Until Next Time Uganda March 10, 2014

Hello again Friends!

I hope this e-mail finds you warm and healthy! February has been a month filled with helping friends. It has also been hot and dry with a couple hours of heavy downpour about once a week, then a stretch of hot sunny days while we patiently wait for the relief of the rain again.

Thanks again to more of you, my amazingly generous and compassionate friends, family and fans we have recently sent two guys to get their driver’s license, so that they can ideally acquire jobs as truck drivers. When Peter, Paul and I hopped on the big post bus at 5:30 a.m. and it slowly started winding its way up the mountain switchbacks Peter mumbled, “It’s like a moving house!” Only then did I realize that he had never been on a bus before, which of course meant that he’d never been out of Kisoro before, never been to the city before. So, needless to say, we had some “Crocodile Dundee” moments when we reached the big city of Mbarara. I thoroughly enjoyed watching the boys in the supermarket, in awe of how many items there were on the shelves, even though the escalator wasn’t working, it was just as amazing to Peter, the concept of what it does left him shaking his head in disbelief and a big smile across his face. Crossing the street the first time was also amusing, but the best was when we sat down for dinner, not only did we have pork to eat but they also had a television outside with the football game playing…oh city life was fun!

We have also helped pay for a double surgery for sweet, little five year old Tracey. When she was recently vaccinated for Polio, two days later she couldn’t walk. Either the vaccine was bad, or for some reason she reacted badly to it, we’ll never know exactly what happened and of course her parents had no idea what was happening or how to help her. As is the African way her father asked everyone he knew to help him pay for the trip to Kampala and the first surgery so she could walk again. Little did they know it would take breaking her leg and a second surgery, each one costing 600,000 Shillings/ $240. USD.  Impressed as I was by his efforts to “find” the money, we ended up paying 500,000 toward the two surgeries. Julia is walking with a walker now, she arrives home tomorrow and I’ve been invited as “guest of honor” to welcome her home…but isn’t she the guest of honor?! They are a beautiful family and it was so nice to be welcomed into their humble little home by the entire village!

I am dreaming of ham and deviled eggs, stuffing and dumplings fried in butter and onions. Isn’t there something just amazing about the smell of butter and onions in a cast iron skillet? I shamelessly dream of pizza with white sauce, chicken, garlic and broccoli, spinach salad with vinaigrette dressing, pans of my sister’s gooey and delicious, sweet dessert bars. So, I’m having some food fantasies, what can I say? My stomach has always made the major decisions in my life! My warning to you is this; beware, you never know who may show up on your doorstep for Easter dinner!

After much debating, deliberation and hassle with trying to purchase a flight from here, turns out it is next to impossible to do unless you’re in the city and can go into the airline office, I am flying to Malaysia soon, where I’ll spend some quality time with Graciela’s mom and dad at their home in Kuala Lumpur. Debriefing on the past fourteen months, relaxing, possibly drinking some nice red wine and attempting to transition to life on the other side of the globe before continuing the long journey back to North America should keep us quite busy!!

Little arms that wrap around my legs while walking by or a little one running toward me with arms outstretched, as if they are my best friend is what I will soon be dreaming of. I will miss scooping them up hearing their giggles as I spin them around. Even the shouts of “Hello Muzungu” from the bushes no matter where I am, I will soon be longing for those voices when I am running down a country road in Minnesota, just me and my dog in the silence I so desperately desire right now. Oh Uganda, I will be back for your fresh fruit juice, for your forty cent pineapples and fifteen cent avocados. I will return for your leisurely pace of life, the steady strength of your people and the sheer excitement that comes across a locals face when they are greeted in their mother-tongue by a muzungu. Of course, there’s things I won’t miss also, for example as I sit and type this I have to quickly stop and yank down my drawers to find the flea that I can feel tickling my leg as it crawls around biting me! I will pray for my girls, Zamah, Christine, Faith and Esther, who have all now advanced to fourth grade. We have made progress, Christine is reading, but still very far behind. The teacher wanted her to repeat third grade, but she insisted she could do fourth and she is struggling. She and Zamah both live at school now, where they are sure to have food, they spend more time in class speaking English and with their teachers as role models, which is a better influence than they get at home. Zamah is excelling, getting brighter by the minute! Bridget, the sweet little one who can’t speak, she nor her sister came back to school after the Dec./Jan. holiday. I will pray for Bridget and hope her vocabulary is growing. She didn’t use or pick up many signs, but by the teacher repeating the words that were signed over and over again, she started repeating them, like a one-syllable parrot! Wilson is happily settled, dry and warm in his beautiful home, his feet have improved dramatically, the schools are gladly tapping their tanks every single day. We have improved lives, and as our old friend Ronald Reagan said,

               “We can't help everyone, but everyone can help someone.”

Indeed we have. My gratitude is endless toward you, my personal support group and the innumerable number of incredible people in my life. The day I was born, I won the lottery. 100% winner. Thank you personally and genuinely for joining me on this epic journey, your faith, support and love have been my strength in so many ways. This Ugandan journey, of course, is not over; in fact I hope it is just beginning. I intend to continue raising funds through schools, through writing, through slideshows and presentations, through speaking to everyone and anyone who wants to hear it. The amazing strength and beauty found here is my model for persevering and for continuing to help those whose lottery was not as fortunate as mine, simple circumstances. I will be back to Resilient Uganda, because I have health, I have opportunity, I have resources and most importantly, because I have you and I have love, lots and lots of love…100% winner! So, it is not good-bye, but until next time Uganda!

With Gratitude and never ending love,

Bonnie B.                                                                                                            

              “The most effective medicine here on earth is LOVE unconditional.”

  “In about the same degree that you are helpful, you will be happy.” –Karl Reiland

                                     “My Religion is Love” –Anthony Douglas Williams

February 7, 2014

Another interesting and educational month has passed; I hope you all stayed warm and healthy! Things in Kisoro are back to normal, we had another “Hurricane Happy” strike. She left us for about two weeks and traveled through Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda around Lake Victoria and back to us in Kisoro for another week of amusement.

She taught a few more classes while she was here and when we went to our friend Paul’s village just before starting her Sexual Health class, a cousin of Paul’s asks, “So, what is the class about?” She tells him, “It’s about sexual health, STD’s and contraception.” His response is, “No, nothing about contraception, my mother isn’t home right now, but she’s a Catholic and she wouldn’t approve of contraception being taught at her home.” So, as I choke on my tongue Happy, hesitantly, but happily agrees not to talk about contraception. I gaze around at the clusters and clusters of hungry kids and am startled by how complicated and contradictory Religion can be. How can we not encourage desperate people to prevent another pregnancy which may be either dangerous to the mother’s health or perilous to the child’s welfare? A woman dying of childbirth is too common in Uganda. The lifetime risk of a woman dying from childbirth is one in thirty-five, that number increasing as the number of births increase, not to mention the quality of life decreasing for each family member as the family grows. The rain comes and we all squeeze into the small house, the little wooden shutters on the one square window in the house are flung open for light and Happy begins her schpeel. Of course, it’s a much shorter class without the contraception information, but thanks to Mukaka (Grandmother) it lasts just as long. Mukaka is so ecstatic about the muzungu’s being there that she just can’t stop talking! She is constantly interrupting Happy, even standing and pointing, cracking herself up at some mysterious joke! Of course, she doesn’t speak English, so she doesn’t understand any of what Happy is saying and she isn’t listening enough to hear it from the interpreter. When Mukaka stands and wants to leave half-way through the class, the cousin tries to stop her. I look at him and ask him, “What are you doing?” He tells me, “She wants to leave, but I told her to wait.” “No, no, no…” I tell him. “Let her go, she is making it very difficult to teach by interrupting!” “Oh!” He says and tells Mukaka she can go and she happily wobbles her way through the dozens of children and few adults there. Happy and I look at each other with the same astonished look we’ve given each other countless times and smile. Of all the things I’ve enjoyed about having Happy here, this is probably my favorite, having someone to share those, “Oh My God!”, or “Can you believe this?!” moments with! That and the hysterical laughter, I miss that too!

I’ve moved out of the Reverend’s House and am renting a small room in town. It was time for some space and some privacy, something most Ugandan’s don’t seem to be aware of. Even now as I sit and type this people will freely come up behind me and openly read what I’m writing or they’ll pick up my notebook, open it and start reading! Didn’t even realize quite how unique and coveted privacy is! Many people grow up in a room like mine, a 12x12 square, cement room for a whole family. Often they hang a curtain across the center of it to separate the bed from the sitting room. A family of sometimes five or six people all sleeping together in that space, the neighbors share the same compound, bathing room and toilet. Usually these rooms are built in two long rows facing each other with a gate for security at one end and the small courtyard in between the only “yard” any of them have, which is where they cook and do their washing. The shared toilets and bathing space are a series of four or five small closet-like rooms with either a squat toilet or a drain for bathing. Everyone knows everyone's business! I can hear the neighbor’s music when he wakes up, I can hear his conversations when he has company and I can hear the whole compound arguing on Saturday morning when the electricity bill is due and we all have to pay our share. This has been a whole new experience renting a room in town. At the Reverend’s house when we ran out of water, it hardly affected me; the maids went to fetch water. When the power was out, they would heat my bathing water on the fire and even light candles for me to see! Now, when a water pipe breaks or the water mysteriously stops flowing for three days, it is me carrying my jerri-can to Amazing Grace to fetch water from the tank or bathing with cold water when the power is out. It is a more accurate experience of African Life, and it’s nice to take care of myself. The maids felt more like servants to me and that was the hardest part about living there. That and eating dinner at 10 or 11 p.m., now I can eat at a more reasonable hour and go to bed! It feels good to do things for myself, including washing my clothes, which everyone insists I “can’t manage” but I assure you, I can manage! No matter how much they shake their head and insist I’m doing it wrong, no matter how much they ask about our washing machines and I explain them, I continue washing my clothes in my little basin and they are clean.ish by the time I’m done!

On top of that new adventure I’ve also strangely become the “consultant” for a local hotel/restaurant/bar. This new job of mine has possibly taught me more in the past month than all of the last year has taught me, or at least I’m happy I’ve had the past year of experience in African culture to prepare myself for this! There are so many things that boggle my mind and amaze me, it is difficult for me to take the job very seriously! Beginning with the pay these people get. How can I expect them not to sit around and watch the t.v. all day when they are getting paid less than $2. per day to be here six or seven days a week from 7 a.m. until 11p.m. or maybe even midnight if there are customers? They usually get one day off each week, but many of them live at the hotel so it’s spent here anyway and they certainly don’t have money to go do anything on their day off. The owner of the hotel lives in Kampala and when he hired me, then went back to Kampala one of my first assignments was to fire the majority of the staff, there simply isn’t enough work for all seventeen of them, so he wanted me to weed them down to seven! I waited until the end of the month, paid them all, then sent most of them on their way. It went surprisingly smooth, when he was here he told them he was cutting back the staff and I reminded them throughout the month. The real problem came when the owner came back last week-end, he flew to Kisoro with a group of business men whom he was discussing major renovations and marketing the hotel with. These business men own a very high class hotel in Bwindi forest, where tourists go to see the gorillas. The first night they spent at “Cloud Hotel”, where a room goes for $900 USD per night!!! Bill Gates has reportedly stayed here multiple times, so that’s the time of clientele they are attracting. The second night they spent here, at “Kisoro Tourist Hotel” which attracts a much different type of client! It's a nice enough place but needs some work and some marketing, we have bad comments on Trip Advisor from previous staff and management. I am trying hard to replace them with better comments and working at training the staff on customer service and cleanliness. Despite the fact that the owner says he will come this week-end and fire the remaining staff and start fresh! So, while these high rollers were staying here, helping the owner with ideas and improvements they stayed up until 2 a.m. drinking whiskey and discussing, as you do...when they finally went to bed, one of the two white men went to bed, closed his door, but did not lock it. He woke up in the morning to his laptop, camera, blackberry, backpack, his 3 million Ugandan shillings and his 6 thousand USD stolen! Oooooh….not a good day! After filing a police report they immediately flew back to Kampala. Later that day, after bailing the receptionist out of jail and firing a few more people, we still don’t know who committed the theft but the new manager is threatening to quit because the owner is insisting we fire the one woman who actually works around here. Judith is the server, but she runs the show, she opens the place, and closes the doors at night, and does everything in between. Whether it’s 2 a.m. or 10 p.m. she is always the last man standing and does a great job at it. The irreplaceable must be replaced. Wheeeew, I need a drink just writing about it!

For those of you that are concerned I’m never coming home…no such luck! In March I will renew my visa one last time for another three months, which means I should be home just in time for a nice Minnesota summer!

Nothing but love,

Bonnie B.

                   "Life is nothing more than a stream of experiences

                                 - the more widely and deeply you swim in it, the richer your life will be."

                                                                                                   ~Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Happy 2014 Jan. 8, 2014

Happy Holidays Everyone!

I hope your Christmas was amazing and that your New Year brings you more peace than ever! Christmas Day was spent with my family and with my friends Vinnie, an Australian that I met in Kampala and Haley, my friend from AK who spent the month of December with me in Kisoro. We had a beautiful lunch at the German couples home, who live next door to us. It was a feast of plenty including meatballs and sugar cookies. Haley and I had several baking extravaganzas throughout the month; we introduced many lucky Ugandans to sugar cookies fresh from the oven and banana bread, both were very warmly received!

I feel so blessed to have the month of December filled with so many friends. I had a brief visit from Karin and Brita at the beginning of the month, it was so great to catch up with familiar faces and hear about their African experiences! They left me with a bulging bag of goodies and clothes to distribute along with many smiles and good stories. The very same day that they arrived, my friend Denyse, whom I also met in Kampala, but is Rwandan returned to Kampala after a week-end visit. So much goodness…when it rains, it pours! Haley and I toured Kisoro by foot and by motorcycle, we ran a marathon, taught sexual health classes, enjoyed lazy days at the lake, gave swimming lessons, baked, attended weddings, visited the pygmy's, took so many gorgeous photographs with her camera, went hunting for witch doctors and with Haley around there’s constantly sporadic dance parties, we were busy girls and had an incredible month!

Santa brought me "Happy", since they don't have the “L” sound in their alphabet, it comes out as an "R" and Haley, was being called "Harry". Although I thought that was a nice name for her, for some reason she didn't care for it and we quickly turned her into "Happy" which is a common name here and suits her beyond perfectly. The first class she taught was at my friend’s home, with about twelve young, African men in attendance. She taught everything from basic wound cleaning, hand washing, the importance of boiling your drinking water, splinting a broken bone, immobilizing the neck and transporting someone with a spinal injury. The syllabus was thorough and she even talked about nutritional information, the importance of eating colorful vegetables and adding variety to their diet, stressing carrots, avocados and their leafy green, spinach-like veggie of doe-doe. Everyone sat intently listening, along with the group of men, my female friends Denyse and Hope, the housekeeper, were a great addition to the group. At the end of the class, we decided to add some information on Sexual Health, STD’s, and the transmission of HIV. After the six hour class, when Happy asked for a final time if anyone had questions, we spent another two hours answering questions strictly about sexual health. It was obvious to us, where their interest was and what the most useful information to them was. From then on, the class turned into a Sexual Health class, there were nine classes in total, most of them in villages and we could have continued to teach, if only Happy decided to stay longer! Having Happy for a teacher and given the subject matter in which she spoke, makes for some very content students at the end of each class! She is bumbling ball of positive energy and laughter.

For most of the villages, we notified the sub county chief of the village and requested them to “mobilize people” for the classes, sometimes we showed up to a group of eager villagers sitting on benches outside of a church and other times we showed up to a surprised chief who quickly made excuses and sent someone to notify the villagers of the class while we sat and waited. When we arrived in the village of Kabaya, where we built the house for the old man, they were all surprised to see us, but Happy stood up in the trading center and began her dialogue about STD’s, condoms and HIV. The village men gathered and before I knew it there were over one hundred men standing there listening. I shuddered for her and couldn’t imagine how she had the courage to stand up there and talk about gonorrhea, chlamydia and genital herpes. The villagers were all interested in the information she was sharing and most had no idea that any other STD’s, besides AIDS existed. At the end of the class

one old man asked, “How do I properly wash out the condom before using it with another woman?” Or, one woman asked, “So…if I have all of these diseases, that means I have HIV?” The lack of knowledge on the subject was astounding and the desire to know more was equally amazing. Imagine not having access to this information or not visiting a gynecologist regularly, or ever. Imagine never visiting a Doctor for a check-up, or to just ask questions, imagine not having the internet or the library to research symptoms you may be having. They were thrilled to have someone to ask their questions to, and it didn’t stop at sexual health questions! Happy had to repeatedly tell them that she wasn’t a Doctor; she was a teacher of First Aid and Health and then she’d answer the questions the best she could, usually followed by, “and then see a Doctor”. We put an ad on the radio to advertise the classes in the remote villages; we hired a woman translator so that the women would feel comfortable asking their questions as well. The culture here does not allow women to speak openly and freely about many things. We were told that if the women asked questions about sex or condom use that their husbands may think they were cheating on them. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, it’s many of the men that cheat on their wives and spread the HIV virus, or they have more than one wife and the wives have no say in the matter.

One Saturday morning we took a small, wooden canoe across Lake Mutanda, to a small island with about one hundred people living on it. Justine, the interpreter was with us and after hiking up the hill to the small church at the top, we sat in the blazing sun for over an hour while the people were “mobilized”. Eventually the entire population of the island was there, with no health clinic on the island these people were thrilled to ask about their varicose veins, about the skin rashes they have and many questions about HIV contraction, such as; when I go to the dentist can I get HIV? When I get my head shaved and share the razor with other people can I get HIV? Of course these are legitimate questions but still astounding that they don’t know the answers to them by now! Nor do many of them know how to properly use a condom, so after the first class, we went out and bought ourselves the biggest African carrot we could find and demonstrated how to put on, to remove and even how to dispose of a condom properly. Of course, not everyone appreciated this information, but we decided it was worth offending a few to stop the spread of diseases and possibly unwanted pregnancies in an already overpopulated and impoverished nation. Most people were very interested and were both astonished and entertained by it. After the class on Mutanda Island, we all slowly made our way back down to the boat through banana plantations while chewing on fresh sugar cane, we climbed into the boat and as Justine sat rigidly in front of us I asked her if she’s ever been in a boat before, she shook her head no. I asked her if she liked it and she said she was “fearing”. Of course there’s not a single life jacket in the boat and out of the seven of us, chances are good that it’s just Happy and I that know how to swim. Just after Happy and I briefly discuss that we’d have to choose which one we would save if the boat tipped, her phone rings. It is Justine’s husband, wondering when she’ll be home. Two days later it was Christmas, we started the day by delivering fresh banana bread to some families of the students I teach. Then, we celebrated at the German’s home; Happy, my Aussie friend Vinnie and I all enjoyed the feast and many silly games. It was a lovely day, filled with friends and laughter. Two days after Christmas we sent Justine a text, asking her if she could translate the next day for our final class. She told us she couldn’t, that she had a friend who was very sick in the hospital. The next day, after class, we were told that Justine’s husband had died of HIV. The “friend” in the hospital was her husband; she never told us he was sick, never told us he had HIV. Of course, that also means that Justine is probably HIV positive as well and possibly their three year old son, hopefully she took the drugs while she was pregnant with him to avoid him contracting the virus. A world of secrets, deception and delusions, the next day at the burial the Reverend tells us, “he was taken too soon, but that is life.” Everyone seems to be resigned to the terrible fates that Africa dishes out, no one questions it and no one has the courage or confidence to fight for change. It’s like they think they don’t deserve any better, they don’t have the right to a better life.

The hunt for a witch Doctor was in part to help us understand how people could actually believe in them and the superstitions in which they are bound. We drove through villages and pushed the motorcycles up hills through mud, we walked through the slick, rutted and muddy parts. We found men claiming to be witch doctors, but who couldn’t cure whites, we found a woman with so many animals and children in her compound there’s no way possible that she could know how many of either were there. We sat in the hut of an old man who claimed to cure people and when we started asking too many questions he started pushing us for marriage! He was willing to give ten cows for Happy; I was willing to give her, although we’d had much better offers (as many as 700 cows were offered for her!)  When I stood and left the hut the “doctor” whacked me on the leg with an iron hook he was waving around trying to intimidate us. Now poor Happy was stuck under the woman next to her, who was preventing her from leaving, he continued waving a metal rod around as if he was going to beat her with it! I found it all rather entertaining, not seeing how anyone could take this seriously. Eventually our friends went in and saved Happy from marrying the old man and we were escorted out of the home by dozens of the man’s children. In the end, the answer is desperation, when you are desperate for a cure, when you are desperate to believe that someone can change your situation, you will even bring to the man dressed in robes sitting in a round hut resembling a King’s dwelling your last cow, or the last of your food, the last of your money. You will try anything to change your fate and maybe, just maybe it does change, and of course you'll believe it was because of the powers of the witch doctor that it changed.

May your life be filled with “Happy” and may you always have the desire and the right to a healthy and bright future.  May you appreciate your right to ask questions, to push harder, to solicit what you deserve, to answer for yourself and may you always desire more, personally, for yourself and most especially may you always feel loved and respected. May 2014 be the year that you make your dreams come true…because you can.

With Love and Gratitude,

Bonnie B.

        “We are all visitors to this time, this place.  We are just passing through.

Our PURPOSE here is to learn, to grow, to love…. And then we RETURN HOME.”

                                                                -Australian Aboriginal Proverb

"You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and   affection."                                                                           ~ Buddha

December 5, 2013

Hello Happy Harvesters!

I hope your Sheep Camps, Labor Day Parties and Grateful Harvest Celebrations were enjoyable, successful and productive. The schools are breaking for the holidays again and all the kids and teachers are heading home to harvest potatoes and celebrate Christmas with their families. “We will have meat and enjoy, and many family members will be together!” It sounds so similar to the holidays at home, food and family, the two greatest things, yet, of course, so very different and two different extremes. While crammed into a bus with my daypack stuffed and heavy with necessities sitting on my lap, I can’t help but notice the guy next to me, who isn’t carrying a single thing with him, not even in his pockets. Of course I need my sunblock, I don’t want to get burnt. And water, that’s an obvious one, but how does he go without? In the blazing heat, all day long, one meal in his stomach somewhere around 3 or 4 p.m. When it rains he gets wet and when it rains on me, I pull out my umbrella. I also have to carry my sunglasses, snacks, the camera and a sweater, when it rains it gets cold. I have my book and my notebook, when we sit for hours waiting for God-knows-what, I have my book to read or paper to take notes with, while everyone else just sits and watches the world go by. My neighbor sits next to me with a handkerchief in his pocket, if he’s lucky. I am envious of his empty lap, of his freedom to move. Sometimes I feel like a real schmuk, of course I loved the few occasions a kid walked with me under my umbrella, or that I was able to share my snacks with the kid next to me. The problem often is that I don’t have enough for everyone, so I can’t share with anyone.

Irish potatoes are the big harvest for us right now, so it’s what we have morning, noon and night! Usually boiled, but sometimes fat-wedged chips or, we even had them mashed a couple of times! Grasshoppers are also in season! They are sprawled out drying on tarps all over town, it’s not the taste of them that I mind, it’s more the smell! They are salty and crispy sautéed in their own oil and with a dash of salt, they’re pretty decent! There are elaborate “farms” that set up shop for the month to harvest them. A 55 gallon drum stands with a huge iron sheet standing up inside of it. Then, they run lights overhead and the shiny steel attracts them, they land on it, slide in the drum and are too “drunk” from the bright lights to fly out. These men spend the whole month, working overnights catching the insects and on a good night they can fill up to twenty feed sacks! They sell each sack for up to 150,000 shillings, almost $60. It is a lucrative, but temporary business, so lucrative in fact that someone was recently murdered for his full sack of grasshoppers!

I started working at a Government school a few weeks ago when I returned to Kisoro and it is a whole new ballgame; no porridge served, no lunch served, dirty uniforms, dirty kids and most of them are barefoot. It is not allowed to come to school without shoes at Amazing Grace. It is more than slightly intimidating to walk into a classroom with over one hundred and forty students in it. They tell me they want me to work with “only” about seventy of them during the holiday, to help them read better. I explain that that is just too many and that we won’t make an impact on any if we try to work with so many. But the teacher insists, she will keep them busy outside, while I work with small groups inside. Ah….luckily we have a small library to access thanks to all the wonderful packages that have been sent from you, my faithful friends! Two more boxes have just arrived from my generous and thoughtful friends in Hope, AK! They will read, read, read aloud to me...all seventy of them! Often when we finish a page I’ll ask a question about what we read, like, “how did the dog get wet?” And quite often the response will be something like, “Yes”. So…comprehension isn’t quite what it should be, but “buhoro-buhoro”= “slowly by slowly”!  At Amazing Grace, we are building shelves in the back of the office to house all the books that we’ve acquired to start our own library.

Alaska’s coming  to me, perhaps the Universe really does know exactly what I need, and exactly when I need it! My friend Haley, a co-worker at St. Elias Alpine Guides in McCarthy, AK arrives in Kisoro tomorrow and she’ll be here for a whole month! She is a photographer extrodiare’, a rugged and rustling outdoors woman and has the most cheerful and happy nature! The children are gonna love her! As if that isn’t exciting enough, two days after that Brita and her mom Karen arrive for one short night and assumingly one million short stories. I cannot wait to catch up with these women who are following  in the footsteps of Brita’s Grandmother through Eastern Africa. I wish I had more of the story to share, but I’ll find out soon! Haley will be volunteering and adventuring with me. She’ll teach First Aid classes to locals, she happens to be a pro at it and we’ll also work at the school, planting some trees and maybe even some real labor building a new toilet, a “brick shithouse” type!

Just as the rest of you are presumably feeling these days…time is flying by! I am thinking of you all, even you brand new ones who I haven’t even met yet! I am loving you too, enjoy the holidays and all the love you are surrounded by. Consider those without and those less fortunate than you. My sincere wishes for each of you is to feel blessed and to be happy!

Love and Light, 

                                                                                                 

Bonnie B.

                               

        “The most effective medicine here on earth is LOVE unconditional.”

                     “In about the same degree that you are helpful, you will be happy.” –Karl Reiland

November~Brittney's visit! Nov. 5, 2013

Hi Friends!

I’m back in action, after three and a half weeks of being a tourist with my sister I am happy to be settled again. It was a wonderful few weeks, but exhausting. Bus rides, hiking, visiting with friends, schools and swimming and giraffes…are all extremely exhausting!

She arrived with a suitcase full of vacuum-packed bags stuffed with kid’s clothes, so our first mission was to get rid of that suitcase. We headed to Jinja, so she could recover from her jet lag and distribute the clothes to village children, while resting on the banks of the Nile. Our new lovely friend William drove us to a village to distribute the clothes. Luckily, we started with some control from the “town woman”! We started with a neat and orderly line, but it didn’t last long. As the crowd increased the breathing space on the little grass mat where we sat was reduced and soon it resembled a mosh pit more than a line! It was a perfect introduction for Brittney to the chaos, desperation and gratitude of daily life. We hastily found t-shirts that looked like the right size or tossed a skirt to a little one with no pants and then I’d wonder if it was a girl?! They were so grateful, if only we had more!

Murchison Falls National Park was our next stop. After six hours of quality roadside watching we had three days in the game park! At the top of the falls we enjoyed the cool, misty shower she offered us after the hike in 100 degrees to get there! At the bottom of the falls we enjoyed the bouncing and turbulent waters and some cold Nile Special Lager while learning about the fateful double crashing of Earnest Hemingway’s planes near the falls in 1954. He survived the first sightseeing plane crashing near the top of the falls, and then when the rescue plane came for him, it exploded on take-off and he survived again, this time with serious head trauma. While we pondered this staggering information we watched the massive bulk of hippos rise out of the water around us and wondered how he ever made it out alive, after crashing in the African bush. Later that night, we watched a hippo roam around our campsite! The woman working pointed him out to us and told us, “give him space and don’t shine your torch in his eyes…he hates that.”  Then she tells us his starting speed running is 45 KPH. Was that supposed to be encouraging? Later that night I heard him as his thunderous steps toured around our tent, it was like a small earthquake passing by the tent. In the morning we woke up early and drove out, hoping to see elephants, giraffes and lions! We stood and our heads poked out through the top of the truck to see herds and herds of antelope, warthogs and giraffes! I can’t believe all the giraffes, they were everywhere and so beautiful and graceful. The giraffe has the highest blood pressure of any animal in the world, to get his blood up that long neck! And also, he has to spread his front legs and bend his neck just right so that the head doesn’t go below the heart! The elephants hid themselves from us until the end of the day and the lions never did show themselves, but what a sweet treat it was to come upon a small herd of elephants with little black birds perched on their backs eating the parasites off the elephant…what a perfectly balanced friendship, I could use a friend like that!

Now, we were finally on our way toward Kisoro. With just a few short stops on the way! First stop, Fort Portal to see my dear Priscilla and Valley-Wey again, sorry you missed the party Rick, but thanks for everything, it was really great! Priscilla was so good to us, and other than almost killing her on the way back up the mountain from the waterfall, I think she had fun too!!

With a homemade pizza in a box, a bag full of her delicious and famous chapati’s and a bunch of bananas Priscilla sent us off on a matatu to Mbarara. I’ve decided Brittney is a good luck magnet when it comes to transportation. We sat comfortably in the back seat of the matatu, each with a full seat to ourselves, for the entire eight hour ride! The following morning we meet Keneth when he got off the bus and we headed to Ntungu, the village we provided the water tank for and all those beautiful little students at Hilltop School. After two hours on a motorcycle with bags full of soap and sugar and meat and more clothes for the kids here all stuffed between us, we suddenly stopped in front of a little brick house on a hill, the house had an orange tarp stretched out across the front of it and under it were about two hundred people, all eyes were on us as I wiped the dust ring off of my lips and pulled the big dirt balls from my eyes. “Sure…let’s join the party!”  We agree as I try to get my hips functioning again to make it up the hill toward the expectant eyes!  Brittney had no idea what she was in for and when we are asked to stand and introduce ourselves, of course she was mortified! After some songs, offerings and prayers, singing and dancing from the kids and after the most incredible dance I’ve ever seen, from the town drunk! (It was performed while lying on the ground, with hips thrusting into the air!) We walked home and were soon followed by all the kids, who came running up behind us, everyone wanting to shake our hands, hug us or at least greet us. It was a wonderful welcome to the village. We spent the following days at the school singing songs with the kids, reading books to them, exploring the village and the best part was that we brought twelve loaves of bread and a few cans of jam. So, our first morning there we jammed about one hundred and seventy slices of bread, then delivered them to the classrooms. Not one student knew what jam was, but with big eyes they accepted while doing a little genuflect to show respect and a “sank you very much!” They savored that slice of bread and jam; it was a delicious breakfast for them and provided a little more in their bellies than a sweetie would!

After the village, we stopped in Kabale, where we visited the orphanage that I worked at in May. We also visited Lake Bunyonyi and swam and relaxed and hiked through villages to get there. We stayed with Sarah and her incredible little family, so many great people along the way, who fed us and housed us and cared for us and loved us. Unbelievable, how blessed we are.

When we finally arrived in Kisoro we were exhausted and enjoyed hanging out with my family and friends there. We went to school each morning and worked with the kids. We spent the afternoons climbing up mountains or exploring the countryside in search of a lake to jump in. The kids I work with are especially at risk of dropping out of school because of poor grades, or lack of school fees. For this very same reason, 50% of Ugandan school girls are molested by their teachers, who are often just kids themselves. Brittney decided to sponsor one little girl that she was particularly impressed by for her willingness to learn. I have been working with Zamah for almost six months now and on her last exam she jumped from 15% to 58%. She is eager to learn and was at school every single morning to work with me during the last holiday.  She is reading better than ever and I believe her scores will keep rising! For each year of education that a girl receives, it is estimated that she will produce 10% less children, and the likelihood of her contracting HIV is about 20% less. Not to mention that without an education it is impossible to gain any sort of employment, education is invaluable for these girls. I am so proud that Brittney will be providing Zamah with an education, hopefully all the way up to University, what an incredible gift!

Then, to top it all off, while she was here, we moved Wilson into his new home and had an official house warming, dedication and blessing for him! His new home, complete with a bed, sheets and blanket is beautiful! While visiting with him and inspecting his toes for improvement Brittney and I were attacked by fleas and had them up our pant legs and biting us for hours afterward! We had to confirm that the boys would wash all of Wilson’s clothes and even bathe him before he was able to sleep in his new bed. When we went home that night, we turned our pants inside out and pulled dozens of fleas out of the seams of our jeans. A small taste of what Wilson has lived with, but will no longer!

So, the adventure continues. Brittney’s visit has come and gone, but I am still here. I still have work to do and the adventure continues.

Thank you all for your love, your prayers and your support.

Every day that I live, I have more to be grateful for.

Bonnie B.

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. In fact it is the only thing that ever has.”                                                                                        -Margret Mead

Hi Again~Wilson and his new home! Sept. 18, 2013

Hi again!

Just a fast hello to each of you and a quick update on Wilson and his new home! My plans to leave Kisoro changed when I sent out a call to you, my generous and loving friends for help, and you again responded so kindly and promptly. The rainy season has arrived in Uganda again and I couldn’t make him wait until October for a decent home, so I am still in Kisoro. We started construction soon after I sent that e-mail and progress has been remarkably fast. Attached are a few photos of the many trips to the village to bring supplies and to check on the progress of the building. Well, it is a few photos if you consider the hundreds of photos I’ve taken of the project! The entire community is grateful to us for helping this Muzae (old man). The two loads of stone and three loads of sand were carried by local women from the truck, up the path to the compound. When I paid the ladies the 50,000 Shillings ($20. USD) for each load that we agreed on, then actually counted the number of women and kids who were carrying, it was about $1. per person per load. The stones were carried in one day, but the sand took a couple of days for each load. They accepted the work and were grateful for an opportunity to make money. I’ve taken soap for the ladies to wash clothes with and books to read to the children, and of course my slew of children’s songs to sing with them.  I am happily greeted by dozens of people every time I arrive. It is an amazing feeling, a feeling I wish more than anything that I could share with you, but this computer is only capable of so much!

There is another reason I wasn’t meant to leave Kisoro yet. The new term started on Monday. Tuesday morning the director told me Christine had come on Monday evening and told him that all her clothes and bedding had been stolen from her. He sent her home to get the two dresses she said she had remaining and told her to come back that night; we would figure out what to do in the morning. Tuesday morning when I realized she wasn’t in class, I went to the Director and asked him if we could go to her home, I had a feeling something wasn’t right. I had also seen her brother in town the day before and with his limited English and strange personality, he told me something like, “Christine is stubborn. She doesn’t cook. I’ll come to school and tell the director to beat her.” I brushed him off and walked away. The director agreed that something wasn’t right and we went directly to her home. We found her mother and oldest brother, who lives next door there. After some confusion and translating we discovered that two of Christine’s brothers ‘chased’ her from her home a few nights earlier. They came home drunk and were beating her, so she ran away in the night. The oldest brother walked us to where they guessed she was, all the while telling us that his mother and brothers take too much alcohol and can’t be trusted. He also indulged us with stories about how he and his wife didn’t drink because of the constant fighting and yelling from his family while they were drunk. When we found Christine at her cousins, the cousin told us the whole story, or supposedly the whole story. I’m not sure what to believe anymore, but my guess is that it was the brothers who stole Christine's belongings. When Christine came in the room wearing dirty rags, she didn’t look any of us in the eye, but she shook my hand, then sat down on the wooden bench next to me. While the cousin, the director and the handful of other men that showed up discussed the details of the situation, I leaned down and asked Christine, “Do you want to go to school?” She shook her head no and said, “I don’t have shoes.”  I told her, “Don’t worry, we can get you shoes and blankets. Do you want to go to school?” Then she said, “Yes”. She went to the back of the house and came out in another dirty dress, a plastic shopping bag with a knot tied in the bottom to keep her few possessions from falling out of the bottom. She walked along barefoot, answering the many questions the director and I had on our way back to school. We got more disturbing and terrible stories about her family life, including the fact that the oldest brother who walked us there does drink and he beats his wife. He has even beat his own mother. She told us her family eats once a day and has gone for four days without eating during this holiday. After she bathed at school, I walked her to town and we bought her shoes, school books, underwear, a school bag, socks, and a basin for bathing, soap, a case to keep her new belongings in and bed sheets and a blanket. Most of which I had purchased for her before, but it was all stolen. After that, we went to the Potter’s Village and talked to the Social Worker and the Medical Doctor. Christine isn’t admitting to any sexual assaults, but the Social worker is planning to visit the family. She is safe at school for  the next three months and what I’m hoping the social worker can manage to arrange is for her to go back to her cousins home during the next holiday…and forever more. As if life isn’t hard enough here, between hunger and dreadful living situations, then to have drunken older brothers beating you for not cooking, when there is no food in the house to cook. What a “holiday” for Christine. The one thing, of all the things we bought for Christine, that got a smile and even a HUG from her...was the loaf of bread I brought her at school today.

Rain is pounding on the tin roof now, classes even cease because teachers shouting at the top of their lungs cannot be heard with the rain pummeling the tin roof.  I see children jumping around with mouths moving, but no sound coming out of them. I can also see the water tank filling!

So maybe it wasn’t such a “quick hello” but I tried to keep it short this time!

Love and kindness,

Bonnie

                   “Our prime purpose in this life is to help others.

                                          And if you can’t help them, at least don’t hurt them.”                 –Dali Lama

Live Simply, so others may Simply Live. Aug. 26, 2013

Hi again!

I hope you are all feeling good and spreading happy! A quick Hello and a fast farewell!  I’m leaving Kisoro again…but just temporarily…again! The little town at the headwaters of the Nile calls, you remember the one, with monkeys hanging from the trees and Kayakers paddling down the river?  Jinja, is where I met Carly six months ago when I arrived and where I’ll be heading for the month of September while I patiently count the days until my sister Brittney arrives!

Always a quick stop in Kabale on my way through to visit my friends there and all those happy little faces that greet me at Kerungi  Children's Village. Then, I’ll spend the rest of September in an Orphanage in Jinja, which is just an hour from the airport (compared to ten hours away, like I am in Kisoro).  Brittney arrives on Oct. 3rd, I’m incredibly excited to show her around, explore the North and see the wild animals with her! We’ll have a whole month so she’ll even get to stay with my family in Kisoro and work at Amazing Grace with me for a couple of weeks.

The progress at school has been rewarding and at times even amazing. My dear new friend Liz, an English woman who was visiting Kisoro, taught me some awesome tricks for teaching these challenged learners.  She identified a few of them as being dyslexic and one as autistic, which adds a whole new dimension of ‘fun’ for me! The opportunities are pretty limited here for a kid like Collins. He’s as bright as the day is long, but he’s socially awkward and if I might be honest, for once…slightly annoying! It was really good to work with her and she even left me her bag of tricks to use, including wooden cut- outs of the alphabet, a very useful tool! I never realized how much I miss fellow-muzungu’s until I meet  someone like Liz, who’s from a world similar to mine! We have great conversations about the oddities around us, trying to understand some of it. Like why do you pay for a full month’s electricity bill when the power was off for two full weeks in the middle of the month? And, why do we process and pasteurize the cow out of our milk, when all we need to do is boil it? Or how can a four-year-old die and everyone says, “we don’t know what she died from”? How can this be normal?

Working with the sign language interpreter and her class teacher alone has given Bridget more vocabulary than she’s ever had. She can make almost every sound in the alphabet, she has a long way to go before saying two-syllable words, but she is on her way. They are on holiday again for a few weeks, so things will resume with the teacher and hopefully with a speech therapist when they return. As much as Peninah, our deaf friend who was teaching Bridget, enjoys staying at the school and working with Bridget, I don’t think we need her. A bittersweet fact, a blessing for Bridget, but not for Peninah.

There’s nothing like a reminder that you’re in Africa, I went into a shop and asked for a couple liters of the ubushera drink to take home for dinner and it is handed to me in a blue jug that reads, “Diesel Oil” across the front label. My engine should prrrrrrrr good tonight!

We have blessed the school in Ntungu  with the first 5,000 bricks for their new classrooms. They are the same school we treated to the posho flour and the water tank. They study on the dirt floor on mats. We have broken ground for a four classroom block. It sits on top a beautiful mountain overlooking banana plantations and village paths up and down the sides of the mountains, the same paths that bring the kids to school. The construction will be done in phases, as donor money comes in they will build up the walls, the roof and eventually the iron sheets for the roof will complete the building and they'll be studying in a proper classroom. “Slowly by slowly”, which is how things are done in Africa.

Last night’s village visit was more than I had bargained for.  I saw one of the most disturbing things I’ve seen since being here. Through donor support, my friend Mark sponsors many children to attend school by paying their school fees and sometimes he provides them with blankets, school books, or other necessities. We visited six homes of these families and met so many amazing and incredibly friendly people. We asked the parents what they hoped for in the future, what they wanted for their children and everyone’s answer was the same, as they stood barefoot, leaning against their simple mud homes they all told us “for my child to be educated, to be able to get a job.” While visiting with two little boys who Mark supports and enables to attend primary school we noticed an old man sitting across the compound. He was sitting against a shack made of sticks and dried branches; I assumed the building was the pen where the goats were kept at night. He was happy to talk to us, happy to have his photo taken and happy to share his story with us. His face looked strong and healthy, his body looked thin and frail, but what alarmed me was the condition of his feet. As he sat, leaning against his home he tells us he is alone, his wife has died, his brother has died and these people living on his property in decent structures are the family of his late brother’s wife. He is seventy years old and he is starving because he can no longer walk to his fields to harvest his crops or fetch water. Why these people living around him allow this to happen I can't figure out and neither of my interpreters were willing to ask. The jiggers have eaten away at his feet, living in the dirt it is impossible to stop them from burrowing into his toes, under his nails, and into the bottoms of his feet. He shakily stood and showed us inside his home. I was appalled at what I saw.

My friends, I’m asking again. If you have it in your hearts and in your wallets, please spread it. For less than $1,000 USD we can build this man a one-room home with a cement floor and cement walls. The jiggers will never go away, he will not be able to walk or work in the fields to provide himself food if we don’t get him out of the dirt. This is a seventy-year-old man who is living in conditions suitable for an animal.

Live Simply, so others may Simply Live.

Top 10 Words of Wisdom By Gandhi

1. Be the Change you wish to see in the world

2. What you think you become

3. Where there is love there is life

4. Learn as if you'll live forever

5. Your health is your real wealth

6. Have a sense of humor

7. Your life is your message

8. Action expresses priorities

9. Our greatness is being able to remake ourselves

10. Find yourself in the service of others

Love and Gratitude to all,

Bonnie

Hello Friends Aug. 8, 2013

Hello, my lovely Friends!

I hope this e-mail finds you all healthy and happy and maybe even suntanned! Sometimes I forget how white I really am, and then I catch a glimpse of myself in a window or in a photo next to a bunch of Africans. I look like an albino next to them, no wonder they spot me from miles away and shout “Hello white person”!

The Health and Sanitation Department paid a visit to the school last week. Much to the surprise of the Director and the Reverend they found many things that needed attention. The stagnant water in the trench running from the spout of the water tank was one. There is a huge metal pot that is supposed to be placed under the spout, but rarely is. The kids turn the spout on and off, as they please to get a drink or to wash their bowl, their spoon, etc. The faucet has a lock on it, but that was broken off within the first week of the tank being installed. When the run-off water is collected they use it in the compound to keep the dust down or the kids wash their hands in it. They were also told that the toilets were neither sanitary nor sufficient for the amount of kids that are enrolled here. The dormitory in the far back was considered to be too small and the dirt floor harbored jiggers. None of these things were a surprise to me, but the Director was up in arms over it all. “We meet the standard; we are far ahead of many of the other schools in the area!” He explained to me. During the stressful week that followed they began the construction of another pit toilet, the man digging the hole uses only hand tools; shovel, sledge hammer, crow bar and a pick axe to break and remove the massive rocks embedded in the ground. The effort is unbelievable; as we stand watching him one day the Director nonchalantly tells me that this work will kill this man, that he will die young because of his work. He tells me he is paid 15,000 Shillings per day, almost $6. It’s a pretty good daily wage, considering that many in the country live off of less than $1. Per day. This is the same man who didn’t show up for work for an entire week earlier in the school year. When he took his dose of “de-wormer”, which most people take semi-annually, he had worms so bad they were crawling out of his nose! I was also told this nonchalantly over dinner one night. My series of questions that followed that statement went something like this…”PEOPLE are de-wormed?” That’s when I realized more than ever how good it is that I am a “temporary vegetarian”. The next question was, “Coming out of his nose?!” They told me that he must not have de-wormed himself in a long time, or maybe never before if they were that bad. It’s recommended you take the pills twice a year. Months later, when I see this man, I still picture the Director wiggling his fingers in front of his nose to indicate the worms coming out of it. The surprise visit from the Health and Sanitation office also prompted them to move and/or improve three of the “bathing” rooms for the students. These rooms are nothing more than tin sheets enclosing a small, rocky space where they squat with their basin and wash themselves. There were rocks added to the floors to improve the drainage and two new ones were built to accommodate the girls. When the director asked me, “is that dorm in the back really that bad?” I briefly wondered…”is this a trick question?” I had to choose my words carefully. I pointed out that when it rained water ran in on the floor making it a muddy mess and that you couldn’t pass between the bed and the wall so you had to climb over the beds. Then I reassured him with what I realized about the dorms myself, that many of the students preferred living here than living in the conditions of their own home. When I first came to Amazing Grace I thought the dormitories were a sad and pathetic place to live, especially for kids. They have bunks three high with barely enough space to walk between them, dirt floors, dingy blankets on the beds with a trunk for storage on top of the bed. Not even enough space on the floor or under the bunks to stash the trunks. The bigger kids have to curl their legs around their trunks and their school books stacked on the bed. There are no shelves or dressers, no pictures, posters or mirrors.  Just rough bricks with cement, there’s a string in the corner which everyone has their clothes draped over, the people in the top bunks have their clothes strewn over the rafters.  Many of the younger ones share a bed, two or three kids sleeping on one mattress. Despite all this, now I realize they prefer living here. When the term ends and it is time for the children to go home for three weeks, many of them don’t want to go. They tell me they will miss their friends and the teachers tell me that many of them don’t have mattresses to sleep on at home nor do they get fed two big meals and porridge every day. It’s all about perspective; “suddenly those dorm rooms don’t look so bad.” I explain to the director.

Christine is READING! They are beginner books, but she is getting better. When she reads, she looks up and smiles at me. She can see the pride in my face; I can see the pride in hers. When I smile back at her, she gets shy and hides her face in her hands. Being a border has given her more time to focus on school work and not worry about fetching water, collecting firewood and cooking for the family. She runs around the compound happily chasing her friends, like a third grader should. They are about to have another three week holiday, so she will be back at home with her brother and her never-ending chores.  I dream that she will be even more motivated and focused when she returns.

On Saturday night I showed up at the school around 8 p.m. I’m never there are night, so the word, “teacher Bonnie is here” got around quickly. The 150 borders that live at the school are soon all eying the plastic bag that’s in my hand. “Oh no”! I think, they think I’ve brought them something. I show them all it’s just my tennis shoes and the P7 girls run to me with open arms. It was their idea for me to come and spend the night with them so that we could go running early Sunday morning. It’s the only day of the week that they have free time and since I’ve showed up on a few Saturday mornings to take the boys running, they want their turn too. They suggested a few days ago that I come and sleep in their dorm with them, I didn’t make any promises. When I see their surprise and delight I am reminded of my nieces and nephews. When I show up at their door for a visit, the first question I’m usually asked is, “Auntie Bonnie, can you spend the night?” The P7 students are in class until 10 p.m. on Saturday night, it is one of the reasons parents want them to be borders; they have more “class time”. When we finally head to their dorm, they have a bed for me on the bottom bunk; they explain that Helen and Edith will sleep together so that I can have my own bed. As I lay down I pray to God that I don’t sneeze during the night because I might knock myself unconscious on the bed above me, it’s just a few inches from my face. It is a big building and when you stand on the top bunks you can see over the wall into the dorms of the younger kids. So the kids from the P3 and P4 dorm are sitting on top of the brick wall watching us and there is a chorus of “Good night Teacher Bonnie’s” as we finally lay down. I have a night filled with soft snores around me and blaring lights on above me. I’m grateful I’m on the bottom, so that it’s at least a little dark. I’m told the lights are left on all night so that if the little kids wake up they can see. I’m grateful I can see if any rats decide to join me in my bunk! I am pleasantly surprised, there were no visitors! There are no pillows, but the end of the mattress is raised just slightly by resting on the frame of the bed, it’s actually quite a comfortable night.

By 5:30 a.m. I hear kids waking and moving around, at 6:20 I am hustled out of bed. “Teacher Bonnie, we want to go now. Wake up!” I reluctantly crawl out of bed, after the “fashion show” last night at bedtime they have all donned their appropriate skirts with pants or leggings underneath.  A couple of them have shorts on and they are all wearing flip flops. Not a single one of the fourteen girls has tennis shoes. The teachers openly tell me, “Girls can’t run, they won’t make it very far.” The girls get shy and turn away. I happily tell the teachers, “of course, it’s their first time and they’re not used to it. We’ll go “slowly by slowly”. We run a solid thirty minutes and the girls do great, there’s a couple who lag behind, but considering they’ve never really ran before it is very good. We stop at the playground to stretch and do some “yoga”. I’ve introduced them to Yoga and at their request we have a few minutes of deep breathing and relaxing before we have to be back for porridge. Considering the hours these kids study, it is a very welcome reprieve. They ask me if I bathe with hot water, I tell them that “yes, I usually do.” Expecting, of course, that today I’ll be bathing with cold water.  Much to my surprise they bring me two thermoses filled with hot water, “one for your tea and one for bathing.” They treat me like a royal guest, they are so happy for the change in their schedule, the surprise in their everyday routine. An overnight guest is unheard of and they are happy to accommodate me. The porridge ties me over but by 2 p.m. when lunch is finally served I’m famished. These kids study all morning, seven days a week with only the hot, runny porridge in their stomachs.

Sunday was “Visitors Day”, one of two days this term when their parents can come to see them.  After bathing we gather in the compound for “church”, it’s a two hour service of singing song after song and a short “sermon” by Teacher Brian. Then they anxiously await their parents. The parents are only allowed to come on these designated days and the last one was seven weeks ago. The highlight of the parents visit is of course that they bring them treats. When I ask what they hope their parents bring, it’s always the same, “bread, yellow bananas and avocados”.  Some of them come to me sad and tell me, “They did not come.” A few of them even cry because they were hoping for their parents to visit and they never showed. I tell them, “I came to visit you!” They look at me very serious and ask, “Did you bring me bread?” I stay the entire day waiting for Bridget’s mother to show up. Bridget is the seven year old at school who doesn’t speak. I tried teaching her some signs, a dear friend, Pam, sent us a book of signs and a little white board to help her. I tried to assign a teacher to teaching her some signs and last week I took her to see the English Doctor and his wife who’s a therapist at the “Potters Village”.  The Potters Village is home to thirty-one babies and is run by an English woman. It is a non profit health clinic for children under the age of 12, it's a Nursery school and an orphanage for abandoned or orphaned newborns. For more on The Potters Village and on Bridget check out the blog, this e-mail was much too long with it all! When Bridget's mother finally arrives around 4 p.m. I have a list of questions for her from the Doctor. She sat up at one year. She crawled a little while after that. At eight months she had surgery to cut the muscle under the tongue. She has never spoken, she cries out loud. She calls her mother “Mba ba”, she calls her little sister Maureen, “nee nee”, Her Mukaka (grandmother) is “ka ka”. Those are the only words she has ever spoken. At three years old she walked and “No”, she has never been abused, beaten or traumatized. So, we are back to square one. It is a relief. She hasn’t chosen not to speak because of some horrific past, she was born delayed. Today I stood next to the cooks and as each child received their food, every single student had to say “Thank You” in sign language. I tell them, “We’re helping Bridget”. I explain that she cannot speak, so when she says “thank you” in sign, now we can understand her.

Here there are no special workers or assistants assigned to Enock who is in third grade and cannot write his alphabet, no one testing him for dyslexia or any other learning disability. There’s no social worker who looks after Bridget, who ensures she learns to communicate. There’s no one who steps in on Christine’s behalf to protect her from her brother who may or may not be abusing her. There’s no one to advocate for these children. No one to ask questions, it is a survival of the fittest, a life where only the strong or the lucky survive. Today two deaf girls came into the office asking for donations, they want to travel to Kabale to study. I gave them a donation, and then I told them I needed their help too. I explained on paper that I was trying to teach a 7 year old sign language, and I needed help. The answer to my prayers just walked right in the door. Peninah is now sleeping and eating at the school, just like a teacher. I’m paying her to be here for the next week and a half to see what Bridget is capable of learning. I think Bridget has a mental disability as well, so we’ll see how much she picks up. Some of the other kids are soaking it up like a sponge and loving it. Just as I was wondering how I was going to teach someone sign language when I didn’t know it myself…in walks Peninah, who happens to be looking for work, like most people in Uganda. Lucky Bridget.

Love and Blessings to you all,

Bonnie

Water tank #2 Delivered! July 15, 2013

Another successful water tank delivery has taken place, this time in the village of Ntungu. We hired a truck in Mbarara and filled it with the 5,000 liter water tank, the gutters, plywood and cement. We even had a little room left over, so we brought Auntie a blanket, the teachers soap and meat for the family I stay with! It was another beautiful trip to the village. The most simple things thrill these people. I took photos of some of the villagers last time, then printed them and returned with them this time. The hoots, hollers and laughs are priceless when they see the photo of themselves. Then I had a line of people, everyone and their brother wanted a "snap" taken of themselves, all hoping I'd bring them a copy.

Sunday was spent hauling stones with the kids to build the platform for the tank to sit on. It was a big procedure, carrying stones for the base from the other side of the hill, hauling water from over an hour away on bicycle just to mix the cement.  It is a beautiful platform though, it looks very sturdy and professional! The kids and I walked back and forth about a hundred times carrying stones on our heads, eventually they disappeared and I continued even though everyone insisted the muzungu must be tired. "Muzungu's are soft" I've been told more than once. They are always surprised to find that I can "manage" to work. I can dig in the garden, I can carry stones, I can wash dishes, all of these things surprise them. I explain that we do all these things at home, just a little differently. I explain that we wash dishes in a tub of water just like they do, but we stand up when we do it. They bend over at the waist and wash with their tub on the ground. When I suggested they find a stool and sit down I was told that was "a lazy mans way" of washing. It seems like it would save your back, but what do I know?! I tell them that big farms have tractors and machinery that do the digging for them, but many people have gardens and small fields that they plant, weed and harvest by hand, just like they do. Most of the time I don't think they believe me. They ask me if I'm "deceiving" them. "Muzungus are very strong." I smile and try to convince them as I continue carrying stones.

I went to a burial with the Momma of the household on Monday. They told me it was, "very near". As we set off at about 2 p.m. in the blazing sun they point to the home, just down this mountain, around the base of the next mountain and up the next ridge...."very close" I sarcastically agree. It was a beautiful walk though. Down in the shady banana plantations in the valley between the mountains, we crossed a small creek that I'm told most people in the area get their water from. When we got to the burial, there were so many people we couldn't even get into the compound. It was filled with hundreds of people sitting on the ground under big, tattered orange and blue tarps or pieces of canvas. We sit outside the compound in the shade. There are people everywhere, some of them must have walked for hours to get here. Like they do to fetch their water. We greet and shake hands with many of the people present, I play with the baby next to me. On our way home, Momma leads me up a different path, we stop at a relatives house and drink "porridge". Which is a fermented drink made from the sorghum plant. Everyone makes a different recipe and it is definitely an acquired taste. When I first arrived my face scrunched and my stomach turned at the warm, bitter and bubbly concoction but now it is lovely and I take two glasses knowing we'll be back in the hot sun soon. We sit in the tiled living room on comfortable couches as we drink. I am surprised to find such a posh home when we just walked through dusty fields, grazing goats, hungry kids, pigs tied to trees and past mud homes and little grass bathing shacks to get here.

The rest of the week passed much too quickly while reading books to the kids, singing songs under the big, shady tree and playing games with them. I ate more bananas than I ever thought was possible. When I walked past Aunties house to use the toilet on the first morning she stopped me on the way back with a steamy bowl of green bananas (matoke) and beans for breakfast. The next morning I was served cold Irish potatoes and hot tea for breakfast. For lunch it's posho and beans, for dinner it was potatoes and meat for everyone else, potatoes and beans for me please!

Teacher Olivier invited me to her home for dinner one evening, so we walked down the mountain again, stopping to greet and visit every villager between her home and the school. I'm surprised by her commute each day, but even more surprised when I realize that her two year old and four year old walk it with her each day. Everyone is happy to see me and even happier when I greet them in their local language. While I sit outside visiting with her husband, neighbors and kids we shell g-nuts and she cooks in the little outdoor kitchen. I'm offered sugar cane to chew on, it is a nice, sweet, and juicy treat, but my teeth haven't quiet mastered the task of peeling off the outside then biting through the tough fibers, so I take a very small piece. Keneth joins us as it gets dark. We go inside and Olivier serves us hot Irish potatoes with a delicious, salty fried cabbage on top. It is a very nice and tasty meal. When I ask her if she's going to join us, she says, "I'm busy!" And she goes back out to the kitchen. When she finally returns she has two little baskets with cone-shaped tops. They are warm and I'm afraid it's Karo, a gooey paste that's usually eaten with beans on top. When I open the cover I find g-nuts, the ones we just shelled, freshly roasted and salted! What a treat! They live in a mud home and have nothing more than the food they grow in their own garden, but we leave there with a plastic bag full of the roasted nuts, papaya's and sugar cane. I am humbled, again, and grateful for their kindness. They have so little, still they insist on sharing it.

Wednesday morning as we are getting ready to leave Keneth tells me, "go quickly to the playground...and bring your camera". I walk outside and find the younger kids standing in a circle, most of them in just their underpants. I ask teacher Olivier why they don't have their clothes on and she tells me, "It's P.E."! As if this explains everything. I say, "yes...but where are their clothes?" She tells me they check their bodies at P.E. "For what?" I ask. She tells me they are looking to see if they are clean and if they have any injuries. So after teaching them to walk like a crab and having wheelbarrow races I go inside and get my "jelly". It's like Vaseline, but nicer, and they use it like we use lotion. Some of them are very dry and scaly so they stand in a circle and I give them each a dab to smear on their legs, then they rub some on their neighbors backs. They are so sweet.

Finally, we hike down the mountain to the trading center, where we squeeze behind the driver onto a boda-boda. It's a Bonnie-Sandwich, by the time we get back to Mbarara we are covered in a fine, powdery dust like the plants along the road are. My mind is full of thoughts, I'm sad. It's hard leaving those kids. When I said I good-bye and I went to hug them or to pick up the little ones they didn't know how to hug. The stand with their arms stiff at their sides. When I try to pick them up they don't raise their arms, they keep them down and I have to wedge my hands under their arms so I can scoop them up. Keneth tells me it's normal and that they aren't used to it. He doesn't understand why it makes me sad." Life is different here, it's hard." He explains. Then he tells me that if kids here were treated like we treat our kids they wouldn't survive. I'm afraid he's right, this doesn't do much to cheer me up though. Maybe Muzungu's are "soft" after-all.

Since it's summer time and there are plenty of BBQ's, picnics and get-togethers, might I suggest, just for the fun of it, you try and squeeze eight people into your car next time you're hanging out. Four across the back and four in the front. That's right, the driver even shares his seat with someone. When you get everyone "comfortably" squeezed in and all four doors closed, just sit there for about two hours...just for fun....and see what you think. Then, go ahead and turn the heat on, leave the windows rolled up and be sure you throw in a goat or two, maybe a chicken and a crying baby. You'll understand why I enjoy staying put in Kisoro more and more!

Travel Safe and hug your lucky kids!

Love, Bonnie

June 25, 2013

Hi Friends!

Uganda is hot and dry right now, that equator is fierce!  I hope you are all well and happy! I've been back at school at for nearly a month already.  I've been working with Christine and nine other third graders the past few weeks. Sometimes I actually see progress, which is very rewarding, but quite often, it's simply a test of patience...which is why I suppose it's so good for me! We received more packages from another Aunt of mine... Aunties are sooo good! It was so fun watching the kid’s reactions to some of the things in the boxes. They love the pencils that have sayings or pictures on them, and especially the sparkly ones. Actually, it was the adult’s reactions that were most entertaining. They are just like the children when they see some of these unfamiliar things. The SPAM was the best, Meat in a Can?! Whoever heard of such things? They were surprised and very eager to try it. When I gave the secretary a can of it, she immediately opened it and dug her fingernail in to try a cold, slimy piece of it. She said it was very good, I told her it is much nicer when you heat it! They've never seen such things as a doggy pencil sharpener that sharpens when you crank his tail, but then again, who has?!  The pencil pouches were snatched up by Teacher Beata, Teacher Chantel and the Bussar (School Secretary). They were the three that were in the office when I brought the boxes in, they are like vultures. They took the pencil boxes home to keep sugar and salt in. The other most entertaining thing was a bookmark that had a hologram picture of a cat; the cat is watching a heart on a string swing overhead. When you move the bookmark it looks like the cats head is moving back and forth following the heart. Oh, it was so good! Watching their faces, they were trying to figure out what was making it move. They touch the picture, they flip it over and look at the back. One kid even asked me if it was "my cat"?

While I was in Kabale I met Kenneth at his internet cafe. When I asked about some of the photos around the cafe, he told me about his "project" and the school that he started in his home village. He also told me about the famine that is currently occurring due to the crops being damaged by hail. They also have a beetle that is eating the matoke trees. The green banana is cooked and eaten like a potato, usually topped with beans. It is their staple, especially during the dry season. A water shortage on top of that and you get the little village of Ntungu. My ears perked at the words, "water shortage". He showed me some incredible photos of the kids on, "Ending the Water Crisis" day. He explained that many of these kids walk for hours each morning before school to fetch water. Now, in the dry season, they have to get up even earlier because the water dries up by the time the sun comes up. They rarely bathe because the precious water they do have is used for cooking. I told him I'd like to go visit the school.

The long, dusty journey began at 5 a.m. last Wednesday, or so I thought. The bus actually left at 7 a.m. Perfect, I hate sleeping anyway! Ha Ha! After a long and expensive adventure we arrived laden with goods on Thursday evening around 5 p.m. The children were just leaving school when we arrived, they were excited to see us and we told them we'd see them in the morning. We stayed at his parents’ home, a true village experience. No electricity, no water and no rats!!! No mosquito’s either! Don’t you just love it when you sit down to dinner at someone’s table and they ask, “Do you eat grasshoppers?” as they pass you a big pan of crispy, fried legless insects! Of course, I’d been warned that grasshopper season was coming and I’d seen them in the market, but I thought I had until November to build up my courage to actually eat them. “Sure, I eat grasshoppers!” Who doesn’t? I grab one and ignore the black eyeballs staring up at me. It’s actually really tasty, like a potato chip, crispy and salty.

The private taxi for the last stretch of the journey was fifty dollars, but we brought seven 50 kilo sacks of corn flour. It's the flour they use to make the posho dish, a tasteless paste, also served with beans. I couldn't supply for the entire village of 600 adults, but we brought enough to distribute a two kilo bag to each student. "It isn't much, but it's more than what they came to school with." Is what Teacher Olivier told me. As long as we had the car, we loaded it up. We brought books, pencils, pens, chalk, boxes and boxes of crayons, jump ropes, a ball, books, puzzles and even one of those famous beach ball globes. And, of course, a sweetie for each child. Thanks to so many of you for all that love and all those “goodies"! The school was shocking to say the least. They had 30 or more students squeezed into a classroom no bigger than most of our bathrooms at home. No desks, no tables, no chairs, just some old, tattered grass mats on the dirt floor. Dusty arms and legs were everywhere. The walls are small poles, or small logs and the roof is iron sheets. Each classroom has a small blackboard which is removed at the end of each day and locked in the staff room.  There are some charts or posters on the walls and a few pictures that were colored by the kids. No food or porridge is served, so each of the 170 students carries his or her lunch to school. Many of them walk over an hour to get here. They are the sweetest, tiny little people; I can't imagine them walking for hours each day! Perched on top of a big, grassy hill overlooking the surrounding villages and matoke plantations is "Hilltop Nursery and Primary School". As I was touring the school and visiting the classrooms all six teachers were in the house filling the small plastic sacks with two kilos of posho flour from the 50 kilo sacks. 

The school has just six classes, Baby class thru Primary 3.

Baby class is more-or-less daycare without projects! They begin at two-and-a-half years old. They sing songs, they play on the playground and they sit in the dusty classroom all day long.
Middle class is 3-4 year olds
Top class is 4-5 year olds. After that, they start first grade. It is not uncommon to repeat grades, so when I walk into top class and there's a kid almost as tall as me standing next to a four year old, it's a little surprising at first.
P1: First Grade
P2: Second Grade
P3: Third Grade

The 150 students that were present formed a huge circle in the big, grassy sloping hillside that they call their playground. They invited me to the middle of the circle, first we did the hokey-pokey and they enjoyed watching me do it more than anything. Then, I handed out the goodies, they “ooooohed” and “aaaaawed” over the school supplies, they screeched at the ball, the jump ropes and the dumdum sweeties, but the highlight was, by far, the posho. I tried to picture the kids at home lining up to receive two kilos of flour to take home. They quickly formed the straightest line. They were quiet and patient with all eyes on the posho as they eagerly waited for their bag. They had just eaten their lunches under the big, shady trees. They kneel, like a genuflect and say "thank you" when they get their bag. They carried the sacks around with them like babies, some of them on their heads, others cradling it in their arms. They were shouting and singing when we squeezed in the “courtyard” between the classrooms for an assembly. They thanked me and they sang for me.  I thanked them for being so welcoming and for being such good and hardworking students, then I sang for them. Just as I was wondering how the rest of the school day would pass without the thin plastic bags tearing open they start waving good-bye to me. The barefoot little ones hug my legs and scurry off up the trail. School was dismissed around 2:30 that day! It was a sad, beautiful, confusing and amazing few days. I'll let the pictures do some of the talking!

The e-mail from Kenneth a few days ago:

I have been thinking about this since this term start, if you did not come along our way, i would be closing the project by now.... i thank God who brought you to Uganda and thanks for your much support for this term. Words of appreciation are coming from all sides, children, community, local leader and the church.

Here I am getting the praise for your hard-earned money again, so I thought I'd pass it on!  We have improved the lives of many today my friends! In a couple of weeks, I’ll be going back to Hilltop and this time I’ll bring with me a 5,000 liter water tank! The transport will be a large cost for this project, but don’t worry…that truck will be loaded to the gills!

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. In fact, it is the only thing that ever has.                                        –Margaret Mead

Today I am hobbling, but just a little. A 6,000 ft. descent did a number on my thighs! Mt. Muhabura was incredible. The greenery up there blew me away. I thought a 13,000 ft. (4,127 m) volcano would be full of big, black volcanic boulders, like the roads in Kisoro. But it was green all the way up to the top. It looked like desert shrub with giant Acadia trees and wildflowers with names like, "red hot pork". That mystical equator, working it’s magic again!

Today, although I am walking like an 87 year old, I am enjoying turning 37; my God I'm blessed and lucky. People tell me I’m getting VERY old. The average life expectancy is just 53 years old here.

                                   Here's to life and to being loved!

                       Here's to being Grateful, grateful and grateful!

Loving you,

Bonnie

“I am not bound to win, I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live up to the light I have.”             –Abraham Lincoln