SURPRISE

A friend of ours had his birthday yesterday. We learnt that he hadn’t celebrated even one of his birthdays in his life, so we arranged a surprise party for him. He was indeed very surprised. He said it took him several minutes to stop shaking… :)

Friends were invited and we had a really nice time all 14 of us. We had good food consisting of pumpkin soup, fruit salad, waffles and cake.

Off course we had to have candles on the cake. Can you guess how many years he became?
25 Years – Happy Birthday

THE LAST WEEK.

Our last week is now about to end, and we have started to say good bye to people. Monday it was the prison. I played a lot with the two children whose mothers are prisoners. Finally the children are not afraid of me any more. It was so good to hear their laughter. I also played some ball with some of the girls there about my age.

Still in the prison I walked past one of the dorms and heard a baby cry… I opened the door… No mother was nearby so I ended up taking up the baby. The baby was so cute and tiny. I guessed it couldn’t be more that about a week. Where is the mother? A girl at the age of 20 came and it turned out that it was hers, so I gave it back to her. After words I learnt that the mother was put in prison because she had dumped her baby in a pit latrine. I could even read about it in on of the national newspapers that same day. I was shocked. What make you do such a thing? I just wanted to take the baby with me and give her all the love and care she might not be given… Some of the stories from the prison are so sad and unbelievable.

Children painting on our last day at BMC

Tuesday we went to BMC as usual. We did as usual and about 5 children were there enjoying drawing, painting etc. Now almost all the walls (in the room we were) are filled up with their work. One of the nurses told us that children actually were looking forward to come to BMC now, because of our work there. We’ll leave some materials for them, and I really hope that they can keep it going at least for a little while. The children there really deserve it.

Walls filled up with pictures at BMC…

Ruhandagazi closed for the term yesterday so we also went there to say goodbye to the children at Tuesday. It was a bit hard to see some of the faces as we told them that we had come for good byes. I don’t think we always can now how much impression/impact we can have in a persons’ life… But it’s also nice to know that we actually have made a difference by being there although it doesn’t always feels like it…

Yesterday we made food for the people at the office at West Ancole Diocese. We made them Norwegian rice porridge (“risengrynsgrøt”) and waffles. The waffles were a big success. :) At the picture you can see me making the porridge. We had no power in our house, so I had to make it on our kerosene cooker.

Katherine ready to serve

And some enjoying the food while working...

I must admit that I feel ready to go home to Norway now, but there are also some people I’m going to miss here. Thank you for making my stay better by being here…

QUEEN ELIZABETH

A trip to a national park is almost a thing you’re obliged to do as you are in Africa. At least when you live only about an hour away from one… So when we had our visitors together with us, we went to Queen Elizabeth for one day. I don’t think that this park had the most variety of animals, but at least we saw some… Even though we didn’t see the lions that we really wanted, we saw hippos, warthogs and loads of elephants to mention some. Just want to share some of the pictures…

This hippo looked really mad… I actually was a bit afraid for it... Just look at his “face and gaze”…

On our way back home we “met” these ones… And we paid to get into the park… :)

Simi and Helga at a signpost for the park.

EASTER PARTY AT RUHANDAGAZI SCHOOL FOR DISABLED

Children playing football, throwing ball, skipping rope and watching in books is just some of the things that happened as we arranged an Easter party at Ruhandagazi School for Disabled. The event took place Friday the 6th of April as the children were supposed to go home for Easter. Some children didn’t have the money for doing so, and it was mainly for those we planned to have the party.


As the afternoon and preparation went on we got a message from one of the teachers: “the more you delay, the more children it will be…” :) The word about us going to have a party spread to the neighbors and they also appeared. I think there were supposed to be 20-30 children, but I think it was more like 50. But we had fun!

2 girls from Norway visited us for the weekend, and also helped out with the party. Simi and Helga – former Act Nowers – which were in Kampala two years ago. Deborah (a girl from England that’s here for about 1,5-2months and shares the house with us) also helped out. We played with the children and gave them some food we had prepared. Many children had to share both plates and cups, since there was a lack of those. But I don’t think they minded.

It seemed that the children really enjoyed it and so did we.

BMC

Picture by Kathrine

At BMC, (Bushenyi Medical Centre) a week ago, we made some figures out of modeling clay amongst other things. You can see the work done at the picture above. Other things we did were playing cards and paper folding. It was only 5 children, but when I can see that they’re enjoying it really makes it worth it! And I say only 5 children because yesterday they were 15 children. That is a record for our time at BMC.

Yesterday we had an Easter workshop together with the children. It was so fun. BEST TIME EVER! The children were so free. Before we have had to ask them if they want to do this or this, but yesterday they just went on doing whatever they wanted; painting, drawing freely, playing cards, paper folding and watching books. It was a wonderful chaos… :) And the children must have enjoyed as much as Kathrine and I did, because many stayed way past their examination/medication time… Children that don’t want to leave the Health Centre because they’re enjoying too much… How wonderful is that… :)

A wonderful chaos. We had a problem of space because we were so many, but that’s just fun.

I called it an Easter workshop… That’s because it was the last time before Easter and we painted on eggs which is kind of a tradition back in Norway. We also made waffles to them. This was something new for them, but it seemed that they liked it…

Painting on eggs

You can se the painted eggs hanging in front and some of the paintings and drawings of the children at the wall behind. Soon we’ll not have more space for all the nice pictures they produce… :)

KMI

Last Wednesday as we arrived at KMI (Kabwohe Management Institute), we were met by the students doing activities like skipping rope and a form of dodge ball (we go there each Wednesday to do sports together with them…). The aim of the game is, as I understood it, to manage to put all the bricks on top of each other before you get hit by the ball passing by two others. As you get hit someone else have a try. I didn’t give it a try – it looks like the ball is thrown pretty hard… But I had fun watching…

We played some netball together with them after words. It was not to hot that day so it was very nice to play. I’m still new at the game and do not know all the rules yet, but I enjoyed. This was the last time we saw most of these girls. We were mostly together with the ones in their graduating year… Their term ended last Friday, and the next aren’t starting until we’re on our way back to Norway.

TRIP TO GULU

“Gulu, the largest town in the north of the country, is heavily militarized – it is the supply centre for the government’s war against the LRA. As long as the war continues, there is absolutely no reason for tourists to come here and plenty of reasons to stay away (…)”
(Description of the place by Lonely Planet Guide book, 2003)

Here some reasons why to go:

In an IDP(Internally Displaced People)-camp

Children at a health and activity centre

Children in an IDP-camp

Together with a friend of my family that have worked as a missionary in Uganda for the past 20 years Kathrine and I went to visit Gulu the 24th-25th of March. This is a place in the north that has been affected by a conflict that started in 1986 as President Yoweri Museveni took over the power by a military coop. The LRA (Lord Resistance Army) under the lead of Joseph Kony have fought their war up in north apparently as a way to overthrow the sitting President. LRA have had little success besides loosing the little support they had to begin with because of their way of acts. They have kidnapped a lot of children and trained them to be soldiers or/and sex-slaves. Children couldn’t feel safe, especially at night. Many of the children in the villages therefore went into the nearest towns to find a safe place to spend the night. Lacor hospital right outside Gulu town is one of the places they found a shelter. When the conflict was on its worse in 2003 it housed about 30 000 children.

Parts of an IDP-camp

Gulu is now a safe place to stay and have been for about three years. Our family friend started to work in the north, Gulu included, for three years ago. Then the fighting some kilometers outside town had just ceased. My first impression of Gulu is that it looks like a normal town with surrounding villages. But as I already knew it weren’t. The ”normal villages” – were mostly IDP-camps. People have lived here for too many years… The children have to bee taught how to play and how to work for food. Most of them have only experienced to get food from WFP (World Food Program)-trucks amongst others. Not one school sponsored by the government has been built in the north since the conflict first started. And here in the west, were I stay, you will find many new ones as well as many other advantages like a pretty nice road. A coincidence that the Presidents home place is here in the west… Sorry to say but I don’t think so…

My visit to Gulu included both a visit to “Karin Clinical Medical Centre” and an IDP-camp. At the clinic children met us with songs and dances. The clinic also functions as an activity-centre/day-centre for children. About 150 to 200 children come every day. Many of them are orphans or have just one parent left living. The daily life is hard and here they play and participate in different groups – counseling, music and drama ++.

Some of the children singing and dancing for us…

The children have gone through too much than I even can start to imagine – still I see many smiling faces… They will never forget things happened to them, but I hope they will have the opportunity to find out what a “normal” life is and live it themselves. If someone deserves a good life it is these children…

Some of the children watching the performances as we did…

In the IDP-camp Awer, we visited a church as well as being shown around the camp. It was about 20 000 that lived in this camp… In the beginning I felt I was kind of intruding in their lives, but learnt that they thought it was ok. Several were smiling at me, babbling in a language I didn’t understand and wanted me to take their picture… Some people are just amazing…

Okello James (from the left), Kibwoja Wilbam and Oyet David are taking a rest under a tree in the camp – listening to the radio…