Even after almost 3 months, it still amazes me how fast each week passes. Every time I sit down with the daunting task of updating my blog and remembering everything I've been doing, I'm reminded again of how fast my time here is going.
Last Sunday was such a perfect Sunday. A small group of us went to Aunt Linda's hometown (you'll hear more about her later). Her father is the preacher in a 10 x 15 foot garage church. They've been fellowshipping together for 20 years, and it was great to see that part of her life. His sermon was a bit scrambled and long - typical for most African services. Afterwards, her whole family had prepared us a local feast! We sat in her yard with her family and listened to music while our friend Tek from South Korea tried to teach some of the kids to break dance.
As I said last week, we have a group of 15 college students out here for the month. It is wonderful having new people here, but growing the group by 13 girls and 2 guys is bound to be a bit overwhelming. We are faced with yet another different group dynamic and my focus has had to shift to be a bit more of a group leader - teaching about our projects, organizing tasks for them to work on, and helping them get around town. They have been an enormous help at the slumbase. We successfully completed the transformation of 2 of the rooms, complete with beautiful wall murals. This week, we are going to move all the sewing machines and work materials into the improved rooms to give the ladies a better workspace. Plots and planters for mango and avocado trees and flowers are made and will soon be ready for planting, just in time for Uganda's rainy season. The slumbase is feeling safer and more inviting each day I spend there. It is truly such a peaceful place and we are slowly building trust and relationships with the community.
Solomon is the Ugandan leader at the slumbase - a tall, lanky but strapping man of few words. He is so encouraged by all the work we've accomplished and appreciative of all the time we've given. It is such a gift working alongside such an incredible leader.
One thing that us leaders have talked a lot about and that has been on my mind watching this new group is how important and CRUCIAL relationships are. People don't come back to Africa because they enjoyed the work they did. It's 'cool' to say you painted some walls and helped build a medical clinic in Africa, but people come back here because of the relationships and connections they make in between the painting and digging and cleaning. This is so important - I know how easy it is to get lost in the day-to-day chaos and enormous to-do lists of tasks and summer goals. But I mean it when I say that NONE of it compares to taking an entire afternoon to sit and listen to a woman who needs a friend, or telling a man about what you're doing in Uganda while helping him carry water to his house.
Come Let's Dance has done an above-and-beyond, tremendous job at building relationships in this community, which makes it possible for people to come for weeks or months at a time and accomplish what they do. Each day I go out now, it's almost a guarantee I will run into someone I know around town. I can't even say that about the small area I live in Denver. It's a neat feeling to get on the taxi or walk through the market and hear your name called or feel a tug from a kid you know.
That being said, my heart has been pretty heavy this last month - and it all started with Paul...
Paul came into my life almost a year ago. Last year, during our slum research day in the Katanga Slums, we tried to interview a woman named Rose. She invited us into her home to have a seat. After some Lugandan slurring and confusion, we left because she began crying and was too drunk to answer any questions. As we left her house, I noticed a crowd of young kids playing nearby, jumping over and through rivers of sewage. There was a young boy playing with what looked like a piece of a black hose. He was memorable for a few reasons: his entire face and body was covered in small bumps, and even more memorable was his able-to-make-your-heart-melt smile. I found out later that he was one of Rose’s 4 children. One year later, I’m back in Uganda and Paul is now a part of my every day, and will be a part of the rest of my life.
Paul comes from a family of 5, 3 siblings and an alcoholic, abusive mom. He and his brother are HIV+ and have been begging and sleeping on the streets since they were babies. Paul is about 6 or 7 and Damien is about 13 years old. Without going into too much detail, about a month ago, we took in the 2 boys along with 2 other sets of siblings from Katanga into an apartment near our school. We are sponsoring the 6 kids and putting them through school. 5 of the 6 of them have never been in any kind of school, so even the older ones started at much lower levels than they should be based on their age. My friend Cody has been in charge of this project so I have been helping him with the process and with whatever he needs. Aunt Linda is a 22 year old woman who had been volunteering in the kitchen at the school. She immediately volunteered to be the house mom of the 6 kids. She is such an amazing young woman – she’s given up her old life and time with her family to become an “aunt” to these children.
These kids are now a major part of each week. Most Sundays are spent taking them to church, lunch, and then babysitting them the rest of the day to give Linda a break. I spent an entire day with the boys at the Mildmay Clinic, an AIDS hospital and support center. We got them registered and they had thorough blood work done, and we picked up a month of ARV injections. Two weeks ago, we got to their apartment to take them to church, and Paul had a fever of at least 104 degrees and a really bad respiratory infection. I lay in bed with him and held a cold wash cloth to his neck and head while scratching his back. We decided not to take him to the clinic since he had improved from the night before. He was in so much pain and could barely hold his head up; but every time he looked up at me, that smile would slowly creep through the sweat dripping down his face.
So now, Damien, Paul, Vanessa, Hadija, Julius, and Karim are out of their unstable homes. They have 3 meals a day, clean clothes, education, and a safe home with someone to tuck them in at night and a whole new community of people to love them. We are in the process of setting up counseling for all the moms and figuring out a plan for regular visitation. The most important is their safety, and after that, is creating a stable “home” life so they are able to move back one day.
My other focus the last few weeks has been on a young man named Simon. Felix and I met him last year, and he has become one of my good friends this summer. Come Let’s Dance, Global Institute, and others have collectively been trying to get him to America to complete his senior year. After 3 quick and rude visa rejections from the U.S. Embassy, we are making one last attempt to get him to Colorado to start school on his full-ride scholarship to Denver Academy on August 15th. I won’t go into too much detail, mostly because I know most people who aren’t involved won’t care, but also because this issue has sucked so much energy out of me and has been the source of a lot of negativity. The little faith I had in how government agencies are run, is completely gone. And I am convinced that the people employed in the Kampala Embassy have NO CLUE what is going on. I’ll stop there, because if I don’t, I’ll end up pissed off for the rest of the night..again. We’re still in the process of getting an interview and I’m definitely not giving up. We're just going to significantly change our approach.
Yesterday, Paul got really sick, and Aunt Linda took him to Mildmay. It ended up being pneumonia, so he will stay at the clinic for the next week. Since we don’t have a back-up plan yet for the other kids in these cases, I went home with them after school. We did laundry and got dinner ready, and I was completely expecting to stay the night there. Linda ended up getting sick herself so she came home late, and Cody slept on the floor of the clinic next to Paul.
Those are a few of the things from the last few weeks. There’s no way to cover everything but I try to choose what I’ve been most invested in.
The 3 month mark is coming up soon. And I’m aware that in America-time, 3 months is nothing! But in Africa time, trust me when I say I’ve been through what feels like years. People say that 3 months out here is really when people start hitting walls and burning out. I can’t say I feel burnt out yet, but I understand what they mean now. During this time, it’s really easy to rely on your comforts: start talking to home more, counting down the days and planning for when you leave, not challenging yourself everyday.. but now more than ever is the time to continue taking yourself out of your comfort zone. Extra R & R is important for sure, and I think the hardest thing is finding the balance between pouring yourself out and loving hard every day with taking care of your own needs.
Life, as always, is wonderful in Uganda. Although frustrating, I am thankful for these challenges and know I’ll end up having learned more from the trials and tears than any other time. Love you all!
Every Saturday, we do a medical outreach at different locations in Kampala. The last one we did was in a small village called Nkowe about 5 km off the road from our school. I’ve already told you the stations we have, and we see anywhere from 100-300 people each Saturday. Following the outreach, Gladys (school nurse) does a Health Awareness Day at the school medical clinic. She covers different topics each Saturday, i.e. nutrition, boiling water, HIV, malaria. A lot of the people who come have never been to a clinic or hospital and don’t know much about keeping themselves and their families healthy. Last weekend she talked about family planning. She tried to stress that in the long run, having more children is more expensive than spending 5,000 shillings/month ($2) on birth control. One woman told Gladys that she heard that the intense back pains she gets are from not having enough sex. Gladys had to explain to her that the back pains weren’t from lack of sex, but probably caused by the 30kg geri-cans of water they carry on their heads, or being bent over cleaning the house and cooking. 
