JOGGING ALONG...WELL ACTUALLY A BIT OUT OF BREATH!

Saturday, September 26, 2009

This time one post only but a fairly lengthy entry - again, for those who want the details!  I'll try to post some photos in another post... we'll see how it goes...

It has been a few days since we have brought you any news. I know some of you are checking this page each day and I apologize for not giving more frequent updates but I realize now that I will need to come up with a plan that works for us and not just wait for certain opportune moments. As I am so frequently reminded (less now as I gradually get the picture) “you are in Uganda and nothing happens as you might expect”. How many times I have heard this in the past 9 days! no power last night? “welcome to Africa”; can’t purchase something you wish to find? “you are in Uganda now”; expect a certain result from your inquiry or question? “remember you are in Uganda”! This is said not only by other Mzungus (white people) but also by Ugandans. Not so much a negative thing but more a reality check. Of course you have to ask the question before you can find out if this is the case but I guess I am drawing more of my own conclusions now as time goes on and so I hear it a little less than at first. So, my goal this coming week is to post 2 times. The weekend is much better because we have more free time during hours of daylight. During the week we are home between 4:30 and 5:30 pm. It is dark by 7:00 pm and it is wise to stay close to home after dark here on the mountain for a number of reasons, so that only gives 1-2 hours for supper and any other things we wanted to do. But as I say, I’ll try to post maybe Tu-W- or Th and then again on the weekend.

I was thinking yesterday that by the time we arrive home our language will have changed. The language of many Ugandans is better English than I have but when you are speaking to students you need to speak in short choppy sentences – many of them are just learning English - and I find myself doing this at other times. With my tendency (unintentional but reality) of picking up accents, I’m sure some adults think I don’t know how to speak proper English at all! Ah well.


Life has been going along. Chad goes each day to the Production Unit Carpentry Shop, I divide my time between the Vocational Tailoring class and the Production Unit Tailoring Department. (Just an aside here… the production units are two of the things Watoto is doing to help become more self sustaining – part of their Sustainability Project) Some days Chad works either at drawings that Gerry has desperately wanted to complete but hasn’t had time to work on or sometimes working along with the men and sometimes teaching a class of Vocational Carpentry students. I might be huddled with a group of girls around me who want to learn how to make a specific crocheting stitch or sitting at the treadle machine helping the girls at Production Tailoring finish the projects they have been assigned. Both he and I are having to remind ourselves of specific skills that we have not used in some time – using hand tools to make dovetail joints, explaining the use of a power tool to a teenager, crocheting grannie squares or making doilies in the round. Guess you can figure out who was doing which. We are both a little nervous by times to be placed in these roles but God is good and gives us thoughts to help solve problems and figure out new ways to do something (think: adapt, improvise, flex). I think there are few things in life that please me more than knowing that my husband is passing on some of the things he knows to others and is enjoying doing it. It is so cool when those you are teaching actually “get it”!

The school and work day here starts at 8:00 am. They all have a break from 10:30 am until 11:00 am and porridge is provided, then go until lunch at 1:00 pm. Lunch (provided for all) is usually something and rice. Often beans, occasionally corn or one day this week it was pea soup over rice. The amount some of the men eat is astounding to us! I’m talking 4 + cups of rice with beans over top… as much as the plate will hold. Often chapatti is also provided and this we enjoy. It is a bit like a crepe but it is used to dip into your beans and eat like a slice of bread. We eat with the workers several days a week but find our systems haven’t quite adjusted to the change in diet to eat it every day. We’ll get there. For school they come back at 2:00 and go to class until 4:00 then come back again for compulsory study time from 7:00 to 9:00 pm. Those who work do so until 5:00 pm. We are following the same schedule of course – except the study time - so our days are full and we rarely have trouble sleeping. (I think I slept 9 hours last night). We are also told that here in Uganda and on the mountain we are about 1 mile above sea level so the air is different and those who have just come find they are more tired than usual. This continues for Gerry and Donna and Kris to a degree. We all go to bed fairly early by comparison to back in North America. The altitude makes a difference in cooking too. Eggs definitely don’t cook the same way; cakes are a riot… Donna was making one the other night for a married couples cell group we attended “putting spice into your marriage” and just when we were certain it was never going to set, it finally did and tasted lovely.

So, a few personal notes as I close for this entry. And yes, there will be just one entry this trip. Today promises to be rather busy. This morning I need to scrub the floor of the apartment, get this post and an email to family uploaded if the internet is up and running. Sometime today we hope to go to the actual Suubi village to see some of our boys [team: you will remember how far it is from the Production Unit side to the homes where the children live… they are on the other side of the mountain. On this side is the teachers apartments and the production unit then on the top are the class rooms for both the Hope Vocational School and the P1-P7 plus S1-S6 classes (British system for primary and senior years which give students a high school diploma); the villages, both Suubi 1 and 2 are down the other side of the mountain, Suubi 2 is too far to walk in the opinion of Gerry and Donna as to get to it you have to pass through land not owned by Watoto.] and then this afternoon we hope to go to Mpigi (pronounced mm p-g) where there is a bi-weekly outdoor market. Sounds like fun.

Lise, and June if you are reading this, your heart would break for the boys I work with in the General class on Tuesday mornings for a couple of hours. 4 boys aged 15-16 who have great difficulty learning and who seem to be able to retain very little of what they are taught. Donna has worked with them much and sees them weekly and has seen some successes. She loves all her boys so much. She was a Special Education Teacher for 31 years but the resources here and sometimes the prevailing attitude can cause larger problems than most we would see at home. If we were in America they would be tested, find out exactly what the source of the problem is and then have programs tailor-made for each boy to work with and give confidence and accomplishment. But “we are in Uganda”, remember? This week in tailoring, which is where I see them, they were trying to learn to sew on a button. It had proven very difficult the week before we came. I have no clue in myself how to help here but a day before inspiration comes. I asked Chad to make large buttons from wood, about 7 inches across with four holes in the centre. We use wool needles and yarn as thread. I have the holes numbered in the order you sew on a button and explain… go up on 1, down on 2, up on three, down on 4. We do it a few times then change to a large real button and yarn, gradually coming down to a small button with needle and thread. At the end of the class three of the four boys have sewn 8 small buttons in a circle (I mentioned it was like a soccer ball as some of them like soccer) and one large button in the centre. The fourth boy got hung up on the large 4 hole button in the centre but he still managed to sew on a total of 4 or 5 buttons. This was success but it will need to be reinforced next week or the skill will be forgotten. They seemed pleased with themselves but I could not help but think of those back home who would also want to wrap these boys in love and just let them know that we will find things they are able to do well.

And a little deeper now (read yourself first before reading to children please) … I haven’t mentioned, I don’t believe, that some of the students in our Vocational classes are from Gulu. They have been brought south to this area for their Senior and Vocational classes because those schools are not yet set up in the North though Watoto is working on many fronts and building as fast as resources permit. For those of you who are not aware, the North of Uganda is the part that has been most severely affected by the fighting and the terrorization by Joseph Kony and his child-soldier army. All of these children in our classes have been traumatized in one way or another, too graphic to go into here and most of the time, too difficult for me to think about when I work along with them. If I think about it too much I just want to sit and hold them in my arms and try to take away their fears and make the pain go away. I know there are people praying for us because we are aware that God is allowing us to be there, in the presence of these amazing children… all of them really, both from Gulu and other places around Uganda, for they all have had so much heartache in their young lives … and not go to pieces. As I type this to you my heart breaks and I weep for now, here in the quietness of our apartment, God can let a little of the emotion through that has been tucked away all week.

Try to imagine yourself sitting in a class working away at a future project while the girls are quietly working away at the projects they have chosen and one young girl comes up to you (she is about 15 but they don’t really know their age), sits to face you with her back to her fellow students and voluntarily begins to tell you a little about her life. (I have quietly asked some of them before about their brothers or sisters but it is so hard to find a question that is safe/kind to ask to make conversation). She says to you that one day soon some of the students from Gulu will be able to go north for a visit. There will be transportation provided if the students have money to pay for it. You ask if her brother is there and she says yes but that she is the oldest of three. She has a younger brother and sister. She lost her father in 2002 and her mother in 2005. You ask her “to sickness or to war”? “To the war”. At this point all kinds of images flash through your mind because those who kill in this war are often children forced to kill their own families or children killing their adult neighbours. “We went to live with my uncle but after a while he tells me I must marry or leave.” She is crying now; tears stream down her face and she tries to stem them with the palm of her hand. She says something you can’t quite make out about marriage but the end is that the uncle chases them away. Her first language is Acholi but though she is doing well in English you are not catching everything she says. Somewhere along the way and after some time Watoto comes into the picture for her family. The 3 children are living with an aunt, not their real aunt but someone who has agreed to care for them. You gather that her brother and sister are still living there now. What do you say to her? She does not want to have her classmates see her crying. You cannot cry as you are facing the class. Can you say you know how she feels? Can you possibly understand any of the pain she has faced? The reality and horror of it all becomes so much more real than it did as you sat in an auditorium watching a documentary of these events. You want to say… ‘I will pay for you to go to Gulu to see your family’ but is this right? How many others are in the same situation? Is it safe for her to go back even for a short time? You hold her hand for a moment, tell her that there are now many people in the world who know of this terrible situation and who are praying and working for change; that God does have a plan and He will help her to make a plan that is right for her. Did you give her good words? Is there more you can say? Then someone comes along with a question and your conversation for the time is over.

I already love and am loved by many of these 18 girls. Some are more distant; some come so close while I teach something that our faces are side by side, heads touching; most of the time I can reach out just inches and touch their hands, touch their shoulder to encourage. Still the joy I see in these girls astounds and humbles me. For the guys perhaps the emotion is not so close to the surface but there are deep hurts all the same. The healing comes little by little when they understand a new skill, see that what they are making is part of a greater, larger picture. Many of these young men have seen and done horrors we cannot grasp. Please continue to pray that God would give grace for us to show His love and allow that love to affect us both Ugandan and Mzungu making us all stronger. Tears are okay. Tears are part of healing and of understanding, of softening my hard heart so there is room for more love. It is not even remotely in our thoughts to try to attempt daily life and interacting with the lives of those we meet on our own. God’s grace, present every breath, constant and sustaining is essential, life giving. Pray with us as we turn this momentary overflow of emotion into praise for the good He does, for the peace that passes understanding, for the joy that we see in the children’s faces.


For the children.