Hi Again Friends!
I'm leaving Kisoro, but just temporarily!
The
students are on "holiday" for the month of May. They have three
one-month breaks throughout the year and May is one of them. I'm leaving
Kisoro and heading to Kabale, which is a two hour, beautiful drive that
twists through the mountains and down to the elevation of 5950 ft/1831
m. I'll be staying with Sarah and her three kids. She is a friend of
Immaculate's who stayed with us for a week while she was working here,
in Kisoro. She has invited me to stay with them, she has lined up both
an orphanage and a hospital for me to volunteer in. The orphanage even
has a bike for me to use while I'm there and the best part is, she has
found me four yoga students! Many people here don't know what yoga is,
so finding four who are interested is promising! "If you build it, they
will come!" I'm excited about a new adventure and a change of scenery.
Though I know the scenery of Kabale isn't as beautiful as the stunning
scenery of Kisoro, I'm very excited about both the orphanage and the
yoga classes! I plan to come back to Kisoro in June, when school resumes
and when the conditions are favorable to hike Mt. Muhavura. The volcano
that dominates the landscape here at 13,412 ft./4127 m.
So the
past week, with no school, has been filled with many adventures. My
friends, Emily, Jackson and I hiked to lake Mutanda last Saturday. It
was so beautiful, we hiked through fields and
villages, up and down, up and down through little paths and through
fruit trees and crops growing taller than our heads. When we got to the
lake, there was a little camp, they had a swimming dock and life
jackets. The question is always, "do you know how to swim?" Which, of
course I do, but not many people here do, so they're always surprised
when I say, "yes!" Then, they have to clarify, "you know how to swim
without a jacket for swimming?" "Yes, even without a life jacket!" I
tell them. They
have no pools here, so unless you grew up living right next to a lake,
you don't know how to swim and have possibly never even tried it. Emily
had never been in the water before...I mean she's bathed, of course, but
has never been in a lake or a pool! She used the life saving ring, she
panicked at first,
fearing that it wouldn't hold her up, but once she trusted it, it was so
awesome! Jackson had swam before, but only with the ring, so it was the
same thing with getting him to trust that the life jacket would support
him. It was so fun to watch them. Emily said, "this is heaven on
earth!" as she floated around for nearly an hour. Can you imagine
never, ever being in a body of water in your
life? They are both around 28 years old. Then, the two of them got in
the canoe and tried
to paddle that around! Oh boy, that was purely painful to watch! They
had no clue how to turn it or maneuver it. Of course, this made me again
realize how fortunate we are and all the opportunities we're given.
Starting from when we are very young. Eventually, they had to grab ahold
of the swimming dock and pull the canoe in, after watching them spin in
circles in the middle of the lake for a while, I was just grateful I
didn't have to swim out there and tow them in! They were having a blast!
I've
visited a few students at their homes this week also. It was
unbelievable to see the small, basic structures these kids call home.
Just sticks with mud packed in between and usually half a dozen or so
people living in it. I always arrive with the gift of a loaf of bread
and a kilo of sugar, which they are very grateful for. I've been
visiting Christine regularly (the one who I took to the eye Doctor).
That is another story, which you'll have to wait for! For now, I've been
visiting her and reading with her, working on her alphabet and trying
to imagine what is going on in her mind as we sit and repeat the words
over and over, all the while hoping something will "click" and she'll
get it. Yesterday was the 5th time I'd been there and the first time I
met her mother, of course she doesn't speak English, so we didn't do
much visiting. As I was leaving her brother brought me an empty package
of malaria medicine and with his broken English asked me to buy him
more. "My head hurts!" he said. After we finished reading Christine and I
were leaving to go to the pharmacy and the brother, along with the
eight neighborhood kids that gather and read the books with us, followed
us down the path to the road. He says, "next time you come, I want a
bicycle." What do I look like Santa Clause?! I look at him and tell him,
"the medicine, yes. the bicycle, no." When we got to town, we used the
Pharmacist as a translator and I told Christine I was leaving and I'd be
back in June. Her response, "I want my head shaved!" She'd been trying
to tell me something about her hair for weeks now. I assumed she wanted
me to buy her some fake hair extensions that everyone wears here! We
went across the street and got her head shaved for about forty cents.
Love, love, love,
Bonnie
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