Just Another Day in Paradise
Another week in the heat and rain flies by. I can’t believe how quickly the days pass by; a typical day consists of meeting someone at 9/10, going to visit Ugandan people till about noon/2, then having another meeting at 3/4 until 6/7. Meetings, meetings, meetings. I’m getting restless and want to start DOING something! Quickly I am learning that what I do depends on the effort I put in. And really, that is what I like about HELP (the group I am with—HELP International): structured projects exist, but implementing them is up to the volunteers. One of the main forces that seems to slow down progress is finding a way to make the projects sustainable:we aren’t
Cecilly
just here to give some food or money to people. In fact, I am most saddened/frustrated when people think that muzungu (remember: white person) is equivalent to money. But most of the people are really into development, and I am learning a great deal.
Sometimes we, the people of the United States , have moments that we call, “Omigosh I’m in Africa!” moments. These have come when we are eating matoke (the ONLY food they have! It is bananas cooked using banana leaves and the stems from the banana trees. If you couldn’t tell, I eat, drink, sleep, and poop banana. How wonderful is that.
Actually, I am quite surprised that I am not sick of bananas yet, nor do I see that end in sight. I just embrace every day that I have given—embrace every moment I have here because before I know it, they will be gone.) That was a very long parenthesis… hmm… weird!
We visited an orphanage yesterday. Ummm… best moment of my LIFE! We got there, and they had a whole program planned where they sang songs that welcomed us, and some were songs about Jesus and praising God. I nearly CRIED. They sang words that went something like, “We are here to make you happy.” I mean, their MINDSET was so selfless. Here these kids have no parents, none were siblings, and no real future, but they were just so excited to see us and make US happy. We almost stayed the night there (it was 2 hours from where we live) because a rule of HELP is to be home by dark, and we were LEAVING when it was getting dark. One thing held us back: they had no clean water. They drink well water, and…well… we’re Americans. We need clean water. I was super sad, but we’ll plan a trip out there where we actually have everything we need to stay the night. We took “bodas” (motorcycles) part of the way, then a taxi. “Taxi” here is hardly the American taxi. Legally, they fit 14 people. In order to maximize profit, we were stuck in one that fit 26 people. I KID you not. Nearly double the legality level. Oh, and seatbelts are a thing of the past. Haha (start freaking out, madre). As you can tell, I made it home alive.
Sad day when the peanut butter supply runs out. When we first got here, I bought me a can of peanut butter. Since then, I have had PB&H (honey) samiches for breakfast and lunch, with variations of fruits on them. Sometimes I lay off the peanut butter (oftentimes I don’t bother with the honey) to try bread and avocado. The main fruits are bananas, pineapples, passion fruits, avocado, mango, papaya, and… well… I think that’s it. The pineapples are 1000 shillings, or a good 50 cents. Avocados are 100, or 10 cents… ummm… nanners? (bananas) 10 for 1000?I think. 10 for 50 cents. 5 cents. I mean, food here is dirt cheap, but I still am laying off for the sake of weight. ;)
I’ve taken up the hobby of talking to the “neighbors” and learning Lugandan from them. They are the people who have the cows, goats, and chickens in their yard. One of the little boys is 13 and I’ve talked to him maybe twice, just in passing. Anyway, yesterday night I got in and Morris (our guard) gave me a piece of paper and said a letter came for me. I was so psyched that a letter actually REACHED me! (to this day, I am unsure how reliable the postal service actually is, and how in the world I will have my mail delivered. I may have to stop by the post office and pick it up..I really don’t know. There are NO mail boxes, and I don’t know where that address I gave actually ends UP. Anyway, moral of the story is don’t write anything too consequential
in letters. ) I took the paper inside and read it, and it was a note from the boy, Paul. This is what he wrote: (soooo cute!)
(On the outside):
From Paul Pash
To my best friend Cecilly Francisco
Bye Bye”
(inside):
“Hello!! My friend Cecilly.
How are you friends at home.
Mostly I thank God for giving me a good friend like you.
Thank you for coming to Uganda. How is Uganda, is it good to you.
Please Cecilly when you are going to American send greetings to your family Please you tell them that am a good child and I love them.
Cecilly which game do you like most. For me I like football so much and I know how to draw pictures
This is you good friend Paul Pash. Am 13 years young and am so happy
because you put
Send greetings to your friends you live with and am sad because am going to miss you because next week am going back to school.
When you want to send back your letter you will send to my brother’s e-mail if not you will give to my sister near your place. May God bless you so much and I love friends.
Thank you
Your best friend Paul Pash
“
God Bless You.”
I didn’t know whether to cry or laugh or just be so… touched. I mean, I talked to him very little, and yet he remembered me so well.
We have a REAL toilet seat now! Before we had the toilet and all, but no seat to go on it. My THIGHS were feeling their workout!!!
I am amazed how close I am coming with the other volunteers. Except Kyle, the only guy. BUT we get a second guy to night. Rumor has it that he is 35 and balding. Ha ha Needless to say, we are excited. We are planning to wear ONLY banana leaves over us, and chant weirdly,
banging drums as he gets in late at night. Bah ha.
ANYWAY, these are lifelong friendships I am building. I mean, how can you NOT love the people you see every minute of every day?? Makes me even more ready to go on a mission in two years.
If you ever are bored, you can totally text or call me! I’m not PINING for contact from home, but I love to chat every now and then. Mostly I don’t have numbers. I have mom’s, dad’s, and Buckwheat’s memorized. Oh, and apparently Adam repossessed my phone? That’s tight. I got my own cell phone here… just the logistics worked out better. We have two team phones, but I am not one to start a search party every morning to ensure I will be able to be in contact with the different partners. So the number you text/call/spam is 011-256-787-912-450. That’s the
country code and all. If you REALLY care to know WHY that is the number (and because I want to show you that I cared enough to find out), 011 gets you out of country or something like that (can you tell I learned a lot? ), then the 256 is Uganda’s country code. If someone in-country on a Ugandan phone were to call me, they would dial 0787, but someone calling into the country drops the 0. BAM.
I am learning to learn everywhere I go. Like today I was talking to one of the pastors we work with, and we talked about the Bible and I told him some things I’d read recently in Jesus the Christ. I’m going to leave all my books here, and heck, maybe I’ll leave it with HIM. I was going to leave it with the members, but maybe he could use it more. I also learned that if women are barren, the man oftentimes divorces her. He said a cool quote I wrote down: “Commitment is
commitment to her, not commitment to her childbearing or commitment to her successes, intelligence, or skills.” Stick it to the man, Pastor Francis.
Oh, I’m totally on the COOLEST committee ever. So we have committees like Business, Health, Education, Construction, and Rehabilitation. Yeah, the committee I chose was…. Dun dun dun!!!
MARGINALIZED PEEPS!!!! Hallelujah! Ha ha. At first, no one took us seriously, but my co-chairwoman, Molly, (p.s. she is my FREAKING favorite person ever!! She’s so smart, yet humorous cynical and 0% interested in climbing up the social hierarchy that exists on our team. We crack jokes how we’re the bottom, but the top NEED us.
Well… out for another meeting!! Love you all so very much! Have fun this upcoming week at graduation! What day is it—Friday? What’s Isaac’s e-mail address?
Sometimes we, the people of the United States , have moments that we call, “Omigosh I’m in Africa!” moments. These have come when we are eating matoke (the ONLY food they have! It is bananas cooked using banana leaves and the stems from the banana trees. If you couldn’t tell, I eat, drink, sleep, and poop banana. How wonderful is that.
Actually, I am quite surprised that I am not sick of bananas yet, nor do I see that end in sight. I just embrace every day that I have given—embrace every moment I have here because before I know it, they will be gone.) That was a very long parenthesis… hmm… weird!
We visited an orphanage yesterday. Ummm… best moment of my LIFE! We got there, and they had a whole program planned where they sang songs that welcomed us, and some were songs about Jesus and praising God. I nearly CRIED. They sang words that went something like, “We are here to make you happy.” I mean, their MINDSET was so selfless. Here these kids have no parents, none were siblings, and no real future, but they were just so excited to see us and make US happy. We almost stayed the night there (it was 2 hours from where we live) because a rule of HELP is to be home by dark, and we were LEAVING when it was getting dark. One thing held us back: they had no clean water. They drink well water, and…well… we’re Americans. We need clean water. I was super sad, but we’ll plan a trip out there where we actually have everything we need to stay the night. We took “bodas” (motorcycles) part of the way, then a taxi. “Taxi” here is hardly the American taxi. Legally, they fit 14 people. In order to maximize profit, we were stuck in one that fit 26 people. I KID you not. Nearly double the legality level. Oh, and seatbelts are a thing of the past. Haha (start freaking out, madre). As you can tell, I made it home alive.
Sad day when the peanut butter supply runs out. When we first got here, I bought me a can of peanut butter. Since then, I have had PB&H (honey) samiches for breakfast and lunch, with variations of fruits on them. Sometimes I lay off the peanut butter (oftentimes I don’t bother with the honey) to try bread and avocado. The main fruits are bananas, pineapples, passion fruits, avocado, mango, papaya, and… well… I think that’s it. The pineapples are 1000 shillings, or a good 50 cents. Avocados are 100, or 10 cents… ummm… nanners? (bananas) 10 for 1000?I think. 10 for 50 cents. 5 cents. I mean, food here is dirt cheap, but I still am laying off for the sake of weight. ;)
I’ve taken up the hobby of talking to the “neighbors” and learning Lugandan from them. They are the people who have the cows, goats, and chickens in their yard. One of the little boys is 13 and I’ve talked to him maybe twice, just in passing. Anyway, yesterday night I got in and Morris (our guard) gave me a piece of paper and said a letter came for me. I was so psyched that a letter actually REACHED me! (to this day, I am unsure how reliable the postal service actually is, and how in the world I will have my mail delivered. I may have to stop by the post office and pick it up..I really don’t know. There are NO mail boxes, and I don’t know where that address I gave actually ends UP. Anyway, moral of the story is don’t write anything too consequential
in letters. ) I took the paper inside and read it, and it was a note from the boy, Paul. This is what he wrote: (soooo cute!)
(On the outside):
From Paul Pash
To my best friend Cecilly Francisco
Bye Bye”
(inside):
“Hello!! My friend Cecilly.
How are you friends at home.
Mostly I thank God for giving me a good friend like you.
Thank you for coming to Uganda. How is Uganda, is it good to you.
Please Cecilly when you are going to American send greetings to your family Please you tell them that am a good child and I love them.
Cecilly which game do you like most. For me I like football so much and I know how to draw pictures
This is you good friend Paul Pash. Am 13 years young and am so happy
because you put
Send greetings to your friends you live with and am sad because am going to miss you because next week am going back to school.
When you want to send back your letter you will send to my brother’s e-mail if not you will give to my sister near your place. May God bless you so much and I love friends.
Thank you
Your best friend Paul Pash
“
God Bless You.”
I didn’t know whether to cry or laugh or just be so… touched. I mean, I talked to him very little, and yet he remembered me so well.
We have a REAL toilet seat now! Before we had the toilet and all, but no seat to go on it. My THIGHS were feeling their workout!!!
I am amazed how close I am coming with the other volunteers. Except Kyle, the only guy. BUT we get a second guy to night. Rumor has it that he is 35 and balding. Ha ha Needless to say, we are excited. We are planning to wear ONLY banana leaves over us, and chant weirdly,
banging drums as he gets in late at night. Bah ha.
ANYWAY, these are lifelong friendships I am building. I mean, how can you NOT love the people you see every minute of every day?? Makes me even more ready to go on a mission in two years.
If you ever are bored, you can totally text or call me! I’m not PINING for contact from home, but I love to chat every now and then. Mostly I don’t have numbers. I have mom’s, dad’s, and Buckwheat’s memorized. Oh, and apparently Adam repossessed my phone? That’s tight. I got my own cell phone here… just the logistics worked out better. We have two team phones, but I am not one to start a search party every morning to ensure I will be able to be in contact with the different partners. So the number you text/call/spam is 011-256-787-912-450. That’s the
country code and all. If you REALLY care to know WHY that is the number (and because I want to show you that I cared enough to find out), 011 gets you out of country or something like that (can you tell I learned a lot? ), then the 256 is Uganda’s country code. If someone in-country on a Ugandan phone were to call me, they would dial 0787, but someone calling into the country drops the 0. BAM.
I am learning to learn everywhere I go. Like today I was talking to one of the pastors we work with, and we talked about the Bible and I told him some things I’d read recently in Jesus the Christ. I’m going to leave all my books here, and heck, maybe I’ll leave it with HIM. I was going to leave it with the members, but maybe he could use it more. I also learned that if women are barren, the man oftentimes divorces her. He said a cool quote I wrote down: “Commitment is
commitment to her, not commitment to her childbearing or commitment to her successes, intelligence, or skills.” Stick it to the man, Pastor Francis.
Oh, I’m totally on the COOLEST committee ever. So we have committees like Business, Health, Education, Construction, and Rehabilitation. Yeah, the committee I chose was…. Dun dun dun!!!
MARGINALIZED PEEPS!!!! Hallelujah! Ha ha. At first, no one took us seriously, but my co-chairwoman, Molly, (p.s. she is my FREAKING favorite person ever!! She’s so smart, yet humorous cynical and 0% interested in climbing up the social hierarchy that exists on our team. We crack jokes how we’re the bottom, but the top NEED us.
Well… out for another meeting!! Love you all so very much! Have fun this upcoming week at graduation! What day is it—Friday? What’s Isaac’s e-mail address?
Cecilly
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