Day 2 - Orientation

After breakfast Abraham introduced me to the different programs I can be involved in here. I'm planning to work in all of them, although my biggest job, given my expertise in the area, will be setting up an internet cafe in the village. The equipment has already been ordered and should be arriving in the next few weeks. There are never any guarantees here though. The cafe will provide income for the charity and will help locals educate themselves. Once the cafe is running, I will be teaching villagers how to use the internet.

I will also be running classes at a refugee camp in the village, for refugees from Sudan, Congo, Ethiopia, and Somalia. I will help run music classes for the kids on Saturdays, and teach locals computer literacy during the week. I'll be working at the local clinic too prescribing drugs and doing medical testing under Arianna's supervision, and I'm also hoping to work in pallative care, where I'll be helping to look after people who are near death.

Abraham took me to see 3 families in the village. In every case there was one adult looking after at least 10 children, and all 3 adults were HIV positive. I went into the home of one family, which was one shack about the size of my bed in Canada. The woman was making necklaces, a skill she had been taught by ACF (African Child Foundation, the charity I'm working for), and 2 of her children are sponsored by past volunteers and are able to go to school. I saw pig pens that had been built by volunteers that widows were using to try and generate an income.

Walking around the village, all the children shout "Bye Mzungu!" as soon as they see you. Mzungu is Lugandan for white person. 6 months old and up they know how to say "Bye Mzungu".

After the tour of the village, I went into Kampala, the capital city. It's an incredibly noisy and busy place with chaotic traffic obeys no rules whatsoever, including the 'no driving mopeds at high speed on the sidewalk while pedestrians are walking there' rule. There are a lot of beggars but they are not too aggressive. People sell auto parts and building materials along the sides of the roads.

There are a lot of funny signs and adverts here. There is no diet anything, in fact there is a brand of bread that advertises "Extra fat and sugar!" on the package. Many local stores have names based around religion, for example "Believer's drycleaners". There is a family planning billboard that says "Don't have more children than can fit in a taxi", then there is a picture of a taxi that comfortably holds about 14 people.

I'm told there is a burgeoning cosmetic surgery industry among Uganda's elite, and many women get implants. Not in their breasts though, but in their buttocks. Bubble butts are considered very attractive.

This evening I went to the refugee camp. A new baby was born in the camp yesterday, and she was named Arianna after the volunteer, because the mother was 3 weeks overdue and it was a 2 day induced labour, and she would have died if Arianna had not paid the hospital bills. Arianna gave the couple her wedding ring to sell to help support the child.

When I arrived there was a party going on. I met everyone including the new baby, and was immediately given a bottle of Fanta and a plate of food. When I was finished, a daughter from the family took my dishes and washed them. I later found out from Arianna that they hadn't eaten for 5 days before the party as they'd had no food. All of the women there had been raped and many beaten, and many people there had watched their family burned alive in front of them with rubber tires around their necks. The grandmother of the new baby was raped and beaten before escaping to Uganda, but since arriving here she has been hit by a car and now walks with a cane.

Many of the people at the camp were qualified professionals in their own countries. There is a doctor and a lawyer among them. But to be qualified in Uganda requires a license fee that they don't have enough money for and as a result they are starving.

I've been told other stories that have made my first full day here quite overwhelming. The prisons, which I will be visiting and hopefully working in, routinely torture and beat the prisoners, and this has even been done in front of the white volunteers. There is no furniture of any kind in either the hospital or the prison. There are still ancient tribal practices in the area, including human sacrifices and religions based around worshipping trees. One of the children I was playing guitar for earlier was found in a garbage dump by one of the volunteers. Another volunteer told me she found a baby with a rusty razor blade in his mouth today. I saw a small child eating rusted metal as well during my tour of the village.

I am regularly being asked for money both directly and indirectly. But I have made a rule for myself to not give any assistance other than my time for the first month of my stay. Everything here is very overwhelming, there are a million things I could give money to and hundreds of people who need help but I feel like I have been dropped in the middle of the ocean and all I'm trying to do is float, and then when I've acheived that I'll take a guess at where land is and see how far I can swim.