Living with Shalom Cultural Gala

Some highlights from the Living with Shalom cultural gala in Hoima:

The day started out with all the participants marching about 5km through Hoima town led by a marching band.  They carried banners promoting peace and picked up trash along the way.  The kids and I marched for about 3 of the 5 kilometers before Natalie got tired and we followed the rest of the march in a car.

After the march, there were about 2 hours before the show started.  Natalie had a great time playing in the dirt - here she is building a "dirtcastle."  I tried to prevent her from playing in the dirt for about 5 minutes before I realized it was futile - with 2 hours to kill in 95 degree heat, there wasn't much else for her to do.  But dirt and germs build the immune system, right??

And here's Nathan imitating his big sister and also playing in the dirt!

Once the cultural gala started, the youth each performed two different dances from their culture..it was a very entertaining show!

Two of the facilitators from Living with Shalom join in the fun!

Even the MP (member of parliament - the local government official who was the guest of honor) got out of her seat to join in one of the Ik dances.

The five Ik participants - we ended up getting to know them more than we expected when we hosted all of them in our house in Sat night, then had dinner with them on Sunday before they took the night bus back home.  More about the Ik in my next post...

What is an Ik?

An Ik community

This weekend, I’ll be meeting an Ik.  Five of them actually.  The Ik are a small and very marginalized group of people that live in Northern Uganda right near the Uganda-Kenya-South Sudan border.  Among the 12,000 Ik, only one has attended higher education.  Because they live more than 40 kms from the nearest town where most schools are, it difficult for the Ik children to access education, despite the free primary education for all Ugandan children. The lack of educated leadership among the Ik has kept them at a disadvantage in terms of being able to advocate for their basic rights to education, healthcare, roads, water and food security; hence making the area lag behind in terms of development. They have also received little support from humanitarian agencies working in the region.  Since 2006, MCC has had a partnership with KOPEIN (a local NGO) to provide sponsorship for Ik children to attend school, which has been the only consistent educational support for Ik children.   MCC currently supports about 90 Ik children in primary and secondary schools.

A student sponsored by MCC standing next to her home

                This afternoon, we embark on another “fun family adventure” and will be traveling to Hoima for the weekend, a town about 3 hours from Kampala.  We have a partnership with an organization called Living with Shalom, which brings together youth from different MCC partners from all over Uganda.  The three week training focuses on breaking down stereotypes and teaching about conflict resolution, health, and the environment.  To end the training, they hold a big cultural presentation where the different groups perform songs, poems, dances, etc from their culture.

         

  For the first time, five Ik children are participating in the Living with Shalom training.  For all of them, it is their first time to travel outside of their home area.  For the rest of the Living with Shalom participants, it is their first time interacting with an Ik (many Ugandans have never even heard of the Ik!)  We are really looking forward to meeting the Ik and the rest of the Living with Shalom participants, and I’ll post an update next week when we return.

Ikland

                In other news, thank you for your prayers for Natalie – there were NO TEARS this week when I dropped her off at school, which is definitely an answer to prayer!   Now that she is feeling comfortable, she seems to be really enjoying school and always has lots of stories for me when I pick her up.

Mengo Clinic

The playground at Mengo Clinic

The 80 children at Mengo Hospital's Sat club were busy playing, running, and laughing as we arrived, and they greeted us with a performance of songs and poems. These children have not only lost at least one parent to HIV/AIDS, but they also have HIV/AIDS themselves. Most of them acquired the disease at birth from their mothers.  Mengo’s HIV/AIDS clinic provides free antiretroviral drugs and other medical care to these children.

The Saturday club for HIV positive and orphaned children takes place one Saturday a month and is sponsored by MCC.   The kids come to Mengo with their caregivers to play, eat, and receive scholastic materials so they are able to continue with their education.  Although there is free primary education in Uganda, children still need to purchase their own materials, uniforms, and shoes in order to attend school.   Last Saturday, the children were given notebooks and pencils, and measured for uniforms and shoes which they will receive before school begins early next month.

Najjuko Lynette, 10 years old, receives her school supplies

Dr. Edith (left) shows us around with our MCC intern Vicky (right)

Dr Edith Namulema, a visionary, energetic, and committed doctor, is the director of Mengo’s HIV/AIDS clinic which has been an MCC partner since 1994.  She began working at the clinic during a time when HIV was extremely stigmatized, there were no effective drugs available, and very little money was available for care.  Since that time, she has built and shaped the clinic into one of the best HIV/AIDS clinics in the country, providing care for almost 7000 men, women, and children affected by HIV/AIDS. 

            

 The issue of children who are both orphaned and HIV positive is one that is very close to my heart, and I wrote my graduate thesis on the care of these children.  There is often a large gap in providing effective care for them, as many children’s homes will not accept HIV positive children and many relatives do not want to assume the burden of caring for a sick child, or are not able to afford the extra nutrition and medical costs that are essential to keeping them healthy.  As a result, many of these children end up dying young, when treatment is available to greatly affect the length and quality of their lives.        

Mengo is quickly outgrowing their current space and is beginning an expansion project

                One great example is a young girl called Mary (named changed for privacy), who I met in 2002 the first time I traveled to Kenya.  She is a girl at Grace Children’s Center in Nairobi, Kenya.  When we met her she was 5 years old and extremely sick because of HIV/AIDS.  She wasn’t able to participate in the activities that our group had planned, and just sat quietly on someone’s lap most of the time.  We didn’t think she would live more than a few months.

                Shortly after our group left, the home was able to access ARVs (HIV/AIDS drugs) for their children.  When I returned to Kenya in 2005, I visited the home regularly and couldn’t believe how much Mary had changed!  This little girl who I thought wouldn’t survive to reach the age of 6 was now a healthy and energetic young girl who showed no outward signs of illness.  Today she is a healthy and active teenager and continues to thrive despite her illness.   

Nathan's Walking, Christmas, Visitors, and School!

Look who’s walking!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHk-inFlqUw

The biggest excitement around here is that Nathan started walking a few weeks ago…he is very proud of his new skill and loves to walk back and forth between our couches, smiling and laughing with Natalie. 

Christmas….in three parts

This year we had the opportunity to celebrate Christmas three different times...

First, my parents came to visit in early December – it was wonderful to be able to spend some time with them, we miss family so much!  We bought a small skinny Christmas tree (my mom said it reminded her of Charlie Brown’s tree) but with a few lights and some ornaments it looked festive.  We baked my family’s traditional Christmas cookies, Spritz, and listened to Christmas music.  My parents had brought several gifts from them and from my sisters, so we were able to exchange gifts.  I can't find the pictures from their trip at the moment...hope to add those soon!

Then, we spent three weeks in Kenya in December, so we were able to celebrate Christmas with Muigai’s family in Kenya.  It was great to meet our newest nephew, Rio (4 months old) and Natalie had a great time playing with her other cousins Taj and Shamal.  Because some of Muigai’s family was traveling over Christmas day, we got together with his family the Sunday before Christmas to celebrate with a meal together.

On Christmas day, it was just the four of us so we went to church in the morning and then went to Splash, a water park in Kenya.  Natalie had a great time on the slides with me and Nathan had fun crawling in the grass with Muigai.   After the water park, we stopped for ice cream and then had a roast chicken dinner.

Nathan on Christmas

Natalie swimming on Christmas

It was definitely a different kind of Christmas for us – for the first time I celebrated Christmas day with no Christmas tree, no presents, no extended family, no candy canes or stockings, and no Christmas lights.  And to be honest, I really missed those things.  But stripped of all the fun cultural things that we do in the US to celebrate Christmas, I tried to focus on the good news of the miracle of the incarnation – God choosing to be born as a tiny baby and dwell with us.

Back in Uganda…

After a wonderful three weeks of visiting friends and family in Kenya, we returned to Uganda and hit the

Wing Kee, Sandy, and our kids in the Chinese outfits they brought

ground running!  A few days after we came back our friends from Hong Kong Wing Kee and Sandy came to visit us.  I met Wing Kee in an international Bible study when I was a student at UNC, and we’ve kept in touch.  He just got married last month, and he and Sandy decided to come to Uganda for their honeymoon, go on a safari, and spend a few days volunteering.  It’s been a fun visit!

Natalie also started school last Monday.  It’s been a difficult adjustment for her, to put it mildly.  We ended up withdrawing her from school last semester because she was having such a difficult time and we thought she needed a little more time to adjust to the culture before starting school.

Natalie dancing at school

I stayed at school with her the first few days to help her try to get comfortable with her teacher, and then our househelp Maureen stayed with her for a few days.  Tuesday was her first day at school alone - the good byes have been difficult but she seems to calm down quickly and have fun once I leave.