I think we're not getting used to African culture, time, and their cultural expectations, but we are now not as surprised by it when we witness it. Without explaining every moment in which we felt that, I'll just leave this observation to stand by itself, and you can mentally layer that in throughout the day and the trip.
Today's agenda included a visit up at Hearts and Hands Foundation to plant some trees on the property. The holes were already dug for us, and we just plopped them into the holes and threw some dirt on the root ball. Jeff shared his family's tradition of naming trees, and gave his tree a name. Ug, I can't remember what it was! That started the rest of us naming our trees. I'll tell you how we Sam and I came up with a name. Sam's instinctual answer for "what do you want to name our tree" was "Brooks", after his brother. That reminded me of his verse, Psalm 1:3 or Jeremiah 18:8, which is nearly identical. Both are applicable to tree planting. I don't remember what the other names were.
Then about nine widows came to meet with the ladies for 60 minutes or so, and the rest of us played soccer and discussed particle physics.
Then we headed to meet with another project that H&HM supports which helps local handicapped folks. We heard some tragic stories, but due to the timing of our agenda, didn't get to hear them all. It was frustrating that those folks came by motorcycle taxi, or on foot, and we didn't get to meet all of them. As we drove away to our next appointment, more were walking down the road! One good thing was that as one gentleman was making a presentation to Mike, Mike stated that we are just here to help Mike's frend Abel, ("Ah-Bell") and so he should be making the presentation to Abel, not Mike.
From there we headed to see Victor and Alyssa's huge endeavor: an orphanage, school, and hospital/clinic. I think I briefly introduced Alyssa and Victor yesterday. They have 50 children in their orphanage, over a 100 in their school, and the clinic now has x-ray and ultrasound. They have no doctor at this time, but are interviewing for one. Her educational background is helpful in how they teach. One interesting difference I heard was that they don't beat the children when they don't learn, like public schools. That's good to hear, huh? Public schools have a teacher/student ratio of 1:150 or 1:200--and that's when the teacher shows up to work. I think I heard that their ratio was in the 1:20-30's. The God's Care orphanage, clinic and school are not funded by the government, but by donors. They are not a Heart of Africa partner currently.
Our last appointment of the day was to visit another school, known as NOSHIP. I may have mentioned that that stands for Nyamabuga Orphans Self Help Institutional Project. It was a ways out of town, "out in the bush", as Mike informed me. We met with the staff and some kids, and were able to give them some red vines and two balls, a soccer ball and a basket ball. They were very grateful for the balls. This school has NEVER had a ball before!! That being said, this trip frustrated me the most of today. We had a third ball, a soccer ball, in one of the cars before we rearranged vehicles and split up with some of the team returning back. It turned out the the driver (hired, I think) took one of the balls for himself or some other group he's in. I think I'm frustrated that a) the school could really use some more balls (just one will not last long at this school), and b) I think we'd be happy to consider a request made for a ball, but I feel like it was stolen as there was no mention of it leaving our control without our knowing it. Oh well. [update: it turns out that the ball wasn't stolen, but Anita had been asked and approved it, not telling Abel.]
This is the jungle gym for the little kids.
The NOSHIP school has 285 students, and many of them, over 100, are orphans. I don't know where the orphans go when they are not at school.
The reason this school exists is twofold: a) handicapped (and orphans?) are not allowed at public school, and b) as I mentioned above, the public school is not good--no learning can be accomplished there with an absent teacher and a high student:teacher ratio.
So I think this is a good project, but it's frustrating to hear of the "Africanisms" that have impacted success. For example, money being given for a specific purpose being re-diverted to some other need with no way to complete the original intent.
We are now back at the hotel awaiting dinner in an hour. The team is mixed about going home--some have said they want to stay longer or forever in Africa, some want to go back last week, and Daniel still has another week or more of Africa travel for his business.
The plan is for us to go to Kampala tomorrow to dedicate a print shop, then get on the plane that departs at 01:00 (am) to start the journey back.
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