sum, which he did. She used the money to pay for a small space that she now has made a restaurant but also sleeps in a space behind. The walls around her bed surround it so that the only way to enter is by stepping on the bed. All of her clothes and belonging are hanging on hooks and a shelf above it. The outdoor kitchen is actually pretty spacious and she cooks amazing food! (Although it's always way too much to eat, but I try to eat everything on my plate to not be rude - and then I feel sick the rest of the day!)

Very good Ugandan food

So when I try to sum up all of the information that was given to me yesterday (this was after over 5 hours of discussions with Judith and the people that take care of the kids at their current homes) I can summarize most of what I have learned into three categories.

Better:

• Judith has her own business and she is able to make an income for the work she does. (each plate of food is about 3,000 shillings = $1.20)
• The kids don't stay far from Judith and they can come and visit her fairly often
• 5 of the girls stay with a monastery school and they have a real school and they don't have to worry about school fees
• 3 boys stay at the sister home of the monastery and school fees are paid
• 1 girl stays with a female sponsor by herself and does not have to be around "M" to take his abuse
• The nuns and workers at the sisters' home know about "M" and have been working to protect the children from him. He is not supposed to have contact with any of the children by police order
• 2 older boys stay in Rubaga and understand the "M" was using them for money so they refuse to see him and are being taken care of very well at the home they stay at.
• The police have opened a case against "M" with some evidence being gathered and he seems to stay away from some of the kids (more on that later)

Worse:

• 1 of the boys is staying at "M"'s house. He has told Judith that he has to work and do chores all day. If he doesn't, they sometimes don't give him food. "M" is collecting school fees for this boy, but he has not been able to go to school because the fees have not been paid. In my head, this little guy has a modern Cinderella story going on.
• 3 of the older children are staying in "M"'s home village far away from the other kids
• The children miss being in a home together. Although the house wasn't much to look at (and has gotten worse), it was still the place they called home
• "M" took everything that we had given last time and everything the kids had before and either sold or kept them for himself. This included selling the beds for scrap metal, selling the mattress, bedsheets and brand new blankets are nowhere to be found, the kids didn't have any clothes, all their backpacks are gone, and none of them have shoes. He claimed he would bring the things the day after her dropped some of the children at one of the homes and then he never followed through. He even tried to take apart cupboards and shelves that were owned by the landlady and sell them himself.

The Same:

• "M" has been collecting money from sponsors. Some of the younger boys still consider him Uncle "M" and he will drive up in his car on the way home from school and pick them up. He takes their pictures and then distributes them to collect money to support them - which they never see.
• The lawyers and police officers have supposedly been given money by "M". The assumption is he uses at least some of the money he was collecting from sponsors to pay them.
• The young kids still like "M" and call him Uncle or Daddy, which makes me a little sick when I think about the possibility of what he might have been doing to one of the girls
• "M" is still considered a fairly prominent business man and is "a very cunning man", according to Judith, so he gets away with a lot. The only thing that give me a little peace is knowing that he is going to have to answer some day to God about what he has done. I am pretty sure we are called to help the widows and orphans and not to abuse and take advantage of them, but maybe he read that part of the Bible incorrectly?

Fron

Okay, so that's my story for the day as far as I am able to tell. In my head I am still summarizing everything I heard and every time I think about "M", I find myself clenching my teeth and start seeing a lot of red. If I am talking about him I eventually bring myself to shouting at any poor soul that is within earshot, whether it is my mom, friends, or our cab driver, Joseph. I need to know that I can only do what I am able and that I should have faith that God is slowly working and intervening in the situation. The Sister that I talked to yesterday told me that she sometimes sees "M" at Catholic Mass and she has a hard time not confronting him. She also told me she heard one of the boys praying one morning and he said "God, please help the people who are using orphans to get money to know that what they are doing is wrong and make them stop. People just like Uncle "M"" 

As I was walking through the house and remember all the times we had parties are were hanging out with the kids singing songs and laughing, I saw one painting that stood out. I don't know if I have the capacity to do what it says, but I think I will try to forgive "M", but I am pretty sure I won't be able to forget everything that he has done.

Just another big kid

I love the Wooly Kids! After knowing them since 2007, I feel like I have watched them grow up before my eyes and become vibrant young men and women who have such strong personalities. It's so much fun to spend time with them now that they are a little older and we can talk with them and tell stories. Kenneth, Trevor, Arthur, Kirabu, Martin, and John are now all ages 11 and up and they have started to take on bigger responsibilities at home. Arthur helps a lot with cooking. Kirabu has been helping with the media at church services. Martin is in senior high school and wants to be an engineer. I almost always lose sight of Kenneth and Trevor when we visit Watoto and usually find out that they were going to help with hauling food from trucks or cleaning the house. It's always really fun to see the older boys watching out for the younger kids, too. They make sure that all the little ones aren't left behind and they gently correct them when they are fighting or not following the rules. It's been very rare that I have seen them bullying the younger kids but occasionally I see them snatch a toy or a piece of candy from the little ones either to tease them or just plain be mean. I don't think it's much more than what Ross probably did to me as a kid and I would never say that he was a bully to his little sister.

Every year since the second year we were here, we have managed to take the kids to a fun place outside of the village. We have gone to the zoo, to the mall to eat chicken, and even to a big kids event at the rugby field. This year we went to a new kids park at a mall called Freedom City. When Joseph dropped us off and said there is a nice pool, I had a hard time envisioning where a pool would be in a mall. It turns out the entire top floor is a kids area complete with 3 pools, carnival style rides, trampolines, swings, and a big outdoor concert stage. Since Easter Monday was a holiday and Tuesday was not, the place had been packed full the previous day, but today was deserted, especially in the morning on Tuesday. We got the whole place basically to ourselves for the first couple of hours which meant we had the freedom to run around and not worry about losing any of them.

To make it a short post, I am just putting some of the pictures we posted to capture the day. The kids just make me happy and some of these totally capture their personality. We are off on a 3 day safari until Saturday! I'm hoping for not too much rain and safe driving all the way to Queen Elizabeth!

Trevor jumping on one of the seven trampolines

This and the next are my two favorites. Kenneth had just climbed all the way to the top and you can't see it, but one of the other boys is trying to pull him down.

Joy - she's mischievous and full of energy and will do whatever she wants if you don't watch her carefully. This face is pretty much how I can sum her up.

Irene - I picture her as the most calm of the kids. She is always even tempered and has a smile that lights up the room

Hanging out with Arthur, my sponsored kid. I looked at old photos of him from the first time I met him and he is SO grown up!

Their favorite past-time - eating chicken and chips. 

I think my mom was in her glory, getting to have Irene sit on her lap the whole mtatu ride home. There were 2 moms, 3 other adults, the driver, and 16 kids crammed into one.

The whole crew waiting to go inside. It is not easy to get them to stand still when they know we are about to start an adventurous day!

Arthur, Trevor, and Joshua - three of the boys with the biggest smiles

Swimming - Patricia was on tour with the choir and we met her in Canada. She had recognized us from visiting Bbira in the past and we were able to find her when we visited last week.

The beginning of boat races - I think these boats are pretty sweet, but much harder to crank those wheels than you would expect.

Sheer determination - this look was on his face the whole time he was paddling.

Pamela and I were tired so sleeping on the trampoline seemed like a good idea. Arthur, Kenneth and Patricia just wanted to join us.

Awesome little wading pool. Warning - if you try to stand with 16 kids in the pool, you will not stay dry, splashing is a favorite pastime.

I was ecstatic that they let me on the big slide. It is much harder to climb than I expected but so worth it!

Swings

The lady watching the trampolines insisted I take a turn.

Making some bracelets while we waited for chicken.

Peter made sure he had it in his favorite color!

A Bit of Buyer's Remorse

Happy Easter Monday Everybody! Today is a national holiday here in Uganda! In addition to Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, Easter Monday is officially a government holiday where people are not required to work and most people are still spending time in the village with family. The city has felt very quiet all weekend which I assume is because so many people have gone out to be with their families to celebrate in the village. Even church on Sunday did not seem as full as previous weeks! 

By the way, the messages have been really great at church, Worship Harvest. They seem to be relevant to everyday life and are delivered in a very energetic way. There might not be a choir of over 100 people like there is at Watoto, but the dozen or so musicians and singers really know how to sing and DANCE! If you know me well, I am not always the one to be first on the dance floor or move around. When it comes to worship, I love singing and maybe a little moving around but I just can't seem to move my body in a fluid and natural way to the beat of any song the way that pretty much every Ugandan I meet can. There is one Mzungu singer in the choir. (if you haven't learned before, this is the word meaning "white person" or "foreigner" and is how many people on the street call out to us non-Ugandans who are lacking a bit of skin pigmentation) She has a lovely voice but she always looks out of place when she is with the group. She moves around and dances a bit while she sings but her movements just don't appear natural. Whenever I see her, I am reminded of what I must look like and become a bit more self-conscious about how I am moving during the songs. Then I remind myself that it doesn't matter if I look like a fool or not. God just loves it when we have genuine and heartfelt worship, whether it is song, prayer, or crazy dancing. 

I just thought I should share one part of the message on Sunday that stuck out the most to me. Let's be honest, it's pretty amazing to celebrate the great sacrifice that was made so all of us could live so Easter Sunday is automatically expected to have a good message. The main reading was from John talking about finding Jesus' tomb empty. I don't ever remember this one detail about Peter and another disciple  both were running to the tomb and the other disciple arrived first. He stopped outside and stooped down to look inside to find the tomb empty but the linens remaining. Peter then arrived and went inside the tomb and examined the linens and wrappings. Later the other disciple entered in and examined for himself and then he believed. So many times God calls us to something and we stand on the outside peering in to see what we can see instead of entering in all the way to experience the thing that we were called to do. 

At this point in the sermon, I stopped to re-examine what in the world I am doing here. I think that nearly every trip I have taken I try to fully immerse myself in the people and places while I am here. This trip, though, I sometimes find myself stopping short and not fully engaging. I don't think it is on purpose, but rather that it hurts when I actually step all the way into things. Whether it is not wanting to fully focus on one patient because that makes the disease hit harder and feel more real to me, trying not to stop for every person that calls mzungu on the street to talk to me because that means I actually have to listen and learn about them and their story is likely hard to hear. It's easy to try and justify NOT fully stepping in because it is too hard, but that doesn't mean it's right. It's not that I am always this way, but sometimes I realize that I could have done more or done things differently and the outcome might have been a little different or at least I would have felt more strongly about what happens. I want to be sure that I am fully engaging, fully entering in, and fully experiencing what it is I am meant to do here. 

I think about something my mom did on Sunday. There was a woman walking behind us on our 1.5 mile walk to church. After a little while, she started talking to my mom and in her true character, my mom asked her all kinds of questions and learned a lot about her. She even invited her to come to church with us and the woman decided to come and sit with us, even though she had been planning to go to some other church. Who knows what the plan was with this woman, but she ended up being very thankful to come with us and it seemed like my mom had made a new friend. I used to be a lot more like that here and still do talk to a lot of strangers, but I am a lot more weary. After dozens of interactions that ended with "can I get your contact?"(and then they call multiple times daily until you leave the country) or "so I really need a sponsor for school fees, can you help me" or simply, "Mzungu you give me money", I just tend not to engage in as many of those random conversations anymore. I have to remember, though, that not every such random meeting on the street is random and there is often a purpose in meeting a stranger. 

Okay, that was a little off the topic of the title of today's post title, but maybe I went on the rant because I just feel a little bad that the only activity I really did today was shop. We decided to dedicate one day to shopping at the craft markets to get all the gifts and souvenirs we wanted so that we wouldn't have to go back and that we could then move on and focus on the projects the rest of the time here. The problem with this strategy is that I spent more money during today's excursion buying things I don't REALLY need, but liked a lot, than I usually spend every 3 weeks since I have been here. In reality, it isn't that much money, but it feels like a ton. For every 100,000 shillings, I am spending around $40 and the most expensive single I bought was a beautiful painting of an elephant for 80,000, so $32. 

I also spend a fairly large amount of shillings on fabric with the intention of making a quilt and some other projects at home. The first week I was here I went with a friend to pick some other things from downtown and we had looked briefly at the fabrics but I decided to wait for Pamela and my mom before I made a purchase. The problem is, it's not always easy to find the places again because downtown there are tightly packed streets with narrow walkways and they all start to look the same. This was the third attempt for me to find the street with all the fabric on it and I finally found it with a little help from our cab driver, Joseph. I knew that it was across from where the food market is and a short walk from the taxi park (a huge parking lot with hundreds of mtatus jammed in waiting to go all over the city and the country) and that there is one yellow arched sign. The details clearly are not that helpful, and the other times we went we were walking and it is harder to pay attention when you are just trying to put one foot in front of the other without knocking into people or things. Riding in the car, I was able to pick out the details of the street and found the right one on the first try! It's easy to know it is the right place because the same items tend to all be sold on the same road. If you are looking for a computer, you just need to find one shop and alongside it will be 20 others. If you see a sign for paint, the entire street will be shops selling it. It's easy when you find the right stuff, but if you are looking for fabric and all you find are floor tiles and building supplies, it can be frustrating.

This third attempt I was finally able to find the right street. I saw a guy using a sewing machine outside of building and then one shop selling textiles and I knew all the rest would be the same. We took one little detour, but after that I remembered the spot I was looking for and found the exact woman's shop that I wanted. I had purchased fabric for curtains a few years ago from the same lady and I knew she always has a good selection of the types I like and I remembered her prices were fair. After she spent over 30 minutes climbing over fabrics and pulling down dozens of different prints as my mom and I tried to put together complementary patterns, I was finally satisfied with my collection. I thought I was buying a lot of really expensive things because the amount of shillings I handed her seems outrageous. Then Pamela announced that she did the math and what we got was about $2.50 per yard, which is significantly less than most similar fabric you can buy at home. It was a success!

The rest of the day was spent walking around so many little shops that I couldn't even give you an accurate count. All of them sell similar, but slightly different things and, as with most markets, the prices are never the same and are always negotiable so if you have the time you can look around until you find exactly the thing you want at a price that is what you want to pay. It's a lot of asking, "how much is it" and then, "will you give it to me for, XX?" and then back and forth with questions of price. The whole process of bartering is tiresome, though, and at the end of a day like that I just want to go to a quiet place and not ask or answer a single question more, even if it is something as simple as, "what do you want to drink?". 

By the time you go through so many shops and see the same things over and over again, it all starts to look like the same old stuff. So I could go on and on about stories from the market and all the crap, I mean, craft market things that I bought and was pretty happy with, but I think I do feel a little bad about it, still. I mean, in total, I spend probably around $175, with the majority of that on fabric and my special elephant painting which is relatively not that much if I were shopping back home. However, when I am here and have been spending so little on things to take home and have been so focused on the people here, it feels like a spent a small fortune. Although I like the things I got - like some sweet sandals, an elephant with crazy eyes, and a pretty bag, plus lots of random gifts that I can't wait to give to the people I got them for, I don't really need any of them. I will say, that when I get home and wear them and use them, I am reminded of this country, of these people, and of the memories here. It's not like I need the things to remember because so many of the moments I remember are engrained in my mind, but sometimes I like that my living room makes me feel a little like I am in Uganda or that when I wear certain items, they become a conversation starter about this place that I love. 

For tonight, I will feel a little buyer's remorse for doing nothing but shopping, but will try to remember that it's not like this always. After today, there will be a lot more of visiting orphanages and giving them things they need and sharing life with them. Hopefully there will also be a lot more stepping into every interaction and not examining from outside.

Ground Breaking

This week as already gone by really quickly! I can't believe that it's Friday tomorrow or that it's Easter weekend already! My time in Uganda is winding down, but as expected the last three weeks are shaping up to be lots of work, but lots of fun, too! On Wednesday, we went to Kayunga to visit Pastor Kawooya and House of Peace to take a look at the start of latrine digging and to give my mom a real picture of what needs to be done in order to get the house back in shape.

I don't think I mentioned it before but on Saturday I had a meeting with Pastor K and two members of government offices responsible for overseeing children's homes in Uganda. I was really glad that we met with the official members of the office instead of just getting the information second hand from Pastor K. It's not that I don't trust what he has to say, but sometimes it gets a bit confusing when you are talking about renovations for things you have never heard of or seen before. I have also realized over the years that although sometimes it is really easy to just go in and help out or give some money to assist in doing things that people need, it isn't always the best way to go about things. A lot of times there are members of offices in charge of important regulations that are willing to help out if they know you are all working towards the same goal of giving the kids a safe place to live and grow. We got some good clarifications on requirements. For example, Paul and I initially thought that building a fence was a waste of resources because they live in a village and have 10 acres of land. It turns out that every home that has orphans in it needs to have an enclosed space around the home, but there isn't a specific requirement of how the fence should be built. It still isn't completely clear if the fence will keep anybody in or out, but we want to follow the regulations. In addition to the fence, there is a long list including fixing the foundation of the floor, putting in new windows, digging a garbage pit, possibly adding a flat ceiling, getting electricity, building a shelf in the kitchen,  putting beds in every room, painting the walls, and fixing the outside cement work. What started out as a request to help build a toilet to get the kids back in their home has turned into a bit of an extreme home makeover.

Sometimes I have my doubts about any project in Uganda - or any project in general. I have talked about this project in previous posts and I still have pretty much the same thoughts. However, my mom did give me some new perspective that I am a little ashamed to say I was pushing aside. In my mind I kept thinking that now that the kids are in Jinja, even though they are split up in many different homes, they may not have it so bad. I mean, the schools are a bit better, the walk to town and school is shorter, they are in smaller groups, and they seem to be doing just fine. When Pastor K talks about it, though, he reminded us of how he left the village after the majority of his family and many in the village died from HIV/AIDS in the early 90's. He didn't want to be a part of the village anymore. Later, God called him back and put it on his heart to help these children and he has been taking them in since around 2004. Since he started, this has become their home. The place they have been growing up and the place they love. It might be in a rural location, and it might seem like the village isn't the best place to be, but I think that is mostly because that isn't where I grew up and that isn't what is familiar to me. Thinking about it this way made us realize that being home is a big deal and it is important for us to help out in any way that we can. So to anybody who donated to Medicine for Sick Children or directly to my mom for this project, thanks a lot! This project is meaning a lot to Pastor Kawooya and the kids and the goal is to have them back at home before the next school semester starts in June.

During our actual visit, we watched as a tractor tilled some of the fields while a couple of guys were doing the same work by hand. A month ago I was discouraged when we visited because it looked like any attempt at having a legitimate garden or farm had completely failed. I think all it needed was a little bit of the rainy season! This time, there was so much green that I almost didn't recognize the place. It seems that planting and growing isn't going to be that difficult, after all! Also, in honor of the re-building and fixing of the house, Pastor K wanted to symbolically plant an orange tree. Here's to hoping it grows up big and strong!!

Orange tree in the middle of the maize - it grew that tall in just 4 weeks or so!

The orange tree

The man came to start digging the pit for the latrine style toilet. It needs to be something like 60 feet deep and he said it will take about 5 days. He managed to dig himself in about 6 feet by the time we left. His tools were a pick-axe, a shovel, and a hoe. I am a little unsure of how 60 feet is going to happen, but I have seen some pretty deep holes dug by hand here before, so I am sure it will eventually get done!

New Site for the Latrine. Here's to hoping for no rocks!

The old toilet - totally full and falling apart

We are planning on doing a lot more work over the next three weeks but our next visit won't be until about a week and a half from now. We are hoping that they will have been able to fix the walls inside and do enough that we can do some painting inside. Clearly, we don't have a lot of skills with building things, gardening, or doing other projects in this country, but I think painting is pretty universal. Hopefully our painting abilities will be useful more than they will hinder progress!

It's not all about work, though. On the drive home, we took a pretty nice stop at a waterfall along the way to Jinja. Just a 5 minute drive from the main road and about 5,000 shillings ($2.50) got us on a beautiful little hike to stretch our legs for about a half hour. It was much cheaper than our $65 hike in Mt. Elgon to see a little trickle after 5 hours of hiking! Sometimes you just don't have a clue what you are paying for but you have to take a chance on seeing something great! I think we won with this pit stop!

$2.50

$65