One more day in Fort Portal

It's hard to believe, but I just have one more day in Fort Portal. I am busy getting all the final things prepared for the photo display event that we've planned with the children for tomorrow (Saturday, June 26th). I have enlarged the photos they chose, they've written some stories about them, we've ordered snacks and drinks, and someone is bringing some good music to play.... so we'll have a little celebration and party.

It will be a nice way to end my stay here. But it will be hard to say goodbye. But hopefully I can come back to visit soon, and bring a few friends with me too!

I am lucky to be able to catch a ride with a friend to Kampala on Sunday morning, and I'll have a few days there to meet with a research partner at Makerere University, and then I head home on Wednesday evening. I'll try and put another post up before I leave to let you all know how the photo display went.

Motorbiking in the rural areas... muddy..

Here is a short video of one of the days out in the field, getting consents from relatives of the children in the project. We had to take walking detours when the road was too muddy for us to pass. We rode three on a bike (the driver, my research assistant Lily and myself)... I'm technically not supposed to be taking motorbikes without helmets, but you won't find many helmets here and there is literally no other way to go unless you walk or take a push bike which would take hours and hours, or days even.... As you can see, the roads are so bad, we go very slowly. And there is little to no traffic in these areas ;-) only pedestrians, goats, cows and people riding bicycles.

Playing in the Pool

It takes a long time to load a video, but today we are blessed with a great internet connection! So here's a little snip of the kids playing in the pool. You can see this sweetheart is "pretending" to bathe!

Pool Day with the young kids

This was one of the last afternoons the volunteer was at the rescue home and she invited me to join her and the six littlest children to go to a pool for some swimming. The older children are in school all day long from 8am-4pm, and usually don't get back from walking home from school until 5pm or so. But the little one's finish around 1pm, so we had time to take them to this lovely farm/resort type place in a nearby village area. It was a blast!

They had so much fun, and I was swamped with children hanging off every part of my body when I joined them in the water!



Here is my little friend wearing my sun hat!


Delta has very little fat on him, so he got quite a chill from the pool water. So we warmed up together in the sun and got some cuddles in too. The children love to sit near you or on your lap.



This is a photo of some of the buildings at this resort. It is a beautiful place. You can also see in this photo that Sam is carrying my back-pack. The children here have such amazing manners. When ever I come to the home, they bow down to greet me. And this Sam - he's such a sweet boy - he likes to carry things for you. I can never carry my own bag or hat - he will always carry them for me.



Loving to be able to ride in the front seat of the car! (You can also see that there are no such things as car seats or booster seats for children here.. .. and no one uses seat belts, unless they are on the highway).

Manna Rescue Home

This are some photos I took of the goodbye party for a volunteer who had been working at the rescue home for the last year. It was lovely. The children sang songs, danced and put on a play! Then there were speeches and gifts, and then some delicious food.

This is the traditional dance. The boys wear shakers on their legs as they dance, and the girls have their grass skirts.











Here the children are singing one of the goodbye songs.















This is a photo of David and Carol saying a few words to the volunteer who is parting.



















This photo is one of the young boys... I love him a lot... he was sleepy this afternoon, and passed out on the grass!


Here is a photo of the volunteer we were sending off, and she's clapping to the music with the youngest little girl at the home.



Here is a scene from the play! You can see one of the girls is a nurse on the left, and one of the older boys is also a nurse on the right! He's wearing the traditional nurses' cap even! And one of the other boys is a doctor in this scene (he's so typically throwing his stethoscope over his shoulder).


Here is where they were presenting the volunteer with some gifts. When you give a gift to someone you offer it with both hands and bow, as the lady here was doing. And to show you are grateful, you receive gifts with both hands.


Here the children are enjoying a special treat... they had roasted a pig, there were chapati's and sodas to drink.

Other thoughts.. and some photos I can now load!

The boy in the red shirt put the remnants of the stickers I gave them on his head! Funny!

In my other time here, I've been tutoring some children that are part of Carol's other program - they are orphaned or vulnerable, but not living with HIV. Due to poverty and not always having family around or family available to pay for school fees, some of them have been in and out of school, and are struggling to catch up. If you can imagine as well that in most schools there are 100's of students to one teacher. So if you are struggling, or not understanding, you can imagine that you just end up falling further and further behind. This has such a damaging effect on a child's self esteem and self worth. (also the teachers usually tell the children that they need to pay more attention or work harder)...

So I've been working with some of those children and they are such great kids. All the exams in the schools are in English, so if a child is struggling with English, then they really suffer. So we mostly try to work on English, reading, comprehension and writing. I also help them with math.

I've found that most of the children are having problems with their english, so if they could only get some more help with english, then they would do just fine in school.

One boy is the cousin of Solomon - the boy I've written about before. He's now under Solomon's care, as they and six others were living with Solomon's late grandmother. This boy's father was the one that murdered the grandmother. And this boy was regularly beaten by his father as well. He actually came home to find the father beating the grandmother, and was afraid, so he ran away. When he returned, he found the dead grandmother. And so he blames himself that his grandmother died. So he's had a lot of trauma in his life, and now is living with a foster family while Solomon is in boarding school... and he's struggling with english, and therefore getting poor grades in school and feeling even worse about himself. Luckily last week we had some one on one time, but I wish I had more time to spend with the children like him.

This week I brought stickers for them, so when they were finished the worksheets I made for them, they all got a sticker - WOW! That was a hit! I think for our last session, I will make them an award certificate for a job well done. I think they'll like that, and hopefully it will help them feel loved and special.

Phew! It's been hard to get on the internet.....

It has been a long, long time since my last blog... I've had so much to write about, but the internet has not been cooperating lately. Either the network is down, or it's on for a few hours and then stops, or the power is off, or the connection is so slow that I spend an hour just trying to read and send a few emails, and then my patience has worn off!

But today I have some time at the internet cafe, and so I'll try to give you an update on how things have been going.

I made it back from Kampala with all the approval documents I needed to get started. So we went to the Manna Rescue Home and talked to the older children to see if they would be interested. They were all interested in participating, and were very excited about the fact that they would be using cameras. I think they were quite fixated on this, and I don't think they fully grasped the concept of single use or disposable camera's right away... so that was our first sensitive topic to clarify with them all!

Then we went out into the country side to find relatives and family members of the children who still had living relatives to get consent forms signed. I love being out in the rural areas. It is so beautiful, the land dotted with small subsistence farms, animals, green gardens, birds etc...
During our first day out it had not rained for quite some time, so the dust was our main enemy. The dirt roads get very dusty and when larger vehicles drive by, you are enveloped in a cloud. We took motorcycles out to get to the villages, because some of the roads can be so bad, there is no way you could ever get a car or jeep through the narrow paths or mud.

The next few days we had a lot of rain, so we were off battling the mud! That meant a lot of walking for us, when the road was so muddy that the motorcycle couldn't pass. I have some good video and pictures of the roads, but I don't think I can load them all today. I will when I get home in a few weeks.

So we were able to find some extended family for some of the children, but not all. Extended family used to be the social security net of Africa, but because of many things such as war, poverty, disease, HIV/AIDS, extended family is actually becoming more rare for many people. So many people have died, that children and families are really left on their own. Sometimes neighbours will help, but even their ability has been so streatched.

So the last few weeks I have been so greatly privaleged to work with 12 amazing youth. They youngest 2 are 12 and then they range up to 18 and we even have one boy at 22. They have been living at the Manna Rescue Home for about 2 years now. It is a lovely place in a good neighbourhood just out side of Fort Portal town. They have an office, a dormatoriy (one for boys and one for girls), a dining hall and a storage area. There is a temporary mud-brick kitchen out back where they have two cooks that prepare all the meals for the 30 children. And they do an amazing job to give these children adequate nutrition to support their health, as all the children are HIV positive. There are 3 nurses that stay at the home 24/7 in rotation. They are called "matrons", and are like the surrogate mothers of these children. There is also a security guard 24/7 to watch the gate and a few young men that help tend the land. The children are also responsible for chores, cleaning dishes, sweeping up, washing their own clothes ect.. helping to dig in the garden, just as they would be doing and more if they were living in the village. So they try to give them as much of a normal life as possible.

It is heart-wrenching to hear the stories of these children though, and to hear about the incredible losses they have faced - their parents dying, extended family dying. Trying to survive on their own as young children with their brothers and sisters, sometimes stealing food is the only way they survived a harsh life on the streets of the town. And then their health. Living with HIV, but not on treatment, their health was so poor, and they were malnourished, stunted and their already weakened immune systems not able to fight off infections and disease. It is really a miricle that so many of them were able to survive so long on their own.

This reminds me of a young man of 18 who lived on the street with cousin (who had also been abandoned and was HIV positive), and he did everything he could to protect her and keep them alive. When he came to Carol's he was so malnourished and stunted, he looked like a boy of six or seven. Even now he is small for 18, but you can tell that he has grown so much thanks to the medical care, love, food and care he receives at the home.

And then there are 30 more stories like this. And even more children living with HIV, orphaned, vulnerable or abandoned out in the community and rural areas that we don't even know about. So these children are really exceptional to be cared for in this way.

So they have been through a lot. And then they face stigma and teasing/bulling in the community and in school. Their hope for the future is so fragile. But you can see that some of them are adjusting and building their self esteem and confidence. You can see the strength they draw from eachother, and it is so touching to see how they care for eachother.

When ever I go to the home to visit or work on the project, I am always overwhelmed by the sense of love in the place. And it is a place that feels sacred, because you can see God's work, and the strength of the human spirit and the power of kindness and love at work. It is truly a miraculous place.

I think the younger children are adjusting well. I think the losses they have experienced, maybe they were too young to fully understand. But I worry for the older children, because they have lived such hard lives for so long, and now as they are in their adolescence, that can be a tough time. They get group counselling, but I think they have such big issues to work through, it can be hard. And as a teenager, you are trying to find out who you are, and are focused on your future and trying to make sense of the world. I worry that some of the older children have lost some of their hope in the future. They are told that they are dying and worthless by certain people in the community and schools.... I think they may believe this. So that is heart breaking.

But when were are their doing the photo project, they have so much fun, and it is great to see their smiles, and hear their jokes.

We've been out to a river nearby the home for photos, they had a good bye celebration for a German volunteer who had been working there for a year, we took the little kids to a swimming pool at a nice farm/resort the other week... I have so many pictures to show... hopefully I can post them soon...