this town is deserted on sundays. church here isn't just a two-hour deal on sundays, it goes on all day. especially in the villages, it's an all-day event. most of the shops are closed, as are many of the internet cafes. a lot of the store-fronts here are the income-generating side of christian projects. cool idea, but it sucks on sundays.
has bridgehead moved yet? i'm kinda nervous about coming back to a brand new bridgehead. and hoping, fingers super crossed, that i'll still know most of the staff. anthony, megan, jjess, phil, bryce, mark, jamie.... you'd better still all be there. well, unless you go insane, jamie. in which case we all understand. without the insanity, though, you have no excuse. :P
ever since i had that nightmare, i'm scared shitless of what it's going to be like to go back home. i'm sure i'll adjust. but i'm starting to understand that the culture shock of coming back home might be a lot more difficult than the one you get leaving home....
christine, i wanted to tell you all about our trip to visit derrick. as much as sean and i wanted to just hang out with derrick and his grandmother, we spent the entire day either travelling (on the bus or in WV's car), or talking to WV people. the drive into kampala was... probably about as bad as trying to get into toronto during rush hour. but it's always rush hour in kampala. so we woke up at 6am, and didn't get into town until 9am. there we met with a few World Vision people at their office, who briefed us on the project that derrick is in, and on how to behave while we're there (basically, wear appropriate clothing, and don't sexually abuse the child, and don't take pictures without their guardian's consent). from kampala, we drove to derrick's town, about another two hours away, and talked there with the people working on the project.
there are about 3000 sponsors for that area. all of their money doesn't go straight to the children, but goes to providing schools, shelters for people who don't have them, and a community of people who provide AIDS/HIV knowledge. i'm not sure about this one, i'll have to check with sean, but i think they also provide family's with potential sources of income. derrick has three goats, a few coffee plants, and some banana trees. overall, i think that their goal is to provide communities with all the means to have more productive and successful lives. encouraging them to make money, go to school, eat proper meals, and be educated in HIV/AIDS.
our visit with derrick himself was very brief, only fifteen minutes perhaps. it was difficult speaking with him and gramma (we had three WV people translating for us), because of the language barrier, and because derrick was so shy. other kids of his age have very functional english, and he seemed to understand what we were saying, but mostly just seemed shocked at our presence. christine, you should have seen how happy gramma was to see us! even though she couldn't understand us, she seemed very touched by the visit. that's one of the things volunteers and visitors like so much about uganda... they people here have a very good relationship with visitors. people contiually tell us that our presence makes them feel hopeful, that they're so happy to have us here, that our help is very welcome...
so, mostly, we drank tea, ate meals with, and spoke with the WV folk. they seem to have a pretty solid way of putting their projects together. sean might have something different to say on that front, but he's more educated and more critical about projects around here.
oh yeah, i don't know if i mentioned this in a previous post, but sean and i are going to be teaching lifeskills to the P5-P7. we tested their basic knowledge of HIV/AIDS on friday, took the anonymous tests home and analyzed them. this coming week we're just going to play games with the kids, ice-breakers and stuff, and get to know them. monday with the P7, tuesday P6, wednesday P5. we've decided that we're going to focus on basic AIDS knowledge with the P5 level. the older grades already have basic knowledge of the disease (unlike the P5, they don't think that you can get AIDS by playing with or sharing clothes with an infected person). so with P6+7 we're going to focus more on self esteem, confidence, and especially trying to break down the stigma surrounding infected people. of the ~100 tests we handed out, only two kids said that someone with AIDS is not different from themselves. and about 2/3 said that they have seen people being treated poorly because of their disease.
anyways... i should be off. i spent 20 minutes waiting for this page to load, so i've been here fourty minutes now. it gets expensive after a while.
bye now!!
wish us luck with the school!
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