The final days

I'm sat in my room at Joy's in Maya as I write the first part of this blog. It's Thursday evening and tomorrow I leave this beautiful village and head back to Kampala. Today I finished the mural and the two posters I had left to do, cleaned the house and sorted things so packing will be easier when I can be bothered to do it. Tonight, we're having a 'final conversation' as Joy calls it or 'the last supper'. It will be lovely as we actually never eat dinner all together. On the menu is chapati and pineapple - perfect! My leaving hasn't really sunk in yet, but now that my room is empty, I have nothing to do and I'm just waiting for our final gathering, it's starting to settle. 

I had a moment on Saturday when I told one of the girls I walk home with from the clinic I only had one day left there, and she looked so sad. She's called Lillian and I am her best friend! She's beautiful, as you can see, and I will really miss her. But when my final day at the clinic came, its wasn't as epic as I had built it up to be in my mind. The kids were actually crazy so I spent a lot of energy trying to control them, stop them running havoc in the clinic and stop them attacking me. One boy, who until a week ago was too scared to come near me, made my nose bleed! I explained it was my last day, but the three little ones I've come to adore are too young to really get it. The older group who I walk home from school understood more, but it was such a beautiful day I couldn't feel too sad, I just felt blessed to have such great little friends! 

Now, as all I have to do is pack here, I'm getting sentimental. I feel so deeply blessed that I have been able to call Maya, especially this family, home for the last ten weeks or so. I have been blessed to witness the clinic slowly blossom (we have treated over 115 patients!) and to be a tiny part of a dream becoming reality. These ten weeks have really impacted me in ways I can't quite express yet as I'm still processing them. I pray I will be back one day! But now I need to steel myself for tonight, for awkward forced questions, great Ugandan food, beautiful family and for holding back the tears which I can feel building. 

It's now Sunday night and I've given up trying to pack so am finishing this instead. Thursday night was a lovely close to Maya and there were no tears! Apart from that moment in my room, it hasn't hit me that I'm actually leaving all of this so I'm not getting too emotional. Joy took me out for lunch to the poshest hotel in Uganda (the Queen stayed there when she came on her royal visit here). It was lovely but I felt so out of place coming from Maya to that! I had delicious Indian, so went all the way back to the start of my trip. When I was much too full, Joy brought me back to John's and that was my ten weeks with her finished.

There was a team here from Brimsham Green (half an hour from my home!) for most of this weekend; they left this afternoon. But that was really nice, being able to chat to people my age as we shared our experiences and processed going home together a bit. I tied in my final visit to the Acholi Quarters with their going to see the community and buy beads which worked well so I did my final bit of shopping there too. I stayed on to say my goodbyes to all the ladies there. Once again, I was so amazed by them! They are so so generous, selfless and joyful despite their circumstances. I am blessed to have been able to spend this time with them! Aren't they so lush?

And so this is it. I have just had my final dinner in Uganda - matoke (green banana) with groundnut sauce followed by pineapple and yoghurt for pudding, perfect! All I have left to do is shower, work out how to complete the puzzle of packing my rucksack and try and actually sleep. Tomorrow, I'm going out for breakfast with the John, Sophie and Patience before going to the airport around noon. I'm flying to Nairobi mid afternoon and then after seven hours of nothing in the airport I will fly back home overnight. This doesn't seem real! I'm really torn right now, the fact that this is my final night is making me really sad - I love Uganda, I love John and Sophie and Patience, I love that I feel so at home in the incredible country. And yet I know it's time to come home, I know this time was always coming and I am really looking forward to being back with my family again, and seeing everyone that I haven't seen for months! I think right now, at this exact moment, the wish to stay a little longer here and sadness that I have to leave are the strongest feelings in me. Please don't take this personally anyone, it's just where I'm currently at. But I'm sure that once the final goodbyes are said, and I'm sitting on that plane to England, I will be ready to come home. And in all of this, I have that deep peace of God which is making the whole thing of leaving so much easier.

Right then, the next word from me will be from Rose Cottage. This is the end of my gap year, and what a journey it's been! Love you all.

Full circle

I expect this is going to be my penultimate blog, or even final one, before I leave Africa. Wow! I feel like I'm right back in that last week in England again, seeing everything as a 'this is the last time...'

Two weeks have almost passed since coming back to Joy's and its the same as always, in a lovely, yet slightly monotonous, way. Last week was quite hard at times as I had plenty of time to think about home and to miss stuff about it whilst mindlessly colouring posters all day. However, I came through stronger as always when I rely on God and seek comfort in Him. My poster count is now up to seven completed with the eighth in progress, but due to little data I'm afraid you won't get to see it this time.

The days are very hot as we are firmly in the dry season here. Rain would be welcomed by most, I think, myself included as its getting to the stage where I'm having to ration my showers, and then use my shower water to flush the toilet as the cistern takes over 20 hours to actually fill up again. And when I turn the tap on which bris water in from the tank, its full of bits of dirt which have settled over night. It's kind of gross, I know, but you all have a never ending water supply! I'm just saving our limited resources. There is thankfully still enough water to shower every few days (I just try to ignore the colour of the water!), and to wash clothes - I did my penultimate hand washing of clothes this morning! Evenings are mainly consisting of colouring and labelling a body, killing the swarms of mosquitos (my reflexes are getting so good because of killing them by clapping) and reading a bit of my geography book which I started in India but have only read 120 pages of! 

This week has been much busier, so I'm back to loving everything about life here! I have started my mural in the kindergarten too, which I am loving. Sketched it out at the beginning of the week and started painting it yesterday. It's the biggest piece of art I've done, and it is so much fun! It's also much more tiring than colouring an A1 poster, but hey ho. I will eventually put a photo up so you can see it, but it is just as well you wait a while until its finished. I reckon Tuesday should be the day of final touches, which is just as well as I will be heading back to Kampala on Friday so will need those couple of days after to wrap up the posters and clean and all. Oh, and sometime in my last week here I am also hoping to find time to start reflecting on and processing the last few months and preparing myself for going home. No time to miss you all anymore!

One week left here in Maya - two clinics, four beautiful walks, one walk with beautiful children, two posters still to do, one Sunday school and a mural to finish. By Friday evening I should hopefully to back at John's which I am really looking forward to; John, Sophie and Patience are like my family and I can't wait to have another few days with them before I leave. Sadly, the timing isn't so great as for the most part of my three days back there, John is hosting another team so I can't have the family all to myself. But I will be back someday, so it's all good. In those three days I will continue to to reflecting, processing and a lot of praying as well as getting the final bits I need to buy, errands to run, packing to do and friends to say goodbye to (including an afternoon at the Acholi Quarters). So there you go, the run down of my final ten days in Uganda! This week I am having an Internet free one which will help me focus on God and all that has happened, so don't worry about my silence. Have a lovely week or so until I next write. Love you all.

Culture shock

I have so much to share with you! That's the only sentence I remember from the two sides of A4 I spent an hour drafting today at the clinic for this blog. Typically, I left it inside my Geographical magazine in the second drawer in the clinic. By the time I'd remembered this, I was already ten minutes down the road with my regular Tuesday group of school kids who I walk home every week, and I'd endured a 'conversation' (more him talking at me in Lugandan and me looking very confused and slightly intimidated) with a drunk man who I'd had no desire to see again! So, I will start over, but I'm afraid that my forgotten draft will be so much more moving, beautifully written and succinct than is.

As you may know, I spent last week back at John's in Kampala with mum and the CRED team she was leading. The team were teaching a load of kids in the Acholi Quarters for five days who otherwise wouldn't have any schooling, and so I tagged along, eager to see old friends. The week didn't disappoint - the team did great, and I loved being back with the ladies and many of the kids I had taught for two months. I enjoyed it so much that my original plan of being in Kampala two days extended to the whole week. It was such a delight, seeing the kids with such happy smiles getting attention and love and education when they often get none. And the fact that I was remembered by so many was extremely touching! 

On the Thursday night, a Canadian woman who has been working in the Acholi Quarters for the last three years cam to John's house for dinner with us. She works in partnership with Ugandan there and they provide holistic trauma counselling, discipleship, job training, relocation and so on for the Acholi people. She came to share just why this community needed these things so much. I knew some of the history she shared with us - of the twenty year war in the north started in the '80s led by Joseph Koni, of the horrific things the Acholi people suffered which caused so many to flee, some ending here in Kampala. On my first Sunday at Joy's, one of the oldest boys sat down with me and shared some stories of what his people suffered. But last week, names and faces were put to these stories which always makes them so much more powerful, because they're personal.

One story we were told was the story of Bob (but I've changed his name). Bob and his brother had been sent to live in Kampala when Joseph Koni and the Lord's Resistance Army started their rebellion. However they had to travel back to their village in the north when they needed money and so forth. One day, they did this and on arriving home, their father told them that they could not sleep in the house tonight as it wasn't safe, they had to sleep in the bush. For the rest of the day they visited old friends and had a great time, so much so that they ended up staying at their friends house instead of doing as their father had told them. That night, the LRA came and abducted Bob, his brother and a group of their friends. They made them walk for miles in the dark, and hours later they stopped and split them into two groups - one of which would live whilst the other would die. Bob was in the group who were forced, for fear of their own death, to watch whilst Bob's brother and friends in the other half were hacked to death right in front of them. Horrendous right! It got worse. The rebels then got a huge cooking pot and started to boil the various pieces of the boys. Then, they told the surviving group that they would now be the murderers of their friends as they were going to eat them. Thankfully, the government soldiers turned up before this command could be forced into reality. As the fighting started, Bob ran. 

He is doing much better now after taking part in trauma counselling! Bob's is just one of four stories we heard that night, which reduced most of the team to tears, and these are a drop in the sea of Acholi people in the Quarters. The fact that people like Bob have lived through such harrowing things, and yet are being healed and are going on to live and love and smile and work and move on is quite extraordinary to me! I feel so privileged to call some of the people in that community friends, and to have spent time with such incredibly strong people.

Life is much safer now for the Acholi people, even in the north there is peace again, but many in the Acholi Quarters still have to struggle to make a living. One of the main sources of income in this shanty town is found in the three quarries surrounding it which is where so many of the women and children are found working. Harriet is the 'head' (if that is the right word) of the group of women in the bead making cooperative John works with, and so the teams work with. She used to work in the quarry (did so for 17 years or so, I think) and according to her she would earn 1000 shillings a day. To is the equivalent of 25p! To double her earnings, she would take all her children to work with her. But many of the women have found a safer (both financially and physically) way to make more than a few coins - through marking rolled paper beads. In contrast to the quarry, one single stranded bracelet sells for 1000; a broad bracelet costs 2000, which is equivalent to keeping a child away from the quarry for a day. After a lovely evening of shopping by the team and a few calculations, mum and I worked out that the total amount we had all purchased worked out at the amount one woman would earn working at the quarry for almost four years - we essentially had brought enough to keep one woman from this dangerous work for four years, or a woman and her family for two years! They are powerful beads! 

Sadly, one of the boys I used to teach, a wonderful boy called Maundy (the one in the blue top) didn't make it to all five sessions the team ran last week. When I asked why he hadn't come for a couple of days, he said he'd been in the quarry, and that he couldn't go that day either because he was babysitting (he was one of the ones I would teach who always had a tiny baby on their hip). It broke my heart! He should at least be allowed a week of being a child, he's only 10 years old. 

Thanks to all the beads being bought by various teams and other people who are buying them, there are going to be fewer Maundy's and more and more Dan's and Morgan's who's mums can now afford to send them to school. We just need to buy more beads I guess!

I told you I had a lot to say! I'm over halfway though. So I'm back at Joy's for the next two and a half weeks. My week in Kampala was wonderfully refreshing, despite being extremely full on compared to my rural way of life, but isn't that always the case when you change company and surroundings, especially when you're with family and the amazing Acholi people! As I was going to bed on Saturday night, I saw the baby bat was back, this time drowning in a bucket of water. The girl who stays in this house with me was just coming in, so I told her in a 'what should be do' sort of way. She got the bucked and threw the water with the bay outside and then shut and locked the door. What? Africans do not like bats apparently, and don't have the 'try and save a baby anything' thought process I thought was pretty common. So, sadly, after ten days of not being seen, the bat has probably met its end with some night hunter, or by the chickens who invade out compound during the day.

I got another culture shock on Sunday as I was about to go to church. Church allegedly starts at 9.30am (African time), but I don't go down until the main service starts at 11am. Joy called me over into the garden when I walked past on my way, and told me to stay with her a while. All very odd! We were basically hidden from sight with banana trees. It turns out that the kids (barely classed as kids - the youngest is 11, the oldest claims to be 17 but we think he's at least 19) were being beaten because they were late to church. They were very late, an hour and a half, but to be beaten for that?! I was so shocked! And troubled. This is one of the aspects of Ugandan culture which I cannot understand. I have heard a load about beatings in school, but never before in churches! Shouldn't the churches be the example, the light in the dark place? But Ugandans fully accept beatings as a form of discipline; it's not even questioned! It's their culture, and they don't even see that it's wrong. (I would like to say that this is the first time I have ever seen beating actually in this home, and Joy tries to discourage it as best as she can). One of the girls came home from school one day having been beaten on her elbow. When we asked why, she said they were beaten for every question they got wrong in a maths test... She got one wrong! Isn't that praised in our society, only dropping one mark, getting almost full marks. But she was beaten instead. She's in year 5! They all say that beatings are much more frequent in primary schools because the kids are stubborn, so of course they should be beaten. But one of the boys here goes to a private school nearby, he's 18 and in year 12 (equivalent). His whole class was beaten the other week because one boy was acting up. He's 18! 

I could go on and on about all the cultural differences I ave experienced here, but I think this is more than enough for now. I know it's not the cheeriest blog ever, but you are getting a very real insight into life here, as well as the hope and power of our actions in buying and in how we spend our time. But, the make it all a bit more jolly, here is one of my all time favourite kids who I love dearly, Innocent. If he can't make you smile, you're heartless! Love you all.