My new favorite perfume is "Off Insect Repellent"

Sorry this is a long one as we were gone for so long.

It has been a long week here in the pearl of Africa. On Wed morning we were given the opportunity to go into a high school room at Kasubi. We were there to teach social studies. One might think these kids are very much behind the times and not really on top of current events. If you have that mind set you would be wrong. These kids asked questions that our kids probably don’t know or understand. Some of the questions were about racism, conflict, the war, Bin Laden, nuclear weapons and how we became a super power. They were interested to know how we broke away from England as Uganda was also a commonwealth of England. They wanted to know how our government is run and how we felt about this year’s presidential election. They wanted to understand our way of free time and what that really meant as they start their days before dawn and get home as the sun sets. They use candles to do their homework by, and clean up to start over the next day. The whole concept of having time to watch TV or play games was to say the least very unusual to them. They wanted to know if we had deeply rooted culture in America. I had to say that we are such a melting pot of many different backgrounds that we really don’t have specific cultural traditions anymore. The one question that was very funny was “did aliens from mars land in New York” I told them no it was New Mexico Ha Ha.


Nampunge Village

We didn’t have to travel but an hour to get to our village this time. We worked on the church that was already in progress. We arrived to find the columns built and some of the floor work done. To our absolute amazement the church was almost complete by dedication on Sunday. Mainly the men worked on the church. I went over one of the afternoons and helped move dirt. Let me tell you that was a job. One of the funniest times was when the last load of dirt had been delivered. John Henry ( Senior Pastor) stepped in front of me as I was shoveling and said “ here move” , Ok those of you who really know me understand I don’t take that lightly as I am a very hard worker and had just as much dirt on my shovel as the men. So John stepped in like he was gonna really get this job done and on the first scoop his shovel broke in his hands. I just had to laugh. To save face he kept shoveling with just the actual shovel head. He finally turned to me and said I could go ahead and finish.

I was very fortunate to be able to spend some time in the medical clinic that they have there at the village. It is unbelievable the conditions that this health clinic is in and still considered a health facility. When you come to a clinic or hospital you must bring everything you will need while you are there. Including someone to take care of you, feed you, bath you, and help you use the bathroom. If you are there to have a baby you must bring cotton to clean you and the baby up with, a blanket to put the baby in or your clothes will be used as a blanket, and any thing else that is needed. A person with non-critical needs could sit for a day or more before care is given.
The types of cases we saw in one afternoon were many cases of Malaria, Typhoid, HIV diagnosis and 4 women in labor. All are within a few feet of each other. Stop and imagine a newborn in the same room as someone with the high fever of malaria?
I was fortunate to get involved with two of the women in labor. One was 19 and this was her first child. The other was 22 and this was her second. I walked and talked with both and both were then taken to the “labor room” (a sheet away from the rest of the people). I sat and helped each one breath through their pain. I rubbed their backs and gave them support.
The first to deliver was the 19 year old to a beautiful little girl. The mother was kind enough to allow me to stay for the event and was very to let me hold the baby. It is the story of the 22 year old that breaks my heart. She already had a 2 year old son waiting for her at home. She was in extreme pain, and ladies these girls are tough as nails, they never once screamed in pain. They controlled it all. This mom was in a lot of pain and I was rubbing her back trying to help reduce it for her. I put a cool towel on her head to help make her more comfortable. She would smile and thank me. Her water broke but the baby never came.
The “Dr” there, really he is a PA, said he would check her in 4 hours. And still no baby. As Americans we understand that after 4 hours of this situation we would most likely be taken for a C section. This young mother was left there for the next day and a half. We had no say as to what to do. The baby’s heart rate of course got very weak. Finally the “Dr” sent her to the city to the hospital. The midwife said most likely neither the baby nor the mother will survive. I was completely heart broken as I had become close to this girl, and now she was just gone because of senseless ignorance. The price is about 5000SCH =$3.

Family members and even patients sit under trees on mats if the clinic is full. As you become less critical you are moved to the yard. Some are there to get shots for whatever they have. So since it is so expensive to travel back and forth if you need a shot every 6 hours you get the shot and sit around for the next shot. If you need them for three days you are sleeping under the stars until your treatment is over.

One of the sweetest things I saw was a little girl had been given a doll by one of the team members. She wrapped it up in a piece of cloth and immediately started pretending to breastfeed the doll. She was doing what she knew. Here in America you see little girls grab for a bottle, but here in Uganda you see the purest most natural things. We are so worried about one of the most natural, normal acts there is that our children don’t understand what really happens and how they were most likely given sustenance as babies.

I was also given the honor of working with many women in many villages. They usually sit down look at us like “sure these rich white women are going to tell us western ways to do things”. Soon they understand we have more in common than they thought. We all have trouble with kids as they grow up and rebellion. We all have issues in marriage, and we all seem to be the backbone of the family.

We did crafts with them and one was to decorate flip flops. Taking strips of cloth and tie them to the flip flop. Ok so some of them looked at us as though we had lost our minds. Looks like “what are they doing asking us to tie this to our shoes, don’t they know we could use that cloth?” But then others where very excited to get creative with the different colors and such. They got so excited when they were done they danced around showing off their shoes.

Another craft we did was creating color of faith necklaces.
Black = Our sin, Red= the blood of Christ, White= a pure life washed clean, Blue= our faith in Christ Jesus, Green= Continue to grow in Christ, Yellow= our eternal life in heaven, Purple= the majesty of Christ.

For the most part none of the women can read or write so we went over these numerous times and with this necklace they can share their walk of faith with others.

They did have many questions of us. And as always the question of our hair comes up. Is it real? How do you get it so long? Can you tell us how we can get hair like yours? Other questions are in regards to abuse of husbands to wives and how we deal with it? Can they come to America and change to become white? How do we bury people, why do we only have 2 or 3 children? This is the question that we are waiting for as I have learned. This gives us the perfect opportunity to talk about family planning. And yes we went into detail. I sat through the missionaries’ lesson once and for 4 more groups of women I was giving family planning lessons. Their biggest fear is their husbands will go find new wives of they do not continue to produce children. But that is another lesson in itself.

On Sunday, today, we dedicated the church we went to help build. As I said earlier it was about half way finished when we arrived. Today the walls were up to the headers above the windows, the roof was on and the floor was level. What an amazing couple of days to see the amount of work done in such a short time. Each church shared testimonies, songs of praise and gifts of thanks to each other. The one thing that most churches here do not have is places to baptize people. This church was given a baptizing pool. For many the travel to distant churches to be baptized is a great expense and for many they are unable to make that journey. John Henry of CCC and pastor Patrick of Muntunge began the baptism and the line grew longer and longer. Many other churches in the area including Mutungo, the church we helped to build last year came to participate. The line seemed to never end. Today we baptized 100 people to Gods army. Some have wanted years for this final pubic proclamation that Christ is first in their lives. I think I heard the singing and dancing as the heavenly angels celebrated this day. So many things again we take for granted in America. The emotions were great and many of the visitors had many tears rolling down their cheeks as we had never witnessed such an act of love and surrender to Gods love.

The team is off to a safari and will load the bus at 7am. I will be out and about Kampala visiting the children’s hospital tomorrow.

Please continue to keep us all in your prayers
Much Love Kimberly
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