City Streets

I have been in Kampala for a week now and I am beginning to get used to this city. I am no longer surprised to see cars on the left side of the road it is no shock that two lanes magically become six when traffic is heavy. Stop signs and streetlights are a thing of the past for me and red dust from the markets caked on my feet at the end of each day seems normal. I am now used to hearing “Hey muzungu!” every time I go out.

There are some things I don't think I could ever get used to though. One is that there are a lot of street children in Kampala. You can see children as young as three on the streets begging. It's absolutely unbelievable to me that children that young have to beg. A lot of them have parents though actually, especially the youngest ones. Those who don't have parents stick together and take care of each other. The younger ones collect money all day and their parents get them at the end of the day. Leaving their children to beg all day is the only option for getting enough money to get by for these families. For some of them, even that won't be enough and they will eventually abandon their children to the streets so they can take care of other children. Then the abandoned children become the older children who don't have homes but stick together and take care of one another. The thing that seems crazy to me is that there is enough room for these children in the orphanages; they just choose the streets over the orphanages. It breaks my heart to see them on the street.

Working at the orphanage is going really well. I love those kids so much. I already know that it's going to be impossibly hard to leave them. Tonight I stayed to help give the kids dinner. It was insane. Imagine trying to feed forty-seven children under the age of four all at once. There were I think eight of us working at the time. By the end everyone, including myself, was covered in matooke. I think the time right before dinner was even more crazy though. They usually get to go outside at the time and use up their energy. Today though, it was rainy and they had to stay indoors. There are not enough toys for the kids and not enough room for them to be able to be active. So they improvised and were pushing around cribs, while babies were in them, jumping on beds, and jumping off of tables. They aren't bad kids. They just don't have the right toys and equipment to be able to channel their energy in the right way.

It's so hard trying to show so many children love. They all want attention and to be held. They crowd around the workers and cry so bad when we need to put them down. It's hard to make any of them feel like they have my attention and care when there are five two year olds pulling at me in one moment. I feel like instead of trying to spread myself thin, I would rather focus on just one or two children at once. That way, when I am done playing or taking care of them, they feel like they had my attention.

Jeremiah, the baby who was sick, seemed to be doing better today. He was still coughing but not throwing up anymore. I am getting to know a lot of kid's names now and am learning about their personalities and the games they like. Some of them just want to cuddle and some want someone big who will play with them. It is so great getting to know each of them.

Other than the orphanage, everything else is going well too. Classes are very different from home but are going well. Right now I am taking African Religion and African Literature; both are very interesting. Tomorrow, we are all going white water rafting down the Nile River. One of the rapids is bigger than a class 5, which is pretty intense. It's going to be so much fun!

Sanyu Babies Home

Yesterday I began working at Sanyu Babies Home, which is an orphanage for Ugandan children. Forty-seven children, from newborns through the age of four, live at Sanyu. It is such a great place and I am so excited to be involved there. The director and other workers really care about the children so much and try making each of them feel loved. They are very short staffed and are certainly lacking in resources, but the staff do such a good job of working with what they have to take care of the kids.

Yesterday it was me and three other girls who went to the orphanage. When we first got there, we were shown around the home. There are a couple of big rooms filled with cribs, each with their own mosquito net. There's a big dining room lined with adorable toddler sized wooden chairs and tables. The home has a kindergarten for the oldest children; we didn't see inside of the classroom but it was cool to learn that they have classes. They have a pretty big yard with swing sets and slides. There are lots of bright murals and Bible verses around the home; it's nice they make the place nice and cheery.

As soon as we got there, a crying baby was thrown in my arms. His name is Jeremiah and he's only about three and a half months old. He threw up on me in the first thirty seconds I was holding him and his diaper needed to be changed. So I found him a new outfit and changed his diaper. I kept holding him and he threw up again. This wasn't just spit up; he was really sick. There was a Canadian woman volunteering who was a med student so I asked her about Jeremiah. She said that yesterday he had an IV in his hand but that she didn't know what was wrong with him. When the doctor was looking at him, he spoke in Luganda so she couldn't understand what he said. For my readers who pray, please pray that Jeremiah gets better.

The girls and I spent most of our time changing diapers. With so many babies, there is just a constant stream of babies who need to get changed. They seriously need two full time staff whose only duty is to change babies' diapers. The babies just want to be held so badly. They are so happy just to have someone's attention, so unlike any baby I have ever interacted with before, most of them loved getting their diaper changed.

The older babies and toddlers really crave adult attention and care too. They just flock around the adults, trying to get in our laps or grab our hands. They are so cute. I wish they had more toys available to them. Children just play by nature though, so I saw them playing with jug caps, shoes, and chairs. It was so much fun playing with the older children, playing peek-a-boo and teaching some of them some new words.

It's both sad and hope instilling to work at Sanyu. I wish these children had an attachment figure they consistently felt loved by and who wasn't spread too thin. The children are lacking so much, both emotionally and physically. At the same time though, children are naturally joyful and resilient. Some of us here with Go Ed are going to start a project to collect money to buy some of the resources Sanyu is lacking. For those of you at Calvary Baptist who supported my trip, this is where much of that money is going to go. For everyone else, if you would like to help out Sanyu Babies Home, I will be giving more info on here soon about how to do that.

Kampala

I am in Uganda!! It is so great to be here. It was insane getting here though. We had a delayed flight, then missed a flight, had to run to gates to make connections, and spent about 36 hours in airports and on planes. It was such a long flight. We were on the plane two nights and I only slept for maybe seven hours total so I am still pretty jet lagged. I am just so happy to be here though.

Our house is beautiful. It was not at all what I was expecting. We have comfortable beds, wireless internet, fairly reliable electricity, a washer and dryer, and sometimes hot water. We live in a walled in compound and we have two guards on duty at all times. So we feel very safe at home. I live in a room with five other girls and we sleep in bunk beds covered with mosquito nets. Our bedroom and the living room are on the second floor and each have a balcony. It's great. During dinner yesterday, we saw a monkey run across our yard! I have also seen lots of cool birds and beautiful flowers that we don't have at home.

The biggest difference between Kampala and cities in the States is that being white makes me stand out here. People stare at us a lot and yell "muzungu", which means white person. It's strange being in the spotlight whenever we go out. The children love when we wave to them because we are white. When we went to church today, they sat us in the front row just because we are white.

We haven't spent a ton of time in the city yet but I have really enjoyed it so far. The streets are so busy. You risk your life every time you try to cross the road because the cars drive so fast, and they won't stop for you. Everything is so different here-the smells, the sights, the sounds. The streets smell like roasted chicken and bananas the vendors are selling, car fumes, and people who have been in humid weather all day. Car horns honk incessantly and, if you are white, you hear "Muzungu" every thirty seconds. Tomorrow, local students are showing us around the city some more. I'm excited to meet them and see more of Kampala.

Phoenix

I am in orientation in Phoenix right now. We are all working on our computers to get accounts for this website community we have to join. So I have some downtime and figured I would write an entry.

I can't believe I will be getting on a plane to leave the country in about 8 hours. It's insane! It feels exactly like when you are waiting in a long line for a new roller coaster. I'm really nervous and shaky and have butterflies. But I also am really really excited. We are sitting here in orientation being told all about what this will be like and it's like watching the roller coaster go up the huge hills and plunge down, knowing we will be doing the same thing soon. It's this crazy anticipation that keeps building up and we are all at the point where we just want to be in Africa. But we still have a day of orientation and 33 hours on a plane ahead of us.

It has been so great meeting everyone and realizing we are all going through the same thing right now. Everyone is a lot less intimidating in person than they were just looking at their facebook profiles (go figure). Everyone going is really, really cool. I think we are all going to get along great.

Alright, I think we are going to get started orientating again soon. I guess the next time I write, it will be from Uganda!

Luggage

Tomorrow is the big day! I'll be waking up at 4:15 a.m. to catch a 6 a.m. flight to Phoenix. The past few days have been insanely filled with packing and good byes. I can't believe I fit everything I will have for four months in just one suitcase, a duffel bag, and a laptop bag. I think I measured my suitcase about fifty times to make sure it wasn't more than 62 dimensional inches. Every time I measured, it was a very safe 54 dimensional inches. Then I'd take a step back and be absolutely certain it was more than that and decide to measure it again. I am finally satisfied that it is in fact 54 dimensional inches but am now worried that I am over the 50 lb weight limit. Ah well, we will see tomorrow...

So I will get into Phoenix tomorrow at 9:45 Mountain time. I will have orientation Wednesday and Thursday. Then I leave at 7:30 ish for Uganda. We stop and switch planes in Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and Ethiopia. When it is all said and done, I will fly into Entebbe, Uganda at about 1:30 p.m. on Saturday. Once you account for the time change, I will be flying for 33 hours. Should be fun.

Anticipation

I will be leaving Le Roy now in just three days. I can't believe this is really happening and that it's happening so soon. Up until about a week ago, none of it felt real at all. I filled out form after form and got jabbed with shot after shot but still it didn't feel like going to Africa was actually happening. It finally does; instead of seeming like a daydream, this trip feels like a real plan.

I wish I could say that my predominant feelings now are those of excitement but it's probably something more like anxiety. Wondering about so many things is hard for me. I don't like having no idea about how often I will have Internet and phone access, about what things will be hard for me, about how I will be changed. In that way, I just want to be there and have some of my questions answered. I'm also anxious at the thought of leaving though. I feel like I am leaving behind everything I have ever known. It's hard to think about all that I will be missing, especially with this semester being the first half of my senior year.

Though I am overwhelmed and anxious thinking about my trip, I am still very much looking forward to it. I can't wait to experience a different part of the world and be a part of a culture so different from my own. It is scary to let go of the comforts we experience here in the States but I want to be shaken so I can see a truer, more genuine picture of what this world is like. I also very much look forward to getting to know people in Africa and try to see the world through their eyes and experiences.

People have been asking me if I know how hard it will be to see hurting and broken people. I think I know as well as I can without actually being there. I know my heart is going to be broken in a thousand different ways for the things I will see. That's exactly what I want, though. On this trip, I am going to learn so much about what God loves and what breaks his heart. I want my heart to be broken for the same things his is broken for. I anticipate great sorrow, yes, but also great joy. What sort of joy is greater than the kind that is found in spite of hardship? That's the truest sort of joy and I hope to see it in Africa--even if only in glimpses.

There's so much for me to be looking forward to. Even though I am so anxious about leaving and some of you have heard me talking about cold feet, I do realize what an amazing opportunity this will be. It will probably be one of the hardest things ever, but it's going to be so worth it.