necklace class

baby patrick... we had a great time together laughing and playing. Some susu and smiles.
It took forever to get a photo of him laughing. I could make him giggle and coo all day but as soon as the camera came up, he would immediately stop. haha. you could see his face go blank through the lens as you took the shot. I took a million before i got this one.



below, jaja margaret threads her seabeads for the april showers necklace.

babu

Jenny and I have decided that we are in love with Babu. We call it the Oasis of Uganda. Generally no one goes to Babu. It's a small village right off of Walukuba. you take a right on the road to Danida at the big church. go about 200 or 300 feet and you're there. They say you know you're in Babu when the dirt turns black from the charcoal. When you walk the ground puffs up black soot. needless to say, you always come back dirty.

So the reason we love Babu so much is because, not only is it a small and simple village, but it's so lush and full of so many animals. There are also little porch areas of shade in the front yards - something you don't find in the other villages. Theres lots of water and lots of plants.No where else do you see ducks and little piggies. Theres a lot of water and little streams, which make it extra green. There are always a million ducks and chickens everywhere. The pink cocoas are from Babu - they're Boscos.

There is such bad water sanitation in Babu though, because the same water they drink is the same water the ducks and chickens and pigs are pooping in and peeing in. Not to mention a lot of them have toilet holes over streams. A lot of times, they try to not use the same water but use large areas of standing water, which is not much better. Sure it doesn't have duck poo in it, but it's also a breading ground for things like typhoid and malaria filled mosquitos.

Babu is also known as a more poor section of outside Jinja. A lot of children don't go to school in Babu. A lot of poorer villages have black soot on the ground, which, as far as I can figure out is because people with less money use smaller pieces of charcoal and have lower grades of waste management overall.

we love babu.



typical cooking area.




this is baby kenneth! he's the son of a Suubi woman named Bosco. I cared for him while Jenny was teaching Bosco a new necklace design. I even let him susu on me.





kids of babu! the one on the left is Joel, one of Edith's children, I don't know who the middle one is, but the one on the right is one of Bosco's kids, brother to baby kenneth!

oh varnish....

this is to document amberle learning to varnish beads at beading class. We are ordering necklaces that needed to be glittered so we mixed the glitter with the varnish. if you don't know, varnish never ever comes off. haha. it takes time, and numerous scrubbings. needless to say, amber did great, up until she dropped a string a newly varnished beads in the dirt, and yelled "what do i do what i do?! ahhhhh" and Christine goes, "parafin, parafin!" haha. it was a grand time.

just some pictures....

living as a sponge

There is so much to learn and so much to observe before you can really act in an effective manner that will benefit people in a righteous and positive way. This is what I believe.

This is not to say that we ever perfect the act of loving.
What is is to say is that we cannot love intimately and deeply without knowledge.

I have never been a minority. I certainly am now. People see the color of my skin and discriminate, cheat, and lie straight to my face every day. Almost every time I get on a bota to go to a village, I am told unfair prices. Muzungu prices when we know the Ugandan price. When I go to the market at night, they yell in luganda, saying things like, "I will offer you fair price if you come home with me" or "why do the muzungus shop at night? only poor people come to shop at night" They grab at us, and harass us physically and verbally demanding money. The other day, a man grabbed Jenny's arm so hard she starting crying. He got off his bota and chased after her. He wanted more money.

It is hard, because you want to remain safe. You also don't want to be known as the muzungu bitch, or else they'll give you rotten tomatoes, as amber says. But you also cannot reinforce the behavior some men have towards us. We cannot reinforce that physical force gives money to them.

Everyday is a battle.

The Suubi women are fantastic. But we must be cautious and a lot of ways towards them. We firmly believe in the Suubi community being unified. They are displaced acholi, they share traditions, and heritage. They are all a part of Suubi and they must all feel equally loved. We must try our hardest everyday to not show favor. We must go find the homes we do not know, instead of going to the same homes every week because we know where they are. It means we can't offer anything other than service and quality time. Buy school shoes for one child of a Suubi woman, and you better have enough money to buy school shoes for every Suubi child. Thats roughly 500 children.

Almost every decision made concerning the women is made only after we ask the entire group what is fair and what they would like. It is hard, because we must find balance.

Another situation is that none of us like mukene, or posho but we can't get up in front of the group and say - don't feed us these things, they hurt our muzungu tummies - because every woman who has personally served us either of those things (which is almost all) is then hurt and offended, and on top of that - embarrassed. Because we eat their food, no matter what they serve, and we thank them.

But there are things we can say. Such as don't buy us Soda. one soda is 600 shillings, yeah? lets say 3 of us come to visit. That is 1800 shillings. That is 10% of one weeks salary. They get paid 20,000 shillings a week. We hate to think that they feel as though they must spend that on us. We want to do everything to help their situations and to help them to provide more effectively for their families. And if we can plan ahead, and bring water, they can use that 1800 shillings to buy rice, instead of posho for their children, which has way better health benefits.

Every decision you make, every action - you're accountable to it. You're responsible.

I've been wondering lately about going to church. I would love to go to a service just to experience it. But at the same time - lets say I go to church with one woman, when i've been invited by 3 women to 3 different churches. And then lets say I don't go back to church with them. What does that say or not say about me?

It's like how at Snowbird, we have church on monday and wednesday, because on sunday we actually rest. We take the whole day to reenergize and rest. I feel as though the same goes here. We work 6 days a week. I pray, journal, and worship 7 days of the week on my own. So when day 7 comes. We do everything possible to encourage eachother not to work. We force eachother not to work. Because the days are long and it's hot as mess, and we get so worn down so quickly & needless to say, work for the day is never done. It is absolutely never done.

Boundaries are good. Boundaries are important. Adults make boundaries.

I've just been contemplating if this is a boundary that needs to be made, at least for the next two months.

Thats all I have to say for now. Love you all!

meet baby rachel

this is rachel with her momma. I got to hold her during beading class this past Monday, until she got hungry, then i had to give her back. =[

She's real fat, and has about 5 or 6 fat rolls on her arms alone. I love it. she's a little chunker.

needless to say she kinda stole my heart away that day.

pink cocoas!

So here in Uganda, they sometimes paint the baby cocoas bright colors to keep the bad birds from eating them while they're still so young. These just happen to be hot pink and purple!

We also have baby cocoas and Marayah and I want to paint them too, but we still have to find the paint powder they use.

did i mention......

so on the walk to danida from our house, we take a back way along the railroad tracks and then over to the giant water pipe lines.

So me and marayah, of course, walked across them, all the while amber is filming the ordeal. so as the path amber is taking dips down into the ground, the pipes obviously stay level, creating a 10 to 12 foot drop from water pipe to ground (which is wet and filled with snakes - yay) the pipes are about a foot to a foot and a half wide. and this goes on for like 120 yards. i regretted it, but there was nothing i could do.

sooooooo we have this hilarious video of me stopping every ten feet, getting nervous, building up my confidence a little, and the going another 10 feet. you can imagine how long this video is.

all the while, marayah is walking back and forth , stopping, sitting, picking at super long stalks of grass, like a little gymnast.


"can i monkey crawl this one?"

"can you what?"

"on all fours?"

"what, why would i do that? i mean, can i get on my crotch and inch my way across!"


sooo, one of many battles already won in uganda.

meet Agnus Angom

Agnus is one of my favorite Suubi women so far
She lives in the village of Walukuba.
She is 25, and looks more aged because of a sickness she has.
Her heart is not in good condition, and she also has a massive growth on her abdomen, which makes her look pregnant.
She is not married, and has no children.
Living by herself, she works for Suubi and also as a hair dresser from her home.
She makes the best faces
& she is extremely witty and sarcastic.
She's a big ball of fun.
I'm looking forward to getting to know her better and building a great relationship with her.

day 9

There is so much to say, it’s overwhelming. I opened my first soda with my teeth, which is a big success for it only being 9 days in. YES! Mothers – you are not allowed to call and patronize me about this one. Today was very cool, no sun and rainy which was a great break. No water currently in jinja and we have no clue when it will come back. It could be by tomorrow, or in a few weeks. 7 half-town power surges when I tried to get on the internet. I met two little twin girls today that were terrified of muzungus. They were crying terribly at our presence. Eh, it happens.

I ate mukene, which is small fish, whole, eyes staring you down.

Swim swimmies as I like to call them, because the day I had to eat a whole bowl of them I also was in multiple villages and it was my only meal I ate until late dinner. All I could think was swim swimmies in my belly all day. No bueno.

Speaking of Spanish, I had my first luo lesson. Went well, learned a lot.

But the one thing that doesn’t change much is my heart. It only operates in 3 capacities right now, and sometimes in multiple capacities at a time. The first being joy, gladness, and service. The second: sadness, an ache for Brendan to be with me. [Although he is not physically with me, he is with me, he is bearing with me and fighting for me in prayer, which has been amazing within itself] The third, exhaustion and being beyond tired and also includes craving American food. Every minute to the next, it’s trying to figure out the current status and trying to understand which is coming next. I’ve been getting good at knowing the second one is coming. I’m always trying to extend the time I’m operating in the first, and learning not to fight when the third one hits. My heart has been learning so much, and needless to say god is so good. He is stretching, growing, and teaching me. It really is so good.

But right now I’m in capacity 3 and crashing hard. So goodnight muzungus. Love you.