People, Places, and Things

I’ve got two Picfare notebook pages FULL of things to blog about!! The easiest way to categorize my thoughts is “People, Places, and Things.” If you disagree with the manner I’ve organized my thoughts… tough luck!! ;)

People.

May I just say I’m in LOVE with the people here! From partners to friends, I am amazed at the caliber of people that they are. I just wanted to go through for a bit and describe the people I am closest to.

Eve.

She is our cook; 25, has 2 kids and cares for 4 others. She lives with Pastor Francis and his wife, Sister Ssanyu. (Coming to themJ). She and Rose, the other person she cooks with, start about 3/4, and we eat by 7. When she’s around, we call out: “Dawling!!” The story is one day Sister Ssanyu was there helping them (Sis Ssanyu basically baby-sits and keeps Eve & Rose on track/teaches them to cook better), and Pastor F called. Sis Ssanyu answered the phone with, “Yes darling?” (p.s. SO cute!) From then on, we four (Rose, Eve, Sis Ssanyu, and I) call each other “Dawling!” when we see each other.

I broke the broomstick while I was fervently sweeping out the garage/my room. That same day, Eve broke the dustpan, and repentantly approached Lauren, our country director. Lauren started LAUGHING and showed her my broken broomstick handle. Now Eve and I see each other and “break a broomstick” (an invisible one), then do a “Shh!! SECRET!” motion. “Seleka!” we say, which means “Shut up! J”

She is SO CUTE! She has an Abbie hairstyle—three ponytails. But her hair is super short and dark black African, so she looks like a little girl. Almost daily when I see her, I just start dancing and she busts a gut laughing, and joins me. Africans can SHAKE IT, tell you what!! My convulsing body is nowhere near as coordinated as her dancing, but I try. And she laughs, so just to hear that, I’ll look like a fool.

As I said, she lives with Pastor Francis and Sis Ssanyu. The reason is (1) her husband is a fisherman at Lake Victoria, so doesn’t live in Lugazi, (2) he beat her when he did live here, and (3) she has nowhere to live. So she lives there and has 4 jobs—washings clothes, making & selling jewelry, cooking at the Ssanya School, and cooking for us. She cooks at Pastor F’s and Sis Ssanyu’s school (hence the name “Ssanya School” for her rent). She is saving her money to buy beds for her kids and buy some clothes. Because when her husband comes to town he gets angry, demands her money, and beats her, she asked us to hold onto her pay. At the end of summer, we’re planning on going with her to get her beds & clothes, then setting up an account for her to stash her money. The difference of women’s… respect in society is so different. Her life is seriously an example of thousands more…

Pastor Francis & Sister Ssanyu.

They have the most DYNAMIC relationship I have seen here. As I said, Eve & her 6 kids live with them. They have 4 biological kids and house 3 from the school that come from very broken homes--drunkard parents, orphan, and abusive. Their hearts are enormous, and I will MISS them come 3 months from now. Incredible people to work with; Pastor Francis is the one who commented on my speed of chatting.. I work with him for the elderly, widows, school project. He is innately in tune with God. To several audiences he has commended how I connect with many levels of ages. He harasses me a fair deal, saying he is "not sure about Cecillia" in leading the team. I roll my eyes to that. ;)

Sister Ssanyu was an orphan who couldn't pay school fees, but the headmistress hid her in the school so that she could get an education. Every term she had a difficult time finding money to continue on, but "God allowed it," as they say.

Wilson.

The greatest man that happened to Uganda. Plus all we girls have a lovecrush on him. He's the brains behind our strongest partner organization, The Youth Outreach Mission (TYOM). At age 21 and still studly *(couldn't help mentioning that again)*, he partners with a myriad of people in the community to work on issues like HIV/AIDS, education, and orphans. He and his friend, Godfrey, were the people who escorted our team to African Paradise to dance a couple weeks ago. In TYOM is a small mutiny in the undercurrents. Some of the volunteers in the organization are trying to use TYOM resources to get gain. He watches, but doesn't lash out. Instead, he observes their actions and waits to say anything until he fully understands their motives.
Before our team arrived, he memorized everyone's names so he could greet us. What a guy. :)

Mike.

Our site director came from the HELP International board of directors to see how our team was functioning, advise how to improve team dynamics, review how we work with partners… etc.

He graduated last month with his Masters in Accounting from the Marriott School, so you had BETTER believe I had a gazillion questions for him. He was so down to earth and really connected with everyone on the team; I was amazed at how even though he was 25 some odd years old, he treated everyone like equals.

He became our savior when he showed up with 6 pounds of chocolate on day 1 of his visit. Sixteen people devoured that in a matter of 15 minutes. As the heap of wrappers lay on the table, we reminded ourselves how disgusting our gluttony was. BUT no one felt too terrible, as it was our first real American chocolate in a month. Refreshing!!!

Then, several days before his departure he re-established his good standing by providing

Starbursts for everyone. Yeah, Mike is the man! As he said his good-byes to Pastor Francis, I realized that I, too, will have to do that. I do NOT look forward to saying g’bye when that day comes in too many days.

Our end of first-wave party, which he attended, was a party of Pringles and Cadbury, as well as a night of Mafia. Playing without the Berrett's just felt wrong. I'm excited for them to be home so we can all play again!

Alice.

Our next-hut neighbor who is teaching me to do a mat. She constantly gives me food as I’m heading into our house—maize, matoke (green bananas), more matoke… she has a heart of GOLD, and I love sitting with her on evenings I get home early. Neither of us speak the same language, but I am amazed how we can communicate and you can really feel a helping hand to grant us some understanding of each other. I think of the phrase, “If you pray for courage, watch for lions.” If you know anything about me, you know I get a little antsy when things aren’t going quickly or exactly my way. I pray for patience, and am given the “opportunity” to cultivate patience by sitting with someone I don’t understand who works on the mat when I want to just be shown once how to do it, then take it over myself. But I see the joy it brings her to work on it, (plus her parts of the mat look better), so I patiently watch. Patience, patience.

Second Wave.

Think 24 people. 3 rooms. 1 garage. Triple bunk beds. Chairs strewn in a 20x20 living room. I LOVE it!!! I am now Chancellor of the bunk in a room with two triple bunks, which room actually houses the fewest people. Our tucking-in parties are so precious, and slowly by slowly I

am getting the hang of “roommate chat” as we lay inside our princess bednets falling into slumber. The non air-circulated garage houses 8 people—four double bunks. The “white room” is two double bunks and one triple—7 peeps. Enter the “purple room” (our creativity was exasperated) is my new home—until next wave. I wanted to be in every room I could throughout the summer. Oh, the “green room” (look at our ingenuity) is for the 3 spoiled boys who have to have their own room. Jerks. Ha ha I mutinize by strewing my dreds in their beds because it freaks them out. I just giggle.

With so many people hustling & bustling, every day so far is a par-tay. The excitement never ceases!! Like with Chris calling and speaking in Spanish when someone else answered my phone. Very entertaining. Alex is studying for the GRE, so she has notecards to study with, and I quiz her. I am pretty sure I have a lovecrush on the GRE.

Africans.

These are real people with real stories, real breaths, real horrors, memories, joys, triumphs, struggles, hopes, dreams, battles.

Places.

Nile River Rafting.

Ummm... only the highlight of my WEEKEND! I still haven't digested that I just rafted the Nile River—yeah,

that river you hear about in 6^th grade geography. That Nile. Our Australian guide, Sunny, belonged on that river—he swore like a sailor. Needless to say, the day was DELIGHTFUL!!! I haven’t laughed so hard in SUCH a long time. Lauren rightly said, “This
[swearing] is refreshing!”

So… as we prepped ourselves on the raft with drills of how to get down when Sunny yelled at us to, I thought on my extensive rafting experience down class 0 rapids by Flaming Gorge and naively asked, “Are we going to get wet?” New joke material for the next 8 hours. Class 5 rapids. Yes, we got a little drizzle on us.

Sunny taught me how to do a backflip off the side of the raft, and when I managed to balance myself, I even could look halfway decent at doing so. Just learning to do it was exhilarating! Passing the cannabis islands, we ate our li’l pineapple on the Nile River. Let me emphasize. We ate lunch on the Nile River. Where? What river? Okay, you get my excitement.

On one of the first rapids, I ducked as I was told to, but I hit the buoy things in the middle of the raft and I flew out. Sunny quoted, “I’ll give it to her—when she came out of the water, there was a huge shit-smile on her face."

Oh, Sunny… what a joyous day with you. You can ease your mind in knowing I left part of me in the Nile—I took out a dred and reverently hucked it into the current. Spending the day in my swimsuit with rightful cause was a dream come true—I already live in it, so now that I was given reason to show my newly shaved arms, I was nearly peeing my pants with

happiness. I am converted to shaving arms, tell you what. LOVE it. No more ape Cecilly. The things you learn from the people you live with…

Granted, the killer sunburn from the day was less that thrilling. We watched the World Cup game of US vs. UK in a bar (8 Mormons in a bar was so comical to me), and I laid on a couch hoping for death to overtake me. Sunburn, exhaustion, dehydration, and a little stomach fun made for a sleepless night. All was well soon enough, though.

Things.

Real work happens, all play aside. Several projects:

Adobe stove

So the intake of smoke that [mainly women] take is the equivalence of several packs of cigarettes a day, so HELP works on doing adobe stoves, which channel the smoke through a chimney and reduce the amount of firewood needed. We were doing one for the widow mother of a disabled boy, probably of 12 years old, who crawled on the ground from a disease I don’t know what it was. We solicit help from kids, and learned the Luganda word for “run”, shouted it, and that clay got mashed faster than we muzungus could have done. I would put a ball of clay on my hands and mash it, say “chapat” (the equivalence of “pancake”), and then the kids went CRAZY copying that. My red hands were covered by a layer of clay by the end. As the clay crusted on me, another girl and I sat with the kids and sang Primary songs with them. I was so touched by what happened next. The kids started to chip away at the clay on us—first with our hands. I mean, they were GRABBING to be able to clean off our hands. When they went to our feet, I thought back on in the New Testament how multiple people cleaned Christ’s feet. I can only imagine how humbling the act was on both ends—to have these little kids serve me was humbling for ME—I realized I need to give to them something in return. Not monetary help. Hope. The knowledge or ability to make something of themselves. To become the journalists they dream to be.

Surgery

A group of us was in the infamous Kowolo Hospital for a meeting when a surgeon came in and asked if any of us wanted to watch a surgery.

My immediate thought was how Buckwheat would react. Heck yes! I was curious, but I knew that I had to have a good story to relate with to Buckwheat. Peggy and I garbed ourselves in scrubs and went in to watch the extraction of an ovarian cyst. I was almost caught off guard by the naked girl sitting on the operating table, but slowly I am realizing how desensitized I am to that. Women nurse their babies as often as I sneeze—left and right.

Firstly they gave her an epidural type shot. Music played in the background, and the doctors joked back and forth…I was amazed at the chillness of it. Yeah, that ovarian cyst was the size of a softball—and full of pus. Then, while they had her open, they cut her appendix out because it was infected or inflamed—I didn’t catch which. I was right there by her side, and held her hand when she started to mumble, “I pain… I pain…” One side of the cloth is a gaping stomach wound, then the other is her face, hair matted to her face, and her eyes unconsciously open.

HIV/AIDS Research.

I was tested two weeks ago, and yes…. I am AIDS free!

As we were tested, I realized the reality of how many people suffer each day from this. The stigma is hard.. they cling onto life, some hold off finding out because they don’t want to know their life will be shortened.

I thought at first about hopping on board the project, but I don’t have that LOVE for public health. I like business stuff.. I did think, though, how Buckwheat would like all the needles & such of it.

Women’s groups.

We are working with some that are already started and forming some, providing them with ideas for income generating projects like mushroom houses. Shrooms, baby. The edible kind. The non-drug kind. One of the partners invited me to visit her home anytime. Presh.

As we do business training with these groups, we have focused on budgeting. I keep track of every SHILLING I spend, and I am really coming to love the details of it all. When I get home, I will be converted to pulling out my yellow notebook to write down every time I crack open that wallet. I was nervous at first, because I am not the greatest at TEACHING, but no better time to learn, eh?