Lights Out!

I'm back home in Seattle after 11+ months in East Africa!  I'm enjoying the cooler weather and getting to wear sweaters and socks.  It's also nice to have reliable electricity, water, and (fast!) internet.  But the funniest thing just happened.  I haven't been home for 24 hours yet and the power just went out!!!  LOL, I think I brought it with me....Well the power didn't actually go out, we actually just blew a fuse in my bedroom because of the vacuum cleaner, but I just find that pretty ironic.  =D

I've been pretty busy in the last couple weeks, so I haven't had much time to blog.  I'll try to update little by little (or slowly by slowly, as they'd say here).

I'm leaving Uganda on Tuesday!  I can't believe it!  (I haven't left East Africa for 11 months!)  So things have been busy busy aroudn the office as we've been finishing up our big semester-long project.  We printed, binded, and completed our project on Wednesday.  It's so satisfying to bind a report (that's almost an inch thick) that you've been working on for 4 months!

For Thanksgiving, the interns and American EMI families and several other Americans we know (and a few Ugandans) all went to a big potluck in a big nice house.  It was a lot of fun to have a good old fashioned American Thanksgiving with lots of Thanksgiving-type food and lots of families and kids all around!  It's not really anything like my typical Thanksgiving (generally spent with 2 other people), but it's what I imagine a lot of big family Thanksgivings are like.  It's nice to know that I have somewhat of an extended family here.

Farewell to a Good Friend

Sunday night, Janet, an environmental engineer on staff here with EMI, left Uganda to move back to the States.  She served here with EMI for over 5 years, so she had many friends and a strong community here to say goodbye to.  On Saturday, she threw a big farewell party for all of her friends, and I think over a 100 people showed up!  I spent all morning making cookies, and then set out for Janet's place to help her set up.  I was kind of in charge of organizing the snack table, so I spent much of the afternoon running back and forth between the food table and the kitchen, restocking as necessary.  All the EMI families with cars helped out by transporting food, people, equipment, and soda (over 100 sodas were consumed!)  We also had a top secret (beautiful wood) picture frame and mat that we were covertly getting people to sign during the party.  Janet's church has an amazing children's dance program, and the kids performed several songs, which were really fun to watch.  They even sang a song called "Sister Janet, we love you!"  I was rather exhausted by the end, but I think it was quite the success for Janet, and was a very fun time for all!

One of the children's dance groups from Janet's church.

Women from her church performing traditional Buganda dances.

On Sunday, I went with Janet to her church, which I wanted to visit one more time before she left.  The church is entirely made up of Ugandans, other than Janet, and has a great community feel.  I ended up spending the whole day with her, which was really nice.  Janet has been my EMI mentor for the past 6 months, but I also feel like we've become friends.  I really admire how she lives out her values of loving people, being a part of the community, living simply, and opening her life up to others.  And the way she does it, it's not like she preaches it from her soap box, it just seems to come naturally out of who she is.  She lives with a Ugandan woman and her 2 children, so I got to hang out with them and a couple other friends all day too.  I've really come to enjoy spending time with them, and I plan on keeping in touch with them even now that Janet has left.

Me and Janet at Murchison Falls in September

After church, we ate some yummy Ugandan food that her housemate had made specially at Janet's request.  Then I helped Janet do some last minute packing and sorting of all the various things she was leaving behind for various people.  In the afternoon, I went with them all to the pool next door, where Janet swam with the kids, which they absolutely love.  A couple EMI families came by after that to help transport last minute items from her house back to the office and to say their final goodbyes.  After weighing her 4 bags for the umpteenth time, trying to get each one just below 50 lbs, I finally ended up with about half a bag full of stuff that I offered to transport back to the states for her.  (To her defense, one of her bags was almost entirely full of a 4-foot wooden giraffe, surrounded by a wooden cage that one of our guards constructed to keep it safe on the journey home!)  We finished the night with pizza and soda, and I said goodbye as the whole gang left to accompany her to the airport around 8pm.  I'm so glad that I got to spend the weekend with Janet and that I was blessed to have her as part of my life here!

Watoto Pictures

Here are some pictures from my visit to Watoto Children's Village last week.

One of the house clusters (10 houses with 10 people each):

 Here I am collecting wastewater out of a manhole and collecting it in a Tupperware (gross, huh?):

 The house that adopted Dan and I while we were there (several of the boys are missing from the photo):

Two of my new friends:

 Playing with the kids during my break (they taught me how to braid banana plant fibers into ropes):

Watoto ("Children" in Swahili)

Tuesday, I spent the night at Watoto Children's Village. This is the ministry I wrote about before that has a "village" of homes for about 2,000 children. They have groups of 10 homes in circles, each home with a house mother and 8-10 children who truly call that place home and their house mother "mom" their entire lives. They live in the home until they are ready to leave for university, at which point a new child is able to join the home.

EMI is helping to design a wastewater treatment plant for the children's village. Right now, all the buildings are connected to septic tanks and soak pits that are much too small, which means the wastewater is not getting treated properly. Pat (a civil engineering staff from British Columbia) took Dan and I out there to help us get set up, and then just Dan and I stayed out there overnight. Dan used complex GPS equipment to survey the topography of the site. My job was to collect wastewater samples so that we know exactly what needs to be treated by the treatment plant.

So we found a couple strategic locations, opened the sewer manholes, and taped a stick to half a water bottle; every 3 hours, I then got to fish out raw sewage (while wearing disposable latex gloves) and pour it into a semi-leak proof tupperware container, which I kept inside a cooler. Engineers do all the dirty work while architects stay in the office and draw pretty pictures. =) (Since joining EMI, I've learned there's an eternal rivalry between architects and engineers.)

Walking around with all our funny-looking equipment certainly drew a lot of attention from the kids. It was neat to see the kids all over the campus, full of life. The kids are incredibly well-behaved and open. Several little kids just ran up and hugged my legs as soon as they saw me. Everyone seemed so full of affection.

We ended up having all our meals at one of the houses, and they kind of adopted us into their family. We had met them a few weeks ago, and when they saw us again, they couldn't contain their joy. The house mom couldn't stop smiling and hugging all of us. And the two younger boys (in 1st and 2nd grade) seemed to want to spend as much time with us as possible. The house next door also had a 2-year-old girl, who ended up becoming attached to us as well. Since I only had to sample the wastewater every 3 hours, I ended up with a little extra time, and so Wednesday morning, I just went and hung out with the two young boys and the little girl for an hour. It was so much fun! They taught me how to braid banana plant fibers into a rope, and how to make "aeroplanes" out of leaves and thorns. Then the boys joined me on my last wastewater collection adventure and took some pictures and video of me!

Fortunately Pat gave me permission to skip the 3am shift, but I was SO TIRED from carrying around all that wastewater and from not getting much sleep. I was pretty wiped out for the next couple of days. In fact, the night I came back, I had a minor emotional meltdown because I was completely exhausted, and I had to go take a nap before dinner in order to be civilized enough to eat pizza with other people. =) We were then supposed to leave for a weekend in Rwanda on Friday morning, but fortunately we decided to postpone until Thanksgiving weekend.

Boda-Boda

"Boda-bodas" are the motorcycle taxis that can take you anywhere you want to go in Kampala. Although somewhat risky, they are definitely the most convenient way to get where you need to go. Just down the hill from us is a spot where the "bodas" sit and wait for customers. Over my several months here, I've gotten to know some of them pretty well. It's really nice to have boda drivers that you can call anytime and trust them to deliver you home safely.

Anyway, last Friday was one of my roommate's birthday, so 8 of us went out to a nice dinner across town at an Indian restaurant. We hired 4 of our trusted boda drivers to take us around for the evening. (Two people on the back of a motorcycle makes it even more adventurous....)

After dinner, we all went to a nice hotel for some free live jazz outdoors under the night sky. We invited the boda drivers in, and it took a lot of convincing to get them to join us, but they finally did. There's definitely a sense of class separation here that made them assume/know that they wouldn't be welcome inside the hotel. At first I think the guards didn't want them to come in, and we were all ready to argue with them, because as our friends and guests, they would have no right to not let these guys in. But then we all walked in together and it was fine. The boda guys even took off their heavy jackets in order to look a little dressier before they entered. It's really sad that that kind of thing exists here, although I realize it exists in the US too, especially when an establishment assumes you're not a paying customer. But I'm so glad they came in with us. It was so much fun to have those guys hang out with us in a casual setting, more as equals, since we're usually just hiring them (and Whites/foreigners are always treated with respect as a higher class here). I think that night will definitely be one of my treasured memories from my time here. I'm so thankful for the opportunity to get to know and become friends with Ugandans here. And I'm so lucky to have boda drivers who I consider my friends.

"Jesus Loves the Little Children"

Yay, this week has been a little cooler and rainier!  (Hmm, I never thought about the fact that rainy-er, or rainier, is the same as Mount Rainier in Washington State….is that where it got its name from?)

On Tuesday, I started a new volunteer opportunity.  We have an office “granny” (mother-in-law of a former office director), who works part-time for the office, and invites the interns over for homemade breakfast, etc.  She has a Ugandan housemate, Florence, who also has 2 daughters in their early 20s who have become our friends.  Anyway, Florence teaches at a nursery school (aka pre-school) just down the hill from us near a low-income/slum-like area.  I’m going to go there every Tuesday morning to help her out with the kids.  She has 25 kids, mostly ages 3-6, but she also has a couple 2-year-olds and a couple 7-year olds!  Talk about a wide range of abilities!  At first I thought I would just read books to them, which would be easy, but she would really like me to come up with activities to do with the kids since most of what they do otherwise is reading and writing.  So it seems a little daunting, but I’m also excited about the possibilities.

Tuesday was my first time, and I worked with what they call the “baby class,” that is, the 2-3 year-olds.  In the mornings, they typically split the class into 3 groups based on age and abilities and Florence and her 2 daughters each take a group of kids.  This week, Rachel was busy taking university exams, so I took over the baby class for her.  I had a lot of fun, although it was sometimes challenging to get them all to pay attention, especially since most of them don’t understand that much English yet.  (Typically, schools are taught in English, but Luganda is spoken at home, so kids don’t usually know English until they’ve been in school for a couple years.)  I did a math worksheet with them, which meant counting and writing down numbers.  By end, I had learned all 10 names, and had taught them “I’ve got the Joy Down in My Heart!”  Florence was SO excited that I wanted to come and give the children exposure to other ideas and activities, so I am excited that I can help out in this way.  I just hope that I’ll be able to keep thinking of activities to do each week!

One of our in-house EMI projects (“in-house” meaning we don’t recruit volunteers to come for a week-long design project, we just use the staff and interns that we have in the office) is to design a wastewater treatment plant for the Watoto Children’s Village.  Well, we’re actually getting a volunteer in the US to design the plant, but we’re doing all the necessary ground work here ourselves.  Dan will be surveying the property, and I will be collecting wastewater samples to be analyzed by a lab.  On Thursday, Dan, Pat (a staff member from British Columbia), and I went out to the site to get an overview of the campus and a better idea of what we’d be dealing with.  We’ll be coming back and staying on campus for a few days to do our work sometime in the next couple weeks.

Watoto Children’s Choir is one of those African children’s choirs who tour North America to raise awareness of issues facing Africa, to expose the children to new cultures, and to raise money to support children in and outside of the choir.  The Watoto choir is made up solely of orphans who live in the Watoto Children’s Village in Uganda.  They have a pretty neat model that is starting to be replicated by other children’s homes around Uganda.  I think Watoto currently cares for 1-2,000 orphans!  (See www.watoto.com)  They have a family-based model, where 8 children live in a house with a house mother.  The houses are then arranged into clusters of 8 houses, which becomes the child’s community.  There are over a dozen clusters of houses in the “village,” along with a primary and secondary school, a clinic, and a church.  There is also a separate babies’ home, where orphans under 2 stay until they are ready to be incorporated into the housing system.  Each house mother is also someone who needs a place to live, and is often an AIDS widow.  The mothers really become lifelong mothers for all the children who live in their houses.  The program is also trying to recruit men to volunteer to be a “house father” and visit the children in their assigned house once a week so that the children can have male role models.  Watoto was started by a Canadian pastor who started a church in Kampala that is now known as Watoto Church, which is where I have started attending.

By the way, if you ever get a chance to see the choir (or any African children’s choir, for that matter), you should definitely go!  Right now Watoto is doing a choir tour to raise awareness and support for the activities they’re doing in northern Uganda to help rehabilitate former child soldiers!  http://www.watoto.com/restoretour/  This tour will be in LA on October 23 and Seattle on Oct 30, then they’ll be off to Canada, the UK, and Australia!  (This blog was not intended to be a promotion for the choir, but I just got excited that you guys might actually be able to see them!  They never perform here, although one day I accidentally stumbled into a dress rehearsal, which was really cool!)