Amazing Dancing by Amazing Kids

Our first afternoon, we arrived very jet-lagged at the first church's Child Development Center.  Half asleep on the bus, we were suddenly awakened by cheers from lots of kids outside the bus. 

We captured the next minutes of our visit on video.  Here's what you'll see:

The first batch of kids is the welcoming committee - what a reception!  Notice (as the camera points up the road) the dancers leading the way to the church. 

The second part of this video shows a group of kids dancing on the church's platform.  Most of these children are orphans.  Because they were so poor, they were wondering what they could offer to God.  Finally, they decided they could dance and sing for Him!  The result is what you see on the video.  (Check out the little boy in the front row - he is REALLY into it!)

The words to their song are:  "Things already better, when the Lord is on my side, things already better."  I hope you enjoy it as much as we did - what a testimony by these kids!  The words take on a new meaning when you remember the children are orphans, living in a very poor area.  They are learning that there is hope when they have Jesus!  And God has used them in a big way - they have traveled to Nairobi, Kenya and to Rwanda to minister with Gospel music. 

  

(NOTE: The above version is not HD - If you want to watch this in the full-screen version, use the following link to get good resolution:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHoAaBgMsYg&hd=1)

In case you were wondering why we were talking about churches in a blog about our Compassion trip - it's because Compassion does all their work by partnering with churches.  The community does not see Compassion International - instead, they only see the church being Christ to the community. 

Often a church in a developing country has a real heart for ministering to children in extreme poverty, but it lacks the required resources.  So churches and Compassion work in partnership - Compassion provides curriculum, training, etc. so the church can establish an effective, Christ-centered child development program.  Compassion also provides funding (via child sponsorships) which is used to minister directly to   the sponsored children.  And if the church encounters a major roadblock in caring for the children, the church and Compassion work together clear them.  For example, if one of the children requires major medical care, Compassion may arrange transportation and pays the cost of the care at an appropriate facility.  If the the child's caregiver cannot provide safe housing, Compassion may provide the resources for the church to construct a proper house.



IN OTHER WORDS, Compassion connects Christians like you and me with churches in areas of extreme poverty.  When I sponsor a child, I enable that church to minister directly to "my" child.  And I also minister to that child, as I develop a relationship with him or her.   In a future blog, I'll share what sponsor kids told us they think about their sponsors.....

But for now, enjoy some more pictures of our visit that first day!  I hope you enjoy them as much as the children enjoyed having their pictures taken, and then seeing themselves on the digital camera.  EVERYBODY had to get in on the act!

    

 

A Sobering Reminder of One of the Challenges (HIV/AIDs)



What's for Lunch? :-0

Cooking Porridge

Many of you know that I like to try new and different foods. So you can imagine I was excited about going to Uganda and finding something really weird to try......

Before we discuss what I ate, I thought I should mention the kids. We had the opportunity to serve children their snack at one of the local Compassion-assisted churches.  The children get supplemental nutrition, since poor nutrition is very often one of the barriers to the children getting out of poverty.  Poor nutrition leads to poor health, poor mental development, poor learning, etc.  Rather than getting a standard nutritional program that's the same for everyone, the program is tailored to the address the local nutritional deficiencies.  If they need protein, they get protein.  If they need something else, they get something else.  In this case, their snack was a porridge, served in an assembly line of plastic mugs.  Imagine cream of wheat made with WAY too much water, and some milk (see photo above).  It looked okay hot, but like it might turn into a gloppy mess if it cooled down.  (No, I didn't try the porridge....because they didn't offer me any....).  The children lined up very nicely to get their porridge.  No complaining, no whining that they wanted something else.  Every child calmly took their mug and drank it all down.

Porridge Mug Assembly Line

Now back to us adults....

  

All our lunches were prepared by area churches that ran Compassion-assisted child development projects.  So what we got was "the real deal," what the locals eat.  If we could avoid getting sick, the opportunity to eat like the locals was very appealing. 

Our first meal was great - just what I was expecting.  They prepared white rice, potatoes, matoke (a non-sweet very solid blob of plantain), a couple small pieces of beef (tough and with the bone in - but I know this beef was a very big deal), and a bit of cole slaw (I crossed my fingers that the cole slaw wouldn't "do me in," but I didn't want to offend them by refusing it).  The pink stuff covering the rice in the photo below is ground nut sauce.   Ground nuts are a staple food in Uganda - they're very similar to peanuts.  You can eat them roasted like peanuts, or in this case, you cook them in water and grind them up to make the ground nut sauce.  Very nice flavor....  Overall, a great lunch.

The next day, we ate at another church.  They prepared us a fine lunch, which you can see here.  Notice anything?  That's right - it's very similar.  White rice, matoke, potatoes, ground nut sauce.  Instead of cole slaw, we had turnip greens.  And, they added on a slice of avocado (YUM).  Also two small fried chicken wings.  Overall, very good.  We didn't say anything about having just had virtually the same meal at the other church - we didn't want them to feel bad.

The next day we again ate at the same church.  We had.....white rice, matoke, potatoes, ground nut sauce, and cole slaw.  I was starting to get tired of white rice, matoke, potatoes and ground nut sauce.  I wondered if the person in charge of the kids program was going to give someone a piece of her mind for repeating the same meal.  I didn't bother taking a picture....I already had one from the prior day.

The next day we again ate at that same church.  What do you think we had????  YOU GOT IT!  White rice, matoke, potatoes, ground nut sauce.   As I kept seeing what foods were available over the week, those same foods kept cropping up.  If you were lucky, you might get a few beans with your rice. 

I got the point - there's not a lot of choice around there.  They grow their food locally (often each family growing their own food), and there's not much else they can grow.  They can't afford to import different foods like we do.  So they eat the same thing, day in and day out. 

One night we went out to the local cultural center, and they served us dinner along with the show.  That was different, sort of....  We had potatoes (french fries), turnip greens, and goat kabobs. I was relieved to not have the matoke and white rice!  The goat was great! 

Goat Kabob dinner

Watusi Cow

It turns out goat is one of the priciest meats in Uganda.  This was surprising, because we saw goats tied up wherever we went.  But it turns out the most inexpensive meat is beef, so that's what gets eaten.  The cattle in Uganda (Watusi's) are different than what we're used to - they all (cows and bulls) have massive horns.  I saw a truck-load of these being driven down the road.  Horns everywhere - I was just hoping the truck didn't make a sudden stop or someone would get hurt.... 

Butcher Shop

Butcher shop scenes like this always made me question just how long they leave the beef hanging outside - I was envisioning it hanging for days, gathering flies.  So I asked Margaret, the project worker that accompanied our sponsor child Joyce (more on Joyce in a subsequent post).  Much to my relief, Margaret told me that at their village, they slaughter one cow a day, and sell it that same day.  The next day they slaughter another cow.  On a holiday, they may slaughter 3 cows.  But whatever is killed gets sold that same day. 

Joyce lives in a village of 15,000 people, each of which can eat from that day's cow.  To my American ways, one cow seemed a bit tight for all those people, especially considering the number of skinny cows we had seen!  I did some researching about how much meat you get off of a cow, and started crunching the numbers.  Here's how it works out - if Joyce's village had a McDonald's, this is what the average daily "Quarter Pounder" would look like (of course, they wouldn't have the cheese!):

Eddie displaying the Jack Fruit

We expected the fruit in Uganda to be quite good - and it was.  Watermelons, cantaloupe, pineapple were fabulous.  The most interesting (and luscious) fruit was something called a Jack Fruit.  It grows on (what else?) a Jack Fruit tree.  The inside of the fruit has light yellow slippery "pods" about the size of your big toe.  You squeeze out something that looks like an overgrown marble lima bean, and eat the rest of the pod.  It tastes like no other fruit we could think of - it was great!

 

Jack Fruit Tree



Initial Impressions

We flew to Uganda by flying via London to Nairobi (Kenya) and then to Entebbe, Uganda.  If Entebbe sounds familiar, you may remember that in 1976 this airport was the scene of Israeli soldiers freeing over 100 hostages hijacked by Palestinian and German terrorists.  In preparation for going to Uganda, we had watched the movie "The Last King of Scotland" (about Idi Amin) with Forrest Whitaker - the last part of which deals with the Entebbe events.   Landing in Entebbe and walking through the airport brought back disturbing memories of the end of that movie (if you have seen it, remember the meat hooks in the airport Duty Free shop).   

Coca Cola advertising in baggage claim

If you have not seen the flick and would like to learn a bit about the history of Uganda, this is a good overview (historical fiction) of that era.
 Entebbe Airport has since lightened it's image, with the help of Coca Cola. Check out the nice decorating in the baggage claim area.










 

Very tired travelers at Entebbe airport

Upon arrival, we were picked up at the airport by our Compassion Uganda trip coordinator (Grace) and our fearless bus driver (Fred).  We came to rely very heavily on them both for our well-being!  We were all very tired from 2 back-to-back overnight flights.   We headed toward our Guest House, where we had about 30 minutes to freshen up for a snack, after which we would leave for an afternoon at a local Child Development Center.

Initial Impresssions of Uganda

Eddie told me tonight that his initial impression of Uganda was "When can we leave?"  I must have suspected that, because I spent much of that first day reminding him of how exciting I made his life, and how dull and boring things would be if not for me finding great experiences like this.

A few things immediately caught our attention, even before we made it to our Guest House.

Lots of "bald-headed" kids

We saw a bus load of school kids at the airport parking lot.  The children really had shaved (not bald) heads, but all the same, somehow I had expected they would have hair!   Virtually all young Ugandans have shaved heads.  Water here is a precious commodity, and dirt is plentiful (probably little friends are plentiful too!), so shaving your child's head just makes things easier.  Girls don't grow their hair out until secondary school.  This makes hygiene easier, but it can make it more challenging to figure out who is a boy and who is a girl.  Thank goodness girls in Uganda normally wear skirts!  You can generally guess a child's sex correctly by whether they are in a skirt or shorts/pants.  Sometimes, you don't have to guess....

As odd and fascinating as their little shaved heads were to us, I am confident that the children found us just as fascinating.  Mzungus (white people) are not often seen there, and most children have never met one.  Several of us, myself included, over the course of our visit had Ugandan children come up to touch/rub our skin because they were so fascinated by our appearance. 

Driving!

Earlier I called our driver Fred "fearless" because driving in Uganda is, as you might expect, really challenging.  There are typically no street names, no street signs, no street lights, no lines painted on the roads, and apparently no crews to fix the frequent humongous potholes found on the paved roads.  There are no auto emissions rules, so cars and trucks spew exhaust fumes.  It appears there are no traffic rules - although I'm not positive if there really are no rules, or whether people just don't follow them.  In Uganda, the view from the passenger seat was unnerving, to say the least!  Here's a brief video of what driving is like driving:  

Lots of Dirt
Did I mention that only the major roads are paved?  If it's not a main thoroughfare, it's a dirt road.  Many of the roads have a heavy washboard effect from the rain, and there are often large patches of mud.  In fact, our bus got stuck in one on about day 2 of the trip.  Some woman we didn't know came running over with a hoe to help us - you start "hoeing" the mud into the puddle until you create enough traction for the bus to start sliding out of the hole.  And Fred managed to do this without getting any mud on him - very impressive!

Since most roads are unpaved, there is dirt - more like red clay - everywhere.  The air is full of red dust.  Most people's clothes are dirty.  Any pavement is red clay colored.  Urban or rural, the story is largely the same. 

So if you decide to go to Uganda some day, don't bring your nicest shoes - they won't be nice for long!  If you wear sandles, you will have a new appreciation for people in the New Testament and why foot washing was such a big thing to do.  You will just be plain dirty.


Sweeping dirt in front of shoe store





Nicely swept dirt

All this talk about dirt is not intended as a complaint - and is not in any way to suggest that the people are dirty.  In fact they spent alot of time trying to keep things clean.  They even swept the dirt to keep it looking nice.  But where there is so much dirt being blown around everywhere, it is a challenge to keep everything and everyone from becoming dirt colored.

Lots of Poverty

Last but certainly not least, there was poverty everywhere.  We have traveled in other areas with lots of poverty, but had never seen it so pervasive throughout a region.  We were in the region of Kampala (southern Uganda).  Later in the week, some medical missionaries were staying at our guest house.  They had just returned from northern Uganda, and said the north made our area look wealthy. 

Why Did We Go to Uganda?



Diana and Eddie at Lake Victoria


AFRICA - it sounds like a wonderful vacation, the trip of a lifetime.  I (Diana) have always wanted to go to Africa - put on my safari gear and see zebras, elephants, and lions in their native habitat.  Not to hunt, but to get some great close-up pictures.  And to experience a wonderful culture, new exotic foods, beautiful views, the whole deal.

So how did we end up on a trip that was so unlike that?  In fact, not at all like that.  Most people would not pay to live like we did for 9 days.  We both wondered what we had gotten ourselves into....had we taken this love of adventure just a bit too far? 

But now having been there, we would not change a thing.  This WAS the trip of a lifetime, a privilege, a life-changing experience.

So how did we end up in Uganda?  I'm an advocate with Compassion International, which works to "release children from poverty in Jesus' name," through child sponsorship and other associated programs.  Having sponsored children for over 25 years, Eddie and I are quite familiar with Compassion's child sponsorship program, which helps children from about 5 - 18 years of age, that live in the worst poverty imaginable.  We have seen up close the huge impact it has on these children - spiritually, physically, emotionally and socially. 

But it was the opportunity to see Compassion's "other associated programs" that first tempted us to sign up for this trip to Uganda (trips to other places were available, but they focused only on child sponsorship). While I knew about these other programs, seeing them in person makes all the difference in being able to explain them.  These "other associated programs" include the Child Survival Program (helping pregnant mothers and their unborn children through birth and until the children are about 5 years of age), the Leadership Development Program (university age), and Complementary Interventions (which works to address non-routine barriers to children successfully getting out of poverty - like HIV/AIDS, living situations that are unsafe, etc.).  The point is, we went to learn.  And if we could learn while visiting a continent we had always wanted to visit - well, it just seemed like that was the ideal combination!


Joyce at 5 years

 It seemed like a waste to travel all the way to Uganda and not also visit a sponsor child - so this spring we began to sponsor a little girl named Nkinzi Joyce (in Uganda, the family name comes first, and the given name second - so we call her Joyce, not Nkinzi).  This is the photo we got of Joyce when she was 5 years old.  More on Joyce to come later.....

Finally - for those of you who could use a refresher on just where Uganda is, I have attached a map below (it's in the eastern part of Africa - just below Sudan and Ethiopia, and to the west of Kenya, at the equator).


Continent of Africa