What a beautiful week in Uganda! It is so green here! It usually rains each night and then is bright and sunny all day. It is hot and humid, but I am getting used to it. The other thing I am getting used to is the transportation system. They drive on the opposite side of the road then we do in the US. Also, there are no traffic lights or stop signs, so cars, trucks and mini-busses drive wherever they can. It can be quite dangerous, so I have to be very careful to always be on the lookout. One interesting type of transportation they have here is the boda boda. Boda bodas are motorcycles/motorbikes that you can ride on the back of to any destination in the city. There are no helmets and the drivers drive anywhere they can find a space, so they may drive on the sidewalk, on the median or in between other vehicles. About 20 people are hurt on boda bodas each day. I have only ridden one 3 times and try to avoid it. It is the cheapest form of transportation at about $0.25 a ride, which is why they are so popular.
I am very busy every day doing a lot of different things. For example, on Monday I spent the morning at World Vision, a non-governmental organization that helps widows, orphans and the poorest of the poor. I met with the sponsorship coordinator and set up my visit to see Maria and Peter, my sponsored kids. Then I went over to the Corner stone office for the weekly organizational meeting. At this meeting we confirm what we will be doing during the week. At the end of each day I usually take a taxi back to my friend Veronica’s house where I am staying. On Tuesday, I went to the boys Youth Core Home for street orphans and spent half the day teaching English. They do not know very many words, so it is a big challenge for me. Later that afternoon, I went to the Corner Stone office to work on a project with the manager for the Gulu area. Gulu is where the fighting is the worst. They are trying to save the children there and to raise awareness of what is happening so I am helping Laker (La kay) organize his photographs into an ibook scrapbook. On Wednesday, I went out to the International School to spend some time with the teachers and students there. Then back to Corner Stone office to work on the Gulu project. For dinner that evening I went out with some interns who had grown up in the youth core homes and are now successful adults. It was exciting to see how these orphans had been helped to create a better life for themselves. On Thursday I went to the girls Youth Core Home just to spend time with the girls there. I did not have a set plan or objective, I just wanted to create relationships with them. I had a great time! Thursday afternoon I went to the other side of the city to meet with a group of 100 widows. (See Picture) They are all refugees from the northern part of Uganda. About 30 of them are HIV positive and they all have their own children plus other orphans they are caring for. They are extremely poor and have trouble getting enough food to eat. I spent some time with them trying to encourage them. In seeing their great need, I will try to find people in the US who can support these widows. After the meeting I went to the huts of some of the widows. It was hard to see how much they struggle. Finally, on Friday I went back to the boys Youth Core Home to teach some more English. At the end of our time together, I taught them froggy murder, which I renamed Frog Catcher and they loved it!! Then I went back to the Corner Stone office to continue working on the iphoto book project with the Gulu coordinator, Laker. After we worked long and hard, Laker and I walked around the city and went to the only “American” restaurant here. It was great to eat some American food! I had fajitas, yum, yum!
So that is how I spend a majority of my weeks. The rest of May will be somewhat the same. Then in June I will go up to Gulu with Laker to see the children and women in the refugee camps.
How are you spending your days? I would love to hear from you so feel free to email me at kari.miller@usfamily.net
Keep up the good work!
Ms. Miller
2 comments:
Ms. Miller:
Thank you for sharing about your travels and adventures in Africa. I am enjoying reading about what you are doing there. We are all thinking of you and wishing you well.
Have a great day,
Ms. Slingluff
Ms. Miller we miss you!!!!!
We are having lots of fun in science and we are trying to relate what we are learning to what it must be like in Africa. We learned about deltas and how they can be very important to life in Africa, because they are so rich in water. We also have had heard that there are other places where they drive crazy like that.
Yesterday it was about 90 degrees Fahernheit, but it felt like 1 billion degrees inside the room! We are sure that it is really warm in Africa, is it really humid there? We created a new way to stay cool in the classroom...We are called the "white towel bandits" where we put a cool paper towel on our foreheads...it makes us much cooler.
Not much has changed in the classroom...We are still enjoying school, but we are looking forward to the summer vacation which is rapidly approaching.
We will try and blog you again sometime soon, maybe around next week....we are busy taking NWEA tests and working with our first IB unit.
Take care and miss you mucho,
Fourth Grade Class
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