Life is Unfair

So walking home yesterday I passed a boy on the street wearing a Boston Bruins shirt and I got so excited I really just wanted a picture to show all you Bostonians but I thought it would be way to weird to whip out my camera, so I didn’t.  But then as I was drinking my daily afternoon tea on the front porch, he came over to see Daniel (they must be friends from school or something), so I ran to get my camera to take their picture. 

            He was just a normal, growing and healthy boy like my little brothers… or so I thought.  My mom went on to tell me that he was born with HIV and that his mom has “the disease”.  WHAT?  Maama just told me like she was telling me how to eat matooke.  What am I supposed to do with this?  I just want to scream sometimes when I see things like this!  It just shows how much this world needs a redeemer.  This world is so broken and sometimes I just can’t process or deal with it. 

            I’m a fixer, if there is a problem I spend my time thinking of solutions and I don’t stop until the problem is done.  But what can I do about this? Nothing.  And its painful every time I think about it.   

Bag of Nasty & 3 Gallons of Milk: Rural Homestays.

From March 4-13th I lived in the district of Kapchorwa, which is considered rural/village life. It was great to see how 80% of the Ugandan population lives, but at the same time I hated it. There is so much I could talk about that this post could potentially be really long, I’ll try to keep it short and you can ask more questions if you’d like.

This is my house from the front, and Jona...right on the main road.




My host parents were Justine and Isaac Chelibei and I had an 18 year old sister and 15 year old brother (Naster and Phillip) who were both at boarding school so I never met them, then Benja (short for Benjamin) who was 8, Jona (short for Johnson) who was 6 (my mom’s nephew who’s mom couldn’t take care of him b/c she had him in high school), and Queen Esther (named Queen because she was born in 2007 when the Queen of England came to Uganda) who was 3.5. We lived in a small mud and timber house with a cow dung & ash floor (that you re-smear every week), then there was a mud and timber kitchen as well as Philip’s room. Then we also had a cow who just gave birth, a goat, a dog, and chickens. There was no electricity and I prayed everytime I went to the pit latrine b/c it was a nailed wood floor and I was scared I was going to fall through every time (I’ve heard some horror stories). I was just banking on the fact that my host mom was a very large woman…success.

My fam... except the 2 girls in the middle just showed up for the picture, they are neighbors.


Overall, my entire time there was really frustrating for many reasons:

1. I was homesick for my Mukono family and Logan the entire time.
2. I hated wearing long skirts the whole time, not being able to cross my legs, and sitting in the most uncomfortable, worst chairs ever made.
3. Communication was impossible. The don’t speak Luganda, they speak Kupsabiny which is a completely different style of language, I don’t know what you call it but its more similar to some tribes in Kenya than anywhere else, but because its not a Bantu language, not only could I not understand but I had to get used to all new sounds and another whole way of speaking English. When I would ask questions they would answer something completely different and when they asked me questions I usually had no idea what they meant or they had no idea what I was saying in my answers.
4. Mzungu. I thought it was hard to be white in Mukono but its impossible to just live in Kapchorwa as a mzungu unless you have an agenda. In one sense they thought I was completely incapable of anything, yet they treated me like royalty and they were ignorant animals. All they know about America is that Obama is our president (and they couldn’t understand why some people didn’t vote for him – policy means nothing, but his dad being Kenyan means everything) and that we have machines for everything. Every morning I would wash the dishes, and every morning my Baba (dad) asked if it was hard even though every morning I would tell him no, I wash dishes like this in America too. They also would only let me carry a 10L jerry can of water – which is usually reserved for kids. But I did carry it on my head (and its harder than you’d think).

Their questions were just really strange and about things so basic I don’t really even think about. But I guess it just shows how much we have been globalized and they haven’t even really even reached modernity in a sense. It was hard for them to understand that we all don’t have our own individual gardens/farms to sustain ourselves, but that we buy most all our food from stores.


So while I was viewed as physically incapable of anything, I was also treated like royalty. I heard many times that people were so thankful I came to visit and said that they were very honored that I would humble myself/lower myself to come to an African village. They way I was talked to was like it was still during colonial times/white man’s burden. They seemed to think that they were not worth as much, like I was superior to them – which I hated! Ive never felt so awkward, and not wanting to be white.

These kids just followed us/accompanied us to the cave. Also, rural homestays = dressing like grandmas.




There were some great things:

1.  I got to be at a Compassion International center all day Saturday because my mom taught cognitive lessons and both Benja and Jona are sponsored children… more on Compassion later because I’m going to another site this weekend with IMME. But, it was awesome.
2. My friend Amy’s house was close so we got to see each other a bunch, I even slept over at her house on Wednesday night which was so needed because we were both struggling with homestays and just needed to vent and have some solidarity.
3. We went on some hikes and I saw 2 caves and a waterfall/ the Kapchorwa scenery was gorgeous, hills/mountains and lots of green!
4. Everyone there was very nice and hospitable
5. I learned how to milk a cow and cook
6. I wasn’t in school

Finally: A Bag of Nasty and 3 Gallons of Milk


It is common when we go to the village that we have chicken for at least one meal, and most of the time the Americans are the ones who get to slaughter the chicken. I never got that chance, but we did have chicken at Amy’s house the night I slept over and the gizzard is considered a delicacy and always given to the guest of honor. Well, Amy and I ate some gizzard together… the taste wasn’t too bad but the texture was awful/impossible to chew. I call it the bag of nasty b/c when my apartment mates and I made Thanksgiving dinner together we labled the bag of turkey parts that you have to take of out the turkey the bag of nasty. Well I got to eat it – chicken style.


In Uganda, tea is very important. Everyone has tea at least twice a day, for breakfast and before bed, but then there is also break tea (b/w breakfast and lunch) and evening tea (b/w lunch and dinner). In Kapchorwa its all about the milk tea because everyone has cows. It tasted sooo good! Literally straight from the cow to the stove to your cup. I loved it, but having tea really means having 3 cups of tea or until the flask is empty. And if anyone visits, or you visit someone (which is alllllll the time), then you all stop and sit and have tea. So Amy and I calculated that in the span of 7 days, we each had about 3 gallons of milk to drink…. That’s disgusting! 3 gallons of milk all by myself in 7 days. By the end I felt like I was a cow needing to be milked.


Anyways, that was my rural homestay in a nut shell. I’m just so glad its done.

When Things Just Click

The greatest moments in life, especially here, are the ones that you connect with people. One of the biggest lessons we are learning here is what it means to be present. Life here is about community, its not what you get done in a day, how many trophies you have, how you are distinguished or you at all, its about how you relate to those around you. Like the saying you hear around Christmas, “its not about presents but about Jesus’ presence” it rings true here too.
An easy way to communicate your presence here is in greeting people. Greetings in Luganda and very important – there are many greetings and can be quite long. You can spend five minutes talking with someone and all you’ve said is hello! People expect that you can only speak English because you’re a muzungu but if you greet someone here in Luganda their whole demeanor changes and they are very appreciative of your humility to learn their language.
The best example of this happened to me Sunday afternoon as I was walking back home after our rafting trip. There is a woman I have greeted a few times as she has come to fetch water at our house, she is older and doesn’t speak any English so we have never had a conversation. But she was walking the opposite direction on the road I take home, saw me and had a giant grin on her face. Her whole face smiled, with her beautifully aged wrinkles emphasizing her joy. When we got close she stretched out her arms and gave me a giant embrace as I greeted her and then we went our separate ways.
Why would an older Ugandan women take time to acknowledge a young mzungu who could never understand fully her culture? Its all about presence. It has to be or there would be no other reason for me to receive a comforting embrace from an almost stranger on a lonely walk home.

Recognized By The World For What It Is. Special.

This past weekend we got to go on a little get-away to Jinga, home of the source of the Nile.  We were hosted by Adrift, an awesome rafting and bungee jumping company that really made the weekend.  They came to pick us up on Saturday morning, set us up with our accommodations for the night and then gave us a brief rafting intro, we separated into groups of 9, strapped on helmets and life jackets and hit the water.  I had the best raft, if I do say so myself, with our fearless leader from Canada, Josh.  At the beginning of our rafting trip we learned all of the commands we would need to know for the rest of the day and we practiced falling out, flipping over, and getting back in the raft.  In the calm we also enjoyed swimming and floating in the middle of the NILE. 

So the Nile is something you start learning about in Sunday school when you are like, 5 when you learn about Moses.  Not to mention learning about the amount of life it has provided for people since the beginning of history.  How intricately it supplied life when it would flood and then leave rich and nutritious silt to nourish crops and feed the Egyptians consistently over time (thank you Ms. Daly!).   Therefore, the whole day was basically filled with awe, not just because of the rapids but because of the fact that we were on the Nile. 

Anyways, we enjoyed some nice and big rapids in the morning, experienced our first flip in one of the rapids, which ended up being a little scary because I didn’t even think about the fact that I should probably hold my breath if I’m going into the water and I got a nice mouthful.  We then stopped for lunch at Lunch Island, where Adrift provided all the ingredients for the first, delicious, sandwich I’ve had since being in Uganda.  It was wonderful.  We then continued rafting and had 4 more rapids along with a couple hours of just rowing, floating, swimming, and getting to know each other and Josh a little more in the “down time”. 

The biggest action of the day was the last rapid, a class 5 called “50/50”.  50% chance you will flip, 50% you wont.  We flipped, big time.  The first part of the rapid we all went flying and I was under the water for what seemed like a really long time as the rapid churned me until I was out.  Kaylin, Megan and I were rescued by the safety kayaks and brought to another raft because ours had made it through the second part of the rapid.  That guide was crazy, and with 12 people on his raft he sent us in the perfect position to go out with a bang and the entire raft went flying.  I had hairy polish men in speedos land on me and use me as a ladder to get back to the surface of the water and keep me stuck under the raft for a little longer than I would have liked... but we made it back to our raft and finished the day nice and smoothly.  Overall, rafting on the Nile was ah-mazing and I would definitely recommend adding it to your bucket list!

That night we all spent time together, took nice hot SHOWERS, and had a fun dance party. 

The next morning we woke up, ate breakfast, and climbed 144 ft to the top of the bungee jump tower!  I was terrified, but I was glad I was going tandem with Megan.  As I watched a couple of other people go first it didn’t seem so bad either.

When it came to our turn, we walked out to the end, sat down while the guys strapped our feet together, clipped us to the rope and gave us a little demo of what would happen.  We then stood up and had to inch together towards the end of the platform.  That was the scariest part of the whole experience because after a certain point we weren’t allowed to look down so we were basically trusting this guy with our life to stop us before we shuffled off the platform.  We wrapped our arms around each other, listened to everyone countdown 3, 2, 1...and leaned forward to fall 144ft!  We both screamed the entire way down and during the whole 6 bounces up and down.  After we stopped they lowered us down to a raft where two Ugandans unstrapped us and towed us to the shore.  That was definitely one of the scariest experiences of my life but also very exhilarating… bridge jumping at home will be nothing now J

Africa is so great and I wish I could share my experience with you in more than just words! 

p.s. Tried to up load the video but internet is obviously not working.... soon!