Happy Sunday!
Wow. It has already been a busy, crazy, wonderful, fulfilling, emotional, educating, and happy week! First off, I love everyone here. I live with 7 of THE BEST, top quality people I have ever met. They are positive, hard-working, funny, chill, adventurous, and have the biggest hearts. The exact type of people I always want to surround myself with. I spend most of my time with Sylvia. She is 42 and from Iceland. She is so compassionate and wise and I learn so much from her every day. She moved to Utah two years ago and it’s funny because we both studied community health last year at UVU. We didn’t have a SINGLE class together, and most people in my major, I have had 4-6 classes with them at this point. We also went to the same health conference in April and never even met each other. She is moving to Denmark after Africa is through, and I feel so blessed to be with her right now. We are both passionate about similar things, and have been team-teaching and preparing for a lot of different classes. We have been teaching a class this week at the Child of Hope School in Namatala. Side note: I don’t think I will ever get over how cuuuute Ugandan children are. They are so loving and always run up to you to give you a hug or hold your hand.
We are teaching about respecting ourselves and prevention and information on child sexual abuse. We talked all about saying NO if anyone is inappropriately touching them where their private parts are, and how anyone (even people they love and trust) can be a defiler. I was so impressed with how smart the children were. We asked the kids if they had any rights as children and they listed all of the UN rights: rights to education, medical care, food, play, and rights to be protected and protect themselves. We also talked about their goals and what they wanted to be when they grow up. I know these kids will be great leaders in the future. They are so smart and have so much potential! We are teaching every grade in the primary school, so basically 1st-7th grade. We also had a class for the parents of the students on Thursday. In public health, it is always interesting because we are the people who teach and try to get other’s to talk about hard subjects such as cancer, sex, AIDS, addictions, and death. We were a little nervous to teach parents because a) it is a hush hush subject, b) we weren’t sure culturally how it would be perceived, and c) the parents don’t speak English like their kids so we had a translator for the whole lesson, which is something I have never done before. At the end of the class the parents gave a standing ovation, and were so grateful for our lesson. They each hugged and thanked us individually, and told us to come back and teach again on Thursday! One woman in the class even shared an experience of how she was a victim of CSA when she was young, and felt like she had never been able to tell anyone until that day. She said she wanted to have a relationship with her children where they could feel like they could tell her anything. It made me so grateful to have grown up with parents and family members that talked about the hard subjects with me, and never made it uncomfortable or embarrassing. That is one thing I admire most about my parents, and I hope to be able to be that type of parent with my own children, and for any child that feels like they can’t talk to anyone else.
Also this week, I got to see my first live delivery at the clinic (not from a documentary in a health class). I have a secret desire to be a nurse, but sometimes medical stuff makes me queasy and light headed. Blood and weird smells don’t really bother me, but needles do.. or if I just think about things too much haha. It also bothers me to see people in pain. I was afraid that I would pass out, but I actually handled things pretty well. It was so cool to see the birthing process. Even though I was glad that I got see it, it was the worst first experience. It was a breech baby (the head didn’t come out first), and the baby was stillborn. It isn’t culturally acceptable to cry over a death here. The mother and the grandma didn’t show any emotion, and that was shocking to me. It’s crazy how disposable life is, and how dying or losing your baby is the norm in Africa. I was crying, but trying so hard not to show it. We all left feeling so heavy and I think we all cried ourselves to sleep that night. Working here in a third-world country can be hard because you see a lot of unfair situations. Also, global development is tough. If it were easy, it would be solved by now. Being here has opened my eyes and has made me change the way I think. Every time I see an unfair situation I try to think that this is the reason I am here: To help, educate, and empower people. If I can make life easier for just a few people by sharing my health education, I’ve done my job. It’s funny, because even though life is really hard for a lot of people here, I think Ugandan’s are happier than us in many ways. I feel like I am learning more from them than I could ever teach!
HELP International focuses on three main categories to fight poverty: Health, Education, and Business. It has been fun to learn a few business skills while I am here. On Friday we went up to a village in the mountains to teach a skills class to about fifty people who are in a village loan program, so they can start successful businesses. We taught them how to make soap, washboards (they still use their hands to wash their clothes), and how to sew R.U.M.Ps (reusable menstrual pads). Many girls in Africa do not finish school because they don’t have access or money for pads or tampons. When they are on their period, they often have to stay home from school, and eventually get so far behind that they cannot finish… all because they are a healthy woman! We taught people how to sew these so their daughters can stay in school and taught them the importance of wearing them for hygiene purposes. We told the men that they didn’t have to stay if they weren’t interested in learning sewing skills for this kind of business. I was so touched, because almost all of them stayed to make one for their wives and daughters. None of them really knew how to sew, but they were all trying so hard and it was the cutest thing!
Ok, I’m writing so much so I’ll just sum up the rest of my week!
-We stayed the night at David Zaale’s house on Friday for his 71st birthday (he is a successful African business man and one of our partners and he always wears Hawaiian shirts). We ate and ate and danced all night (which was my favorite part!)
- On Saturday we went on a hike to some gorgeous waterfalls, which we swam in. And trust me when I say this, I LIVE IN JURASIC PARK! I thought Utah had some good hikes, but WOW Uganda is beautiful!
-Oh yeah, that obnoxious chicken is named Wendy in case you were dying to know.
-I have started running at sunrise with Matt and Ani.
-It was Ani’s birthday this week. Matt and Holli got creative and made a Chapatti (tastes like a thick, doughy tortilla) cake with Nutella and sugar. It actually wasn’t bad!!
-The power goes out a few times per day at our house.
-I have randomly started drinking soda here because it is the only thing that has flavor/sugar. (sorta dying without ice cream. Just kidding. Alright, we know I am not kidding haha. At least the fruit here is amazing!
-Bugs crawling all over me doesn’t even faze me anymore.
I am really excited for this week’s work and am sooo happy here! Hope to hear from some of you soon:)