Sing, Dance, Play

Ogamba Chi! (what's up?)

I realize this will probably be actually well written blogspot number one since i've arrived in Kyazanga, sorry about that. It's been a really busy time. I absolutely love it. Actually, "love it" would be an understatement. No word has been made in the english language to describe how I feel. So just imagine with me:

These kids. These kids at House of Hope. They are, they are... unbelievable! When they have music time and they sing and dance I get this overwhelming desire to cry. Just tears of happiness. There is something really really special about these kids; i adore them so much. Especially when you visit their homes and see how 9 are sleeping in one room, on the dirt floor with no blanket you think "how on earth do these kids come to school everyday and laugh and sing and dance? How are these kids happy?"

I think that's probably the biggest lesson i'm getting out of all this. I'm learning about happiness. Real happiness, divine and sustainable happiness. These kids are happy and it is totally stupendous. That's what I adore in them so much.

Actually, there is this one girl named Namatovu. My given Luganda name is Namatovu, and so this girl already has a special place in my heart. BUT! Man oh man do i adore this child. All those kids are so special and mean so much, but Namatovu has somthing in her that I have fallen in love with. She is 4. A little one, but she has a really old soul. You can tell just by looking at her; she looks like a grandmother. (Actually, her mother just died and so she is living with an old woman she calls her grandmother). She is just a child, only 4, and yet she has the most outrageous and loud personality. Most kids sort of shy away from the Mzungu (although they are getting used to me) but this kid... no way! If i tickle the kids they usually back off but Namatovu steps right up there and tickles me back. Unfortunately, although she is 4, she is already a leader and all the kids take her lead. It's really hard to escape 100 african kids trying to tickle you, not even houdini could get out! These are all reasons I love her to death. Now, alot of volunteers come through and want to sponsor a kid or two. It's hard because we can't just have some kids being sponsored and some kids not. Distressed by this I have come up with a rather fool proof way to get kids sponsored. So I was thinking about sponsoring Namatovu. I really really want to, it'll cost a little less then sponsoring a kid through world vision, but i'm a student next year... will i have the money? Well, while i was still thinking about it i was playing with her and a few other kids. They were on their way home and so just before she goes Namatov decides to go the the bathroom. This is how the scene plays out...

01. Namatovu runs inside.
02. Namatovu runs outside, takes off her underwear ouside the latrine on the ground and runs back in.
03. Namatovu goes to the bathroom whilst singing at the top of her glorious lungs. It was loud enough that everybody could hear, through the door and across the project.
04. Namatovu is still singing about 10 minutes later and her older sister is yelling at her to get out.
05. Namatovu finally comes out, and spends a good 5 minutes putting on and adjusting her underwear.
06. Ally almost dies of laughter and realizes that she has met her soul mate and must absolutely sponsor this child.

So, It's pretty much a done deal, I think I'll be sponsoring Namatovu :).

Also this week. ... I cleaned wounds. I've never used my first aid training like this before.
What happened was this kid cut his toe on a nail in the goat shack. He's crying, the teachers don't really know what to do, so I say "we'll get him a band-aid!" These kids have never had shoes before so you can imagine how bad it is to have a cut on your foot. They've also never seen band-aids before... Before I know it; i've put this band-aid on this kid and cleaned his wound (all while wearing gloves since probably about half have HIV). Suddenly i'm surrounded by about a billion kids. "okay," I think " guess we'll get some first aid happening, tha'ts good, clean some cuts". But these kids had cuts everywhere. And they wern't really cuts either... they were more like wounds and they were almost all infected. They all looked the same, mainly were on legs, and they were all different sizes. I realize after a teacher tells me, these kids have Syphillus. Now, I don't really know anything about syphillus, except what i've learned here (why oh why did i not pay attention to the boring parts of sex ed like "STD's"?). When you have syphillus it eventually starts to create wounds which pop out of nowhere on your skin. They are extremely painful. Then it affects your nervous system, then your brain and eventually you die. So now suddenly HIV isn't the only worry....
This one kid had about three wounds on his leg. I clean all of them, wrap one because it's too big for a band aid. Figuring i'm done he then pulls up the side of his shorts to reveal a massive grouping of wounds, infected beyond anything i've ever seen. He only bathes once every two weeks. He's from a child run home, so he bathes himself, and of course... no soap! how do you clean a wound like that? I clean it for the first time ever, and this kid is in agonizing pain. Done and wraped he then tells us about another one. He pulls down his pants and his entire butt (not cheek, but crack and lower back) is one gian wound. It's totally infected. How does this kid sit? I clean that too, but of course can't wrap it.

I feel terrible for these poor kids, suffering of syphillus. It's terrible, I wish I knew more so I could actually help them more... todays quick internet search! bleh. Syphillus doesn't really affect our society so much because people can get treatment, why would I learn about it? I wish so much now that I had. So much. (I'm sure if my planing teachers had said "you have to learn this to be able to help those in developing countries where it affects people most!" I would have paid great attention)

Next week will be great though! It's testing week! yay! We're testing all the kids and about 100 guardians (and other adults from the village) for HIV. Fantastic stuff. I'm telling you now it was a bitch to put togehter... without sparing too many details of absolute corruption... but it's together now and that's what counts. right? Plus they are also getting councelling and the group who is giving the councelling TASO (fantastic organization) said they have treatment for 80 kids, but no kids! Step in House of Hope! We'll see how things play out, but all the same I'm praying (yes, me, praying...to whom I don't know, just thought I'd give it a go) that most of these kids don't have AIDS.

Guess the beer this weekend will either be one in celebration or one in regret.

Happy days and Happy adventures...