head, shoulders, knees and toes....

1. I am SO-OH over evangalism and my ability to bite my tongue is gone. God help the next one, just let it be a muzungu rather than a Ugandan.
2. I gave Eric the skipping rope I got him to thank him for helping me with kickball. He looked like a little kid on Christmas morning. priceless.
3. Timing is a funny thing.
4. It's moving week for the health clinic (and thus my office!). We will pack all week and this weekend move out to the trading centre in a village about 15km out of town. I will travel out maybe once or twice a week.
5. 92 children is WAY too many. but fun too. hmm, which is it?
6. my report is finally done! Apparently there is a tiny bit of a procrastinator in me. how did I ever write papers every week for school?
7. My dear friend Judy has moved to Lira (about an hour or so away), sad to not see her, but she will come back for my birthday!
8. I went to see the beaders and my necklaces are not done yet. Was a bit frustrated, though I have beyond enough time to get them. Sarah tells me she is giving me only the perfect beads. I think she might have a tiny bit of procrastinator in her too.
9. Rwanda might just be a fun idea in theory but not practice. 16 hours on a bus for two days in Kigali just isn't a fair trade. Plus the $50 to get back into Uganda.
10. I got lots of baby time Saturday with my 4 month old neighbor, Martha, at church. she slept on my lap the whole time and on my back on the way to church.
11. I have NEVER seen people dance as much as I did last night when I went by to see Sarah about beads. Wow. Nice to see people so joyful. Not so frozen chosen as us Presbyterians at home.
12. This week: visiting a therapeutic ropes course wednesday while a group goes through, beading thursday with the ladies, packing the clinic, friday day trip to labora technical school (where wissit did work last year)

Almost july! whhhhhhhhat?
nakupenda

Fabric, Change, and Rwanda!

Hope you got a chance to see some pictures on facebook, I will work on getting more up. mom requested to see my flat and more of gulu- just hate feeling like a tourist snapping pictures in town, but I will suck it up and take a few. There sure are enough other muzungu here, not really tourists but a lot of short term (like 2-3 week people) it seems. That will be my weekend project.

The week has gone quickly, despite being sick sunday and monday. Thank you cipro, you are a wonder drug! Been working more on my report this week and some other letters and reports. Got some fabric and set my seamstress up for a few weeks worth of sewing! had to pay more than I wanted for one fabric since the mego wouldnt come down at all on the price, so I just changed the dress design and bought less. suppose thats what I get for being oh so picky with my fabric.

This past weekend kickball went well. Eric was sick and my one trusty coach who always shows up was late. BUT I made due and got them started. I think I even successfully lectured them about the ball that went missing from the storage place last week. Although I got Rashid (the coach) to tell them again at the end. I bought them a really nice, expensive soccer ball, but was hesitant to give it to them since the other ball disappeared. I took it with me when I left, telling them that if the kickball was still there next week, I'd consider leaving the football for them to play with during the week. Also, was very clear I need to buy a netball (kinda like a volleyball, but the game is like basketball) for the girls and a few really cheap balls for the little kids. Gotta get Eric to go with me for those to get the good price.

Just calling Eric knocked 20,000 shillings off the soccer ball price. And while we were in the sports shop he looked at a jump rope he really wants, so now I know something to get him to say thank you for his help! perfect! The english lesson didnt go so well as the boys were cutting up and eric nor rashid were there to help focus them. Rashid did help me talk to them about manners, mainly please and thank you, and so we will test their skills next week with sweets. (I got busy and didnt get to get them in time for last week! opps!) But I think they said please and thank you to me 30 times practicing last week, so hopefully they've got it. Just can't be shy and the little ones probably wont know. We will review. I also asked Rashid if he was still interested in teaching the kids traditional dancing and drumming, so he will do a bit of that this coming week, which will be exciting to see. I think I will also bring the splash balls and teach them to play splish, splish, splash (think duck, duck, goose but with a drip or a full squeeze of the splash balls) since they have mastered duck duck goose!
Then will be health week. Gotta wash those hands good!

I had a big discussion with Hellen today about starting a new partnership with world vision that is essentially the same as the heifer partnership. she argues its nutrition, I argue its agriculture and focused on livelihoods not health and thus outside of the mission of the NGO. We went round and round and it doesnt matter who is right, what it comes down to is the core business (the clinic) is struggling and has the potential to do so well if there were time and effort put in to it (well and money but thats another story) instead of time going to all the other partnerships. The reports for each partnership, the meetings, the overseeing, the budgeting, etc etc just drains away from the very clear health program, the clinic. Do one thing, and do it well.

Clinics in Gulu dont have patient charts. Meaning each time you go in they have no idea what your history is, how often theyve seen you, what you might have had recently, nada. the NGO has the ability and desire to offer this, thus offering the best service possible and just quality care. These people have had camp life, they have been hearded here and there, run through clinic and world food program lines for years. now how about they get the care they need, rather than just a quick fix for whatever is wrong this week or month. also, family planning, deworming, immunizations function on a schedule. a monthly, annual, decade basis of need. How can you give these without keeping record of when a patient was last seen? kids get deworming every month because they like the orange flavored tablets, yet the supply runs out so the kids who actually need it cant get it and the total number of kids served is greatly reduced because the take it when they dont need it yet.

evaluation is hard, change is harder. you see a need and you want to fix it, but why half fix or make a tiny dent in one problem when you can really answer a full need if you stick to one area. The clinic is moving locations on 1 July. Waaaaaaaay out to one of the village trading centres. there is no health clinic here and thus the need is great. this is the perfect time to streamline services and make changes, I just hope it works out that way, for the sake of the new community that will be served.

Will go check on my bead order friday, see how its coming along and just check in with the ladies. might add a few to the order as it seems people are excited about them! yay! the more support the better, but I will get the extra from the women who meet out in the village. Give them a little business too since they were angry the last time even though they were late.

I think Martha, her best friend, and I will be traveling to Kigali Rwanda in a few weeks for a long weekend! I am excited to see what its like and to go to the genocide memorial. Ive seen the movie, read about it, seen the trials of the officers in the international criminal court in tanzania, and now will go where it happened. well, the city at least. is about a 10 hour bus ride from kampala and Martha has friends we can stay with, what other way would anyone want to go to Rwanda (okay, to gorilla trek but I dont have an extra $1,200 lying around). maybe they have fanta passion?? fingers crossed!

All in all, things are going well. Need to crank out the last bit of this report and discuss it with Hope before the end of the month. Wissit is home today, I believe, so will be fun reconnecting with her and I ran into the other social work student from er boston maybe? and am anxious to meet with her and hear about her work. Hope all is well where you are!
Take Luck!

pictures

so blogger hates to upload apparently so there are pictures on facebook, here is the public link (you do not need facebook to see them!)
more to come, as soon as i feel better.... musta eaten something, but taking my cipro and will be better soon!!

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.869072899078.2371616.29701857&l=826108e648

Is it really friday tomorrow?? where has this week gone? gotten a decent amount of work done on my evaluation report, but still got a bit to go. No power is hard. Spent monday in the coffee hut with the millions of white people in gulu doing work because there was no power at home. Was a bit odd to be around so many muzungu, wasnt a huge fan but the mango smoothie and sausages were nice! i also went by to see the beaders monday afternoon and was surprised to see another white girl there, apparently she also buys from them. She works for a US NGO who deals exclusively in beads. and i thought they had no market....
Talked to Hope about it and she told me that the group in town has many markets, its the group out at Agonga in the village that has no market. The group kinda is all one, but not really. This is a shame because I really like Sarah, but Id also like to support them women who really need it. But ive already ordered with Sarah so I need to follow through. maybe if the bead store comes through I can get those from Agonga. In the end, the clinic gets 10% of the sales regardless of where they are made, so that at least is good.
Tuesday Hope arrived to Gulu with a brand new copy machine that was donated to the NGO. This will be really nice to have and can also generate some income for the NGO. i also learned tuesday that in partnership with Heifer International, the NGO would close the partnership with a big event where 15 calves would be passed, um the next day! hello short notice! I didnt have to do anything for the event other than be present, so that was good.
So wednesday, out we went, on ugandan time of course, and i was given a sweet Heifer t-shirt that has acholi writing on the back that im stoked about and got to help present the cows... which actually was highly humorous since ive never been around a cow and i was a bit nervous and it chased me a bit. needless to say everyone laughed. there was also traditional dancing, which was pretty cool and then hellen made me dance when they did the courtship dance for our age group. again, everyone laughed at the mono dancing! but it was fun. The girls dance in one line and the boys play calabash bowls and when the girl sees a boy playing well she dances towards him then he stops playing and dances with her. or she sees one she likes... it was pretty cool to see a lil traditional saturday night village activity. all in all a fun day!
today i didnt feel great and took it easy. went into the clinic for a few hours but didnt find hellen there and did just a spot of work before coming home. martha soon came home since there was no power an she couldnt do any work and so we hung out for the afternoon. was good.
this weekend i might go to kampala with martha but might stay here, cant decide what i want to do.
all in all things are well. going tomorrow to upload photos and will get a big photo montage up then!

kickball a success!

WOW! quick post to share that 65 kids turned up this afternoon for kickball! I arrived before eric and the youth coaches and sat with many many eyes looking at me. After waiting a bit, i learned that the kids could speak a bit of english when one of the boys came to tell me the ball (a few of them were playing soccer) fell in the toilet. lol. i was confused, but soon found out that a big ditch behind the carport is a toilet. They fished it out and i told them to go wash it at the water pump on the property. they didnt and continued playing. I went through the ABCs with them, which are posted on the wall of the centre and then one of the coaches turned up. he helped me try to get them to do the sounds, but the whole phonics of letters is missing. will be a good thing to teach them, esp with so many little ones. once eric arrived, we talked about leaders and then played follow the leader. the liked it a lot. then eric lead another game, basically simon says ish, but they loved it. then we started kickball.
there were about 30 young kids so eric got them started playing a game they could play then we started kickball. i kinda went back and forth with the little ones and the kickball ones. really, without eric, it couldnt have gone nearly as smooth. a lot of the kids from last week came back so most of the boys knew how to play, which was good. by next week we should be able to just make two teams and play. I taught the young ones to play duck duck goose which they liked and also did the hokey pokey. was struggling to think of other simple games/songs. too many days since kindergarten!
i gave them all crayons as they left, giving the ones in preschool a whole box since its something they need for school and the rest 8 crayons. one boy complained he didnt like the colors and eric took them all back and told him if he wasnt happy with what he had he wouldnt have any. loved it. Also the p2 students pushed and shoved to line up and eric called them from the back first, teaching them to not push to be first. he is so good with them, small little lessons interjected here and there.
i anticipate more if not at least the 65 again next week. really hoping eric will keep coming, he seems keen, but i know he has other responsibilities. he starts uni in august in kampala, was telling me today about buying his books. he rode his bicycle out to the village so he could ride back with me. loved riding my bike out there, though 54 boxes of crayons was heavy heavy on my back.
all in all, very successful. i took some pictures but came seem to upload them on this laptop at home. will try to add some from the clinic computer or stop by the human rights focus where i still have some internet time.
happy weekend everyone!
one month until my ugandan birthday celebration!!

good week : )

this week has been good, if I am being truthful, I am amazed at how quickly 5 weeks has passed! I have done a fair amount of work this week and stayed decently busy, which is nice. Tuesday, 4 americans from Denver came to the clinic to visit. They are working with Partners Worldwide are were all from a church, looking for NGOs to partner with. It was interesting to hear Hellen talk about the NGO and what they are doing, knowing we are in a big evaluation period and Hope has agreed to a six month freeze of new programs and partnerships to evaluate where the NGO is going. (thank goodness... its much needed!)
The crew is interested in doing medical missions to do immunization, which is pretty dead on with what the nurse does a few times a month. They also had been looking for a paper bead supplier for 3 years. We arranged for them to return on wednesday to meet the women's group the NGO formed and buy beads from them. I was excited about this too since I had planned to bring beads back. I spent the afternoon with them visiting different villages the NGO works in and doing the best I could to paint the evaluation picture that I could, complete with a possible scaling back and refocusing on the part of the NGO. Their leader, a staff member from partners worldwide in Kampala commended me for the work im doing and said he was glad to see the NGO evaluating and really working out what it can best do thats focused, as he sees them as dabbling in a lot but not really making a huge impact in any area. So that was great to hear.
They asked me for suggestions on lunch and not ever eating out, all i could direct them to was coffee hut- where all the muzungu go. We had a nice lunch, cheeseburgers all around. i hadnt had cheese in 5 weeks and only ground beef one when i first arrived in gulu. Was a nice treat. I helped them buy airtime and put it on their phones and helped them with dialing home. Funny how I must have learned all of this at some point but dont remember when- probably in belfast in part...
The next morning I arrived at the clinic to greet the beaders and help them set things up for the group to buy. I was amazed when after 2 minutes of arriving, they approached me about buying it all. we are talking like 500 necklaces, if not more and about 100 bracelets. I told them to hold off, and wait to see what transpired. We then moved from here to the church where some of the women prepare their beads. other women met us there and we were about 20 in all. They showed us how they cut the paper, which is donated or bought in Kampala, told us about how they take the paper to be dyed at a local printers, then rolled for different sizes and strung. the amount of beads before us was doubled as more women arrived and laid out their loot.
strings were counted, bulk prices were negotiated, and the crew left with about $1000 worth of beads to be sold over the year at their church and through bead parties. They plan to return each year for supply (they come to gulu each year anyway) and to have more shipped mid year if need be.
The NGO, having started and supported this group, gets 10% of the profit from each market that come by way of the NGO. This ill be used to run the clinic. I also put in an advanced order with Sarah, the mego (mama) who seems to be in charge and with very good english. She told me about her recent trip to the US and galapagos islands where she taught people to make the beads. very good. I also got a very friendly price. They bead every MWF and I will stop by once a week I think to hang out and possibly learn some sweet beading skills. I am planning to have a party when I get back, like beadsforlife, but with beads from women I know. I also have contacted The Bead Store, a small shop in Carr Mill Mall about any interest they may have in stocking Ugandan paper beads. Would be fun to see them in a store and to have a continuous market for the women. So, be prepared for a late summer party to buy some sweet beads! for those of you who know the market (anne... mom...) Im bringing 3 string solid, multi, and long multi. any requests, just ask. I can pretty much hand choose color and style or if they dont have it, get them to make it. big time excited! it will be paper beads all around! :)
the babies are all falling sick, the rainy season is tough here. There is almost constant crying in the clinic as someone or another is feeling awful or getting a shot. We had a tiny tiny baby admitted tuesday night with malaria and pnemonia that they werent sure would make it through the night. She has since been discharged as is much better! Hellens daughter as well is quite sick and was coughing and sneezing all over. hand sani it is!
Martha spoiled me this week with ice cream multiple times, apples!, and amazing pork and potato roasties yesterday! yumm! between that and the burger at coffee hut, which the partners worldwide treated me to, I think ive put back on a few of the pounds ive lost. I have also gotten a bit more comfy riding the bicycle to work! did i tell you it showed up fixed, despite arguing and getting 60% of my money back adn being told it couldnt be fixed? oh silly gulu.
Wissit texted from the UK and my laptop and staw hat package have arrived! in about a weeks time they will be here in Uganda. Ive gotten a huge chunk of internet time and get to spend more time on skype, which makes merry all around. all in all, things are going quite well!
hope you can say the same!
take luck my loves
nakupenda sana....

oh Gulu.... get it together for me please!

Been a couple days and feel like a lot, yet not a lot, has happened. In latest news with my soon to be ready bike- yes, I know I said that two weeks ago, that’s what I was told. The bike has been returned unrepaired and I’ve been told the man couldn’t get tires that fit. He has, however, failed to return the 50,000 shillings Ive paid him for the work, despite many prompts. As well, he has stopped turning up at his stand presumably in order to avoid Hellen and I and giving the money back. He is about today though and when Hellen gets back, we will track him down. I’ve joked that I will put a sign outside his stand that says don’t give me money, I cheat people and don’t fix bikes. But ive learned my lessons- don’t give anyone money until the work is done and go price supplies myself, even if I get the muzungu price.

Saturday kickball went well. We had about 25 kids turn up, many of which were too young. Eric, the most amazing help ever!, came and helped me teach the older ones to play. They slowly got it and it was fun. The more kids we have the better it will be as it was pretty hard to play outfield with 6 people. Hopefully next week they will come, I gave them cool patterned pencils to bribe them a bit to come back. Thinking this week ill give them crayons and maybe in a few weeks some candy. Sad that I have to bribe them to come! I think Eric had the most fun of all, lol. Was exceptionally hot and my kinda gross heat rash that has been confined to my left hand and my right wrist is now all up under my chin and neck. WORST. Hoping to stay cool and get rid of it soon. Problem is once is started it will come back. Cant wait for my big straw hat to come in my package from home!

Saturday I went to the market to find Vicky (my fundi- seamstress) to get my skirt ive been chasing all week. As I got there, the road was blocked and there were people everywhere. I wasn’t sure I wanted to get in the mix, not knowing what was going on. There were two police bodas blocking the road. I walked around the edge towards the walkway I needed into the market and asked a man along the edge. He told me a man had been knocked by a car and they think hes dead. Why, I ask you, does one have to look? Is it the disbelief that makes us furrow our brow and turn our heads? Is it concern? Is it sheer curiosity? Whatever it is, I turned to see jeans and barefeet from under the front of the truck. Thankfully that was all my curiosity needed and I headed deep into the market to find Vicky. She caught me on my way in, telling me she had been away in Kampala for the week visiting family and my skirt would be done Monday. So, today I will go. Lets hope she has it or I’m going to begin to think everyone is against me and my money is all out of my control. Although, I haven’t paid Vicky yet, just bought the fabric from a different Mego (mama or woman).

I sat around and tried to cool down Saturday afternoon. Jackie was doing the washing and cleaning, but I was dying for a shower. I cooled down reading on the couch. Saturday night martha’s friend came over and I could tell there was some history there so I hung out for a bit then went to bed when the conversation turned to why Martha wasn’t interested. I woke up around 4.15 to a woman screaming outside. We are talking blood curdling, yelling, a man yelling, more screaming and crying. I was wide awake in seconds. I assumed she was being raped, but couldn’t fathom in my head how this was happening where I could here it this loud and no one on the street was doing anything. I hoped that maybe I was assuming wrongly and that it was just some argument or something. In the morning Martha woke me up with the surprise that power was back on and I asked her about it. She said that unfortunately the woman was probably being raped and I’d been right. Not sure how I feel about this. Gives me this pit in my stomach that I heard it and lay paralyzed in my bed. (not that I could have done anything or would have been safe to do anything). Police here just isn’t the same. Mark made me promise I wouldn’t go to the bar just up the road from us when I told him and I wouldn’t go there anyway. Much less be out at 4.15, I don’t even go out after dark unless im with Martha and we are driving somewhere. As I walked the street outside my house (granted it’s the kampala road, the biggest road out of town), I couldn’t help but think somewhere there was a woman trying to deal with what happened to her last night. Depressed yet?

Sunday, Martha and I went to Lira (about an hour away) to visit her family and get outta Gulu for the first time in 3 weeks. We took the ‘shortcut’ there, a long dirt road that was surprisingly smooth until we caught up with the road crew and drove over/around huge dirt piles that were to be smoothed down to even the road. Along the way, we passed by Marthas high school. It is one of the top high schools in the country and Martha told me about being in boarding school. We decided to stop since she hadn’t been back since changing schools in 2000. The school was exceptionally nice and reminded me of summer camp, lol. Although with the insane amounts of studying they do, im sure its not even close. Was interesting to see though. Classes are about 50 students and they all have PILES of books on their desks. We just don’t study like that in the US.

(just went and argued with the bicycle man- got 26,000 back and am waiting on more…)

We then went to Martha’s parents house for a lunch of posha (the acholi word for ugali- think fine fine ground grits made into like a dough) and beans. Now, beans make posha bearable because they are similar textures and just kinda blur together. Her parents were nice and a lot like Martha. They spoke in acholi about family issues and translated a bit for me. Otherwise, I just relaxed. We came home late and I enjoyed the trees along the road. We also passed what Martha called an alligator- think like a giant iguanaish lizard. It was in the middle of the road and Martha who fears lizards like I fear snakes slammed on the brakes, swearing if she knocked it, it would crawl up in to the car and get her. Ah I know this irrational fear well! I sometimes think snakes will crawl up the toilet and get me! We stopped and bought mangos bigger than my hands and my window was attacked with women with babies asking for money and then a very persistant only man telling me he had no teeth and I had to give him money. I locked the door just in time, he started trying to open it just as I reached for the lock. Little nerve wracking. Then he went to marthas open door where she was buying mango and tangerines and continued to shout at me. I was happy to get back on the road. And then we passed this amazing tree Martha had told me to wait for! Ahhhh THAT my friends is Africa to me. I will take a picture next time I pass it!

I also got more credit on my wireless modem and have lots of megabytes now so I can upload pictures, I know anne is about to shout!

Today has been successful, with the new work plan written this morning- well draft one. The district budget year starts now, which is unfortunate. How do you start a 6 month evaluation plan when youre required to submit your annual work plan at the very beginning. I just did the best I could with the assumptions I can make with provisional evaluation. The logic model, mission statement, and vision statement still greatly need to be updated. I am waiting on feedback from Hope on the draft, so we will see. I cut out a lot, including err all the projects that are not the clinic. Well, I said the goal was to phase them out. But don’t you work my objectives were SMART!

I am hoping to beat the rain now and go get my skirt. We have been without water- literally not a drop since Saturday, despite having power. Martha was going to check today. Would love a shower- my baby wipes only go so far! And we need to cook some yummy pasta and thus need water!
Maybe ill get some pictures up tonight!
Big hopes for Gulu my friends!

mid week meetings

Happy Hump Day!

It has been good week, time seems to be flyin by! I have started getting into some pretty hefty program evaluation this week, starting by looking through countless reports, pages and pages of strategic plans, rewritting mission and vision statements with Hope, and thinking of logic models. Its a sowo's dream! lol. joking, but really it is cool to be able to do something here that not everyone could do. its not playing with kids or holding babies, and teaching english doesnt really take a huge skill set either. so its nice to have specific skills and knowledge to offer (although im finding I still have a lot to learn about NGO management and all. just looking things over with the help of Judy, a VSO volunteer with lots of experience.) Just nice to know to make things SMART and clearly laid out.

But enough work smerk for now, i will keep you posted on that. Ive also had the chance today to watch Uganda Rising, a documentary about the conflict in this region and learned a bit more that other sources havent covered. it was made by a Canadian NGO, so if you can find a copy, i highly recommend it. It looks a lot at the problems since the camps have closed and people have begun to return to their villages and tried to start over. I also traveled about 15km out of Gulu town today to th village where Hopes husband's family is from. Along the way, we passed through Coo-pe (pronounced choo pee) which is an old IDP (internally displaced person) camp. there were tons of huts clustered together on both sides of the road. The camp is closed now, but people still live there. at the edge of coo-pe was a huge mango tree, one Hope told me was where many children were killed by the rebels. They would bring the children there, just to the edge of the camp to threaten the villagers and scare them. ugh, so awful.

Once we passed Coo-pe, the houses were abandoned and destroyed, all thanks to the rebels 5+ years ago. People have no livelihoods to rebuild or resettle out in the villages yet. We arrived at the village to about a km of land that all belongs to Julius' family. The house where his mother was visiting and our destination was large and plastered, but had been torn up by the rebels. the glass in every window was broken, the counters had been pulled outside, and the land left untended to for probably a decade or more. They are slowly beginning to farm again, but there is no money to repair the house.

The huts in the area were all completely destroyed and no evidence is left of them. it was interesting to get out of town and hear some of the stories and see some of the remains of the war. I see things in town, people missing limbs, large scars on chests, shoulders, faces. I never quite know if they are from the war, and don't want to assume. So far, the people i have had a lot of contact with were all not here for the war. Havent been able to ask anyone their story and feel pretty strongly that i want to get to know them first, not just look for a story from someone. The evangelists I met had heard lots off stories, but i felt a bit awkward about how theyd extracted them from people. feel more secure in my approach- if you can even call it that.

all in all, things are going really well. my storage basement back in NC has standing water in it, creating a headache for Mark and dad... but luckily i have a great boy and dad to help me! and ive showered today, always makes me feel good- not one of my strengths here, tend to shower twice a week... eww, i know. would never do that at home... and more dirty here. working on that... lol.

will try to get some pictures up soon!
happy June!