Asanti Sana (Thank you very much-in Swahili)

This is our last night in Uganda. It's been an amazing journey. Our Safe Birth Project has been even more successful than we'd imagined. We are very proud of our students who will continue to implement the Home Based Life Saving Skills training with 8 new students starting next week. This will be their 2nd training since we first started the program with them only two weeks ago! We were pleasantly surprised at how we were welcomed, accepted and valued by the community of True Vine as well as the surrounding community that also participated in the training.

We are so excited to come home, but know that Uganda will always be in our hearts. Thank you to all who have helped us come to Uganda and impact this community more than you will ever know.

We hope you have enjoyed sharing in this experience.

Lala Salama (Sleep Well - Swahili)

Juba

Today we went with the Hope4Kids team to Juba, a village near Tororo. We were entertained by delightful children at the Vision Nursery School. They're energy was infectious and the drums made us want to dance. There was no shortage of small hands that wanted to be held. They claimed their "person" and stuck like glue. It made leaving challenging as everyone had children firmly attached.

The M&Ms have arrived (thank you Lisa!) oh yeah, Jennifer and the team, too. Now we are not the only "white folks" (or Muzungus as Africans call us) in town. Our temporary status as "Rock Stars" has now diminished.

People are meeting their sponsored sons and daughters (Hope4Kids program). Debi's son, Eddie, is coming from where he's attending University. He's about to graduate with a teaching degree. This was a boy who was unwanted by his mother and would have been a "street kid" without a future. Marianne has a new son named Jordan. The soccer ball she brought to him broke all language barriers as his ear to ear grin spoke volumes. Marianne is in love.

Jennifer met her new daughter, Josephine. Even though Josephine is 8 years old, she is only in kindergarden as she has not had resources to attend school. The sponsorships make a huge difference for these children enabling them to attend school, have uniforms, shoes, mosquito nets, free medical care, mattresses and knowledge that they are special and cared for.

Passing the Torch

Yesterday we went to observe/mentor the students we had trained. They successfully (and very quickly) mobilized 10 traditional birth attendants for their first class. One of our students secured the location for training in a health clinic about 8 miles from here in an area called Osukuru.

We were impressed with the interest and interactive discussions in English, Swahili and Japaola. The newly minted trainers surpassed our expectations and embraced their roles as master trainers. They acted as if they were veteran trainers.

We gave them tools in that assist in conveying important, simple, life-saving information in a culturally adaptive format. They were very successful with incorporating the "adult learning" principles we offered. Women shared their ideas freely and seemed excited to be a part of this new community education program. They already had brainstormed ideas such as forming a group of birth attendants to help get the message out to women in their areas.

There were women in the waiting room of the clinic who had heard (through "bush telegraph") what was going on and wanted to be a part. THIS is the heart of the program, having this information spread throughout their communities. This energy in the community encourages us that our trip was worthwhile and that this project will continue to flourish after we're gone.

Missing photos

Sorry about the loss of pictures from the blog. They were there and then they weren't. We've tried to locate the problem, but the answer is eluding us. There are lots of posts on the help menu of others who have lost their images, too, so we're not alone. We may go back and re-post, but it takes so much air time here to upload photos that we may wait and re-post some of them when we get home.

Smile Africa

Saturday we went to see a partner of Hope4kids here in Uganda called Smile Africa. Smile Africa has nothing to do with dental care and everything to do with caring for the most vulnerable women and children in this culture.

Pastor Ruth started with a piece of land and a desire to care for the children of the Karamajong tribe who had migrated from Northern Uganda where there was a war. These people had nowhere to go. She started taking the kids to her property during the day and feeding them while their parents were in the dump trying to get food. The tribe is a despised tribe in this country, something akin to gypsies in our country, without education or social skills.

This ministry has come a long way. Pastor Ruth showed us children who had been starved and burned by their parents. There are now 40 children living at the property. We arrived in time to watch the babies sitting in front of a plate of rice and special nutrients for malnourished children.

Those babies can really pack away the food!! There are a total of about 300-400 children who are fed there daily.

Lunch always tastes better when you use both hands.

Pastor Ruth also helps women in the community who don't have the skills necessary to work and support their families. There is a craft store with items hand made by the women. This is a microfinance project which supports many of the women. We assisted with supporting these women, the crafts were hard to resist.

Pastor Ruth's mother lives on the property and we visited her in her home. She even adopted us all as daughters (except Lylaine who she adopted as a sister). She took off her scarf to show us her white hair.

Here's a few pictures of children you can see around the campus.

It's not going to happen

We finished the training today, more than a week ahead of schedule. Our students were so interested and motivated and incredibly appreciative. The idea of this training is to teach how to teach. We challenged them to think about who they will train next and how a budget could work. They are planning to train 10 traditional birth attendants from around the area. Traditional birth attendants do not have any formal training, only what they have learned "on the job".

Transportation is a huge issue here, gas costs about $6 per gallon in a country where the average income is less than $1 a day. So for them to be able to get their students in the same place, and for 2 trainers to teach them will involve paying for transportation, food, etc. We are excited that they want to continue the program and plan a Safe Birth Project fund for their future.

We learned in the training that for now, women resting after the birth IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. Talking with their husbands about family planning IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. Waiting to resume their sexual relationship for 6 weeks after the birth IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. But our students are hopeful that, slowly, things can change.

Three of our hard working members are planning to go see the silver back gorillas in Western Uganda. Trying to get things arranged has been a challenge, something akin to "if it can go wrong, it will". We had to drive over an hour to go to the bank that was supposed to be able to wire money for the trip. Needless to say, it was not possible. On the way we encountered a circumcision parade. There was a group of drunken men, including the recipients of the circumcision ritual, who were dancing, singing and playing musical instruments on the side of the road. It turns out that circumcision for this particular tribe is not an option and that young men ages 15-20 are circumcised. Aren't we glad that we live in the USA!!!

Buns in the oven

We awoke this morning to another beautiful Ugandan morning after experiencing rains again during the night. I'm now able to sleep through the 3:00am and 4:00am wake up calls from the rooster near by and I no longer lay awake looking for geckos in my room. We have adapted to our routine of boiling water for our baths and adjusting to our diet of rice and beans.

Our teaching today went well and we are learning so much from our participants. Liz did an excellent job of modeling a woman giving birth. After her labor and pushing out a sweet baby, in Ugandan tradition, she hopped right up and went back to her work in the kitchen making some delicious buns.

Lylaine and I spent part of the day with a woman in labor in the clinic . You will be able to see from the photographs how primitive this environment is and lacking in supplies.

The Ugandans have told us that "too many children" is the biggest problem women face here. Our new friend we met laboring today, Caroline, was having her 7th baby. Early in the labor she said "I want family planning now". Unfortunately, her labor became dysfunctional and she had to be referred to the district hospital in Tororo. Referral was a topic discussed in class today. It is a big issue in Uganda as women need to pay for their own transportation to healthcare visits and facilities. Finding funds is challenging for many families as they must go long distances and travel is expensive. Most need to hire cars or motorcycle taxis to get around. We are beginning to feel that the program we are introducing here is so needed and will make a difference saving lives of mothers and babies.

Happy to report our plumbing issues are in the past and now we have 3 working bathrooms (so spoiled). AND we are cautiously optimistic about the possibility of hot water tonight.

Making babies is fun!

Day one of our training finally begins! We had 7/8 participants arrive this morning at 9am, with the final person arriving in the afternoon. The decision was made to have the training sessions here at the guest house as it is very open, comfortable and in the same area as the hospital where it was originally planned to take place. (Besides the fact that we have 3 "western" bathrooms available!)

Today part of the training involved making babies. They are fabric dolls in which the participants chose buttons for eyes, hair for the babies, and they're even complete with umbilical cord and placenta! They are perfect teaching tools for them to use for their future training courses in the community. The best part of this was that there are 3 men participating in this training, and they were the most involved in the "baby making process" (suprise, suprise).

Here are pictures of the class making their babies.

We feel as though today went very well and received great comments on the daily evaluations from participants. They seemed to be more comfortable in the new setting and were more involved in the discussions.

We look forward to another great day tomorrow. As we wind up our day, an evening monsoon looms over the land. Lots of lightening and of course, thunder.

That's all for now, as we are all exhausted from making babies!

You may be wondering...

So, for those of you who may be wondering, we really have done some work while we are here. The project training officially begins on Monday morning, and we have 8 Master Trainers that are participating to start the Home Based Life Saving Skills project here in Uganda. We have found that we are starting off a little less prepared than we thought, but the community people are very receptive to our being here and we are giving it our 100%. After preparing training booklets for each of the trainer participants, we had to sort the 200+ teaching cards for each of them. Wow, what job!

Our preliminary orientation with the participants went fairly well, and they all were in agreement that mother and infant mortality was something that needs to be addressed. Healthcare access is very difficult as they cannot receive any treatment without payment. Therefore, many die. It appears that this program could make a significant impact on the lives saved, not to mention the community hospital run by True Vine Ministries. We look forward to seeing the progression of the project and helping the participants embrace the vision of Home Based Life Saving Skills.

I do have to say, however, getting any work done around here is very difficult because of these beautiful "distractions"!!

The children's boarding school is right over the wall of our guest house, and there is an estimated 180 children who are currently boarding, several sponsored by Hope4Kids. They LOVE to watch us and greet us. The little girls will bow on one knee while the boys bow their heads to greet. It's so sweet. It's definitely a new experience to have babies cry and toddlers run away behind their mothers' skirts because they are afraid of the "Mozungoo" (white person).

More to come later!

Edna

Middle of the Night Mopping Party

So...after spending HOURS preparing materials and planning for our training day, we fell into bed around 1:00 AM. Just as sleep was about to enfold us, Liz woke us up with a panic alert that her bathroom was flooding. By the time we managed to get up and go look, there was Lake Victoria in her bedroom, flooding under the bed. The faucet in the bathroom had broken a connection and was spouting water everywhere.

We all got up, tried to assess the situation, grabbed towel, mops, buckets, brooms, anything that looked like it might help scoop up water. Edna actually managed to stem the flow a bit while Debi and I got a flashlight and trekked across the campus to see whose light might be on. (Cell phone attempts were not reaching anyone.) We searched all around the house for shut off valves to no avail. We found other things like frogs, but no valve. Finally, we managed to awaken a poor couple who had (unfortunately) kept a light on inside their house. He took us to find the security guard who came and knew where the valve was.

It was buried under mud, so we NEVER would have found it. Finally, after doing all we could to sop up water, we fell back into bed (laughing hysterically). Seemed like a slumber party gone South...

RIP Lady Di

We are fortunate to have a wonderful woman preparing meals for us and introducing us to African cuisine. Today Debi, Lylaine and I went to the market, shopping list in hand with Sylvester our driver. After finding everything in the market, the last thing on our list was chicken. There definitely is NO frozen food dept. in an African market. So past the fruits and vegetables we went to the live chickens.

Sylvester picked up a plump red one and negotiated a price. Off we went Sylvester carrying our chicken, the three of us a little traumatized and vowing to be vegetarian. She was a sweet little chicken whom we bonded with (after releasing the bonds tying her feet together). We even gave her a name, Lady Di(short for Dinner), and allowing her to escape the afternoon monsoon in the house.

3:00PM

Sadly, after a last meal of watermelon (thanks to Liz) she has succumbed to her destiny. See picture below. She is our main course tomorrow, unless we keep our vegetarian vow. Somehow it seems we are much closer to our food sources here...

6:00 PM

Rest In Peace, Lady Di. (sniff)

HELP!

For anyone coming to Uganda soon (e.g. Jennifer Farrell), please bring M & M's.

Finally from Africa

After months of planning, exhausting hours of traveling and securing of technology here we are. We are finally able to update our blog and let you know we have arrived and started our project. We've met with the training participants, set out a plan and will begin our training on Monday. So much has happened in 5 days. We have had a wonderful time orienting to the culture, geography and weather.

When we woke up in Entebbe with monkeys swinging from the trees, we knew we weren't in Phoenix anymore. And as we drove on the highway on our way to Tororo and saw baboons, we knew we weren't on the I-17. Goats, cows and chickens roam everywhere. The people are beautiful...inside and out. They must be some of the friendliest people on the planet. They have graciously cared for us in the nicest lodging around. We have electricity, running water and indoor plumbing. The showers are cold, but we have 3 of them. Well, 2 working ones, anyway.

We have 2 women "in charge" of our food needs. We're learning lots about how Africans cook their food. Let's just say, none of us wants to have our cholesterol checked anytime soon after we return. We should have had a clue when we went shopping and they wanted the gallon size of cooking oil. The market is fascinating. There are lots of fresh fruits and vegetables...some we recognize, others we're learning about. The pineapple is outstanding, better than Hawaii! It's actually quite a culinary adventure.

Our fear of mosquitoes and malaria materialized when we thought we saw a bat, but it was actually a mosquito. Seriously, the bats eat the mosquitoes and we all have buckets of repellant. Plus it's the rainy season (it actually hailed yesterday) and they're numbers are down with cooler nighttime temperatures.

Hopefully, now that we have our technology sorted, will be posting often. Stay tuned...