Taxi Tears

Well my friends, the time has come for an emotional post. It has been six wonderful weeks, with many more to come, in this beautiful country but this week has just been one of those weeks. The kind of week that where I cry. Now if you know me… which I hope you do since you are reading my blog… I do not cry often but I have been overwhelmed emotionally as of late. It has not been any specific village, project, or family. No smell, sight, or sound has worn me down. But today on a taxi ride back from painting the Busuega Clinic that I reflected on my time so far.

Beautiful Sunrise

Unfortunately as I try to put into words what I have seen, smelled, and felt. They aren’t things I can describe- you just need to experience them for yourself. I realize that not everyone will have the opportunity to come to Mbale and do that, but you can go into your own town and put yourself in someone else’s life, experience their hardships and have a similar experience.

Mud drenched Trading post

Today we left the clinic and immediately made it to a trading center in Buseuga. One the corner stood a little girl in less that rags with ring worm all over her scalp. She was drinking orange murky water from a plastic bag. She sat there waiting while her mother made and sold Chapatti. I drove on in our transport and couldn’t do anything to change her life. I couldn’t give her clothes; I had none to give. I couldn’t give her clean water; I had already used all of mine.

Then we went to the taxi stage in Bunoba and a woman continually called out Muzungu you give me, you give me. She wore a thread bare shirt with a skirt that more holes than not. I have become accustomed to people asking me for money but today it struck a chord that I was not able to ignore.

Then we continued down the LONG, BUMPY road and we passed herds of children dressed in uniforms leaving their schools to go find lunch. But the reality is that most, if not all, will just find a bit of sugar cane to chew on to curb their hunger.

Just a snack of a little sugar cane

We continued through the beautiful greenery with goats tied to the side of the road, cows taking all the room on the road, and mud huts dotting the landscape. And I cried.

Beautiful Mud Huts

Now I realize that that journey doesn’t seem too overwhelming when I write it out. But I have been overwhelmed by the poverty I have seen. The daily struggle that most of us have never dealt with is normal for all that I have met. This is not to say that there is not real struggle for us in the United States because there is. But things that tend to bother us and stress us out are things that people here have never even considered being worried about. For example: Yesterday at the clinic one of my teammates had to tell man he was dying of cancer and he was grateful for it being cancer and not AIDS. He was grateful to find out he was dying of something not as awful as AIDS.

Eventually our crowded taxi picked up an old woman carrying dried, fresh beans who only had 500 shillings but needed a rest on her journey so she paid 500 to see how far it would get her. Then she sadly got out and continued on the road.

A slightly upgraded mud hut

Our journey ended being dropped off at the taxi stage in the center of Mbale. Hordes of people swarm those getting off of the taxis to purchase their trinkets and fresh fried food. There is waste and mud covering the pavement and exhaust filling the air. After shooing away the many vendors we got on our Bodabodas and went home to our compound. This is so typical of our daily experience here in Africa. I wish I had the funds and time to help all around me find a way to improve their situation- but I can’t.

Mbale Town

Anyways, I don’t know that any of that made sense or painted an accurate picture for you at home. But that’s what I was thinking of as I cried on the taxi.

BUT- this last week was really great too! We have moved forward with starting many more projects.

Buvuma Island

We will be doing a project starting the 6^th of July on the Buvuma Islands, which is an island in Lake Victoria, that has no access to basically anything: clean water, electricity, trade, sanitation, feminine products. We will be hopefully alleviating a lot of that. Whitney, Jess, and I met with an NGO days for girls which supplies reusable menstrual pads and education programs to girls in developing countries. We are going to head a program while we are there that not only delivers some already made kits, but teaches them to make them by hand so that it is a sustainable project.  Our team will also provide education on sanitation, clean water, and family planning.  There is a lot to do in preparation for the island project but we are anxious for it to begin.

I am also a lead on a project that I talked a little bit about already – painting the Busuega clinic. This is a clinic run by one of our partners Dr. Jan White at Joy Hospice. She began this clinic in 1999 in some rented out rooms near its location now. She constructed the clinics permanent structure in 2003 and now the government has come in and threatened to shut it down because the outside is not painted. I try not to be frustrated with the government while I am here. Every government has flaws, but I am living in this country and try and respect the organization here. However, this is really frustrating to me. Jan is in her 70’s and working basically for free and has been for the last 30 or so years. The government has charged her fees and threatened the shut down because of paint? So we are helping her as she has helped us with many medical projects here already this summer. The clinic has a main building, a staff quarters, and a latrine that all need to be painted. We finished one building yesterday and will go back this week and next week to finish painting the outside walls. But the great thing is that by us finishing painting the building 1000’s of people will still have access to health care in the remote village. So give me that paint brush and we will save some lives.

Child of Hope

We finished Girl Power last week and that was awesome. The girls were so great. We had a great turn out from the parents which was Fantastic! There is not usually much parent support at schools here in Uganda but they showed up for this and the smiles on the girls faces were so amazing to see as they found their parents!

Daughters of Zion also continued and we did a mini dance class with Bradi before she left for the United States. P.s. I miss her! Today we will continue with Daughters of Zion and be teaching the some music and singing some songs… wish me luck!

Two days ago we also helped at the orphanage again. We helped plant a garden. Not your typical US garden though. We transplanted 25 matooke trees and 25 banana trees. We planted a few hundred coffee plants and will help with maize in the next few weeks. Let me tell you gardening here is hard. It is straight volcanic clay in that area and we are all still pretty sore… I guess we aren’t all born to be African gardeners…. But I am determined to be!

Children at the Orphanage peeking in window

Last but certainly not least I began the budget for some big projects we are hoping to be able to do this summer: One being the building of a Latrine and one being the building of the vocational school. Now you might be asking what do I know about construction? Yeah, well I am asking that same thing. BUT in true Ugandan fashion- it needs to be done so let’s do it. You will be hearing a lot about it as time goes on but I am in the process of submitting budgets  and getting approvals.

Time is running out now but I want you all to know that I love you. And even though it can be an emotional run here- I love every minute of being here.

Love,

Ketty

Just a little rafting on the NILE!

My dear Mukwonos! ( friends!)

There is so much to update you on, YIKES! So enjoy the brief updates and tons of pictures!

So I rafted the Nile. Yeah, that’s not really a sentence I ever thought I would say. But I did! It was so much fun! I got super sunburned but its all good now! Yes, I did lather up on sunscreen too but the Nile is powerful! There were class 5 rapids but we had amazing guides! TUTU was the guide for our raft and we had so much fun! We met friends from Iraq, Iran, and Egypt. They work for the U.N. and were HILARIOUS! George, Hakeem, and Achbar were TERRIBLE rafters and paddlers but still entertaining!

Last week we finished painting the world and began digging in the Garden at the Orphanage. I think it turned our pretty great. We added Antarctica as well so don’t worry we included the whole world!

 

 

Tomorrow we have our last girl’s empowerment at Child of Hope and I am so sad! These girls have been one of the highlights of my summer thus far and I am sad that we will not be together every week from now on. They are PHENOMENAL dancers! Here are the videos I made of the girls. They are the same song but you can see all the beautiful girls we have been working with!

 

This week we finished our teacher training at IUIU. It was amazing and stressful! Thank you Jaeda for your help from the United States! J We had 8 teachers attend on Friday and 14 attend Saturday. It went really well. It is hard to have a lot of discussions with the teachers because discussion is not a part of their teaching strategies. BUT we think that they caught on. We had them do many activities as if they were children which was extremely uncomfortable for them. But sometimes I like to make people feel uncomfortable! 

Here are some great pictures of the training. We were really grateful to work with Islamic University in Uganda and are excited for further projects!

 

We got our new volunteers this week and we are excited to have them on board! Now there are 17 of us living in the house. Personal space doesn’t exist here in Africa so it isn’t too bad!

This week I got a taste of home… well Tennessee/Kentucky when we had torrential downpour while we were in town. When it rains here EVERYTHING shuts down. We had to wait in town for a while for the rivers down Republic Street (the main street) to calm down but I love the rain here. The people still believe that the rain gives people malaria which is difficult for them to try and understand that malaria happens more in the rainy season but it is not brought by the rain.

Today we met with an amazing new partner that Bradi met at the bank this weekend. They have done what so many do and created a community based organization that does a little bit of everything! We are going to help clean some wells, play some football, and hopefully some girls/women empowerment projects with them! Seriously the people here are so amazing and they are everywhere doing something good. So you never know who will meet in the bank!

All is well in Africa. Take Care.

Ketty