Masindi!

We have arrived at last on the land. Three months to spend walking through cassava fields, playing football in the wide open, praying in the freezing African rain, and learning bee keeping from Mike (our friendly neighborhood Indiana Jones). Today makes a month, by the way. We have been in Uganda for a full four weeks, and it is hard to fathom leaving. We have only been at the village for a week, but have already made such amazing friends and begun really exciting work. Gulu certainly has lots of perks (coffee shops, running water, electricity). However, it is really nice to live in a grass hut and run to the well to get our water. We are in Africa, after all.

As most of you know, I was coming here hoping to help some babies be born. In the airport hopping from Chicago to London, I got a call from the founder of Earth Birth, a women’s health collective 20km north of Gulu. She offered that if I came up for as little as two weeks and as much as I was here, she would pay for my housing and food if I served as their doula. Knowing I was dedicated to be with Village of Hope for the majority of the time, I was a little devastated as I declined. It was a definite die to self, serve whoever is in front of you moment. I really let go of my hope of doing births, and plunged into playing with the refugee kids, learning Acholi, and reading like a mad woman. And it has been wonderful. I could have been content doing that for four months.

But God had more (as He always seems to when we trade our dreams for His). As soon as we arrived, I met the nurse, Maureen. She has been told about my background and was excited to have a fellow nurse around to help. I explained to her that I was a doula and had not even begun nursing school yet, but there is something about being white that convinces anyone you are prepared for anything. I immediately began studying every antibiotic, antifungal, analgesic, and antihistamine in the office for intended use, warnings, and dosage. In the past few days I have preformed tons of simple medical procedures. And it has been so amazing. I love being a nurse! (This is good news).

On top of that, Leilah is working with Ronance, the social worker (as she is a social work major), Erin is teaching the kids guitar and painting designs on things (as she is an amazing musician/graphic designer), Tom is helping the men build things (as he is a rectangle), Collin is fixing computers and putting on programs (as he is a nerd), and Brynn is running around filming it all!

We are teaching English twice a week, doing crafts, teaching health, and I am having a weekly women’s health class (this is your cervix! Etc…) We play sports every night, well, I watch and get to know Africans, but everyone else does. We help cook, do laundry, get to know the kids. We are BUSY. And it is wonderful.

We google things like “How to make a documentary” and “Teaching health class”. We are completely aware that we are in over our heads, and it is beautiful. It means that we are completely incapable of helping anyone or doing any good unless we (I miss my pastor and his tired but true catch phrases) let go and let God.

So now that all that is explained, I will give you a typical day in Masindi:

We wake up at 6:20 AM, light is barely starting to fill the sky and we drag our yoga mats (we got them for $2 and they RULE, although they are nothing like traditional ‘yoga’ mats) onto the football field. We stretch, talk, pray, laugh our way through down dogs and intense leg lifts. The kids stop on their way to class and stare at us (the idea of working out in pretty foreign). We scoot over to breakfast where the entire team, Mike and Janelle (awesome married ex-pats who oversee things at VOH), and the construction crew come together. Breakfast is white bread and “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter!” (Hi, Mom and Dad, please bring peanut butter). We read for a bit and split up. I head over to the clinic, where there are usually a line of kids waiting to get their cuts and headaches tended to. Maureen, her baby, Kevin (in Uganda, Kevin is the name for girls and our imaginarily seventh team member/ scapegoat), and I scoot around the clinic and put iodine and band aids on wounds (even kids who have shoes don’t wear them so we see about five foot gashes a day) pass out ibuprofen, and rub anti-itch cream on bites. I usually take a break and go over to the cooks, some of us help them sort rice and peel potatoes, and we learn some Acholi. Lunch comes; rice and beans, we get together and talk about what we are doing. Lillian (she is teaching Acholi to us mzungus) and her daughter Esther, (the cutest, cutest child I have ever come across) laugh and play. Sometimes we make trips to pick up sand or supplies with Mike. We all ride in the back of a dump truck. We bounce around as we go drive over the bumpy dirt road. We hear stories about the war, adventures with snakes, bees, and hippos, but mostly stories of families. We go back to work, whatever that happens to be (picking potatoes, painting the church, playing soccer) and keep at it until the sun starts to set. We eat dinner like a big happy family around the campfire. We sing songs with Erin’s guitar and our adungus and there is so much joy. Lights out by ten, with some prayer, group time and reading before then. And we all sleep well to the peaceful sound of thunder and rain.