The Frog Prince and other "African" tales

So, not too much has happened over the past week. The rest of the BYU squad arrived, so we’ve had about 20 students plus Professor Mike and his 11-year-old daughter Andrea since the beginning of the week. Everyone has been hard at work getting their projects set up, and that has been quite a task. For several groups, that may be the hardest part of the whole trip! 

It’s been a little discouraging for Tyler’s group (the micro-savings project) because they are still having trouble getting a bank to work with them. They have gone to MANY banks in the Kampala area looking for someone to partner with, but nothing so far. There are a couple banks who appear promising, but we don’t want to get our hopes up. They’ve got a great idea, so I hope someone works out soon!

Me, I sometimes wish I were in the same boat. Kelly and I have been doing nothing but going! We have been teaching at the schools for the last week. So far we have taught at 9 schools, wow! There have been a few days where it has been really discouraging because we are trying so hard to help these girls but are having a hard time communicating. We chose to go to more rural schools because the people in the villages have less money and the girls probably can’t afford disposable sanitary pads. The problem is, they also don’t speak English very well. In fact, I learned just last week that most of the rural school do not start teaching English until the kids are about 11! Since our target population consists of girls ages 13 and 14, they haven’t had much time to become proficient. It’s been a real blessing to have Olivia and Moses along with us to help translate, but that has been a bit of a struggle as well. We have questionnaires for the girls to fill out, but because many of them struggle with English, they must be translated. I worry that some of the girls are not putting their true feelings because they are either being led by the translators, or they don’t know how to express themselves in English. Our professor helped us to feel better about that when he told us that surveys really aren’t that reliable even if your participants speak English, haha. Overall, I think it has been a worthwhile project. The teachers are very welcoming as we come around asking for their permission. The only thing I wish I had more of was money. It would have been really nice to give supplies to all of the girls in each school we go to, but the average university students’ pocket is not quite deep enough for that. Hopefully something good information will come of this project and we can find more funding for products for the schools in the future.

On a lighter note…well, technically darker…Tyler and I, along with Professor Mike and his daughter Andrea went frog hunting last night. We found a few small ones when we went to get the laundry, and while I was hanging it up to dry, Tyler went back out and kept looking. He found a nice fat one for me to catch, and I think it took him significantly longer to convince me to actually catch it than it took to find it! I'm just glad I didn't have to kiss one to get my "prince". Now that we know how plentiful the frog population is here, I foresee some pranking in the near future…

Also, Tyler and I discovered how NOT to make peanut sauce today. Blugchk! I have really got to stop experimenting. It never ends well.

the little things

A very interesting thing happened to me this morning. I was heading to the Humanitarian missionaries flat to send a fax and as I entered through the gate I saw the gardener in the front courtyard. His name is Isaac and is a recent convert. He is maybe 17 or 18 and has the goofiest grin when you talk to him. I really enjoy him. Anyways, we chatted very briefly and our conversation went as follows: “Hey Isaac how are you?!” “Your welcome, I’m good.  Where is your wife?”  “Oh, she’s in Mokono district today doing work with schools.”  “Oh, is that hard, you miss her?”  “It is only 6 hours or so, not too bad.”  Our conversation about died right there so I turned to head up the stairs and as I turned, he said “Thank you for loving each other.” He said it in such a sincere and respected way that really hit me. It was a moment that made me want to chuckle because the way he said, which was not equivalent to my American English, but the solemnity of the moment got the better of me…and a few steps later it sunk in: “That boy realizes more about the sacredness of marriage and loving someone than I do!”

That simple sentence definitely caught me by surprise. I have been dwelling on it the whole day. It caught me by surprise because I would never have heard that in the States or any other Western country for that matter (where the family is truly under attack). It made me think about the Ugandan culture and more so the Christian culture which is obviously very conservative when it comes to marriage and moral truth. I’ve been impressed with the people here, their kindness and generosity, even just saying a simple hello while passing people on the roadside. Apparently, Isaac’s goofy grin is contagious because I sure did have a goofy and very happy grin on my face walking away from him. Now I know that love and companionship IS such a sought after thing!  I’m pretty sure I’ve always known that but It just took a Ugandan boy to get me to understand it in such a simple and clear manner; just as was his simple and clear remark.: “Thank you for loving each other.”

Krazy Kampala and Krocs

This past week has literally blown by. Here in Kampala, most of the roads are dirt so when mini taxi buses come storming by we get a mouthful of red dust!  We don’t mind however since it is all a part of the cultural experience, but we are indeed grateful for our cue tips and pumice stone (for our feet)!  There is a lot of walking involved and there aren’t really any sidewalks so whenever we walk by the roadside we have learned to keep very still because traffic passes by us about a foot away. Let’s see, something that happened this past week: we got to see Lake Victoria and close by we visited a crocodile farm! Apparently they have a few farms in order to sell them for meat and skins. The guy caught a croc for us and we held it!! It was fantastic, probably even better than eating crocodile later. It was kinda chewy…

All in all, our week was great! We worked hard setting up our project and are realizing that things don’t always work out as fast as you would like. There is definitely a “Uganda time” here and it is not uncommon to have an appointment or meeting set that gets delayed haha. However, for the branch that we attend for church, the meeting starts spot on. We are very impressed! Oh, so we are getting to know the couple missionaries very well (there are a lot of them). Apparently this mission encompasses Sudan, Kenya, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Rwanda, and Burundi. Missionaries can’t go into Sudan and in Rwanda the government is just on the verge of recognizing our church so missionaries will be sent soon, yay! The church is strong here in Uganda and the missionaries are baptizing around 50 members a year in our branch. There is one stake, a couple wards and a couple branches.  Well that’s all for now, hope everyone is doing well stateside, Lots of Love!

Walk like an Egyptian...or ride, if you will

We had a 10 hour layover in Cairo, and we really didn't want to stay in the airport the whole time, so we took our chances with the crazy driving and went to see the pyramids in Giza. I was a bit skeptical about leaving the airport with all the happenings of late, but Tyler thought it was safe enough so out we went! The second we began to leave the airport, we had drivers all over us trying to get us to use them. It was only the beginning of a long day of "No's", "No thank you's", "No, merci's", and any other number of rejecting phrases. The Egyptians are VERY pushy, and it was exhausting. Anyway, we ended up taking a taxi and our driver was very nice but spoke very little English. The pyramids were very cool, but I must say the discovery channel makes them seem a lot cooler, and the sphinx was especially anti-climatic, but the face that we saw them in real life was still sweet.

I think learning about the history and how they built them is what really makes them cool. We also took the chance to ride some camels. Tyler's camel was named "Moses" and mine was "Mickey Mouse."

Awesome! After about an hour and a half, Tyler and I were both hot, sweaty, and tired of fighting off the people trying to take our money so we got back in the taxi and snoozed for part of the drive home.

We waited a couple more hours in the airport before boarding the plane to Entebbe Airport. We got in at about 3:30am and to the apartment by around 5am. A bed never felt so good after two nights of sleeping on airplanes! The last couple days in Kampala have seemed much longer, and we already feel like we've been here for a week. We are very excited for our coming adventures as our research projects get going.