Frozen Water

New game!  Put ice in a kids hand and watch their reaction.  It's hilarious, especially when they eat it and scrunch up their little faces.

Aber and Avatar

Aber.

I've created a new game I like to call Weird Kids out with American Things.

For instance, you show a 3 year old a video clip of their mom on your computer and watch them run behind the screen to see how she got in there.  Show a kid a full sized mirror.  Let them play with a faucet.  Teach them the chicken dance.  Put their picture on the projector.

Today I put Avatar on for some of the kids.  None of the moms were around so I had no help with translations but they were asking me so many questions about the movie.  I have no idea what they asked but I assume it was something like "why are these people blue?"  or "is this real?" or "is this what people look like in America?"  I would have loved to know.



On to a more serious note, one of the girls, Janet, called her husband from my phone today.  He abandoned her while she was pregnant with her daughter, Aber (meaning, "Beautiful).  She called to ask him to pay the school fees of Innocent, her 5 year old son.  When they finished she told me a bit more about him.  I knew from before that he had cheated on her and gave her and her (then baby) daughter AIDS.  She told me today that "he likes women too much."  That all he does is go from woman to woman.  This man knows that he has AIDS and yet he has sex with as many women as possible.

Should this be illegal?  If a man knows that he is infected should he have to inform the women before he sleeps with them?


Janet then explained how worried she is about her daughter's future and that her only hope is to go back to school for tailoring to make a bit of money for school fees etc. since she's often too tired from being sick to work in the fields.

She's actually on our list of girls to receive a scholarship but she hasn't been informed yet (as we're trying to avoid jealousy among the girls), I'm praying that she can use this boost to lessen her fears of failing her kids.

updateee

This week has been really busy.  The donor who paid for the New Life Centre to open is coming tomorrow to see how things are going.  I'm working on making a video of all the staff and girls etc.  I love video editing but I don't have the software I like and it has taken ages to compile.  On top of that we're still cranking out work on the scholarships!

So here's an update:

The woman who went into labor last week is STILL waiting.  The pains have been on and off and since she lost a lot of fluid they want her to remain in the hospital.  She's going a bit stir crazy, says if it doesn't come by the end of the week she's running away!  She doesn't speak any English so one of the other girls translates for me.  When I leave I always say to her stomach in Acholi, "Baby, come here today!"  Hasn't worked yet but I'll keep trying.

We have 41 girls who are set to start primary, secondary or vocational schools!  I'm extremely happy with how well things have gone.  I never expected my tiny "these girls should be able to go back to school" to work like this, way to go God.  I'm also working on writing up stories about them to send to all those who supported this.  I'll mail them out once I get home!

In other news, one of our kids fell and split his forehead open today :-/

Speaking of kids, I absolutely love all of the kids at the Centre, I would stay here just for them.  I'm pretty sure you may have gathered that from past posts but I'm not sure if you know how much I enjoy them.



So during the day I think of all these things I want to post about and then I sit down to write this and I have nothing.  


Oh funny story, two of my friends were laughing about how short my basketball shorts are that I wear to bed here (I was hanging my laundry).  I explained that they are actually long shorts compared to most.  They were astonished that we wear something that exposing, that we "don't respect our bodies."

I then made mention of the fact that we would never step outside of our bedroom without a shirt on.  (In the villages women can sit outside of their house without a shirt and there are moms breastfeeding everywhere you go.)  I was reminded of our Africa introduction session before I came here last time when they said "knees are the boobs of Africa."

They laughed so hard by the fact that we consider a woman's chest to be private, that even if breastfeeding women use a blanket or something to cover.  I don't think I've ever seen them laugh so hard.  Ohh culture, you're a funny thing.

Stories from the Bush

Today was pretty intense.  I've been working on this video for the Centre and decided to interview two of the girls about their experience when they were abducted.  I was expecting for them to be timid in discussing it, especially with the camera around.  But they talked without pausing for well over a half an hour each.

The first video of a girl named Coline starts out with "When I was abducted they forced me to lie with my Uncle's son as husband and wife in a field of sweet potatoes.  After that I was given to a very old man.  When I complained to the elders, they dug a deep hole and put me in it.  When that punishment was over they caned me."

I have no idea what they said during most of it (I'll have the rest translated tomorrow) but with the little I know of the Acholi language I could decipher some of it.  One of the girls used hand motions that universally mean somebody's head was being cut off.  She used this reference on multiple occasions.

They both kept a completely strait face the whole time.  Didn't show any weakness.  It wasn't until later in the afternoon, when the cameras were off, that I saw Coline crying.

How is it already July 21!?! 

Health

So one of the girls at the Centre was taken to the hospital with labor pains on Sunday.  It seemed that her water broke.  Buttt she's still there and hasn't given birth.  In the US we'd induce labor in about 12 hours but that's risky here since if inducing doesn't work they need to do a c-section.  So, it's been 48 hours - no baby.

Just be praying for her, the chances of infection for her and her baby are much higher now.

Oh and there are two hospitals in Kitgum, the government hospital has run out of sterilization equipment, AKA if anyone needs any kind of invasive treatment they can't get it.  They also have no doctors on most of the wings.  Their sonogram machine is broken.  And if someone breaks something they can't get a cast because the plaster thing doesn't work anymore either.

Never complain about our healthcare, regardless of our problems we have state of the art equipment and facilities.

Church

So I got a call at 6:40 this morning from my cook Concy.  "Meg - are you coming to church?"  "I'm in bed Concy"  "Me too but I'm coming to get you."  I usually go to church at the service that's held on our compound but Concy always asks me to come to hers.  So I got out of bed today and headed out with her.

Thankfully for me, the early service is in English so I understood both the songs and the sermon - which I think is a first... ever.  So we jumped, danced and "ayayayayaed."  The church has a ton of people from FH, three of the pastors are coordinators at FH, the guy playing the keyboard is the guy that washes vehicles and cuts the grass, three people in the choir are on staff and the charismatic man leading worship is the quiet office assistant who sweeps and makes tea.  Lots of others are also members.  It's fun to see them in another context

So I sat there really enjoying the service, even with the small kid who sat next to me and just rubbed my arm to see if my color would show up on his hand.

I'm on the way to the orphanage now!

Peace