A short video of the kids in Nansana and Namayumba

How far the Dollar can go in Uganda

Here's a list that Melissa created to give you all an idea of just how far the American Dollar can go in Uganda.

10 cents-can buy a notebook, pen, or pencil or a chapat, ice or samusa (all food items that the children rarely have access to)

10 cents- a prescription for the fever reducer and pain killer Panedone

25 cents- bar of soap for laundry or bathing, a nice pen or big notebook

75 cents- one haircut, treat one child for the flu

1 dollar- treatment for a child under 12 for malaria or a monthly medication for children with HIV/AIDS

3.50 dollars- treat an older child (over 12) for malaria

6 dollar- pays for X-rays at a local hospital

7 dollars- buys a student a new pair shoes
10 dollars- pay for all of a younger child’s school supplies for 2 years (under primary 5)

20 dollars- buy 2 years worth of school supplies for a child older than primary 6

30 dollars- pays for a days worth of workers building the secondary school (about 10 people working from 5 am-6 pm)

35 dollars- one days worth of food for the entire school (400 people)

40 dollars- buys a goat (more protein than they get in a whole year)

150 dollars- buys the secondary school a window (which they direly need)

175 dollars buys the secondary school a door, which they also are in need of

200 dollars- sponsor a child for a year of secondary school

600 dollars- buys a cow (they pour milk in their porridge so they actually get some nutrients)

3,000- buys the land next to the secondary school needed for growing crops that the school can use to feed its children

6,000 dollars- built the entire secondary school

Victory for Spain, Tragedy in Uganda

July 13th blog

Sunday afternoon Melissa and I were deciding between going to Entebbe to see Bobby Wyne and watch the World Cup final at Lido Beach, and going to the Rugby Grounds in Kampala with Lawrence to watch the World Cup final. We decided to head to Entebbe, so at around 3 in the afternoon of us and our friends David and Saul hopped in a Matatu and headed off. Lido Beach was wild. There were so many people playing in the water, playing soccer on the beach, hanging out by the bars, and of course dancing. Melissa and I were the only two Mizungu’s until about 9 pm when a few more showed up.

Watching Africans play in the water was so entertaining. There were hundreds of absolutely gorgeous Ugandan men playing in the waves. It was awesome. Melissa and I definitely had the most successful people watching session ever. Everyone in the water was laughing, smiling, and having such a good time. It was such a happy, and carefree atmosphere. At one point, a man came up to me (unfortunately he was not one of the handsome men I had seen playing in the water) and said, “I like your thigh power.” It was honestly the funniest, best, and worst pickup line I have ever heard, and it caused Melissa and I to laugh until we were practically crying.

Once the sun went down, some upcoming artists began to perform on the stage, so Melissa, David, Saul and I headed up to the dance floor area to watch. Sun down, by the way, is about 6:30 pm in Uganda, so the party went on for hours. The performers were so good! I officially love Ugandan rap. Melissa and I had decided earlier in the evening that if Bobby Wyne came on early enough, we would head back to Kampala to watch the game at the Rugby grounds. But the game started, and he was nowhere close to coming on stage. Bobby Wyne finally came on around 11 pm. He was definitely worth the wait. Ugandans definitely know how to party. The crowd went wild when he started performing.

Some time around midnight, the show ended and the four of us made our way to a Matatu and headed back to Kampala. Half way to Kampala, I got a call from Eric. I answered the phone, and what Eric told me sent chills straight through my body. He told me that three bombs had gone off in Kampala during the final moments of the Soccer final. Two went off at the Rugby grounds, and the third went off in Ethiopian Village. After getting off the phone with Eric, I tried calling Lawrence, who we knew had been at the Rugby grounds. No answer. I called six more times, and there was still no answer. Figuring that the taxi park, where we were headed, could likely be the target for a fourth bomb, we had the Matatu driver drop us off at a gas station in Kampala. The streets were deserted. While we were walking around trying to find a boda boda, Lawrence finally called me back. Himself, his two brothers, and his brother-in-law who had all been there, had luckily not been injured and were back at their house. It took us nearly twenty minutes to find a boda boda driver who would take us to the apartment.

Monday’s paper announced that so far, 64 people had died. By this morning the toll had risen to 74. Our apartment is right down the road from Mulago Hospital where the victims had been taken. It’s also where the mortuary is. As we drove past this morning there was a crowd standing at the entrance, most likely waiting to hear about their loved ones, and to check the fatality list that has been posted.

The Somali Islamic organization, al Shabaab has claimed responsibility for the bombings, and said they will continue until Uganda has removed their peacekeepers from Somalia.

It’s weird, while I realize that I should probably be frightened, I’m not. I still feel completely safe at the apartment. I’m avoiding crowded areas like the taxi parks and markets of course, but other than that, I really don’t feel like I’m in any real danger. The last thing I want to do is leave Uganda early because of this. I would be devastated if my time with the kids in Nansana and Namayumba was cut short because of all of this.

A Video of Nansana, created by Melissa Cochran

Here's a video that Melissa made last year. Take a look, and a step towards getting to know the kids.

Ceremonies and Goat Roasts

Well, this past Wednesday was definitely one of the most exciting days of my stay here in Uganda. The official opening ceremony of Extreme College Namayumba lasted for about seven hours. Seven hot, hot, hours. Save for the heat, it was a beautiful day for a ceremony. Three other schools, Bananywa Primary School, Royal Academy, and Jolly Child School attended the opening to show their support for Extreme College. Each school performed multiple songs, dances, and short plays. Seggawa, Job, Joshua and all the others in charge even hired a marching band from Kampala to play during throughout the day!

There were also a number of speeches given by Joshua (the headmaster of Extreme), Dorothy, Seggawa, the chairman of the PTA, the Secretary General of the National Council for Children, and a few others who's names I can't quite remember. The speeches were lovely, as were the plays. My favorite performances however, were the songs. The kids from Extreme have beautiful voices, and love singing. They got so into it! Dan and Brassio were especially talented, and were belting it out and getting their groove on in the first and second rows.

After the hours and hours of speeches, dances, marches, and songs, the ribbon was finally cut at the school was pronounced officially open. Finally the kids were able to relax a little, hang out, and have some fun. They had been working until past midnight the night before finishing up the school building, and clearly deserved some R&R. We ate, hung out, took pictures, listened to music and just, chilled. I honestly can’t think of the last time they got to do that. The building, by the way, looks amazing. It’s incredible how much they have accomplished. They built their own school, how many other kids can say that? None that I know of, that’s for sure.

Thursday morning, I was woken up by the Rooster who resides near our room in Namayumba at four, five, and six a.m. After the rooster gave his final wake up call, and I thought I might actually be able to sleep a while longer, the boda boda driver, who also lives next to us, started working on his bike. I finally realized, at around eight, that I had no choice but to get up and start my day. I walked down to the school to find that the kids had already been up since seven! They seriously never cease to amaze me. Lucky for them, the headmaster decided to give them the day off, after all the hard work they’d put into building the school.

We spent the afternoon hanging around, and looking at all the pictures that Melissa and I had taken the day before. Little Henry borrowed my iPod and started dancing around on the lawn, which was really entertaining. After a while some of the older kids started a pick up game of soccer. One of the younger kids brought a puppy over to me, which was so completely adorable I actually started considering ways to smuggle it back home with me. However, judging by the little red dots on my arms that I discovered later in the day, I think she may have had fleas…

After spending the afternoon relaxing and enjoying the nice weather (it was surprisingly cool, but much appreciated since we were still recovering the day before’s heat), we decided to have a goat roast. Melissa, Nabimanya, Brassio, Dan and I went into town to buy some firewood. While we were getting the firewood, these three men came up behind Melissa and I and began trying to talk to us. It was really odd, and I kept trying to move away. All of a sudden Dan told us to start walking back to the school. Melissa and I were glad to leave, and when we asked Dan who the men had been and what they’d wanted, he told us that they’d been trying to pickpocket us. Luckily, Dan, Brassio and Nabimanya realized what was happening before it was too late, and Melissa and I were able to walk away without getting robbed. Ai yai yai are we a couple of naïve Misungus.

After bringing the firewood back to the school, the boys started preparing for the roast. And by preparing, I mean they began to sharpen a couple of knives, fetched a ladder, and tied the goat up with some rope they had laying around. Thank God I am not a vegetarian, or a member of PETA, or else Thursday night might have been my last night in Uganda. I won’t go into too much detail, but lets just say it was the freshest meat I’ve ever eaten…and it was good too!

All right, I can’t think of anything else to write right now, so Weereba, and katonda akukuume.

Namayumba!

Extreme College is almost completely built! I spent Thursday and Friday in Namayumba with Melissa and the secondary school students, working on getting the school up and running. And yes, I did manual labor. That's right, these scrawny arms mixed cement/sand/water and then spread and pounded it to make the floor of the first classroom. I have two blisters to show for it. The secondary school students really amaze me. They work tirelessly, from sun-up until past sundown. I've never seen such work ethic, and drive in a group of students. They have worked so hard to build their school, and their desire to be there and learn is so evident. I feel as though it's a privilege to be able to work side by side with them. Of course, the girls laugh at me when I try to wash clothes with them, and have to correct my methods at least five times per load. And the boys make no hesitation is pointing out my errors when I try to level the cement or shovel up bricks. But it's all in good humor, and I love it.

I've gotten to know a few of the kids at Extreme. Chamime is a riot, she loves American rap and wears a baseball hat like Lil' Wayne. Nabimanya is hilarious, but also one of the hardest workers I've seen. He's one of the boys who have warmed up to me, and I love joking around with him. Brassio and Sam are also great. Like Nabimanya, they work tirelessly all day, no one needs to tell them what to do, or to remind them to do work, they simply just do. It's really admirable. Sam, Nabimanya, and Dan, another boy I've started to get to know, accompanied Melissa and I into town Thursday night and came back to watch a movie in our room with us. It was a pretty gruesome movie, and in typical boy fashion, they laughed at every scene involving blood and a machete.

On Friday, as Melissa and I were getting ready to head back to Kampala, Sam came to Melissa and told her he was feeling really sick. We worried that it might be Malaria, which he seams come down with quite often, so we took him back to Nansana with us so that he could spend the night there and go to the hospital in the morning. After we got him to the room where he would sleep, I went to put my hand on his back, and realized that he had a raging fever. Even through his sweatshirt, his skin was hotter than anyone's I'd ever felt, and we realized that he was seriously ill. Melissa and Nabimanya took Sam to the hospital the following day where he was hooked up to an IV, tested for Malaria, and given a cocktail of pills. When I spoke with Melissa on Sunday, she said he was doing a little better and that they would be taking him back to Namayumba later that day.

What makes me so sad, is that when I think about myself or one of my friends back home getting sick, I know that we will always have a network of people, be it our parents, friends, or relatives, looking after us until we are well again. These kids don't have that. Most of them won't tell anyone when they're sick because they know that nothing will be done. They don't have the money or the resources to get the children medicine. This is another reason I'm so determined to help raise money for Seggawa and the children. $4.00 is all it takes to buy Malaria medicine for two kids. The U.S dollar goes so far here, and even sending something as harmless to our pockets as $20 would go a huge distance for them.

Anyhow, Eric Courtney, the kids and I spent the weekend in Jinja, which was lovely. I got to see the Nile River, and the source of it, which lies in Uganda. After spending the weekend away, I came back to Nansana and taught English to the P6 students yesterday (Monday). The P6 students were very enjoyable to teach, they listened very well, and did their work without getting too distracted.

After teaching in the morning, I met up with Melissa and her mother who’s visiting, and we went into town to meet with the people from Straight Talk. Straight Talk is an organization that goes around to schools and talks to them about HIV awareness, HIV Prevention, and sexual education. After meeting with them and getting to know some of the kids who travel to the schools to speak with the kids, we were able to arrange for two of the men at the organization, David and Saul, to come speak to the kids in Namayumba next Thursday and Friday. I’m so glad they’re coming because the kids haven’t really had anyone to talk to about any of those things. Many haven’t been tested, and for all we know there could be a few at the school who are too scared to tell anyone that they are HIV positive. It will be good for the kids to learn that they have a support network, and that there are people eager to help and talk them through any difficulties they may be having.

Melissa and I invited David and Saul to come watch the World Cup final at Lido Beach with us on Sunday, which should be really fun. It will be nice to meet some University kids like us, so that next time we’re here, we’ll have some more people our age to hang out with.