Day 6

((Pictures Below))

Day  6

So today was a rough start.  I was skyping with my husband, and children, and typing the blog, and doing to prep for the meetings until 6:30 AM Ugandan time when my husband told me to go to bed.  I pondered, and thought it best.  So I set the alarm for an hour later, and popped up refreshed.  I really did not want to go out to the school this morning because I have so much more work to do for Maria and for the Association and for the meeting, and for the board back home.  I hate having things hanging over my head, but Jeff convinced me to go with Nap and Moses to the school, at least to take video of the kids, pass out candies, and help with whatever.  And like always, I am glad that I did.

We had to stop and get gas again, but the gas prices had jumped dramatically, and we paid almost $250.  So in 6 days, we have filled up 3 times.  We have also basically finished wearing out the front shocks.  Every little bump makes the front shocks shriek out, “Please not another pothole, please not another one.” To get them fixed, it is around $800 US, and for now, Father cannot spare his vehicle with needing to get us back to Kampala in one piece, and so much work to do.  The other problem is that we are quickly running out of schillings now that we are trying to get projects done, and nobody outside of Kampala take credit card.  So now we find ourselves in need of more schillings and no place with a decent exchange rate in this area.  We are going to have to bite the bullet and use Western Union or some place like to it exchange, and the Shilling is not doing well over the past few days.  Montgomery Catholic wired the money through there, so we will be there anyway, so it makes sense.

Because Father had a diocesan meeting this morning, he ran us to the gas station to fill up, and get water bottles, and drinks, and then stopped so Pappa Nap could get some hole patch for the walls at the school.  Father drove us up to Buterbeary and dropped off Nap, Moses and I, with what we needed for the day, including the solar charger, the Toughbook, and all of the rest of my electronics so I could make sure that everything works electronically up here.

Side Note 6: No matter where we are, Jeff will ask, "Hey Chap, you got the phone?"or "You got the keys?"  And this might be like 20 minutes after Jeff says, "Hey Chap, remember that I got the keys."And then Nap will make fun of his memory and Jeff will make fun something else.  We now have a running joke with Father Henry about Nap and his pontification.  And if Father Michael is late or says something funny, Nap will tell him that he is being excommunicated.  It is comical, but complete strangers think we are nuts.  And I told my husband how funny it was and he said that was one of the reasons why I was allowed to go with them, because they were a lot alike my family in California.

Father took Jeff back into town so he could get to his meeting, and Jeff could shop/price-out the necessities to get the Delta Center up to par.  Father Michael had previously requested funds for mosquito nets, but once they got the nets for the screens for the rectory and Father Francis’ room, they felt so guilty for having more than the other people, they returned them for something to benefit all of them.  And why don’t they have money if they are diocesan land doing diocesan programs? 

Because the Diocese owns the land and you can live there and lease it, but priests do not get a wage from the Diocese, he finds his own way.  In a parish, this is much easier to do.  The parishioners give money and food to them, and they keep the budgets and the maintenance in check for their own parish.  But for Father Michael, who has no parish and no parishioners, this becomes exceedingly more difficult.  The school is under his control as head of the Youth development office, yet he has no experience running a school or teaching, nor does he have time.  Nor does he have the money to pay teachers, etc, so the teachers are volunteers, or make a minimal amount of money, and if students cannot pay, they do not.  So who buys books and school supplies?  Should the volunteer teachers buy them, or the broke parents, or the unattached diocese?  That is why the pineapples are on this same land that is leased to the youth office.  Families from the village and school are supposed to come in and work it and earn pineapples to take and sell or take and eat.  If we grow and sell the pineapples ourselves, then that money can stay with Anawim and go to Anawim Uganda’s projects that are in line with our mission statement and objectives.

Once we got up to the school, I was excited.  The day was very hot, but there were clear skies and the purest white clouds.  The Candy Man worked his magic with the kiddos and then again while pontificating to the workers, the way that only Nap could do.  Moses stayed with us to translate, which was a serious blessing.  Most of the people in the villages understand introductions, but regular conversation is beyond their level of English.  Moses followed Nap around for awhile while he checked in with different laborers and teachers and I tried to get the computer and video camera set up for simple recording and email.  And then we quickly realized that Father had taken the “Orange-to-go” stick so we had no internet or way to access the youtube video that Montgomery Catholic had made for the teachers and staff at Butebrere.  I really had wanted to show the kids at home they that had one of the four rooms completed.  How great would that be?

see the fly in the bottom left corner of his ear?

Handmade soccer ball and a Streaks shirt.  What could be better?

This bull wanders around the school complex eating up all of the grass.

Proof that we ate authentic African food before Jeff did.

Anna always laughs when she sees pictures of the naked babies.  This boy had a lollipop from the Candyman, and Moses is washing the baby's hand, with the muddy drinking water that was brought up from the pond for mixing concrete.  I guess that is ok though because about 20 minutes before, I saw the baby trying to drink out of that same yellow container.

Saying good bye to the children at Butebrere

I asked Moses to hand ou the Streaks soccer jerseys so that could pass them out.  That is also something that Moses is good at.  He loves soccer, and communicated directly with the children,  Once I accepted the fact that no work would be done on technology for a while, I was able to relax, and begin to play and watch the kids, and get to know the teachers more.  I was talking to a few kids when a little toddler went hobbling by.  It was then that I noticed this green/yellow junk draining down the side of his face.  I hopped up ran over wondering if maybe he had candy all of the side of his face.  When I got closer, I saw his face covered in green snot and coming out of his eyes.  Uhmmmmm.  Yeah.  I got close enough to see that his ear was damaged; as in, it had been draining for awhile, and there were flies flying in and out of the open wound inside of his ear, but more than likely inside his ear canal.  His stomach was so distended he can barely hobble up the hill.  I let him walk past to get a better look and noticed huge nasty sores down the back of his arm, filled with pus.  I immediately thought that I would just take him to the doctors, without my car, and to the imaginary doctors office that would give me a prescription of who knows who to be filled at only God knows where.

It was a horribly helpless feeling.  One of those gut emotions when you have to make a decision between looking up the dosage calculation in order to give a child your very broad spectrum antibiotic in order to help his hearing or following laws, guidelines, etc.  Hmmmm.

And when I was talking to Moses about the health situation here, asking general questions, and I am not sure which makes me feel worse.  6 out of 10 children are HIV positive.  6 out of freaking 10 children are HIV positive.  But here is the kicker.  The HIV medication is very expensive, so to keep a child alive, they buy medication and then the whole family is malnourished or worse.  The teacher said that children come with little to no food most days, like a tiny piece of sugar cane and then they are on HIV medication and that makes them very hungry, and when fighting a disease like that, they need to keep up their strength and immune system.  And when they are starving, and kneeling on a rock floor and being unable to concentrate, they get up and walk two miles to their homes.  Yuck.

We were all kind of hanging out and talking about different children, and then music, and praise and worship music and when I turned the music on so that Moses could sample it, we drew a crowd.  Even the laborers stopped to come look at the laptop and listen to the music.  For most, it was their first time with in an up close and personal situation.  And when the children are around you, they want to touch you.  They would play with my braids, or hold my hand, or put their arm around my waist.  They were such a loving little group.

After the children’s  lunch time, the teachers came out and the children practiced a lesson inside.  One of the teachers came out with three dishes of a local meal for us to eat.  Moses explained that most families in the villages may have this meal every single day.  It is a cheap ground corn, boiled and then the water cooked off.  And then when  the mush is almost hard, they cut it into chunks and serve it with a peanut sauce on top.  To be respectful, we thanked them and tried a bite or two.  And then we had Moses go inside and fetch 4 children; two to share my portion and two to share Nap’s.  Moses is a young student, and is used to the food, so he finished his off.  The children came out and devoured it.  The teacher looked offended, but we assured her that we rarely eat lunch, and that, although it was good, the children need it more than us.

To kind of lighten the mood, when it was time to go get water, I took a few trips to and from the pond to fill buckets, and bring them so the workers could mix the concrete.  And then I asked the laborer if I could help scoop rock for a few minutes, and they laughed at me, so I topped of the wheel barrow but it was sooo hard to push.  I had a hard time keeping it upright while walking on the ramp.  I even tried balancing the yellow water jugs on my head, but it was futile.  When all else fails, and you are bored, pull out your camera. 

Children love the camera.  I spent more than an hour taking children’s pics and then showing them the picture.  I then made a 3 second video with them saying “Hello America!”  It was so great. 

When Jeff and Father got there, I grabbed the “Orange to go” and showed the children the video that Montgomery Catholic had made.  The children loved it, and the teachers were very impressed.  By this time, the second room had been completed and the third was at the halfway point.  We assured the children that even though we were leaving, the gutters would still be installed, the doors would be added, and the screens/shutters on the windows would be installed/fixed.  And we even had enough for the concrete base for the cistern.  The cistern is a great bit more than we had, but we were able to also have desks made with the remainder of the money.  Father Boniface is the man that we need to thank back here in Uganda for getting the construction started right away.  He found great people at a great price to do this job at the school.  He is great friends with Father Henry and Father Michael and it is an amazing joy.  There will always be work to be done, but this was a joy.

When we left, the children gave us some handmade soccer balls and little husk dolls.  They are truly beautiful.  I wish I could be there when the desks arrive next week.  They have promised to have Father come and take pictures of them at new desks on their new floors.  No more bloody knees, bloody feet.  No more sick children laying on uncomfortable exposed rocks all day.  No more mosquitos and birds getting in and tearing everything up.  No more fear of teens coming in unlocked doors and vandalizing everything.  It was an amazing success, and we will have to continue our efforts with the water cistern, the school books and supplies, uniforms, the latrine, etc.  What I do not want is for us to be the typical “muzingos,” or the people that come in and throw money at problems and then abandon the children and their emotional and spiritual needs.  I took pictures, and video, to show the people back home that their  money does real work, serves real people, and forever changes real lives.

On the way back to the town, we started to get calls about being that.  We had a meal catered for everyone at Anawim and involved in the work there so we could meet them, anser questions, and so that we could really heard them and appreciate their service and commitment to Anawim and our mission and objectives.

When we got there, there were people sitting everywhere, and there was joy and anticipation in the air.  Father has selected these people, tried to train these people.  We have entrusted these people with our mission, and our money, and we have spent the last week working along side them, seeing the fruits of their labors and the fruits of our labors back home.  The introductions went well.  We got names, and projects of everyone, and then we did some praise and worship, and then Jeff and I went into our “Father” stories.  I told Maria to have Father Michael’s favorite traditional African meal on the menu, with some fruit and rice.  While eating, we encouraged people to come up and talk to us one-on-one or in a group to talk to us and share opinions, ideas, joys, etc.  It worked really well I think. 

The best part was the ambiance.  The power has been out at the Delta for several days now.  Instead of wasting fuel on the generator, Maria light candles all around the room, and the dog who sat on the last step leaving the conference room was the only one to suffer the worse of it.  I had time to listen to everyone and get Father Henry’s association papers done.  Most of these people, some of who get stipends from us, and those who don’t, live off of very little money.  But their families are growing, and the sacrifice of ministry, which they love to do, has to sit by the wayside in order to feed a new child.  Some of the music ministry people who lead the teen groups live far from functions, and some do not have cars and rely on boda bodas for their transportation. 

No w if you are a student with no job, and you volunteer and need to get to the Delta for a conference, how are you going to pay for it?  What are you willing to sacrifice in order to serve God and help Father Michael?  These kids face this every day.  John and Vicki make a total of 200,000 shillings ($78 a month), but once Vicky has her baby, her dependable 100,000 will drop, and John drives so much for music ministry or the pig ministry, that his stipend he gets from us does not even cover the gas for his service.  This made me feel guilty,  especially since we now understand the roads and the distance from place to place.

Knowing this and seeing their expressions as it comes out of their mouths is difficult.  You want to help them create an infrastructure that includes immediate micro projects while you help them work on long term planning, and for us, that would be the ideal way to start.  And they were just excited that we wanted to hear about their desires straight from their hearts.

Overall, we have gotten done more than we thought possible in the last 3 days.  You do not have to worry about the Catholic Church, because there are vocations in Uganda, 249 seminarians.  There are wonderful vibrant, young, Catholics in Uganda.  Pray expecially for the priests that have helped us this week while we were here.  They are and have been amazing blessings to us, those students, and our mission.

In other news, we were going to go on a safari and end our trip to Masaka tomorrow morning but we just have too much stuff to do.  We came here with a goal, and there is no way we can hang out around a game preserve when the thought of what we could be doing, what makes a difference for God, is hanging around us.  We are not a fancy people with big tastes.  We are doers and this must get done.

Thanks

Allie