It was bound to happen. It happens every year. It can’t be helped – if it can, somebody needs to tell me how to stop it. I’ve had a day that I LOVE this country but I HATE this country!! There are road blocks with every project that we do, but we can just work through them. Usually we have one problem every day, but there always seems to be a day when every project is super frustrating!!
We started the morning going to Mulago hospital to meet with Evelyn’s doctors. She is a girl who we saw last year that was born with a deformity that basically prevents her from defecating at all. (If you don’t like a graphic picture in your head, don’t read the rest of this paragraph!) In order to fix the problem, there are numerous surgeries involved. The first is called a colostomy which is done so that the pressure built up from the feces in her intestine can be removed. Part of her intestine is now exposed outside of her body so that she will not be backed up with feces anymore. It’s one thing to have the surgery, but it’s another to have the surgery and then do nothing for months! The surgery was done in February, and there has still not been anything done!!! There was supposed to be another surgery to put the intestine back and fix the problem, but the surgeons don’t know what to do and they want to wait for a skilled set of physicians from another country to help them out. Evelyn’s mother comes to the hospital from the village at least once a month and is then told to come home. She has to keep the wound area clean while living in the village which is nearly impossible when you have to take care of your family in the village.
The situation has gotten out of control because the mother doesn’t understand why they keep sending her home and nothing is getting fixed. The doctors and nurses don’t care to do anything because they are frankly sick of the mother. Angella and I spent over an hour yesterday talking to the nurses and to Deo, a guy from the village who knows Evelyn very well. He is frustrated that he can’t help. Today we sat around for more than two hours waiting to talk to a doctor or nurse. The nurses ignored Angella when we tried to ask her a question. The doctors were just too busy on rounds. Finally, we saw a doctor that Angella knew that we could talk to. He didn’t know much since it was his first day, but it was at least a way in. We finally found that there is no real plan for Evelyn yet, but she will come back in two weeks for the doctors to come up with one. We’ll go back to the hospital to try and figure out what the plan is. For now, if anybody knows a team of surgeons that is willing to come and do a crazy surgery as a volunteer job, I’m sure they’d love to have you and Evelyn wouldn’t be the only case to tackle!! It’s just so upsetting to see a very sick kid not really getting help because of the lack of resources. That’s what’s going on with Evelyn. They want to fix what’s wrong but they don’t know how and they don’t know how to find out. I really just pray that we can find a way to fix this poor little girl! She is very sweet until you try to see her wound. She immediately screams and cries. Poor thing!!
While we were waiting we got pretty hungry and tired so we decided to go to the cafeteria and grab a snack and a soda. We tried to stand in line but found that people just kept pushing their way right in front of us and they were getting served. Lines don’t exist here, especially if you are Mzungu. I finally put my money in front of a woman’s face so that she was forced to see me and serve me. Maybe I just don’t know how to navigate the lines here, but I tend to feel like people will push in front of me but not other people. The same thing happened in the grocery store as I was waiting in an actually check-out line. After the first person went in front, I thought he was just rude, but after the second tried I was not happy and I ended up just edging my way back in front of her and putting all of my water on the counter in front of her. I need to figure out that system fast!
While we enjoyed our soda and donuts (not anything like our donuts other than the fact that they are fried in oil!) we decided to try to call Joshua’s step-mother again. Joshua had cancer last year and we accompanied him during one of his chemotherapy appointments, along with his father, Wycleif. We also took him to the zoo with his stepmother, Jessica, and two of her daughters. When I tried to call Jessica, she spent the entire conversation complaining that I had her number. She denied knowing me, refused to claim that she was Jessica, and told me that I should tell Angella to stop giving out the wrong number. I double checked the number when I was done and it was definitely the right one! I repeatedly asked about Joshua and she kept changing the subject by asking me a question. She never denied or confirmed that she even knew Joshua! She finally just hung up on me. I wasn’t about to waste more air time on her. I decided that maybe I should try Wycleif’s number again even though last time it was not in service. To my surprise it worked! The man on the other end was Wycleif and he informed me that Joshua is still alive and in school and we will get to see him next Friday afternoon in Entebbe while I am waiting to pick up my friends from the airport! Praise the Lord! Something worked out today! Let’s just hope that plans don’t change again before Friday!
Our next project was to go to what I would describe as a flea market to get clothes to bring to Watoto. Even though they get clothes from the orphanage, they often don’t get the right types of clothes so the kids go with the same things all the time. There is a truck that drops off a huge pile that all of the 8 houses in the complex get to choose from. The problem is most of the other houses have older children in them, so they usually don’t send many little children’s clothes for them. The flea market would over-stimulate any person’s senses. There are people everywhere and all of them are yelling in Luganda. Occasionally I could pick out Mzungu – sometimes in a laughing tone because they were surprised to see us there, sometimes shouting to get our attention, other times a not so friendly tone. Regardless, the color of my skin determines the price of the clothes. There are some umbrella’s set up with clothes nicely hung. Some people have tarps laid out nicely with folded clothes. Then there are the piles…..piles of every sort of kids clothes you can imagine just thrown on top of a tarp. A man will holler out a price and show and item of clothing and then throw it down to pick up another. Once we found a tarp that looked promising. We told the guy what we were looking for and he began to try and show us what we wanted. After spending 15 minutes gathering a pile of clothes and deciding what we like, all the while sweating in the hot mid-day sun, he told us the price would be 1,500 per shirt. It’s only about 75 cents, but the price for the woman before us was 500 and we knew it was not a fair price for what we were getting, so we tried to haggle. He refused so we walked away. He lost on the sale of 20 items, and we went to start the process all over again. We had to go to at least 4 tarps to get enough clothes for the 2 young girls and one older girl that we didn’t already have clothes for. We then spent nearly 45 minutes trying to find pants and shorts for the boys. They were harder to find and even more difficult to get a good price. They were trying to charge 5,000 for shorts worth 2,000 or less. We had to go to many and walk away after wasting time. Even Angella was getting angry at the way people were treating us about prices. I should be used to it by now, but for some reason, today was just too much! Often, once we walked away people agreed to the price we wanted, but Angella turned to them and said we had a price and the refused and now we will find something else. Even though we were cheated out of the real price, we were able to use the money people had donated to get a lot of clothes! In all, we had 14 pairs of boys pants/shorts, 5 pairs of girls pants, 14 girls shirts, 4 dresses, and 16 pair of underwear. The price? 93,500 shillings……in US dollars ---- just about $45. Clearly better than anywhere we could have gone back home, but it still should not have been that much. I wouldn’t have minded if people were cheating me out of the prices if I was buying it for myself. We even tried to explain we were buying the clothes for street kids and orphans, but that doesn’t pull on anybody’s heart strings at the market since we weren’t putting any clothes on their own kids back.
I must sound really bitter right now, but I am truly frustrated with the system. It’s not the actual money, it’s the principle. There are plenty of good people in this country who don’t take advantage of us, but there or more that do just because of our skin color. It’s so weird to know that the way people look at me is based on my race. It’s not something I think about at home because there are so many different people living together, but here we really stand out. It works to our advantage sometimes. For example, everybody was being checked in the supermarkets and large restaurants with metal detectors because of fear of bombs. When our friend Susan went through, the man checked every pocket of her wallet, which folded up was thinner and smaller than my bag. When I opened up my bag he barely looked and didn’t check any of the obviously large pockets that could have been filled with anything! I can walk up the hospital and go through any security point and not be stopped or questioned even though it’s not during visiting hours and I’m not a doctor, but if Angella does the same thing, she would be questioned, stopped and probably prevented from passing, even though she IS a doctor and has real reasons to be there. Discrimination is not cool, no matter who it affects and no matter if it works as an advantage or disadvantage.
On a lighter note, on the way out of the market, I saw a stand selling Obama jeans. There was a huge tag on the side with our president, endorsing the genes. I’m pretty sure Obama doesn’t know about them, and I don’t know if he would endorse such a product. They are used genes being sold under a false name and a price that is not showing their actual value. I wonder if he would respond if I wrote him a letter about it?
Tonight we went bowling with Angella, her sister, Kate, a friend, Richard, Susan, and my mom. The bowling alley has 6 lanes that were almost all full. I’m pretty sure I could see the streaks of wax that were not rubbed in, and the ball was taken if every direction but straight as it went down the lane. Nobody seemed to care and nobody really seemed to know how to bowl either! It was quite a sight on every lane. Sometimes the ball would not land until halfway down the lane. A guy next to us laid down on the ground after every ball. There was a lot of dancing by people in every age group. The pins usually came down, but by the time the gate went up, there were often 3 or 4 laid down already. Then you had to reset and hope the next one worked out. At one point, it took four tried to get 10 standing pins! At least there was an electronic score keeper. However, it never really added in strikes and spares with the right point system. I was upset that I got exactly 100, despite 6 spares. Then I realized that I had actually knocked down 100 pins. I’ll never know what the real score was! TIA!
Overall, a frustrating day, but I know tomorrow will be better! We are going to Mbende to check out the village and decide what types of things they need and how many medicine cabinets they will be needing. We also need to determine whether the children are orphans or they are just poor children in the village. The study we are doing requires orphanages so I am hoping that they fit the description!! Thank you for letting me vent today! I’m hoping that this will be the one frustrating day of the trip and that the rest will go a little smoother!
Monday, July 19, 2010
Day 10 - July 15
I got to spend another lovely morning with Gloria at a different HIV clinic. This one was much more rural than the first. We picked up John, a counselor on the way. We had to drive much further on some unpaved roads. It was amazing how much dust there was! There were many times when we had to roll up the windows to avoid a huge dust cloud coming into the car! All you see is a cloud of red coming at you! There were men working on the roads that were wearing masks. It’s the first time I’ve actually seem somebody here protecting themselves against the dust, so I knew it must be bad! There was a truck going down parts of the road that was watering down some of the dust. I’m sure it was a fix that would last half a day, but by the afternoon I’m sure the sun would have dried up all the water and the dust would be back.
The clinic is in a rural area that I would consider a village, with cows grazing and chickens running around. At one point, a rooster stuck its head into the patient room just to see what was going on. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned before, but the rooster’s here are really not so bright. I assumed that they crow in the morning to signal the sun coming up. These roosters crow at all times of day. The sun could be at its highest point and they crow. The sun could be setting and they crow. It doesn’t seem like it fits the job description when they are calling the sun out when it’s already out or its setting for the day. Silly roosters.
The people here at the clinic were much the same as at the other one, only there were fewer of them. It was sad to hear some of the stories again of girls who had boyfriends who they think gave them HIV, but they aren’t sure and the boyfriends are no longer around. Two of the girls were under 20 years old. One of them is in school to be an engineer, which is a program you have to be very smart to get into. She is a brilliant student, but was either too in love or not informed enough about HIV to practice safe sex. We had one patient who sent her husband because she was too sick. She had some x-rays done at a private hospital because she was having difficulty swallowing. The problem was that she didn’t go to the hospital that the program endorses so none of the records were done right and the center can’t follow up on her. She now needs to go back to the right hospital to get the tests done again. Even though the program is a good one, it still has some of the technical and logistic problems that we often see with insurance companies and health care in the U.S.
On the way home, we had a huge detour to get back to the main city of Kampala. They were working on the road so they just randomly diverted us to a country road. It was much worse than the dust with all of the bumps! I don’t think Gloria has been driving that long, and the bumps are not easy to go over! They are so high that unless you are able to hit them perfectly, your car will scrap against the top of them. By the end of the half hour ride, I think we had gotten the hang of it. You have to go at an angle and then slowly turn to the opposite direction. If you hit it straight on, you are bound to hear that awful scraping noise as you know something is being damaged underneath the car! These need a more dramatic name than speed bumps because you have to basically stop and go 2 miles an hour to get over them without damage!
On the way home, we had to stop at the hospital to pick up something on the wards. I assumed it was something for the clinic. As we were walking, I heard Gloria say something about eggs. I was a bit confused. Then she explained that we were picking them up from another doctor who raises chickens. We had to walk past all of the patients and sit in a room where the patients wait to be seen. They get interviewed by nurses at tables. I’m pretty sure there were at least 5 patients at a time. Clearly HIPPA is not a concern here. There was one patient that Gloria pointed out as a prisoner. He was dressed in bright yellow matching shirt and shorts with stripes that looked like they were drawn on. If I didn’t know, I would have thought he was a guy going to play soccer. I sat and watched him and tried to figure out why he was in prison. He seemed to be so gentle and shy. It’s possible that he was with a guard of some sort or maybe he was just really sick so he was quiet, but I couldn’t picture him doing anything really bad. It got me wondering why people go to prison here. Do they steal things, damage property, or something as bad as murder? I really don’t have a clue, but I do know I probably don’t want to end up in a prison here. The conditions are clearly not as good as there are at home!
When the doctor was finally free, she escorted us out the building and across a few parking lots to her car. She reached into the front seat and filled two plastic bags with at least 2 dozen each! I don’t know how Susan managed to drive them home once I was out of the car without breaking them, but she did! When we saw her later that night, she informed me that all of the eggs made it home completely intact!
One thing I found extremely fun about today was trying to park a car! Gloria found a place to park on the sidewalk, which meant we had to go up on the curb. We probably spent 5 minutes just trying to get on. A security guard came up to us. I thought he was going to instruct us to get off the curb, but instead he just helped us park! On the way out another security guard talked to Gloria in Luganda. At first I thought we were in trouble, the she described that her license plate number was the same as his wife’s initials. I love that it was a conversation starter! TIA!
We finished off the night with dinner at Krua Thai with Troy. It’s tradition that the last night is at a good restaurant, and we talk about the trip. This time is different because we will be remaining after he leaves. I will have to continue the work for Medicine for Sick Children and just communicate with him through email and phone messages for the rest of the time!
At dinner, we also got to meet a doctor from Duke University who is doing some work in nutrition. She is starting some research at Mulago and has a few months to set things up. It’s amazing how long the process can be. She needs 3 months to set up the study and then some medical student will come for a whole year to gather data. I know it takes a lot of work, but I don’t think it will take a year! He’s going to have to find some other work to keep himself busy!!
We got a ride home but since Gloria’s car is low to the ground, she dropped us off at the top of our really big hill! It was amazing that my mom was not upset. She was prepared this time with socks to protect her feet from the dust and a flashlight to see where we were going. I think it was just because Angella was with us. She was much more upset when it was just her and I. Either she is more comfortable after some time or she trusts Angella more than me.
The clinic is in a rural area that I would consider a village, with cows grazing and chickens running around. At one point, a rooster stuck its head into the patient room just to see what was going on. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned before, but the rooster’s here are really not so bright. I assumed that they crow in the morning to signal the sun coming up. These roosters crow at all times of day. The sun could be at its highest point and they crow. The sun could be setting and they crow. It doesn’t seem like it fits the job description when they are calling the sun out when it’s already out or its setting for the day. Silly roosters.
The people here at the clinic were much the same as at the other one, only there were fewer of them. It was sad to hear some of the stories again of girls who had boyfriends who they think gave them HIV, but they aren’t sure and the boyfriends are no longer around. Two of the girls were under 20 years old. One of them is in school to be an engineer, which is a program you have to be very smart to get into. She is a brilliant student, but was either too in love or not informed enough about HIV to practice safe sex. We had one patient who sent her husband because she was too sick. She had some x-rays done at a private hospital because she was having difficulty swallowing. The problem was that she didn’t go to the hospital that the program endorses so none of the records were done right and the center can’t follow up on her. She now needs to go back to the right hospital to get the tests done again. Even though the program is a good one, it still has some of the technical and logistic problems that we often see with insurance companies and health care in the U.S.
On the way home, we had a huge detour to get back to the main city of Kampala. They were working on the road so they just randomly diverted us to a country road. It was much worse than the dust with all of the bumps! I don’t think Gloria has been driving that long, and the bumps are not easy to go over! They are so high that unless you are able to hit them perfectly, your car will scrap against the top of them. By the end of the half hour ride, I think we had gotten the hang of it. You have to go at an angle and then slowly turn to the opposite direction. If you hit it straight on, you are bound to hear that awful scraping noise as you know something is being damaged underneath the car! These need a more dramatic name than speed bumps because you have to basically stop and go 2 miles an hour to get over them without damage!
On the way home, we had to stop at the hospital to pick up something on the wards. I assumed it was something for the clinic. As we were walking, I heard Gloria say something about eggs. I was a bit confused. Then she explained that we were picking them up from another doctor who raises chickens. We had to walk past all of the patients and sit in a room where the patients wait to be seen. They get interviewed by nurses at tables. I’m pretty sure there were at least 5 patients at a time. Clearly HIPPA is not a concern here. There was one patient that Gloria pointed out as a prisoner. He was dressed in bright yellow matching shirt and shorts with stripes that looked like they were drawn on. If I didn’t know, I would have thought he was a guy going to play soccer. I sat and watched him and tried to figure out why he was in prison. He seemed to be so gentle and shy. It’s possible that he was with a guard of some sort or maybe he was just really sick so he was quiet, but I couldn’t picture him doing anything really bad. It got me wondering why people go to prison here. Do they steal things, damage property, or something as bad as murder? I really don’t have a clue, but I do know I probably don’t want to end up in a prison here. The conditions are clearly not as good as there are at home!
When the doctor was finally free, she escorted us out the building and across a few parking lots to her car. She reached into the front seat and filled two plastic bags with at least 2 dozen each! I don’t know how Susan managed to drive them home once I was out of the car without breaking them, but she did! When we saw her later that night, she informed me that all of the eggs made it home completely intact!
One thing I found extremely fun about today was trying to park a car! Gloria found a place to park on the sidewalk, which meant we had to go up on the curb. We probably spent 5 minutes just trying to get on. A security guard came up to us. I thought he was going to instruct us to get off the curb, but instead he just helped us park! On the way out another security guard talked to Gloria in Luganda. At first I thought we were in trouble, the she described that her license plate number was the same as his wife’s initials. I love that it was a conversation starter! TIA!
We finished off the night with dinner at Krua Thai with Troy. It’s tradition that the last night is at a good restaurant, and we talk about the trip. This time is different because we will be remaining after he leaves. I will have to continue the work for Medicine for Sick Children and just communicate with him through email and phone messages for the rest of the time!
At dinner, we also got to meet a doctor from Duke University who is doing some work in nutrition. She is starting some research at Mulago and has a few months to set things up. It’s amazing how long the process can be. She needs 3 months to set up the study and then some medical student will come for a whole year to gather data. I know it takes a lot of work, but I don’t think it will take a year! He’s going to have to find some other work to keep himself busy!!
We got a ride home but since Gloria’s car is low to the ground, she dropped us off at the top of our really big hill! It was amazing that my mom was not upset. She was prepared this time with socks to protect her feet from the dust and a flashlight to see where we were going. I think it was just because Angella was with us. She was much more upset when it was just her and I. Either she is more comfortable after some time or she trusts Angella more than me.
Day 9 - July 14
SUCCESS! We had a few goals today and all of them were met! We have to get all of our information for our orphanage project gathered so that when Pamela and Nick arrive, we will be able to just go to these places and take the information down. We have not visited them since the last time which was over a year ago, so we weren’t even sure if they still existed (which can happen often here!). The phone numbers we had for both places no longer work, so we had to try to find them simply based on memory.
Luckily, Angella at least new the general neighborhood to find Little Angel, an orphanage with about 20 children. We had to drive past the biggest catholic church in the city to get there. It was nearly impossible to pass because there were two funeral services going on. The priest was giving a Eulogy for a woman named Alice whose life was tragically ended by the bombs. I just heard briefly what he said as we walked by and the speakers blasted his comments. Alice had lived her life for the Lord and you could tell by the way she gave of herself that her heart was in the right place. I just can’t imagine what it would be like if that happened to me or somebody I knew. There is so much hurt and so much forgiveness, and it seems like it would be very difficult to be forgiving through all of the hurt. Only the grace of God would be able to overcome it!
Once we got out of the nightmare of a jam (we were literally inches away from cars on every side as we drove through) we had to try to find Little Angel. We went up and down a hill and asked all the Boda drivers, but nobody had a clue where to find it. We went back up to the cathedral and then down another hill It looked more familiar than the other. The problem is that all of the times we went last year, we got lost too so we weren’t sure if we were remembering being lost or going in the right direction! We finally found a Boda driver who knew the place and directed us to the right road. Sure enough, Little Angel was still there! The mothers even remembered us and went right to the medicine cabinet to show us. They had kept good records of what they used and when! I can’t wait to go back and actually take notes on what they have done. Three of the children were home because their school was closed after somebody in it was affected by the bombs. There is not much in the house. I don’t think they even have enough dishes for all of the kids and the water and electricity have not been working for 4 months because they couldn’t pay for it. They’ve been borrowing from the neighbors for now. Can you imagine caring for 20 children without water or electricity? We might have to try to find a way to help them out with that in addition to helping with the medicine. We got a new phone number for contacting them and we have a better idea of what we need.
On the way back, we decided to try to contact Ssalil. Him and his brother, Henry (or Chiwa) were neighbors to the Woolies when they lived at Need for All Orphanage. They used to come over all the time and play with the kids and were really great at taking care of them. About a month ago, I got terrible news from Angella that Henry had passed away. He had gotten sick and went to the hospital where he was prescribed anti-malarial medication. Even with the medicine he got worse. Three days later, his mom decided to return to the hospital, but he died while he was waiting to be admitted. Henry was one of the people that I had a heart for. He always came up and talked to me and when I came back the second trip, he was the first to come up to me and ask if I remembered him. It’s nice to have somebody remember you, especially when you always come with the Wooly (Ross). The kids all know him so well and everybody else just becomes a bunch of Mzungu’s that come to hang out when he is around.
You may think HIV/AIDS are a big problem in this country, but it is by far not the biggest reason people die. Malaria is still the biggest culprit of taking the lives of children here and may be the #1 reason for adults too. HIV/AIDS has programs run by really large organizations that provide the medications for free. Malaria strikes anybody at any time and people often can’t afford to come to a hospital or to pay for the anti-malarials. I think Malaria needs to be the next disease that people really focus on over here with something more than mosquito nets. You get bit not only at night, but during the day too, so it’s really hard to just prevent malaria by avoiding mosquitoes. Maybe some drug company could try to work on something cheaper, longer lasting, and more practical than Malarone and other anti-malarials. The problem is, I don’t know if any pharmaceutical company would want to “waste” their money researching and producing a drug that they can’t charge $8 per pill and that the main consumers would need the drug as a charity. They would much rather produce drugs to help people that can pay lose weight, enhance their sex lives, or stop them from losing their hair. The more I’ve learned about pharmacology, the more I realize how much is driven by the people that create the drugs. They produce what is most marketable and profitable. I don’t know where all of their money goes, but I highly doubt it goes to many charitable projects. There is one good story that I remember from my business class. If you’re bored, try researching Merck and finding a cure for River Blindness in Africa. It happened in the 80’s or 90’s I think, but it made me have a lot of respect for their CEO (who is no clearly no longer there considering some of the things that have gone on with the company in the past 10 years)
The next part of the day, we planned to devote to finding a woman called JaaJaa in the slum of Katanga that is near the hospital. I dropped my mom with our neighbor, Gloria, who took her to look at her wedding dress because Angella and I knew it would be overwhelming and we honestly had no idea where we had to go or if we would even find her. The slums are overwhelming, even if you’ve been there. Picture those commercials on TV for Christian Children’s fund and then think 10 times worse. There is garbage everywhere, the smell is suffocating, and there are dirty children running around everywhere. As we walked down the hill, little children started to come out and yell Mzungu. Some got brave and grabbed my hand. By the time we got halfway down, I had a little parade of kids following me. It’s really odd to be the center of attention and I tried to get them to scatter as soon as I could. Last year, I distinctly remember children coming up and grabbing my hand or touching my leg and then feeling their hands creep into my pockets to see what they could find. It’s tragic that they learn from such a young age how to survive on the streets. Children should be children, running around and playing, not searching for ways to get money or food.
As we were walking, I remembered that there was a river of garbage that we had to step over by going on a broken cement drain pipe to get to JaaJaa. I saw what I thought it was and told Angella to turn. As we entered a narrow row of buildings, we both decided it was a familiar place. Just after passing a turn, Angella looked back and decided to ask somebody. The first person she asked pointed to the turn we had come back to and said it was it! No kidding! We were in exactly the right place! Praise the Lord! I thought we would have been walking around for hours before we found it! Sure enough JaaJaa was sitting on a dirty pile of clothes with a kid in her lap. The only thing that changed was that there were now bunk beds (3 sets of 3 beds) rather than 4 beds lining the walls. It was still impossible to breath or move. There were still flies everywhere and there were still piles of dirty and probably moldy clothes and bedding. JaaJaa remember us and even still has the medicine cabinet from last year. She reported that all of the children as still around but are at school. We have lots of information to collect, but we will wait until next time when Pamela and Nick are around to get that done. I was overwhelmed by the sights, and I’m sure it was good to keep my mom away for just the day. She will get to see it when we are much more organized and won’t be so distracted by all of the things that are so new and overwhelming. She had fun with Gloria and got to get a Chapati to eat (which she had been wanting since the first one she tried) so I think she had a good day.
Angella and I decided to walk to find a place to eat. We ended up settling on iBamba, a restaurant at the Uganda museum. The setting was nice, with a large grass roof covering us sitting at our big table on couches and comfortable chairs. The service was SO BAD, even for Uganda standards. Angella ordered, but the girl didn’t wait for me to be ready, so she said she would come back. After 20 minutes, my mom and Gloria had arrived and we finally just told a different waitress what we wanted. 20 minutes after that, the original waitress came back to ask us our order, and was confused when we told her we already ordered. Clearly she couldn’t talk to her co-worker, even though they were the only two working and there was one other table. Angella got her food and pretty much every 10 minutes they brought out somebody’s plate. After everyone got their food except me, I was informed that there was no naan left in the whole place, so I could order something else. By the time I got my white rice and curry, everybody had been done eating for at least a half hour. I’m used to slower service here and not always having everything available, but this was ridiculous! At least we had nowhere to be so we weren’t upset!
We decided to walk home since it was a nice day and wasn’t too hot. We thought we could walk until we got tired and then take a taxi the rest of the way. We never got tired so we ended up walking for nearly 2 hours. It was perfect because by the time we got home it was just getting dark and we didn’t feel bad staying in for the rest of the night. It was a really long day, but I consider it quite productive because we were able to find and meet with everybody that we set to! That doesn’t always happen!
Luckily, Angella at least new the general neighborhood to find Little Angel, an orphanage with about 20 children. We had to drive past the biggest catholic church in the city to get there. It was nearly impossible to pass because there were two funeral services going on. The priest was giving a Eulogy for a woman named Alice whose life was tragically ended by the bombs. I just heard briefly what he said as we walked by and the speakers blasted his comments. Alice had lived her life for the Lord and you could tell by the way she gave of herself that her heart was in the right place. I just can’t imagine what it would be like if that happened to me or somebody I knew. There is so much hurt and so much forgiveness, and it seems like it would be very difficult to be forgiving through all of the hurt. Only the grace of God would be able to overcome it!
Once we got out of the nightmare of a jam (we were literally inches away from cars on every side as we drove through) we had to try to find Little Angel. We went up and down a hill and asked all the Boda drivers, but nobody had a clue where to find it. We went back up to the cathedral and then down another hill It looked more familiar than the other. The problem is that all of the times we went last year, we got lost too so we weren’t sure if we were remembering being lost or going in the right direction! We finally found a Boda driver who knew the place and directed us to the right road. Sure enough, Little Angel was still there! The mothers even remembered us and went right to the medicine cabinet to show us. They had kept good records of what they used and when! I can’t wait to go back and actually take notes on what they have done. Three of the children were home because their school was closed after somebody in it was affected by the bombs. There is not much in the house. I don’t think they even have enough dishes for all of the kids and the water and electricity have not been working for 4 months because they couldn’t pay for it. They’ve been borrowing from the neighbors for now. Can you imagine caring for 20 children without water or electricity? We might have to try to find a way to help them out with that in addition to helping with the medicine. We got a new phone number for contacting them and we have a better idea of what we need.
On the way back, we decided to try to contact Ssalil. Him and his brother, Henry (or Chiwa) were neighbors to the Woolies when they lived at Need for All Orphanage. They used to come over all the time and play with the kids and were really great at taking care of them. About a month ago, I got terrible news from Angella that Henry had passed away. He had gotten sick and went to the hospital where he was prescribed anti-malarial medication. Even with the medicine he got worse. Three days later, his mom decided to return to the hospital, but he died while he was waiting to be admitted. Henry was one of the people that I had a heart for. He always came up and talked to me and when I came back the second trip, he was the first to come up to me and ask if I remembered him. It’s nice to have somebody remember you, especially when you always come with the Wooly (Ross). The kids all know him so well and everybody else just becomes a bunch of Mzungu’s that come to hang out when he is around.
You may think HIV/AIDS are a big problem in this country, but it is by far not the biggest reason people die. Malaria is still the biggest culprit of taking the lives of children here and may be the #1 reason for adults too. HIV/AIDS has programs run by really large organizations that provide the medications for free. Malaria strikes anybody at any time and people often can’t afford to come to a hospital or to pay for the anti-malarials. I think Malaria needs to be the next disease that people really focus on over here with something more than mosquito nets. You get bit not only at night, but during the day too, so it’s really hard to just prevent malaria by avoiding mosquitoes. Maybe some drug company could try to work on something cheaper, longer lasting, and more practical than Malarone and other anti-malarials. The problem is, I don’t know if any pharmaceutical company would want to “waste” their money researching and producing a drug that they can’t charge $8 per pill and that the main consumers would need the drug as a charity. They would much rather produce drugs to help people that can pay lose weight, enhance their sex lives, or stop them from losing their hair. The more I’ve learned about pharmacology, the more I realize how much is driven by the people that create the drugs. They produce what is most marketable and profitable. I don’t know where all of their money goes, but I highly doubt it goes to many charitable projects. There is one good story that I remember from my business class. If you’re bored, try researching Merck and finding a cure for River Blindness in Africa. It happened in the 80’s or 90’s I think, but it made me have a lot of respect for their CEO (who is no clearly no longer there considering some of the things that have gone on with the company in the past 10 years)
The next part of the day, we planned to devote to finding a woman called JaaJaa in the slum of Katanga that is near the hospital. I dropped my mom with our neighbor, Gloria, who took her to look at her wedding dress because Angella and I knew it would be overwhelming and we honestly had no idea where we had to go or if we would even find her. The slums are overwhelming, even if you’ve been there. Picture those commercials on TV for Christian Children’s fund and then think 10 times worse. There is garbage everywhere, the smell is suffocating, and there are dirty children running around everywhere. As we walked down the hill, little children started to come out and yell Mzungu. Some got brave and grabbed my hand. By the time we got halfway down, I had a little parade of kids following me. It’s really odd to be the center of attention and I tried to get them to scatter as soon as I could. Last year, I distinctly remember children coming up and grabbing my hand or touching my leg and then feeling their hands creep into my pockets to see what they could find. It’s tragic that they learn from such a young age how to survive on the streets. Children should be children, running around and playing, not searching for ways to get money or food.
As we were walking, I remembered that there was a river of garbage that we had to step over by going on a broken cement drain pipe to get to JaaJaa. I saw what I thought it was and told Angella to turn. As we entered a narrow row of buildings, we both decided it was a familiar place. Just after passing a turn, Angella looked back and decided to ask somebody. The first person she asked pointed to the turn we had come back to and said it was it! No kidding! We were in exactly the right place! Praise the Lord! I thought we would have been walking around for hours before we found it! Sure enough JaaJaa was sitting on a dirty pile of clothes with a kid in her lap. The only thing that changed was that there were now bunk beds (3 sets of 3 beds) rather than 4 beds lining the walls. It was still impossible to breath or move. There were still flies everywhere and there were still piles of dirty and probably moldy clothes and bedding. JaaJaa remember us and even still has the medicine cabinet from last year. She reported that all of the children as still around but are at school. We have lots of information to collect, but we will wait until next time when Pamela and Nick are around to get that done. I was overwhelmed by the sights, and I’m sure it was good to keep my mom away for just the day. She will get to see it when we are much more organized and won’t be so distracted by all of the things that are so new and overwhelming. She had fun with Gloria and got to get a Chapati to eat (which she had been wanting since the first one she tried) so I think she had a good day.
Angella and I decided to walk to find a place to eat. We ended up settling on iBamba, a restaurant at the Uganda museum. The setting was nice, with a large grass roof covering us sitting at our big table on couches and comfortable chairs. The service was SO BAD, even for Uganda standards. Angella ordered, but the girl didn’t wait for me to be ready, so she said she would come back. After 20 minutes, my mom and Gloria had arrived and we finally just told a different waitress what we wanted. 20 minutes after that, the original waitress came back to ask us our order, and was confused when we told her we already ordered. Clearly she couldn’t talk to her co-worker, even though they were the only two working and there was one other table. Angella got her food and pretty much every 10 minutes they brought out somebody’s plate. After everyone got their food except me, I was informed that there was no naan left in the whole place, so I could order something else. By the time I got my white rice and curry, everybody had been done eating for at least a half hour. I’m used to slower service here and not always having everything available, but this was ridiculous! At least we had nowhere to be so we weren’t upset!
We decided to walk home since it was a nice day and wasn’t too hot. We thought we could walk until we got tired and then take a taxi the rest of the way. We never got tired so we ended up walking for nearly 2 hours. It was perfect because by the time we got home it was just getting dark and we didn’t feel bad staying in for the rest of the night. It was a really long day, but I consider it quite productive because we were able to find and meet with everybody that we set to! That doesn’t always happen!
Day 8 - July 13
I think I like walking, especially here. I haven’t gotten a chance to run, so I’m pretty sure by the time I get home I’m going to have lost all of the training that I did for the half marathon this year! Maybe all of my toenails will be back to normal by the time I return so I can start running and ruin them again! For now I will settle for walking up and down hills in the hot sun. I had planned with Angella’s friend Gloria to meet at Angella’s houst at 7:30. Since it takes at least 45 minutes to get there, I needed to leave by 6:45!! That’s the earliest I’ve done anything since being here. Even though I see lots of people doing things early, the majority would tell me that is way too early! One of my neighbors and one really nice Indian family that lives in the next complex offered me rides in order to avoid the dust. I politely declined and continued to trek the huge hill. The dust gets worse every day and we keep hoping for rain, but it doesn’t come! After each car passed, a cloud of dust filled the air (and probably my lungs). The dust really is not that bad until a car comes and unsettles it, so the walk would have been much more pleasant if the cars would just stay away!
People think we are crazy for walking. I just assume that all the Ugandans walk because everywhere I’ve gone I see people walking. Even in the very rural areas there are loads of people walking. You know they’ve come a long way because you can see where one house is and how far it is to the next house or road and it’s at least a few miles! Apparently in the city people prefer a Mtatu or a Boda. Jozeph thinks we are crazy for walking. I think most people assume that Mzungu’s ride rather than walk. I would walk everywhere if I could. There is something so much more special about seeing a place from a walking or running perspective. You get to see so much more and actually take in your surroundings. Sure, it’s a LOT hotter and you sweat even more, but that’s what showers without working hot water are for! I appreciate them so much more in the middle of the day than in the morning! If I forgot to mention, the place we are staying has a broken hot water heater, so we take cold showers. Most people here don’t use hot water for showers, so they didn’t even notice until we arrived!
People were hustling about on the walk in. Tons of kids were on their way to school dressed in their uniforms. Each school has a different one. My favorite so far are the primary schools where the boys where sweaters and ties! They are so adorable! The other is a girls school where the uniforms are bright pink! I love pink, but it’s so much to take when every girls has a long bright skirt on! I think my friend Allie would have picked that one just for the uniforms! As I walked by the paper stands I saw more awful images of the bomb attacks. There was one that had pictures and stories of all of the victims. It’s really just tragic. Clearly not as big of a tragedy as when our Twin Towers were attacked, but it has the same impact on the people here. Lives were ended too early and fear has now been placed in the minds of many. I heard about one young man who died that was the only child of his parents. They had to try for over 8 years to conceive him and were never able to have another child. Now they’ve lost him! I can’t imagine how that would have felt!
I got to Angella’s at 7:30, but Gloria didn’t get there until nearly 8:00 because of a jam (I mean traffic jam). We arrived at Mulago and were late for the meeting, but after we arrived, at least 10 other people did too. TIA! It’s interesting how HIV cases are handled through these programs. The CDC and this program – Infectious Disease Institute (IDI) provide free HIV medication and counseling for their patients that have tested positive. The meeting this morning was to discuss 4 patients who were not improving or getting worse even though they are in the program. I didn’t quite understand everything for two reasons. First, we haven’t learned that much of the specifics of HIV other than things that cross over in other classes. Second, people talk so quiet! Seriously, it’s a huge room with at least 40 people, and the volume with which they spoke was only sufficient if you were in a coffee shop sitting 3 feet away from your friend! I must be hard of hearing because nobody else seemed to care! They look at all of the aspects of the person including a report from the physicians and from social workers. I am pretty sure that all of the patients were in polygamous relationships (which was not a shock to anybody since it is very common here, especially with the men) and many of them did not have the social network to support their treatment. Gloria explained later that the greatest reason a person’s treatment fails is that they don’t have a network at home to help with their treatment.
We had to drive across to the other side of town to get to the clinic site where we see patients. The clinic center is open two days each week and people come based on their appointments. Generally they are required to come once a month to get a re-fill on prescriptions and to make sure they are following what the doctors have told them. On top of the IDI program, there is another program that works with HIV positive women who are pregnant. One of the doctors in the same room as us was counseling women. They get put on different medications in order to decrease the risk of passing it on to their children. Usually, there is a blood count number (CD4 cells for those of you who care) that determines which medications to be on. In the US, if the number is below 500, people start the treatment. Because of a loss of funding and worry about the program being cut, the number is 250 here in Uganda. This means, that people’s ability to fight infections has to get much weaker in order for treatment to start. Both Angella and Gloria said that because of the change, there could be some major problems coming back that had previously been eradicated here. One of them is Kaposi’s Sarcoma. For some reason, I didn’t remember the link between HIV and Kaposi, but apparently it is very common for advanced HIV patients to get it if they are not treated properly. I won’t forget the connection now! Let’s hope it’s on the boards some day! Thank you Uganda!
It was simply sad to see the number of people coming in that are HIV positive. They are all age groups and both sexes, however we saw many more women than men. Some are younger than me and don’t know exactly how they got the virus. Almost all of the conversations happen in Luganda, so I don’t understand much, but sometimes based on hand gestures and tone I can pick up on an ear hurting, pain in the chest, or weakness in the legs. It’s amazing how much you can tell just by observing the patients. The saddest stories are when you see a child who is HIV positive because they parents are and did not come in for medicine when they were pregnant. How devastating is it that a little kid has to start out in this world with such an awful disease and they never did anything to get it??? It’s times like this that I feel like life is just not fair!! The parents genuinely care about their children and take them to get medicine, but it could have been so much different if they had made some better choices. Gloria says you can’t tell people here not to have children if they are HIV positive because having a big family is VERY important in the culture for many people. It’s just difficult when you know you can prevent the spread by taking precautions during pregnancy or practicing safe sex in the first place! A lot of times people are just no educated on these things so they don’t even understand how to prevent the disease. The IDI is trying to work hard along with many large organizations to help keep HIV from spreading. Many news reports have been telling us that although Uganda has a good track record of decreasing the incidence of HIV/AIDS, the number is again on the rise because people are apathetic or have decided that since there is medicine to take, they don’t have to worry. The Ugandan reports said there is complacency in the people which is causing the disease to spread.
Overall, it was quite a sobering day! I got to see how people must live in order to have their lives continue. The room itself was awful to be in! It is made of metal and only has one small window. There were three doctors seeing patients in a room that was at most 5’x 10’. In addition, I was there and generally each patient brought a friend. 10 people continuously in a room has a way of heating things up! Gloria dropped my off afterwards and then I got a Mtatu back to Ntinda. I walked the rest of the way home. It turns out the road is much steeper and longer on the hill that I walked down in the morning. It wasn’t impossible but with the sun beating down I was happy to get home!! When I got to our really steep hill, the children were out and yelled to me. A few of them came and grabbed my hand. They walked more than halfway home until I said goodbye and waved them home.
I needed a really long nap when I got back! I slept for over an hour and a half! I woke up and we decided to go to eat somewhere. Gloria (the other Gloria that lives next door) decided to come with us, which is great because she has a car! We told her we would go anywhere, but since we had discussed Mamba Point pizza, she decided that would be the place! I think Ross, Rach, and I went there at least 3 times last year because it is close and not too expensive. It’s delicious thin crust pizza from a wood-fired oven! The restaurant is outside under a roof covered in straw with a little water fountain in the corner. Dinner by candle-light with my mom and a great new friend was wonderful! Gloria did her medical training in England and was able to do some rotations in Chicago and New York, so she is no stranger to where we come from. She’s excited about getting married in 11 days and she should be! Weddings are a big deal here and from the sounds of it, there is a great celebration! She is getting married to a man she knew from the time she was little in the village. She didn’t have any romantic feelings towards him until a few years ago when the met up while they were both back in the village. They realized how much they had in common and how much they cared about each other and now they’re getting married! It was so sweet to hear her talk about how much she loves him and how excited she is to be able to spend the rest of their lives together!
People think we are crazy for walking. I just assume that all the Ugandans walk because everywhere I’ve gone I see people walking. Even in the very rural areas there are loads of people walking. You know they’ve come a long way because you can see where one house is and how far it is to the next house or road and it’s at least a few miles! Apparently in the city people prefer a Mtatu or a Boda. Jozeph thinks we are crazy for walking. I think most people assume that Mzungu’s ride rather than walk. I would walk everywhere if I could. There is something so much more special about seeing a place from a walking or running perspective. You get to see so much more and actually take in your surroundings. Sure, it’s a LOT hotter and you sweat even more, but that’s what showers without working hot water are for! I appreciate them so much more in the middle of the day than in the morning! If I forgot to mention, the place we are staying has a broken hot water heater, so we take cold showers. Most people here don’t use hot water for showers, so they didn’t even notice until we arrived!
People were hustling about on the walk in. Tons of kids were on their way to school dressed in their uniforms. Each school has a different one. My favorite so far are the primary schools where the boys where sweaters and ties! They are so adorable! The other is a girls school where the uniforms are bright pink! I love pink, but it’s so much to take when every girls has a long bright skirt on! I think my friend Allie would have picked that one just for the uniforms! As I walked by the paper stands I saw more awful images of the bomb attacks. There was one that had pictures and stories of all of the victims. It’s really just tragic. Clearly not as big of a tragedy as when our Twin Towers were attacked, but it has the same impact on the people here. Lives were ended too early and fear has now been placed in the minds of many. I heard about one young man who died that was the only child of his parents. They had to try for over 8 years to conceive him and were never able to have another child. Now they’ve lost him! I can’t imagine how that would have felt!
I got to Angella’s at 7:30, but Gloria didn’t get there until nearly 8:00 because of a jam (I mean traffic jam). We arrived at Mulago and were late for the meeting, but after we arrived, at least 10 other people did too. TIA! It’s interesting how HIV cases are handled through these programs. The CDC and this program – Infectious Disease Institute (IDI) provide free HIV medication and counseling for their patients that have tested positive. The meeting this morning was to discuss 4 patients who were not improving or getting worse even though they are in the program. I didn’t quite understand everything for two reasons. First, we haven’t learned that much of the specifics of HIV other than things that cross over in other classes. Second, people talk so quiet! Seriously, it’s a huge room with at least 40 people, and the volume with which they spoke was only sufficient if you were in a coffee shop sitting 3 feet away from your friend! I must be hard of hearing because nobody else seemed to care! They look at all of the aspects of the person including a report from the physicians and from social workers. I am pretty sure that all of the patients were in polygamous relationships (which was not a shock to anybody since it is very common here, especially with the men) and many of them did not have the social network to support their treatment. Gloria explained later that the greatest reason a person’s treatment fails is that they don’t have a network at home to help with their treatment.
We had to drive across to the other side of town to get to the clinic site where we see patients. The clinic center is open two days each week and people come based on their appointments. Generally they are required to come once a month to get a re-fill on prescriptions and to make sure they are following what the doctors have told them. On top of the IDI program, there is another program that works with HIV positive women who are pregnant. One of the doctors in the same room as us was counseling women. They get put on different medications in order to decrease the risk of passing it on to their children. Usually, there is a blood count number (CD4 cells for those of you who care) that determines which medications to be on. In the US, if the number is below 500, people start the treatment. Because of a loss of funding and worry about the program being cut, the number is 250 here in Uganda. This means, that people’s ability to fight infections has to get much weaker in order for treatment to start. Both Angella and Gloria said that because of the change, there could be some major problems coming back that had previously been eradicated here. One of them is Kaposi’s Sarcoma. For some reason, I didn’t remember the link between HIV and Kaposi, but apparently it is very common for advanced HIV patients to get it if they are not treated properly. I won’t forget the connection now! Let’s hope it’s on the boards some day! Thank you Uganda!
It was simply sad to see the number of people coming in that are HIV positive. They are all age groups and both sexes, however we saw many more women than men. Some are younger than me and don’t know exactly how they got the virus. Almost all of the conversations happen in Luganda, so I don’t understand much, but sometimes based on hand gestures and tone I can pick up on an ear hurting, pain in the chest, or weakness in the legs. It’s amazing how much you can tell just by observing the patients. The saddest stories are when you see a child who is HIV positive because they parents are and did not come in for medicine when they were pregnant. How devastating is it that a little kid has to start out in this world with such an awful disease and they never did anything to get it??? It’s times like this that I feel like life is just not fair!! The parents genuinely care about their children and take them to get medicine, but it could have been so much different if they had made some better choices. Gloria says you can’t tell people here not to have children if they are HIV positive because having a big family is VERY important in the culture for many people. It’s just difficult when you know you can prevent the spread by taking precautions during pregnancy or practicing safe sex in the first place! A lot of times people are just no educated on these things so they don’t even understand how to prevent the disease. The IDI is trying to work hard along with many large organizations to help keep HIV from spreading. Many news reports have been telling us that although Uganda has a good track record of decreasing the incidence of HIV/AIDS, the number is again on the rise because people are apathetic or have decided that since there is medicine to take, they don’t have to worry. The Ugandan reports said there is complacency in the people which is causing the disease to spread.
Overall, it was quite a sobering day! I got to see how people must live in order to have their lives continue. The room itself was awful to be in! It is made of metal and only has one small window. There were three doctors seeing patients in a room that was at most 5’x 10’. In addition, I was there and generally each patient brought a friend. 10 people continuously in a room has a way of heating things up! Gloria dropped my off afterwards and then I got a Mtatu back to Ntinda. I walked the rest of the way home. It turns out the road is much steeper and longer on the hill that I walked down in the morning. It wasn’t impossible but with the sun beating down I was happy to get home!! When I got to our really steep hill, the children were out and yelled to me. A few of them came and grabbed my hand. They walked more than halfway home until I said goodbye and waved them home.
I needed a really long nap when I got back! I slept for over an hour and a half! I woke up and we decided to go to eat somewhere. Gloria (the other Gloria that lives next door) decided to come with us, which is great because she has a car! We told her we would go anywhere, but since we had discussed Mamba Point pizza, she decided that would be the place! I think Ross, Rach, and I went there at least 3 times last year because it is close and not too expensive. It’s delicious thin crust pizza from a wood-fired oven! The restaurant is outside under a roof covered in straw with a little water fountain in the corner. Dinner by candle-light with my mom and a great new friend was wonderful! Gloria did her medical training in England and was able to do some rotations in Chicago and New York, so she is no stranger to where we come from. She’s excited about getting married in 11 days and she should be! Weddings are a big deal here and from the sounds of it, there is a great celebration! She is getting married to a man she knew from the time she was little in the village. She didn’t have any romantic feelings towards him until a few years ago when the met up while they were both back in the village. They realized how much they had in common and how much they cared about each other and now they’re getting married! It was so sweet to hear her talk about how much she loves him and how excited she is to be able to spend the rest of their lives together!
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
TRAGIC! -- Day 7 July 12
TRAGEDY! What a sad night for Uganda! I love this country and the people. In all the times we have been coming, the country has been peaceful, the people are loving, and there is not a threat of sudden death from violence very often.
I walked into town last night. It’s probably over 3 miles and there are some HUGE hills. It takes over 45 minutes to get to Angella’s but it’s pretty much a perfect walk. I love being able to really take in the country (literally, if you count all the dust that I breathed in). It’s one thing to drive by, but it’s another to walk by and smell the fires burning garbage and food cooking on the coals, to hear people speaking or pounding tools, and to see more than just a person standing near a building. Lots of Boda Boda drivers holler out for a ride, but I just shook my head and kept going. Occasionally little kids call out Mzungu to hear you say hello and then they run away. If you didn’t know better, you might thing that people don’t like you very much because they stare with stoic expressions. Then if you say hello, they break out into a grin and reply with “I’m fine, how are you?” Sometimes I say hello just to make sure people aren’t mad!!
I got to Angella’s just before dark and we hopped on a Mtatu to get to the game. I got to meet Angella’s best guy friend, Pat. He’s a very funny guy, always telling all sorts of jokes. He’s quite short because the tribe that he is from in Rwenzori are all not that tall. He made a lot of jokes about marrying taller women that were pretty amazing. If only I remembered all of them! We also met his father, who is back in Uganda for his daughter’s wedding. He has to live in England for a while to go through therapy after he had a stroke earlier this year. Later, we met another of Angella’s friends, Richard, who runs all of the audio-visual stuff at Watoto. It’s funny that I always end up meeting people that run that stuff in church. Maybe those are just the most outgoing and fun people at churches?!
At the very end of the REALLY long game, the pastor got up and thanked everybody for coming and then said to be careful on the way home because there had been a bomb in Kabalagala. Then he just walked away. I was slightly confused at how little was said and how nobody really reacted loudly. When I turned to Pat, he looked very worried. He said things like this normally don’t happen and it is very strange. We tried to listen to the news on the way home but nothing was being said. It wasn’t until this morning that we got to see what was really going on.
We turned on the news and found that three bombs had gone off, all by suicide bombers from a group called Al Shabaab. They are a group in Somalia that are the same type of terrorist group as Al Qaida in Iraq and Afghanistan. They had made threats earlier this year because Uganda has sent troops to Somalia and they want them out. One of the bombs was at half time at an Ethiopian restaurant where there are usually a lot of tourists. I believe this is where the American man died. The other went off at the Rugby Stadium at nearly the end of the game. It was right where the screen was. When the first one went off some people moved closer to see what was wrong with the screen and then the second bomb exploded. The newspapers and TV news are very graphic here. There were bodies scattered on the ground and sitting in chairs full of blood on every newspaper as we walked by. My mom bought one just to bring home so my dad can have a copy of the news from that day. It’s just such a shock. Every time I hear about bombs in the Middle East killing innocent people, I am sad, but not totally affected. This time, the bombs were only a few miles from where we were and it’s really quite shocking.
We had to go to Watoto offices to check about sponsoring some of the Woolies. There was significantly less people fewer cars around town because many people wanted to stay home and away from crowds. The internet was completely down everywhere in the city, so I couldn’t get a message to people at home. Near the end of the day, we went to Garden City and I was able to update my facebook status, but it took almost a half hour to just do that. We were able to find out some information about sponsorship. It turns out you get a lot more help when you say the word “sponsor” at the office at Watoto. It looks like all of the kids are sponsored, but we will be able to give money directly to each of the kids and write to them from home. The money will go towards a fund that they will be able to access when they finish University. That means that when they are done, they will have some money to be able to start their lives.
We walked and stopped at a bookstore. I filled my backpack with books and bibles for the Woolies because they don’t have any books in their homes. It was a good idea, except that we walked everywhere for the rest of the day, and they go pretty heavy, especially when the temperature rose really quickly!! It was not even hot in the morning, but in a matter of 15 minutes, it seemed the sun came out and started scorching all of us! I should just always assume that it’s going to be hot no matter what the morning looks like!
I got a call from Troy at 11:00. It turns out he had been called to the ER at Mulago at 2:00 in the morning to help with the victims. He was there all morning taking care of what he described as a “blood bath”. I can’t imagine what it would be like at Mulago during a crisis. It’s hard enough to get supplies and people moving when there is not an emergency, but one of that magnitude at that time of night is a nearly impossible to handle. At night, the only people around are a limited number or nurses, some interns, and medical students so there is not a large staff to help with traumas. It takes quite a while to get any attendings to the hospital. So I am sure there was mass chaos for the first few hours. Troy said there were at least 66 bodies in the morgue and more would probably be added with the limited resources to care for the critically injured.
We came home kind of early and decided not to go to many of the public places for the next couple of days to see what happens. Angella decided to come over after dinner to play some card games and get in a better mood after all the depressing news. We ended up watching the news, which was even more depressing. The news showed hundreds of people lined up outside the Mulago hospital trying to find their loved ones. It’s very strange to see a place that I have frequented so many times being a place mass sadness. The hospital is often a place where people are somber because so many people die in the hospital, but I’ve never seen such a great number of people there at once. The worst thing I heard was that the terrorists claimed they “succeeding in their mission of killing a lot of Christians”. It made me wonder why people follow a religion that is so focused on hate. I don't want to react with hate or judgment on any groups of people, but it's a popular thought here. In the past day I have heard cab drivers and workers comment on Somali people, Muslims, and other groups of different people that they think might be dangerous. I just pray that Ugandans will respond without hatred toward people that were not responsible for these terrible acts.
I walked into town last night. It’s probably over 3 miles and there are some HUGE hills. It takes over 45 minutes to get to Angella’s but it’s pretty much a perfect walk. I love being able to really take in the country (literally, if you count all the dust that I breathed in). It’s one thing to drive by, but it’s another to walk by and smell the fires burning garbage and food cooking on the coals, to hear people speaking or pounding tools, and to see more than just a person standing near a building. Lots of Boda Boda drivers holler out for a ride, but I just shook my head and kept going. Occasionally little kids call out Mzungu to hear you say hello and then they run away. If you didn’t know better, you might thing that people don’t like you very much because they stare with stoic expressions. Then if you say hello, they break out into a grin and reply with “I’m fine, how are you?” Sometimes I say hello just to make sure people aren’t mad!!
I got to Angella’s just before dark and we hopped on a Mtatu to get to the game. I got to meet Angella’s best guy friend, Pat. He’s a very funny guy, always telling all sorts of jokes. He’s quite short because the tribe that he is from in Rwenzori are all not that tall. He made a lot of jokes about marrying taller women that were pretty amazing. If only I remembered all of them! We also met his father, who is back in Uganda for his daughter’s wedding. He has to live in England for a while to go through therapy after he had a stroke earlier this year. Later, we met another of Angella’s friends, Richard, who runs all of the audio-visual stuff at Watoto. It’s funny that I always end up meeting people that run that stuff in church. Maybe those are just the most outgoing and fun people at churches?!
At the very end of the REALLY long game, the pastor got up and thanked everybody for coming and then said to be careful on the way home because there had been a bomb in Kabalagala. Then he just walked away. I was slightly confused at how little was said and how nobody really reacted loudly. When I turned to Pat, he looked very worried. He said things like this normally don’t happen and it is very strange. We tried to listen to the news on the way home but nothing was being said. It wasn’t until this morning that we got to see what was really going on.
We turned on the news and found that three bombs had gone off, all by suicide bombers from a group called Al Shabaab. They are a group in Somalia that are the same type of terrorist group as Al Qaida in Iraq and Afghanistan. They had made threats earlier this year because Uganda has sent troops to Somalia and they want them out. One of the bombs was at half time at an Ethiopian restaurant where there are usually a lot of tourists. I believe this is where the American man died. The other went off at the Rugby Stadium at nearly the end of the game. It was right where the screen was. When the first one went off some people moved closer to see what was wrong with the screen and then the second bomb exploded. The newspapers and TV news are very graphic here. There were bodies scattered on the ground and sitting in chairs full of blood on every newspaper as we walked by. My mom bought one just to bring home so my dad can have a copy of the news from that day. It’s just such a shock. Every time I hear about bombs in the Middle East killing innocent people, I am sad, but not totally affected. This time, the bombs were only a few miles from where we were and it’s really quite shocking.
We had to go to Watoto offices to check about sponsoring some of the Woolies. There was significantly less people fewer cars around town because many people wanted to stay home and away from crowds. The internet was completely down everywhere in the city, so I couldn’t get a message to people at home. Near the end of the day, we went to Garden City and I was able to update my facebook status, but it took almost a half hour to just do that. We were able to find out some information about sponsorship. It turns out you get a lot more help when you say the word “sponsor” at the office at Watoto. It looks like all of the kids are sponsored, but we will be able to give money directly to each of the kids and write to them from home. The money will go towards a fund that they will be able to access when they finish University. That means that when they are done, they will have some money to be able to start their lives.
We walked and stopped at a bookstore. I filled my backpack with books and bibles for the Woolies because they don’t have any books in their homes. It was a good idea, except that we walked everywhere for the rest of the day, and they go pretty heavy, especially when the temperature rose really quickly!! It was not even hot in the morning, but in a matter of 15 minutes, it seemed the sun came out and started scorching all of us! I should just always assume that it’s going to be hot no matter what the morning looks like!
I got a call from Troy at 11:00. It turns out he had been called to the ER at Mulago at 2:00 in the morning to help with the victims. He was there all morning taking care of what he described as a “blood bath”. I can’t imagine what it would be like at Mulago during a crisis. It’s hard enough to get supplies and people moving when there is not an emergency, but one of that magnitude at that time of night is a nearly impossible to handle. At night, the only people around are a limited number or nurses, some interns, and medical students so there is not a large staff to help with traumas. It takes quite a while to get any attendings to the hospital. So I am sure there was mass chaos for the first few hours. Troy said there were at least 66 bodies in the morgue and more would probably be added with the limited resources to care for the critically injured.
We came home kind of early and decided not to go to many of the public places for the next couple of days to see what happens. Angella decided to come over after dinner to play some card games and get in a better mood after all the depressing news. We ended up watching the news, which was even more depressing. The news showed hundreds of people lined up outside the Mulago hospital trying to find their loved ones. It’s very strange to see a place that I have frequented so many times being a place mass sadness. The hospital is often a place where people are somber because so many people die in the hospital, but I’ve never seen such a great number of people there at once. The worst thing I heard was that the terrorists claimed they “succeeding in their mission of killing a lot of Christians”. It made me wonder why people follow a religion that is so focused on hate. I don't want to react with hate or judgment on any groups of people, but it's a popular thought here. In the past day I have heard cab drivers and workers comment on Somali people, Muslims, and other groups of different people that they think might be dangerous. I just pray that Ugandans will respond without hatred toward people that were not responsible for these terrible acts.
Day 6 - Praise the Lord! - July 11
Yesterday was a crazy good day! Since we had seen the Woolies, life was good. We woke up and got showered to go to church. I love Watoto church! It’s gotten even better than before, except that they covered up the beautiful sunset mural with some ugly blue curtains. I’m not a fan. My favorite part of worshiping the Lord in Uganda is being surrounded by completely different people on the opposite side of the world but still knowing that God is God and he is the same here as he is back in Minnesota. I wonder how amazing it will be in heaven to sing songs and lift voices in praise with the entire world. It’s going to be an amazing thing. They really like Hillsong music at Watoto Church. At least two of the songs were from the most Hillsong United CD that I used to listen to almost every morning. One of the first songs is sung by Chris Tomlin called Sing Sing Sing……Some of the lyrics say:
“You are the one we’re living for…Sing and make music with the heavens
…grateful that you hear us when we shout your praise, lift high the name of Jesus”
It’s so true that we can lift our voices joyously to worship a God that loves us SO much. How amazing that he hears us when we pray and when we worship. He wants us to come to him with our requests and thank him for being there for us. He’s not a God that requires us to perform certain actions in order to make us good enough to be saved. He sent Jesus to die for our sins so we can have a direct connection to him.
The sermons have gotten more directed every year. I feel like the first time we were there, the pastor just spoke the same words over and over for almost two hours and by the first hour, he didn’t really say anything new. This time, he still spoke for at least an hour, but he broke it up with some worship and prayer and was more direct in what he said. This sermon was on 2 Corinthians 11 along with some other verses about being the bride of Christ. It’s really a beautiful concept to think about the way God wants us to have our relationship with him. Verse 1-2 say “I hope you will put up with a little of my foolishness; but you are already doing that. I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy. I promised you to one husband, to Christ, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to him” Weddings used to be much different. A man would request to marry a woman and if she said yes, he would leave and go back to his parents home to prepare a room for them. Once he was finished, he would return to collect his bride and take here there. The bride did not know if it would be a month or a year, and he could come at any time, even in the middle of the night. In order to be prepared she had to live every day as though he were coming and needed to be devoted to him, even though he was miles away and didn’t see what she was doing each day. First off, I really appreciate this idea of marriage and romance. It’s something we don’t always see these days with relationships in general. How amazing is it that woman commits to one many and doesn’t know when he will return, but she loves him enough to wait for the time he will come back and announce himself again….and the man goes back to prepare for the coming of his wife. To me there seems to be a lot of romance in that type of waiting. (I might just be a hopeless romantic). It’s the same way with the Lord. We don’t know when he will be returning, but we must live our lives in expectation that he could come any time. If today were the day that Jesus showed up, would I be able to tell him that I have lived my life completely for him and that I have not put anything else ahead of him? It’s sobering to think of how many times that I let my selfish ambitions go ahead of what He wants me to do.
One final thought. The pastor described his wedding day and his most nervous moment being as he walked from his best man across the stage to meet his wife. He then said that thing that made his wife more beautiful than any other person that day was not the clothes and make-up, but the anticipation and expectation that something amazing was about to happen as she walked down the aisle. What would life be like if we lived with anticipation and expectation that God is going to move and he is going to do great things?
.
Oh yeah, another song that really hit me is one that Lincoln Brewster had on the radio a couple of years ago. The words really struck me, especially for the people here….there are often very weak in their physical bodies, but God strengthens them as they trust.
Everlasting God
Strength Will Rise as we WAIT upon the Lord
Our God, you reign forever
Our Hope, our strong deliverer
You are the everlasting God
You do not faint
You won’t grow weary
You’re the Defender of the Weak
You Comfort those in need
You lift us up on Wings like Eagles
After church we walked across the street to one of the markets and bought some random crafts. Poor Angella always has to put up with our shopping. She’s such a trooper. We walked a couple of miles to get to Nando’s downtown. It’s like a foodcourt area with 4 or 5 different choices. It’s a pretty popular place for Ugandans to go. Usually, if you ask a cab to go to any of the other restaurants near there they have no clue, but if you mention Nandos, they know exactly what you are talking about.
After dinner, we came back home and I’m going to take a nap. Walking in the heat really wears you out! I’ve decided to walk into Angellas house in town to meet up and go back to Watoto church to watch the World Cup Final! It’s just like when the Vineyard had a big party to watch the Super Bowl. It’s amazing that a church can celebrate not only their faith but the exciting moments in life.
“You are the one we’re living for…Sing and make music with the heavens
…grateful that you hear us when we shout your praise, lift high the name of Jesus”
It’s so true that we can lift our voices joyously to worship a God that loves us SO much. How amazing that he hears us when we pray and when we worship. He wants us to come to him with our requests and thank him for being there for us. He’s not a God that requires us to perform certain actions in order to make us good enough to be saved. He sent Jesus to die for our sins so we can have a direct connection to him.
The sermons have gotten more directed every year. I feel like the first time we were there, the pastor just spoke the same words over and over for almost two hours and by the first hour, he didn’t really say anything new. This time, he still spoke for at least an hour, but he broke it up with some worship and prayer and was more direct in what he said. This sermon was on 2 Corinthians 11 along with some other verses about being the bride of Christ. It’s really a beautiful concept to think about the way God wants us to have our relationship with him. Verse 1-2 say “I hope you will put up with a little of my foolishness; but you are already doing that. I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy. I promised you to one husband, to Christ, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to him” Weddings used to be much different. A man would request to marry a woman and if she said yes, he would leave and go back to his parents home to prepare a room for them. Once he was finished, he would return to collect his bride and take here there. The bride did not know if it would be a month or a year, and he could come at any time, even in the middle of the night. In order to be prepared she had to live every day as though he were coming and needed to be devoted to him, even though he was miles away and didn’t see what she was doing each day. First off, I really appreciate this idea of marriage and romance. It’s something we don’t always see these days with relationships in general. How amazing is it that woman commits to one many and doesn’t know when he will return, but she loves him enough to wait for the time he will come back and announce himself again….and the man goes back to prepare for the coming of his wife. To me there seems to be a lot of romance in that type of waiting. (I might just be a hopeless romantic). It’s the same way with the Lord. We don’t know when he will be returning, but we must live our lives in expectation that he could come any time. If today were the day that Jesus showed up, would I be able to tell him that I have lived my life completely for him and that I have not put anything else ahead of him? It’s sobering to think of how many times that I let my selfish ambitions go ahead of what He wants me to do.
One final thought. The pastor described his wedding day and his most nervous moment being as he walked from his best man across the stage to meet his wife. He then said that thing that made his wife more beautiful than any other person that day was not the clothes and make-up, but the anticipation and expectation that something amazing was about to happen as she walked down the aisle. What would life be like if we lived with anticipation and expectation that God is going to move and he is going to do great things?
.
Oh yeah, another song that really hit me is one that Lincoln Brewster had on the radio a couple of years ago. The words really struck me, especially for the people here….there are often very weak in their physical bodies, but God strengthens them as they trust.
Everlasting God
Strength Will Rise as we WAIT upon the Lord
Our God, you reign forever
Our Hope, our strong deliverer
You are the everlasting God
You do not faint
You won’t grow weary
You’re the Defender of the Weak
You Comfort those in need
You lift us up on Wings like Eagles
After church we walked across the street to one of the markets and bought some random crafts. Poor Angella always has to put up with our shopping. She’s such a trooper. We walked a couple of miles to get to Nando’s downtown. It’s like a foodcourt area with 4 or 5 different choices. It’s a pretty popular place for Ugandans to go. Usually, if you ask a cab to go to any of the other restaurants near there they have no clue, but if you mention Nandos, they know exactly what you are talking about.
After dinner, we came back home and I’m going to take a nap. Walking in the heat really wears you out! I’ve decided to walk into Angellas house in town to meet up and go back to Watoto church to watch the World Cup Final! It’s just like when the Vineyard had a big party to watch the Super Bowl. It’s amazing that a church can celebrate not only their faith but the exciting moments in life.
Day 5 - Wooly Bully!! July 10
WOOLY BULLY! I’m writing on a computer screen full of fingerprints and it makes me so happy! The Woolies were all over the computer watching videos of Ross and Rachel and from their trip to the zoo last year! We’re so glad we got to see them today! For anybody who doesn’t know why I use the term “Woolies” all the time, let me give you a summary so you don’t have to read two years of past blogs to find out. There was an orphanage called Need for All, that our friend Angella has taken Ross and I to see. The first trip, Ross taught them the song “Wooly Bully” and that’s now what they call him. We returned the nickname by calling them all the Woolies. There are nine of them total but after this year we may have to add some members! We have helped them out with things they need every year and we go to visit them numerous times. Last year we took them on a field trip to the zoo and we went with one of them to get treatment for Burkitt Lymphoma of the abdomen at Mulago hospital (Joshua is this boy, but it turns out he has a father so he went back to live with him in Entebbe). On our last trip we discovered that the woman left in charge, Ruth, was stealing money and basically making life for the Woolies miserable. It’s bad enough to be abandoned by your family but then they were put in an orphanage that started out great but clearly got much worse! The director, who what Ruth’s boss, decided to move the kids to Watoto orphanage, which is run by a HUGE church in Uganda in order to give the kids a better chance at life. It was a great plan, but executed very poorly. One day the Watoto van just showed up to take the kids. They all got in but didn’t realize what was happening. The two house mothers explained on the way. By the time they arrived, the house mothers told us all of the kids were crying. They had to leave them with new mothers at Watoto and the kids would not stop crying so neither could the mothers. Luckily, Angella knew somebody who was a social worker at Watoto so we were able to walk in and see them a week later. By that time they were more adjusted and saw the good things about their new home. For example, they got food every day – clearly better than at Need for All. Now they are basically adopted by Watoto and will get to go to school, university, and basically have a family within Watoto for the rest of their lives.
Okay, now that you know the background, you can understand that we have a history with them and really wanted to see them. My mom has loved these kids from home in Minnesota since the first pictures she saw back in 2007 on Ross’ first trip. We pray for them, we try to send them things, and I pretty much think of them every day of my life. Their pictures are all over my walls. It’s as if I have 9 children, but they happen to live thousands of miles away. Kenneth, Trevor, Joshua, Arthur, Henry, Simon, Peter, Irene and Ruth will always be our little Woolies, even though they are getting very big!
We found a man to drive Susan’s car so it wasn’t as expensive as getting a special taxi. We thought about taking Bodas from where a Mtatu could have brought us, but I’m pretty sure that would have been a bad idea and mom wouldn’t have like it! It took us nearly an hour to get there, but we took some “highways” which were actually really nice paved roads. I’m pretty sure they are better than all of the roads in Duluth! (in town is a different story – potholes the size of lakes fill most of them!) At the gate, three guards checked our car and took down information before letting us pass. When we pulled up to the house, we saw Ruth and Irene peeking around the corner. Once they saw Angella, they smiled and ran around the house. We got out and started walking to them and they just kept creeping around the house. My mom went up to them right away and showed the girls and a few of the neighbors the pictures on her ipod. Angella and I continued into the house and found Arthur, Henry, Peter, and Simon sitting all in a row on the couch. They have gotten so much taller! Henry has lost his chubby cheeks and a few teeth. Peter is still really skinny, but the doctors say he has no health problems. Simon’s ears still stick out but not as much as they seemed to last time. Arthur is still a handsome young boy with a huge smile that I love to see! The other kids came to join us as well. Kenneth and Trevor both look about the same but I’m sure they’ve gained a few inches. Ruth and Irene are so much different. They are both about the same height now, but they are probably twice as tall as they were the first time I met them over 2 years ago.
I set up the message that Ross and Rachel had recorded on video for them to watch. The kids laughed when they heard their names. Kenneth has a special bond with Ross. He couldn’t take his eyes off the screen and when Ross said things he would repeat them to the group. He got really excited when he saw dad and yelled, “that’s Wooly’s dad” and when Rocky showed up he said “Wooly has a dog!”. Later, Kenneth came up to my mom and grabbed her hand and said “I miss him”. It breaks my heart to hear him say things like that. It’s hard for these kids to have connections with people and then have them leave. They have two wonderful new mothers, Bridget and Hope who do an amazing job with the kids, but they really have only known them for 1 year and they have a whole life together with other mothers that raised them for over 4 years. We don’t even know if those mothers have gotten to see them since the got to Watoto.
We did the usual running around and playing with cameras which seems to be a favorite past time with the kids. Peter still LOVES to be picked up, so he was in one of our arms almost all the time, except when he was chasing bubbles. He’s hysterical to watch every time there is picture. If you count to three, he yells “wooly bully” and then counts again, “1, 2, 3” and expects everybody else to say it too! It’s amazing that was Ross taught them has stuck so much with them! Irene loves the camera and she is very talkative, which is like a whole other person from the one we first met that was scared of almost everybody and just likes to hide in a corner. She grabbed my hand and walked me over to her house to show me her stuffed animals. Irene is such a sweet little girl and it’s good to see her changing so much!
When we left to get in the car, Peter led the crew in opening the door and putting the seat back. The older boys helped us with our bags and got us situated. My mom started to cry as she left simply because she was so happy to meet them but so sad to have to leave them. Any day that starts with seeing the Woolies is a good one!
On the way home, Godfrey stopped a few times to buy food at the markets and drop them off at his sister’s house and where his wife works. People here really try to look out for their families. Angella and Susan explained to us that if there are people who need things, they go to their family members who are always there for support with money, food, or homes. It’s really a completely different attitude than what we have at home. It seems like most people are out for whatever they need for themselves. However, from what I’ve seen, the poorer the people are, the more they are willing to give. In the South side of Chicago, for example, we met with families who were taking in nieces and nephews and neighborhood children while they barely had anything for themselves. Here it is the same thing, only the majority of people have practically nothing yet they still give all that they have. I don’t know if I could do that. Sure, I give some but I am really giving enough? There is so much MORE I could be doing with my time and my money. I still get caught up in doing my own thing and buying the things that I want. I clearly need to re-think a lot of what I do. Every year this is a sobering trip for me and it forces me to re-evaluate life when I return.
The rest of the night was fairly relaxing. We were able to go home and take a nap (Woolies tend to wear you out). Then we went for dinner at Garden City at Nawab, which is a beautiful Indian restaurant overlooking the entire city. They also provided free internet, so we were able to update some of our blog information and reply to emails. It’s nice not having the internet, but it also is difficult to keep up on what is going on in the world when you are not around it.
Okay, now that you know the background, you can understand that we have a history with them and really wanted to see them. My mom has loved these kids from home in Minnesota since the first pictures she saw back in 2007 on Ross’ first trip. We pray for them, we try to send them things, and I pretty much think of them every day of my life. Their pictures are all over my walls. It’s as if I have 9 children, but they happen to live thousands of miles away. Kenneth, Trevor, Joshua, Arthur, Henry, Simon, Peter, Irene and Ruth will always be our little Woolies, even though they are getting very big!
We found a man to drive Susan’s car so it wasn’t as expensive as getting a special taxi. We thought about taking Bodas from where a Mtatu could have brought us, but I’m pretty sure that would have been a bad idea and mom wouldn’t have like it! It took us nearly an hour to get there, but we took some “highways” which were actually really nice paved roads. I’m pretty sure they are better than all of the roads in Duluth! (in town is a different story – potholes the size of lakes fill most of them!) At the gate, three guards checked our car and took down information before letting us pass. When we pulled up to the house, we saw Ruth and Irene peeking around the corner. Once they saw Angella, they smiled and ran around the house. We got out and started walking to them and they just kept creeping around the house. My mom went up to them right away and showed the girls and a few of the neighbors the pictures on her ipod. Angella and I continued into the house and found Arthur, Henry, Peter, and Simon sitting all in a row on the couch. They have gotten so much taller! Henry has lost his chubby cheeks and a few teeth. Peter is still really skinny, but the doctors say he has no health problems. Simon’s ears still stick out but not as much as they seemed to last time. Arthur is still a handsome young boy with a huge smile that I love to see! The other kids came to join us as well. Kenneth and Trevor both look about the same but I’m sure they’ve gained a few inches. Ruth and Irene are so much different. They are both about the same height now, but they are probably twice as tall as they were the first time I met them over 2 years ago.
I set up the message that Ross and Rachel had recorded on video for them to watch. The kids laughed when they heard their names. Kenneth has a special bond with Ross. He couldn’t take his eyes off the screen and when Ross said things he would repeat them to the group. He got really excited when he saw dad and yelled, “that’s Wooly’s dad” and when Rocky showed up he said “Wooly has a dog!”. Later, Kenneth came up to my mom and grabbed her hand and said “I miss him”. It breaks my heart to hear him say things like that. It’s hard for these kids to have connections with people and then have them leave. They have two wonderful new mothers, Bridget and Hope who do an amazing job with the kids, but they really have only known them for 1 year and they have a whole life together with other mothers that raised them for over 4 years. We don’t even know if those mothers have gotten to see them since the got to Watoto.
We did the usual running around and playing with cameras which seems to be a favorite past time with the kids. Peter still LOVES to be picked up, so he was in one of our arms almost all the time, except when he was chasing bubbles. He’s hysterical to watch every time there is picture. If you count to three, he yells “wooly bully” and then counts again, “1, 2, 3” and expects everybody else to say it too! It’s amazing that was Ross taught them has stuck so much with them! Irene loves the camera and she is very talkative, which is like a whole other person from the one we first met that was scared of almost everybody and just likes to hide in a corner. She grabbed my hand and walked me over to her house to show me her stuffed animals. Irene is such a sweet little girl and it’s good to see her changing so much!
When we left to get in the car, Peter led the crew in opening the door and putting the seat back. The older boys helped us with our bags and got us situated. My mom started to cry as she left simply because she was so happy to meet them but so sad to have to leave them. Any day that starts with seeing the Woolies is a good one!
On the way home, Godfrey stopped a few times to buy food at the markets and drop them off at his sister’s house and where his wife works. People here really try to look out for their families. Angella and Susan explained to us that if there are people who need things, they go to their family members who are always there for support with money, food, or homes. It’s really a completely different attitude than what we have at home. It seems like most people are out for whatever they need for themselves. However, from what I’ve seen, the poorer the people are, the more they are willing to give. In the South side of Chicago, for example, we met with families who were taking in nieces and nephews and neighborhood children while they barely had anything for themselves. Here it is the same thing, only the majority of people have practically nothing yet they still give all that they have. I don’t know if I could do that. Sure, I give some but I am really giving enough? There is so much MORE I could be doing with my time and my money. I still get caught up in doing my own thing and buying the things that I want. I clearly need to re-think a lot of what I do. Every year this is a sobering trip for me and it forces me to re-evaluate life when I return.
The rest of the night was fairly relaxing. We were able to go home and take a nap (Woolies tend to wear you out). Then we went for dinner at Garden City at Nawab, which is a beautiful Indian restaurant overlooking the entire city. They also provided free internet, so we were able to update some of our blog information and reply to emails. It’s nice not having the internet, but it also is difficult to keep up on what is going on in the world when you are not around it.
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