No Shortage of Bugs in Uganda

It's hard to believe that it's been a week since I last updated - time has flown by! It's weird though - it seems like the week has gone by so quickly, but I also feel like I've been here for a month. I think it's probably due to learning so much and experiencing so many new things in such a short amount of time. 

One of the more "intense" learning experiences of the week actually just happened today. I went to the local hospital along with a social worker and a couple other people from GSF because GSF had been notified about a severely malnourished child. The hospital was calling to see if GSF would be willing to take the child in. Of course my natural reaction is to be like "AH severely malnourished child?! Let's go pick him up!! We can feed him and care for him!" but I've come to realize that that is not exactly how things work around here. GSF has been around long enough to realize that not every needy child needs to be cared for by the orphanage itself. When they hear of cases or are called by families asking to give their children, GSF first heavily investigates the situation using their Ugandan social worker, Keren. Keren finds out as much as she can about the children by talking to family, neighbors, other ministries, etc. Do the children have loving parents that are just trying to get them into GSF because they think GSF would provide the kids with more opportunity? Do the kids have aunts or uncles that are capable of caring for the kids? Do the children just need temporary care or long term care, and if long term, are they able to be put up for adoption? It gets pretty tedious and difficult to find information, especially because Ugandans are careful of disclosing information and are difficult to get ahold of. Anyway, so that's what the visit to the hospital was about. We didnt pick up the little boy, but we did meet him and his older sister to ask questions about the situation. It was very sad seeing the boy... He was 3 years old but very small. He had no hair except some white wispy strands. His neck was so frail, his spine bulging out of his back, and his arms were like...nothing. He also had this horrible sounding cough, but I'm not sure exactly what the hospital diagnosed him with. Keren talked with the older sister, a 15 year old who is the oldest of 7 children whose mother died. Next she is going to visit the home of the children to scout out the situation a bit more. This has not been the first case like this since being here - Keren is also in the midst of investigating another case dealing with two children who are looking for placement. It does take a lot of patience, but I am understanding more and more the importance of waiting out situations such as this. GSF stresses that we need to find what is best for the child. It's very neat to see the time that they put into each case, taking time to pray for wisdom and discernment before making decisions regarding the future care of the children. 

This past weekend I got to spend a day in Jinja with the other two interns and the GSF nurse, Sarah. Jinja is about 30 minutes away. On the way there, we took a taxi. The taxis here are like minivan size without the hood in front, maybe a little bit bigger than that. They're definitely smaller than conversion vans though.. We hit up the taxi outside of GSF and rode it right into Jinja. By the time we had gotten to Jinja there were twenty people and a goat in the taxi. It was hilarious. I would've thought there was no way we could've fit that many people in, but they made it work by rearranging everyone and really squeezing in tight! The goat would go "beehhh" every so often, and it would just get my funny bone. While in Jinja we went to the market. The market is just..crazy. I don't even know how to describe it except to say that there are tiny little stations selling anything you can imagine all scrunched together in a square. I think I should just take a picture sometime.. We also went to some other shops along the main road that sold things like souvenirs. They really are neat little places, and I was tempted to just buy everything. But, I practiced some self-control and only bought a few things. I got to use some of my bartering skills! We met up with another missionary that Sarah is friends with for lunch. The lunch was great and I even got to have Mango Sorbet for dessert - yum! On the way home we stopped at Ruthie's house, a girl who grew up at GSF and still comes back to visit. She currently lives in a tiny apartment outside of Jinja with four other girls. Ruthie is just the sweetest, happiest, and cheerful young girl, so it was really special that we got to visit her! From there we road bodas (botas?) back to GSF. Bodas are little motorcycle taxis. But they're not like American motorcycles... try picturing a mix between a motorcycle and a dirt bike. Although they're not very big, we went true Ugandan style and had three people on each bike (2 of us + the driver). Actually, sometimes I see the Ugandans put four on a bike, but I do not know how they fit!! The bodas were quite fun, except that we all had a thick layer of brown dust over us by the time we got to GSF. We all looked like examples of "Spray tan gone bad" or something.

Sunday evening for dinner I ate at one of the houses here at GSF (the way the orphanage works here is that they have the children divided into homes so each home is like a family unit). So, it was like the ugandan house mom and all her "kids" - i think there were 8 of them. It was one of the boy houses, so it was pretty loud. Sarah, Suzanna, and Lianna also ate there, and it was very interesting because we got to see how the family does devotions before dinner (lots of singing and then testimonies of good things God has done for them). When it was time for dinner they had us visitors serve them. Like, they gave us each a spoon and had us dish out everybody's food...so weird!! I asked sarah afterwards what the deal was and i guess that's how they make guests feel as though they are part of the family. I guess that sort of makes sense! Interesting cultural education..

I had a traumatizing event with a critter here the other day. I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth before bed when I took a step towards the sink and slipped. I looked down to see what I had slipped on when I realized that I had crushed a gecko! It was soo disgusting; I stepped right on its head. Bleeckkk it was so nasty, I screamed and ran to the room! I went back the next morning and it was still there and covered with a gazillion little ants. I couldnt even stand to look at it, so I gave Lianna some shillings to clean it up for me. I really don't mind geckos and lizards, but the ones here are really ugly - they're pale and big, probably about 5 inches long.

That said, the bugs here have really started to gross me out. They're super intrusive. They're always EVERYWHERE. In my food, on my clothes, in my bed. It's as though there's absolutely no clean place. I even find bugs sitting on my bar of soap! The kitchen is just full of bugs, they crawl all through the ingredients. When I pull a clean plate off of the shelf, it always has ants on it. Before I dry off with my towel after the shower, I have to check it for bugs. Before I went to sleep last night I had to flick a dead bug off of my pillow. Last night Lianna and I were making dinner in the kitchen and we made the mistake of leaving the door to our room open (our door leads to the outdoors). By the time we had eaten it was dark outside. So, because the bedroom door was open and the light was on in our room, TONS of bugs were attracted to our bedroom! I walked in and there were bugs just swarming the lights! They were ALL over, probably like a thousand of them. So, we turned the light in our room off, turned the porch light on, and prayed that they would all fly back outside. It worked for a couple bugs, but most of them just enjoyed lounging on our mosquito nets. So, Lianna went in with the broom and cleaned up well. She did a great job, but there are still quite a few stranded wings in here (there's a kind of termite/bug here that flies and then loses its wings. It's really weird). G-R-O-S-S. Oh! Another gross story.. I was eating a mango the other day, and as I pealed it further I realized that the opposite half of it was completely brown, rotten, and full of WORMS! Lots and lots of worms. Bleegghhk. 

The days here are all pretty different. I have no strict schedule so it's kind of just about getting stuff done on my own time. I usually wake up around 7:30, shower, eat breakfast, help at the baby house/work on sponsorship stuff, eat lunch at 1:00, work with the sponsorship stuff/work with some of the special needs kids, play with the kids when they're out of school, make dinner, eat dinner around 7, relax/read/email, go to bed. Tuesday mornings there is devotions with all of the house moms that I go to, and it's really awesome. I love hearing them sing!! Wednesday night is "missionary devotions" which is when all of the people who are missionaries meet. Thursday evenings is youth group with the teens. Friday night is movie night with the teens. Sunday afternoon is movie time with all of the other kids. Also, every day I am to spend time with 3 special needs children, Tom, Moses, and Mark. I actually haven't started working with Tom and Moses yet, but I started working with Mark yesterday. Mark is thought to have ADHD, Moses is down syndrome, and Tom is severely autistic. I think I'll be working with all three of them from now on. 

Last night me and Lianna made spaghetti and brownies. It was so delicious and wonderful. We've decided that being in Uganda is like taking woman lessons; we cook, hand wash our clothes, put them on the clothes line to dry, iron, care for children, and clean. Actually, we have a Ugandan woman, Justine, who helps us with a lot of it. She's like super woman - she does everything! She even made fresh passion fruit juice for me the other day and it was so glorious. Oh the luxuries of living in Africa!! Haha. 

Things to pray for:

1. Continue praying for health/safety. There was one day that I had an upset stomach (the day after we ate dinner at one of the houses with the kids...haha), but besides that I've felt great! So praise God for protection thus far, but please keep praying!

2. Please pray that the bugs will leave me alone! I know that may sound silly but for real...they're intense. 

3. Pray for the young boy who I got to see at the hospital. Pray that, even if it isnt through GSF, that God would provide for him and the rest of the children.

4. Praise God that my memory of the children's names is increasing greatly! There are still some children who I have difficulty recalling, but for the most part, I know who the children are. 

Thank you for your prayer and support!! 

I've included some pictures so that you have an idea of the scene here! Hopefully they'll load this time!

Joseph, one of the oh so very sweet kiddos in the Baby/Toddler House!

Eddy, a real cutie from the Baby/Toddler House

The kids welcoming the Renzlo (sp?) family - they're visiting for a few weeks! 

Monkey watching!! They were climbing the mango tree that's right off of my back porch. Can you see them?? 3 of them are sitting on the ground eating mangoes.

Solomon wearing his "Ed Hardy" t-shirt. Cracks me up - he has no idea! Haha.

Haha I love this picture. The woman in the pic is Auntie Rose, who is a house mom in an all-boys house. She has all the boys out slashing, which is their version of mowing. They swing an iron blade back and forth (machete-like) to cut the grass. I dont know if they were in trouble or something, but she had them all put to work!

Some kids washing their clothes after school. They come home from school and have to wash their uniform by hand every day! They also have other chores that they have to do before they're allowed to come play.

The kitchen where breakfast/lunch/dinner is made for the houses, as well as breakfast and lunch for all of the school children.

Lake Victoria on the way to Jinja

  

Random pic from Jinja

Mangoes and Monkeys

My time here so far has been pretty sweet and very interesting! Sunday was a treat. I was in the 3-5 year old Sunday school which was exciting. It was my first time interacting with the kids beyond the welcoming they gave us when we first arrived. The kids were great, but there were 13 of them, which made it a little challenging. Also, two of the kids in the class have mental disabilities, so that made it even more challenging. But overall they were so sweet. The church service was good, and of course the worship was exciting. They sang songs in both English and Luganda, and there were no song sheets (the people had the words all memorized), so my participation was quite limited. Haha. It was still a great time though.

One of the highlights of Sunday was that we went tree climbing for mangoes. Actually, because of my skirt I didn't actually climb the trees - I just collected the mangoes as they were tossed down. But it was still pretty fun. It was right around then that I spotted some monkeys in nearby trees. I was so excited! They were black and were swinging from tree to tree! The GSF kids were surprised by my excitement. For them, seeing monkeys is like seeing a squirrel back home - they are so common.

The past two days have been very relaxed. Because Mark is still recovering from malaria, he hasn't had a lot of time to orient us. So, he told us to spend the time observing life at GSF. We watched the kids go to school first thing, and the rest of the day just kind of rolled without ever really leaving a dull moment. A mother from a nearby village brought her son in to the clinic. He is malnourished and has some sort of disability because he had tetanus badly when he was just a couple months old. His head was swollen, his hair was sparse and discolored, and he had a bloated belly. He was like 18 months old and was tiny! It was very sad, but we were able to give the mom bottles and formula. I know they were also going to take him to the doctor to test him for some things, so that's good! Hopefully he will start doing better. Also, the mother is pregnant again..!

Something else that happened was that an uncle of a boy that was recently adopted showed up. The boy had been at GSF for over two years. He had a grandmother who was unable to care for him, but that was the only known family. So, the grandmother gave him permission to be adopted to a family in America, and he was adopted back in February. The grandmother died in the meantime. Well, I guess because the grandmother died, the uncle came to find the boy. He was not happy to find out that he had been adopted! He insisted that GSF should have asked him for permission before "selling" the boy. All the GSF representative could ask was, "where were you for the two years? why did you not offer to care for him?" (GSF is all about getting children back in with their families or into a family, so they would've been more than happy to give the boy to a willing relative. But because there was none, adopting him into a family was the next option, rather than having him grow up at GSF). It was so sad to think that the uncle thought of "adoption" as "selling." Selling children is so common in Uganda that it's not a wonder why he thought that. They explained everything to him and I believe he eventually understood the situation. Sad nonetheless though.

In the past 2 days, ten GSF children have been diagnosed with malaria. Thankfully GSF is able to diagnose and treat the children, but it still seemed like so many sick children! One of the first signs of malaria is a high fever. Many of the kids have fevers over 104 degrees when they come to get checked (and I think one girl's was over 105)!

I spend much of my extra time in the baby/toddler house. The children are just hilarious. Also, two of the Ugandan workers in that house are 20 and 21 years old, so I really enjoy spending time with them. They're a lot of fun and care for the children very well! The girls take all of the babies on a walk every day, so sometimes I join them. The other day while we were on a walk, the boy I was walking with just dropped his pants, squatted, and used the bathroom in the middle of the road. Actually this seems pretty common among many of the children! Sometimes during school I see children run out of the class and go pee in the middle of the grass. No shame!

Tomorrow will have a bit more actual work rather than hanging. I will start working with the kids on sponsership stuff in the morning, and we are hopefully going into town (Jinja) tomorrow afternoon. Pretty exciting! I looked over the material for the sponsor stuff today, and it looks like it's going to be so much fun. I'm really looking forward to it!

Ahh I'm sorry this post is getting lengthy - I am trying to summarize as much as possible! I commend you if you've made it this far, but you can skip the next 2 paragraphs because they are to answer some questions from my mom.

The food here is actually very good!! The kitchen workers make porridge for all of the GSF and school children (that's over 320 kids), and so I stop in and get a bowl for myself. Honestly, it's really good. The taste kind of reminds me of oatmeal. Although today I had peanut butter & jelly, I've been eating rice, beans, poscho, cabbage, fruit, porridge, and g-nut sauce. It's all kind of interesting tasting, but I happen to really like it (maybe it's just because I am so hungry by meal time). They also make ginger tea and it's soo good!! I feel like I eat so much here, and wonder how many people actually gain weight while here. I keep figuring it must be healthy/natural food but I honestly have no clue what's in porridge, poscho, or g-nut sauce. So who even knows.

I have yet to have any tramautizing encounters with the little creatures living with me, so that's good. There really are geckos all over though - when I just went to use the bathroom there were 3 of them in the stall with me. Also, my laptop screen is quite full of bug guts from me writing this blog in the dark bedroom (they're attracted to my lit-up laptop screen when the lights are off).

Ok, I think that is all I will write for tonight. I don't think I'll be able to upload pictures from my camera the whole time I'm here - I still haven't found a cord for it. So that's a bummer. Honestly, I don't think I'd be able upload many anyways - the internet is sooo slow! I tried uploading some from my phone for tonight and it just wasn't cooperating. So, next time!

As far as prayers go, you can praise God that me as well as the two other interns are all staying very healthy!! Thank you for your prayers! But please continue to pray for us! I know this may seem silly, but can you also pray that I can memorize all of the children's names? They all come up and say "what's my name!??" Some of them I definitely know, but it's hard to keep them all straight. Especially when they all have their heads shaved (boys and girls) and are all wearing the same uniform. It's also important to them that I know their name (and important to me!), so pray that that would come easily! You can also pray for all of the children with malaria. Pray that they'll heal quickly!

Thank you for your interest in my missions work! The support is so encouraging to me!!

I made it!!

I am officially in Uganda!! My flight arrived in Entebbe last evening around 10pm. The traveling was long, but partially because of all of the stops (Detriot, Amsterdam, Kigali, and then finally Entebbe). I was able to meet up with Suzanna and Lianna, the two interns, in Amsterdam without any problems. Actually, I found Lianna pretty soon after getting to Amsterdam, and we did not find Suzanna until we were boarded on the flight. We were relieved to see that she had made it on with us! Mark and Amy Gwartney, the directors of Good Shepherds Fold, were waiting for us at the airport. Because GSF is a good three hours from the airport, we stayed in a guest house overnight. I wasn't sure what a guest house would be like, but it was pretty similar to a hotel/hostel. Suzanna, Lianna and I all felt pretty weird last night.. the time change had us pretty out of sorts. But we all managed to get some sleep.

When we went to leave the guest house this morning, Mark was feeling pretty sick. They suspected he had malaria, so we went to a clinic for him to get tested. It turned out that he tested positive for malaria, so they went ahead and put him on treatment. He felt sick for a while until the treatment kicked in, so we ended up staying in Entebbe for some time. It kind of worked out though, because a women and two twins who she adopted from GSF were stayed in Entebbe, so we were able to visit with them. They were supposed to leave on a flight out of Entebbe last night, but it had gotten cancelled. So they were happy to have company while they waited for another flight. We all had lunch together, and then left for GSF around 3.

We stopped to do some grocery shopping and exchange money on our way to GSF. The drive was absolutely beautiful. Since we were driving from Entebbe to Jinja, we got to drive through Kampala, a big forrest, and fields of sugar canel. When we got close to GSF we stopped at a fruit/veggie market. It was pretty crazy.. Mark just pulled over and then all of the sudden people started flocking his car trying to sell him their fruit and vegetables. They were putting their food right into the window for him to buy. Haha. He picked what he needed, paid, and we drove away. It was like a drive thru market!

We eventually arrived at GSF. It was so sweet.. Mark and Amy said "there might be a few people at the gate to see you." When we got to the gate, the whole area was full of everyone from GSF! They had brought speakers out and were blasting music, the girls were all dancing and the rest of the kids and workers were greeting us and yelling for us. Haha the three of us were all so shocked and felt so honored! We continued the "celebration" for a good 20 min before the kids walked us to one of the missionaries houses to have dinner. I have video of the dancing, but my I'm having trouble getting my camera pictures to my laptop. Maybe I'll be able to figure it out tomorrow.

For the rest of the evening we chatted with some of the missionary ladies. Around 10pm they walked us down to our guest house where we will be staying. Side note: The fruit here is soo delicious.

It's very exciting to be here. GSF is at a beautiful location and on a huge plot of land - it's so nice. Everything definitely feels unfamiliar though. It's weird not knowing what any of the buildings are, where to go, and what things will actually be here like. It's also hard trying to remember everybody's names. It almost feels like first semester of my freshman year at LeTourneau again. Haha. A bit overwhelming, but I know the other two girls and I will settle in quickly once things become a bit more familiar.

Like I said, I couldn't get my pictures to transfer to my laptop. So, I took this pic with my phone a few min ago. It's of my bed for the next 2 months. Check out the mosquito net! Looks pretty solid, right? Hopefully it will keep out more than just mosquitos - there are geckos and bugs all over the bedroom! I tucked my sheets in tight and have all my suitcases zippered up completely...eek! I hope they keep their distance.


















Praise: Thank God for safe travels! Also, Suzanna and Lianna are such sweet girls and I think we'll get along great during out stay!

Request: Seems like missionaries getting sick is quite common here (such as Mark getting Malaria today). Suzanna, Lianna, and I are all REALLY praying to stay clear of any serious sickness while we're here! Please pray with us!