Sunday we went to Bison village where most of the Smile kids live and three of the teachers live. Teacher Teddy served us a meal at about 1pm, Budesta served us a meal at about 2pm and Teacher Selvia served us a meal at 3:30ish. Here is a picture of the meal at Teddy’s AFTER we had eaten…..didnt even make a dent. ![]()
All three meals were this size or may have even gotten bigger with each meal…at least it seemed that way! Later that night we went to Agnus and Jeffrey’s house. They are apart of the small group bible study that Bri has been attending and go to the church we have attended 2 out of our 3 Sundays here so far. They were a very lovely couple. Monday night we took some of the staff at Smile out for supper at a nice restaurant. We entertained them by singing some American songs…it started out with me and another girl singing “God Bless the USA” by Lee Greenwood (other joined in too) and they thought that was our national anthem. Therefore, we had to sing them our national anthem. None of us are the best of singers and it was at a pretty nice hotel/restaurant…they probably think Americans are crazy. We were going to try to shoot off fireworks too but didn’t get the ok with the police and Pastor Ruth yet. Tuesday Meghann arrived J She will be here for 6 months so pray she have the endurance and energy to stay here for the 6 months. Thursday, Meghann and I took 2 kids from Smile to The AIDS Support Organization (TASO). They just need to have their medication refilled. While I was waiting for the medication to be dispensed I was thinking about the little girl who had just been given to Smile when we arrived. She is HIV positive like the two boys we took but she looked absolutely miserable when we arrived but now that she is on medication she smiles, she has energy, and is VERY cuddly J She is 3 years old but she looks like she is 1 so hopefully now that she is on medication she will start to grow too J Thursday was a great day because the rice packages from Feed My Starving Chidren arrived! The government has had it in storage for the last half year and we were not allowed to touch it so it is an answer to prayers that we received the rice on Thursday. The kids flocked the trucks when they came into the grounds. It was so great to see the kids yelling “Rice, rice” as the trucks entered. It was so precious and kind of broke my heart that they were so excited about rice..something I would not be excited about. But God is faithful and loyal. Friday was a crazy day…a bunch of people from Iowa came and hung out with the kids during the day and two people taught CPR and first aid to all the staff members. It was very interesting to see them teach CPR with American Heart Association videos for America…a lot of things were not relevant to Uganda and I hope it did not offend the staff. The rest of the group just loved on the children and attempted to set up stations in which some kids played games, some sang, and some received crowds. This did not stay organized very long once they hauled out the stickers for the crowns. I was overwhelmed by the children demanding they have another sticker and we could see it on the groups face that they had created chaos. They also gave ever child a shirt to wear. This process went a little better because we first organized them into rows and had 5 kids go get a shirt at a time. It was great to see new clothes on the kids and for some kids it was the first time I saw clothing on them. However, some parent take the new clothes and sell them in the market or keep the clothes until Christmas and give them to the children as gifts. I pray the kids still have their clothes on Monday. Eric has become a little pistol. He has been going to other people this week but still would rather be by himself than play with the other kids. To get him over this stage I have brought him to the big cement pad where the kids have nursery class and eat, but sat right next to him. He will crawl into my lap and I will hug him and put him next to me again. He then either find another person on my team to sit on or lays his head on my lap then. But if any other kid even touches me he slaps them. We are not suppose to tap their hands and he just smiles at me when I tell him ‘no.’ He does share his water though…He attempted to let Palo have a drink the other day and almost drowned the poor baby because he tilted the bottle too much. Oh Eric…so cute but naughty! But aren’t most 3 year olds? Saturday we attended an introduction. It really is hard to explain all the details of the ceremony other than it lasts about 6 hours and is kind of like a proposal yet a formal introduction of the bride to be’s parents to the groom to be’s parents. The groom was from Norway and only 4 of his relatives came so they recruited our team to be his “sisters.” We got all dressed up in the African dress and everything. It was an interesting thing to see but very long at times. Bri and Amanda leave on Monday so pray for the their transitions back to home. I cant believe my time here is almost half over. It is bitter sweet feeling...kind of miss things at home yet I love the children so much. I'm really enjoying my new roommate Meghann yet excited to have my new roommates at school too...I am really nervous about starting the school year for many different reasons so pray that the transition home goes well and school and be something I look forward to instead of dread. We also were not able to get a safari booked so next weekend we will be white water rafting instead.
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