Since it has been over a month since my last blog, I’ll
just give some highlights from over the past few weeks. Sorry if it’s a
bit disorganized.
Dani (another volunteer who has come and gone since my
last blog post) and I went to this little resort called the Hairy Lemon for a
couple of days. It took a couple of hours to get to by taxi, and then when we
got off the taxi we had to take a long dirt road through a couple of villages
to the edge of the Nile. Once we reached the water, there was a gong hanging
from a tree. We rang it, and a couple of guys paddled a canoe over to the riverbank.
We got on, and they took us to the Hairy Lemon, located on an island in the
middle of the Nile. It was such a
great place and relaxing weekend. It was quiet, peaceful, and at night we fell
asleep to the sound of rushing water from a little waterfall not far from our
cabin. During the day we laid on the beach, read and went swimming.
As for work, the month of September was focused on getting
a spot on Globalgiving.org, a fundraising website. A huge thanks to all of you
who donated to the project. I can’t tell you how much it meant to me. The goal
was to raise $5,000 in 30 days, and we did it! The $5,000 will go towards
building two new classrooms and an office at one of YOFAFO’s schools. The
importance of this is huge, as one of the classrooms will be for the kids in
primary 7, the last class before secondary school. If YOFAFO wasn’t able to
build the classroom for them they would have had farther to go to school, and
a higher likelihood that some would have dropped out. As a fundraiser for
Global Giving, Valence and I did a 10k run/walk “to the Nile”. We went one
morning to Jinja and the beginning and end of the run were literally within
site of the Nile. It was beautiful.
Aside from Global Giving, we have also been working on
Child Sponsorship updates. I have been the “photographer” for this project,
which has been fun. It only took a couple of days to get pictures of all of the
currently sponsored children, and then we took another day to get pictures and
write profiles for about 20 new children who need sponsors. I must admit I have
had my doubts about Child Sponsorship in the past, but I cannot deny the
difference it has made in many lives, including in the lives of some young men
and women I have personally met. YOFAFO is doing some great work and I am
blessed to be here to see it taking place.
The other day I saw a woman carrying a small table, a stool,
umbrella, and medium sized bag on her head. All at once. It was very
impressive. A couple of days later I saw a woman carrying a pumpkin on her head
(side note: the pumpkins here are green).
A couple of times on my way home from town I have been
accidentally caught up in a group of people (many of them young adults or
children) dancing, drumming, yelling, and making their down the street near our
house. I asked the family I live with what it was about and apparently that
happens when a boy is soon to be circumcised. One day when I was caught up in
this several little kids started laughing at me and hitting me on the head and
arms. I have no idea why, but I admit it did not make me very happy.
I’ve been working on getting my visa extended. When I
first got to Uganda, I received a 3 month visa, which runs out tomorrow. The
last couple of weeks I have been back and forth to Internal Affairs (in
Kampala) trying to sort out how to get a Special Pass to stay in the country.
After quite a few trips and a bit of waiting, it was approved and I’m supposed
to go back to pick up my passport tomorrow.
We were out of power for about 5 days a week or so ago. It
wasn’t as bad as I thought it might be, other than making it difficult to get
any work done. I spent lots of time in Kampala, Jinja and Mukono that week
charging my laptop and phone and trying to get some work done. With no power at
night though, the stars were more brilliant than I have probably ever seen in
my life. I just wanted to stand outside and look at them for hours. It reminded
me of sleeping on the dock at Priest Lake, looking up at the glorious sky.
Some friends and I went to the Bayimba International
Festival in Kampala a couple of weeks ago. It was fun to see some local Ugandan
music. The ride back was somewhat eventful, as we got on a taxi that someone told
us was going to Mukono and ended up stopping in Bweyogerere, which is a town just
outside of Kampala. We started getting suspicious when everyone got off the taxi but us, and then our suspicions were
confirmed when the driver told us to get out. Fortunately, we caught another
taxi right away that actually was going to Mukono. It was probably good the
first one stopped anyways, as we had realized we could see the pavement moving
beneath us through several large holes in the floor of the taxi.
Well, this is getting long so I’ll stop for now. Sorry for
the time between posts. I’ll try to be better in the future, but no promises :
)
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