Olivia is Growing Up

Behind the Kawuku market, past the giant stacks of charcoal, through a narrow trough-floored alleyway I can find Olivia helping keep her home clean and proper. Olivia is the reason I came to Uganda for the first time. Her education is being sponsored by my friend and there’s always some small gift to deliver. I love that Olivia lives nearby, which makes staying in touch with her easy.

While she’s on holiday, she stays in this two bedroom apartment with her sister (her parents are deceased) with her sister’s five other children. She seems quite happy there and her sister is always pleasant to visit with. I try to find ways to spend more time with Olivia rather than a just a simple visit. This is a challenge, though. Olivia continues to be soft spoken so conversation often lags. Open ended questions are met with single word responses. This behavior is typical of Ugandan girls. She is very respectful, kind, and welcoming.

Olivia eagerly shows me her books from school – books where she writes her homework and where that homework is graded. She’s done well in science this year and her scores are improving significantly. These kinds of results are exactly why we sponsor childhood education in the first place…we want to make a difference in the lives of people who may have little hope otherwise. I’m so thankful for my friend and the many, many other people who sponsor education for children around the world.

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Games with Olivia

The wind howled and the single, rusty iron sheet covering the small family-filled apartment lifted so that the dark clouds could be seen outside before returning to its resting place on top of the cement walls. The air pressure changed; I wondered about tornados in Africa. The wind began churning the debris outside and the roof threatened some more. Just as we closed the door to keep out all types of flying things the power went out. With the door shut, the room was black. A small candle lit the midday atmosphere in the sitting room but the flame teased us relentlessly. The rains came.

Olivia, the reason I originally landed in Uganda, has come to expect that I bring some kind of game or book when I visit and she would not be disappointed. I love spending time with this bright young girl when she is on holiday. Children in Uganda tend to board at their school and visitors are encouraged to wait until visitation day to come. So, wait I did (except when I first arrived…I couldn’t wait). I pulled out the Skip-Bo game and she quickly learned to play.

Other family members joined us but struggled with some of the game play concepts. Olivia was by far the brightest and most worthy challenger. I love seeing the transformation in this young girl as she grows. When I told her I would not see her until December, her face fell. How nice to think that she might miss me as much as I will miss her.

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Karamoja Unaccompanied: Part II – The Well

Now what? I was to get pictures of a well to pass along to the donors and then return home the next morning. A quick recommendation to Pastor Philip that he arrange a ride for me despite his absence netted a kind young man, a stranger still, who introduced himself as Ronald, an assistant to Pastor Philip. He said that he looked for me at the bus but when he didn’t find me he simply asked the people if they saw me. Needless to say there aren’t many bright girls getting off the bus in Matany every day. They all pointed toward the Inn.

Ronald had a boda man with him who “knew” the way to Kayapath. This young man was concerned for my safety because of the approaching storm. I told him, “drive fast.” Finding your way to an entirely unmarked and unpathed (a new but accurate word) location…well, I did consider that I could have easily been in major trouble way out there. A few stops for directions and we found the village this particular boda man grew up in and left so many years ago. He went to school in Jinja and returned to Karamoja later for lack of work.

He skillfully navigated the bike through kilometers of slimy muck. Remember that the area has been dry for ages but recently the rains have come (thus Pastor Philip’s delay). Snap, snap, snap and the photos were done. The well was locked so that the cement could dry, which meant that we could not take photos of the well in operation. None-the-less, what a wonderful and generous gift to the people of Kayapath.

We made it back to the Inn just in time to beat the downpour and I generously rewarded the very kind young man who was entrusted with my life for that short journey. Pastor Philip finally arrived and greeted me at the Inn. We shared a time of fellowship and food, just the two of us. I missed Agnes (his wife) and the girls (Joy and Grace), but I promised to visit again. I am so blessed to know this family.

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Fred's Mom's House and Bujagali Falls

The house was a generous gift from a Florida family and we stopped there to visit the woman known only as Fred’s mom. Henry, Gabriel and others helped to build this small house for Fred’s mom, who took five grandchildren into her original one-room home after both their parents died.

We found Fred’s mom and daughter sitting on the outside veranda shucking beans for their one meal of the day. They welcomed us into their simple structure and thanked Mercy Uganda for the generous gift. Ugandans have such good manners – they’re very formal in the way they greet and thank visitors.

Just a hop, skip, and a jump beyond Fred’s mom’s house was…Bujagali Falls. Yep, you can’t drive all this way and NOT visit the falls…right? The falls are scheduled to be flooded within the next four months. Sad. Hopefully that’s four months Africa time and not mzungu time.

This lovely lizard thingy crawled up next to me and sunbathed, while I watched to be sure he didn’t decide to have me for lunch. As usual the view was magnificent. During my next trip to Jinja, I’ll be sure to do some rafting lest the falls be gone completely.

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People of Karamoja

The woman on the right is Gabriel's mother.

The girl sitting up had been wobbling back and forth
trying not to fall over as she dozed off to sleep.
The little one in yellow obviously had the right idea.

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A Dolly in Kotido

Mercy Uganda visited Kotido for the first time “on the way home” from Matany in Karamoja. Our objective was to meet with a family who was building an orphanage there to see if we might find ways to work together. I came across this proper little young lady who seemed the perfect size for a dolly. I love spreading these gifts far and wide across the vast African continent.

This young lady knew exactly what to do with her dolly. She carried the doll on her back like the other maamas do. She traipsed all around the compound with her doll on her front and on her back. All the children were curious but they politely left her to her games. She kept saying something to me with a big smile and those beautiful white teeth. Her father approached and easily translated that she was “appreciating me.” Awe, sweetie.

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A Dolly in Kayapath

For the first time ever, a dolly recipient (not shown in photos) rejected the gift, perhaps out of fear. Keep in mind that Kayapath is far away from the semi-developed parts of Karamoja and the concept of a doll or any man-made toy may have been quite foreign…let alone a very bright mzungu. The nearby men quickly moved the gift to another girl who took a while to warm to the thing.

The older children pulled at the doll wishing to have their turn to examine the odd creature. Of course, investigating underneath the dress was proper protocol. In the end this young girl wouldn’t surrender her doll for examination by anyone else.

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Matany to Kotido

A long dirt road connects Matany and Kotido – subcounties in Karamoja. Somewhere in between a game preserve promised some interesting scenery. While this preserve is not the same as the wildlife preserves where giraffe, elephants, lions and the other expected African animals could be found, we did see two fox, some partridge, and a few four-legged hoppy things (like the deer family but very small).

The landscape changed from barren, dessert-like cover to occasional green bushes and then to full trees. The view was nothing like a forest, but it was certainly a more densely covered landscape resulting from semi-plentiful water.

The game preserve gave way to large garden plots where women and a few men plowed and tended the orderly crops. Why such a difference in the development of the garden between Kotido and Matany? Supposedly Kotido receives even less rain than Matany but even so the groups living in this region were a bit more advanced. An inquiry revealed that because the whites came and fed knowledge and money this area. It’s amazing what a little outside help can do to help (and hurt) a nation.

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Rain for Karamoja

  

Typical landscape
with a few watered crops from the new well.



Green, green, green. Karamoja seldom gets rain…seldom as in a few days each year. This lack of rain causes starvation for the people in this region. Boarding schools send students home for weeks at a time because of a lack of food. But this week the rains came…and they came. The formerly brown and gray landscape became that lush, rich green so common to the southern part of the country.

  

Current lush landscape.



The crops responded to the moisture by popping out of the barren ground in haphazard dots across the landscape. Some gardens were man-height, others baby-height. Whatever the case, the people are less familiar with how exactly to care for these crops because they seldom have enough water to see them through to harvest. Can you imagine?

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Karamoja in June

Mbale and Soroti were the two short stops made along the 11.5 hour drive to Karamoja, in the way northern part of Uganda. I took off toward the OM Supermarket in Soroti as soon as we parked the taxi, never mind the squatty potty. I’d been looking forward to the treats the supermarket offers all week. As I exited the building I found Henry waiting at the door. Whoops…chaperone required.

The supermarket sells the best homemade banana bread, even by American standards. Moist bread is hard to come by here, which is surprising given the amount of oil used in their foods. I picked three individual sized cakes, one of which disappeared into an unknown hungry tummy along the way. This bread is hand made by a local woman who wholesales them to the supermarket. I’ll get a few more on the way home again. [Update: We didn’t go through Soroti on the return trip….waaaaa.]

Other than spotting a taxi loaded with live chickens dangling on the outside, the ride was uneventful. A few extra bruises on the knees and elbows are par for the course on these rough roads. Pastor Philip and his wife, Agnes, were waiting with their musical welcome as usual and the twins (Joy and Grace) seemed to remember me as they piled into my lap.

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A Dolly in Kyamagemule

Only God knows why exactly this pout-faced little girl latched onto me the very moment I set foot on the ground in Kyamagemule. I wasn’t the only muzungu there, I hadn’t said a word, I hadn’t even gotten out the bubbles yet. She followed my every step all over that school compound. Upon closer inspection I could see the circular scars on her scalp and skin that resemble the symptoms of HIV/AIDS. While I don’t know for sure that is what she has…let me just say…nooooo, in the name of Jesus! She can’t be more than three years old.

Little Nakato, of course, was the next recipient of the now-famous dollies. She studied this dolly and refused to let go when the other children approached for inspection. By the time our welcome ceremony was finished, during which she sat skin-to-skin close to me on a small wooden bench, she could hardly control the yawning.

Following the ceremony and a quick check on the well, I hopped into the van to wait for another meeting to finish. Nakato stood at the foot of that van by my feet. She just stood there. No expectation, no puppy dog eyes, just stood close. How odd…why/how does a child sense something like this. Yes, of course… I couldn’t resist any longer (not that I tried very hard) and lifted the child to my lap where she promptly fell asleep and I fell into heaven.

Really…can I just have a “holding sleeping children who may never get warm, gentle touches at home” ministry?

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Homework in the Dark

Song and dance are common welcome gifts from the school children when we arrive in Kyamagemule. Unfortunately I cannot upload the video clip from here. Watching these children perform, right down to the tiny ones, is so much fun. The boys are quite adept at playing their drums too.

The sponsorship update on one child in Kyamagemule revealed a lack of paraffin (oil) at Joyce’s home, which means that she cannot do her homework because the house is too dark. As American’s we simply want to provide the paraffin for her. Culturally, we expect the paraffin would be used by the father and/or mother for cooking or for purposes other than light for homework and so…what is the best way to correct this problem of darkness? Perhaps the answer is to provide enough paraffin to fuel all the household needs so that there is enough for the lamp. But this is only a short term solution.

In reality we need to equip these people to produce their own income for paraffin and pray that they use

this paraffin for light to do homework. Alternatively, we need to help them find alternative light sources or alternative routines. Educating and equipping people who live so very far from any real marketplace to get paraffin from that same very far away marketplace is no easy task. Pray that God reveals an alternative solution to which the family may agree.

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Kyamagemule Bubble Chasers

The children of Kyamagemule are familiar with me, but not so much with bubbles. Once Pastor George described the fun of bubbles, the children came swarming after me. Sticky bubble syrup was everywhere.

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Game Play

Most of you know how much I love to play games. I’m just a tad competitive too. You won’t be surprised to hear that I had several opportunities to play a variety of games while in Uganda.

I first started playing Moncala with Olivia before her tutoring sessions. Not only did she learn the basics of the game but she learned strategy and she learned to teach her friends how to play. Now there are a whole slew of kids in Uganda who play the game with an incomplete set of rules.

I came upon Wahabu and Joel (whose name we later discovered is actually John) playing cards. I asked what game they were playing and they said, “playing cards.” I tried to clarify to say that any game that uses a standard deck of cards could be called “playing cards.” And asked which card game they were playing. To which Wahabu replied, “playing cards” in a voice just a bit more forceful than before. Okay, then. They taught me to play some cross between Crazy 8s and Uno. I won over and over and they uninvited me from playing. Sorry.

While visiting Karamoja I came across a boy with a brand new deck of Uno cards. I presumed they came in the gift bag given by one of the children’s sponsors. Only a few of the children spoke English well enough to understand me but thankfully Uno uses symbols that are relatively easy to interpret. I taught a group of four to play, then a second group. The girls started hollering and they began joining the subsequent groups I taught. Then I challenged the kids to form a new group of four and play by themselves while I watched. They did great. I left the group and later found kids playing independently. Hopefully when I return they’ll invite me to play too J

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The Beautiful People of Karamoja

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Karamajong Feast

The ceremony concluded with a pumping of the well by the most high government official in attendance, after which we were all invited to a special feast sponsored by the elders of the community. Goats are common livestock in Karamoja and having one for this feast was a great sacrifice for this small village. Little did Lauren know that the goat she watched get butchered would be on her plate later that day. She had a tough time choking down the goat meat in either roasted or skewered form. I, on the other hand, was surprised by the good flavor and tenderness of this meat. I’ve eaten goat a dozen or so times and it’s always good but this time the flavor was particularly good. The flies were also mightily attracted. I’m sure the photo doesn’t to the problem justice. Tasting a bit of goat was equally likely to result in a bit of fly too.

 

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Karamoja Well Dedication

An anonymous donor sponsored a well for the Karamojongs living in Kokorio, one of the villages visited in September for a medical clinic. An official ceremony will be held in May when Laura, the founder of Mercy Uganda, is here. We held an unofficial ceremony this week so that the members of parliament responsible for this region and district could be present to witness the investment we’re making here and to verify our presence in support of Mercy Uganda’s international NGO status.

I was impressed by the resourcefulness of the Kokorio Karamojongs – when there are resources to be had – in that they’d already planted a few small crops near the well. This region is so dry that the fertile land often goes to waste for lack of rain. Even the aloe plants are all dried up. This well not only brings clean water to drink, but it also provides water for livestock and crops. What better way to spend $10,000!

 

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