Family

Let me tell you about my fantastic family here.

Momma is the head principal at a vocational school for vulnerable girls in Kampala, the capital. She's been doing this for 10 years. The girls at her school come from rough backgrounds. They come to her school and choose a course to do, such as tailoring, culinary arts, computer sciences, and more. Momma completed her bachelors degree at UCU, where I am, in Social Work and Social Administration. She's now completing her graduate work at a university in Kampala in Human Rights. She has a passion for those who don't have a voice and is especially interested in gender related issues, sex trafficking, and child labor. She decided to go on and get her masters because she constantly tells the girls at her school that they have rights and value simple because of their humanity. She told me, "How can I tell the girls about their rights if I'm not even completely sure what they are?" So her coursework now outlines things such as the UN Declaration of Human Rights and things like that. She's an incredibly hard worker and I love talking to her, hearing about her heart for those in need.

Matilda is my sister. She's 23. She completed culinary arts training at her Mom's vocational school and she's incredibly good. I've been eating very well while I've been here. She's an amazing cook. She showed me pictures of the cakes she's made. She used to do catering for weddings and things, making 10 cakes for every event since Ugandan weddings tend to be big and never-ending. But lately no one can afford luxurious cakes so she's looking for a job. She's really fun to talk to. She hopes to go to university after she has enough money and continue something in like restaurant management.

Tony is my brother. He's 15 but acts much older. Within my first few minutes of encountering him he chopped off a chicken's head for dinner without so much as a second glance. He's more quiet and serious, trying to pull off the macho man of the house type role. Honestly, he's pretty successful.

Deo is my other brother, 13 years old. I called him "Del" for the first week because of the Ugandan English accents here haha. But he didn't even notice because they sound so much the same. Deo is so sweet. We've been playing a lot of cards. I taught him how to shuffle the cards and do the bridge. He practices a lot haha. He also calls clubs "flowers". So funny. He's like, "Rachel did you put down that 8 of flowers?" Deo is so thoughtful. The first day I arrived he asked me if I liked novels. I said yes. That night he appeared with a copy of "Silence of the Lambs" that he had dug through boxes to find for his sister.

I also have an Uncle that's living with us, recovering from a stroke. Then I have an Aunt and her 1-month old staying for a few days, and then her two children will move in with us tomorrow because though they're from northern Uganda, they live here during the school terms so they can go to the better schools here. My brothers leave for boarding school in Entebbe tomorrow. I'm gonna miss them. To be honest, my family is pretty wealthy. My house has 4 bedrooms, 2 bath, 2 sitting rooms, and a covered garage. We also have indoor plumbing and eat meat multiple times a day. But even so, my Momma constantly reminds her kids to take NOTHING for granted. We pray at every meal for those who are less fortunate. And my siblings work.... a lot. They clean constantly and Matilda spends hours in the kitchen preparing every meal since Momma is at work all day. Momma has drilled into them that a hard work ethic and good morals will bring success. Actually most Ugandans believe that. Everything is achieved by toil and sweat. I'm not gonna want to leave them at the end of this week. Not at all.

My internship is going pretty well so far. I've spent several hours reading over the case files of the kids and learning a lot about how most children come to Chain and some of the challenges they face. Dorothy, my supervisor, hasn't really been around this past week. Hopefully that will chance. Other than reading, I've just been hanging out with the 15 or so children who are currently at Chain. Most of them at still with their guardians on holiday since school doesn't begin for them until tomorrow. So this next week will be much better with school in session and most of the 106 kids present. My first day the children totally ignored me and I was sure I was doomed for failure. The second day, they acted as if I was their best friend. I have no idea why. They rushed to greet me. Instead of ignoring me and speaking Luganda to eachother, they spoke English so I could understand. They grabbed my hand and pulled me around, showing me their beds and their possessions and their lunch, everything. We hung out in the chapel and played musical chairs while I played the bongo drum, not well I might add. Then we went to the playroom and they taught me how to play Ugandan cards and Ludo, which is their version of Trouble! (the American board game with the dice in that popper-bubble-thing, you know?) Then I taught them some outside games like Mother-May-I, which I changed to "Wangi?" which means "Yes please?" in Luganda. Next I wanted to teach them Red-Light-Green-Light...... but how do you teach children who have never before seen a stoplight what those words mean?? So once again, I changed the game to some simple commands in Luganda - come. slow. stop. Haha. All in all the first week went really well, and I was able to get most of the children's names down.

Lastly, today my Momma took me to Kampala and we went shopping at the bigger grocery stores. My heart lept when I saw brand names like: Kleenex, Tresseme, Doritos, Lays, Oreos, Pringles, Crest, and more. Amazing what a little familiarity will do for the soul.

Today I wished with all my heart I was at Trinity. My family is Catholic. Another adjustment.

Picturesque Experiences

I thought this would be a good time for an blog of pictures. So here we go.




This is Sabiti, the all-girls dorm where I live. My window is the 2nd from the right on the bottom floor.










This is my best friend here =] Her name is Darlene and she's from Rwanda. Here, she's sitting on my bed in my room.





This is the "d.h." (Short for dining hall) where we eat all of our meals, which consist of:
Breakfast - Two rolls and if we're lucky, one boiled egg.
Lunch - Rice, Beans, Posho (white corn meal mixed with water), G-Nut Sauce (sauce made out of peanuts, which in Uganda are called g-nuts or ground-nuts and are sketchily colored hot pink....I'm not even kidding. So the G-nut sauce is purple), lumonde (sweet potato), and abumonde (Irish potato). And if we're lucky, a slice of pineapple. And if we're really lucky, two bites of beef.
Dinner - See lunch ^. Except without the pineapple or beef.
Also. There are two "break teas" during the day, one at 10 am and one at 4 pm. During break tea we drink hot black tea or milk tea. Both are extremely sweet and delicious.

Okay so the pictures each take about 15 minutes to upload, and patience is not my forte haha. So I'm ditching the picture idea. So sorry. Maybe another time when I have hours and hours to spend on this process.....

But at least now you have an idea of where I live and what I eat. That said, this past weekend, the USP directors took all the American students to Jinga, which is about an hour northwest of Mukono. We thought we were going on some sort of "retreat", but we had no idea what that included. It turned out that they took us to a resort right on Lake Victoria. It was BEAUTIFUL and included all sorts of gorgeous palm trees and flowers and a swimming pool! With concrete bar stools built into the pool so they would serve you soda as you were swimming! We slept in huts that were furnished and had actual toilets with actual toilet paper provided (we don't have access to these things at school, or for that matter, most anywhere). The showers had hot water (another thing not available in most of Uganda). For meals, we had fresh fruits such as watermelon and pineapple and vegetables like avocado and tomato and meat such as pork and fish. I don't want to spend too much time describing the resort, but the point is, it was luxurious. We walked around with our mouths hanging open most of the weekend. So we spent time laying out (more like burning) and reading and relaxing. It was a great weekend of bonding with the other students and having a chance to get away. Then we took a boat ride out on to Lake Victoria and were shown where the Ugandans believe is the source of the Nile River. That was pretty cool. To the right is a picture of my friend Eliana and I at the sign marking the spot (yes, you get one last picture).

So we returned from Jinga and spent the rest of the week going to classes, doing a bunch of homework, hanging with our friends, etc.

Some new things. Yesterday I did laundry for the first time. They hand-wash and hang-dry everything. It was not necessarily overly difficult work, strenuous yes but managable. The problem is simply the amount of time it takes to wash even one article of clothing. I'm not looking forward to doing that the rest of the semester. So yesterday I washed and hung my clothes out on the public line..... and then completely forgot about them. Didn't cross my mind once all day until this morning. Earlier today I finally remembered my clothes and went to get them from the line only to find that they were missing. I couldn't find them anywhere! I asked around and people gave me sorry glances and told me they bet my clothes had been stolen. You're not supposed to leave them overnight or for long periods of time for that reason. Dejected at my first major blunder, I walked back to my dorm and decided to seek comfort from Darlene, my best friend here who lives across the hall (see photo above). I went to her room and the first thing she said to me was "Ahhhh Rachel how are you I have been looking everywhere for you because I have your clothes!" Darlene helped me wash yesterday and then, knowing that I would probably forget my clothes, had gone back to the line a few hours later and taken them down for me to ensure no one else took them. Her thoughtfulness and sincerity blows me away.

Other new things. Tomorrow I leave for a two-week home-stay. This means for two-weeks I will be living with a Ugandan family and walking to and from school. I am incredibly nervous, which I have been told is "okay". It will definitely be a different lifestyle than the one I have been living for the past two weeks, hanging out on campus at night. For these next two weeks, most of my time and meals will be spend with a single family. I have been told that for many, this is their favorite experience in Uganda. We'll see. This also means that my internet will be even more limited since I will not be on campus to access it at night and during the day it is pretty much unavailable since the classrooms (the only place we can get wifi) are in use.

Lastly. Tuesday I begin my internship, one of the main reasons I am in Uganda. I will be working at Chain Foundation, a home for orphaned, abandoned, and former street children in the Mukono area. Chain houses 106 children and also has a school on its premises that enrolls about 300 kids each semester, both from Chain itself and from the surrounding community. I'll be working with Dorothy, the head social-worker. Out of the 106 children Chain houses, 42 of them are blind or a Visually Impaired Person (VIP). I might be working closely with these kids. You can pray for discernment in choosing what I want my internship to look like as my responsibilities and work are completely up to me. You can check out the foundation's website at www.chainfoundationuganda.com.

That's all for now. Its 1:25 am Uganda time and I'm exhausted. Tonight the Honors College at the school hosted a welcome party for USP and after a formal dinner and introductions, we had a dance party. Not a "spontaneous 2-minute" dance party, but a full-fledged Bruno Mars and Shakira dance party. The Ugandans laughed at our dancing, which mostly consisted of the typical jumping up and down and waving our hands haha. Then they taught us some of their dances. Good times. My feet hurt.

Later.

So Much to Say. So Little Time.

It has only been a week since I last updated, but it feels as if at least a month's worth of activity has occurred. I think this is due to the incredible amount of change I've experienced in such a short period of time coupled with the fact that my internal clock is totally out of whack. I'll try to give you a brief summary.

We arrived in Uganda on Friday night at 10:10 pm local time, but due to 4 students losing their luggage and having to deal with the British Airways people, we didn't end up leaving the airport until after 1 am. Then it was an hour ride from Entebbe, where the airport is located, to Mukono, where Uganda Christian University (UCU) campus is located. Then we had to unload and find our dorm rooms, which put us finally getting to sleep at about 3:30 am. It was a very surreal experience because it was dark and so we couldn't actually see this new environment around us.

Saturday Orientation began at 8 am. We dragged our very confused bodies out of bed and down to the Uganda Studies Program (USP) classrooms for several hours of talk on health, classes, emergency cellphones, gumboot sizes (rain boots), and cultural do's and dont's. Don't sit on the ground. Don't walk while eating. Don't carry your toilet paper around in plain view.

Sunday was campus church. I had no idea what to expect but it was a very, very good experience. The service was very much like that of Trinity in the traditional order. Call to worship with some songs. Then we are reminded of our sinfulness and called to confess our sins which we do corporately and then silently. As we confess silently we are interrupted with the assurance of our forgiveness found in scripture. Then we greet those around us and engage in more worship with song. Then the Word is read and at the end we are told "This is the Word of the Lord" to which we respond "Thanks be to God", just like at JBU. It made me smile. We also say the Apostle's creed. A lot of similarities. The teaching was very, very good. The Vice-Chancellor of UCU spoke. He's pretty cool. Anyway, most Ugandans in this area are Anglican, which explains the liturgical similarities. So church was good.

Then some of the US students wanted to go into Mukono and check out the town, which we did. My friend Elizabeth and I went together and stopped and talked with a lot of the locals, which was really cool. Then we heard some loud Jesus music and stopped to investigate. We stumbled upon this church and the greeter, who took her job very seriously, literally ran like 20 yards across a field to come and tell us how welcome we are and how glad she was to see us. So we ended up staying, for about 2 more hours. It happened to be on a day when the pastor was literally anointing others to be ministers in the church so that was cool to see. The Ugandans are incredibly fervent and passionate in their worship, whether that be in praying or in preaching or in singing or in dancing or in clapping. It was unlike anything I've ever remotely experienced. Then in the middle of the service two Ugandans grabbed Elizabeth and I and told us to run. So we did. We started running back to campus and in the middle of our run it started raining, hard. They got us safely on campus to a shelter. That's one example of how caring and thoughtful Ugandans are. They, unlike us, were watching the sky, noted the oncoming rain, saw we had no transportation and no umbrellas, and got us back home before we were stuck for several hours in Mukono with no way to return. I spent the rest of the day with Halima and the other friends I had made at that church and it was so good. Halima asked me, "Rachel how do they dance at your church?" To which I responded "Uh........." She then asked about clapping and vocalizing and was completely aghast when I tried to explain my church practices. She said, "So you don't dance, you don't clap, you don't yell, do you just stand?" She said she wouldn't like to go to church in America then and I tried to explain that every church was different but that was lost on her.

I need to cut this short, but I'll just say that since Sunday I have been going to class, going to more orientation, but mostly hanging out with my Ugandan friends. They are incredibly nice and a huge blessing. They are eager to talk to mzungu (white people) and help us when we fail utterly at being culturally adept. I have a lot to learn. But the people here never cease to astonish me with their generosity and sensitivity. If you walk into their dorm room the Ugandan students immediately greet you with your name, grab a chair and force you to sit, and offer you whatever food they have, whether that be porridge or biscuits (cookies) or water. One of my friends went and collected newspapers from around campus with which to line my dresser and helped me organize my whole closet. Helped is really not an appropriate term. Essentially I sat while she unpacked and hung everything neatly, making sure every item I brought had a place. She saw that I had put my clothes directly onto the wooden shelves, which were apparently not clean enough, and immediately said "Oh Rachel! Oh no. Let me do it for you. Here. You sit." The newspaper lining was for cleanliness of my clothes. Cleanliness is HUGE here. We are encouraged to shower multiple times a day. The Ugandans hand wash and then iron all of their clothing to ensure they look pristine at all items. The cultural rule "dont sit on the ground" is simply because the ground is dirty and not for sitting. They carry around a hankerchief and constantly wipe their faces free of oil and sweat, as well as wiping every chair they sit in before sitting to make sure they do not dirty their skirts or trousers. Anyway. More culture later.

It has been incredible so far. I'll keep you updated.

The Floodgates Unleash

Tonight, for the first time, I cried about Uganda.

Over the past year-and-a-half as I have been hoping, wishing, exploring, deciding, and committing to this study abroad trip I have felt nothing but anticipation and excitement. As I have informed countless people of the opportunity with which I have been provided, I have heard many statements along the line of, "Oh my gosh, Rachel, that is going to be an amazing experience!" to which I always reply, "Yes, yes it will!" The thought of spending four months in Africa is initially exhilarating. I have been so exicited and so crazy busy that I have hardly had time to stop and catch my breath. The last few months have been a flurry of plane tickets, confirmations, vaccinations, prescriptions, packing, shopping, more packing, and not surprisingly, more shopping. Between the search for the perfect passport holder, to the hunt for the misplaced electricity adapter, the ordering of a plethora of books for the semester, and more, I really haven't had the chance to actually think deeply about what exactly I have gotten myself into.

Today, I hit two decades of age. 20 is like a fourth of my lifetime, assuming I live to be 80. My head is still spinning with the ramifications of being old. Despite the crises of my new elderly status, my birthday was filled with joy as people who care about me really took the time to tell me and show me how much they do. After the celebrations were over it hit me that many of those people I will have very little contact with over the next semester when I am in Uganda. Phone calls and texting are out of the question due to expense. Email, Facebook, Skype, and other forms of internet communication will be very dependent on the quality of the WiFi I have and the amount of free time I have. I am anticipating both to be minimal. As someone who thrives on connection and close relationships, this is more than slightly unnerving. Tonight, it really sunk in.

My friends. My family. I'm going to miss them. A lot.

So tonight, alone in the aftermath of my birthday celebrations, I cried. I cried for the events and milestones in others' lives I am going to miss. I cried for the way life is going to continue on here in Dallas and at JBU while I am 8,500 miles away. I cried for the transition to a new university, a new dorm, a new country, and a new way of life. I cried for my lack of even acquaintances in this strange and unfamiliar place across the pond. I cried for my soon-to-be lack of a washer and a dryer. I cried for my upcoming minority status, one whose skin color will make me stand out from all the rest as a foreigner in an instant. I cried in confusion and anxiety and disbelief. Where the heck did I get this crazy idea anyway?! What was I thinking? I can't believe this. I literally do not have any idea what I'm doing.

But there is Someone who does.