More from Saturday

May 23, 2009 – Part 2

So you may think that after all of the ups and downs of visiting the kids at Watoto, it filled the whole day, but you’re wrong. We were back from Watoto before 1:00 and had a lot more work to do. There was one more “orphanage” that we had to visit to collect data, distribute medicine, and teach the “mother” how to use each of the things in the medicine cabinet.

This orphanage is basically a little room in the slums that an old woman called Jjajja has been collecting street kids. We counted a total of 20 of them between the ages of one to thirteen. At first we only counted 17, but more kept coming out of the woodwork. Jjajja is a lady that is probably about 70 years old and speaks absolutely zero English. Luckily we took Angella AND the two mothers from Need for All to help us interpret. If you think of the dirtiest place you’ve been, multiply that by at least ten and you’ll get the situation that these 21 people live in. I wrote about it before, but this time wasn’t as much of a shock. However, we saw just how bad it was as we were there for much longer.

We started out with all of us inside trying to figure out how to get a picture, the birthday, height, and weight of every single kid. We finally settled on Angella staying inside and asking Jjajja the names and birthdays and write them on note-cards. Surprisingly, Jjajja knew every name and age with no hesitation. Birthdays were not really available, but ages are better than most places we’ve been. Angella then sent the kids outside to the street where I took a picture and Rachel recorded their weight. Luckily two of the older girls quickly became our helpers in getting the kids from point A to point B. Some were very scared of the scale and us, some where super energetic and wouldn’t stand still, but all were very dirty and smelly. I figured out part of the problem. The little ones usually aren’t wearing diapers or pants. One of them was covered in poop and sat on the scale. The next kid stepped in it before we could stop him and the following older boy cleaned it off with his hand. Later, the babies were sitting on the beds where the children sleep with their dirty bottoms rubbing against the blankets and clothes. With the dust and dirt all over the floor, garbage in the street and in the room, no running water, a kitchen that is just a pot over coals in a corner, and lack of food most days, I can’t imagine what it would be like to spend more than an hour or two inside that place.

There are definitely health needs. None of them look malnourished, but they can’t be healthy. Jjajja said she has never had to admit one to Mulago, which is a positive and somewhat unbelievable. These kids must have really good immune systems to be able to stay healthy there. One of the children, Paul, is deaf. I can’t remember how old he is, but I think it was about 7. He acts out a lot and throws tantrums and I can’t really blame him. There is nobody that knows how to help a child like Paul living there and I’m positive they don’t have money to pay for somebody to help him with learning. I don’t even think he goes to school when most kids his age do.

In the streets, there are people sitting everywhere outside their home cooking or washing clothes. Laundry is hung across most of the walkways, but I don’t know how clean it actually gets with all the dust and smog in the air. Some boys asked us to come and see what they were doing. I was horrified at what I saw. They had buckets full of what I have always thought to be green beans. It turns out they are buckets full of grasshoppers. People collect them and then cut off their wings, antennae, and legs. Then they cook them to eat as a source of protein. The thing is, it’s not uncommon for people to eat them because I see them all over the streets being sold to people. Angella says that she used to eat them when she was little and used to catch a few at a time with her sister, but they almost always make you sick when you eat more than one. I’m not even going to try one! So many things make me grateful for where I live and what I have. The couple of hours there definitely made me feel that way.

On the walk home, even Angella said that she couldn’t believe how dirty it was down there. She hasn’t been down in that area to see people living and thinks that it’s really disgusting the way people are surviving. It’s hard to know it exists and not know what to do about it. Even if we gave them a whole new home, there’s an entire slum full of people living the same way. If we had the money to fix up that whole slum, we would have to go to hundreds of other locations across the country and thousands of places across the globe. All we can do is use the resources that we have to help the people that we can and know that we’ve done the best things possible.

I took a long shower to wash off any dirt and (hopefully not too much) feces that I might have picked up. Then Angella and I took bodas to her apartment so I could see where she lives and so we could pick up some cd’s to burn pictures of the Woolies for her later on in the day. She has a small apartment in a little less busy part of town, but it’s only a 15 minute walk from the clinic she works at. I always love to see where people live and the things that they do on a day to day basis. I feel like I know more about them by knowing that part of their life. We took one last boda ride after an awkward meeting with her landlord about fixing some problems in the apartment. I think he was a little thrown off when I answered the door. Angella said he’s never been that strange before and she thinks it’s because he’s not used to interacting with mzungus. It’s so foreign to me that people look at me differently. When I walk down the streets, I don’t feel like I stand out that much. Then I see somebody else walking that’s not from Uganda or I see our reflection in the mirror and I realize just how much was stand out. I can’t say that I like it that much. People have all of these ideas about how much money we have and that we will always give you things. The shouts of mzungu as you walk down the street start to get old and you wish you could just blend in. When you go into gift shops people stand at attention and come to help you. I don’t like store at home when the salespeople try to help me browse the racks, so I definitely don’t like it here. I appreciate being assisted, but usually only when I ask for the help.

We had one last dinner at the Indian restaurant at Garden City. It’s always a popular place for us to eat, I think because Ross loved the cheese nan. All in all it was a very busy day but I really enjoyed every minute of it, even though it was not always easy physically or emotionally.