Sunday, 20 March 2011
Wednesday, 1 October 2008
court date news
We left J at 5.30 in the morning. We arrived at the courthouse dead on 9am.
We were still waiting on paperwork to be completed in J, which would be brought to us as soon as completed.
My lawyer spoke to the judge and was going to try and get it the time rescheduled for the afternoon but the judge told us he would not be there in the afternoon and to come back in a week.
Apparantly, this judge has never dealt with a single person wanting to obtain legal guardianship - so I am the first lets hope that it's not an issue!
We were still waiting on paperwork to be completed in J, which would be brought to us as soon as completed.
My lawyer spoke to the judge and was going to try and get it the time rescheduled for the afternoon but the judge told us he would not be there in the afternoon and to come back in a week.
Apparantly, this judge has never dealt with a single person wanting to obtain legal guardianship - so I am the first lets hope that it's not an issue!
Sunday, 11 November 2007
excellent news!
God is good - all the time
All the time - God is good
On Tuesday we recieved official confirmation that the 10 pending court cases have been approved - to quote Vince 'the judge said yes'!! This means that Duane, Joseph, Vince, Becca, Paul, Violet, Chloe, Noah, Maria and Musa all get to go home with their Mums and Dads. All that remains to do is for the parents to fly out get the kids passports and visas and then they can leave and finalise adoption in the States. Some of the parents are due to arrive tomorrow. The proceedures should hopefully take no more than 2 weeks although - CHOGM starts very soon and this means that most government buildings will be shut for this period. Hopefully all the kids will get home in time for Christmas - that would be so special!
Yesterday we went to Mama Lois sister's wedding in a small remote village! It took about 2 hours to drive through the villages untill we got to the brides village. As we drove up all the african ladies started to do there 'Yai yai yai yai yai' chant and they was such a big crowd of people gathered outside our van that we struggled to get out. They were all eager to shake our hands and hug us! They then lead us to the shade where there was a group playing some african instruments and singing. We were then shoved back into the van where we were served rice, chicken and matoke. We were told that the bride was waiting for us to finish our food in order to come out! So we gobbled it up as much and as quickly as we could! Then the bride came out of her hut and walked down to the van that we were sat in. On top of the fourteen of us already crammed in their ten more joined us! So in a van licensed to hold 14 passengers and thats already crammed as it is we were 24!! and boy was it hot! we were told that the ride to the grooms village was very close - 1 hour later we made it! The ride there was through more small, remote villages on very narrow bumpy dirt roads. At one point the van tipped to the left so much that we all screamed thinking that the van was going to tip over all the way! The van struggled to cross over some train tracks so we all got out and pulled it over the tracks! We eventually made it to the grooms village and pulled up again to a crowd of wailing (happy wailing) women - excited to see us and of course the bride! We were then herded into the church - which felt more like a brick oven! We sat on little wooden pews - and listened to 10 pastors introducing themselves for about 45 minutes! What does this have to do with the wedding you ask? I have no idea! Then one of the 10 pastors preached on the benefits of marriage: warm food, warm bed and a passport! And I kid you not this man was so serious! After that we couldnt even take anymore - they still hadnt mentioned the bride and the groom - and we were so hot and squashed in these little pews that we had to leave. Now, knowing that we were going to a village and would be travelling throughout the day I decided to not drink anything after 4pm the day before. However, by 2pm I was desperate to go to the toilet - so I went into the little mud hut, ants all over the place, flies everywhere - it was more like a hole in the ground than anything else! anyway!
All the time - God is good
On Tuesday we recieved official confirmation that the 10 pending court cases have been approved - to quote Vince 'the judge said yes'!! This means that Duane, Joseph, Vince, Becca, Paul, Violet, Chloe, Noah, Maria and Musa all get to go home with their Mums and Dads. All that remains to do is for the parents to fly out get the kids passports and visas and then they can leave and finalise adoption in the States. Some of the parents are due to arrive tomorrow. The proceedures should hopefully take no more than 2 weeks although - CHOGM starts very soon and this means that most government buildings will be shut for this period. Hopefully all the kids will get home in time for Christmas - that would be so special!
Yesterday we went to Mama Lois sister's wedding in a small remote village! It took about 2 hours to drive through the villages untill we got to the brides village. As we drove up all the african ladies started to do there 'Yai yai yai yai yai' chant and they was such a big crowd of people gathered outside our van that we struggled to get out. They were all eager to shake our hands and hug us! They then lead us to the shade where there was a group playing some african instruments and singing. We were then shoved back into the van where we were served rice, chicken and matoke. We were told that the bride was waiting for us to finish our food in order to come out! So we gobbled it up as much and as quickly as we could! Then the bride came out of her hut and walked down to the van that we were sat in. On top of the fourteen of us already crammed in their ten more joined us! So in a van licensed to hold 14 passengers and thats already crammed as it is we were 24!! and boy was it hot! we were told that the ride to the grooms village was very close - 1 hour later we made it! The ride there was through more small, remote villages on very narrow bumpy dirt roads. At one point the van tipped to the left so much that we all screamed thinking that the van was going to tip over all the way! The van struggled to cross over some train tracks so we all got out and pulled it over the tracks! We eventually made it to the grooms village and pulled up again to a crowd of wailing (happy wailing) women - excited to see us and of course the bride! We were then herded into the church - which felt more like a brick oven! We sat on little wooden pews - and listened to 10 pastors introducing themselves for about 45 minutes! What does this have to do with the wedding you ask? I have no idea! Then one of the 10 pastors preached on the benefits of marriage: warm food, warm bed and a passport! And I kid you not this man was so serious! After that we couldnt even take anymore - they still hadnt mentioned the bride and the groom - and we were so hot and squashed in these little pews that we had to leave. Now, knowing that we were going to a village and would be travelling throughout the day I decided to not drink anything after 4pm the day before. However, by 2pm I was desperate to go to the toilet - so I went into the little mud hut, ants all over the place, flies everywhere - it was more like a hole in the ground than anything else! anyway!
I spent alot of the last few weeks sorting out the storage unit in the pre-school - it always seems to get messed up very quickly with the kids helping themselves to everything! Most of the storage bins were riddled with cockroaches!!!!! But it definately looks better now it is more organised and clean. Pre-school has been going moderately well. Tuesday was a nightmare - the kids were so naughty! I ended pre-school early by telling them that if they didn't want to be here and weren't prepared to behave then I wasnt going to show up at all. Some of the kids were all ladida about it, some of them were apologetic. Dan noted how angry and upset I was and once I had told them all to leave, he came up to me apologised, gave me a great big hug, and told me he loved me! He's such the sweetest kid, and he's almost never naughty! Anyway then the director decided that the next day instead of pre-school they were all going to lie down instead - so from 9am till 12 they all just lay there! Needless to say that the next day - most of them have been really well behaved. I've not been happy recently about the way somethings have been happening and its starting to really annoy me! Some of the volunteers just come with completely the wrong attitude - telling admin here that they came to volunteer, give up there free time therefore they get to choose what they do here! The purpose of coming here is to volunteer where you are needed and serve the needs of the orphanage - help where help is needed. Then some of the volunteers who have been in pre-school use it as a discussion time - when I am trying to teach they use the opportunity to talk about what they have been doing at the weekend, or the latest news on their boyfriend - whether they are still together etc. I mean its fine to talk about those things - but when they are talking over me and drowning out my voice whilst I am trying to talk to the kids it really doesnt help! They also bring babies into pre-school. Oh dear, its so annoying! Anyway, Im glad that some of the admin have heard my frustrations and have now done something about it! One of the girls in pre-school with me - really worries me! Apparantly she will be taking over after I leave - which if she does means the end of pre-school! I was sick on Friday and spent most of the day sleeping - and this girl brought all 10 pre-schoolers over to the house knowing full well that I was sick and they spent a good while running around the house making so much noise - she even asked me to come and watch them for a few minutes- what a restful day!
Well, hopefully this week will work out better - I have to re-organise the pre-school since we soon have 5 pre-schoolers leaving and 5 younger ones leaving. I would also like to make a some cards for the kids who are leaving from the kids who are staying behind and vise versa.
Saturday, 27 October 2007
coming home soon!
Hi everyone.
not much news really.
Just that I am coming home on the 8th December, a little earlier...i hope no-one minds!!
not much news really.
Just that I am coming home on the 8th December, a little earlier...i hope no-one minds!!
Saturday, 20 October 2007
Masai Mara & shootings!!
Jambo!
Greetings from Uganda!
A lot has been going on in the last 10 days or so! I have travelled to Kenya and back where I went on a safari in the Masai Mara and Lake Nakuru. The safari has to be one of the most incredible expereinces of my life. It was awesome to see all the animals you would normally see pent up in a zoo outside roaming about the wilderness. We saw lions - male and female - and a pride of 9 females, cheetahs, wildebeest, zebras, antelopes, elephants, giraffes rhinos, hyenas and so many more beautiful animals. We saw a zebra giving birth! We saw lions eating zebras and wildebeest! We saw hyenas and vultures eating the left overs! We saw a dead impala stuck in a tree! We solved the mystery of the dead but uneaten wildebeest!
Lake Nakuru, home to the flamingos, is an incredible sight - a sea of pink! We spent the first night in a 3 star hotel unfortunately there was no hot water! We spent the next 3 nights camping out in the Masai Mara! We had on our second night an elephant enter our campsite. Our night guards were Masai men who protected us with a stick. On our last evening we meet some German girls and we spent the evening sitting by the campfire chatting. I lay on my back staring into the starry sky for hours! Its incredible how many stars there really are out in the wilderness - where there are no clouds or pollution to hinder the view. We saw a spectacular but unusual perfomance from the moon - indeed we wondered what on earth was happening! The moon was only just above the horizon whereas I have only ever seen it far above the horizon in the 'top' of the sky, then it slowly started to disappear finally it vanished behind the horizon. We asked the Masai what had happened, they explained that it was completely normal! It wasn't an eclipse though. The Mara is 1510 sq km of open park which joins the Serengeti Plains in Tanzania.
We had some interesting Czechs with us on the safari tour - they had done 3 safaris in Uganda already, climbed a few a mountains, were at the Masai with us then were off to climb Mt Kilimanjaro. They were very pleasant people at first, then they started to cause trouble. We spent the first full day driving to the Masai Mara national park, we didn't arrive there until 4pm, they then decided to go on a tour of the Masai village, whereas the rest of us didn't want to because we knew that the park closed its doors at 6pm. So they spent about 2 hours in the village looking around. Needless to say that we didn't get our game drive that we had paid for that day. The next day we spent the whole day from 6am to 4pm driving around the park looking for various different game. (By the way, they spent our last 4 hours looking for a leopard - which they were determined to find - however the leopard is very illusive and shy and can rarely be seen at the Mara.) As we drove out of the park the Czechs insisted that we continue our game drive since we had missed yesterdays! So poor Steve (our driver and guide) had been driving around 12 hours in total - he was not impressed and we were not at all impressed. The next day the Czechs returned to Nairobi and we continued our safari.
The Masai culture is very interesting! The boys tend to the goats as young as 3 years old, then at around 7 years they tend to the cows. The women cook, look after the kids, do the usual chores that African women do but however they also build the entire villages! The men...well, lets face it theres not a lot left to do really is there! In order to become a man the boys must first go through the circumcision rituals, they are then sent out into the bush from anything upto 5 years! Whilst out in the wild they must kill a lion in order to prove themselves. If they do kill a lion, they get to choose the most beautiful women from another village to marry and don't have to offer cows in return since they proved their worth by killing a lion!
Our last night in Nairobi was rather dramatic! We had gone to bed at about 9pm after driving back from the Mara all day. Suddenely we hear about 15 gunshots! We lay there very quiet wondering what on earth was going on. After a few moments I went out of my room and asked the guard what was going on. He told me that some people had been shot - he was very calm adn unperturbed about the whole situation. Then I went back to bed and we heard 4 more! The gunshots were so loud we could even hear the caps falling down onto the ground. I stuck my head out the window and could see lots of people mulling about. It turns out that 4 people were shot right outside our bedroom window! The next morning we left for Uganda!
Things are going well at the baby home. 3 children have left us. Tolofina is 3 years old, she was found severely malnourished, she is the youngest of 12 children, her older brother who is about a year older than her is a healthy well cared for little boy - she has been obviously neglected by her parents. So her parents have now given up legal guardianship of her and she has been fostered by a Ugandan lady. Joyce one of our toddlers has gone to a different orphanage where she has older siblings. Philip a 18 month old has gone to a Dutch family who are living in Uganda for 3 years. Our numbers are now down to 55 children, the lowest we have been in a while. We are still waiting to hear from the judges about the 10 pending cases. Its so sad, these children should have gone home about 1 year ago, and yet they are still here waiting to go home. I missed the kids so much while I was away especially Nathanial Elliot.
I love watching the kids here going to school in their smart uniforms - u can see groups of children from as young as 3 walking to school together - it's so cute! and they are really excited about going to school - since here you have to pay for school not all children are able to go, unless they recieve some kind of scholarship or someone can sponsor them. The kids in Kenya and Uganda are so hard working! They wake up early to do their chores, probably walk at least 2 or 3 miles to go and get water, then walk a long way to school, then walk back from school, have lots more chores to do - fetch water, feed the cattle, bathe the younger siblings, help cook etc etc. They barely have time to play, I'm sure a lot of them - especially the girls dont have time because they have so many other jobs to do.
Pre-school is going well, I walked in the toddler house today (saturday) and I saw all the Mamas sitting with the older kids playing games and helping them with their alphabet and numbers - it was so nice to see and reassures me that they will hopefully continue this when I leave.
That's enough 4 today,
Asante Sana
from left to right: wildebeest; elephant; cheetah; rhino; lion; Nairobi; lion eating wildebeest; Masai warrior; Masai hut; Joseph & Junior; Joyce; Philip; Tolofina; Musa; Nathanial Elliot
Greetings from Uganda!
A lot has been going on in the last 10 days or so! I have travelled to Kenya and back where I went on a safari in the Masai Mara and Lake Nakuru. The safari has to be one of the most incredible expereinces of my life. It was awesome to see all the animals you would normally see pent up in a zoo outside roaming about the wilderness. We saw lions - male and female - and a pride of 9 females, cheetahs, wildebeest, zebras, antelopes, elephants, giraffes rhinos, hyenas and so many more beautiful animals. We saw a zebra giving birth! We saw lions eating zebras and wildebeest! We saw hyenas and vultures eating the left overs! We saw a dead impala stuck in a tree! We solved the mystery of the dead but uneaten wildebeest!
Lake Nakuru, home to the flamingos, is an incredible sight - a sea of pink! We spent the first night in a 3 star hotel unfortunately there was no hot water! We spent the next 3 nights camping out in the Masai Mara! We had on our second night an elephant enter our campsite. Our night guards were Masai men who protected us with a stick. On our last evening we meet some German girls and we spent the evening sitting by the campfire chatting. I lay on my back staring into the starry sky for hours! Its incredible how many stars there really are out in the wilderness - where there are no clouds or pollution to hinder the view. We saw a spectacular but unusual perfomance from the moon - indeed we wondered what on earth was happening! The moon was only just above the horizon whereas I have only ever seen it far above the horizon in the 'top' of the sky, then it slowly started to disappear finally it vanished behind the horizon. We asked the Masai what had happened, they explained that it was completely normal! It wasn't an eclipse though. The Mara is 1510 sq km of open park which joins the Serengeti Plains in Tanzania.
We had some interesting Czechs with us on the safari tour - they had done 3 safaris in Uganda already, climbed a few a mountains, were at the Masai with us then were off to climb Mt Kilimanjaro. They were very pleasant people at first, then they started to cause trouble. We spent the first full day driving to the Masai Mara national park, we didn't arrive there until 4pm, they then decided to go on a tour of the Masai village, whereas the rest of us didn't want to because we knew that the park closed its doors at 6pm. So they spent about 2 hours in the village looking around. Needless to say that we didn't get our game drive that we had paid for that day. The next day we spent the whole day from 6am to 4pm driving around the park looking for various different game. (By the way, they spent our last 4 hours looking for a leopard - which they were determined to find - however the leopard is very illusive and shy and can rarely be seen at the Mara.) As we drove out of the park the Czechs insisted that we continue our game drive since we had missed yesterdays! So poor Steve (our driver and guide) had been driving around 12 hours in total - he was not impressed and we were not at all impressed. The next day the Czechs returned to Nairobi and we continued our safari.
The Masai culture is very interesting! The boys tend to the goats as young as 3 years old, then at around 7 years they tend to the cows. The women cook, look after the kids, do the usual chores that African women do but however they also build the entire villages! The men...well, lets face it theres not a lot left to do really is there! In order to become a man the boys must first go through the circumcision rituals, they are then sent out into the bush from anything upto 5 years! Whilst out in the wild they must kill a lion in order to prove themselves. If they do kill a lion, they get to choose the most beautiful women from another village to marry and don't have to offer cows in return since they proved their worth by killing a lion!
Our last night in Nairobi was rather dramatic! We had gone to bed at about 9pm after driving back from the Mara all day. Suddenely we hear about 15 gunshots! We lay there very quiet wondering what on earth was going on. After a few moments I went out of my room and asked the guard what was going on. He told me that some people had been shot - he was very calm adn unperturbed about the whole situation. Then I went back to bed and we heard 4 more! The gunshots were so loud we could even hear the caps falling down onto the ground. I stuck my head out the window and could see lots of people mulling about. It turns out that 4 people were shot right outside our bedroom window! The next morning we left for Uganda!
Things are going well at the baby home. 3 children have left us. Tolofina is 3 years old, she was found severely malnourished, she is the youngest of 12 children, her older brother who is about a year older than her is a healthy well cared for little boy - she has been obviously neglected by her parents. So her parents have now given up legal guardianship of her and she has been fostered by a Ugandan lady. Joyce one of our toddlers has gone to a different orphanage where she has older siblings. Philip a 18 month old has gone to a Dutch family who are living in Uganda for 3 years. Our numbers are now down to 55 children, the lowest we have been in a while. We are still waiting to hear from the judges about the 10 pending cases. Its so sad, these children should have gone home about 1 year ago, and yet they are still here waiting to go home. I missed the kids so much while I was away especially Nathanial Elliot.
I love watching the kids here going to school in their smart uniforms - u can see groups of children from as young as 3 walking to school together - it's so cute! and they are really excited about going to school - since here you have to pay for school not all children are able to go, unless they recieve some kind of scholarship or someone can sponsor them. The kids in Kenya and Uganda are so hard working! They wake up early to do their chores, probably walk at least 2 or 3 miles to go and get water, then walk a long way to school, then walk back from school, have lots more chores to do - fetch water, feed the cattle, bathe the younger siblings, help cook etc etc. They barely have time to play, I'm sure a lot of them - especially the girls dont have time because they have so many other jobs to do.
Pre-school is going well, I walked in the toddler house today (saturday) and I saw all the Mamas sitting with the older kids playing games and helping them with their alphabet and numbers - it was so nice to see and reassures me that they will hopefully continue this when I leave.
That's enough 4 today,
Asante Sana
from left to right: wildebeest; elephant; cheetah; rhino; lion; Nairobi; lion eating wildebeest; Masai warrior; Masai hut; Joseph & Junior; Joyce; Philip; Tolofina; Musa; Nathanial Elliot
Thursday, 4 October 2007
All is going well here in Uganda. The weather is very hot at the moment - making it hard for anyone to do any kind of work - but we all plod on like usual. I'm just dreading the arrival of December - when it gets even hotter - (how will we cope?). I am - and it may come as no surprise to some of you - sick again - this time I have bronchitis! And.....I still have worms! Oh, how I dream of being worm free!!! Maybe not in this country!
The pre-school is coming on well - I am trying to get some consistency going in the pre-school, and therefore I have written some guidelines for volunteers who want to join me in there. We had one girl in Pre-school, who on her first day here - undermined me in front of all of the kids and one kid in particular. We were playing an alphabet game and Paul one of the kids just sat and did nothing throughout the whole game, then it came time to give out stars, I gave all the kids stars for good work and effort. I didn't give Paul one because he hadn't tried at all, and just sat there mucking about the whole time. So this girl - when she thinks I'm too far away to hear anything says to Paul "Oh Paul, I'm so proud of you, you've done really well, well done for trying"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Are you kidding me?! Paul sat there and did nothing, absolutely nothing...then she is going behind my back, undermining my authority and praising a child for being lazy! It annoys me that people just come here for a few days or for a few hours and start treating the kids like 'poor little orphan kids' who get told off, or who don't get a star. The same girl also in a conversation with some people here said that "I should be more liberal with my star giving"! Oh, sure they're 'poor little orphan kids' - why shouldn't they get a star when they want one - even when they've been really disobedient, been lazy, smacked their friends round the chops, or scratched the new car sitting on the driveway. Hey, lets reward all the 'poor little orphans' even though they've been really really naughty and they all know what they should and shouldn't be doing! They are good kids, but we are not doing them any favours by treating them like 'poor little orphans'. This same girl on a separate occasion asked me if she could give sweets out to the kids who had said their alphabet correctly. I told her that I rather she didn't give sweets out to the kids as a reward because this will only set a precedent, and I don't think that we should be giving kids sweets for something that they should be doing anyway - I mean that's what the star chart system is for - to reward them for effort and good work. So anyway, the next day I ask her if she would be able to take the 'less able' pre-schoolers and work on the alphabet with them. Ten minutes later all the kids come running in with sweets in their mouth telling me that they got them for saying their alphabet!! And it wasn't a well done for saying your alphabet everyone - heres a sweet, it was a you can have a sweet if you tell me your alphabet! So, anyway, just as I had thought the next day for a week all the kids are asking for sweets during pre-school. Anyway, as you can tell this kind of thing really annoys me.
Another thing here that really annoys me, is people treating this kids like monkeys in a zoo, "Ahhh look at all these poor little orphans, aren't they so cute"!!, carrying the 7 year olds around like they're little babies, cuddling a kids whose just been told off for something, it irrates me so much. We had a bunch of americans come here one day, I asked them how they came about being her, and they replied "Well, we had a free day, and we had to choice between going whitewater rafting and coming here, and well lets face it this is the cheaper place"!!! Excuse me? So you're just a tourist here, didn't know what else to do, thought since you're Africa you might as well go and visit an orphanage - after all it seems like the trendy thing to do now a days! Come to Africa - go on a safari - visit an orphanage. We also get people who come in for an hour or two, sit there and take hundreds of photos of orphans - afterall thats all they are to them - they don't sit and cuddle them, they don't ask them their names, they just take some photos, pick maybe one kid up, and then get their friend to take a photo of them holding a kid. And then what do they do? Go home show their friends and family their photos of all these 'poor little orphan kids', oh and look here's one of me holding a kid - look here's me doing my good deed of the day!
Forgive me for the sarcastic and moody tone of this section, its just something that really annoys me.
So some exciting news, Mweru, our little autistic kid (although not so little - I think he's 6) is going home! Yay!!! He has been here since he was about 2. His Dad brought him to us, since he had to go to jail for some petty crime. When he came back to pick his kid up about 2 years later he found out that he had a problem - wasn't 'normal' and so left and said he would come back and pick him up...but never showed up. But, he's come back now, wanting to take him home, so hopefully tomorrow he will come and take Mweru with him. I just hope that his father actually realises that Mweru is going to a lot of hard work and that he is prepared to care for him properly. Mweru has progressed so much recently - he can even say a few words, I would just hate to see him regress and be poorly treated.
Its common in families here where a mother remarries for her first children to be abandoned because the step-father doesn't want to look after another mans children, that is how so many children are abandoned and they are also abused by the father and even the step-siblings.
We recently acquired some puppies who will become the future guard dogs for the babies home! Its so funny to see the kids reactions to these dogs! They scream so loud even when the dog is a little blob in the distance! All of the kids apparently had a similar reaction to men - except they got a lot better when we had male volunteers come. Now the kids really like having 'uncles' around. So hopefully the kids will get a lot better with the dogs - although it will take a lot of time and patience!!
An interesting story about ugandan mentally:
In the local guest house - the guards robbed a wealthy Mzungu on her way home, the guards seeing that she didn't have alot of money on her tried to make it look like someone else had robbed her and they were just helping her. The owner of the guest house and his friend came running to help the lady who told them that the guards had robbed her. The guards tried to run but Bob the owners friend - who is licensed to carry a gun shot him one of them in the foot. When the police arrived they were very upset and very cross with Bob that he hadn't shot to kill....because now they have more paperwork! Seriously, that is what they said, they weren't cross at the guards or sympathetic just mad that they now had more paperwork to process and no dead bodies!!
A friend told me a story about a girl who had been adopted from India by an American missionary family who then moved to Uganda to continue their missionary work. The girl was about 10 when she arrived in Uganda with her family. Her family then abandoned her here in Uganda after being here only a few weeks, they left her here all on here own and are no where to be found!! Imagine adopting a child who was abandoned at like 3 or 4 and then abandoning that child on their own at 10 years old in a foreign country!! Apparantly they are back in the States but they are hard to track down! How could a family do that to a child, a missionary family?!!!
We celebrated Amani's birthday a few weeks ago, we had a nice meal of rice, stew and cabbage! (nothing out of the ordinary) but it was still delicious! We also had coke!!
I will leave you with an interesting thought: did you know that the nearest place to get a nice piece of beef or even a beefburger is 2 and a half hours away?!!
1) new puppies : ebony and ivory
2) the bow and arrow found in the living room
3) Mweru
4) Mweru
The pre-school is coming on well - I am trying to get some consistency going in the pre-school, and therefore I have written some guidelines for volunteers who want to join me in there. We had one girl in Pre-school, who on her first day here - undermined me in front of all of the kids and one kid in particular. We were playing an alphabet game and Paul one of the kids just sat and did nothing throughout the whole game, then it came time to give out stars, I gave all the kids stars for good work and effort. I didn't give Paul one because he hadn't tried at all, and just sat there mucking about the whole time. So this girl - when she thinks I'm too far away to hear anything says to Paul "Oh Paul, I'm so proud of you, you've done really well, well done for trying"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Are you kidding me?! Paul sat there and did nothing, absolutely nothing...then she is going behind my back, undermining my authority and praising a child for being lazy! It annoys me that people just come here for a few days or for a few hours and start treating the kids like 'poor little orphan kids' who get told off, or who don't get a star. The same girl also in a conversation with some people here said that "I should be more liberal with my star giving"! Oh, sure they're 'poor little orphan kids' - why shouldn't they get a star when they want one - even when they've been really disobedient, been lazy, smacked their friends round the chops, or scratched the new car sitting on the driveway. Hey, lets reward all the 'poor little orphans' even though they've been really really naughty and they all know what they should and shouldn't be doing! They are good kids, but we are not doing them any favours by treating them like 'poor little orphans'. This same girl on a separate occasion asked me if she could give sweets out to the kids who had said their alphabet correctly. I told her that I rather she didn't give sweets out to the kids as a reward because this will only set a precedent, and I don't think that we should be giving kids sweets for something that they should be doing anyway - I mean that's what the star chart system is for - to reward them for effort and good work. So anyway, the next day I ask her if she would be able to take the 'less able' pre-schoolers and work on the alphabet with them. Ten minutes later all the kids come running in with sweets in their mouth telling me that they got them for saying their alphabet!! And it wasn't a well done for saying your alphabet everyone - heres a sweet, it was a you can have a sweet if you tell me your alphabet! So, anyway, just as I had thought the next day for a week all the kids are asking for sweets during pre-school. Anyway, as you can tell this kind of thing really annoys me.
Another thing here that really annoys me, is people treating this kids like monkeys in a zoo, "Ahhh look at all these poor little orphans, aren't they so cute"!!, carrying the 7 year olds around like they're little babies, cuddling a kids whose just been told off for something, it irrates me so much. We had a bunch of americans come here one day, I asked them how they came about being her, and they replied "Well, we had a free day, and we had to choice between going whitewater rafting and coming here, and well lets face it this is the cheaper place"!!! Excuse me? So you're just a tourist here, didn't know what else to do, thought since you're Africa you might as well go and visit an orphanage - after all it seems like the trendy thing to do now a days! Come to Africa - go on a safari - visit an orphanage. We also get people who come in for an hour or two, sit there and take hundreds of photos of orphans - afterall thats all they are to them - they don't sit and cuddle them, they don't ask them their names, they just take some photos, pick maybe one kid up, and then get their friend to take a photo of them holding a kid. And then what do they do? Go home show their friends and family their photos of all these 'poor little orphan kids', oh and look here's one of me holding a kid - look here's me doing my good deed of the day!
Forgive me for the sarcastic and moody tone of this section, its just something that really annoys me.
So some exciting news, Mweru, our little autistic kid (although not so little - I think he's 6) is going home! Yay!!! He has been here since he was about 2. His Dad brought him to us, since he had to go to jail for some petty crime. When he came back to pick his kid up about 2 years later he found out that he had a problem - wasn't 'normal' and so left and said he would come back and pick him up...but never showed up. But, he's come back now, wanting to take him home, so hopefully tomorrow he will come and take Mweru with him. I just hope that his father actually realises that Mweru is going to a lot of hard work and that he is prepared to care for him properly. Mweru has progressed so much recently - he can even say a few words, I would just hate to see him regress and be poorly treated.
Its common in families here where a mother remarries for her first children to be abandoned because the step-father doesn't want to look after another mans children, that is how so many children are abandoned and they are also abused by the father and even the step-siblings.
We recently acquired some puppies who will become the future guard dogs for the babies home! Its so funny to see the kids reactions to these dogs! They scream so loud even when the dog is a little blob in the distance! All of the kids apparently had a similar reaction to men - except they got a lot better when we had male volunteers come. Now the kids really like having 'uncles' around. So hopefully the kids will get a lot better with the dogs - although it will take a lot of time and patience!!
An interesting story about ugandan mentally:
In the local guest house - the guards robbed a wealthy Mzungu on her way home, the guards seeing that she didn't have alot of money on her tried to make it look like someone else had robbed her and they were just helping her. The owner of the guest house and his friend came running to help the lady who told them that the guards had robbed her. The guards tried to run but Bob the owners friend - who is licensed to carry a gun shot him one of them in the foot. When the police arrived they were very upset and very cross with Bob that he hadn't shot to kill....because now they have more paperwork! Seriously, that is what they said, they weren't cross at the guards or sympathetic just mad that they now had more paperwork to process and no dead bodies!!
A friend told me a story about a girl who had been adopted from India by an American missionary family who then moved to Uganda to continue their missionary work. The girl was about 10 when she arrived in Uganda with her family. Her family then abandoned her here in Uganda after being here only a few weeks, they left her here all on here own and are no where to be found!! Imagine adopting a child who was abandoned at like 3 or 4 and then abandoning that child on their own at 10 years old in a foreign country!! Apparantly they are back in the States but they are hard to track down! How could a family do that to a child, a missionary family?!!!
We celebrated Amani's birthday a few weeks ago, we had a nice meal of rice, stew and cabbage! (nothing out of the ordinary) but it was still delicious! We also had coke!!
I will leave you with an interesting thought: did you know that the nearest place to get a nice piece of beef or even a beefburger is 2 and a half hours away?!!
1) new puppies : ebony and ivory
2) the bow and arrow found in the living room
3) Mweru
4) Mweru
Sunday, 23 September 2007
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