our last week

This last is our last week and I’m kinda sad to be going. This weekend was good.
On Saturday in the morning we went to help Claire with her washing... there was a ton of cloths, glad that we were there to help and I enjoyed it. We went back to the house for lunch and grabbed a few more things to take to the suubi building were we painted with 17 kids. Dillon and I made some canvases that they used and we went and got some paint from town. I had a lot of fun with them. So we have 17 rather cool painting’s coming back with us.

Sunday we went to suubi. Not to buy, but to give out clasp’s and beans to the ladies. After Dillon and I sat down and talked with Margaret and Catharine about life before suubi and up in the north and how suubi helps them. love talking to them about their lives. I think that the ones that I will miss the most will be Santa, Christine, Daisy and Gertrude. Santa and Christine make me laugh, they have the best humour….

Tuesday we went and took another Gertrude to the hospital early in the morning. She stepped on a nail a few weeks ago and it got infected. We waited with her for a bit then headed back to the house. We went to see her and the foot is doing better.

We have had some visitors (Jose, Caleb and Alex) from Sudan, they volunteer at an orphanage up there. They had come here to bungee jump and raft. We had some very interesting conversations about the Bible and peoples different beliefs. They are very sweet people. I enjoyed our conservations. I also think I that Dillon like the fact that he was not the only guy in a house full of girls. They left today, was nice to have more people come into the house for a bit and hear about what they have been doing and how things have effected them (in an bad or good way)

The last week I have been felling slightly physically and mentally tired though it seems like we have not been doing anything really that hard. I feel like this has made me to really appreciate being here like I should. Yes we have had some wonderful times here and I hope that we captured in a way that you all can see the beauty of the people and the land over here…..

This last weekend has been a good one. We went to Pallisa, which is a village 3hours from Jinja. We went there to for lunch. Our night guard is from there and his father lives up there so we went to see him and their mud huts. Was a long drive but it was so nice to see other parts….lots of rice fields out that way. It has been stormy weather lately so the sky is very dramatic and beautiful. That day it was so many different shades of blue and gray and really made you notice the greens and reds. We finally got to the village and they made us food…. Lots of posho, rice, chicken, goat. Was very. nice we ate in a hut, was fun to be there. After lunch we sat around for a while and just hung out with Daniel and his brother ( Daniel lives behind the house here and is son on Patrick, Who is our guard) They are funny people we laughed till it hurt. We ate more after that, its crazy how much they want to feed us. We got given a goat(live) to take home. That was not a fun car trip home. Was hot and the car was full…..yeah three of us got to ride in the back with ‘Heyyy Goat’ in the back. Not something I want to do on a hot day again.
Today the boys went up to Patrick’s and killed ‘Heyy Goat’ for lunch. The rest of us (Courtney, Rachel, Julie and me) went to like five of the ladies house and got some more necklaces form them. they were so happy to have that little extra. I had a really good morning. Courtney had some money given to her to give one to Gertrude to help with school fees. We all ended up crying. She was so grateful as well as her girls. Was a lovely moment. She is an incredible person.
I almost forgot….on our way to Gertrude’s we found a kitten no more than a few days old. It was lying in the middle of the road. We could not just leave it there...so i picked it up and took it with me. we got home and fed it.

The last few days have been a bit harder. Saturday was an odd one. We got up early like 6:30am and headed to Danita and did some filming. The light there was so beautiful. (I think I got some of my best pictures so far) was a nice way to start the day. Seeing the mist rise from the tress and the sun hit it, the light became dense and heavy making the colors stand out even more.
People were getting home from work or just waking up. Kids were getting ready for school (they sometimes have to go to school on the weekend) or playing. It was a nice way to start a day. After we walked around for a while we headed to Walukuba and we started to boil water for the women to have on Sunday it took two hours for it to be done. For the first 24 mins we were in high sprits….. Another 30 passed the ok water id not that fun to watch kidded in. We entertained ourselves with group bonding activates and shrades . 2hours later we all new each other that much more and water boiled.
We got back to the house, but we did not stay that long. We headed to another village to feed kids. Rachel and Arial made juice and had some beans made. It was a crazy time. Kids were constantly pushing and cutting in line trying to steal other kids food. It was a mess. I got really annoyed and frustrated. And felt angry. Then got annoyed at myself for feeling so angry. I was not really sure why I was annoyed. What would have to be annoyed about? But I stepped back and realised that I hated the fact that kids had to behave like that. I hated the fact that they may have not had food in a day or two. By the time we got home I was tired and still slightly frustrated with myself. But was nice that like 300/400 kids got fed.
Sunday we did not really do anything till 2 we went to buy necklaces from Walukuba. That took like 3 hours. Yeah they like to take time on everything. (What else is there to do?) After we bought the necklaces the ladies had elections for the Suubi comity. Think that everyone is happy with the out come as far as I could tell. I enjoy spending time watching them all together, you get to see all their personalities and get to know them as a group.

Monday we started our interviews with the women individually. I really enjoyed talking with the women by themselves and hearing what they had to say. Mama Santa was our guide. We only spoke with four of them and they are each very strong and have gone through a lot. Each of them do not see this as their home and hope to go back north day. Most of them have family still up there and do visit when they can.
I could not really imagine what it would be like to do driven away from your home and leaving your family. They tell us what they have been through with out a lot a feeling, not meaning that in a bad way, but it like a way for them to cope. They seem to be stuck in limbo. They are happy for what they have.


Tuesday was a slower day. We went to Santa’s again and we ended up helping with de shelling G nuts (peanuts) and singing song as we did do. I think we entertained Santa and everyone else with our wonderful voices
We then went back to the village where we fed the kids on Saturday to see Mama Rachel’s house. Her wall fell in (it is made of mud and sticks) we had see it before it. We saw how the whole house was leaning to one side and falling apart. When we got back there the wall had been fix and it smelt so bad, they mix in alcohol (a local brew) in with the mud. not nice at all, but if it works……
We walked through the village to Santa’s sisters house. As we walked through the village it got nicer (well nicer than where we were). By the time we got there we as usual had a ton of kids following us, lucky we had bubbles to keep them occupied.


There is a lot of beauty here, but there is also a of things that can be improved and people that can be helped. I don’t want these people to lose their identity…. Their heritage. I can see a lot of the European influence’s in mostly everything. It’s kinda funny to see and hear them talk cause it is very English, but I can also see the American creeping in two. It is very familiar.

I think on Monday was when it really began to sink in that we are here and we are here for a reason. It started to make me think about these people that live here and how they see us. We went for a walk around walukuba and another village right by. It was really nice see the house where some of the women live and meet more people. They are all very welcoming.
Along our way we found some sugarcane that was soo good for like the first 5 bites then it just became to sweet and sticky. Not fun. As we walked on with our sugar we gathered kids along the way. That was nice. We started with a few and by the time we got to the top of this hill (which was very beautiful you could see all these shacks, little huts, churches and the river.) We seemed to have like hundreds ….no thousands of kids around us. It did not help that there is a school right where we walked. The kids love to see themselves on camera, and they love you to take pictures of them. Its kinda like wow ok…..its a weird feeling. By the time we got back to Walukba we each had like Five kids on each arm. This one little kid was very intent on not letting any one else hold my hand. It was kinda sweet. It was a slightly over whelming feeling having so many kids around you. Everyone watches you and wants to be your friend. You do feel like a celebrity. All because you are white.
By the time we got home I was so tired all I could think about was what we could do to make this documentary as real as possible. I don’t want this to be about the harder times people have had. They offer much more than that.


Yesterday (Tuesday) went and had a meeting with some of the women of Suubi. It was more of a catch up and to see how they are doing and if they needed anything. They could ask for so much more of us. From Dave but they don’t they are very respectful. We also talked about helping them out more in everyday things like cooking cleaning and washing and they just laugh at us. They think we are too soft and can’t take care of ourselves…. It makes me feel so lazy.
After the talking we ate a lunch all this was at mama Santa’s (she is a very awesome lady) they cooked for us…we had beef and posho. The food here is really good actually, it’s simple but nice and very filling. We took our time eating and just chilled. Its nice not to have to rush to do everything and to have time just to be and not feel bad about it.
One of the volunteers is leaving so they held a dance to say goodbye we watched and then they got some of us involved. We got laughed at but they were happy to teach us and let us be apart of it.
Was very nice yes.

Wednesday-
Went to an AIDS orphanage. Was not really sure what to find there, but the kids that were there were so lovely and full of life. The only sickness that we saw was the kids with chicken pox…not a big fan of the chicken pox(no one is I’m sure) felt so sorry for them. but we played and then we had lunch with them. We helped Grace wash the dishes and clothes. She laughed at us again, but I think she was grateful and it was nice to be able to help and actually do more than just give a quick fix to something that deserves a lot more time and care.
There are so many people here that really care to make a difference. The Volunteers here in this house are wonderful people. I feel very happy to be here and get to know them and see how they question what we are doing and see how they change and grow….become apart of what we are doing…. Nothing seems to becoming out they way I want it to. I have so many thoughts at the moment that I just want to get them out….hopefully all this will make more sense than I think…..

We are here!

We are here….yes. It did take a while. We finally got into Jinja Saturday afternoon. We had yet another fun drive from the guesthouse to here. The van that we were driving decided to not go any faster than 12mph so what would have took us like 15mins took us like an extra hour. Can’t really complain cause we got to see more. I love the colours here everything is so bright, rich and deep. The dirt is so red it makes the green of the trees look so deep lush. The colours of the little hut/shack’s are also so colourful and bright. Another thing I noticed straight away was that people are walking along the road in the traffic everywhere. In Kampala it was so busy and everyone was everywhere. Was funny to see at first. When we got more into the country it was strange to see people walking along side the road like they do. I don’t know why it seems strange. Everyone it doing something, talking, working or just hanging out and taking their time.

Was nice to meet everyone at the house. They are really nice and made us feel welcome. Meeting Betty and was awesome. She is so lovely and was very happy for us to be here.

We went to dinner by the Nile. Could not ask for a better view while you eat. We saw the sun go down and can hear the birds in the trees next to us. Bug s are not as bad as I thought they would be….could not really see what we had in front of us by the time we got our food. Most likely ate a few hundred fly’s… yum.

Yesterday (Sunday) we went and met the women of Suubi. That was very cool to see these women and be welcomed by them. We sat there and took everything in, well tried too. I loved just being they’re and watching them and talking to them and watching the other volunteer’s work with them and how the relationships between them have grown. The kids there where so funny and swarmed you as soon as you got there. Stole Dillon’s Polaroid pictures. That was funny. Sorry Dillon.
Was so tired by the time we got back. Was an exciting day. Will have pictures for all to see.

We made it to Denver! we hit a rock and got stuck in Glenwood for a while. This was not a bad thing really...was kinda strange....we can laugh about this know. that rock was not going get in our way. lucky we had wonderful people come to help save us. thank you . And this lady gave us free coffee. nice lady, made me smile. Well we are off to Uganda. this does not really seem that real yet. so excited and so tired. woo Uganda!!