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Saturday, 20 June 2009
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Uganda Project 2009 JOURNAL
June 3rd/4th
7:00am woke up. Finished packing. Left around 9am. Got to airport at 9:50am. Left my iPod and cellular at home! Going through withdrawals. Left Utah 1pm. Got to Chicago around 4. 5 Chicago time. Left to London. Didn’t sleep the whole 8 hours. Made bracelets. Watched movies. Felt phantom phone vibrations. Wished I could sleep. Time went really… really… slow… finally got to London! GOT LOST at the airport. Laughed. Mostly in exhaustion. Nevertheless laughed. Ran around the airport like 2 hours. Got on the wrong shuttle. Went back. Got on the right shuttle. GOT OUTSIDE!! Toured London a few hours. Took tons of photos. Gift shop. Starbucks bathroom. Big Ben and Snax! SOOO exhausted on the way back on the tube. Everyone’s asleep. Hit my head. That woke me up. Now sitting in terminal 14 waiting for the plane.
June 5th
Took an ambient before the flight to Kenya. Pretty much passed out. 8 hour flight that I don’t remember. Perfect. Apparently Chanel and Kathy poked my face and took pictures. Whatever. Next flight to Entebbe will be 2ish hours. It is so humid here. I am still so tired and sick of granola. I miss Cody really bad.
Got on the plane to Kenya. Slept the whole time. Trying to catch up on sleep. Doing pretty well… on an airplane at least… Got to Kenya and got our visa’s after waiting for lost luggage that wasn’t really lost. Good thing. Met Trevor. Great, great man. Loaded all of our luggage and got on our way. Took lots of pictures. Couldn’t BELIEVE what I was seeing. I don’t think anyone else did either. One truck for our donation bags and luggage. One bus for us! ROADS ARE INSANE!!! They drive on the left side of the road. And that is the only law. It is a freaking free for all on Ugandan roads. Literally. When we got to the hotel we unloaded our things. Now wide awake from the view we saw on the way to the hotel. Rather, hostel. Jackie came in and asked if we wanted to rest the night out or go visit an orphan home. PUHleaes. How many times are you in Africa? Of course we went. When we arrived, we didn’t know what to expect. We got out of the bus to find hundreds of African children in yellow and green uniforms, smiling and showering us with hugs and “ELLO”s and “HOW AH YOU?”s. We hugged them and loved them. And took pictures. And showed them. They LOVED seeing themselves in the cameras. And I loved seeing them smile so widely. We all loved it. And we loved them.
Their headmaster told them to go into one of the larger school rooms and we got a tour of the school. A little boy, Alex his name was as I later learned, just came and grabbed my hand. He walked around the school with me in his red t-shirt he wore because his mother could not afford to buy him a uniform. There were a few children who wore other clothes because their parent couldn’t afford it. After the tour we were led into the room with all the school children and we sat in the first two rows of desks. Alex sat next to me. The school choir put on a performance for us. It was so beautiful. They were such wonderful singers. There was a little boy in the front with the cutest smile. He was so happy we were there to hear his voice. After one of the songs each child in the choir came and grabbed each of us and led us up to the stage to dance with them. It was so wonderful and happy. A little bit awkward but they loved it so we didn’t care.
After their performance we got up and sang “I am a Child of God.” A few of us cried. Many of us teared up. And everything was good and happy in the room. Then we presented the school with a donation check and three soccer balls which the kids went crazy over. We took them out to play. The boys went crazy with the soccer balls so Haley, Jenny and I took some of the girls to a patch of grass where we played duck, duck, goose and London Bridge. They loved it. They found joy in the smallest things. It was wonderful.
June 6th
Morning. Woke up, ate and got on the bus. Crazy roads kept us awake. Speeding down hills. Speed bumps. Yeah. You sure fly with those. We visited a baby’s home where they take care of abandoned or orphaned babies. Some of them had been found in dumpsters or left on the sides of roads or doorsteps. Many looked extremely malnourished. Some had warts all over their faces. Others had hernias protruding out of their stomachs. We walked in and they were giving the babies immunization shots. A few of the certified nurse team members went to help with that. The rest of us just went into the home and picked up a crying child. The boy I picked up was named Daniel. He was so adorable and so quite. I carried him around and he was quite and smiley. He did not cry once while I was there. He was so cute and would play with whatever was hanging off me, whether it was a bracelet or camera bag.
They did not want us taking pictures in there but luckily Nick, one of our camera crew guys, was able to snap a few. The worst part was when we had to put down the babies when we were leaving. The lady’s that worked there told a few of us to put the kids we were holding on the porch they had. Immediately the babies started bawling. It was the saddest thing I have ever seen. I started crying. I wanted to bad to stay and care for them. And it was like they knew. They knew we were leaving them and they didn’t want us to go. And we didn’t want to go either. I held one of the babies faces as he cried. He stood up and held my hands. And didn’t let go. This just made me cry more. And we stared at each other. And we cried. And we were connected.
After we left the baby’s home, most of us in tears, we went to a home for handicapped children. Most of these children had been abandoned because of their handicap because it was looked down on by society. When we got there they were having their Saturday afternoon basketball tournament. All the different handicapped kids would play each other. It was amazing to watch. We went around to all the teams sitting on the sidelines and talked with them. Some were deaf. The girls on our team that knew sign language got to talk to them. That was really cool and the deaf children loved it.
I went around to a few different groups of kids. Some kids were in wheel chairs. I noticed a boy with no arms or legs. His face was a little deformed but through the deformation you could see his beautiful shining smile. At first I was afraid to take pictures of him and show them to him. It’s what we had been doing with the other kids. They loved seeing themselves in the cameras but I had not seen a child with this many deformities. The ironic part is, later I was across the court sitting, talking to some of the girls, taking pictures of the basketball players and he had wheeled himself over to the other side of the court to sit by me. He sat in his wheelchair next to me and I asked Jordan to take a picture of us. He threw himself out of his wheelchair and hugged me around my neck and so far it is my favorite picture.
After watching basketball and eating lunch, we went behind the school to the soccer field where we scrimmaged some of the disabled kids. Their star player was a girl with no legs, just arms, who would move herself around by throwing her body forward and would hit the ball using her hands as feet. It was so wonderful to watch and so hard to defend! I think she scored 3 goals on us! It was so incredibly inspiring to watch and our joy was so great that we were able to play soccer with her.
After the game we went to yet another home for disabled children. We didn’t stay there for long because it was their meal time. A cup of juice and a small piece of bread.
We toured the school and went and met all the children. There, we handed out headbands to the girls, with little flower attachments. We had to have all the girls stand up because we could not tell the girls from the boys. Then we gave all the boys the wrists bands that we had made. The girls LOVED the headbands. Even the headmistresses wanted one. We took their pictures and showed them on the cameras. They laughed and we told them how “smart” they looked.
Next we went to the Katanga slum. This place was the most dirty, infested area, I have ever seen. As we drove down a big hill we could see the stretch of dirt/grass/mud that was to be our soccer field where we were going to play a girls soccer team. We drove out there and all the people from the surrounding areas came out to see all the strange white people who’d just arrived on the bus. All the children ran to touch our hands as we exited the bus and headed out to the soccer field. There, we saw the girls soccer team we were to be playing. I think they were about 15 years old. We were later told they had been waiting there since 7 that morning because they were so excited for us to come. It was around 5pm that we actually got there. We trained them for 30 minutes and then played them for 30.
We presented them with Calle t-shirts that had been donated to wear as their jersey and then put all the rest on ourselves. I was shooting the game most of the time for Calle advertisements so I did not get to play till the very end of the game.
It was so incredible though to see what kind of environment these people had to play on in real life. There were hundreds of people watching from all around in their homes and on the lawn. After the game, we gave each of the girls soccer players a wristband that says “every girl should have a goal”.
All of the children around us wanted to get one but if you give one to a child, then the other hundreds of children with bombard you. You have to be very careful and conservative with the things you give away in Africa and especially slums like that. When we were leaving all the children ran alongside our bus and waved us out. I love the children there and I love the joy I see in their eyes just from the simple excitement of seeing a white female soccer team play futbol in their town. I wanted to take them all home with me!
When we got back to the hotel, we started putting together donation packets to give to the refugee camps in Gulu. We put in a secondary school exercise booklet, pens, toothbrush/toothpaste and soap. This took forever to do but finally we got it all in bags and put away.
June 7th
Today we woke up, packed up and went to church. We packed a two day bag because we’re staying in Jinja which is by the sources of the Nile. We went to the Kololo branch. I cried during sacrament testimony meeting. The spirit was so incredibly strong. There was such a burning in my heart. I wanted to bare my testimony but I felt like I had nothing I could share with these people. I felt like they knew the gospel just as well and knew how to feel the spirit. They recognized God’s hand in everything. I hope I can become more like that.
After sacrament, we went to Sunday school. I was so surprised by how well the teacher and student’s English was! We had a discussion about the Holy Ghost and what it does for us and how we can learn to recognize it. Then in young women’s we talked about repentance. I thought it was really interesting they did their lessons directly out of the handbook. It makes sense because they don’t have resources we do, like the internet, to get references to other’s talks and things like that.
After church we got on the bus, ate some snacks and went to our hotel. I took more pictures out of the window, as I always do. We drove through a rainforest. It was so beautiful! I couldn’t believe the height and beauty of some of the trees.
Finally we got to the hotel. I am rooming with Hannah and Kimmy. They are so funny to be around. I love them. The Nile River is literally in the back of the hotel. I could actually see it from where I am sitting right now in my hotel’s front room. This hotel is amazing. The pool is great and it is overlooking the Nile which is like AMAZING! We walked down closer to the water and wow…. The sunset was incredible.
June 8th
I just woke up and am getting ready… we’ll have breakfast in about fifteen minutes. I got a rash on my bra line from sweat and humidity… not fun at all… but I LOVE the pineapple here so it makes up for it. Hah yeah.
Wow! Today we did so much! We visited 3 different schools and played soccer at each one! The first school we went to was a primary school. Before we went to the school we went and got briefed by a lady at Soft Power Education which is basically just a humanitarian aid program. She told us about their program and about the school we were going to. Then we followed her to the school. There were hundreds and hundreds of children. I think about 700 or probably more.
We got to sit in on the classrooms. I sat in on the P2 class. In the 20 minutes I was in there they learned 4 words in English: animals, insects, birds, and plants. It was so cute to hear the children repeat the words over and over and spell them out. I did it with them but when we said the Ugandan words first and all the kids laughed when I couldn’t say them. It was okay and funny. I thought they said “bugs” when they meant “birds” because of their strong Ugandan accents. It was really fun and interesting though.
After class we all went outside and broke into about 50 kids per 4 girls. We played a ton of games and had a blast. Then we played a scrimmage against the girls at the school. It was so bad haha. None of them really knew how to play. But it was fun and all the boys watched from the sidelines. A lot of the older boys climbed the trees next to us hah! They watched and cheered and laughed. It was a good time for sure. After the game we gathered the children under this huge tree. Of course we didn’t all fit but we tried haha...
We then sang a song for them. The Mango Song. Haha. Pretty funny I’d have to say. Silly. Anyway, after we presented them with a donation and some soccer balls, we left we went to another school. It was an all-girls boarding school. We played soccer with the girls there. They were pretty terrible too haha… but it was okay and we had fun. Afterward we all huddled around in a group and sang songs and danced and joked around. It was awesome cause they are our age so we got to get a taste of what life is like in Uganda for girls our age. We gave them jersey’s and bracelets and a ball.
We left that school and went down by the market to shop and eat lunch. It reminded me a lot of Mexico with all the shops with pretty much the same stuff. Except African stuff of course. It was really neat looking around. I bought 7 bracelets for all my guy friends and some earrings for Beth. I am still thinking about what to get Cody for his birthday cause it’s a few days after I get back… I got him a bracelet but I don’t know what else to get him. I miss him SO MUCH!!! I emailed him but I don’t think he’s checked yet… boo…
When we were done eating we went to the third school. It was an all-girls boarding school as well. Way high up in the hills. When we got there we had to wait a while for some reason and there were four kids just kinda standing off a ways and Hannah and I went over to them and started passing the soccer ball around and taking pictures. They were so cute. I finally got the little one to smile after showing her a picture of herself. She was so cute.
We toured the school and got on the field where we played against the school’s team. They were better than other teams we had played but there still was no comparison skill wise. We scored 2 goals and then pretty much we stopped trying without making it seem like we were going extremely easy on them hah. It was really fun though. There were hundreds of girls lined up on the sideline behind this fence and they cheered so loud for anything anyone would do, from kicking the ball really high up in the air to heading it. The funny part was, Sarah did a really sweet move but it was subtle and sly and no one made a sound hah. I cheered though. I thought it was pretty freaking sick. After the game we gave the school girls jerseys, socks and a ball.
The field was terrible by the way. It was pretty much just all weeds. No grass. I guess I don’t expect them to have grass hah but there were ant hills EVERYWHERE and huge rocks and just NOT GOOD terrain. The view was INCREDIBLE though… wow… anyone would kill for a home on that hill because it was so amazing. Like a bit if heaven. Then we circled up and danced in a HUGE circle for a little bit but it was short cause I guess it was their mealtime and they still had studies they needed to get to. I think it was a nice treat for them that we came and played a game. A little bit of entertainment and fun for the time being.
Then we went and saw the “source of the Nile” hah. I guess Uganda and Egypt have been fighting about the true source of the Nile for a really long time. Really though… who cares. All I know is that the view is beautiful and the water was just amazing and lovely. We went to a little island. I don’t know why haha?
Then went back. I got some pretty neat pictures I think… I really liked it though. I felt gross by the end of the day. I wouldn’t pee all day cause I really did NOT want to pee in a hole in the ground. I waited till we got back to the hotel and I had my little porcelain throne.
Oh, and before I washed off my legs from the red dirt, I swear I was two different ethnicities.
For shiz.
June 9th
5:30 am. Wake up call. 6:20. Breakfast. 7:00 am. Leave the resort. Drive. And drive more. And drive on the worst roads. And feel like you are going to tip over any second. And get butterflies anytime we pass someone going 90 and oncoming traffic is not far at all. Get to an orphanage way up in the boonies in BuBuGo, ‘Rose and Paul’s Orphan Home.’ Get off the bus to a ton of singing children. They are all in RAGS. So dirty. Ages ranging from 3 months to about 15 years.
They sing this song that repeats over and over. Change verses. Then sing that verse over and over haha. It was so cute. Afterward we got introduced to the school and somewhat toured it. There were 26 kids who stayed at that school. We talked with them and started playing games. Then the nail polish got pulled out.
ALL the kids, girls and boys, got their nails painted. They thought it was the most brilliant thing ever. Florescent pink, yellow, green and purple. A few of the girls started drawing pictures with some of the kids. Then a bunch of us went out to the garden to uproot beans.
I met these girls named Ruth and Zemn. Zemn showed me around the entire school. she was such a sweet girl and had no sense of personal space. It was so cute haha.
She would always want to be touching me in some way. I held her hand and put my arm around her. She was super silly. Her favorite animal is a cow and she likes to eat beans and chipati. She laughed when I asked her favorite color. I don’t think she understood. Her English was very good, though.
My mom had been hanging out with Ruth I guess. My mom is so funny. She wants to adopt them. I told her there is no way in this world possible but that would be incredible… even though I’d be moved out. I dunno. I would love for them to come live in the US for a year or so. Zemn was appalled when she heard I have tap water and a shower and that I don’t have to go and fetch my own water. She showed me what coffee beans are and showed me banana trees and all sorts of things.
I really did not want to leave her. I wanted to take her with me. She was so sweet and I knew her spirit was good. We gave the school a hefty donation and bought a bunch of their paper necklaces that they made to raise money. We bought 20!
The next orphan home we went to was even further out of town. It was really nice though. It had 46 kids and none of them had to share a bed which is amazing hah! They had a couple stables for pigs, chickens and cows. They grew a ton of crops. The only thing super far away was the water they had to fetch was down a really steep hill. We took turns getting water to “get the experience.” And it was HARD. it doesn't seem like a big deal but the huge yellow jugs are heavy when they are filled with water. the kids made it look so easy!
They put on a dance performance for us. It was cute. Maybe a little too formal but the people running the orphan home really knew what they were doing it looked like. They really cared about the kids and radiated the purpose of our mission, to set goals and achieve them. Then they made us LUNCH. Oh my…. K I am not good with things like that. They made us beans and chipati, which are like tortillas except thicker so remotely like peta bread. But k, they were like sooo oily and greasy. Hah I thought I was going to pass out but some girls on the team were like, really Suds… you have to… and yeah I knew i had to but didn’t want to but I ate half the tortilla. The beans freaked me out. I didn’t touch those. It was so nice of the school to make us lunch though… we were late getting out cause we had a soccer game scheduled. I felt bad cause we ate and left… “ate” and “ran”.
… anyway. We drove through some more beautiful terrain and finally got to the soccer field. When we got there, there were hundreds of people in the stands. Some help international kids were there too. WHOO! WHITE PEOPLE! WOZUMBOO! Yeah. It was a good time. At first we didn’t really know what to expect. We came out hard and by half the score was still 0-0. They weren’t really threatening us but they kept up with us. We came out and scored 2 goals second half. Then Jackie told us not to score. They scored once and we just possessed the rest of the time for a final schore of 2-1. Then of course we have them the goals for girls bracelets. We had planned to give them jersey’s but they already have fairy nice ones so we kept those for The Kids League for future use.
then we went back to red chili hotel. I have never had to pee so bad. I have been so determined NOT to pee in a while this whole trip but I’m pretty sure I will have to eventually at Laroo. Even though I HAVE been praying that they will have toilets…. That would be so great hah…June 10th
Today wasn’t such a hot day for me.
5:30. Woke up. 6:15. Left Red Chili. Drove. For hours. Had juice and an apple for breakfast on the bus. Felt like I was going to puke. Slept on the bus. Woke up and felt like I was going to puke. The bus ride was soooooooo terrible because it was extremely bumpy. We were being thrown all over the place. Still not feeling well. Trying so hard to sleep and not scratch the terrible heat rash I had acquired on my bra line and underwear line.
Fantastic. I sleep most of the bus ride. I feel disgusting by this point. I miss quite a few photo opportunities. And its killing me but so is my body so I stay down. I am so exhausted. I got a Pepto-Bismol. I don’t have to puke anymore. Still so exhausted. Go though a park where we’re supposed to see animals. See some baboons. Some excited baboons.
Then our bus broke down and we had to walk the rest of the way to the ferry that was to take us to the falls and across the river Nile. We got on. I went up top. I really did not want to be there but I wanted some good pictures. I took some good ones of some elephants and crocodiles and hippos.
I am nodding off the sleep right now.. ah…
basically we toured the river Nile and went on a boat safari. Saw animals. Took pictures.. we got to our new hotel, Paralodge. Its nice. We swam then ate dinner, then had a team meeting and now I am in bed more tired than I have been in a long time… i just took an ambien to help me sleep. hm... this could turn into a realy funny journal entry but I’m just going to leave it at that. Tata.June 11th
Today was safari day. We woke up super early. had a cup of MANGO juice. It was delicious. Then we got on the bus and went out on the game drive. We saw the sun rise and it was so cool and nice out and for once I did not feel the heat of my sticky shirt against my side.
I don’t know if I have written this but I have acquired a pretty nasty heat rash on my underwear and bra lines. It is so terrible and itches like mad. Luckily Andrea, our team nurse, has stuff that makes it feel a ton better. Okay so I just reread my previous entry and haha.. I was super tired when I wrote it and don’t remember anything I wrote. Anyway… We saw monkeys, baboons, elephants, giraffes, foxes, SO MANY GIRAFFES, more elephants, and then a ton more giraffes and other random animals that have strange names.
Apparently zebras and rhino’s are extinct from this part of Africa. that’s why I haven’t, and probably won’t, end up buying anything that has those animals on it. It would feel like a lie haha… after the safari that was AMAZING, we saw the road where the night computers would travel to Gulu and judged the distance on the bus. It was over 10 miles. We saw many refugee camps and ruins of the once war torn area. It was sad really, to reflect on what had happened there the past 20 years. Insane. Driving back and were handed out our “lunch boxes” which were just gigantic boxes of random foods prepared for us. Of course I had the only vegetarian one but everything in it was repulsive. I mean who wants to eat a tomato and mayonnaise sandwich, what LOOKED like Arby’s fries, a piece of pineapple and a ton of other random foods. I ate the slice of pineapple. Luckily we were gathering a box of food of whatever people didn’t want in their boxes so I just passed the rest of my box up. We ended up having a full box of food. We talked about giving it away to someone. I think Suzy was referring to a small family of 5 or something. We were all kind of surprised when our bus driver pulled over at a school where probably 100 kids were playing outside and he called over a few kids, gave them the box and sped away while the other 95 kids attacked to get a sandwich or orange. It was MAD business watching them out the back window. I’m pretty sure we all were sitting there with our jaw’s hanging off our heads as we watched them grab and claw at each other. This place is NOT like America at all. Here, you take NOTHING for granted and you miss NO opportunity. It’s sad really… at dinner we had our Ugandan bus driver eat with us. His plate was stacked high from the buffet. Ours were small and dainty little plates. It was crazy.
Before dinner, we’d gone to the market to go shopping just for a while. The roads are SCARY to walk on. Here, pedestrians come LAST. If you are in the way, they have no mercy, so you have to be extremely careful, especially with the motor bikes, cause they are just all over the place. We went into the market and found a shop where they make dresses. I think most, if not all of us are having a dress made. I am going back tomorrow morning to get my order in because we had to leave tonight cause it started getting dark and the black market at night with 18 white young girls is NOT where you want to be. It’s very dangerous, especially for tourist. You could get lost so easy in there. You would DIE trying to find your way out. When we got back we planned our assembly for LaRoo. Apparently I have soul haha so I am singing a solo for the song “Lean On Me.” I didn’t really know the song before but the girls taught it to me. No one knew I could sing haha. It was silly but yeah. Hopefully all goes well at LaRoo tomorrow. I am looking forward to it, besides the no showers or toilets for 3 days. Blah… I’m just going to have to suck it up and pee in a hole…June 12th
Today we went to the market early in the morning and ordered our dresses. I am really nervous about how it is going to turn out because the lady seemed pretty unorganized about the whole thing, plus she had a bazillion other orders that she had to do and she had only a couple days to finish them all. Then we drove to LaRoo.
They had a dance presentation for us that was AMAZING and an acapella choir sang and they were so good. They did all traditional dances and songs. I loved it. Our seminar was next. We taught them about the importance of goal setting and making your goals “smart”. Specific, Measureable, Action [plan], Realistic, Timely.
My part was to explain what timely meant and give an example of it and then I picked someone from the audience to share one of their goals and I made it into a smart goal by going through the steps and helping them with it. Then we sang our song. I sang my solo. Didn’t forget any words haha. Good thing… then we gave the entire school Goals for Girls t-shirts. The purple ones I designed. One little girl, about 5 or 6 years old, didn’t get one because we ran out of smalls. I went and changed into a different shirt and gave her mine. Her name is Sharon. She is so cute!
After the assemble we presented the student body with a commitment banner for them all to sign.
then we held a soccer clinic but I was feeling extremely sick and light headed and just nauseous. I went back into the dormitory and slept through almost the whole thing. I went back towards the end of the clinic because I needed to take pictures of the different teams receiving jerseys that we had gotten donated. They loved the jerseys.
After the clinic, everyone was dying of heat and of course, they didn’t have cold drinks at the boarding school so we got on the bus and drove to a café to hangout for an hour and get some sodas and take a break for once. I called Cody. And I started bawling cause it was the first time I had talked to him in ten days. I miss him so bad… I went back into the café and my eyes were all red from crying and a couple of the girls came and gave me hugs and I felt stupid but girls who have boyfriends all were like, yeah don’t worry. We all started crying haha. Jenny was really nice and talked to me for a while. Then we went back to the boarding school to eat dinner with the girls.
I don’t think I ate anything that day except a granola bar or two. Ugandan food makes me SICK. I sat and talked with a few of the girls while they ate and learned a little about Africa. how the eat goats. And how they think their mountains are tall. Haha she was convinced no mountain could be taller than their hills. I assured her ours are. She was astounded that we didn’t eat goats.
then we split the girls up into groups of about 15 and had 3 or 4 of our soccer girls leading the group discussions. We had given them booklets of blank pages to write their goals in and what we did was help them make their goals into smart goals.
I was surprised at how many girls wanted to become nurses. Most of the jobs had to do with helping people. it was wonderful to be able to teach these girls something about goal setting and self worth, it was possibly a little ironic because of their situation, but I hope it was helpful. Then we gave them some quotes and a photo of us (the group leaders: Kathy, Hannah and Moe where with me) and a bracelet with 4 colors, each representing one of us. They loved the bracelets… and then we gave them pop rocks.
THAT was so funny….. they loved them and would freak out when the put too many in their mouths. They loved it. I think it was a great night. We ended by having them “teach” me one of their traditional dances, the one they’d done for our group earlier today. It was so fun. I tried and they all laughed at me. Eventually I got the EASY part of the dance but anytime I would try to move my butt the way they do, it would just be a disaster. I am glad that I could make them laugh though… then we said goodnight. Oh and Sharon was in my group! I was so happy!
So during the day while I was napping I noticed a lot of the African girls would just kind of walk through our dorm that we were staying in and I felt really uncomfortable about that because all of our stuff was out. One girl I actually almost yelled at cause she had picked up what I thought was another girl’s wallet and was going through it. It ended up being a photo album but still, they shouldn’t be touching our things. I talked to Jackie about it and she made sure we had locked the door at night once everyone was inside. We left the key in the door just in case girls needed to use the restroom during the night, which was hardly a restroom and at night it would be a roach home, so if girls needed to use the GRASS at night. Peeing outside is better than their “toilets” any day. Hah. So we all went to bed exhausted and dirty from the day. I went to sleep needing to pee but really not wanting to pee in that dreadful smelling hole, but it was still light out and I didn’t want people watching me pee outside so I held it in, hoping I wouldn’t have to pee by morning.
Didn’t happen. I had to pee SO bad 2 hours later. I woke up with the worst pains in my stomach and I just ached and wanted to go so bad but I was scared to go out there by myself at night in the pitch black so I just stayed in bed and was actually kind of waiting for someone to whisper or be like, does anyone want to go to the bathroom with me? Or something…. Nothing happened. And for hours I laid there scared and waiting for anything to happen that would let me know someone was awake that I could ask to go outside with me. I tried shutting my eyes for a while but for some reason I opened my eyes and someone was walking past all the beds. It looked like one of the African girls in the silhouetted light, but I knew it couldn’t be, because the doors were locked. I couple minutes later I got out of bed and walked to my mom’s bed and woke her up. While I was walking I noticed how loud I must of sounded compared to the other girl. She was like a ghost, she was so silent. My mom agreed to go out and use the restroom with me. We came back and I finally could sleep without my stomach killing me, except then I was starving. I managed to shut my eyes for a while but woke up to Kendel screaming at the top of her lungs and hearing the clatter of a ladder falling off one of the bunk beds. Kara ran to get the lights and Kendel was freaking out. Apparently an African girl had climbed through a window and untucked her mosquito net and was standing inside her net, just starring down at her. Once Kendel screamed, the girl jumped onto the ladder and out the window. And it happened so fast, only Kelsey responded fast enough to see the girl leave. we were all creeped out so bad and found out that the same thing had happened to Kara about 20 minutes earlier. So about the same time we went to the bathroom. Which scares me way bad. We shut all the windows and kept the lights on for the rest of the night. Tomorrow and Sunday night we are going to be staying in hotels. I am so glad cause I just can’t handle that kind of thing.June 13th
After getting pretty much no sleep and feeling even more sick to my stomach because all we’ve had to eat is Ugandan food and I really just can’t get any of it to sit right with my stomach, it was tournament day. A few different girls teams came from schools around Gulu and we actually intermixed the teams so each team had a couple players from each team and two kids from our team helped coach and play with them. My team got second place in the tournament. It was sad cause by the end of the final game it was still tied 0-0 so we had a shoot out and I think maybe one of our girls made a goal and our keeper only blocked one hah. So we did pretty bad with that. I didn’t care that we lost, but I felt so bad cause all the girls on my team started crying… it was weird because it was not a big deal to us at all but this meant so much to them that we had held a soccer clinic just for them, the girls from schools in Uganda, and then played with them in a games in a tournament, and helped them so much. They did not want to let us down and felt like they had. We just kept hugging them and telling them that it was okay and that they did great and that we had so much fun playing with them and told them how amazing it was that we had gotten second place.
After the tournament we went for dinner. Couldn’t eat it. Then we were supposed to go and chat with girls from our groups from last night again just for about 30 minutes or so… just try and bond with them. I did not see anyone from my group around except Sharon. I went over and sat in front of her on the ground. She was sitting on a tiny chair, drawing in her goals booklet. She was so cute. She showed me what she was drawing. I said, “Is this a hut?” she said “yes, it is my home.” And then she asked me to draw my home. I drew a very condensed version of my home which consisted of a square and a triangle, 2 windows and a door. then she told me to draw a boy and a girl by it. after i finished i looked at the pictures next to each other... It was so weird to think that she would probably never see a home like mine and only dream to enter into a house that big. We drew pictures for a while and laughed at photographs I showed her on my camera.
Being so young, she didn’t understand English very well at all. Most of the kids there only know how to say “My name is…” “How are you?” “I’m fine”. It’s cute but its hard having that language barrier there. With the older girls, it was easier to communicate but still very difficult to understand them sometimes, but I’m sure we are very hard to understand too. I feel like I am talking so SLOW and annunciating so well when I talk to them I feel stupid haha! Then I said goodbye till tomorrow, left to the hotel, got a shower, talked to Cody for a couple minutes which made me feel better… wrote in my journals and am now going to bed.June 14th
We got to “sleep in” till 8 today. I wore my new dress that I had made the other day and so did many other girls. Mine is SO tight around the chest area. I seriously was bursting out of it. The lady made it so small. I couldn’t wear a bra with it haha but luckily I found a shirt to wear under it and could undo the two buttons in the front which made it a little easier but still, it was so hard to breathe without feeling like I was going to break the entire dress. We were all on the bus going to church by 9:15. We drove to this tiny building that looked like a house. Once I got inside, I realized it probably was. We met in a tiny room for sacrament meeting. I started crying during the opening song because the spirit was so strong, Praise to the Man. The first speaker talked about chastity and the second about repentance. This ward in Gulu is so new but you can tell that the people have very strong testimonies of the gospel even if they don’t entirely understand some of the doctrines. They have faith and that is enough to keep them going strong in the gospel. After sacrament we took a ten minute break and went back in for Sunday school which was taught by one of the Elders on gifts of the spirit. It was a very simple but good lesson. Then after another short break we split into priesthood, relief society and primary/nursery. I went in with the little kids where we watched a couple pointless church movies that someone had managed to dig up about the church store house and how to communicate with your spouse haha. It was pretty dumb so Hannah and Anne Collins and I starting singing primary songs with the kids. The older ones knew all the verses. It was awesome and I think I should mention one kid had a grasshopper he was playing with the whole time and pretty sure it was dead by the end of the meeting because he had dropped and pinched and “played with it” way to hard. Haha… yeah…
We came back to the hotel to change out of our Sunday clothes and my zipper was STUCK. And I mean I could not get the dress off my body and I was so frustrated… I was planning on taking the zipper out completely when I got back to Utah anyway so I ended up just cutting part of it out so I could get my dress off. Haha… oh well… anyway, then we went back to LaRoo. I was so glad that we went back one last time but I think it was too short. We played games with our groups… wow… I had such a fun time.
They taught us a few of their games and songs… one song about freedom. It was beautiful. It talked about how freedom was coming and that God’s love is what gave them peace. After we talked with them and sang them a few songs we left with many goodbyes and letters and picture exchanges.
I did not think to bring multiple copies of my photos because I was just planning on letting them look. I gave one girl my photo though because she was just such a sweetheart and I could tell she really wanted something to remember me by. Her name was Sarah. She had written me a letter, which I actually did not read until after I had given her a picture of myself. It had said how she wished she could have a picture so bad to remember me and to pray for me.
Next we went to an IDP camp to hand out the packages that we had put together a few days ago that had school workbooks in them, toothpaste, and pen and pencil, and soap. And then we had also gotten together whatever else we felt like donating from our own bags to take with us there. We toured the camp. And I wanted to cry. And I did cry.
And I don’t think you could stand not to cry if you have ever walked through a camp like that.
Really there are no words to describe what I saw there.
And at the end of the day when we were presenting the packages to the people, it all seemed rather stupid. Like… really this is all we could get?
I don’t think any of us were prepared for what we saw and I am sure it is going to change our lives forever. We talked to one man who was pretty much yelling at us and saying how Uganda had suffered too much for too long and that Obama was president and he was going to help Africa because he is African and he knows what Africa is going through.
He said that we are beautiful because we eat a lot. He said children in Africa do not eat. And they are not clean. He said he is angry. He was drunk. But you think you can change the world. But you can’t. You can change one person’s world though. And I hope I did that.
I got to talk to Cody again tonight! It really made me happy just to hear his voice for a minute.
Maybe I have not been eating Ugandan meals but I have been having Ugandan portions…June 15th
Today is Emilee’s birthday and I am pretty sad I cannot be there for it but yesterday mom bought a cute African skirt that I think she will like. We are going to Kampala today to red chili which is good cause that feels more like home for some reason? We need to be out of here by 6am so I will write more later.
We drove for 5 hours to Kampala, back to Red Chili Hideaway. Its funny cause when we got there everyone was like, we’re home! For some reason, I guess red chili feels like home to us cause it has good food and SODA haha. The first thing I did when we got there was put my bag inside and went and got an ice cold, bottled coke light. It was wonderful =]
then we sat around for a while and people exchanged money with Trevor and then we all went shopping at this market. It was cool but my mom and I are SO BAD at negotiating. But I was happy with my purchases. All I need to get now is a jersey for Brittany’s mom and something sweet for Cody… I have NO IDEA what to get him… it is so frustrating… after shopping we came back to red chili and changed into nice clothes. I bought a dress at the shops that actually FIT which was nice so I wore that cause we were going out to a nice dinner with Trevor. 3 other girls had gotten pretty much the same dress as me hah…
everyone on the team wore their African dresses and necklaces that we bought and we looked super Ugandan. (yeah not really…) but we did look like pretty cute tourists. ;]
at dinner I had my own dish while everyone else got large meaty dishes. I didn’t know what they were getting me, I just knew it was vegetarian. The first bowl they put in front of me was filled with goopy green spinach something or other that was just super freaking nasty. Then they pulled out this weird mixed vegetable thing. It was spicy and not bad I guess. Just kinda weird. Then rice, and I ate the rice with some of the vegetable dip thing and it wasn’t bad. I mostly filled up on diet coke but I was glad that I was brave and tried some new food because I don’t usually do that…
i did a pretty good job at making it seem like i ate more than i actually did. hahaJune 16th
Today was soccer tournament day. We pulled up to this field that was way short and weeds and dirt with NO room at the sidelines. Like a foot between the bleachers/fences and the sidelines.
Corner kicks were the worst! Hah it was pretty terrible. But we all had so much fun. The teams were a lot better than any of the teams that we have played so far. They were old too. On some teams there were girls that were up to like 28 years old. And down to like 14. It was a weird tournament. There were only 4 teams. I think it was just whatever Trevor could dig up haha but it was fun and I’m glad that we got to play. when the games were over we gave the winning team Calle t shirts and presented TKL with a ton of soccer balls.
After we went to eat and came back to red chili. Then out to eat AGAIN. This meal was at Trevor’s. I didn’t have anything cause I was still full from lunch but it was fun cause we just sat around and talked about the trip and how crazy it is that we are leaving tomorrow. We are having another half of a shopping day tomorrow and then we LEAVE. all our extra clothes and things we don’t want to take back to America we are donating to a couple different orphanages which is SO good and I am so happy we are donating more. I am so tired right now…. So peace.June 17th/18th
Woke up. Packed a bit. Showered. Packed a bit more. Sorted out everyone’s donations of stuff they didn’t want to take home. Folded the donations with a couple other people. Debated throwing away all the dirty socks people had bagged. Decided to donate them regardless. Got on the bus and went and did more last minute shopping. Came back to red chili after shopping and FINISHED packing. Then a couple of us hungout by the pool while the rest of the team finished packing. We sang ukulele songs and I learned a few more chords and shiz. Two boys from the very first orphanage we visited, Andrew and David, came and talked to us and said goodbye. I am glad they came because they were very sweet boys. They were about 14. One didn’t know his birthday. I guess a lot of kids here that were orphaned don’t know their birthdays because… well how could they? We got all our stuff packed onto the trucks and bus and we drove to Rainbow House, or something like that, which is basically a refuse for abandoned youth. Not like an orphanage, but just kind of a place kids can go and feel safe but not a permanent home or anything. We donated all the clothes there and then went on our way to the airport. Outside the gates of the house there were two little boys walking. They were so cute. we gave them each a packet of fruit snacks and fruit leather. A couple of us joked that in America we’d get the cops called on us for giving out food from a bus. We laughed, yeah right- kids in America would probably stick up their noses and say, apricot fruit leather? I don’t even want this…. Whereas in Africa, any food is a gift from God, especially something that has sugar in it. I was so pumped cause I sat next to Kara and we sang Regina Spektor songs and we sounded freaking LEGIT. It was awesome and just kinda made me more pumped for Mona Lake. We’re going there Friday the 26th. Apparently it’s some sweet lake in Utah and a couple of us are planning a bbq and jam sesh by the lake. It’s going to be so much fun. I’m way pumped.
Our first flight was from Entebbe to Nairobi was fine. I sat by my mom so I stole her pillow while she talked to the lady next to us. It was only an hour flight. From Nairobi to London wasn’t too bad cause I slept pretty much the whole time but it was SO uncomfortable because there was NO leg room and the seats were terrible so my back hurt the whole time. Right now we’re in London. We have a 5 hour layover and then in Chicago we also have 5 hours… I really miss Cody and I’m going to call him once we get the US. We won’t get back to Provo till like 11:30 or 12 so I don’t know if I will be able to see him… I hope so but if not I will just go over in the morning. I have stuff for his mom and sister too that I need to give to them. Gosh I miss them! I’m pumped to give my family their gifts too. I just hope they don’t get whiney and stuff because that’s always super annoying.
Uganda09
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- Member Since: 6/20/2009
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