Hello. Well, this last week we’ve all just been trying to get our projects up and running. The culture of Uganda moves at a bit of a slow pace so it is difficult to work with the town people when we’re trying to get going as soon as possible. They don’t really discuss anything over the phone—it MUST be in person—so we have to set meetings to go over everything with them. A few of the projects have started though; we have started building two adobe stoves this week at schools. We have started the business training also, although only four people showed up the first class. I’ll be helping with these projects and a few others. Some of the other projects that are underway are a neighborhood choir, activities with the orphanages, and work with clinics, women’s groups, and people with disabilities. The secondary schools project that I am the project lead for will start next week, I’m just trying to get my project proposal written for now. We are gonna start the club with a fun activity and then the week after the topic will be empowerment/self-esteem. I’m excited to start it. We’ll have it once a week at Lugazi Hill View school and hopefully start it at Lugazi High (which is a lot bigger) later on if all goes well. We’ll make a lesson manual also in the meantime to leave behind for the teachers to continue with the club once we are gone so that we have some sustainability. Apart from that, Me and Amber have been going to Mukono, a neighboring town, once a week to help at a bakery run by the Mugimu’s who are an awesome LDS couple who studied in Utah and moved back to Uganda. We are helping them with their accounting books. It is really hard to figure out because they’re so confusing. But they give us a piece of cake every time so iz cool.
On Monday we had kind of a scary incident. Dan, one of the volunteers here who is allergic to nuts, accidentally ate some matoke (plantains) with g. nut sauce (which has peanuts in it). He realized what he ate pretty quickly and ran to get on a boda boda (motorcycle taxi) to come home. Him and Corbin ran into the house and he went straight to the bathroom to try to throw up but couldn’t. Anyways, we took him to the really ghetto hospital here in Lugazi and they gave him a shot of steroids and he started to feel a bit better. We gave him a blessing and he decided to come back home. However, when he got home it got worse. His whole face and neck swelled up and he could hardly breathe. He had a high fever and was getting the chills and hives all over. We got some help and a taxi came and we took him to a good doctor from Australia living in Jinja which was like 30 min. away. So me and Ashley and Irene (our cook) went with Dan in the taxi to Jinja. Dan had an epinephrine pen for emergencies but we weren’t sure if we could give him the shot after he had gotten the steroid shot so we were calling doctors and people in the states to find out if it’d be ok. Ashley got a hold of a doctor and he said to give him the shot right away. So I got the epipen out and jammed it into Dan’s thigh, it clicked and the needle went in his thigh and I held it there several seconds. It was a pretty nerve-racking situation but, fortunately, after the epipen, he started calming and feeling better. About 10 minutes later, we got to Jinja and the doctor took care of him and and his swelling went down a bit and he slept and was ok. Me and Dan stayed in Jinja that night. We slept at the district president’s house in Jinja. He and his wife were so nice! They let us sleep in their house and they gave us milk and bread in the morning (even though they have nothing). They were a beautiful family with a little 4 year old daughter. We visited the doctor again the next morning and she said all was fine. So that was quite a crazy experience and I’m glad Dan is ok. I think he’ll monitor his matoke a bit better from now on…..
Well this is a long blogtry so I think I’ll end it. Last weekend we went hiking through a rainforest and saw monkeys and other creatures. The rainforest is beautiful! This weekend we are going to Kampala to watch the Uganda soccer team play Niger which should be awesome. I’ve tried to post photos on this dang blog but it’s a difficult task with the quality internet here. I’ll keep trying. Ok I’m done.
Africa is great. Goodbye.
Friday, May 30, 2008
Thursday, May 22, 2008
hello everyone
i've been here in africa for a couple weeks now. i'm here with HELP International doing some humanitarian work and it has been great so far. i'm not much of a blogger but i figure this is easier than sending a bunch of emails.
well i guess i'll tell all of you how cool I am now. I rafted the Nile on Saturday and it was definitely the raddest thing I’ve ever done. The last rapid we did was also the most I’ve feared for my life too. We did about 10 sets of rapids traveling 30km down river, it took like 5 or 6 hours. We did some grade 5 rapids and lower. My raft only tipped twice and the last time I thought I was going to die because I was under water getting thrown around like a rag doll for what seemed like 30 seconds but it was probably like 10. the rapids were huge! It was the funnest experience I’ve ever had. We did some rapids and on the calm parts we swam around. We ate lunch in the rafts—pineapples and cookies—they were the best tasting pineapples I’ve ever had probably cuz we were eating them on the nile. The scenery was amazing. It started raining for a while and it was so beautiful—a bit chilly but warm in the water. There were supposedly some crocs in some parts but we didn’t see any. We saw a huge lizard about 3 ft. long swimming in the water. When we were watching the others go down a rapid, a long black snake was in the water swimming towards our raft and our African guide was freaking out telling us to row hard to get away from it. He said it was a black forest cobra and that they can get into the raft. There was also one little island that had a huge tree with hundreds of bats flying around it, that was rad to see. I’m mad I couldn’t have a camera on the raft. They filmed a few of the rapids and were selling the dvd after. I kind of lost my wallet but found it again and I was so worried about getting it back I paid for a dvd but forgot to get it after. A couple other people bought it from our group so hopefully I’ll be able to copy it from them, its pretty cool.
After rafting, we camped at the dorms above the river and went to church in jinja the day after. I like going to church in the growing branches more than the wards at home. People seem a bit more excited about church and I think I’m closer to their level of knowledge too. Overall, it was an amazing weekend. I would totally raft the nile again if I get the chance again this summer. We are going to go bungee jumping over the nile in a few weeks. Rumour has it that it’s free if you go naked so I might consider that.
This weekend we are going to mabira forest for a hike through the rain forest. That should be cool.
Well, apart from all those adventures, things have been going well with the projects. I am leading a project for the secondary schools here and most of their needs are financial so there is not much we can do there but we were talking about some of the problems the kids have outside of school like drugs and pregnancy and stuff. We decided to make a lesson manual and start a class that will meet once a week and touch different subjects like sex education, drug abuse, career exploration, empowerment/self-esteem, goal setting, business basics, AIDS education, and also some fun stuff for them. If any of you have any good material for lessons or any other ideas for these subjects please email them to me because we are trying to get this up and running asap. We want the classes to be pretty liberal and be more like a discussion group in which the kids could discuss the topics with each other and have activities and stuff. We’ll be here to help for the first few classes and then leave the lesson manual for the teachers here to continue the class once we’re gone. It’s continuation once we’re gone is the most important part. So any help provided would be greatly appreciated!
goodbye
i've been here in africa for a couple weeks now. i'm here with HELP International doing some humanitarian work and it has been great so far. i'm not much of a blogger but i figure this is easier than sending a bunch of emails.
well i guess i'll tell all of you how cool I am now. I rafted the Nile on Saturday and it was definitely the raddest thing I’ve ever done. The last rapid we did was also the most I’ve feared for my life too. We did about 10 sets of rapids traveling 30km down river, it took like 5 or 6 hours. We did some grade 5 rapids and lower. My raft only tipped twice and the last time I thought I was going to die because I was under water getting thrown around like a rag doll for what seemed like 30 seconds but it was probably like 10. the rapids were huge! It was the funnest experience I’ve ever had. We did some rapids and on the calm parts we swam around. We ate lunch in the rafts—pineapples and cookies—they were the best tasting pineapples I’ve ever had probably cuz we were eating them on the nile. The scenery was amazing. It started raining for a while and it was so beautiful—a bit chilly but warm in the water. There were supposedly some crocs in some parts but we didn’t see any. We saw a huge lizard about 3 ft. long swimming in the water. When we were watching the others go down a rapid, a long black snake was in the water swimming towards our raft and our African guide was freaking out telling us to row hard to get away from it. He said it was a black forest cobra and that they can get into the raft. There was also one little island that had a huge tree with hundreds of bats flying around it, that was rad to see. I’m mad I couldn’t have a camera on the raft. They filmed a few of the rapids and were selling the dvd after. I kind of lost my wallet but found it again and I was so worried about getting it back I paid for a dvd but forgot to get it after. A couple other people bought it from our group so hopefully I’ll be able to copy it from them, its pretty cool.
After rafting, we camped at the dorms above the river and went to church in jinja the day after. I like going to church in the growing branches more than the wards at home. People seem a bit more excited about church and I think I’m closer to their level of knowledge too. Overall, it was an amazing weekend. I would totally raft the nile again if I get the chance again this summer. We are going to go bungee jumping over the nile in a few weeks. Rumour has it that it’s free if you go naked so I might consider that.
This weekend we are going to mabira forest for a hike through the rain forest. That should be cool.
Well, apart from all those adventures, things have been going well with the projects. I am leading a project for the secondary schools here and most of their needs are financial so there is not much we can do there but we were talking about some of the problems the kids have outside of school like drugs and pregnancy and stuff. We decided to make a lesson manual and start a class that will meet once a week and touch different subjects like sex education, drug abuse, career exploration, empowerment/self-esteem, goal setting, business basics, AIDS education, and also some fun stuff for them. If any of you have any good material for lessons or any other ideas for these subjects please email them to me because we are trying to get this up and running asap. We want the classes to be pretty liberal and be more like a discussion group in which the kids could discuss the topics with each other and have activities and stuff. We’ll be here to help for the first few classes and then leave the lesson manual for the teachers here to continue the class once we’re gone. It’s continuation once we’re gone is the most important part. So any help provided would be greatly appreciated!
goodbye
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
who likes to party?
hello. i started a blog to write about africa. read and enjoy africa with me. thank you. goodbye.
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