Warm Welcomes and Future Plans!

Yesterday was a bit of a slow day here in the Mbale household. About half the group who was interested in an education project with the Mbale School District all went to meet with the Minister of Education. The other half of us stayed behind at home to work on cleaning, shopping and project planning of our own. I have the lovely chore of bathroom cleaning this week. I won't begin to disgust you with some of the regulations involving the toilet, but let's just say...it's definitely camp-style out here. I'm just grateful we even have a toilet! We headed to the market in town to pick up a few staples for the house-- bread, eggs, oil, etc. The rest of the group met us back at the house and we began a project brainstorm/development session that lasted us for the next 5-6 hours.

Josh and I spent quite a bit of time working over some of the details for projects we would like to tackle as far as public health and volunteering in a clinical setting. We are so eager to begin working but there are a few people we need to meet with first and some project development research that needs to be done before we can jump into it all. Here is our idea-- there is a mountain village quite a ways from here that HELP did some work with last year to complete a school. They were the first Mzungus to ever enter the village. This year, we REALLY want to work to build a health clinic for these people who receive very little health care because of their distance from town. Word is that we will need to take a taxi, boda and a hike all the way to the top. Once we provide them with a clinic and even in the midst of construction, we are eager to also teach health classes in the community about women's health, HIV/AIDS, proper sanitation, etc. CFA is the organization here in Mbale that works with this community providing education to them and are looking for our help to create this health clinic. We will hopefully meet with CFA on Friday to begin plans and find out what our options are. This might be one of the big financially demanding projects, but also has the potential to become one of the most sustainable. My hope is that we could head up to the village on Monday and see what their current health status is. We will probably stay days at a time up there once we begin work on the clinic. Josh and I will probably become very accustomed to the long distance to the top by the end of the project. We also have been informed that they do not speak any English in this community, which will also require us to have translators while we are there.

A quick side note--before coming here I did some research on language and culture in Uganda. I found that English and Swahili were the main languages here, yet, I have found that VERY few people actually speak Swahili. Most speak Luganda but its form differs from district to district. You could drive one hour from Mbale and encounter an almost completely different dialect that a local Ugandan would not be able to understand. I am shocked by this but it is just the way that tribes were split up and are still divided by language. So, with the potential of living 3-4 days in a remote village in an area that speaks no English, I am finding it a cultural norm here to have language barriers, even between fellow Ugandans.

Today, we woke up early and were met by Sulu who represents an organization here that works with women's groups and schools in Mbale's surrounding villages. We all hopped into a taxi and were transported to a village about 15 minutes away. When we arrived, I was not prepared for what was about to happen. We drove up and there were many women waiting for us to pull up in the van. As soon as we pulled in, the door of the taxi was ripped open and I was forcefully removed from the car. I was lifted out by the swarm of women who were yelling and screaming and cheering. I was at a loss of words. One woman grabbed me out of the pack and pulled me across the path to some chairs that had been set up for us in the shade. Once everyone was pulled out of the car and seated, they began to perform for us. A musical number in English, a skit and then a song in their language. A common sound was a yell, like the Xena warrior princess yell (for those who are familiar).

We were taken to 2 other similar women's groups, a health clinic, and 2 schools where we had similar greetings of cheering, singing and dancing for us. I was floored at their love and excitement for us as we went from village to village. Each group begged for our assistance this year, mostly looking for teachers in the schools and microfinance assistance to help these women with income generating activities. I wish I was more knowledgeable in the business aspect and could help these women to be self-reliant. I love their willingness to earn their own income and be self-sufficient women without the dependence on men, who are often absent in theirs and their children's lives. I hope that our group can provide this assistance so that they can continue to empower themselves and each other.

Here are the videos from the performances today. Definitely one of those moments I will remember forever. I absolutely felt like royalty as they prepared these performances and cheered with excitement at our arrival.