Settling In

Today, Monday, Lauren and I let Natasha spend the night and then we all woke up together and made tea and coffee and relaxed. At 10, Jordan showed up at our door! I was so happy. We spent the morning together catching up and praying and reading and then we walked to garden city and bought internet and a water heat (the one I brought didn’t work). After the mall we relaxed in our room and then called our driver Francis and who picked us up and brought us to Bwaise to meet up with Kelsey (the area director for Purse of Hope) and Katie (the bead manager for the Bwaise house). It was the drop-in center today so there was over 70 women there all working on a huge bead order they got from a department store in Chicago, and also tailoring, and hairdressing. We spent a few hours with them and then took boda-boda’s from Bwaise back to our hotel. They were hassling us for too much money before we got on (everyone said they would) and then they were kina mad when we got on and drove really fast and I really scared us bad. They were jetting through traffic and just being horrible drivers.  Jordan was by herself on one. She said that was the worst it would ever get. Back at the hotel we rested for a minute before walking back to Garden City and had dinner with about 10 American volunteers from different NGO’s around Kampala including Kelsey and Katie. Dinner was really great. We had a good time getting to know each other and Kelsey told us tons of stuff about the Purse girls and about different going-on’s of the NGO’s and people Jordan knows in Uganda. We got home around 10 and rolled into bed, exhausted as usual. 

Sunday Funday

Sunday was super fun! Francis picked us up and brought us to church, Watoto. I haven’t mentioned yet our hot it is. Even though it has rained every day, it is hot. Everyone carries hankies and wipes their brow every 5 minutes. So the inside of the sanctuary was very, very warm. I was worried I was going to pass out. And you can only imagine how great it smelled, everyone all squished together in the pews with the heat and don’t forget, no one wears deodorant or showers or uses toothpaste. But it was awesome! The worship was so fun, everyone sang and danced and loved it. The sermon was difficult to understand because were still getting used to the accent here but the parts I caught were passionate and inspiring. We had asked beforehand if for the midday service we could help out with the kids but between services we stepped outside for a minute of air. A few minutes after we walked outside it started sprinkling, then raining, then pouring, then flooding, then hailing! It was so cool, I totally loved it. In the middle of the storm this gorgeous girl came up and started talking to us. Her name was Natasha and she had just come out of the service too and was waiting for rain to pass. We all ran back inside the church together and then she stayed and helped us with the kids during the next service. After we left she told us she was spending the whole day with us. We were delighted. She took us for good food, told us tons of things about Uganda and Africa and her village and her university. We couldn’t get ahold of our driver so she took us on our first boda-boda ride! (and hopefully our last). We went to the mall and bought an adapter, and tried to buy a modem for the internet (they were closed) and more edibles. She was so helpful, always making sure we weren’t getting hassled and teaching us everything about how to get by in Africa. After the mall we walked back to our hotel and we gave her candy and showed her all our pictures of our life in America and then put on a movie and all climbed onto a bed together. Then at 4 Stuart showed up at our door to bring us to Rabinah. We threw our water bottle and hand sanitizer in the backpack along with some CDs and cards for the girls. Natasha was determined to stay with us so she came along for the ride. At Rabinah’s we hugged all our girls hello and introduced them to Natasha and then taught them go fish and crazy 8s. There was a beautiful little 3 year old girl there with lots of personality and a contagious smile. Rabinah told us she was the baby of one of her girls. So crazy to think of such a perfect little girl coming in such a rough way.  Then we listened to some worship CDs and chatted and had afternoon tea. We all danced together outside in the rain at dusk and then the girls each sang occapella while we watched. Rabinah has them practice talents all the time to see where they are strongest and help them gain self-worth. This was the first time we heard one of them mention their past, Prossy, in a song she composed herself where she expressed that even though she has taken drink, and been a prostitute, the Lord has wiped her sins clean and forgiven her as long as she gives her heart to Him.

 We called Stuart around 7:30 to come pick us up. We wanted to get back before it got too dark because the slum is a scary place to be out at night and we were exhausted anyway. Stuart didn’t show up in 10pm. All was well though because its those late nights in the dark (the power shut off) when you really get close. Beth told me crazy, insane stories about witch doctors and parents who cut off the head of their babies and bury it in their home in hopes it will bring them wealth (this was there neighbor) and about boda-boda drivers to crash and kill their passengers and are in exchange beaten and killed. She has just recently seen a couple dead, gory bodies in the road after an accident and was feeling really scared by it. Her stories were traumatizing and totally freaked me out but all was redeemed because after she walked away Doreen came next to me and walked me through the most in depth, explicit, passionate bible study I have ever been involved in. It was amazing, from a 13-year old! It was just me and her on a the couch, reading the bible and her notebook from the light of my cell phone, listening to her passion for Jesus and his ability to wipe us clean.

Traveling and Arrival

So, it’s been 3 days. But it kind of feels like we’ve been here for years. Its indescribably different. I can’t really express it. We got in on Friday at 1pm, totally exhausted, of course. Francis, our driver, picked us up and drove us to City Annex, our hotel. We found our room and then walked to Garden City, the mall, and bought a cell phone, groceries, and dinner. We walked home in the dark. The traffic moves faster than in Mexico and we’re always having to run across busy intersections where the cars are driving so fast it almost feels like were running across a highway.

On Saturday at 9 a.m. we called Rabinah, the woman in charge of Purse of Hope in Kampala, and we waited for her to come pick us up until midday (noon). We loved that there’s no strict time schedule in Uganda and that you just come when you come. Lauren and I had a really special morning together reading the Word and catching up on life. When she picked us up, she had a friend, Stuart, driving her around and one of the girls from the house, Doreen. She offered us each a banana and we went to get the paper the girls make their beads out of. Driving was extremely scary. Every turn someone almost crashes into you or you almost run over a pedestrian or a boda-boda (the motorcycles they take around everywhere). When we got to the house we met the 9 girls who live there. We ate an authentic Africa meal: beans and porridge-like stuff. We listened to gospel music and talked to the girls for a long time. We all danced together, or they danced and we tried to imitate. We taught them “down-by-the-banks” and 4 square and they taught us a millions of their games. In the afternoon we had a bible study. The girls are mostly 13 or 16 but range everywhere from 12-19. They are so sweet and loving and hug you as soon as they meet you and are so, so happy to have us there always thanking us for coming and asking us questions about ourselves. One girls, Prossy, told me that she had TWENTY siblings. 10 from one mother and 20 from one father.

 When Rabinah drove us home that night she told us about the current rescue she had just done with a pimp in Bwaise (the slum of Kampala where the girls live). It was so hard to believe that those beautiful, innocent, godly children had really been through brothels and prostitution. She had been forced to buy 3 girls in the situation, a rare thing. She said these girls choose to do it when they are so young because they have siblings to feed and no other way to do it.