About 20 of our volunteers left last week. I am going to miss them all but am excited to keep in touch in the future to see what they all do with their lives. We have some great people that have come through the program this summer.
To add to the eternal list of sicknesses, I guess that most people who went home got sick upon arrival and eating American food again. One of our volunteers who, lets be honest, is cursed to have everything go wrong when it comes to health emailed and said that she may have malaria, she is getting de-wormed, has a respiratory infection, and is being tested for giardia.

The day the last group of volunteers left, wendy seth and jeff came in town. They slept at our house wed night and then we spent half day on Thursday and Friday back at sipi falls. It’s so beautiful there and it’s been fun to have them here. The plan was to raft on Saturday but, surprise surprise, wendy got sick and didn’t feel up to going. So I stayed and hung out with her. She, seth and jeff slept at some friends place in kampala Sunday night and last night and should be sleeping here again tonight and tomorrow before they leave to the airport Wednesday.
I want to give another project update. So, we finished the eye camp with 1700 people screened and 102 surgeries. There was a man who was blind for ten years due to a bilateral cataract who was so enthusiastic about being able to see that he yelled to the crowds and pointed to say “I can see that you are a boy, and you are a girl!” On my mission in Taiwan, I tried to do that a few times and failed calling girls boys and vice versa, but this man was good and from what I heard, didn’t offend anyone.

Another big project we are doing is starting a social business of soap making with the persons with disabilities. That is our biggest project to pursue in this last week and we are probably going to need some business advice. The two leaders now have the training and we are going to work out an initial business model today and see how it goes. So if anyone wants a copy to look over, let me know. We are trying to work it out with the hospital that the persons with disabilities will be their soap provider. If that works out, then it would really be great and a constant buyer for them.

Our mushroom farms are something that we are trying to finish and make sure are sustainable. I’m workingout a contract with one of our partners to pay him in chickens to make sure that this is structured and he gives us updates on the farm etc. we have another one with the HIV group and need to finish that. The HIV positive group is more straight forward because the proceeds go to their transportation to come to meetings and medications for those who can’t afford them.
We are building two pit latrines, one for a school and one for a fishing village who uses lake Victoria for all their water needs, washing, drinking, and latrines included.

We finished a lot of different teacher trainings and business trainings. We also have given multiple womens groups mini cabbage farms. We have done outreaches with disabled persons and with the public health nurse, some other vulnerable groups that can’t afford to come to the hospital.

We also designed a peer teaching structure for a sex-ed curriculum to be implemented beginning in three schools and will hopefully expand. About ¼ of pregnant women that come into the health centers in our areas are under aged women. They then must have c-sections and drop out of school etc when they have children so young. The initiatives have really pushed abstinence but haven’t addressed the people who are still going to have sex.

We have two chicken coops, both for underfunded schools, one is for a school that is mostly orphaned children.

We have built a lot of stoves, probably around 50 of them, which help with respiratory disease and fuel costs (cuts it by about ½). We are working on some stoves at the hospital this week.

We are also doing a family planning public health group who is using fertility beads and charging the women after training to pay 5 cents for these beads. When used correctly, the beads are a really effective method of birth control.

We had the aids extravaganza, where over 100 people were given free hiv testing, including one 15 year old girl fatuma. It turns out that she is positive and doesn’t know. So, we are befriending her (the public health nurse wants us to and for some reason it wouldn’t be suspicious in her mind) but she is a sweet 3rd generation ugandan born Indian. I really like her and am not sure how this relationship is going to go considering she said to her grandma she would kill herself if she was positive.

On a lighter note, I am also trying to branch out the products in Lugazi, we are helping the youth outreach mission (a group of about 30 college students who want to give back to the community) start a snack shop. They are selling the exact same product as everyone else. So Melissa and I recreated some of our favorite chapatti (they are a little thicker than Mexican tortillas) including honey butter and powdered sugar, cinnamon and sugar, pb and j, jelly, etc…so that maybe they would spice things up a little bit. I’m not sure if they will.

Wednesday I’m also teaching a local bakery how to make cookies to sell. They said that the ones I made last time were “too soft.” So this is going to be a struggle, but I’m determined.

We are also starting some savings and loans groups which are really exciting. It’s what has been keeping me up late and waking me up early the past few days. I’m really excited about it. It’s microcredit with savings in womens groups that don’t need an institution. That being said, it’s fairly complicated and takes training.

anyway, life is good. I'm really happy here.

gulu pt 2

We just got back from gulu last night after a looong journey. To be honest, one of the things I've learned to expect from this summer is that nothing can ever go smoothly. Our bus broke down for three hours on the way to gulu so we didn't arrive to the nasty run down hotel until 4am. Following our first encounter at the "multi-choice" hotel where I only really got two choices from, sickness, or sickness. Literally. Brian started throwing up right after we shared our beds (they didn't save all our rooms for us so we doubled up on singles) and around two hours later I hear a knock at the door with a worried brian telling me that he threw up blood.

for those of you who know me well, I don't really do the whole doctor role very well. I told him that everything would be fine and that we would take him into the hospital in a couple hours. Inside I'm freaking out. When I went to throw away his throw up in the squatty potty that reaked of urine, I gagged myself and when there were mice in the room I decided we were upgrading the next night.

We took brian to the hospital and of course they gave him malaria treatment, but he also had a bacterial infection because his white blood cell count was really high so I had him take that antibiotic and hold off of the malaria medicine that they give us EVERY time.

We went to church which was great and then had a little fireside with the ward members after.

Monday and tuesday we went to work to finish 11 stoves that the last group started. We were in the round huts with thatched roofs and for some reason my depth perception was off because I ran into the roof about every time I left or entered the hut.

The reason why we build these adobe stoves or "energy saving" stoves is because people inhale smoke as they cook in their homes which is a huge problem for respiratory health and eye health. They also save a lot of money by using firewood in these stoves and can spend up to 1/2 to 1/4 of what they spent before on charcoal to cook. it also cooks their food more quickly so cuts the time women are cooking by a few hours a day.

When we build them we try to train people around how to do it so that others can do it as well. we put a cement finish on them and a chimney but you can do it without so that it is virtually free.

We did that and then one afternoon went to an IDP camp. One of dennis's best friends amos had been helping us all week and as we walked through a still very populated IDP camp, I ran into Amos on his bike. People seriously just show up places all the time here. He told me he lives with 9 other family members, mostly extended family, but it was really a harsh reality when I realized he was living with them in these tiny mud huts. He doesn't have a sponsor for school so is kind of at a standstill in his life as well.

We also met with invisible children who is doing a lot of really great work from uganda. I'm really impressed with their organization. One thing that makes me really excited is a micro savings and loan group to do with women. I'm going to meet with the mayor again here and propose that we institute more of these groups for the women here and see if he will provide in the business counselors job description to follow up on these small savings groups. The women start by saving anywhere from 1-5,000 shillings a week and each gets a stamp in their book for how much they put into the pot. then there is a loan system set up where they take turns being able to use the money in the pot but have 1 month to pay it back with 10% interest. As the money is constantly loaned out and people pay back as a group, by the end of a 6 month cycle, everyone gets back the money they put into it and a portion of the 10% interest. They make more money by lending. It's really great. there are systems set up for accountability with a president, secretary, and treasurer in the group who have keys to the 3 key lock box. all three have to be present to open the box and ideally money is not left inside. They have done it with some womens groups and by the third or fourth cycle of six months, there are women who are saving up to 20,000 a week as a group. (or about 10 dollars). I love that idea.

we went on safari yesterday and saw giraffes, elephants, warthogs, rhino's, alligators, birds, deer who morphed african style, and some other animals. it was a ton of fun. We did a boat safari to murchison falls on the victorian nile. you should google image it and hopefully in the next few days I'll actually have a camera!!!

Last night as expected, our driver had issues and we ended up traveling for 12 hours when we could have been home in 5.

such is life.

I calculated that I probably only got about 21 hours of sleep in the past 6 days. I don't know how I'm not sick.

lex left two days ago which makes me sad. most of our volunteers leave early next week and then it's down to 8 volunteers for a week and then 6. it's going to be crazy. but I'm excited to do some of my own projects an to have a cleaner house, and maybe sleep?? That being said, I'll miss them all a ton.

Dennis and Gulu pt 1

alright, I should probably do better with keeping my life updated. I have never been in such a whirlwind. There are a few things I want to write about and then I'll put on another update on our projects.

Last week on thursday night we invited our friend dennis to come and eat with us and tell us his story. He is a 26 year old from Gulu in northern Uganda who is now a freshman in high school because he was abducted as a child. This is a sad story so if you want something happy, I wouldn't read this right now.

When Dennis was eight years old the LRA came into his village and stormed his house. They took his father and two mothers out infront of their children and told dennis that since his dad worked for the government, he needed to be killed. And dennis needed to do it. Dennis refused and there was some arguing as they tied his parents naked to a tree. When he had a second, out of fear, Dennis took off running and the LRA took their guns and shot after him, they hit him in the arm but he ran into the bush and hid for a little bit of time and then made the decision that he should go and die with his parents so went back to witness his father and mothers massacred. They were cut down the middle, their throats cut and insides pulled out of their bodies. He had a drawing of what had happened that he showed to everyone. After that, the LRA took dennis (he was the oldest) to be a soldier and left his siblings orphaned, in their village.

Dennis spent EIGHT years in the bush. He tried to escape once but got caught and was caned until he couldn't walk. He finally escaped the second time and was successful. During his time in the bush he was forced to kill a man. it was either he die or the man die and so he shot a man as a young child. The LRA used to play games to with the people they would capture and force them to fight 1x1 and the survivor would move on to the next round like a sick sporting tournament. they would then wait until their were 2 people left out of 60, leave a note with them and tell them to inform the government that they were in that location with 50+ dead bodies waiting to fight. He also talked about how brainwashed the child soldiers get, where some thirst to kill and how joseph koni is possessed by the devil and has powers to predict the future.

He talked really matter of factly about the experience and said there were many things that happened that were too much to explain. He talked about the problems in gulu today with HIV, girls that were raped and then drop their babies in bushes or pit latrines, and starvation associated with people forced to leave the IDP camps.

when he came back after 8 years in the bush he found two of his little brothers and had a little place for them to stay as he went to school and tried to provide for them. he would lock them inside while he was gone and then come back with food from the school to feed them. One day while he was at school his siblings were playing with fire in their hut and accidentally set the hut on fire and both ended up dying.

He then lost all of his fathers property and luckily found someone to sponsor him for school. He since has moved to jinja (about 30 minutes from us) and is trying to support another orphan girl who was his neighbors child and who he promised to look after. She is 2 and living in gulu with someone that he put her with.

I am amazed by Dennis. He wants to build an orphanage and is working on raising funds for that. I am so impressed with his outlook on life. He says that sometimes he doesn't feel like he should be alive and wishes he were dead, but then he reminds himself that God chose him to stay alive and he needs to help as many people as he can.

He joined the LDS church and found a sponsor for his schooling through a contact their but that is a population that is a lot of times left to the waste side, the returning abductees who are in their teens. There is a ton of funding for elementary school kids, but not enough attention is paid to those who are older and escape.

I'm still digesting that reality mixed with the fact that I just came back from gulu at 5am this morning. I'll write another entry about that. I'm sorry about the grammar errors but I don't have time to really re-read over this right now.