Week 1: Uganda

Finally a blog update: Week 1 has been an extremely busy week. The two 9-hour flights were pretty bad but not as terrible as I expected. It was just a lot of hours with no sleep. The 9 hour layover took forever, we just waited at the airport. We landed in Entebbe, Uganda at 7:45 am on Wednesday-Ugandan time. From there we took a 4 hour drive to a village called Kaliro. I guess that it isn't even close to being considered a poor area. The people that live in the village bascially live a lifestyle of farming and house work type things. Not many of the kids go to school, so as soon as we got to where we were staying kids just flocked to us. They are all so so precious and so amazed by "Mzungus": white people. Everywhere you walk everyone just points and shouts "Mzungu! Mzungu!". Anyway, we walk into the basecamp where we will be staying for 2 nights and it is just a 2 bedroom building with one front main room. The girls split between the 2 bedrooms. Keep in mind there was absolutely nothing in these rooms, no bed, nothing. So we set some pads on the floor. We put 6 girls to a room, so we squeezed 2 girls per single size padding. It was squeezed to say the least. But such a great experience. We will be going back to the village for a 4 or 5 day outing where we will actually have projects we will run out of the village. It's looking like so far for sure a medical clinic. So we came back to the house on Friday afternoon, and it is SO nice. Complete appreciation for it after staying in the village. We all have our own beds and are sharing rooms, but there are showers and everything. Obviously everything here is limited use, because they only get water so often and it's cold. But, so nice compared to what we lived in in the village. The weird thing is, I haven't stopped thinking about the village since we left, I just loved the people there, the school we visited, everything about it.

Anyway, yesterday we ran a Medical Clinic in the Katanga Slums. That was a whole experience in itself. Completely heart-wrenching. We walked in groups weaving in and out of the slums letting people know that we would be doing a clinic in an hour. We were told we were in the "good" part of the slums, so I can't even imagine what the other parts look like. There was trash everywhere, dirty water everywhere, and just so many people living in such a tight space. There were a couple times where I had to hold my breath to keep myself from gagging because of the stench. I was at the hand washing station during the clinic, and so I performed 297 hand washes to be specific. My hand was beyond clean afterwards. It was crazy to see how excited everyone was to come to the clinic and how clueless the children were to even knowing how to wash their hands. I know my sister is doing an update so I am sure you'll hear about her totally different experience yesterday, which I'm glad I was distracted for! Today, Sunday, is a rest day. We are just hanging out at the house and they open internet up for us on Sundays. So those will probably be the days that I do updates. This next week is a full and busy week. We will have projects every day Monday-Saturday.

It is so hard in the limited time I have with internet to share all the details so far, but I can say God is good. Even in a place with such poverty and sadness, He shows me every day and every minute that the people here are so special. They just want to love and to be loved. The kids just hang on you and don't want to let go, yet they are so independent. 6 year old kids taking care of their baby brothers and sisters. It really is heart-wrenching. I feel so exhausted at the end of each day, just emotionally, but somehow God fills me each morning with so much energy and drive to continue helping these people.

I miss home lots, but I know my work isn't close to being done here. I still have a little over 3 weeks and in that time I am going to really learn my calling here. Whether it be directed at the slum basecamp, the school, or the farm. Oh, and the bugs: I don't know what everyone talks about all the time with so many bugs and them being big. I haven't been bothered once, there really arent many around where we are. Anyway, I love all of you that are checking this and am thinking about you all the time. Thank you for all the thoughts!