It's time for a serious blog update and a serious bit of explaining.
We're currently back in Jinja at the source of the Nile; after volunteering to work everyday 9-5 in the last month of my holidays which I feel contributed atleast somehow to me getting quite seriously sick, we felt like we deserved some serious relaxation time before doing anything else. So we've come, and we're sitting by a pool, and we're refusing to do anything else for the next couple of days. Oh except that we're going kayaking on the Nile after lunch but that's also for intense relaxation purposes. Not a bad recovery route I think!
I'm going to endeavour to start from Christmas since I think that's where I left you out of the loop.
We went back to Nakirebe for Christmas to spend it with the friends we've spent our first 5 months in Uganda with. Unfortunately, we've had some long running problems with our host and Christmas didn't turn out anything like we expected. After serious months of questioning whether we should move and whether we could even handle a move, Christmas was the final straw in helping us decide that we atleast needed to try.
SOOO we left after Christmas anyway and while Clara went back to traveling with other vols I set off to start up my secondary project in Hoima where I was going to volunteer in a babies home for one month. Whilst there I would be staying with a host family introduced to me by our country representative, Ian. The head of the family is called Godfrey and is the cannon of the biggest cathedral in Hoima; I'd be living with him, his wife, Janet, their 4 children and one grandchild.
It was seriously nerve-racking and I questioned for a while if I'd made the right decision; wondering if I'd underestimated how much having a partner with you helps things and choosing to do this independently.
Despite that I settled in seriously fast and received the warmest welcome that I've ever received anywhere in Uganda. One night I did phone Clara questioning whether we could really handle the move; I was there experiencing and remembering freshly the struggle we had at the beginning; always watching what you're doing, questioning if its ok, observing - it's not a bad thing to be doing and it teaches you a lot but at some point you just get tired of being in the panic zone and want to be completely and utterly comfortable somewhere again. It's something we never quite reached at brother johns place and it was just growing seriously tiring.
We talked it through and concluded we needed to carry on with the move and life went on. New Year with my new found friends in Hoima was incredible. I was introduced to a church youth group called the Faith Club and we went to a cathedral staff party where Godfrey introduced me to the community as his first born daughter. It was so so nice and the strength and love in that church community was so incredible to watch in those days.
As another year finished and we entered 2014 I sat in the breathtaking Ugandan cathedral and watched countless numbers of people singing an dancing for God and the new year in what I can only describe as an all night church rave!
In the days following that I started work at the local child development centre where I was dealing with children's files and helping them write letters to their sponsors. I did that three days a week followed by three days a week at the Mustard Seed Babies Home where I enjoyed the company of the children offered a place to live and the hired mothers who offer their love unconditionally to these babies for all their lives. On Sunday I also worked at the Sunday school, helping with bible teaching and game playing!
While all of this was going on the hunt for a new full time project began as Project Trust agreed with our needs to move. By this point I'd done some serious work and made some serious friends in Hoima and so the initial reaction was why not make it our permanent project! So in a series of completely coincidental events including there being a local women with a spare house who wanted people to come and stay for free just for company.
So Clara stopped holidaying and came to see for a few days if she liked it and the decision was made that we'de spend our remaining 7 months in Hoima where we'll be filing at the CDC, baby cleaning at Mustard Seed, taking occasional classes at the local primary schools and helping out at the Christian Health Clinic. For sure you never think that your project will be one of the few that are disturbed throughout the year but since it happened we're preparing to make a new home and looking forward to the challenges of settling in to a new place.
Oh oh oh and amidst all of this I also applied for university!
I feel seriously like everything is falling into place juuuust as it should be and I'm ready for the next 7 months. Don't know if I can quite believe that we're almost half way through. I still never want to leave and truly believe that if I can handle the things we've been through in the past couple of months, WHILE being sick and constantly tested for malaria AND working full time, I can handle anything Uganda wants to throw at me.
Serious blog post.
This is my view right now and those trees you see are crawling with red tail monkeys. So casual Uganda. Don't make me leave.
P.S don't look if you're squeamish... Did I mention I got a boda burn? I'm in the wars.
It's better now...
Love from Uganda xxxxxxxx
