Pebbles in my Boots: Uganda Cranes We Go!! :)

Welcome! To the new 2^nd wavers who arrived on Thursday! Chelsea, Jace, Ashlyn, Lexi, and Trevor all arrived Thursday. They are awesome :) I woke up that morning, went to the kitchen for breakfast and it was CHAOS! SO. MANY. PEOPLE! We had 29 people. It was insane.

Karli, Oliva, and Taylor left us that afternoon :( so the number went from 29 down to 26. Next Wednesday the 1^st wave leaves. Our numbers will continue to decrease and we will only have 17 peeps. It’s sad that everyone is leaving. I miss Karli, Olivia, and Taylor a lot already. :(

Anywho, I’ll tell you about my projects now. :)

Roastin' marshmallows with Karli

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! My excitement for these glasses almost compares to the excitement I had the day my friend came home from his mission in September! And that was a LOT of excitement, let me tell you. :)

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 hopefully get that passed!

Me and Kristen with all 800 glasses!

SEYA SCHOOL CONSTRUCTION:

We just received news today: Seya’s project proposal was approved by the HELP office so we can start on construction again!!! :) We can now buy the cement and lay it down in the trenches that we dug and then start building the school with the bricks! YAY!! :)

The team at the grand opening of Musana!

NAJJEMBE HEALTH OUTREACH:

Wednesday, June 13^th was the health outreach in Najjembe. I thought it went exceptionally well. Before we officially got started, we had hundreds of children pile through the gate and come for some deworming pills. Finally after about a straight hour of giving the pills, we had passed out 819 deworming pills. By the end of the day we passed out close to 900 pills. Woot! It was great! We thought we were going to run out, because we had only bought 1000 pills. Phewy.

The previous day I spent all day making Malaria posters and that night I was up until 3am laminating them with tape. They look legit. Sarah was the artist, I colored them, and Kristen told me what to write on them. They were way cool.

The Malaria and sanitation classes went well during the health outreach as well. I don’t know how many people attended them, but there were a lot! There was no sitting room, people had to stand!

Also, Lane had built the Tippy Tap and had a good demonstration set up for however many went to check that station out and learn how to make a fancy and cheap hand-washing station. It was great! :)

PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES:

We met with Moses on Friday to discuss what exactly what we wanted to construct for Sam. We decided on making a toilet chair or a special made chair to separate his legs when he sits. Because Sam 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 these chairs and with the separating the legs chair, it will help straighten his back and also just get him off the ground. We want to make a toilet chair for him so that he doesn’t have to sit in his own waste.

We went and visited him, asked his mom a lot of questions, checked out the living space, and also their latrine. It’s a pretty sad place. In their house, they have some furniture, but his mother makes him sit on the floor because she doesn’t want to dirty the furniture or let Sam go to the bathroom by accident. It’s really a sad predicament. She values the furniture more than she values his life it seems.

Sam’s mom is a tailor and owns her own sewing machine. So she has her own small business and also has 6 children.

After visiting Sam, we went and visited Joel. We are going to work on constructing chairs for Joel after we finish things for Sam. We will be working one child at a time so we can give them what they need the most.

Joel was sick, but was doing a bit better than last time I saw him I thought. It still stunk terrible in the house, but Joel wasn’t spitting up and he has great posture. Better than me! He sits very well in a chair. We are thinking of making him a toilet chair, because we believe that he just does his business where he sits and his mom doesn’t clean it up often, if at all.

Sanitation is still just as bad in that house.

Joel’s father works in the sugar cane fields near Jinja. His mom works in their shop/house. Their shop is a battery recharging place and their house in just in the back room. It’s sad. So the place is super cluttered from battery stuff and black and dirty from that stuff. I’ve not seen the back room (their house) but I’m sure it’s not a ton better than the shop part. She had 3 children. One child is normal, and then there were twins with disabilities. Joel is the only twin left; the girl twin died a couple years ago.

We have figured out the budget and finished the project proposal and we got it passed by the country directors and the team last night!!! I am so excited to get it going!! :) It will be really good. :)

Those are the projects that I have been involved in this week. It’s been a good week.

Stewart & Melissa doing their dances

We finally did our talent show this past week. My goodness it was hilarious. :) Especially Liz and Nate’s talent! This is the only picture I’m allowed to post. It got better – Nate took off his shirt and was wearing a bra, and they just were workin’ out like crazy trying to burn off a mint. ;) haha it was de best. :)

Liz & Nate doing their workout

Taylor, Maren, and Elise singing the Titanic song

Church is great – as usual. :) I love going to church in Jinja. They may be opening a Lugazi branch here soon! How cool would that be!? We would all go to the Lugazi branch once it opened if we are still here by the time they are able to get it together. Woot! :)

My legit face paint :)

Yesterday (Saturday) most of the team and I went to Kampala to party in the Mandela National Stadium for the Uganda vs. Congo Futbol game! :D It was epic!!!! :)

4 hours before the game started.. :)

The Ugandan Goalie - Go Goalies!!! :)

I got my face painted really cool and bought a jersey. Then we waited in the stadium for hours. :) Partied it up with our Ugandan friends that we made in the stadium! It was so fun! At 4 was the kick-off. By that time, the stadium was PACKED and it was SOOOOO dang LOUD! 2 hours later, when we excited the crowds and screams and blowing horns, we were all literally deaf. We were screaming at each other still because we were deaf. We could barely hear. It was insane!

GOOOOOAL!! :)

Celebrating on the ground!

But the game was GREAT!!! We goo, we go! Uganda Cranes we go! :) We won 4-0. It was such a good game! Woot! And it was so fun!

Go Uganda!! :)

This morning on the taxi to Jinja for church, the guy in front of us had the sports part of the newspaper and we saw that Melissa had made the first page in a picture of the crowd cheering after scoring a goal! We are still trying to track the newspaper down to buy, but we know she’s on it! haha :) It was a super fun day yesterday at the game. :)

Goalies warming up!