snapshots of uganda: 2

this is Mercy. she lives in Namatala and goes to Child of Hope Primary School.

Namatala is the biggest slum in Mbale and one of the biggest slums in all of Uganda. Child of Hope serves only one section of the slum. They educate one child from each family in hopes of improving the overall education of that family. Child of Hope also teaches families (mothers especially) income generating activities (IGA's), as well as health care practices. i had the opportunity to work with Child of Hope many times this summer.

[back to Mercy]
whenever i went to Child of Hope, Mercy was one of the first children to run up and hug me [they all would run and pretty much tackle you]. she would play hand clapping games with me. she was always happy. she always had a smile on her face and was excited to see me. she made me feel so loved. on my last day in Namatala I went to Child of Hope and found that Mercy was not feeling well. I sincerely hope she recovered quickly and did not have malaria! she is a ray of sunshine in the midst of poverty. i have great hopes for her future! love you Mercy!

snapshots of uganda: 1

we met this little Somalian girls at Lion's Children's Park while we were running the Blood Drive. there is a horrific famine in Somalia right now, not to include political unrest, which has resulted in millions from Somalia seeking refuge in neighboring countries. since it was Ramadan (a Muslim holiday where they fast from sun up to sun down every day for a month or so) there were many Somalian Muslim's living in Mbale.

these cute girls came up and started dancing to the music we had going and pretty soon we joined in! (Somalians are different from Ugandans in that they are taller, skinnier and usually lighter skinned. the men, especially have defining features.) it was so fun dancing with these girls! they didn't speak any English and we didn't speak Somali. But that's the great thing about Africa- you don't need words to speak volumes.

what i remember from this experience is that these girls were so happy! they loved life. yet, they were refugees. they had no home. i fell in love with their smiles and enthusiasm. 

since being home and reading more about the famine and hard ships in Somalia, i wish i could go back right now. go to Somalia. and in some way relieve the poverty in some way. 

someday i will go.

until then i will never forget these happy, dancing refugees. 

tippy taps

whats a tippy tap?

its a handwashing station. many people in uganda don't wash their hands and so they get really bad diseases that are born by fecal matter. so for one of our projects we build a handwashing station at a school and then teach them about handwashing

this is a tippy tap we built at St. Kizitos baby home!

pictures to follow i promise

ok i have 4 minutes. aah! I am still a live. 

i lov africa.

i might come home with a black baby named scovia.

or maybe i'll bring home benjamin from impact.

or gerald (aka jared) and his sister, sandra.

i'll put up pictures tomorrow when i am on a better computer with faster internet.

welcome to Uganda!

well I made it here in one piece with all my luggage! We travelled a total of 2 days, hitting up three different continents, 4 countries and flying about 24 hours total. Phew. It was a long one. Where to start? So much has happened! I think I'll skip over the flying and the layovers and London because I simply don't have time. We flew into Uganda about 9 am yesterday (Friday) morning. We met our CDs (country directors), Suzanne and Whitney, at the Airport where they introduced us to our bus driver Fred. He is legit. The bus ride was looong. But fun! Our team is bonding so well already. I guess when you have been travelling together for 2 days you get pretty close ha ha. I was going to try to upload some pictures but they aren't working today. Anways, Uganda is ca-razy. The traffic is insane! There are no rules. Trucks go as fast as they want even if there are people in the way! Little motorcycle taxis, called boda boda's whiz around and between cars. And people selling things come right up to your window and try to get you to buy their products.

back of the taxi= always a party

We stopped at a couple places on our way to Mbale. First we got a fridge in Mukono. There was this adorable little boy who would not stop waving at us! We even taught him to blow kisses! Pretty soon a bunch of kids were there, all waving and blowing kisses (even though they had no idea what they were doing). After Mukono we stopped at an orphanage that HELP built back in 2007, run by a lady named Margaret. She is really cool! Something about Ugandans is that they are really friendly, so the fact that Margaret hugged us, without knowing us, isn't too strange. The kids there were so adorable! They loved us! And we loved them. They live in such small, cramped, dirty situations, but they are so happy!

cute boy in mukono :)

whit and some boys at the orphanage

I'm out of time for today, but I am loving it here! I'll post again soon ASAP!