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
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