Molly in Africa

3 months to go...

2010-04-22T04:43:00.000-05:00

Yep, that’s right I’m leaving in 3 months and yes, I have very mixed emotions. :)

I’ve felt pretty burnt-out and bitter and I’m working to push past that. When I am conscious of those feelings, I do a lot better job of not letting them affect me as much. I’ve also felt like I’m stuck in a weird limbo of not wanting to start new projects that won’t get finished within 3 months but then being stuck with too much time on my hands, which inevitably leads me to think about home and then I start getting worried about how I’m going to adjust, what I’m going to do, what will be different, yada yada yada.

So to fight that- I am starting two new projects that I will finish before I leave.

1) I’m now teaching at Chaminade Secondary School. This is the all boys boarding school where Matt and Chris (and Kat, Sarah, Emily and Dugan) teach/taught and these are the boys that always come to the door to ask questions or to borrow things. I have been with each of the two Form 4 classes (equivalent to seniors in high school) and I think this will be a fun new challenge. I have a ton of new names to learn and instead of teaching the class with the purpose of just improving the lives of the students (as it is at MIRACLE), these students have to be able to pass their Life Skills test in order to pass their Senior Exams. I hope it continues to be a source of energy and fun for me.

2) When school starts again at MIRACLE next week, I’ll be taking some trips into town to gather information about all the NGOs that are there and what they do. In our social office at MIRACLE, people from the surrounding villages always come to ask for help with different problems. We don’t have the money or resources to assist with most problems but we end up feeling guilty that we don’t help because these people are really in need. So I’m going to find out about all the NGOs in Karonga so that we can accurately recommend where they should go so that they can receive help. It should be a fun project and hopefully it will be helpful long after I’ve left. Or at least for a little while.

That’s life here these days. Thanks to all of you who still read this and send me emails. :)

A day in the life...

2010-03-13T01:57:00.000-06:00

This is not a typical day, so don’t get excited but this is not a completely abnormal day either. This is just a day in the life for me, right now. Enjoy…

Yesterday morning I went to work early (7:00 instead of my usual arrival around 7:40) because I’m the teacher on duty this week and I had to oversee the class I had assigned “punishment” for. I made the class do weeding for about 15 or 20 minutes and I had a great time joking around with them or mocking them. ☺ Good teacher that I am, right? At 7:30 the rest of the students began their normal cleaning and I spent the next fifteen minutes walking around supervising. At 7:45 the bell rang and students went to classes for morning prayers and attendance and I went to my office where I found a student coming in who wasn’t feeling well. Twenty minutes later the secretary came to me and said the director has assigned me to drive her to the hospital. I drove her and her housemate to the hospital and dropped them off (picking up some people along the way who also wanted a ride in that direction).

When I returned to work it was about 8:30 and before I even made it back to my office, I was told that I had to drive for a funeral for the rest of the day. One of my co-worker’s father-in-law died and we needed to bring his family plus a MIRACLE-made coffin to his home village about 25 km away. At this point, I was vaguely aware that absolutely nothing I had planned to do that day would happen. Such is life.

Highlights of the afternoon included:
- driving through a bushy area with approximately 11 people in the bed of the pick-up truck along with an empty coffin, then getting stuck in the mud and spending the better part of an hour trying to back up- which included backing up down that same bushy path (which I must say was easier to drive forward than in reverse) and breaking one of the side-mirrors off the car because the car couldn’t get out of the mud to get a better angle on the path
- arriving at the funeral and finding an incredibly grateful group of people waiting for the arrival of the coffin
- sitting with all the women (the men and women are separated) and their children as they sang songs and listened to the preachers. I looked around at one point and was just admiring all the colors that everyone was wearing—not only did they wear brightly colored chitenjes (cloths), but they each wore several different (Americans would say “clashing”) chitenjes. Unlike American funerals that are sad and even look sad, Malawians do a MUCH better job of celebrating the life and celebrating God’s infinite support though their songs but also in the colorful ways they dress and dance.
- having my co-workers very adorable daughter fall asleep on my lap
- getting entertained by two choirs that sang beautifully and danced with such enthusiasm- it was amazing… my co-workers were disappointed I didn’t bring my video camera so we could prove to people how impressive it all was!
- taking lunch at about 3:30 at my co-worker’s father’s house and sharing stories with my co-workers; after lunch learning the proper ways to eat sugar cane without a knife… surprisingly easier than I thought
- driving through the tent village where those affected by the chindindindi (earthquake) were being assisted and then driving home- dropping off everyone at their houses on the way home
When I finally arrived home it was about 5:20 and I was late for our guests who we’d invited for dinner. We have three new people working at MIRACLE- a brick-layer, an agriculture teacher and a new attachment program officer- so our house decided to invite them over for dinner to get to know them a bit better. The whole evening was a blast- they’re really fun and younger than most of the other staff members so we could talk more freely with them. We even convinced them that we have a pet lion (still quite young- we said he’s the size of a dog) and when we went to show them after dinner Chris had already stealthily tied a rope around the tree and left an empty dish next to tree and then convinced them that our lion ran away! Hahah, it was pretty funny… and hard to keep a straight face, but we were successful and today I was questioned about whether our lion had returned… “not yet, but we usually feed him in the afternoon so I’m hoping he’ll come back later.” Oh lions… :)

So it was a long day and I’m still tired today—driving takes a lot out of me when we get stuck and I feel a lot of pressure not to ruin the car (which I sort of failed at yesterday). But all in all, it was a really wonderful day and I am grateful for all these random experiences that I’m having while I’m here.

Holiday Celebrations!

2009-12-28T06:23:00.002-06:00

Ok, so I’m a little behind on blogs… I’m working on it though. So to catch you up on the holidays…

THANKSGIVING: We celebrated Thanksgiving this year, similarly to last year. We had over 30 people at our house, wearing pilgrim and Indian headbands and we entertained them with a Thanksgiving play written by one of my housemates, Chris. Our guests ranged in nationalities from American to Malawian, Australian to Kenyan and we even had a Canadian! One thing we did differently this year is we cooked all the food ourselves… it was awesome! A lot of work, but it made the event that much more enjoyable in the end. J

CHRISTMAS: So many of the traditions that we do in the States surrounding Christmas are not common around here. For example, stockings… I’ve never seen anyone do that here. Even Christmas trees… while there are some fake ones sold, it’s not common to have them. While last year we just went with the Malawian flow and didn’t include those traditions in our celebration, this year we did and it was really fun! We all played Santa to one another and filled the stockings and had a fun revealing on Christmas day. For our Christmas tree, we decorated this massive cactus tree right next to our house. Since it’s the rainy season, we had to be creative with how to decorate it but we managed to come up with dyed water in small plastic bags… it worked perfectly! For Christmas dinner, we had the Brothers community over and enjoyed the feast we collectively prepared and the familiar company of one another.

While of course I missed being home for the holidays, I have to say we did a darn good job of making the holidays enjoyable far from home!

The Restorative Powers of Nkhata Bay

2009-11-04T07:16:00.002-06:00

I've been a little stir-crazy here the past few weeks... feeling bored with my housemates (you try living with a small number of people who are supposed to fill all the roles of housemate, friends, venting partners, people to challenge you, etc without many people outside of that groups and see how hard it is!), bored with myself (I have the same routine so have felt like I just don't have that many interesting things to say) and bored with Karonga (it's just hot- who could be excited about that for long periods of time?). All of this happened to coincide with Emily and Sarah's last weekend in Malawi (they just left today and I already know I'm going to miss them a ton), for which they requested all of us to join them at one of their favorite Malawian spots- Nkhata Bay.

The weekend was a BLAST... exactly what I needed to feel refreshed and happy. :) It usually takes about 6 hours to get there by public transport (you have to switch minibuses in Mzuzu), so we took the day off of work on Friday and made our way to Nkhata Bay. My favorite part about the whole weekend was that we basically never had an agenda. That meant that we had the chance to take things slow- stopping to look in shops, chat with people (strangers, old students, friends we've made before in Nkhata Bay, etc), buy some crafts and art work and taste new foods. Nothing was rushed- we woke up when we wanted to or when the sun came streaming in the window that was right on the bay. We didn't all stay in the same hotel which meant that I had a good length walk to get over to the group each day and could leave when I wanted.

Highlights of the weekend included: getting such a beautiful room with a view, getting the song "Low" dedicated to me twice (mose i mose by my 2 favorite DJs-- Sarah and Emily), buying a hammock (looking forward to putting that up... maybe this afternoon!), eating a bean milk shake (yes, you did read that right!), walking so much, having a really nice breakfast with Matt, Sarah and Emily on the last morning and getting a ridiculously sweet ride home (for free! with air conditioning! and good conversation!!!)!

Now it's back to the work week for me. I'm spending the week driving for home visitation, which stresses me out to no end. Yesterday I had to just keep reminding myself of how peaceful and happy I had been all weekend. Today, the driving was much better (mostly town roads... not village roads) but I know tomorrow will be tough again.

Look for another update in a couple weeks... happy November... and happy birthday Stephie! :)

The Importance of Being Popular

2009-10-21T08:10:00.002-05:00

I thought I would share this little nugget of information that my student just told me...

Apparently, it's important to be popular so that when you die there will be a lot of people who contribute to your funeral and everyone will have full bellies.

I didn't expect that to be the end of the sentence either. :)

Life in Karonga continues to carry on. It's the hot season meaning it's over 110 degrees everyday. We had a workshop last week for new women's business groups and that went really well. They received their first loans this week, which was very exciting! I'm talking to my first year students about Marianists now and that's a fun and interesting topic for me so I'm enjoying that. The girls' football team continues to meet twice a week and while they're no where near amazing, they do make small improvements every time... and they have a lot of fun, which is the whole point! I was sick last week- vomiting, fever, etc... it sucked, but my housemates took care of me and I'm fully recovered now, so that's good.

That's all from here for now... thanks for reading!

Prayer, Guests, Interviews and a Kids Party!

2009-10-06T02:25:00.000-05:00

Prayer in the Classroom- About two or three weeks ago, there was a change in the morning routine at MIRACLE. Now we only have school assembly on Monday and Friday, which means that on the other days, class teachers go to their classes a bit early and have prayers with them and then take attendance and have general announcements, as usual.
I am a class teacher for the second year hotel/catering students and I LOVE this change in format! We created a schedule and the students are rotating who leads prayer for the class. Because we’re a smaller group, students are more attentive and in general the reflections seem to be more sincere and simple. In general, here at MIRACLE, I’ve really enjoyed sharing my faith with the students and staff.

As I continue my time here I am always questioning what my purpose is here and lately I’ve been more intentional about sharing faith. Since MIRACLE is a Christian (Marianist) school, all of our students are Christian and faith is not the taboo topic it is in the States. I’ve been really challenged by my faith here and I definitely don’t live up to my beliefs as often as I’d like, but I think that is what’s great about our faith- it’s always asking more of us- to love more, give more, share more, etc. Just being here isn’t enough, it’s never enough to just be…

Unexpected Guests- Last weekend we had some unexpected guests staying with us. They were patrons of the drama club from a school up in Chitipa. Two male patrons stayed with us while one nun stayed with the students, but took her meals with us. We were given virtually no warning that we’d be hosting them and that really frustrated me, but we had to move past that and welcome these guests into our house. I actually really enjoyed the challenge of it and of course, it turned out to be a great weekend.

On Friday night, Matt and I stayed up pretty late with one of the teachers just chatting about different things. He’s the girls’ football coach at his school and a BK (Bible Knowledge) teacher, so he had some things in common with us and was a really nice person. On Saturday night we sat around singing and playing the drums with them and the two Germans. I continue to be reminded of all that we can learn from simple conversations with other people and since I love to chat, that seems to work out pretty well for me!

Interviews with the Best WBGs- Last week, we invited our best Women’s Business Groups (WBGs) to the office for interviews. We had four groups come on Friday and we’re expecting another three this week. The interviews have gone really well so far. I’m planning to create a short video, using clips from the interviews to share with my boss and our board of directors and maybe (eventually) with donors, etc. Hearing how the loans our office gives affects these women’s lives really helps to motivate me to work harder and try to make the program better. If I’m able to create the movie and upload it to youtube I’ll be sure to let you all know!

Kids Party! On Sunday we invited all the children of all the teachers at Chaminade Secondary School to come over for a kids party and it was a BLAST! We had coloring, football, netball, ping pong, limbo, dancing and singing… it was great! A lot of fun to play with little kids, fun to get the chance to try out some of our Chitumbuka (although it is still so so so limiting), fun to have all our housemates involved in hosting people at our house and funny to watch these kids. We had a couple little kids pee themselves before I remembered that we needed to show them where our pit latrine is and then we had a conga line to the toilet with Chris leading us in a wonderful rendition of his first song in Chitumbuka- Chimboozi (that’s how you say toilet here). We had all the kids singing about the toilet and basically thinking we were nuts… but what else is new? Other highlight of the afternoon was when they were doing the limbo and one kid (who was too short to need to worry about limboing at all) just fell backward as he attempted to walk under the limbo stick. I learned a couple more kids names and just had a great afternoon with them all! I hope we’re able to have another kids party during my time here! :)

So those are the updates from the past two weeks… hope things are going well for all of you! Again, it’s always great to hear from people so feel free to send an email or a letter!

Language Lessons, a Funeral, the Germans & Football

2009-09-19T15:00:00.000-05:00

Lots going on these past two weeks!

Language Lessons: We just completed our language lessons yesterday and they were wonderful. We hired a language teacher who works with Peace Corps named Shupe to come and live with us for two weeks and give us intensive language lessons. I was a bit nervous about the lessons and the idea of having another housemate for two weeks but everything went SO WELL! I’m able to understand more of the language now and I now understand the structure of the language- how to form sentences, add adjectives, etc. Shupe crammed a TON of information into these two weeks, so it’s been a little mentally draining, but so worthwhile! In the next week or two, I hope that more of the information we were given will settle into my brain and I’ll be able to sort through it and actually use it! We’ll see how that goes. :)

I have to talk about Shupe a little bit now because she was amazing. Not only was she a great teacher, she stayed so well with us. I felt comfortable with her almost immediately and when I think back on these past two weeks, I can’t help but smile. Starting the second day she was with us, Shupe was teaching me songs in vernacular so that we could sing together. I was better at joining her when the song was really simple so I learned a song sung at weddings, a song that little kids sing about food, a song sung during the harvest time and a song that raises awareness about the benefits of breast-feeding. Haha, sort of a strange assortment, but it was really fun! In addition to that, Shupe just added such a great component to our conversations. Her experience teaching language to foreigners has given her some great insights into the differences and similarities between our cultures and she is really knowledgeable about life in Malawi. I guess to summarize, I should say- Shupe was great and our community will really miss her.

A Funeral- Two weeks ago, Madam Mwalweni’s father-in-law passed away. Madam Mwalweni is my co-worker at MIRACLE who works in the Social Office with me. In Malawi funerals are very important. In villages, when a funeral is happening, everything else stops- no meetings, no work… nothing happens because everyone is expected to be attending that funeral. Attending a funeral serve a couple purposes. 1. The obvious: burying the dead. 2. Consoling the family and friends. 3. Somehow proving that you were not connected with the death. Witchcraft is commonly accepted here and so when people get sick or die, it’s quite normal to ‘blame’ someone for causing that pain. By showing up at the funeral, it clears suspicions. 4. You’re supposed to go. It is seen as respectful and proper culturally to attend a funeral for anyone in your family, for anyone in your village, for the family of any of your friends and for the family of any of your co-workers. For those last two, it actually gives more respect to your friend/co-worker for you to show up. It is a clear sign to their family and neighbors of how well respected they are and that they have good relationships with people.

So we all went to the funeral. We walked the 7 or 8 km to where it was and by the time we got there, he had already been buried. We stayed for about an hour or two and it was so interesting to see and be a part of it. I don’t have words to describe the experience right now but shoot me an email if you want to know more- it was really neat.

The Germans- There are two girls from Germany that are working at Lusubilo (an orphan care center in town) that we’ve been hanging out with a lot these past two weeks. They’re 19 and 20 and we’ve had a lot of fun with them. One day they came and met us at the lake; another day, they came and joined us for dinner; another day, we had a surprise slumber party with them (there was a message invite so we were surprised when they showed up a day early) and then we had the expected slumber party with them when we actually expected it. It’s been cool to hear their reactions to the culture here and also just to chat about their lives in Germany. I’ve learned a lot from them through our conversations.

Football- I finally have gotten off my butt and have started girls’ football (American soccer) at MIRACLE! We had our first two trainings this past week and the girls are really excited. After the first training we had a little meeting and I asked when they wanted to play again and they excitedly said, “TOMORROW!” We’re going to train twice a week and I’m really looking forward to this time with them. It’s fun to see them learning the new skills and just interacting freely with one another. We had a scrimmage on Thursday and there were some good moments of passes or good defending, but there were also times when I was doubled over laughing at whatever had just happened! :) I think they will improve somewhat quickly though because they’ve never been taught anything about how to play before but they are eager to learn.

It’s also just been really fun to hang out with the girls. The classes I teach at MIRACLE are predominantly male and the students who are more outgoing and have gotten to know me outside of the classroom are again, predominantly male. I’ve loved getting to laugh and be silly with these girls and of course to encourage them.

Highlights for June, July & August

2009-09-05T10:18:00.003-05:00

Haven’t written on here in a long time, so I’ll try to do an entry of highlights from the past three months:

My birthday- My birthday fell on a Wednesday this year and that’s our community’s night to have guests over so I got to do the inviting. We had three of my co-workers from MIRACLE and it was really nice. The Brothers community came over bringing a cake and singing to me and Alick and Vicki had made a cake too—although they hadn’t originally presented it or anything so after I gave them a hard time they sang and danced and were pretty ridiculous about it, which made me laugh REALLY hard.

Kujimanya- Retreat at Chaminade that Sarah, Matt and I helped to organize/chaperone. We took about 55 students (including 18 leaders)—all form 3 and form 4 (juniors and seniors) in secondary school—on this retreat and it went really well. I actually enjoyed the preparation more than the retreat itself because it gave me the chance to get to know some of the Chaminade students.

Family coming to visit- Wonderful time for me to just be myself, laugh, sing, play games, tell stories and have my family understand my day-to-day experience better here. There also is a great story of our encounter with elephants that, if you know my mum, pops, David or Maryjoy, you should ask them to share with you. If you don’t have the privilege of knowing my family, shoot me an email and I’ll explain.

Mid-service/Closing Retreat in Nairobi- Our community from the first year had our closing of community retreat in Nairobi with Br. Jack (an American Brother from the States who was in Nairobi for the Marianist Lay Communities international meeting). I really enjoyed the retreat and came away from it with new energy for a new community and to jump back into work with the Women’s Empowerment Program.

Activities since Alyson and Chris (my two new community members) have arrived:

Malepenga dancing- This is one of the traditional dances here and I’ve been wanting to see it for the past year and we finally went to go! The dances were in Alick’s home village which is about 45 minutes away if you take the most direct route. The walk was fun because we had to cross the river, which was easy since it’s STILL the dry season so the water was only at the middle of our shins, so we just took off our sandals and walked across. This dance is done primarily by men, but they put on earrings and women’s wigs and even some make-up. The dancing was fun (very energetic), but I enjoyed getting to see Alick’s house in the village more and where he will be constructing his house in this next year. On the way home it took us about an hour and a half, but by this time it was dark and we walked on the main road, which was a little less direct. All in all, that was a great day!

Borehole trip- The next day, we had to get water for ourselves and for Chaminade Secondary School (we’ve been without water coming out of the taps in the day time for the past two weeks). So we piled into the Chaminade truck with the big green tank and went to the borehole for a little water adventure. We provided some entertainment to the women and children who were there by drumming on our huge tank in between dumping buckets of water in it, drenching Chris with a bucket of water, following Alyson’s directions and “just dumping it” on her when she was washing her hair and then pretending we were on a water ride at an amusement park as we drove back to Chaminade and tried to avoid getting splashed by the water, falling out of the truck or letting the big tank fall out.

Giving Medicine to the Chicks- Our chickens have all been dying since the beginning of August and it’s because of some disease called New Castle. I rode our bike into town one day this week to go to the bank for work, but before I left, I stopped by the Vet’s office and talked about the chicken problem. This morning, Matt and I spoon fed a vaccine to the chicks that haven’t yet been affected by the disease (we hope). I had never caught a chick before and I got pretty good at it after the first couple tries. :) Also, just an update- our ducks had ducklings! Two have hatched so far and we still have six more eggs… very exciting!

Tonight we’re celebrating the official welcoming of Alyson and Chris at Chaminade and probably making a visit to our favorite/only dance club in Karonga—Planet K.A with some of the teachers. We start language lessons on Monday with a woman named Shupe who teaches the Peace Corps volunteers so I’ve very excited, hopeful and now (as the lessons draw nearer) I’m getting a bit nervous. So please, keep me in your prayers that I can push through the awkward moments of all the mistakes and embarrassments that I’m sure I’ll experience as I try to practice out in the village.

As I hope you can tell in this post, I’m doing really well. I’m happy and I’m getting back in the groove of things here. I miss people from home still and I still get lonely here, so keep sending those emails and letters… I love hearing from you all! Quick shout out to my Wellspring Community- it was WONDERFUL to hear your voices just now! :) :)

Lots of love,

Molly :)

An uncomfortable truth...

2009-06-04T02:42:00.002-05:00

This excerpt is written by Bono as part of a foreward to Jeff Sach's book, "The End of Poverty," but I thought it was really telling...

"He helps us make sense of what senseless really means: fifteen thousand Africans dying each and every day of preventable, treatable diseases--AIDS, malaria, TB--for lack of drugs that we take for granted.

This statistic alone makes a fool of the idea many of us hold on to very tightly: the idea of equality. What is happening in Africa mocks our pieties, doubts our concern, and questions our commitment to that whole concept Because if we're honest, there's no way we could conclude that such mass death day after day would ever be allowed to happen anywhere else. Certainly not in North America, or Europe, or Japan. An entire continent bursting into flames? Deep down, if we really accept that their lives--African lives--are equal to ours, we would all be doing more to put the fire out. It's an uncomfortable truth."

Yesterday was the anniversary of the Ugandan Martyrs and when I was having prayers with the Brothers yesterday, Adoka gave a really powerful reflection. He asked what we are willing to sacrifice for our faith, for what we believe in, to say "amen." He said we often joke that living in Karonga is sacrifice enough but really, we live comfortably here. I thought that was so telling. He mentioned that while we don't always have power, we do most of the time. While we don't always have water (we just spent the last two weeks not having water), that we do have running water here. We never are too hungry.

I guess I'm sharing that second part because I want you all to know that I am still faced with that same uncomfortable truth even though I am living here. I will be the first to admit that these past ten months have not been an experience of living in solidarity with the people around me in many ways (mostly due to the amenities afforded to us in our house and through our volunteer program). Lately we have been doing some things that I like in terms of interacting with surrounding people more. We've started having people over for dinner finally (we've been talking about it since we arrived). It's been really neat to share in some social time with some people that we work with and to get to know their families has been a great way to build stronger relationships. I hope this is something we'll continue to do (and maybe even do more often) for the next 14 months that I'll be here.

So my two challenges of today's blog:

1) In what ways are you willing to act in order to show that you feel people ARE equal?

2) Are you comfortable with how you live? What about when you think of it in comparison to your neighbors? the people in the closest inner-city? the people living in rural America? the people living in Africa?

Elections, my "Backyard" and a fun visit!

2009-05-27T04:47:00.003-05:00

Elections:

Last week (Tuesday, 19 May), Malawi had national elections! They have these every five years and they choose a new president along with new MPs (Members of Parliament). The elections went fairly smoothly from everything I've heard. The president here was re-elected, which everyone I know supported, and people seem to be fairly happy and hopeful with the change in MPs. It was fun to have the chance to ask people a lot more questions about how the government works here and I spent the days leading up to the election learning a lot from different people around me here.

My "Backyard":

Because of elections and a bunch of staff were graduating, we didn't have school last week. I spent the week doing random things around the house- mostly being lazy and bored. Half way through the week, I tried to use my time a bit better.

-- On Wednesday, I spent 3.5 hours working in our Perma-culture garden which is our backyard. I don't think I've written much about the garden on this blog, but it's pretty incredible. When we arrived, we just had a sandy backyard and now we have a beautiful (although most of it is turning brown now) garden! Matt has been working with two Malawians (Dennis and Kenneth) to start up this garden that is primarily watered with our house's gray water. That means that our showers water banana trees, orange trees, lemon grass, etc.; our kitchen sink waters an area that has banana trees, snake plants (preventing snakes, not attracting them), passion fruit vines, etc; our bathroom sinks are now watering some greens and that's where the watermelons are as well. In the first year of the garden, it produced cucumbers, maize, greens, watermelons, pumpkins, lemon grass, a few ground nuts, beautiful sunflowers and our first bananas are showing on our trees now!!! It's a really neat concept and great way to utilize our used water.

-- On Friday morning, I went on a 2 hour walk in our larger backyard. Beyond our property in the back, there are scattered houses among lots of little hills and then there is a decent sized ridge that marks the boundary of how far we can see. I decided to try to walk towards it. I left about two hours later than I planned so I didn't end up having enough time to reach the top of the ridge before I had to turn back to be home in time for lunch. Now that I know the path I'm excited to go back. It was a great walk though- up and down the hills, walking past crops and a few houses, greeting people along the way. On my walk back, I started to sing as I walk. I've been missing singing a lot lately but I just don't feel comfortable singing around people most times here. Well, on my back, I came upon a few different women as they were walking with large bundles/buckets on their heads. Singing is such a common thing here that I would stop to greet them, but then (instead of waiting until they were out of ear shot) I would start back up again. It was very freeing. :)

Fun Visit:

Matt and I went to visit one of our Peace Corps friends, Mark, down at his house about 30 km south of us. Mark visits our house all the time but none of us have ever gone to his and it was awesome! His house was great- simple, but comfortable. Mark cooks all his meals over the fire he makes in the little brick building behind his house (his kitchen). He doesn't have running water or electricity, so he pays someone to get one big bucket of water each day from the bore hole just across the main road from his house and he uses candles or his headlamp after 6 when it's dark. While I am sure he gets frustrated sometimes without having all the amenities that we enjoy at our house, he doesn't complain and honestly, I'm jealous. I definitely have realized how actually doing the work gives you a better appreciation for it and also the whole process of "figuring it out" can be really fun. That concept is something we're trying to push for a bit more at our house... we'll see how that goes!

That's all for now... thanks for all of you who still read this! And thanks for those who send emails! I'm sorry that I haven't been good at keeping in touch but I do love to hear from all of you!

Three things...

2009-05-10T11:05:00.004-05:00

1) Photos are updated on Facebook so check those out- January & February; March & April; Uganda and the most recent album- Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious & Rice Harvesting :)

Hope you enjoy those!

2) I think most of you know this but these past couple months have been pretty difficult here. I've been frustrated a lot of the time- everything from the program to the job site, my housemates and the overall lack of energy I've felt. So, I'm sorry for not updating the blog, responding to emails in a timely fashion, and any other offenses I may have incurred.

We started a new term this week and I'm trying to make things better here. I've met with MIRACLE's director and principal (separately and then together), the director of the Brother's community next door and our house had a conference call with our State-side directors. I'm hoping that those meetings along with a new attitude from me will lead to some improvement. We'll see...

3) Yesterday two of my housemates (Matt and Kat) and I went out to learn about rice harvesting. It was a beautiful day in a beautiful area of the country (just about 25 minutes north of us) and we had a great time. :) We went to one of my student's houses and went to his fields, learned how they harvest and then learned how they pounded. I think it's safe to say that we were all pretty awful at it... but they told us they've been doing all of these things since they were ten and that made us feel a bit better.

I'm not sure there is even a point in trying to update from the past couple months but I will try to make a better effort to blog at least once a month from now on... maybe more often if you're lucky!

"Women Can't Be Disciples"

2009-04-11T06:05:00.003-05:00

At Holy Thursday Mass yesterday, I was curious what I would see.

For the past (I don't know how many) years, I've only know the way we celebrate it at St. Nick's. We sang songs with lyrics like, "Do you know what I have done for you?...If I have washed your feet, so you must do as I have done for you." We all removed our shoes and stood in lines around the church to wash someone's feet and then have our feet washed by a different person. While I've always enjoyed participating in this experience, I think I've liked watching everyone else more- watching the young mother and her daughter gently washing an old man's feet and then carefully drying it in a towel; watching women and men- young or old, able bodied or disabled, sound of mind or mentally unwell, related or strangers- bending to serve one another.

Yesterday I sat in a church 50 feet from my house here in Karonga and watched as 12 men were chosen from the men's side of the church to get their feet washed by one person (one of the Brothers). I wondered (aloud to Kat) if the women would have their feet washed next or if they just wouldn't be washed. After the 12th man's feet were washed, boys jumped up and grabbed the 12 chairs from the front of the church and carried them away.

After Mass, I walked home with my friend Frank, who had been one of the 12 whose feet were washed, and he said, "I got to be a disciple today." I congratulated him and then asked why there were only men up there- no women- and he said, "Women can't be disciples." I told him we had to chat about that. The two of us sat on the veranda with Matt, Kat and Kat's mom (who is currently visiting us) and discussed his statement and why all of us (eventually including Frank) thought that statement was false.

What continues to surprise me here- specifically about gender roles but it could apply to other things too- is how often the questioning of inequality just doesn't exist. Why not include women? Why not include the ones who can't afford it (the poor)? the disabled? the students? the non-Catholics?

I think the way Kat's mom sarcastically wrapped up our conversation on Thursday fits for all of it- "Women can be disciples, we just can't get our feet washed." How many times do we include people, but not for everything? It happens here all the time, but it happens at home too.

International Women's Day of Prayer

2009-03-06T09:20:00.003-06:00

I started this day with being the prayer leader for morning assembly at MIRACLE. This means that after the student group assigned for the day leads us all in at least one if not two songs of praise, then it is time for the assigned student or staff member to read from the Bible and share a little from that. While I have led prayer during our morning staff meetings, this was my first time leading prayer for the whole school and I had no idea I was going to be so intimidated by that. I read from 1 Romans 12 about the many parts that all belong in the body of Christ. It went well and throughout the day I've been complimented on the "good sharing" I did this morning. :)

From 10:30-12:30 today, all of the women on our school's campus (both students and staff) walked over to the Chapel at Chaminade (about fifty feet from my house) to celebrate the fact that today is the International Women's Day of Prayer. Only women were in the church, so everything was led, read and sung by women which was pretty neat. I sat near the back and, while I understood very little since it was all in Chitumbuka, I really appreciated watching the rest of the women participating. It was encouraging, exciting and just fun to see all of these women praying and praising together and feeling free to participate and lead! In a culture where women are constantly told by societal norms that they are not worthy, it was a really fun two hours to get to watch all of these women bask in their worthiness. Watching women preach and get the rest excited and engaged, hearing women just belt out the verses to songs and watching the joyful dancing during the songs makes me smile even now- hours later.

If any of you celebrated international women's day of prayer, let me know how you did it!

I'm going to try to update about every two weeks from now on, so hopefully you'll hear from me again later this month! I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and enjoy the beginning of March!

Nkwiza Pachoko Pachoko

2009-02-23T07:31:00.001-06:00

"I'm coming slowly by slowly," I say in vernacular as the women in the market laugh at my ever improving Chitumbuka language skills. I walk away from their wooden table where they sell oranges (that are green in color of course) with a smile on my face as I realize that even in the past three weeks my comprehension and speaking ability has really increased.

We're now having regular language lessons (twice a week) with a woman named Sarah who is a primary school teacher close to our house. She teaches standard one (first graders) and that's perfect since that's our level when it comes to Chitumbuka! :) She's a really nice lady and just having someone to give us lists of verbs & nouns and help us practice has been wonderful.

I'm trying to find more and more people to practice with- after all, practice makes perfect- and my list is growing each day, which is cool.

John: At the start of this year, one of the cooks at the Brothers' house next door agreed that he would help me get better at the language by only speaking to me in Chitumbuka. So each time I'm over at the Brothers (which is at least three or four times a week), I always make sure to stop in the kitchen and greet him and chat a bit.
Clifford: Right in front of our house there is a garage where the maintenance workers from Chaminade hang out during the day when they have dead time. Recently one of them has picked up on the fact that I'm getting better at speaking vernacular and he always calls out to me, "Mauka uli, alongosi?" (How's the morning, sister?) One huge perk of talking to him each day is that he has now antagonized one of the Brothers (Adoka) and told him that I'm going to be better at Chitumbuka than Adoka, which has created a friendly competition. Adoka is far far better at Chitumbuka but it's fun ot have a goal in mind!
My students: Technically if you speak in vernacular at school, you are considered a law breaker and are punished with manual work at the end of the day. I say technically because this term I've decided not to support that rule at MIRACLE and have gone into classrooms and encouraged them to talk to me in vernacular so I can practice. Just being forced into it sometimes (never in class of course) has really helped. After greetings, the phrase I probably say the most these days is, "Chonde muyowoye pachoko pachoko" (Please speak slowly) which allows me to at least recognize separate words and pick up the gist of what someone is saying.
WEP members: Women who come into the office are always good to practice on. The other day I was most impressed with myself because three women came in (they're all in the same business group) and I greeted them all separately in different languages. One knows English well, so I started with her. Then I greeted the second woman in Chitumbuka and she responded and I turned to the third woman and she greeted me in Nkhonde. I'm pretty sure they just like testing me, but I passed this test with flying colors and I was really proud. :)

So the language is coming along. I hope to continue gaining more and more skills there so that I can communicate more easily with the WEP members and also with the children that I see on my way home from work each day. I also am secretly looking forward to really impressing my family (Mum, Pops, Dave and Maryjoy) when they come to visit in July!

LILONGWE!

2009-02-01T09:52:00.002-06:00

Sorry I haven't written for a whole month- to put it briefly, I was overwhelmed, overworked and tired for most of January. There were a lot of contributing factors but that's why I didn't write. I just finished a phenomenal week and that's where I want to start this blog post:

My position at MIRACLE has been shifting a little lately and I am now working more with the attachment program. Attachment here is basically an internship at the end of their two year schooling in a specific trade. Students go out for six months and work within their field (carpentry, electrical installation, tailoring or hotel & catering) with different companies, businesses and contractors all over the country. Most of our electrical students and some of our hotel and catering students are in Lilongwe, Malawi's capital city. I had to go down to visit them to smooth out some miscommunications and just check in on the rest of the students.

I left last Monday in the back of the MIRACLE pick-up truck with Matt, Sarah and Emily- Bro. John and Beams were in the cab. It was a great ride down- Mum, you'd be happy because we DID sing a song- 100 Bottles of Beer on the Wall... all the way til the wall was empty. :) And had lots of other fun times on our 8 hour journey. The Brothers were staying somewhere else, but the four volunteers all stayed at a little backpackers place. It was nice to just get to relax and spend some quality time with my housemates.

On Tuesday, I spent the whole day with my third year students that are on attachment. I know you're not supposed to have favorites, but I totally do and I got to see all of them which was AWESOME. Most of them were doing really well and it was wonderful for me to get a whole day full of smiles and good times with them. In spending the day so happily with them, I was aware that I really haven't felt that free all month and I am actively making some changes in my daily life here to make more time for students and just chatting. As I've realized in thinking about it, not only does that give me energy and life, it also supports the students and helps to encourage them. Win-win situation if you ask me. :)

I arrived back in Karonga on Wednesday night and have been taking it easy ever since. I'll try to write another blog post in these next two weeks... I have some funny inauguration day stories that I'd love to share too!

I hope all of you are doing well. Sorry that I'm not great at keeping in touch- please continue to write emails- I will do my best to respond soon!

Good Morning 2009!

2009-01-01T08:48:00.002-06:00

Welcome to a new year! It's 8am now as I write this, which means it is just becoming 2009 in Chicago but I have been awake since we celebrated the new year here in Karonga, Malawi. After a very fun and fairly spontaneous New Year's Eve celebration at a local bar with some friends, we got back home at 1am. Kat and I remained awake and chatting for the next 3 hours and by the time we finally headed to bed it was about 4:15. As I tossed and turned in my bed, sleep just wasn't coming but it wasn't that annoying feeling where you start counting down the hours that you have left to sleep- it was just a calm, "I can't fall asleep right now." At about 4:55, I looked out the window next to my bed and saw through the tree branches that the sky was lit with a beautiful pink and realized the sun was rising. I jumped out of bed, grabbed my camera from the house and headed out to a spot out back where I've watched the sunrise before. As I watched the sky gradually change as the sun rose, I was filled with a peace and hope that I wanted to share with all of you.

Here is my prayer on this New Year morning:

Lord, let this be a new beginning for me. Let me embrace this new day and new year with the peace and hope You've filled me with this morning. Help me to let go of my frustrations with the people I live with, work with, interact with and even those that I ignore. Teach me to appreciate my friends and family better. Help me to understand my housemates more. Teach me to respect even the people that I do not like. Loving God, fill my heart and let today be a new day. Let this be a new beginning for me. Amen.

As we begin this new year, I have to tell you all that I have hope. I have great hope for the work I'm involved in and I'm glad that school will start up again in 4 short days. I have hope that relationships can continue to improve in my living community and that if I truly am able to let go of some of my frustrations, there will be room in my heart for the love that God demands me to share. I have hope that members of my community can have better experiences in their job placements as we begin a new school year. I have hope for my faith to continue growing as I now have my spiritual home with the Brothers community who I go to prayers with regularly. I hope that you are finding things to be hopeful in as well in this new year.

Love and holiday greetings to you all,

Molly :)

Nkhupulika Yayi

2008-12-17T03:37:00.002-06:00

Yesterday morning, a woman came to my house looking for me, looking for help, looking for money. This woman looked similar to so many that I have met over the past four months. The creases on her face are physical marks of the fatigue she feels from her daily responsibilities. The chitenje wrapped around her waist is tattered and dirty because she probably can't afford to buy a new one and washing it only keeps it clean for a moment when you live in a grass-thatched hut with mud floors.

She sat on our veranda (her sign of respect to me) and greeted me in Nkhonde. I greeted her back and she began to tell me what was wrong. I responded with, "Nkhupulika yayi" (I don't understand). In this particular moment, I simply meant, "I don't understand what you're saying because I don't really know Nkhonde." But I could have meant, "I don't understand how to help you back on your feet." Or it could have meant, "I don't understand how there can be so many people facing these similar problems." Or it even could have meant, "I don't understand why these women are coming me, a young 22 year old with little knowledge of their experiences, for help."

I walked inside and asked Vicki, one of our cooks, if she would be willing to help translate for me. With her help, I learned that this woman is caring for her orphaned grandchildren after her daughter passed away. She was looking for some money to start business and so I explained (through Vicki) about our Women's Empowerment Program and how it works. It was clear she was unhappy that she couldn't receive help now and I tried to explain that I recognized that she was in a challenging position but all the women (over 150 groups) on our waiting list are also in that challenging position and it wouldn't be fair to help her first.

Wouldn't be fair. What about this situation IS fair? Is it fair that because this woman's daughter died, she now has to go begging help of other people in order to find means to adequately provide for her family's needs? Is it fair that I live in a huge house that clearly has the amenities I need (AND want) and she is simply asking for help with her NEEDS? Is it fair that I stay within the "system" that exists here in order to help instead of acknowledging that I personally could afford to give her the little sugar she asked for at the end of her visit with me?

Nkhupulika yayi.

Thanksgiving- Malawi style :)

2008-12-14T05:32:00.006-06:00

Some of you know this already, but Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. It's always been marked with the richness of Hogan traditions and family fun. I had been homesick the week before Thanksgiving and I figured Thanksgiving very well may push me back into homesickness since I won't have family around or the traditions I'm used to. Luckily, we had an amazing celebration here in Karonga- a true testament to Thanksgiving's ability to gather people of different cultures together in the spirit of community building and appreciation.

We invited some of the most supportive people of our community to share in th

is American holiday with us. At the top of that list are our two cooks (Alick and Vicki), our friend and helper in the garden (Frank) and our night watchman (Mr. Hara). So we invited all of them and their families. Then we also invited the Brothers' community next door, their cooks and night watchman and their families. Finally we also invited these two Australian couples who are about my parents' age. We ended up with 35-40 people at our house and it definitely felt full which was great!

When people entered they were adorned with a headband/hat so that they

could be either a Pilgrim or an Indian. As people gathered, there was corn hole played out front, pin the gobbler on the turkey, Bawo (a Malawian game that's similar to Mancala) and lots of small conversations among different people. Before dinner, the six volunteers put on a little skit about the first Thanksgiving. It was hilarious- I had found it online earlier that day and I'm pretty sure it was for second graders!

[Pictured Above: I am sitting in between our cook Vicki & Frank's mom.]

We each only had one or two lines and we had one of the Brothers' cooks translate it as we acted so that everyone present could understand. Then we had a Bible reading (in English and a summary in Chitumbuka) with a prayer from Andy in English. To close up the prayer we went around the long table and asked everyone to say a little prayer to God for something they were thankful for. Each person said it in their own language and it was by far my favorite moment of the night. Getting to hear every person's voice at the table made it clear that each person was welcome and supposed to be there. Even though people were speaking in different languages and I couldn't understand everyone, it was humbling to hear the gratitude in people's voices and realize that we really do have a lot to be grateful for.

The rest of the night was filled with LOTS of food and fun conversations. We ended the night with dancing (typical in Malawi), driving our guests home and coming home to wash all the dishes. I got a chance to talk to a lot of my Hogan relatives which was really fun- just to hear their voices and get the chance to be somewhat present at their celebration as well.

Overall, a great day and something that gives me hope for the future of my community... Maybe we really can find ways to invite, gather and share with the people here instead of perpetuating the barriers that naturally exist between whites and Malawians here. I'll keep you all posted on that.

Life Without Water

2008-11-24T04:44:00.003-06:00

Well not without ANY water, but it’s amazing how life continues even when water doesn’t come out of your faucets. Let me start with a little ranting and then I’ll get to the raving…

Ranting:

While I haven’t really been keeping track, I think we’ve spent 6 of the past 9 weeks without water. Just to clarify- that means we can’t use our toilets (so we use our pit latrine out back), we can’t take showers (so we do bucket baths) and we can’t waste water (because we have to drive to closest bore hole and fill buckets and that process usually takes at least an hour).

The last one about not wasting water has several implications: we bathe less frequently- I was on a two or three times per week schedule which was reduced to once or twice each week. That wouldn’t have been that bad, but (until this past Thursday) it’s been over 115 degrees Fahrenheit each day. Most of you know I sweat abnormal amounts in the states so just imagine me out on village visits under the African sun with that heat! Dirt was burrowed in every crease and crevice of my hands and my feet were so coated in dirt & sand that my students began asking, “Madam, WHEN are going to bathe?” Laundry also fits in here… without excess water, laundry couldn’t be a priority over drinking water. So in these past two weeks, I’ve worn shirts 2 or 3 times in a week. If you don’t think that’s gross you should re-read this paragraph and pay attention to the part about the heat and the amount I sweat.

I hope that was a sufficient rant for you all.

Raving: For the most part, I really liked not having easy access to water. Here are just a few reasons:

1. Trips to the borehole to get water are ALWAYS fun! One time Sarah and I were trying to figure out the borehole norms. Another time four of us went and were a little silly with the water. Matty and I poured a whole bucket on Sarah- right in the face… actually right in her open mouth! While I felt a little bad that she experienced that drowning feeling for a moment, mostly I thought it was hysterical!

2. Bathing is much more rewarding when your skin changes colors as a result (brownish/red- bright white).

3. I’m learning how to carry buckets on my head (very Malawian) and that’s been a fun challenge.

4. Pooping and peeing in a pit latrine is all I did in Uganda so that wasn’t uncomfortable… actually oddly familiar.

5. It humbled me to see the women, men and children at the borehole who always have to walk to this common source and wait for their turn and then carry their buckets (usually on their heads) and jugs back to their homes.

We got water back last week and my laundry was washed on Friday. Taking a shower with water pressure is an appreciated cleansing experience now and I’m grateful for my new-found enjoyment of being clean. :)

Obama's Good Luck Ax

2008-11-23T13:21:00.003-06:00

(Sorry this post is a bit overdue)

Most of you probably spent your time on Tuesday, 4 November the same way I did- sitting in the one room in the 2km radius that has a functional satellite tv with two other Americans and their large bottle of water (since it's ridiculously hot here), four Malawians and a Kenyan with an ax. "Why the ax?" you might ask. Well, this particular Kenyan (Br. Adoka) thought that having something from Kenya with him would help him properly cheer Obama into presidency. He called it Obama's Good Luck Ax. Below is a photo of Adoka and I with our respective flags in celebration of Obama's win. :)

We DID have the chance to watch and celebrate Obama's victory over here. Matty, Andy and I woke up at 4am on Wednesday morning here to watch as the polls were closing and the votes were coming in. My parents called at 6:30am, right after McCain had given his speech, and were able to chat about all the election news... including the fact that Dave and Maryjoy were down at Grant Park to be a part of Obama's victory night!

It was a great day here... my co-workers were incredibly supportive of me and my joy for the news! They actually cheered when I walked into the staff room that morning because I had already spoken with some of them on the phone that morning to share the news. People in Malawi were excited about Obama's victory in general (not just people who knew Americans) and it was cool to be a part of the celebration in this part of the world. :)

I have two or three more blogs to post in the next two days but the internet is acting up today so I'll try again tomorrow.

Another woman to meet...

2008-10-30T06:40:00.003-05:00

This is Margaret Nyirenda and she is caring for her 4 grandchildren by herself. Their parents died and Margaret is a widow. She joined MIRACLE to help support her eldest granddaughter who is in secondary school because she didn't have enough money for school fees. When we visited her yesterday, she told us that she was so grateful for MIRACLE because her granddaughter just graduated from secondary school this term!

In our meeting with all the women in her village after we visited her home, Margaret was a clear advocate for our office, the program policies and how we stick to them. Several times women asked questions that Margaret chose to answer instead of forcing us to repeat policies we have.

Margaret is just another example of why I'm grateful to be a part of this program. Knowing that the work we're doing is leading to grandmothers caring for their grandchildren is definitely something I can support. :)

Other than the Women's Empowerment Program, things are going well in my life here. This weekend I'll be headed to Mzuzu (a city about 4 hours from Karonga) with 35 MIRACLE students for a YCS (Young Christian Students) retreat/conference. I'm excited and a little nervous to go because I don't know what to expect. I am looking forward to spending more time with my students- they're great! Last night we had our bi-monthly dinner with the Brothers' community next door and it was a blast! I really enjoy them and am continually enjoying interacting with them more- both in prayer and just around Karonga.

Alright, time to get back to work now...

Feel free to keep in touch (mhoganh@gmail.com)!

Meet Mary

2008-10-27T06:14:00.004-05:00

In talking to my parents yesterday, I realized I still haven't told you about any of the women that I get to work with here, so in this post you get to meet Mary.

Mary is caring for 9 orphans and as you can tell from this picture (she's the one with the cloth on her head in the middle), she's not exactly a young woman! We had gone to visit her at her home last month and had only met two of the orphan-women that she cares for. This week, we met seven of the people she cares for and there were two that were at school. While it is clear she has a lot on her plate here, that's not abnormal of the women we support.

What I was most impressed by with her was her positive attitude toward life and her responsibilities in life. She doesn't know much English, so Madam Mwalweni had to translate everything for me but Mary was saying that she is just using what God has given her to make ends meet. Since the last time we visited her, she had started a new side business to be able to more fully meet the needs of all the people she cares for. As we were finishing our visit with her she said that she will continue to work hard because God loves her and it was clear that she felt that God's love of her will give her the strength she needs as long as she does her part. What an amazing woman!

There might be a little Molly in Malawi....

2008-10-18T05:23:00.002-05:00

No, I'm not pregnant! Hahah...

Yesterday, I was talking with some women from a group that just recently joined our waiting list. As we chatted, I told the women about how we could accommodate a problem they were facing and the one woman who understood English in the group broke into a huge grin. Then she told me that if God ever blesses her with a girl (right now she only has sons), then she would name it Molly after me! Hahaha!

Just thought some of you would get a kick out of that. Hope you're all having a great day!

"Madam, you are full of ifs"

2008-10-11T14:43:00.005-05:00

A few weeks ago (actually in my second and third week working at MIRACLE), MIRACLE started its yearly process of choosing its students for the following school year. School years begin in January here, so the process needs to be complete by November-ish. MIRACLE invites anyone between the ages of 17-27 to come for interviews on two days and the staff splits up and interviews as many candidates as possible. One of the cool things about these interviews was that when looking for their qualifications, we do look at their grades, but then equally (if not more) important is whether they are needy. Most of our students have at least one parent who has died- many have lost both of their parents. I learned a great deal from these interviews when I first arrived and this past week we had the chance to continue the process.

After the potential students come to MIRACLE for an interview, then we (the staff) go to visit the top candidates at their homes to verify the information they gave us. The MIRACLE staff were split up and assigned one to two days of "Village Visitation" as it was called. On my assigned days, I joined my co-workers in our pick-up truck and spent the day away from the office. On my first day, I had the chance to interview about 8 students. Each had a really interesting story and I was constantly impressed with the perseverance and determination that these students exhibited. One of the students we met with was hoping for a spot in the carpentry course and when we commented on how far she lives from MIRACLE she said she is willing to make the hour and a half walk each day to and from school!

On my second day of village visits, we had a late start and had about twice as many students to visit. When we arrived at the first village (which in this case was a town), we were greeted by 12 students sitting on the veranda in front of the post office. After a few minutes of roll call and paper shuffling, we realized that we had left 4 of their interview forms at the office, so in an attempt to save time, I decided to stay back with half the students and take their information again while the rest of the staff went to visit the first half of the students' houses. After finishing their interviews, we had another hour or so to just sit and wait until the rest of the staff came back. It ended up being a really great chance for me to get to know them better and for them to ask me all the questions they could come up with about how to compare Malawi and the States... and any other questions they could think of.

There were several times when things would come up about what would happen in this next year if they were accepted to MIRACLE and that started us off on a pretty funny interaction. To all their questions, I kept replying, "IF you're accepted to MIRACLE, then I would be the teacher for two of you." "IF you go to MIRACLE, then we could play frisbee, football or volleyball on the weekends." "IF you go to MIRACLE, you can visit me in my office and ask me more questions." I even learned how to say, "IF you go..." in Chitumbuka because I was saying it so much: para mwaluta... So then I would say, "PARA mwaluta, you can keep teaching me Chitumbuka." These candidates were making fun of me for always saying "if" and they told me, "Madam, you are full of 'ifs'!" I explained that I didn't want to be held responsible by them if for some reason they weren't accepted because then they'd come to MIRACLE, point at me and say, "But that madam said we would be at MIRACLE." I really enjoyed my time with those students and as it turns out, I think most (if not all) of them have been accepted so I have some visitors to look forward to starting next term!

One month in...

2008-09-10T06:09:00.004-05:00

Hi Folks!
I've been here a month now (woohoo!) and it's about time I updated this blog…
Malawi: It's the dry season right now which means it has not yet rained since I've arrived here. The ground is mostly sand, but I hear that once it is the rainy season that we will have grass and everything will be lush and green. It's quite warm here and we're just entering the hottest time of the year (October, November and December). I'm a little bit nervous about how hot it will get- I might melt! On the upside, I do have a fan in my office so hopefully that will help.

My Community: After a month of living together, I think we are working to get to know one another more and I'm really enjoying my housemates. In this past month we've gone on some fun adventures- Kat and I spent a Saturday at the beach swimming, building a sand castle and playing catch with some locals. We had to walk to the beach and it took a little more than an hour and a half each way. Another adventure I went on was to the border on Saturday with Andy and Matty to renew our visas and it included some entertaining attempts at bargaining and an interesting mini-bus ride where I was sat on for a little while! We've also had a bunch of fun around our house- playing with our puppies (we're about to give most of them away- which is a good thing since we can't afford to pay for food for them so we just haven't been feeding them enough), playing sports (inside and outside) or playing cards (I taught Sarah and Emily Nerts and they like it a lot!). I'm getting to know everyone better each day and especially in these last two weeks, I've had really solid conversations with folks and that's been really nice. Overall, they are quirky and funny and I've been surprised a lot in our community, but I am finding ways to adjust and I continue to look for more ways to accommodate different needs that people have expressed within the community. I am still frustrated with the fact that we don't live simply. We've talked about it in a meeting this past week and are scheduled to have another meeting tonight about it, so hopefully that will go well. People have been very respectful in our discussions, which is more than I expected. We have made some minor changes like moving the TV out of the community room so that the focus is off the TV and on to conversation. We just moved it on Friday and most of the community was gone to visit friends and students this past weekend, so we'll see how it goes this week. Even if some changes are made, I think I'm just going to have to get used to a lot of the luxuries we live with here and take the initiative on my own to make changes in the way that I live here.

Chaminade: Chaminade is the boarding school where the rest of the volunteers teach and well… it's been interesting there lately. The short version of the story goes like this: the students were frustrated with the food they get, how strict the headmaster is and the fact that they are getting fewer outings each month… among other complaints. Two weeks ago they expressed these grievances in, what started out as, a very respectful and organized meeting/confrontation but turned into sort of a free for all where anyone could speak and students were bringing up insignificant issues, which I think made it harder to take them serious. On Tuesday, the students established an ultimatum and on Tuesday night, there was some violence- a fence was lit on fire, they tried to burn a summer hut (where the teachers meet each morning), a few windows were broken and threats were made about the Headmasters house. [Oh, FYI, a headmaster is a principal.] The police were called in several times that week and to be honest, I only had one night where I felt unsafe and the feeling didn't last too long. The riots and strike (students refused to go to class once their needs weren't met immediately) led the administration and the government officials to suspend all Chaminade students for two weeks where they were required to go home. This allows the teachers to have endless (and often times pointless) meetings to discuss how to move forward and ideally, it gives the students some perspective so that they will calm down and focus on their studies. They're coming back to school this coming Saturday so I'll let you all know if that plan worked. As for the teacher meetings, they've caused A LOT of frustration among my housemates- culminating yesterday in a meeting where most of my housemates didn't agree with the decision made by the headmaster, which pushed some over the edge. Again, I'll keep you posted as to how this all works out.

MIRACLE: That's the trade college where I work in the social office and I am LOVING work! Can I just point out that I am so happy that I feel this way? I was pretty nervous the night before I started just because I'm in this for the next two years and what if I didn't like it?!? But we're into our second week of being open and I am learning a ton, making new friends, and having some fun in the process. :) I've mentioned my co-workers in the social office a little and my relationships are growing stronger with each. What was really funabout last week was getting to meet all the OTHER staff members at MIRACLE. The teachers are AWESOME! I've made three pretty good friends so far (Timothy, Kasunga and Ndamiwe) and I'm so excited to grow in those friendships and to get to know the others more each day. The staff is pretty good about encouraging my minimal Chitumbuka knowledge, so that's really helpful and I'm getting pretty good at the greetings. We start the day with a staff meeting and prayer and then have tea break at 10. Participating in each of those times has helped me get to know some of them and has helped them become more comfortable with me. As weird as this may sound, they have all been pretty obviously watching me this past week. It's made me a little nervous at times, but I'm passing a lot of their "tests" and have clearly moved beyond the watching stage with some of them. All day yesterday we had intake interviews, which are interviews with people who would like to become students at MIRACLE next year. All the classes were cancelled and the staff was split up into eight groups (mostly groups of 3) and were assigned a trade. I was with Madame Longwe (the principal of MIRACLE) and Mr. Mwasikakata interviewing potential Hotel and Catering students- that means they want to learn to cook well and possibly work as a housekeeper/deskworker at a hotel. Each interview took at least 20 minutes and we interviewed 18 people yesterday… needless to say it was a long and draining day, but it was so interesting! We had to find out all about these students because we accept them based on academic performance AND need… in fact, first priority is need. MIRACLE was opened with the mission of serving orphans and it's really interesting to interview people with that criteria in mind. Not only did I get a better understanding of the culture and what people experience here, I also built a pretty strong bond with Mrs. Longwe and Mwasikakata. At first, I felt pretty unsure of myself and didn't want to be voicing my opinion at all- I just felt like I didn't know enough. But by the afternoon, I actually completely stood up for myself and my ideas, which resulted in a really interesting discussion. Madame Principal and I saw eye to eye on a lot of things and that makes me feel even more comfortable working here.

Village visits: Honestly, this probably deserves its own entry, butI'm finally getting around to updating so I feel like I should just make this one count by including it all. I've now gone on village visits three different times visiting up to seven villages in a day! The meetings are mostly conducted in Chitumbuka or Nkhonde because that's what the people in the village are more comfortable with (and most of them don't know English), so I pay a lot of attention to body language and have tried to fully take in my surroundings. Each time we visit a village head (aka Bwaka which means boss, or in this case chief), we're invited behind the house to sit under the tree in the shade. I love this tradition of people using the shade under their tree as the meeting place. Chairs or benches are always brought out for us (the social office staff and the Bwana) and often a mat or two is brought out for women or any village elders that are present to sit on. The visits so far have been a chance to introduce me and the Bwana, invite the Bwanas to our first village head meeting which will take place next week and in some cases to inform the Bwana of what MIRACLE is because we have some new villages involved. I think we work with some 28 villages and I'm really excited to get to know the system a bit better and find ways to improve the frequency of visits to the villages. I'll try to write an update after the next village visit and then I'll be able to share some experiences from the visit to give you all a better understanding of what I'm doing over here.

Faith: I've been struggling a little bit with my faith here-especially before this last week. As a community, faith has not been something talked about very much. We do have spiritual night every Thursday, but beyond that assigned time, it is not really a discussed topic. Church is all in Chitumbuka, except a little bit of the homily, but that hasn't really been a source of spiritual food for me at all. I was finding small ways to connect with God, but overall was mostly lacking.

I mentioned that this last week has been different and it really has. I went to Mass three times with the Marianist brothers (who liveright next door) in the morning before work and it was a GREAT way to start off the day. I hope to continue that this week but last night I was up too late hanging out with Ryan to be able to get up this morning in time for 5:45 Mass. I am not a morning person (which many of you know), but I found Mass to be a great way to wake up and it helped me be more awake when I started work at 7:30. It also just gave me some great things to reflect on throughout the day and try to implement in my life.

Ok, this is now quite long and I'm sorry for that. I really prefer to share stories rather than just writing little updates on each part of my life like I did this time, but I want you all to have a picture in your mind of what it's like here. If you want more story-type information, please feel free to email me! I'm not the best at sending emails back, but I'm working on it and I will get back to you if you email me.

Starting to Adjust...?

2008-08-23T07:56:00.002-05:00

After traveling for nearly a full week to get from orientation in St. Louis to my new home in Karonga, Malawi, we finally arrived on Friday, August 8th. The trip itself included four planes, a ten hour lay-over in London (where we went out of the airport and played Frisbee in Hyde Park), 2 days in Nairobi, Kenya (where we visited a Marianist primary school and spent a day in the city center) and to top it all off, an 8 hour truck ride from Lilongwe (Malawi's capital) to Karonga.

This past week has had its ups and downs as can be expected with trying to settle into a new home, new jobs, a new community, new weather and a new culture. Yep, that's a whole lot to adjust to! So, we're coming along as a community. We've had some intense conversations about what our expectations are for this next year and how we see that manifesting itself in community life, the food we will eat and our budget. Big conversations for sure… some were more productive than others, but I think we all sort of acknowledged by the end of last week that we all should probably get to know one another better before we try to make any more changes to how our community will work.

Chaminade opened up again (they had just been on holiday) this past week so the rest of the volunteers were busy teaching or shadowing. I, on the other hand, was fairly free. I went into town two different times this past week just because there was the opportunity to go and I thought it would be fun to explore. I just asked Sarah and she guesses that it's about 6km into town- that translates into a fifteen minute drive or an hour walk. Ryan and I spent the whole afternoon on Friday in the car as he taught me how to drive stick shift. I did really well on Friday- I didn't kill it at all! On Saturday, I drove our whole community (plus a few more people who were headed in the same direction) home from town and I killed it a couple times in town.
I think I was just really nervous about having so many more people witnessing my new driving skills, but wow it was embarrassing and made me more nervous about driving. I'm hoping I get a chance in this next week to practice more.

This weekend was really fun. On Friday night, we invited all the Chaminade faculty and staff over for a little welcome gathering for us newbie's and it was nice to chat with some of the teachers and get to know their names a bit better. On Saturday, we were invited over to dinner at this Australian couple's home just a few minutes by car away. They are probably a little older than my parents and they work for a mining company in Karonga. They also invited another Australian family over and that family has four kids who are awesome! When we first arrived, we played some volleyball and then the rest of the night eating and swapping stories! It was great and really reminded me of spending time with our family friends at home. The kids from that family came over on Sunday afternoon and we played Ultimate Frisbee out in a nearby pitch with some of the Chaminade students and then took them home and went swimming in Lake Malawi with all of them and their parents. The water felt great because we had been running around in the heat of the afternoon!

Biggest challenges for me so far (and how I'm dealing with them):

1) Having the conversations about simplicity and immersing ourselves in this culture. In Uganda, I was able to really jump in feet first- staying with a family, I was living with other Ugandans, eating what they would eat, living in a typical Ugandan house, using public transportation with them, etc. Here, we live in a HUGE house that has all the amenities (electricity, running water—HOT running water, flush toilets, our own cooks who make us amazing meals AND wash our laundry).
Yes, it's a sweet deal, but it's frustrating for me at the same time. I know that having a tv here where we can watch movies all the time will be nice- especially if I get homesick…or just sick. Anyway, so right now, the way I'm dealing with it by helping to work on the budget to try to pair down our expenses and also requesting that we eat simpler meals. So far so good, but I'm not sure how long my community will stick with this simple lunch plan.

2) Having one-on-one time with other people. During the first couple days, everything we did was all together and, I didn't even know this about myself, but I apparently really need those personal conversations sometimes. Ryan Dugan (one of the old volunteers) has been my outlet for this and I am so grateful he's here. We've had a lot of fun together this past week and he's become a really good friend. Unfortunately, he's only staying until October when his students take a big test, called the JCE. I've threatened to steal and hide his passport so he can't leave. I hope no one will mind. J

3) Having physical touch. I had no idea how much I receive hugs and pats on the back or whatever it is when I'm in America, but here those are all culturally inappropriate. People don't hug… they only shake hands- that's their physical interaction in public. Girls are able to hold hands with girls or boys and boys, but not girls and boys together. Luckily, we've said that it's okay for us to hold hands, hug, etc in our house and for that I am incredibly grateful that I live with Matty! He has been providing me with my fix for hugs, tickling and general silliness.

I wrote this blog post on August 17th, so it's a little outdated. LOTS has happened since then including my first village visits, language lessons and lots of really good fun with my housemates! So I'll try to get another blog post up in this next week! Thank you Dave for posting these for me... hopefully I'll be able to figure out why I am not able to from here soon!

I'm Here!!!

2008-08-09T08:11:00.002-05:00

Hi!!!

I'm here in Karonga, Malawi! :) I'm home, you could say, but it doesn't really feel like that yet. Soon though, I'm sure.

Our house is beautiful- very big. Plenty of space for all of us and our stuff. I'll write more in the next couple weeks but for now just wanted to let you all know that we're all safe and we arrived with ALL of our luggage in tact! Impressive, right?

Love you all,

Molly :)

And so the journey begins...again!

2008-08-04T01:04:00.005-05:00

I've said my goodbyes and I leave today (Monday) for Karonga, Malawi to begin my two year commitment as a volunteer in the Marianist Volunteer Program (MVP).

I'm excited about this new adventure. I'm excited about all I will learn, excited about cultivating new friendships and about learning the language. I'm excited about living in community and learning how to do that in a mutually supportive way. I'm excited...

And yet, it's hard to leave this country where I have SO MANY amazing friends and an incredible family that really loves me. Saying goodbyes were hard because I know that I will miss people a lot. I have been blest with so many positive, enriching relationships that it will be hard to be gone for two years from all of those people. On the other hand, I think all of those relationships have helped prepare me for this journey and will continue to support me through this journey.

I'm traveling over with three of the five other MVP volunteers places in Karonga, Malawi- Andy, Matt and Kat. We will be meeting the remaining two community members (Sarah and Emily) in Malawi because they have already been there for the past year. Together, the six of us will live in a volunteer house- sharing meals and prayer time, along with countless hours of conversation and hopefully fun! The other five volunteers will all be teaching in the Marianist secondary school there called Chaminade. It's an all boys school and our house is basically on their school's property.

Unlike the rest of my community, I will be working with a Women's Empowerment Program through MIRACLE (the Marianist technical institute in Karonga). While I am not completely sure of all my duties there, I can tell you what my mindset is for right now. I believe a large part of my job will include going to the villages to visit the women receiving loans from MIRACLE and my goal will be to build up the relationships between the groups of women and the MIRACLE Office. With strengthened relationships, the hope is that more loans will be repaid faster. I think I will also have responsibilities around the office, helping to keep records of loans and continue to plan and run workshops for the women's group. I will also be spending time learning the local language (Chitumbuka) since the vast majority of the women I will be working with will have no understanding of English.

Hopefully this helps to give some of you an overview of what I am doing and a sense of where I am at as I am entering this new chapter of my life.

Since I'm moving to Malawi tomorrow, I should probably get some sleep. Next time I post, it'll be from Africa!

PS- For those of you who missed it, here is a link to my interview with Chicago Public Radio about CROSO: http://www.wbez.org/Content.aspx?segmentID=26960

CROSO is incorporated and I'm going back to Africa!

2008-05-22T11:50:00.002-05:00

Hi friends and family!

I should have posted some of this news sooner- CROSO (Child Restoration Outreach Support Organization) is the non-profit organization that I have started and we became officially incorporated in December, 2007!!! Please check out our website at www.CROSO.org. There you will find more information about the three (soon to be four) students we are sponsoring to attend college in Uganda. For more information about how to get involved, please email us at CROSO9@gmail.com.

I've been encouraged by several of you to keep my blog going since I will be returning to Africa, so I will! I have signed a contract to participate in the Marianist Volunteer Program for the next TWO YEARS, starting at the end of the summer. I will be working as a social worker in Karonga, Malawi (southeastern Africa). More specifically, I will be working with the Women's Empowerment Program there- helping facilitate their microcredit program. I'm really excited about the Women's Empowerment Program and am looking forward to this new adventure!

I will be in the Chicago-area all summer, working as a camp counselor. The best way to reach me will be by email- mhoganh@gmail.com. Thanks for your support and I hope to see many of you before I leave at the end of the summer.

Final blog entry!

2007-07-24T05:51:00.000-05:00

Well, I’m finishing up my time in Uganda and wow has it been wonderful!

The discussion group was great. I really enjoyed the five boys/men who participated and I was realizing yesterday that it really did go as well as I had hoped and in some ways, even better than I had hoped. We talked about such a wide variety of topics- from family to faith and how to overcome obstacles to planning for the future. I know that it will be a big task to try to compile all the information into a presentation but I’m so excited about the prospect of being able to share some of their stories with all of you.

As can be expected, I am not sure how I feel about leaving- it seems it changes day to day and sometimes even minute to minute. This morning I found myself surrounded by about 15 kids all singing and doing hand motions to a song I taught them and I couldn’t help but smile as I heard them singing this American children’s song with their Ugandan accents. Minutes later I found myself being wrapped in a huge hug by a different member of the rehabilitation class who quickly challenging me to a tickle fight that was filled with such uninhibited laughter that we drew the attention of many around us. When those joyful moments happen I can’t even imagine having to leave the CRO community again.

However, half an hour later when I was walking the streets, I found a couple kids that I knew from CRO who were back on the streets. This is not an immediate disappointment to me because often times it is hard for the kids to completely leave the street life at first so I know that sometimes it is just part of the process for them to still be on the street in the morning. Unfortunately, that was not the case for the three kids I saw. One of them was sniffing and therefore was rude to me (and the social worker I was with); the second one explained that he was back on the streets because one of the staff from CRO had chased him away last time he went and so he didn’t want to go back; the third one didn’t have a uniform and so was not allowed in to CRO. By the time I returned from the street walk I was frustrated and confused and wished that I could speak the languages here better so that I could be more helpful to both the children and the staff.

One of the hardest things about leaving this time is that when people ask when I’m coming back (which they all inevitably ask), I have to keep saying I don’t know if or when I’ll come back. While I was definitely sad to be leaving last time, I had this confidence that I would be back within the next two years. I still feel like I will return but I have no sense of how soon that will be.

Here are some of the things I will definitely miss once I leave Mbale: the greetings I receive from the children in the mornings, morning devotions with the staff, surprising locals by responding to the greetings they half jokingly give me in their local language, the conversations had in our discussion group, spending countless afternoons with Joshua and Moses, rolexes (my favorite food in Uganda- chapatti (a thin bread-like thing) rolled around a plain omelet with tomatoes), Iddi- the boy who stays with us and is possibly the nicest person in the world, of course the staff from CRO, randomly being asked to sing a solo in front of a group of children or people and being greeted by 75843029857 children as we walk home each day.

Alright, well it’s time to go enjoy this beautiful place that I am living… I arrive home on August 10th and return to school within a week from then- hope to catch many of you Chicago folks at that point!

Dan

2007-07-04T08:30:00.000-05:00

Sorry for letting another three weeks pass before updating this blog… it’s hard to find time sometimes. Well, in the past two weeks I was having some problems with my health. Two Mondays ago, Erin and I were at CRO (as usual) and I had a fever and was just physically weak and extremely exhausted. After napping for most of the morning and the beginning of the afternoon in the nurse’s clinic, the nurse and the volunteer doctor said that I should probably go to the lab in town and get tested for malaria. As much as I tried to deny that it was malaria, the truth is I just don’t know how to diagnose myself with that and so I gave in and went with Dr. Tom to the lab. While there, they told me that I did indeed have malaria and they gave me an injection and lots of pills. I had to go in the next day for another shot and the following day I just got more pills. By the end of the week I was feeling back to normal health so I thought all was fine. On Wednesday of this past week, I woke up with a bad migraine headache and felt nauseous. I tried to get out of bed and within fifteen minutes I had chills and was sweating. I had to go back to bed but I was nervous about staying home alone so Erin stayed and was my personal nurse for the day (she did a great job). We went into town in the afternoon and I got tested for malaria again and again was diagnosed with it. This time it was a lesser form. I didn’t have to get any shots, but I was given more pills and had to stay home from work Thursday and Friday to try to rest up and recover. Moral of the story: malaria sucks- please be grateful that our mosquitoes at home are not as malicious.

Even though I feel like I’ve been MIA from CRO for the past two weeks, it does continue on… it’s so hard to try to explain what goes on there or what I do so I’m just going to tell you about one of the boys (Dan) and try to give you a visual here.

Dan. Dan is probably about 11 years old (although he doesn’t know) and has been with CRO since 2002. He refuses to go to school even though CRO has tried to send him twice I think which I believe that can mostly be attributed to the fact that he is addicted to sniffing fuel. He has refused to be resettled with a family or in a house of any kind so he sleeps on the streets each night. He has open wounds on his feet and arms almost every day from where he has been beaten or got into a fight. He’s skinny- to the point that when he was sitting on my lap the other day and I had my hands on his stomach, I could feel the outline of every rib through his shirt. Despite his addiction and his stubbornness, I think he has so much potential. I understand that the staff at CRO are probably really frustrated with him and don’t know what else they can do to help him after so many failed attempts. However, I can’t help but keep trying. One of the things I learned last time is that so many of these children don’t have positive affirming touches in their lives at all. Instead of growing up with hugs or a parent who rubs their back to get them to fall asleep, many of them haven’t grown up with a parent at all. Those that do have parents have often been abused or neglected. Dan gets a lot of rough treatment on the street and so what I have been doing this time is just trying to have really positive physical interactions with him. I greet him with a hug each day and then we usually hold hands or he’ll move my hands so that they are hugging him again or embracing him in some way. Last week, he even let me rub his back or he’d just come and sit on my lap and cuddle with me. I know that this is probably not changing his life and I know that he needs someone who can actually communicate with him to get him to make some of the huge fundamental changes in his life (like staying away from drugs), but I can’t help but feel like it’s good for him to feel some love as well. When he’s sitting on my lap and I have my arms wrapped around him, I can see how much he appreciates it and when he’s the one that is actually wrapping my arms around him, I can see how much he longs for this kind of love.

There’s so much more I should write about- like the children we find on the streets during the street walks, the night survey we went on a few weeks ago, the conversations that I have with some of the older kids which are so interesting and informative, the small group discussions that continue to go well, the fun times I’ve had with friends outside of CRO time or the strengthening of my friendship with Erin. Maybe one of those will make it into the next update.

Thank you to those of you who have emailed- I really do love hearing what’s going on at home.

pictures!

2007-06-13T02:40:00.000-05:00

with Dan one of the kids that
CRO has been trying to work
with for over three years now

hiking with erin and serge the day before my bday

on my birthday with serge :)

Birthday Fun :)

2007-06-13T02:19:00.000-05:00

To start, thank you to everyone who sent birthday wishes my way- I was overwhelmed by the show of love and support I received. My 21^st birthday was on Sunday and we had a most wonderful weekend in Mbale to celebrate. I’m not sure if I mentioned this in my last blog post, but my friend Sergio (Serge for short) came and stayed with us for the past two weeks and he actually was the one who planned everything for my birthday (which was awesome)! On Saturday, Serge, Erin and I went hiking up towards some waterfalls on the nearby mountain (Wanale Mountain). As we walked up, we passed through a few villages and it felt great to greet people in the local language here (Lugisu). Granted, I ONLY know the greeting, but it still was nice to say hi to the old women as we walked past the little trading centers of the villages. At one point, I got a cramp in my right calf (I used to get those a lot when I played soccer in high school) and I felt like I shouldn’t keep going so I chilled at a river while Erin and Serge went the last fifteen/twenty minutes of the hike by themselves. One of the things that I am quite proud of myself for is that both times that I have been in Uganda, I have not allowed myself to spend time feeling sorry for myself and I’ve just made the best of the many random situations I’ve found myself in. For example, instead of being really frustrated with myself for not being able to keep hiking up, I went to this river and ended up interacting with this woman who was washing her clothes in the river and then played with about twelve kids for the half hour that I was left by myself. At that point, it began to rain, so I started heading back to the path and back down. After walking for two or three minutes, I looked back and saw Serge’s bright blue shirt and walked back to meet them since they weren’t very far behind me. We walked back in the pouring rain, passing by all the children who had greeted us on our way up.

My friend Mary (from my study abroad program last time) is back in Uganda for the summer as well and she came to Mbale for my birthday so after hiking, we met up with her. The four of us had dinner together and then went to the ONLY club in Mbale- Club Oasis. We had a blast- both dancing and talking together and dancing and talking with the locals. Two things that were particularly fun: 1) the walls were lined with mirrors and when we arrived around 11:00 and the place was just beginning to fill, people were all standing facing the walls and watching themselves dance! Of course Mary, Erin and I got in the middle of the dance floor and just started dancing together. 2) People would imitate our dance moves. At one point, I was dancing with three women and anytime I would do a different move, they’d all watch for a moment and then do it. It was hysterical!

On Sunday, we had a birthday lunch at my house here and I invited three friends from CRO- Joshua, Robert and Moses. After a delicious lunch, we started listening to some music and had a mini dance party with those three boys plus Erin, Mary and me. Then we all gathered around my laptop and watched Sister Act II (which they’ve seen before since CRO owns it). Erin, Mary and I walked them home (they live about twenty minutes away by foot, but that’s the polite thing to do in Uganda). . I was in such a good mood that I was singing and dancing the whole way as we walked them home so when we got near their house and lots of kids came up to talk to us, I completely entertained them. They had seen me dancing so they started to clap, chanting, “dancing, dancing, dancing.” So, I stood in the middle of this dirt road in front of about twenty five children and danced like a fool. Then I turned to them and started the same chant in hopes that they would then dance. One little boy in pants that he had outgrown and a superman pajama shirt danced but everyone else just started at me with a facial expression that screamed, "crazy muzungu!" Typical 21^st birthday celebration…right?

All in all it was a great day. The one downer was that Sergio left and is now in Kenya. I don’t think I’ve written much about him in here, but he was (and I think will continue to be) a wonderful blessing in my life. He continuously challenged me to interesting conversations about development, C.R.O., faith, life, people, etc. He has only been gone for a few days, but I definitely notice his absence.

Erin and I are still truckin’ though and I think we’ve hit a good stride in terms of our daily schedules at CRO. I’m now helping a few of the older kids with some typing practice because they are participating in the youth exchange program to Norway starting in August and will need to be able to communicate with CRO through emails on the computer (which they have had little exposure to). The discussion group that I am facilitating for the older kids is also going well. We’ve now met three times and we have another meeting this Thursday. I am excited about their willingness to share and am looking forward to many more conversations with them.

As always, I could write more, but I’ll stop here. Hope you all are well!

hopefully starting to get settled...

2007-06-06T08:51:00.000-05:00

Hello all!

Sorry for the huge delay in updating my blog. As I mentioned in a recent email to my parents, I have found it much more difficult to write home this time than I did last time. Last time I was overwhelmed by the new-ness of everything I was seeing, smelling, tasting and experiencing. This time, however, it’s a weird mix of familiarity, uncertainty and new understandings. So, please excuse me for this long awaited update- I will try to just write a few stories here and hopefully they will allow for some insight into my summer thus far.

When Erin and I first arrived in Mbale to work at CRO (Child Restoration Outreach), we met with the national coordinator and the manager and were told that they didn’t want us to start until the following week. That ended up working out perfectly because Erin and I went with Esther (the woman we stay with… same woman I stayed with last time) and her workmates to Arua which is in northwestern Uganda. Not only did I enjoy her workmates and make new friends, I also learned a lot. On our way up there, we drove in the Gulu district (not actually through Gulu town) and we passed many Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps. Those camps are a direct result of the conflict going on in northern Uganda between the Lord’s Resistance Army and the Ugandan government army. I’ve learned a lot about that conflict and it was really interesting to see the camps with my own two eyes. Once we were in Arua, Esther and her workmates were in workshops all day, so Erin and I had some free time and were able to make the most of it (I thought). We got to visit the regional hospital and visit many of the wards there- talking to different hospital personnel throughout. We also had the opportunity to visit a Catholic primary school and visited each classroom there. It was a great trip and it was fun to visit a part of Uganda I had never seen before.

We started at CRO last week and it’s already had its ups and downs. I’ll talk about downs first so that I can end on a good note. On our first full day at CRO, I went with the nurse (who is like a mother to me here) to visit one of the CRO boys who had been taken to prison two weeks earlier. When I accepted the invitation to go I thought it was just going to be a learning experience and another opportunity to see a different part of life here. However, as we prepared to leave to go, I found out that the “boy” we were visiting was actually 24 and someone who I had been friends with last time I was here- not super close, but we would hang out at least a couple days a week at CRO. Visiting him in prison was hard and as I learned more about the background of why he was there, I became quite frustrated with how easy it is for street children to get stuck in systems because they don’t have the connections that other people have.
Also within my first week back I heard that one of the boys who I had been much closer friends with, Charles, hasn’t been seen for months and the last time they saw him, he was getting in trouble. I don’t really want to get into details there, but just wanted to tell you that it’s hard to hear about things like that.
Today, I was talking to one of my favorite little boys- he’s 9 I think and he was in the rehabilitation class last year so I spent a lot of time with him then. His mother left him when he was little and that’s why he went to the streets a little over two years ago now. Well, now he’s in primary school and today he came to CRO (instead of going to school) and he was crying about how he wanted to find his mother. We talked a few times throughout the day and eventually I found out that his classmates have been talking about their mothers and he wants to know where his is. He told me that as long as he could find his mother everything would okay. Things like that break my heart because I can’t do a thing to help him and I’ve never experienced what he’s going through… he even said to me- “but YOU have a mother.” It’s true. I do have a mother and I’ve always had her as an integral part of my life- always providing and supporting. So those were some of the downs, but generally more of the time is spent having good moments.

Some of the ups:
I’ve started to get to know the new rehab class and I really like them. An obvious favorite so far is called Sam and I actually found him on a street walk last year. He’s a really intelligent boy and the two of us have bonded quickly. One day I sat in on the rehabilitation class and they were supposed to draw a picture of a home. This was based off a picture that was held up but the picture looked nothing like any of THEIR homes. So, at the table that I was sitting at with six other kids, I had us draw the homes in Namatala (the slum area where most of the kids are from) and then we drew different kinds of people. I am continually amazed by the intelligence and creativity that kids show when they are given the opportunity. The kids at my table drew a pastor (and labeled him, “A Man of God”), a business man, a woman and her family and I drew pictures of soccer players (of course calling them footballers though J). I really enjoy interactions like that where I get to challenge them or at least encourage them in positive ways. Hopefully there will be many more of those to come.
I’ve rekindled friendships with many of the older boys, which has also been fun. My friend Joshua, who I sang with a lot when I was here last time, has become a good friend this time around. He broke his foot about two weeks ago and therefore hasn’t been very mobile and since he finished S6 (the last year of secondary school- our high school) in December, he doesn’t have anything going on until August when he leaves for a year in Norway.

We spent the weekend in Kampala and it was wonderful. This is already really long so I won’t write much, but we went to the Uganda vs. Nigeria football (American soccer) match on Saturday and that was awesome! Sunday we went to the Uganda Martyr’s Day celebration and while it was fine, I was a little disappointed because it was so packed that we weren’t even able to see the main altar. I got to see some friends in Kampala and stay with one of the directors from my study abroad program and her family so that was fun.

Alright, that’s all…emails are always still welcome: mhoganh@gmail.com and I’ll do my best to get back to you when I get a chance.

Arrival and ants!

2007-05-18T07:48:00.000-05:00

After travelling for a little more than 24 hours, Erin and I arrived at the airport in Entebbe Uganda (just 45 minutes south of Kampala) to be greeted by Fr. Simon Peter (probably my favorite person in Uganda), two of his sisters (Teddy and Noelline) and his friend George. We spent the day going out to a village near Masaka where I celebrated Christmas with my family to see the school that he is building out there- St. Joan of Arc. It's coming along amazingly- when we left, they only had the land bought but no progress on it, now it has a foundation, walls, and they are in the midst of putting up a ceiling. While there, I had my first adventure- attack of the ants! Fr. Simon Peter had warned us to not step on the ants and even after we stepped over them we stomped our feet, but apparently some ant had gotten onto my skirt because about five minutes later i felt something biting me on my side. I reached under my shirt and pulled off a large ant. Soon after that I could feel another one biting my leg and then one had attached itself into one of my fingers on my right hand. Since I was holding something in the left hand, I tried to just brush it of, but it had a stinger literally IN my finger, so I had to turn to Fr. Simon Peter for some help with that. That one drew blood. They (Fr. Simon Peter, his sister and Erin) spent the next two minutes checking my skirt and patting down my back to make sure there weren't any more on me. I found a couple more a few minutes later, but then I really was all clear. To be honest, it wasn't even a big deal,just a surprising adventure to start off this summer!

I've gotten a chance to use my Luganda skills a bit, but I still feel like I wish I knew the language better. Luckily, once Erin and I go east to Mbale on Sunday or Monday, I won't really need to know Luganda at all.

Today, Erin and I spent the day in Kampala- changing money, getting me a cell phone and picking up some other things. We're having dinner tonight with a friend of mine who did my study abroad program in the fall and has also returned to uganda for the summer. I just spoke to a friend on the phone today and I'll get to meet up with him tomorrow. It's fun getting to see people again!

Oh, CRAZY story! While walking around in Kampala this morning, we were walking my the taxi park and it was very busy- people everywhre, bumping into you, asking for money etc. Well, these two kids say, "Mzungu!" and I didn't even look down because I didn't want to have to make eye contact with some kid that was going to ask me for money and then have to tell him no. Well then they said, "Mzungu, how are you?" So I turned to look at them and said, "fine, how are you?" Then they said fine and I was going to keep walking bu t they tugged on my hand and asked how i was again. Well, once I responded they said, "CRO!" These two boys were some of my CRO boys from Mbale!!! They weren't regulars at CRO, so I didn't know either of their names, but once they gave me a context for why I would recognize them, I did. I was so impressed by them! Not only did they remember the white woman (because really that wouldn't be that impressive), they were able to distinguish me from Erin enough to know that I was the one who had been with them last fall! So cool!

Ok, that was way longer than I intended, but thanks for reading! I'll post again after we've been in Mbale for a week to let you all know how that is going!

I'm going back... TOMORROW!

2007-05-14T10:25:00.001-05:00

Sorry for not updating this blog sooner, but I AM going back to Uganda this summer!

I applied for a grant through my school (the University of Dayton) called the Learn, Lead and Serve award. I had to write a project proposal and have a faculty mentor. I found out back in March that I received this grant as well as an international Learn, Lead and Serve award! So, I will be working in Mbale, Uganda again with CRO (Child Restoration Outreach). I will also be staying with Esther again which I am very excited about! This grant pays for my transportation there, my transportation within Uganda, and my living expenses! I am so grateful for this grant because I know that it is a complete blessing to be able to return to Uganda so quickly!

The other exciting part of this upcoming adventure is that I have a partner in crime! One of my best friends from UD, Erin Bole, will be travelling with me! She did not apply for the same grant I did, but has received funding from her church, some family and a few other sources. She will be staying with me at Esther's and will also be volunteering at CRO. Once we are there, we will meet with the directors and talk about what exactly we will be doing this summer. When we know that, I will update the blog.

Well, it's back to packing for me...

PS- Things I'm looking forward to: seeing Fr. Simon Peter again, spending time with the kids at CRO again, visiting some of the older CRO boys at their colleges/universities, seeing the SIT staff again, seeing a few of the other SIT students who will also be back in Uganda this summer, using lanterns again, eating dinner with Esther and breathing in the fresh air of Mbale :)

After My First Presentation...

2007-01-22T23:28:00.000-06:00

I went home this past weekend and did a presentation at my church, St. Nicholas, in Evanston about my experiences in Uganda and talked a lot about CRO. This post is really directed to them:

THANK YOU VERY MUCH! Thank you for coming to my presentation and for listening to my stories and those of the children in eastern Uganda. As I mentioned during my presentation, it has been frustrating to talk about my experiences since coming home because people can hear me, but they don't really listen. You really listened and I appreciated that more than you will ever know. Please feel free to look through this blog to read about other experiences that I had while I was in Uganda.

If any of you would like for me to give a presentation for a different group of people you know, please let me know because I would be more than happy to. This can be either in a formal or informal setting- I am simply happy to share what I know about the area and about the people to help raise awareness. Please just email me: mhoganh@gmail.com.

I will update this once the non-profit organization has been set up. It seems that it might be very soon since people have already offered to help in that process. In the mean time, please feel free to contact me with any questions, comments or really anything else. Email is the best way to reach me since I keep a very busy schedule at school. If you are interested in donating money before the non-profit organization is set up, please get in touch with either me or my parents. Thank you to those of you who already donated! I feel so blessed to be part of a community filled with people willing to help others in such a positive way.

Christmas pictures

2007-01-16T07:37:00.000-06:00

welcoming crew: Fr. Simon Peter's youngest brother and sister and his nieces and nephews- all singing and dancing for us!

Midnight mass:

Dancing on Christmas day:

The day after Christmas- the blankets we passed out and us sitting at the event

Final Week in Uganda...

2007-01-16T07:02:00.000-06:00

On Christmas Eve, my parents, Matt and I went to Simon Peter's mom's house. When we arrived, we were greeted by drumming and dancing of Simon Peter's youngest siblings (ages 20 and 22) and his nieces and nephews. It was quite a welcoming ceremony! They took us to the their water source which meant that we got to see some of the little gardens that people keep to help provide food for their families. These crops were mostly sweet potatoes, maize and beans. After a nice visit with them, we returned to the Parish Center nearby where we were staying for the next couple of days.

That night, we went to midnight mass and we all wore traditional African formal wear. My mother and I each wore a gomesi (the "i" isn't really pronounced), my dad wore a kazu (I'm not sure on my spelling of this, but hopefully you can at least get the pronunciation) and Matt wore a kitangi shirt. The mass was in Luganda except for the second reading which was read in Luganda and in English (by me) and the gospel (which Fr. Simon Peter read in English for us). At the end of mass, I introduced myself and my parents and Matt in Luganda and everyone thought it was hysterical to hear a muzungu speaking their language. :)

On Christmas day, after going to mass in the morning, we went back to Simon Peter's mom's house. The festivities were unbelievable! There were musicians and professional dancers hired for the afternoon, so we were entertained by great music and dancing. Near the end of the dancing, Simon Peter's youngest two siblings and I danced the traditional Baganda dance (which I have learned) and we were quite entertaining. Everyone was impressed that a muzungu could "shake it" like them. hahah! It was a fun day.

The day after Christmas, we went to the parish out in the bush where the school will be built that my mum's school is supporting. We distributed blankets and mosquito nets to women and children there. That night, we went back to Fr. Simon Peter's mom's house and exchanged presents. His family is so wonderful and fully embraced my family. While I had been adopted early on by the family, my whole family was adopted and we were all given new Bagandan names from their clan.

During our last days we visited Queen Elizabeth National Park and were able to see elephants, warthogs, hippos, birds, a hyena and more. On our last night, we had dinner in Kampala with some of Fr. Simon Peter's family and then they all saw us off at the airport.

I'll put pictures in another post because they're too big to fit here. :)

some pictures :)

2007-01-16T06:38:00.000-06:00

pictures!

at the Nile River- Bujagali Falls

waiting in line with Matt and my pops to get our passports stamped when entering Rwanda
at the equator with my mum, pops and Matt

Week one of my time with the 'rents

2007-01-14T01:15:00.000-06:00

Sorry this is so after-the-fact, but I still owe you the last two weeks of my Ugandan adventure. We packed a lot into a very short time, so I'm going to separate this into two entries.

Since my mum's entry in the blog the day after they arrived in Kampala, so much has happened! On that Sunday, we drove to Mbale with Fr. Simon Peter, stopping at the Nile River along the way to see the Bujagali Falls.

On Monday, my parents came to CRO (Child Restoration Outreach) so that they could see where I had worked for six weeks while I was here. Eric, one of the social workers there, and I took my parents and Fr. Simon Peter on the regular morning street walk which was a pretty powerful experience for them. They got to see where we find most kids, hear about what the children do to find food and/or money for food. My parents went back to the hotel to rest at that point and I was able to spend the rest of the day with the children which was wonderful for me since I had missed them all so much after having been gone for only two weeks! That night, my parents, Fr. Simon Peter and I went to Esther's house- the place I called home in Mbale. It was a great night filled with tasty food (Esther is a great cook and made all of my favorites!), good company (Esther, her two daughters, the neighbors and a few of Esther's friends all came) and singing!

The next day was the Christmas party at CRO and my friend Matt Maroon (from UD) joined us that day. My parents were the honored guests at the event and to be honest, it was a bit long and boring. The kids did a great job with their songs, dances and dramas, but there were a lot of speeches (which is true of most formal Ugandan celebrations) which were a bit tedious. Saying goodbye to that community was really hard for me. I had made such strong connections with people there that it was hard to imagine going another two years without being able to see them. (I say two years because at this point, I am hoping to go back to Uganda after I graduate.)

We left Mbale the next day and traveled west to Mbarara. On our way, we visited the source of the Nile (which Matt was REALLY excited about), stopped in Kampala to have lunch with my assistant academic director and stopped at the equator! In Kampala, Fr. Simon Peter left us and Muna, the driver from my study abroad program, picked us up in his mini-bus/van which allowed each of us more room. The following day (we're on 21 Dec for those of you keeping track), we entered Rwanda and went out for dinner that night to celebrate Matt's birthday! :)

The next day, we visited the genocide memorial museum in Kigali (the capital of Rwanda where we were staying) and we went to visit a genocide site which was a church just outside of Kigali. My study abroad group had visited both places during out visit to Rwanda three months earlier. The museum was the same, but it was really interesting when we went to visit the church. When I had been there three months ago with SIT, there were bones and debris and lots of little things in between the pews, all over the cement floor of the church. When I got there with my parents and company, it had been swept and cleaned. The bones were separated into piles at the front of the church, the material goods (jerry (sp?) cans, rosaries, thermos bottles, shoes, etc) that were around had been organized in a separate building nearby and there was a whole different feel to the place. It was a really interesting contrast and in many ways I was disappointed that my parents couldn't have the same experience that I had.

We left Rwanda the next day and the weather was perfect- clear and sunny- which meant we got to appreciate Rwanda's beauty as we exited the country. We ended that day at a hotel in Masaka just about twenty minutes away from the village where Fr. Simon Peter's mother lives. I'm going to stop this entry there, but I will give the next week's events in another blog entry, I promise. :)

Oh, and I tried to put pictures up with this blog entry, but it didn't work. I'll post pictures in a separate entry and maybe that will work. We'll see...

Leaving...

2006-12-29T06:41:00.000-06:00

Hey folks!

This is just a really quick email to let you know that the time with my parents has been fun and I will definitely update when I get home- there's just not enough time right now. We're back in Kampala now and we leave tonight at 11:00pm from Entebbe... we'll be home on the 30th around noon I think.

For all those in the Chicago area- you're invited to my house on the 1st for an open house... noon til whenenver I think... Things to look forward to if you come: me and my parents in traditional African clothing (yipee!), me doing a traditional Baganda dance for you all and many many many stories to be shared... you should come!

Hope all is well with all of you and that your holidays have been filled with good times! :) See you soon...

PS- Despite the happiness that fills this entry, I must let you know that I have COMPLETELY mixed feelings about coming home and at this point would definitely be okay with staying in Uganda for a while longer... but I have a plane to catch tonight, so I'll be home soon and I'm sure I'll adjust eventually! :)

--------------------------
Going to try to add some pictures... hopefully this works:

the welcoming crew the night my parents arrived
L-R: Harriet, George, Simon, me, my mum, my pops and Fr. Simon Peter

my mum on a boda boda :)

Molly's got visitors from home!

2006-12-16T05:02:00.000-06:00

Written by Molly's mother:

We arrived safely after hours and hours of plane time, and were greeted by Molly, Fr. Simon Peter, his brother and sister,the sister of one of Molly's friends at CRO, who had flown from Norway,and another man who was the driver of the second car. Lots of hugging! What a sight we were! 4 Ugandans and 4 "muzungus" (white people) and lots of luggage! The Heineman part of that group is staying at a hotel that has an armed guard, but very friendly workers, and Molly can speak to them in Luganda and her dad and I are trying to learn a few words.

Today we walked around Kampala and then took a drive to the area where Molly lived when she first arrived. It's trulya whole different world-both from America, and even from the city of Kampala. Traffic here is crazy, streets packed with cars, taxis (mini-vans stuffed with riders), bodas (motorcycles with a driver who carries a passenger on back), and brave pedestrians. On our way back from Molly's first home, each of us took a boda, so we were weaving in and out of all the traffic on the backsof motorcycles- it was quite a fun adventure, and clearly the most efficient way to get around in the city. Molly wasn't sure we'd want to ride that way, but her parents are a little more adventuresome than she thought!

Tomorrow, we go to Mass at Fr. Simon Peter's and then he will drive us 4 hours east to Mbale, where Molly worked and lived for the past 6 weeks. We will all stay there a few days, see her students' Christmas show- which I'm sure will be different than the oneI missed at my own school, and connect with her Dayton friend Matt, who is spending this entire year in Malawi. He will join us for the next week's travels. We'll be leaving all the t-shirts, hand sanitizer, protein bars we brought from folks at home with the people at CRO (Child Restoration Organization) for the children with whom Molly worked. Also hope to do the paper work to set up some type of scholarship support for young people who've completed secondary school, have been accepted to university, but can's go due to lack of funds. Then we'll head way west- going on an animal drive in Queen Elizabeth's Park, and then to Rwanda for the genocide memorials. Then it will be to Masaka, Fr. Simon Peter's home village, where we will celebrate Midnight Mass with him, spend Christmas with his family, and visit the area where a school is being built with money from the students and parishioners of St. Joan of Arc.

Won't have internet access very often during the time here, so thought we'd send a post right away. It's wonderful to be here with Molly and learning about a wholoe new part of the world for us.

pictures...

2006-12-15T06:56:00.000-06:00

The hotel that I'm staying at has free wireless internet access, so I'm going to put up some pictures with the other blog entries for those of you who haven't been able to see any pictures yet. These pictures are from Zanzibar...it was beautiful there!

Endings and Islands

2006-12-13T03:39:00.000-06:00

Well, it’s been another busy week! Last Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, my SIT group went to Sesse Island on Lake Victoria to give our final presentations and have some final bonding time. To be honest, I wasn’t that impressed with Sesse Island and because of a broken ferry, the trip to and from the island was quite long: 7-9 hours! The presentations went well- it was really interesting to learn about what the other students did for their six week practicums. Just to give you a glimpse, here are some of the topics: refugees, internally displaced persons, children affected by the war in the north, women in slum areas, theater for development, AIDS support, subsistence farming and corruption. The bonding time was great- it was fun to be back with the whole group for a few days and to catch up with some people who I hadn’t been in touch with during practicum.

The day before we left for Sesse, I had decided not to go to Kenya to visit my friend Matt. It turns out that he’s coming to Uganda next week and will be traveling around with me and my family and celebrating Christmas with us which I’m really excited about. I didn’t really have that great a desire to go to Kenya, I wanted to have more time with my friends and since I was going to get to see Matt soon anyway, I just decided not to go. Three of my closest friends from the SIT group (Gabe, Marisa and Krista) had decided to go on holiday to Zanzibar for their last five days in Eastern Africa and had been trying to convince me to go for the past three weeks but I had been reluctant to agree. Once at Sesse, they brought it up again and while I thought it was too late, I realized that it really would be fun to go and one of those opportunities that I might regret later if I let it slip by. So, after a few phone calls from Sesse, I had a plane ticket to Zanzibar! We left on Thursday morning and came back yesterday early afternoon.

Zanzibar was beautiful! It’s really really tourist-y so that was a huge adjustment for all of us, but it was a nice relaxing five days. Oh, I should mention that in addition to Gabe, Krista and Marisa, we were also traveling with our friend Laura who is doing an independent research project in Uganda for the year. My buddy Gabe was able to get me to come because he paid for our accommodations, which was wonderful! It did mean that we would squeeze into rooms that weren’t exactly large enough for us, but it was perfect. We stayed in Stonetown for the first two nights in a hotel room called a triple. It really was enough for 4 and it just meant that two people had to squish into one bed- which ended up working out. Stonetown is a pretty town on the water with beautiful tall white buildings and narrow winding sidewalks in between. On my second day there, Krista and I went swimming with a bunch of little kids- about 18 8-yr-old boys. It was really fun and they taught us numbers 1-10 in Swahili. When we got out and the boys got dressed, I realized that some of them were street kids- I just can’t stay away! That night we had dinner at a market on the water and the food was great- tasty barracuda, Zanzibari pizza and a fun dessert of bananas in fried dough with chocolate sauce.

The next two days we went up to the northern part of the island to Kendwa (sp?) Rocks. It was straight out of one of those commercials for the beach vacation- glisteningly white sand, light blue water, palm trees, very hot weather… it was perfect. We went swimming a few times, went snorkeling off of a boat and just chilled on the beach. Snorkeling was great- I saw some beautiful fish and starfish. After lunch, my friends and I were sitting on the second deck of our wooden boat and we jumped off the top into the water which was a lot of fun. On our boat ride back, we saw some dolphins which I’ve never seen in nature! Oh, and if you haven’t figured this out yet, I was swimming in the Indian Ocean!!! After two days there, we went back to Stonetown for our last 24 hours and relaxed a bit more. I really enjoyed the people there- they were quite friendly and we had a lot of fun with them.

Yesterday, we arrived back in Kampala in time for the final group dinner and for Marisa and Krista to join the group flight back (Gabe had to stay at the airport to catch his flight to Paris). I went with to the airport and that was such a great decision! My van, which had most of the group in it, sang Christmas songs the entire way there- for about an hour! It was wonderful, but also made me realize how different it is going to be for me here where there will not be any snow, like so many of those songs talk about. At the airport, it was weird to say goodbye- some people I will really miss and others I won’t even notice that they’re not with me. The plans have already been started about who is visiting who when. I’m pretty excited to visit some of my friends at school this semester, so that should be fun.

Well, it’s a rainy day in Kampala which means no laundry for me today, but I have a ton of errands to run so I’m going to get to that. My parents are coming in two days and we are all really excited! The plans are mostly set and it should be a fun filled (and when I say filled, I mean our schedule is COMPLETELY packed) two weeks and I hope that it will give them SOME sense of where I’ve been and what I’ve been doing. I am already predicting disappointment in the fact that there is no way that they can know what I experienced in many ways, but I think it’s good that they’ll know a little more.

Hope you all are doing well and thanks again for keeping tabs on me!

last week in Mbale : (

2006-12-02T04:02:00.000-06:00

I leave Mbale tomorrow for Kampala. Then I'll have the last week of my program, a free week (where I'll probably be traveling to Kenya to see a friend from UD- Matt Maroon, for any Flyers reading this), then I have two weeks with my parents in Uganda and then I'm back to America- YIKES!

This past week has been a whirlwind. I was at work all week this past week doing interviews mostly with the staff which were really helpful and informative. On Thursday night, I went on the monthly night survey with about five social workers and the Norwegians and that was really interesting. First, it was a beautiful night- cool in tempature, but completely clear sky, so it was nice to have an hour long walk around Mbale. Second, it was really interesting to learn more about this aspect of the children's lives and to hear how the police do round-ups of the children. Third, it was great to walk around with my co-workers. We had a lot of fun goofing around and being silly, and then also having serious conversations as well. It was a really fun thing to do on the night before my last day of work.

Now I am frantically trying to get my paper done since it is due tomorrow when I get back to Kampala. I haven't had power at my house for the past two weeks because a transformer in our area broke. This has meant that I haven't been able to use my laptop as much. Also with having malaria last week and not feeling good these past two days, I have not been able to do nearly as much work as I would have liked. My malaria is completely gone- please reassure grandma that I'm fine. :)

It was really hard to leave work yesterday. I've learned so much from CRO and have really loved being a part of that community. The staff have been wonderful and supportive to me as well as just really great people who I'm glad I had the opportunity to meet. The kids are indescribable and I am really sad to be leaving them. Their reactions to my leaving didn't make it any easier- some of them just hung on me all day yesterday, others tried to avoid talking to me because they were mad that I was leaving and others were just kind of quietly sad. Then there are the kids that still didn't really understand that I was going and I hope taht they don't get really mad at me next week when I'm not there. Ok, my internet time is about to be up, so that's all from here.

Weekend in Kampala, Malaria and CRO work… busy week!

2006-11-24T08:18:00.000-06:00

As many of you know, I LOVE details and have a very hard time telling (or writing) short concise stories. I am going to try really hard with this post. If you would like the detailed version, feel free to send me an email, but for now here’s the short version:

Weekend in Kampala: was WONDERFUL! I stayed with my friends Krista and Gabe in their guest house and that was nice. Friday night I had dinner with them and Katie (another SIT student) at one of their regular dinner spots in Kampala and that was really fun and just nice to relax with them.
On Saturday, Gabe and I went to the wedding of one of Esther’s friends. [Esther is the woman I’m staying with in Mbale.] The wedding was pretty similar to American weddings, so not too exciting and it was in Luganda which was a huge bummer and meant that I just did a lot of daydreaming. On Saturday evening, I met up with my friend Eric for sodas. Eric works at CRO in Mbale, but is taking a short course in Kampala these weeks and it was really fun to meet up outside of the CRO context. After that, I went to a birthday party for two of the SIT students at the house that they are renting just outside Kampala. It was really weird to be with that many white people again… all ten of them! Just imagine how hard it is going to be for me when I’m back in America! It was also hard for me sometimes because many of them are having very different experiences than I am with their practicum. Many of them are doing mostly office work and then they go out to party each weekend (or sometimes even every night)! Many of them are staying in a really nice house with toilets, hot showers and they eat mostly American food. I, on the other hand, am still living with a Ugandan which means I eat mostly Ugandan food. I don’t have a toilet- just a fancy pit latrine- and I only have cold showers. My job is also very hands on and I am constantly faced with new challenges here. Also, I have made friends with many Ugandans and I don’t spend any time with Americans. Many of the SIT kids have made a little muzungu network in Kampala and are not making Ugandan friends. I LOVE the way I am spending my practicum time and in no way am I jealous (well maybe the hot showers and toilet…) but it’s just hard to relate to them or for them to relate to me.
On Sunday, I didn’t feel good in the morning and so I had a pretty lazy morning. I met up with Eric again for lunch before leaving Kampala and then took a taxi for the four hour trip back to Mbale.

Malaria: On Monday, I didn’t feel much better than Sunday and I ended up staying home from work (other than a quick one hour visit to set some things up for Tuesday). On Monday night, I was really not feeling good- really bad stomach ache and headache and then just missing home because when you’re sick you just want to be as comfortable as possible and for me that means being 3,000 miles from where I currently am so that was frustrating. Anyway, Esther insisted that we go to the clinic because she was worried that I had Malaria. Many of my co-workers had mentioned that as well, so I figured I should go. The labs were closed, but the doctor (who is a friend of mine) clinically diagnosed me with Malaria and started me on treatment for it (which included an anti-malarial medicine, a medicine for my upset stomach and a medicine for body aches). By the next evening I was feeling a ton better- definitely not 100% but way way better. I had even gone to work on Tuesday for the full day! So I’m still on the meds, but my last dose is tonight and I’m already feeling normal again.

CRO work: Last week I mentioned that I had done a lot of boring typing and thankfully that has stopped for the time being, but I’ll probably do a little more of it next week before I leave just because I’ve almost finished all of it. Last Wednesday, I spent the day with the nurse at CRO who I really enjoy- Nurse Esther. I sat in the clinic at CRO with her for the morning and then around lunch time we paid a visit to the hospital where one of the new CRO kids was taken the night before. While the lab test results were not back yet, she probably had TB. We talked to her for a bit, then to her mother and older sister and then Nurse Esther bought some medication for her and paid the hospital some money for her care. It was really an interesting experience seeing the hospital there. At some point, I hope I can talk more about that.
Then on Thursday, I went with Teacher Nicholas and Thomas (one of the Norwegians) to visit the local schools to check on attendance of CRO sponsored students. The attendance was really good and it was again interesting to see the schools here. I think the kids enjoyed having two muzungus asking about them at school too- we may have elevated their social status! Hahah.
On Tuesday and Wednesday this week, the staff has been out on staff retreat, but CRO has still been in session each day. I’ve begun my interviews of the kids for my big practicum paper and the interviews have gone really well. I’m interviewing kids of all ages and just asking about their experiences and about CRO. I hope that next week when I get back, I can interview maybe ten more kids and then some staff but for now, it will do for writing a big part of my paper.

Some thoughts about your financial support- I’ve heard rumors that some people from home are interested in supporting CRO financially and I’m really excited about that. I would actually like to suggest possibly setting up a special fund at CRO because I have found some specific areas that could use more financial support than others. Specifically, I’d like to see if there would be a way for many of us to combine our money to start some kind of scholarship fund for university students through CRO. There isn’t much money for university level studies and it’s such a shame that some of these kids who have worked so hard and really deserve the chance to go to university and have been accepted are not able to go simply because the money isn’t there. So, if you’re interested, please send me a quick email so that I can get an idea of what kind of support there is now and how much further fundraising would need to be done. Hopefully when my parents come, we could talk to CRO together and figure out more details. If you would still prefer to just give CRO a general donation, that’s fine too and I will look into how to do that best.

Finally some thoughts about some friendships that I have here:
- Thomas and Eivind (the Norwegians): I’ve really enjoyed working with them and being able to share our reactions to events that we see. We’ve definitely formed friendships beyond that as well and that’s been fun. Last week, they had me over for dinner one night and made Norwegian waffles which were delicious and this week, they came over for dinner at my house.
- Emma (short for Emmanuel): is a new friend I’ve made this past week. He is a former CRO kid, but he’s studying at the medical school at Makerere University. He’s on government sponsorship which means he did really really well in secondary school. He’s home now because of the strikes at Makerere which caused the school to close early for holiday. He’s a really intelligent guy and has a great personality too so we’ve enjoyed each other’s company this past week.
- Charles: It has become increasingly difficult to be friends with someone who is in a completely different economic bracket than I am. His hut was broken into last week and so many of his things were stolen and he really has no money at all and is just down on his luck. I went with him to the hospital on Tuesday because he had some eye pain and it turned out he had an inflamed iris. I paid for some medicine for him which I was happy to do but it’s such a weird dynamic to always have to pay for things for someone else.

Ok, this is another long post, sorry about that… but I just had a lot to say I guess. I’m in Kampala now and celebrated Thanksgiving last night with my fellow Americans. We had turkey, stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce, so it was a decent substitute. In addition to the fourteen SIT students who came (two were not able to make it home from practicum), some of the SIT staff joined us and it was great to see them again and share one an American tradition with them after they’ve shared so much of their culture with us. I definitely missed the Hogan festivities that surround Thanksgiving- this is the first one I’ve had to miss. Even when my dad had eye surgery so my parents couldn’t go, I remember taking a train with David up to Delevan with my trumpet and his guitar beneath our feet. I’ll be happy to be back in America next year to be with family again.

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and that everyone travels safely this weekend!

More from Mbale

2006-11-15T15:07:00.000-06:00

The newness of CRO is wearing off which has good and bad aspects. The good is that I know a lot of the kids names, I am able to interact with them comfortably and I enjoy the time I have with them because we're finding ways to communicate with one another more easily despite language barriers. I am also much more comfortable with the staff and I enjoy both silly and serious interactions with many of them on a daily basis. The bad is that I am less stimulated in this environment now and because the staff is used to my presence, they no longer go out of their way to help me find things to do each day. This week, that means that I've just found myself in the little muzungu office (I share it with the two Norwegians) typing monthly reports at the computer. I am able to appreciate the fact that I can type so much faster than any of the staff here so I am really helping them out, but at the same time, it's hard to only have unstructured free time with the kids. I finished another report yesterday, so I am hoping that at least for the rest of this week I won't have to type any more. Unrelated to the amount of time I've spent at CRO, my closest friend on the staff, Eric, is on leave from CRO now because he has meetings to attend in Kampala. This has just been a bummer since I enjoyed his company at CRO and he always helped me find things to do, whether it was go on home visits or sit in on counseling.

Interesting events from this past week:
- Last Wednesday, I went with a social worker and one of the formal school girls (she's in S3 which is American equivalent to sophomore in high school) to the police station. When this girl was younger her stepmom used to beat her and her younger sister and that's what drove them to the streets in the first place. Once they got hooked up with CRO, CRO helped resettle them with their grandmother who is disabled. On Tuesday night, the grandmother had sent this girl and her younger sister to their dad's house to ask for some help with food since there was no food at the grandmother's home. The father wasn't there, but the stepmom was and she began to beat them. The younger sister noticed a knife in the stepmom's hand and encouraged the two girls to run home, but the older girl didn't get out fast enough. The older girl was beaten and even had a cut on her left wrist where she bled onto her clothes. Once the girl got out of there, instead of running home, she ran straight to one of the social workers' houses. She and the social worker reported to some kind of night police and then went to a local hospital to have a report filled out. On Wednesday, we were just doing a follow up visit to the police where more paperwork was filled out. The police said that they would write a letter to the local council leader in the area of the stepmom demanding the stepmom's presence on Friday and if the stepmom doesn't show up then she will be put in jail. I was not around for most of the day on Friday so I am not sure how that has resulted, but I will give a small update to let you all know when I know.
- Last Friday, I went to a graduation ceremony for a local vocational training institute. They are a sister organization to CRO and many CRO kids go there for formal vocational training. Also, the CRO choirs were going to perform- both singing and dancing. It was a really interesting event to witness- very African, despite some abnormal English formalities. The kids were great in their performances- I think the CRO choir was better than the choir from the institute which was fun. The dancing was amazing and I wish you all could see it because there is no way I can do it justice here. I took some video footage of it on my digital camera, so I can share that with you all when I return home.
- On Saturday, I went to an introduction ceremony. An introduction ceremony is, as I learned on Saturday, the event where the families of the bride and groom to be meet one another. Family is really important in Africa, and many people base their opinions on people largely on the behavior of their family. So, it is very important to have this ceremony and have it be successful so that the families will bless the wedding fully. The ceremony is hosted by the girl's family and the man's family travels in one huge caravan to wherever the girl's family lives. It's a rather lavish event and a large part of the event is that the man's family brings "some" gifts as they were called, to the woman's family. I believe these gifts are what fed the guests for the rest of the day- two large bunches of matooke, basket after basket filled with everything from fruit to sauces to potatoes, crate upon crate of sodas and there was more! Everyone in attendance wears African formal wear- either a Gomez (sp?) or a Kitangi. I wore a Kitangi which I had made last week and it was very nice- or "smart" as I was told over and over again that day. Hopefully Thanksgiving weekend when I am in Kampala, I will be able to visit the wireless internet café and put all my photos up online so that you can all see what I've been experiencing these past three weeks. I really enjoyed the introduction event. I should mention that it was very ceremonial- the guests all sat during the entire event and there was an area where all of the activities took place right in the middle that everyone watched. As I told my parents when I talked to them on Monday, I really liked the concept of the event and meaning behind it and would kind of like to have one for myself when I get married- a much less expensive version though that probably wouldn't include gifts- just a chance for my family to meet my husband-to-be's family before the wedding. It's a great way to show how important one's family is.
- On Sunday, I was sick, so I didn't leave the house all day- just a bad stomach ache and a frustrating headache, but enough to keep me from church in the morning which was a bummer. I was going to go with Esther, my new host mom, to her church which (as I've heard from the two Norwegians who went last week) is quite interesting- people fainting, getting saved, getting spirits expelled from their bodies… really entertaining.

I could probably spend a whole post on religion here in Uganda, but I'll save that for a rainy day. For now, I'm off to continue this crazy adventure here in Mbale. Thanks to all who continue to post and or email- as my mum posted, I really do enjoy hearing from all of you and knowing that you're keeping up on my life! Lots of love to you all!

Oh, just a preview of what's to come: I am going to Kampala this weekend to visit friends and to attend a wedding with Esther. I'm excited because it's a Catholic wedding and it will be really nice for me to be back in a Catholic church and because Esther has invited my two friends Gabe and Krista (who came to visit me two weekends ago) to join us!

more about Mbale (pronounced mm-bah-lay)

2006-11-08T09:51:00.000-06:00

Another week has gone by and it is time to update my blog again.

Life here in Mbale is treating me very well. I am loving my time at CRO, enjoying the new friends that I have made and I am fascinated by the new questions that this experience is raising for me. At CRO, I have become more situated and genuinely feel like I belong at the staff table each morning and afternoon which is cool. The other day, I was getting in line for lunch with the staff and one of the male staff members said, “visitors first” and indicated for me to join the line. Another male staff member turned to him and said, “she’s not a visitor!” then he turned to me and said, “but ladies first.” I so appreciated that distinction being made.

I am getting to know the kids more and that has been really fun for me. I am learning more names each day and the kids are more and more comfortable with me. A few days I have walked to and from CRO with some of the kids and that has been enjoyable. I especially enjoy the question “are they all yours?” when I pass a certain store with 2-4 children in tow. Now that I have a better sense of what I’m actually doing here, let me give you a run down of a regular day for me in Mbale-
6:30/7 wake up, shower (in my cold water only shower), eat breakfast (with tea)
8:00 take a bicycle boda to CRO- this means that there is a seat and cushion above the back wheel of the bike and I sit there (side saddle of course because women aren’t allowed to ride any other way) and the boda driver bikes me to work.
8:30 morning devotions with staff- this means singing and clapping, praying quietly, sharing about the bible, sharing testimonies and then a brief time for any announcements from the project manager.
10:00 tea time- no joke, everyday we have tea… and for those of you who didn’t know, I never drink tea in America, so that’s taken a lot of adjusting too, but I’m doing well… now.
10:30 walk the streets with at least one social worker to look for new street kids- we continue to find new kids each day which is just unbelievable to me! At this time, we’re also able to monitor to make sure that the kids that CRO pays school fees for are not on the streets.
11:30 either sit in on some counseling sessions or go with the kids to this huge field that is just about a six minute walk from CRO where we play football (American soccer) or netball (combination of ultimate Frisbee and basketball)
1:30 Lunch
2:00 sometimes help with music, sometimes just play games with the kids in the courtyard, sometimes go on home visits with one of the social workers… the afternoon is always a surprise!
5:00 walk halfway home with my friend Charles, then get on a bicycle boda for the second half of the trip since Charles breaks off to go to his hut at that point
5:45/6:00 arrive home for a snack and usually some reading
9:00 dinner (with tea)
9:30/10:30 go to bed

My buddy Charles and I have spent a lot of time together this week and that’s been nice because I’ve learned a lot more about him, including more about his time on the streets. I also learned that he’s 19- not 23 as he originally told me! Hahah. It’s really interesting to have friends here that are former street kids because I’m even more touched by the hard times they go through. Even now, Charles can’t find work and I can’t help him find any because the way finding work in Uganda goes is all by connections- I don’t know anyone and unfortunately, street kids don’t really know many people either because their parents (if they’re still alive) usually aren’t in social circles with people who work. I often wonder what I CAN do for these kids and I am so aware of how wealthy I am in comparison to these kids. The truth is, my money could take these kids a far way, but the essentials are actually already covered by CRO. So then I wonder what the next thing they would need is and I don’t know where to start. I also get asked for money all the time. When the kids ask, it’s easy to say that I am not going to buy them anything, but when the older boys ask or when the STAFF asks, it’s a lot harder- especially if the person doesn’t ask me directly, but asks through someone else. On Monday, one of the staff members asked (through Charles) for 320,000 shillings!!! That’s approximately equal to $150 which I can’t afford to give away. So I am really disliking the effect money has on relationships here. By no means is that the overall feeling I have at CRO, but with one staff member and one of the older boys it’s just a little uncomfortable now.

Things I’m really enjoying about my time here in Mbale:
- Playing games with the kids either in the fields or in the courtyard at CRO. The other day I was playing a game of “touch” (a really fun game that I will teach to little kids when I return to America) and it began to rain, but we just kept playing and it was so fun! There we were, all barefoot on the gravely/cement ground and the girls all in skirts (including me) running around in the rain. Then, yesterday, I went and played football with a group of about 40 boys on the field near CRO. Again, I was barefoot, in a skirt, playing football- so much fun!
- My interactions with the staff at CRO- they’re such a great bunch. I’ve really opened up in the past two weeks and they fully appreciate my energy and positive attitude. I’ve become friends with some of the staff and that’s been really nice for me. The youngest social worker, Eric, and I have spent a good amount of time together and we’ve laughed a lot which is so fun. The two teachers of the rehabilitation classes have been really welcoming to me and very helpful. One of them is older- probably 38 and the other is 27 and I’ve had really interesting conversations with each and their presence at CRO helps me to pass the time in good company. One of the two nurses at CRO, Nurse Esther (different than the Esther that I’m staying with) is so fun! She has a very playful nature and we’ve had a lot of fun interacting with each other- sometimes even just making faces at one another across the table at staff meetings in the morning.
- Being a source of affection for these kids. Some of these kids come from abusive homes and corporal punishment is alive and thriving in Uganda so even non-abusive homes according to Ugandan standards are still more physical than most American homes. Most kids do not get any positive physical attention in their lives- hugs do not appear to be very common here. This whole non-hugging thing does not work well for me and some of the kids learned that about me this week and have appreciated it greatly! I greet people with high fives, hand shakes and hugs each morning (hand shakes are the Ugandan norm) and throughout the day I give lots of hugs and sometimes even some cuddling- if I’m lucky!

Well, that’s probably enough for now- I’ll write more next week. This weekend I am going to introduction ceremony which is the official introduction of the man to the woman’s family so that they can then get married. This is a huge function (so I’m told) and I’m excited to see what it’s like. All of the CRO staff was invited so I will be with my co-workers which will hopefully be fun.

CRO- Child Restoration Outreach

2006-10-30T09:10:00.000-06:00

When I went to CRO last Tuesday for my meeting at 10, I started working there that very day. I will be here until the end of November-ish…the ending date is not for sure set. Originally I was thinking Thanksgiving (the other students in my SIT program and I are all going to celebrate together in Kampala), but now I think I will want to return to Mbale after Thanksgiving for the remaining week of practicum time. We’ll see about that though.
At CRO on Tuesday, I was received warmly and Christine, the national coordinator, was excited about my interests that I had expressed in my email to her. I explained my psychology studies, my soccer (football here) experience, my experience with children and my love of music. She said that I could help with the sports program here- football, volleyball, table tennis and netball. Since then, I’ve talked to Moses, the project manager for Mbale and he thinks that I might be able to help with the girls’ football team. I’m excited about that because I think that I would be a good female role model for them in the sense that I am already someone they look up to (just by nature of my skin color), but my interest in football for girls is huge and I think rare here. I met one of the girls last week and she was really excited about what skills I can teach them. I’m a bit nervous about this expectation and told her that (she’s in secondary school) and she laughed and agreed that they would teach me anything I didn’t know as well as me teaching them anything they don’t know. I played football on Saturday morning with the CRO staff against one of the CRO boys teams- Under 16 and I did not do so well, so we’ll see if Moses still wants me to help with the girls team. I’m just really out of shape, so I’m going to start running in the mornings (before it gets too hot) and hopefully that will help.
For music, I have been asked to teach the kids some easy songs. They just hired a new music teacher this week, so that’s good because it means that I won’t be pushed into the classroom just yet. I have thought of some songs and my pops sent an email with lots of suggestions, but if any of you have any great ideas of easy songs- I’m trying to go for not cheesy, but still simple- please feel free to email me. Also, it’d be good if drums could be played along with it because that’s how most of their music goes so I think they’ll like that better.
For psychology, I will be working with the social workers very closely for about half the day each day. Every morning, two social workers walk the streets of Mbale and talk to any kids on the street. The social workers do this everyday because they see this as the only way to keep kids off the street. I’ve gone three times (last Wednesday, Thursday and Friday) and each time we saw at least one new kid that the social worker had never talked to before. There are a group of street boys who do not want to be part of CRO and there are a number of other street children who aren’t interested either. Mostly it is because they can make a little money on the streets and they need that money to buy some little food for their family. I also helped with the intake for two of the new kids on Wednesday (with the help of another social worker who translated for me) and that was really interesting- asking about what brought them to the streets and then what their plans are for the future. It also seems that I will have the chance to ask those same intake questions to older kids (who speak English better)- I’ve done it so far with one girl and that went well.
In the down time, which I know you can’t believe exists since that sounds pretty hectic, I get to play with the kids. On the first day I played volleyball with some of the older boys (approx. ages 14 – 24) and that was really fun. Since then I have played cards (although I don’t really understand the rules), a game like sharks and minnows, cats cradle, and have had some fun singing and dancing time with the kids too. It’s fun because now they are getting more used to me and I’m opening up (in my silliness) to them so that’s good.
Also in my down time, if the kids are in class, I’ll go in and help them with their lesson. Sometimes this means that I go from table to table and help with math (which I really enjoy) and other times I’m thrown into the classroom and asked to teach. I’m not as big of a fan of this because I have no idea where they are at in their lessons, how much they know, how they are learning or what aspect of English they are learning. The other day I had to fake an English lesson for five minutes until someone else came in and saved me. On Friday, I just stood in front of the class and read from their book and they repeated what I said. It’ll be interesting how much more of this I am expected to do.
Some exciting news: I’ve made some friends here!!! First, there are two Norwegian boys who are working at CRO for the next 6.5 months (they’ve already been here for two weeks) and they are nice. One is 20 and one is 22 and while we don’t know each other that well, it is nice to be in a similar situation with them and to have each other as allies. I think that the 20 year old and I could be good friends but he’s been kind of quiet with me so far, so hopefully with some more time we’ll get to know each other a bit more. My closest friend here in Mbale is Charles. He’s 23- a former CRO kid who did really well for himself and is a great testament to the effectiveness of this program. He went to a specialized secondary school for catering and then went to one of the Ugandan universities and got a degree in catering. He used to work for the American Embassy and has an interview tomorrow morning with a local hotel so hopefully that goes well. Another friendship I’ve formed is with Mike- I think he’s 24. He was in the original class of CRO kids back in ’92. He now helps with sports here and is very nice. Mike and Charles are going to help me learn some of the languages spoken here- yes that’s right- Languages plural. They speak Ki-swahili, Lugisu and Luteso, along with English and some Luganda. I have gotten to practice my Luganda some as we’ve traveled through the community a bit and that’s been really rewarding because people are always so flattered and happy when you are putting forth the effort to try to communicate with them.
After spending my first three nights at a guest house, I moved into Esther’s house on Thursday. Esther is a woman I met when my SIT group came through the Mbale area and she was really fun and confident at the meeting we had with her. So, I am now living with her here in Namatala (which is the local slum area, but I’m in the outskirts- in a safe area where people have slightly more money). I live in a brick house with screens in my window!!! Screens are something which I have not seen in Uganda at all and yet, it would make a lot of sense for screens to be a hit in Uganda with all the mosquitoes etc. I lock the door to my room each day and therefore my belongings (including my laptop) are completely safe. Esther is so funny- she is CONSTANTLY feeding me which is hard because my appetite has not been huge the past few days and I have to keep trying to tell her to make less food. She is very outspoken (which I like about her since I am too and it’s a very very rare quality to see in Ugandan women). However, I’ve been a little embarrassed by her outspoken nature a little already. On Saturday night, she took me out dancing and would bring people over to me and say to them “dance with her” and then walk away, which put me in the slightly awkward situation of having to dance with complete strangers and it made me feel like I could never sit down. I know she’s just doing this so that I can experience Mbale to the fullest and it is helpful because I made two friends on Saturday night- with a doctor and a radiologist- so we’ll see if I stay in contact with them. They drove us home afterwards and showed me their offices on the way home so I may just go and visit them. They were very nice though (even though the doctor was one of the funniest dancers I’ve ever seen- haah). Yesterday, Esther took me to a wedding reception and when there wasn’t a chair for me, I was completely happy standing (at the event that made perfect sense) but she insisted on finding me a chair and talked to lots of people about how I needed one and so another girl gave up her chair for me. Again, her reasoning was nice, but I was embarrassed and wished that I could have just stood in the back and not made someone give up their chair.

This is a really long post so I’ll stop there, but I feel like I could probably write this much each day that I am here because I am just constantly learning new things and experiencing new things that I want to tell all of you about.

Oh, and to answer some people’s questions:
- If you’re sending mail or packages, I will still receive them if you send them to the address I gave before because anytime any of my friends come to visit me from Kampala they can bring it with them and when I go back to Kampala during this time I can pick it up.
- Homesickness: while I still miss people from home, I am REALLY enjoying my experiences here and am not experiencing homesickness any more. That’s been true for a while now (at least the last month) so yeah, that’s been really good.

CRO- Child Restoration Outreach

2006-10-28T09:11:00.000-05:00

When I went to CRO on Tuesday for my meeting at 10, I started working there that very day. I will be here until the end of November-ish…the ending date is not for sure set. Originally I was thinking Thanksgiving (the other students in my SIT program and I are all going to celebrate together in Kampala), but now I think I will want to return to Mbale after Thanksgiving for the remaining week of practicum time. We’ll see about that though.
At CRO on Tuesday, I was received warmly and Christine, the national coordinator, was excited about my interests that I had expressed in my email to her. I explained my psychology studies, my soccer (football here) experience- including assistant coaching, my experience with children and my love of music. She said that I could help with the sports program here- football, volleyball, table tennis and netball. Since then, I’ve talked to Moses, the project manager for Mbale and he thinks that I might be able to help with the girls’ football team. I’m excited about that because I think that I would be a good female role model for them in the sense that I am already someone they look up to (just by nature of my skin color), but my interest in football for girls is huge and I think rare here. I met one of the girls yesterday and she was really excited about what skills I can teach them. I’m a bit nervous about this expectation and told her that (she’s in secondary school) and she laughed and agreed that they would teach me anything I didn’t know as well as me teaching them anything they don’t know. We’ll see how it goes.
For music, I have been asked to teach the kids some easy songs. They just hired a new music teacher this week, so that’s good because it means that I won’t be pushed into the classroom just yet. I have thought of some songs and my pops sent an email with lots of suggestions, but if any of you have any great ideas of easy songs- I’m trying to go for not so cheesy- please feel free to email me. Also, it’d be good if drums could be played along with it because that’s how most of their music goes so I think they’ll like that better.
For psychology, I will be working with the social workers very closely for about half the day each day. Every morning, two social workers walk the streets of Mbale and talk to any kids on the street. The social workers do this everyday because they see this as the only way to keep kids off the street. I’ve gone three times this week (Wednesday, Thursday and Friday) and each time we’ve seen at least on new kid that the social worker had never talked to before. There are a group of street boys who do not want to be part of CRO and there are a number of other street children who aren’t interested either. Mostly it is because they can make a little money on the streets and they need that money to buy some little food for their family. I also helped with the intake for two of the new kids on Wednesday (with the help of another social worker who translated for me) and that was really interesting- asking about what brought them to the streets and then what their plans are for the future. It also seems that I will have the chance to ask those same intake questions to older kids (who speak English better)- I’ve done it so far with one girl and that went well.
In the down time, which I know you can’t believe exists since that sounds pretty hectic, I get to play with the kids. On the first day I played volleyball with some of the older boys (approx. ages 14 – 24) and that was really fun. Since then I have played cards (although I don’t really understand the rules), a game like sharks and minnows, cats cradle, and have had some fun singing and dancing time with the kids too. It’s fun because now they are getting more used to me and I’m opening up (in my silliness) to them so that’s good.
Also in my down time, if the kids are in class, I’ll go in and help them with their lesson. Sometimes this means that I go from table to table and help with math (which I really enjoy) and other times I’m thrown into the classroom and asked to teach. I’m not as big of a fan of this because I have no idea where they are at in their lessons, how much they know, how they are learning or what aspect of English they are learning. The other day I had to fake an English lesson for five minutes until someone else came in and saved me. Today I just stood in front of the class and read from their book and they repeated what I said. It’ll be interesting how much more of this I am expected to do.
Some exciting news: I’ve made some friends here!!! First, there are two Norwegian boys who are working at CRO for the next 6.5 months (they’ve already been here for two weeks) and they are nice. One is 20 and one is 22 and while we don’t know each other that well, it is nice to be in a similar situation with them and to have each other as allies. I think that the 20 year old and I could be good friends but he’s been kind of quiet with me so far, so hopefully with some more time he’ll open up a bit more. My closest friend here in Mbale is Charles. He’s 23- a former CRO kid who did really well for himself and is a great testament to the effectiveness of this program. He went to a specialized secondary school for catering and then went to one of the Ugandan universities and got a degree in catering. He used to work for the American Embassy and had an interview this morning with a local hotel so hopefully that went well. Another friendship I’ve formed is with Mike- I think he’s 24. He was in the original class of CRO kids back in ’92. He now helps with sports here and is very nice. Mike and Charles are going to help me learn some of the languages spoken here- yes that’s right- Languages plural. They speak Ki-swahili, Lugisu and Luteso, along with English and some Luganda. I have gotten to practice my Luganda some as we’ve traveled through the community a bit and that’s been really rewarding because people are always so flattered and happy when you are putting forth the effort to try to communicate with them.
After spending my first three nights at a guest house, I moved into Esther’s house on Thursday. Esther is a woman I met when my SIT group came through the Mbale area and she was really fun and confident at the meeting we had with her. So, I am now living with her here in Namatala (which is the local slum area, but I’m in the outskirts- in the nicest area of the slum as far as I can tell). I live in a brick house with screens in my window!!! Screens are something which I have not seen in Uganda at all and yet, it would make a lot of sense for screens to be a hit in Uganda with all the mosquitoes etc. I lock the door to my room each day and therefore my belongings (including my laptop) are completely safe. Since I’ve only been here two days I do not know that much about Esther yet, but I’ll let you know more about her next time.

Part Two: Eastern Excursion and this past week in Kampala

2006-10-24T01:58:00.000-05:00

After Mbale, we traveled for another hour east to Busia, which is a rural area. We were dropped off in pairs at different homestays in different villages where we would stay for three days. We had an assignment to use research methods in the villages that we’ve learned about in our lectures to learn about a topic of our choice (which we would later have to write a 10-12 page paper on). I chose to look into education, which was kind of interesting. My partner and I met the local council chairwoman, the local council secretary, interviewed a total of five teachers from primary and secondary schools in the area and were given tours of the two schools. The fascinating and amazing part about the three days was just living in the village. I stayed in a hut with a grass thatched roof which was wonderful! There was no power there and no running water so we went to the local water sources one day and saw those and we used a lantern all the time- which of course I loved. The family we stayed with was comprised on a man who we called “the old man” and then his wife who was not nearly as old as he was. Then their youngest children who are six and eight- John and Peter- lived there and then the old man’s grandchildren lived there as well (although the daughter who was the grandchildren’s mother doesn’t live there).
I was so happy to be around kids again and I got to play their funny game of dodge ball where there are three people who stand in a line about twenty feet away from each other. The person in the middle has to dodge the ball as it is being thrown at him or her. If the middle person can dodge the ball ten times in a row then they win. If they get hit then they switch places with the person who threw the ball. I think that they thought I was going to be really bad at it because I’m a girl and a muzungu, so I won four times in row and then decided to switch to give someone else a chance. The next time I went in the middle, I didn’t win so I think they learned not to go easy on me. The frustrating part about being around all these wonderful kids was that they didn’t speak English I don’t speak Kisameer (sp?).
Our host cousin, Godfrey, was 20 years old, so the old man basically told him that we were his responsibility for the next three days. Godfrey then became our live-in friend. He never let us sit in the hut alone- met us early in the morning and stayed with us until after dark. It was nice in some ways because he was our age, was great at English and was fun to talk to. It was frustrating in the obvious way of feeling like we were being babysat and also he had a full “muzungus are weak” mentality which was frustrating to us. On the last night, my homestay partner, Marcy was so fed up with Godfrey calling us weak that she went over and picked him up. It was pretty funny. Overall Godfrey was a great host though and helped us do everything we wanted to do.
When we came back to Busia after the rural homestay experience, we had one night in a hotel there and it was great to be there. It was fun to be back with the rest of the students and just hang out. I sang for a couple of them and that was the first time I had sung in front of anyone in the group (other than Krista) and so that was really nice for me. Since coming to Uganda, I ahven’t had any Molly-only-space. While at my homestay house in Kampala, I shared a room, everytime we went on trips through my study abroad program I shared a room and there are no quiet places that I could claim as my own in Kampala. So I hadn’t been doing a lot of singing and it was really nice that I got the chance to there.
When we came back from Busia we had the week from hell. I had four papers due, one large Luganda test, it was the last week with my homestay family, it was my last week in Kampala with my friends and I had to try to figure out all of the details of my practicum out. Well, as you probably noticed in my last blog update, I was a little frustrated with CRO’s lack of communication, but that’s just how it is done here. So, I am now in Mbale and I have a meeting with my CRO contact person in a little while and hopefully she’ll say good things like, “yes, I would like you to work with us and here’s what you can do…” So, I’ll update you more on that and what it’s like to be in Mbale alone in my next update which should be later this week.

Lira, Sipi Falls and Mbale

2006-10-19T05:51:00.000-05:00

I haven’t updated in a while and I don’t have time to explain everything that has happened in the past two weeks, so I’m going to split up the time into two- Lira, Sipi Falls and Mbale and rural homestay & crazy stress week

Part One:

Lira: I went to Lira with Laura and Kim to look into practicum ideas there. My goal was to talk to the Rachelle Rehabilitation Center there and see if I could work for them. Laura, Kim and I arrived at the bus park in Kampala at 7 and boarded a mostly empty bus headed to Lira. Transportation schedules are different here in Uganda than in America because you don’t leave until the vehicle is full- so there are never definite times for anything. We sat in the bus in the Kampala bus park until 8:45 before leaving. This was an experience in itself. Vendors and peddlers (which are SOOO common in Kampala) board the bus and walk up and down the aisle trying to sell you things. This means that I had various conversations with people about how “I really am happy with my watch even though it doesn’t match my skin” (which was one of the arguments they used for why I should buy their watch- haha) and other equally ridiculous things. Once we got started, it was just long hot and uncomfortable. The bus was big but we had people standing in the aisle the entire trip, the window only really gave any air to the person sitting at the window because they didn’t open the window very much. If you opened it more, that person was blasted with very dusty air which wasn’t a very pleasant experience for them. Despite the fact that we were told the trip would take 3 or 4 hours, we arrived in Lira at 2:30pm- for those of you doing the math at home that means that the trip took nearly 6 hours! With most of the day lost to traveling, Laura, Kim and I scrambled to change into our “smart” clothes and each hopped on a bicycle boda boda (a bicycle with a little cushion on the back for someone to sit on) and we each went to the different organizations we were interested in. Laura went to Unicef, Kim went to the Red Cross and I headed to the Rachelle center. When I got there I was warmly received by the staff there and one of the social workers took me to his office where we were able to talk more. He told me all about the center- they’ve helped 2,551 kids, he showed me their weekly schedules, talked about what activities they do for counseling and for education. It all sounded great until I asked about how many kids are currently there. His answer was nine, but there should be two going home next week. With eight social workers on staff, I was very aware that this was not the situation I had expected. I was still going to work with it though. The coordinator of the center wasn’t there- she was out of the country, so I was told to call her the following week. That night, it was really nice to be in Lira with Laura and Kim. First of all, Lira is a beautiful little town. I thought it was going to be bustling and filled with pollution, but in reality it was really quaint. There aren’t many cars there- everyone rides bicycles which was kinda fun and there was no pollution which meant the sky was really bright and blue which was beautiful. Also, people had that small town mentality of being really nice and when I asked how to get to the Rachelle center at the hotel, the hotel manager told me to say hi to Margaret- his wife! It was very nice there. In the hotel room, we had a movie station (which is something that is not common in Kampala…well at least at my house it’s not) and so Kim and I watched the first hour and a half of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off which was awesome! Then the power went out so we went to bed, but it was really comforting to watch a familiar movie. J The next day we had another long hot dirty bus ride back to Kampala. I sat by the window and most of the time chose to just be dirty and have wind on me rather than try to remain clean while sweating to death. Oh, also, there were chickens under the seats on the bus and that surprised me when I first sat down, but then I changed seats so I was no longer bothered by their ruffling feathers. Oh how I love Uganda…

The following week (last week), we went on our eastern Uganda excursion. We spent the first two days and nights at Sipi Falls. It was gorgeous! After arriving, we went on a walk down to the falls and it was just absolutely beautiful there. I have pictures up on facebook… here’s the link- http://udayton.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2027826&id=21905656&l=97ee0 It was also really nice to have some bonding days with the rest of the students. After two days there where we got a chance to give our in depth study presentations (which went very well), we headed to Mbale for less than 24 hours. The first place we went upon arriving was to CRO- Child Restoration Outreach. When we arrived, we had a chance to look around the room we were meeting in and I was so excited! The organization works to get street children off the street and into the classroom. It also helps get them involved in productive activities such as music, dance, sports, vocational training, etc. The organization, which is mostly a school, uses psycho social counseling and a special rehabilitation program for the first year that the street kids are with their organization. It’s a good NGO that has been working for the past 14 years and has helped over 3,000 kids. It currently is helping over 400 kids and it is more the type of organization I want to be working for. When our vans pulled into the cement courtyard, kids swarmed the vans. I made friends with a girl named Ismaya (sp?) who came over and shook my hand and spoke to me in both English and Luganda. I just felt very positive about this organization and I turned to Dan, the program director and whispered, “I may want to do my practicum here.” At the time he just kinda nodded and laughed, but after the presentation when I was still interested, he had me talk to the woman who gave the presentation. She encouraged me to call the national coordinator that night, which I did and she was very positive about the prospect of me working there. I have since emailed her and will hopefully know more about what I am getting myself into by the end of the day. While I am disappointed that I won’t be working with children in the north and that I won’t be living with my friends, I am very excited about learning about the rehabilitation process of these street kids, work with them, learn from them and really get a lot out of my practicum experience.

I’ll give more information later when I know more about what exactly I will be able to do with their organization!

Pictures!

2006-10-07T13:18:00.000-05:00

I don't have enough time to write a post, even though this week has been incredible and filled with stories that I would love to share- site visits in slums to have focus group discussions about gender and a trip to Lira in an attempt to set up a practicum... but I will have to share more about that later. :)

I just wanted to share two links to pictures since I haven't been able to load pictures onto my blog...

my pictures so far:
http://udayton.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2026322&id=21905656&l=b6f21

pictures that my buddy Krista took that I thought you'd all enjoy (especially from the safari because my camera wasn't working then):
http://udayton.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2027051&id=21905656&l=3ecf

hope you enjoy them!

western Uganda, gender studies and more!

2006-09-29T11:01:00.001-05:00

So much has happened since my last entry that I'm going to try to talk about it all briefly... for more details send a private email.

Last week, the SIT program went to western Uganda and Rwanda for an excursion. We left last Sunday and went to Mbarara, Uganda, which meant we crossed the equator! So, last week, I was in the southwestern quadrant of the world… it was kinda cool.

We stayed in Mbarara (which is 4 hours away from Kampala) on Sunday night and Monday night. I really liked Mbarara. It's smaller than Kampala but still offers a lot. I had my first rolex there... no, not the watch, but it's a chappati rolled with an egg and tomatoes...mmmm, it was really delicious! On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday morning, we were in Rwanda and then we returned to Mbarara for a night before going to QE National Park. It was really nice to have so much bonding time with the group in the van rides from place to place. :)

At Queen Elizabeth National Park, we got to see allllllll kinds of animals, which was really cool! On the road into the park we were greeted by baboons! Then we went on a boat ride and saw all kinds of birds and we saw hippos!!! After the boat ride, we went on a game drive and saw even more animals, closer up that were way cooler. First of all, when I saw game drive on the schedule, I thought that meant safari style game drive in one of those land rovers or something, but no, that was not the case. We went on our safari style game drive (I was right about that) in our taxi-vans! Hahah, it was kind of a sight to see all on its own! It was unbelievable though- we saw lions (they were kinda far away though), warthogs, ELEPHANTS (!!!!), more buffalo, antelope, hyenas, lots of different birds, and more that I can’t even think of right now. So, if you couldn’t tell, the elephants were my favorite part. We saw about ten of them at one point and then we turned around the path and were able to wait for them to cross our path again. During this little turn around, our driver, Godfrey (sp?), told us that we don’t have to worry about the elephants unless they flap their ears because that’s their sign that they’re about to charge. When the elephants came past us for the second time, we saw the biggest one first- the one with the big tusks which was so cool. It was about thirty feet away from us and headed right in our direction. Everyone was taking pictures (except me because my camera was out of batteries) until all of a sudden, the elephant starts flapping its ears! One of the other girls and I started telling Godfrey that we needed to back up pronto and it was a very very funny moment of two of us speaking really quickly and talking about the fact that ears were “definitely flapping, definitely flapping.” In the morning, we went for an early game drive and were able to see the lions up close- two were about five feet from the car!!! Other than that, we just saw the same animals and had no exciting elephant stories.

Now that I’m back in Kampala, we have started the in-depth study part of my semester. This is a two week program where our group is split into three and we each study something that we get to learn more about one topic in a more intimate setting. I’m studying gender and it has been wonderful so far! It’s amazing to see how much gender roles are different here than in the States and to see how much they play a role in different aspects of life here… like politics (which I found fascinating)! I had a great lecture on gender and conflict areas- specifically northern Uganda and that too was fascinating. I also had some non-interesting lectures this week- micro-financing (which I already knew about), poverty (just a poor presentation), and health (which wasn’t specific enough for me, so it wasn’t very engaging). The last lecture we had was about gender and law, which was interesting but so frustrating. My lecturer was talking about how gender sensitive he is and yet, the whole time he kept making sexist comments about how women can’t function at the same intellectual level of men and about how women don’t have the same level of reasonableness that men do. Oh, I was so frustrated about it and it definitely made me glad that I am a woman living in America!

I've now ridden a boda boda twice...once I was NOT breaking rules because we are allowed to ride them when we're outside the city and it was really fun. The second time I broke rules because I was late and needed to cross the city quickly to make it to an appointment with world vision in time. I will not make a habit of that, but it really was helpful timing wise.

This week has been really up and down for me. In soooo many ways I feel like I've finally hit my stride and I feel really good about being here- comfortable in my environment and feel like I'm learning about things that I'm interested in and just feeling excited about my practicum (internship) time that's rapidly approaching. On the other hand, I've had a lot of stressful and/or frustrating moments where I've just missed home a TON and it's really hard to be so far away from my support network. Thank you very much to people who have sent encouraging, thoughtful emails. You have no idea how helpful it is to receive those!

So, after a hard afternoon yesterday, I went with two friends to listen to music- a blend of african and jazz and it was AMAZING! The music was great and we got to dance too! A woman there taught me some of the traditional moves and I'm actually not too bad at it... she kept commenting at how good I was at shaking my butt (apparently most mzugu girls aren't!) hahah. It was really fun and makes me want to learn more dance moves here. We'll see what I can do about that...

I guess that’s all from here… oh I should tell you about another friend since I haven’t done that lately…

Friend of this blog entry: Sharon. Sharon is actually the girl that I met before coming because she’s from Wheaton, IL and we had lunch the Saturday before leaving for Uganda. Sharon is in my Luganda class, so I’ve gotten a chance to spend some more time with her and she’s really cool. She knows a TON about eastern Africa, which can be a little intimidating, but I’ve been able to learn a lot from her and her contributions to class lectures. Her host family here calls her Sharoni which has become a source of amusement for the rest of us and she has a good sense of humor about it.

Small note:
Jeff, Jen, Ali and Peter: I was totally thinking of you guys when I was seeing the elephants and, even though my camera wasn’t working, I did get someone to take a picture of elephant dung for you! J hahaha, I hope you appreciate it!

2006-09-29T11:01:00.000-05:00

Rwanda

2006-09-23T07:21:00.000-05:00

I am writing this from an internet cafe in Mbarara (western Uganda) in hopes that I can write only about Rwanda right now and write another entry next week about western Uganda when I have more time.

First, let me just say that Rwanda is BEAUTIFUL! The hills are gorgeous and the streets and cities are much cleaner than Uganda. The people we met were quite friendly as well. Ok, now onto the real stuff...

In preparation for our time in Rwanda, we watched Sometimes in April (which is a movie I own and highly recommend so mum and pops- please feel free to let people borrow it- it's on my bottom shelf). It's a good movie about the Rwandan genocide that I believe is better than Hotel Rwanda.

Here's a VERY BRIEF backround on Rwanda: First Germany, then Belgium came and colonized Rwanda at the beginning of the 20th century. At the time Rwanda was fairly unified- one language and one ethnic group. There were different classifications for people (Tutsis, Hutus and Twa), but the tutsi and hutu titles were not biologically inherited- it was completely dependent on one's profession so the titles didn't mean much and people could easily change titles. When Belgium came in, they decided to legally require identity cards to be carried everywhere you went starting in 1932. Soon, the Tutsis were getting special treatment from the European colonizers and that went on until 1962 when Rwanda gained independence. From then on, tensions were very high between the Hutus (who were the majority in Rwanda- 85%) and the Tutsis (who were in the vast minority- 14%... the Twa made up the remainder 1%). There were many different instances of mass killings of Tutsis and there were lots of Tutsis who fled to surrounding countries for refuge. In 1990, the RPF (Rwandan Patriotic Front- tutsi supporting army) began a war with the Rwandan army (which supported the hutus). Making little headway, the RPF often had to retreat back into other countries. In April, 1994, the Hutu supporting president of Rwanda's plane was shot down by Hutus for two reasons- 1) the president had been backing down from his extreme hutu stance and 2) the hutus blamed the tutsis for the death and were able to use that as an excuse for the implementation of their mass extermination plan. Within 100 days, over 800,000 Rwandans were killed- both tutsis and moderate hutus. There was VERY little help from the international community.

Ok, so when we got to Rwanda, we spent the night at a hotel and then spent the next day at a memorial museum and two genocide memorial sites. The museum was really informative and reminded me of the Holocaust museum in D.C. a bit, although it was a ton smaller. At the museum there were mass graves in front and we were told that 256,000 people were buried there, but they only had 10,000 names because there was no way to identify them. The two genocide memorial sites were very hard to be at. They were each churches. At the first church, there were seven shelves of skulls and bones right at the entrance of the little brick church. Then, as you walked farther in, you could see that the place had not been cleaned up other than to remove the bodies . In between all of the very low benches (pews), there was debris and small bones. The walls had large gaping holes which explains how the Hutu armies were able to enter. Behind the church, there was another small building and it had two large piles of bones and then there was clothes hanging everywhere. It was unreal. Standing outside of the church, I was able to picture the event that took place- people squished into this church because it was the only place they felt offered a sense of security, hearing the hutu army coming and realizing they had no where to go, trying desperately to hide in between these low benches but not being able to hide from this army which surround the building. From the skulls on the shelves, I could tell which ones had been smashed into the walls, which ones had been hit with machetes and there was even one with a spear head still stuck in it. Sorry for being graphic, but this description doesn't even give you an accurate picture of what I saw. At the second church, there were more mass graves, but at this one we went down into them. The first was just filled with coffins and we were told that 4 or 5 skeletons were in each coffin. In the second mass grave, there were no coffins and there were just shelves and shelves of skulls and bones. In the two mass graves, there were 3,220 people. It was simply unbelievable... except that it really was believable because here we were looking at all of these skulls.

The whole experience was so draining emotionally and mentally. Emotionally I was so sad that this happened and it was hard to see all of this evidence in person. Mentally, I was just trying to comprehend what happened. How could people have such hatred? How could so many people have committed such atrocities? How could the international community not have stepped in? Will the international community ever be able to truly mean "never again"? And SOOOOO many more questions have been racing through my head.

I hope that this gives you some idea of what I experienced, but I know if can never give a fully accurate description. Please feel free to ask me more questions because I definitely will want to talk more about this!

new address and some short notes

2006-09-15T10:09:00.000-05:00

Sorry, I kept forgetting to include the new address in here, but here it is:
Molly Heineman
c/o School for International Training
P.O. Box 23431
Kati House, Ground Floor, Plot 2
Kyagwe Road
Kampala, UGANDA

It takes about 15 days for letters to get here (that's how long it took for the card my mum sent!)

Random things:

Kampala is a big city. I know some people think strictly of rural areas when they think of Africa, but Kampala is not rural. The main streets are paved (don't be fooled, that doesn't mean they are smooth necessarily). The buildings are not that large, but many of them are at least three stories high. This is a hilly area which is kinda fun for me since I've always lived in very flat areas. People dress very nicely here. While there is a lot of dust, we are expected to look "smart". Smart here means dressed neatly- ironed clothing, not t-shirts, skirts that cover the knee, shirts that cover your shoulder and aren't too low cut.

Each morning I take my taxi to the taxi park in Kampala and then walk uphill at least half a mile (although it actually may be a mile) to the SIT resource center for Luganda class. As I walk on the sidewalk and CAREFULLY cross the street, people are constantly trying to talk to me. "muzungu muzungu" (that's their word for white- although it's not derogatory in any way) is what I constantly hear. Also, everyone assumes that since I'm white, I'm rich. They all want me to buy from their stores. there are a good number of people sitting on the side of the sidewalk just hoping people will give them money. Most have obvious disabilities or they are clearly poor children. Children are more aggresive in their begging- they'll come up and call me sister and walk with me for up to two blocks. I learned early on that I can't make eyecontact and should definitely not give money in the city to these kids- advice from the director of my program. It seems that most kids work for someone else so they may not even get any benefits from the money they receive.

Ok, I just wanted to give you taht little insight into Kampala. Hope you all have a wonderful week! I'll try to write on Monday or Tuesday the 25/26.

change in plans...

2006-09-14T08:58:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone!

Things are going really well here. I'm starting to settle in here with the program and feel like I may have a grasp on what's going on... maybe. :) Next week, I'll be in western Uganda and Rwanda and I'm super pumped! It means that I probably won't be able to check my email, but please feel free to send it anyway, just dont' expect a response next week.

When we get back, we continue our Luganda lessons in the morning but have indepth study in the afternoon. For my indepth study I get to choose between public health, gender studies or grassroots development. At this point I am actually torn between gender studies and the grassroots development. Contrary to what I thought coming in, the indepth study is completely separate from our practicum or really any other projects/assignments we have to do.

Our group has been talking a lot about practicum ideas. Practicum is a six week assignment where we get to choose whether we want to do an internship with a organization in Uganda or research some topic and use only primary sources in our research. I definitely am wanting to do an internship type thing and right now I'm looking into either working for the Kids League up north or working at a rehabiliation center up north (probably Lira). I tried to talk to World Vision today, but instead made an appointment to talk to them when I get back from Rwanda. My buddy Laura and I were talking about possibly doing our internships near eachother so that we could live with eachother or at least check in on one another regularly. I'm pumped about that. I'm reading this book, Aboke Girls, right now (it was recommended to me by my program director) and it's about the children who are abducted. It's really good and it's such good motivation for me at the moment so that's cool. I recommend it- it's a pretty easy read- intense topic but quick reading.

So, the change in plans is that I have decided to come home in late December/early January after my parents have come to visit. This means that I will return to UD in the spring and I will not be doing my semester of service over here. I have a lot of things to figure out in terms of school, but let me just tell you a few of the reasons why I will returning early: (these are in no particular order)
1) ANOTHER language barrier: in the north they don't speak Luganda or (to my understanding) much English, so I would have to be learning a new language without formal lessons like I have now.
2) lack of a Ugandan support system: I've really appreciated having the other SIT students here with me so that I can talk to them and be supported by them and even for practicum time I will have them (and my program director) in Uganda- just a cheap phone call away. Second semester I wouldn't have them OR my program director to rely on and that seems a little too out on my own for me right now.
3) If I go home, I can plan better for coming back here in a couple ways: financial- I learned a little too late in the game about scholarships that I could ahve applied for for coming here so if I go home, I can apply for them and come back in the next couple years. Also, I could learn a little of the language I would be using and I could even look into the organization more and take classes that might prepare me better for this experience.
4) I am not sure about how available communication is up there right now and with my limited support system that I'd have here, I am not willing to be cut off completely.
If you'd like more reasons, I'll give them to you, but that's the brief overview for now.

It's hard for me to come back early because in some ways I feel like it could be seen as a failure, but I really don't see it that way since I am coming home in order to plan better a trip back here.

Well, I just tried for the past hour to upload some pictures on here, but it unfortunately did not work :(...so, I will try again this weekend and hopefully I will be more successful...

OH, I forgot to mention, I think I get to see a soccer game between two clans on Saturday- I'm pretty excited! :)

Alright, time to go home... I love getting your emails! Keep 'em coming :)

Love,
Molly :)

shocks and strikes...

2006-09-12T09:25:00.000-05:00

Hello all!

First, I just want to say thank you to all of you who have been reading this, emailing me or posting comments! It is SO nice to know that people are thinking of me here... not just for my ego, haha... but seriously, the support is felt and at times is necessary, so thank you! Also, I will try to respond when I get a chance, but our schedule is kinda tight these days...

Ok, so shocks and strikes...

Shock: On Sunday, I was ironing my shirts (because wrinkles take away from the very nice appearance everyone tries to maintain here) with my host family's iron- which has a pretty shabby cord from the iron to the outlet. I was sitting on the concrete floor in my room and ironing the way I was shown by my host sister and I put the iron down to re-arrange the shirt. When I went to grab the iron, I was slightly electrocuted... my right arm shook, my left leg shook and my eyes closed for a moment. When my eyes re-opened, i was holding my arms and legs very close to my body in a reflexive move and my host sister just laughed and said, "oh sorry- small electric shock!" she promptly removed the iron. Apparently, I had touched a part of the cord that had worn through, but I didn't even really know what had happened at the time...

Strike: the taxis were (and maybe still are) on strike because the governemnt wanted to install speed governors in the taxis. I don't even really know what that means, but I know that yesterday we were told to go straight to the taxi park after class and TRY to get a taxi. There were SO many people in the streets and in the taxi park. I was with two of my classmates and one of them commented that people filled up all the places where there usually are taxis- it was nuts! I made it home just fine because there were still a good number (it may have been half) of the taxis still running despite the strike.

This weekend was less than thrilling for me. I did not get to stay with Rachel in her house of flushing toilets (bummer), I spent a lot of time on Saturday with my host siblings Fred and Gertrude as they showed me a strip mall and then a shopping mall and asked which one was more American. Unfortunately (in my opinion), they were both VERY American... we had lunch at a place where there were only three non-white faces! I wish that they had taken me to Ugandan places, but I didn't have much say... oh well... Each day during the week, my host sister Gertrude has woken me up- even when I've offered to set an alarm she refuses and says that she'll just wake me up. Well, on Sunday, she didn't wake me up. So, when I woke up at 10, I had missed church. For other people in my group that would have made them very happy, but as you all can probably predict- that was not the case for me. So, I was pretty homesick on Sunday as I missed church, had an electric shock, and had spent the previous day doing quasi-American things. It got better by Sunday night when I went with my host family to a birthday party. It felt very similar to Hogan family events, in the ways in which cousins interacted and that I felt fairly comfortable- obviously it had a Ugandan spin which made me at least feel like I was seeing a bit of THEIR culture and I definitely appreciated that. Another little bit of their culture- my host family doesn't have a car. So anytime we went anywhere, we crammed into other people's cars with them. On Sunday there were five adults squished into the backseat of a regular four-door car for a 40 minute drive over Ugandan roads- filled with pot holes! It was hot and uncomfortable and there wasn't much English conversation.

I guess after this weekend, I've finally found the uncomfortable culture shock that so many of my peers found sometime last week. I'm still very happy to be here and am enjoying my time here, but I'm aware that I really am in Uganda and that's VERY different from the states. On the upside, I'm getting more and more used to my pit latrine, I am pretty good at riding the taxis here and I'm participating more in class. :) So, things are good here (despite my complaints).

Next week we're headed to western Uganda and Rwanda. In western Uganda, we'll be trying to lead some focus group discussions with Ugandans (which will be an interesting experience for sure!) and in Rwanda we'll be visiting three genocide memorials as well as talk to a couple NGOs. It'll be nice to spend some time away from our homestays and with the rest of the students for a while before returning to the homestay for another two week period.

New friend of today's blog: Krista. Krista is from Wisconsin and goes to school there too. She's a sweet, quiet girl who is so genuine! Krista and I are in language class together (we have three different sections for our group) and it's so nice to begin each morning talking with her about her night. At the end of our first student-led processing session yesterday evening, after most people had been complaining about different cultural issues they've been dealing with, Krista said, "I just want to say that I'm happy to be here and I think we have a lot to be thankful for here." It is very true. We do have a lot of beauty around us and a lot to be thankful for here and it's nice to have people like Krista around to remind us of that!

Ok, I'm out of time... I'll write more later! Hope you all are well!

"Light is coming"

2006-09-05T09:55:00.000-05:00

My language classes these past two days have been great and today and I definitely had an "ah ha" moment when we were conjugating the verb to go and my teacher, Herbert, turned to me and asked, "Light is coming?" and I thought that describes things very well right now. Light IS coming.

I joined my host family on Sunday afternoon and they are great! There's a sign in the living room/family room area that says something along the lines of- you are welcome in this house. we may not have the best of food or offer the greatest things, but we give, we give with love. It's very true. :) They live in a small house- i don't know the exact material used for the house but, cement or concrete? is that the same? I don't know... my bed is larger than my bed at home and I bought a nice mosquito net to put up so that's been great so far. We use a pit latrine which is located outside in an outhouse... there is a cement floor with a rectangular hole and there's a cover that has a large stick attached to it that you just move away from the hole before going to the bathroom and then you replace it afterward. We have a bathroom... literally. It is a cement room which is about three feet wide and ten feet long (total estimates). There is a drain in the back right corner and when I get in there, there is always a plastic basin (about 18 inches in diameter and 10 inches deep) with water in it. there is a clothes line hung from the door and the window and that's where you place your towel and clothes while you are "showering". Very interesting experience and I definitely found myself laughing at myself as I fumbled through my first two "showers". We shower twice a day (morning and night) and that is not negotiable.

My host family's name is Lule, so I've decided that I'm going to call my host mom "mama Lule", but she doesn't know about that one yet, so we'll see. I am roommates with Gertrude, who is 25 and across the hall is Aunt Joan. Mama Lule sleeps down the hallway and that's all who lives in the house. My host dad lives in Juba (in Sudan where the LRA/Ugandan gov't peace talks are going on right now) and he came down on Sunday for my arrival. I felt very special. :) I have two "brothers"- Fred (19) and Ivan (20) and they don't live with me. Fred is in college (equivalent of our first two years of college) and Ivan is in university (equivalent of our last two years of college plus one more year... i hope that made sense). I also have one more "sister", Rachael and she's married and has a 5 month old son, Daniel. She actually got married one week before David and Maryjoy, so we bonded over that when we met on Sunday. All the sibs were there on Sunday, but left by Sunday night. I will see some of them this weekend. Rachael invited me to stay at her house on Saturday and she has running water- flush toilet and real shower! So, I'm hoping that plan still goes through.

Some logistics about Uganda-
load sharing: There are power problems here in Kampala and we have power about every other day (this is called load sharing). The first night I was with the family was a power day so that was nice to get my bearings when there were lights. Oddly, I watched the Fugitive on tv with them... I'd never seen it before so that was interesting. Last night, we did not have power and I think I liked that better... I'm for sure investing in a lantern when I return home because they really do the trick- I have no need for excessive power use, that's for sure.

transportation: we have mini-bus taxis which are 15 seater vans that you see EVERYWHERE! the two people working it are the driver (obviously in the front seat...oh, but on the right side because it's not like america in that way) and the conductor (who sits on the left side in the first row of seats behind the driver). The conductor sticks his head out the window and is pretty constantly calling the destination of the taxi out the window so that other people can join us if they want. traffic here is NUTS! Cars and taxis are RIGHT on top of each other and it's ridiculous! mama Lule is going to try to help me take a picture of it this weekend... I haven't taken many pictures yet because I don't want my camera to be stolen and I've been warned by everyone here that that is a completely valid concern... actually I didn't have the concern until they told me I should be. The other form of traffic is motorcyles which are another taxi type service. you sit on the second seat and they take you places. They can weave in and out of traffic easier and can fit on the side of the vans on the streets so they are much quicker. They are called boda boda's and they are off limits for SIT students. so lots of traffic- it is a tricky task to cross the street, but so far I've done quite well.

overall, in Kampala it is VERY dusty. I always come home at the end of the day with a layer of red dust (yes, red... i don't know why, but that's the color of their dirt). also, lately i've been noticing how dry my contacts get in my eyes so i will probably start carrying around eye drops.

um... that's all I can think to write now. More later. Oh, wait, food- we've had rice and beans for the past two nights at home and that's wonderful. we also had matoke the first night which is made from green bananas (plantains) and i'm not a huge fan, but i can choke it down with the best of them. :) And passion fruit juice is always available and that's awesome... i really like it. So, I'm very happy here and life is good.

New friend of today's blog: Marisa. She's from Massachusetts, but goes to school in CA. She's always outgoing and optimistic so we have found it helpful to talk together because other people are not always as happy as we are and we don't want to gloat. She's been great though and I've also been able to have a few heart to hearts with her, so that's awesome. Ok, now I'm really done.

Thank you all for emails- I've LOVED them! Keep 'em coming if possible. :)

Webale bannyabo ne bassebo! (goodbye ladies and gentlemen!)

I'm a learning machine!

2006-09-01T13:46:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone!

I hope things are going well at home! I know I said I would only be updating once every two weeks, but this first week has been so crazy, I just wanted to let you all know that I AM settling in. I will probably be able to update once a week for the rest of the semester, so that's exciting! :)

where to even begin...

The Other SIT Students: SO fun! My roommate for the week is Laura and she's awesome. Each of the past two nights we've been able to talk about what we've experienced, what we're nervous about and what we're excited for, so that's been really good. Another good friend I've made is Gabe- he goes to Oberlin and is just an easy going guy and is one of those people that I just feel comfortable with from the start- like we already knew each other. I'll tell more about the others as time goes on, but that was just a sneak peak. :)

The Program: Yesterday I got answers to SOOOO many questions about the SIT program. We learned about our practicum period which happens for the last six weeks and so many little logistical questions about what's going on. For the practicum it looks like I may be able to work up in Arua with the Kids League (although I have not yet had contact with TKL directors) so that is exciting for me. Again, I will tell you lots more as time goes on.

The Food: the moment you've all been waiting for... it's actually pretty good! They have rice and beans with a lot of their meals. They have a starch-product (I honestly have no idea which ones or else I would tell you) called capote (sp?) and it's AWESOME. I can already tell that it will become a comfort food for me here and I will probably miss it when I go home.

That's all I have time for now and this computer isn't letting me check my gmail, so I'm sorry but I can't respond to any of those emails yet.

Love you all and miss you, but really I just wish you could all just come here and join me in this incredible learning experience!

PS- I had my first Luganda lesson today and it went so well! My favorite word thus far is nsanyuse (nn-san-yoo-say) which mean it's nice to meet you! ok, i'm off..

whew!

2006-08-31T02:50:00.000-05:00

I made it through the first twenty four hours and they were probably the worst. I was very nervous when I was left at the hotel on Tuesday night and actually cried myself to sleep thinking that I was ready for this adventure to be over- I should just fly home. But, as I expected, now that the rest of the students in my program have arrived, I feel much much better about this whole thing. I haven't had a lot of time to meet them yet, but those that I've talked to seem cool.

The plan for the week is that we stay at this hotel (where we have roommates) until Sunday and then on Sunday we begin our homestay experience, which means we all spread out around Kampala. We will start classes on Monday and will have two weeks of classes before we go on our first educational excursion. The class schedule will be 9-1 and 2-4 each day with that one hour break for lunch. I'll be taking a mini-bus taxi to and from school each day by myself, so I will definitley let you all know how that goes.
I will be trying my first Ugandan food today for lunch... and I'm a little nervous. My stomach has been on edge for the past week because of nerves so I've been trying to be really nice to it but I have no idea what this food will do to me. So far, I've eaten mostly American food and to be honest, I've loved that small sense of familiarity that a BLT can offer. :)
I just got told I have two minutes left online, so I'll finish this up...

the only big thing I know, is: THE ADDRESS I WAS GIVEN IS INCORRECT! SIT moved two days ago, so they will arrange for things that have already been sent to be transfered over to their new office, but please do not send anything now- wait until I can give you the right address!

I'm here!

2006-08-30T07:54:00.000-05:00

I don't have time to write much right now, but I wanted you to all know that I arrived safely. Three people picked me up from the airport yesterday and so that went smoothly. (Thank you Fr. Simon Peter!) The rest of my group arrives late tonight so tomorrow should be fun and hopefully will make me feel more comfortable here. As of right now, I am very homesick (although, I'm already less homesick than I was this morning so that's good). I had lunch with my program director today and one other boy who is not on the group flight should be meeting me in about two hours back at the hotel. That's all I have time for now, but more later!

Lots of love and thanks for the messages!

it's a numbers game...

2006-08-12T17:51:00.000-05:00

And the numbers are: 9, 10.5, 2 and 16

9... shots! I had to get NINE shots before leaving for Uganda. I've had seven so far (four one day and three another) and I still have two more to receive. The shots were for Hepatitis A, Rabies (that one's a three shot series), Polio booster, Typhoid, Meningococcal meningitis, Yellow Fever and something else that I can't think of right now... then of course I'll also have to take Malaria pills while I'm there. So, that will be daily pills starting two days before departure and continuing at least four weeks after returning!

10.5... inches! I had 10.5 inches of hair cut off this past Monday and donated it to Locks of Love. I think it will be easier to take care of when I'm there if it's short because I won't have to use as much shampoo, not as much dirt (or whatever else) can get in it and I won't have to worry about all those tangles! Also, it'll be nice to have short hair because of the temperature there (average= 75 degrees)!

2... presentations! I invited some family and friends that are in the area to join me for "dessert and discussion" (as my mum called it). These presentations involved me giving a presentation about the location of Uganda, what my study abroad program entails, what my four months of volunteering will look like, what the current conditions are in Uganda and showing a brief, but very informative movie about the children soldiers and night commuters in Northern Uganda. Thank you to those of you who were able to come because I really appreciate the support--especially now that it's informed support!

16...days! Only 16 days left until I leave for Uganda (August 28th). I leave tomorrow for seven days in Dayton with my friends and checking in with some teachers. I'll also be doing a lot of Africa reading which I haven't finished yet. Then I'll be back in Skokie for another nine days of packing, shopping, some socializing (what a surprise!), more reading and hopefully a lot of love and confidence building! :)

My next entry will be written from an internet cafe in Kampala so if you want to contact me before then- email me! mhoganh@gmail.com

Here's the deal...

2006-07-22T17:55:00.000-05:00

Hi family, friends and teachers!

As you know, I am about to embark on an 8 month adventure in Africa! Beyond that, I'm not sure what I've actually told each of you about my plans, so I thought in this first post I could let you know what I know.

I leave on Monday, August 28th and arrive in Entebbe, Uganda in the evening on the 29th. For the first 3.5 months, I will be studying through the School for International Training's (SIT) development studies program. Most of this time will be spent in Kampala (the capital of Uganda). The focus of this program is rural development and I will be learning about grassroots organizations specifically. After our first week of orientation (when we stay in a hotel), I will begin living with a family in Kampala (or near it). While this program is experiential based (meaning we'll be learning from living and working in the community), this program is connected to the university there- Makarere University. I will be learning about the culture, about rural development and the role of grassroots organizations in that development. I will also be learning the language Luganda. As a study abroad group, we will take a few educational trips- we'll go to Eastern Uganda for a week near the end of the semester and we'll go to Western Uganda and Rwanda for a week near the middle of the semester. My study abroad program ends on December 12th. For more information about my study abroad program, go to the SIT website: http://www.sit.edu/studyabroad/africa/uganda.html.

If you would like to send me mail while I'm there (hint hint),
my address first semester will be:
Molly Heineman
c/o SIT/Dan Lumonya
World Learning/School for International Training
Suite 1, 2nd Floor Ambassador House,
Kampala Road
PO Box 23431
Kampala, Uganda

Second semester, I will be volunteering for a non-government organization (NGO) called The Kid's League. Its headquarters are in Kampala, but they have several different active districts in Uganda. The organization uses sports (specifically soccer!!!) to bring kids together, break down barriers among them and raise awareness about different issues (including health concerns). I will know exactly what I'm doing with them once I'm there, until then, I just know that they have a spot for me and are excited about me joining their team for a few months. I arrive back in the U.S. on April 20, 2007. For more information about The Kids League, go to their website: http://kampalakidsleague.org/tkl/tkl_home.html.

Please feel free to post comments or write me emails. While I'm in Africa, I'm going to be using a different email account, so please update your address books and use mhoganh@gmail.com to email me instead of my UD account. Thanks for your interest and support! I'm very excited about sharing this journey with you!

Peace, Molly :)