HELP Lugazi 2012: Oli Otya! :)

I’ve got a very serious question for you: How do you fit an elephant through a doorway?

Think about it. I’ll give you the answer later. :)

This week has been a good week. The newcomers are still adjusting, but are starting to get used to life here. Mainly they’re still struggling with our latrines and their aiming techniques…but that’s TMI.

Let’s move on.

PROJECT UPDATES!

Seya School Construction:

Seya School is an amazing project! We were hesitant going into the project with limited information, but we have truly come to love Seya School through working with the community and our contacts that have been awesome and easy to work with. Of course it was quite the process and took meeting after meeting to get things rolling, but that is what makes Seya School such a great project. In addition, there has been a ton of community support. They donated lots of bricks and started construction on the school even without any promise of help from us. It was because of the community dedication and contribution that this project was able to get approved, and we are ecstatic to see how the school progresses now that it has been approved! :)

This past week we were able to buy the concrete for the foundation of the school and laid it down. Foundation = COMPLETE! :) Next step: building the walls with the bricks the community has provided.

Sarah, Kerri, and Holly working on building walls

The community are great workers

Eye and Dental Camp:

Good news! Along with Chelsea and Jace came a great gift. A tub full of 800 GLASSES!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D :D :D Kristen and I were SOOO stoked. :) I haven’t been this excited in forever!

So, glasses are here. Next step: meet with Dr. Kigula (the Mehta Hospital Admin.) and get the details for the 11 day health camp in August that we want to join and help. Once we meet with him, then we can finish up the project proposal and get that passed!

Yay for glasses!

People with Disabilities:

I finished the project proposal and it was passed by the team last week! Yay!!

This past week we started constructing Sam’s chair, and it is almost finished! :) Sam is an epileptic boy who is such a happy young man. He is 13 and he loves to smile, sing and is a very smart boy. He has been sitting on the ground for months, he can hold himself up, but he is pulled to the left because his spine is crooked. We are hoping with our chair that we constructed it will help straighten his back and also to get him off the ground so he won’t be sitting in his own waste anymore. The chair is a toilet chair, leg separating chair, and also a chair that will not let him fall out. He has a wheel chair, but he doesn’t use it because the tire is flat and he is afraid of falling out of it. So we made the chair’s sides high so he can’t fall out.

We also went to Mukono to meet Daphine. She is a 10 year old girl who was severely burned when she was 3 months old by a witch lady who was trying to sacrifice to her to demons. She and her family were at a hostile and her mother wasn’t around when the witch came and got hold of Daphine. 3 children were previously sacrificed prior to the attempt on sacrificing Daphine. She has no left arm and has bad scars all on the left side of her body. Because of the fire, it damaged her brain and so she can’t talk. We are going to get her a prosthetic hand! We went to Kampala on Thursday to get her arm measurements and next Thursday we are going to pick up the prosthetic hand for Daphine!! She is very excited. :)

Sam is awesome :)

Daphine is the sweetest and cutest girl ever!

Business Classes:

The business classes are awesome! We teach twice a week in three different villages and our students are wonderful! Some of them already own a business but need help expanding and improving it. Others want help starting up a business and running it successfully. So far we are just teaching the very basics such as – what a business is and what kinds of businesses there are. Pretty soon we’re hoping to start teaching marketing, book keeping, customer service, and sales. Hopefully our students will recognize their opportunities and be able to achieve their goals of being entrepreneurs.

The biggest challenge we’ve encountered so far is the language barrier. Many of the people we teach don’t speak or understand English so it has been difficult trying to explain concepts to them. And even with a translator it can still be hard because they don’t necessarily understand business either and so may not translate exactly as we would like. Another challenge is having people show up on time for class. Many times we will have people arrive twenty minutes before class ends. To say the least, we’ve learned a lot about the culture here and so far it has been a great experience.

Stewart and Becca teaching business classes in Namengo

Happy Child:

Happy Child has been a very rewarding project. Every Sunday we get to meet with a group of children at a school and play with them for a couple of hours. We teach them games, songs, and dances. We have been able to donate toys and the children love them. We also teach them lessons about the importance of families, and about having good health, as well as being treated with respect. We love teaching these children that they are special and have self worth. Most of the children don’t have money for lunch fees, so we have also been able to go play with them during lunch twice a week. Another really cool aspect of Happy Child is being introduced to families and children who are in even more need. Building these relationships has been life changing and seeing the happiness that has been brought to these amazing people has been an incredible experience.

Playing with the children!