Gone kabisa...

Just letting ya’ll know some reasons to frustrations down here. In my short period of stay, I’ve had a broken laptop (screen smashed, so borrowed a monitor from a friend from time to time). The MP3 player stopped functioning. My music with several hundred songs on the computer disappeared as several programs on my laptop refused to function (ended up with having to delete it all, to free space, as the hard disk was completely full, and I could not even burn things to CDs). Yesterday I wrote 4 posts to my blogg, but due to a virus alert, they all were deleted from my memory stick (the only place I saved them…man). But the highlight of all, I guess was after 3 weeks of holiday, in Kenya, Tanzania and Zanzibar, taking 500 photos, I lost all of them as I lent my camera to a boy who accidentally formatted the whole flash disk. Arg… he he. Unbelievable.

(Just had to have a photo with my text. And the sun is a good thing. There's always a new day coming, and along with that; new mercy, hope and opportunities!)

The work plan

Since New Year, we’ve had a new work plan here in Bushenyi that we are very happy with. Originally it looks something like this:

Monday:
We are in the prison with the ladies inside (female section). We spend time with them, bring materials, trying to teach them some craft skills, teach some English etc. Otherwise it’s just about being there, doing what comes to your mind. Yesterday 10 of the ladies were out digging in the field. I found them there and joined them, planting beans under the scoring sun… Afterwards my plan was to make them waffles, but as power went, we had to find a back up plan & poured the dough in a suspan on the charcoal stove. It sort of worked… at least they enjoyed it. The prison is a place I feel privileged to join. There are many special stories and things I learn from there.

Tuesday:
We are at a hospital next door, BMC. Aids sick children come here on Tuesdays for medical check-ups and vaccinations. Ann and I just activate them as they wait. We bring colour pencils, water colours, we play cards, watch cartoons and eat crackers together ;-)

Wednesday:
We are at Kabwohe Management Institute. It’s a school that educates girls in computer and craft skills. Many of these girls are orphans or from poor families, and have not had much schooling prior to this. The school has subsided fees, making the school cheaper than many others. Ann and I were supposed to help with their computer teachings. The Wednesdays with no power, we would do sports with them. But after three weeks of finding it strange that the room was so empty for students, we found out that they didn’t have computer teachings on Wednesdays… he he. (Tell us please ;-) So Wednesdays are now only sport days with the girls (playing volleyball and netball).

Thursday:
We have been moving with a health centre to their different units in villages. They mainly do check-ups on pregnant ladies and immunization + vaccinations. Since I do not have the knowledge to help out with most of their work, I rather work on Saturdays and participate at Compassion, so Thursdays are sometimes a day off for me.

Friday:
At Ruhandagazi, a Primary School for disabled children. We have P.E (gymnastic) with P.4 and P.5. + some English and Math teachings for P.7. But our most important “work” here, I guess is just coming and spending time with the children.

Saturday:

I’m joining Compassion International at Kyamuhunga. Saturday is a centre day for disadvantaged children connected to Compassion. (Orphans with only one or none parents, children from families too poor to take care of them + some children with disabilities.) They come here and get breakfast and lunch. The day is filled with singing, dancing, teaching, sometimes work like; digging, slashing grass etc. and lots of playing! They are about 280 children, and it’s so great to be with them!

A girls night

Friday 16 of February, we went with two cars to Kyamuhunga, to pick up 9 pretty excited girls. Last time at compassion, we invited them to come over to our house to spend a night. We stopped and bought chapattis on the way, then we picked the food prepared for us at Meats and More, (a restaurant in town) through a friend.

After food, all the girls wanted to bathe. A joke I said before the visit became true. When I entered my room, I realized that the floor was flooding with water. The drain in my shower isn’t very good, and one of the girls had forgotten to turn off the water tap... So my floor went through some serious washing, as we stood for quite some time, trying to drain all the water.

Together with the girls, we made brownies, watched a movie, played cards and took lots of photos. The girls were not nearly as tired as Ann and I, when we decided to go to bed around midnight. Later I heard some giggling and footsteps outside my room. As I opened the door, I found all the girls tapping in a queue, heading for the bathroom. They were maybe a little shy using our house, so it seemed they all decided to go together.

The alarm was on at 6.30 the next morning. After bathing, we all had some boiled eggs on the go, and headed for a day at Compassion. The girls we’ve heard, had a great time, and nothing can be better than that ;-)

Give away

Give away is a party in Uganda, arranged by the parents of the bride, before her wedding. It is quite many traditional things happening through the ceremony. The man must go down and “find his match” among several women (traditionally the ladies we’re all covered up, so only the eyes were bare. I wonder how he could be so sure to point out the right one, unless they agreed she would do some secret signalling or something like that?... ;-) The lady serves food to the two families, establishing a bond between them.

I have been to some of these give-aways, without having much special connections to anyone in the party, but here, you often get invited anyway. After the cake has been cut, the formal part of the party is over, and for many, the disco part begins.