jinja / pre school graduation / amun week

Olwotya!

This time I greet you in Luganda. It is now the third african language I try to learn. When I did my DTS about a year ago I had to learn Swahili because we went to Tanzania for Outreach. When I spent my 7 weeks in Soroti I got to know some words in Ateso. And now in Jinja I have been working in a school where most of the kids just know Luganda. 

However, it has been a while since my last blog enty. The last few weeks have just been so stressful. 

After I spent 7 wonderful weeks in Soroti I went back to Jinja to the very same place where I did my DTS in 2012. Even though I was very excited for Jinja it was much harder than expected to say bye to all the people I got to know in Soroti, especially the children. My last day in Soroti was one of the saddest days I ever experienced. The children from my class made a card for me in which each of them signed and they even prayed for me. I had tears in my eyes when I left the school. On the same day the people from the YWAM base where I stayed organised a little 'bye bye party'. They cooked very nice food and one of the teachers even baked a cake. They also prayed for Noemi (she was moving to Amecet to stay there) and me and told us how much they appreciated our effort. It just felt like saying bye to another family. 

But it was still nice to go back to Jinja. During my four weeks there I shared a room with a 23 year old ugandan girl called Judith. Since 2011 she is part of the evangelism team and I got to know her during my DTS. Because she loves to play the guitar and to do worship as much as I do we always found time to do that together. I thank God for having her as a friend here on Hope Land. 

The weather here in Jinja is much cooler than in Soroti and it rains almost everyday. It is good on one side to be away from the heat but I have to srcub my feet evey day about 3 times because they get so muddy. And it takes so much more time to wash clothes. It is so hard to get the red dirt out of my stuff. Oh how I wish I would have a washing machine! 

The first two weeks in Jinja I could spend some time with my boyfriend before he left for his outreach to Tanzania. Now he is staying at the exact same place I was staying when I did my oureach about a year ago. This time was very challenging for me and I'm glad that I didn't have to go with them. They don't have running water or power. They have to sleep on the floor and Benni and some other students struggle with stomach problems. But hopefully they will experience that God makes all things work together for their good. He did beautiful things during my time in Tanzania and it is my prayer that he will do the same or even greater things there right now.

If your interested in checking out Bennis blog, here the link:

http://blog.bfalk.me/post/67845339727/african-culture

During his lecure phase he worked on Hope Lands webpage. Now it even has a picture of me with a pre- school child in it. Check it out:

http://www.ywamhopeland.org/

                 

So what am I doing in Jinja now? The fist three weeks I worked in the pre-school right on the YWAM Hope Land base. I helped the children of Top Class to pass their exams and worked together with the teachers to get eveything ready for graduation . At the beginning I thought the headteacher was kidding because I couldn't believe that 5 year olds have to do final exams to be able to go to primary school. But that's how it works here in Uganda. Children normaly come to pre- school when they are 2 or 3 years old and have to lern English as fast as possible so that they are able to read and write in that language by the time they finish pre- school with 5 or 6 years. I was 10 years when I seriously started to learn a second language and even by that time it was hard for me. I guess I would have failed that test if I would have been in that class. But anyway, some of the children did pretty good and even almost all of those who struggled passed in the end. I was so proud of those little ones but at the same time I felt bad for them. All they know is how to perform in school and how to help their parents with their daily work. But they don't really know how to be a child and just play and joke around. Apparently children here don't have toys at home. I guess they won't have time to play anyway because they have to help their parents when ever they are not in school. When I ask a child what it was doing on the weekend it would tell me things like 'cutting fire wood' , 'carrying water' or 'cooking for the younger siblings'. So the only time where most of then children can play here is in pre- school. But most pre- schools don't have toys either. We just have a few blocks, some picture books and one doll. During a normal school day on Hope Land pre- school the kids have about an hour for playing. Mostly they play outside and just use wood or what ever they can find to play with because we don't have enough toys for all the 130 children. So if you want to contribute some of your old toys I promise the children would be more than happy. In case you want to help the teachers you could send some permanent markers, pencils, sharpeners or book cover tape (Buchbindefolie). The longer I work here the more I realise how hard it is to prepare as a teacher. You just don't get the materials you would need.

At this point I want to thank those people a lot who have already sent me stuff for the pre- school! I really appreciate your effort! May God bless you so much!

                       

writing exams

                                        Ruthy

break time

Ethan & Danny

practicing for graduation

me & Fiona

Working in Hope Land pre- school was quite different than working in Harmony. Most of the teachers in Harmony pre- school are YWAMers and some even did the YWAM School of Early Childhood Development. The teachers in Hope Land pre- school are all employed and non of them is staff in YWAM. Even though they are all christians their view of children is just different. It feels like they don't value children as much as the teachers in Harmony do. I hope I can help to change their view a bit. 

Besides working in the pre- school I have to attend all the meetings and devotions and I have to work in different areas when there is work duty time. My schedule looks like this:

Monday: 

8:00 - 9:00 am Devotion (Worship & Message)

3:30 - 5:30 pm Work Duty

Tuesday: 

3:30 - 5:30 pm Work Duty

Wednesday: 

8:00 - 9:00 am Intercession

2:30 - 5:00 pm Staff Meeting 

Thursday: 

4:00 - 5:30 pm Bible Study

8:15 - 10:00 pm Worship

Friday: 

6:30 - 8:00 am Work Duty

When I first came here I thought it would be very tough to attend all that besides the pre- school but it turned out to be nice to have all those different things so I don't get bored. Especially the worship times on mondays and thursdays are very good and they help me to focus on God and to not get lost in my ministry. The longer I work here the more I see how importent it is to be filled up by God for doing ministry. You can just give what you have. And if I'm not full of Gods love what love will I give to the children and to the people around me?

About two weeks ago we had graduation. First I thought it would have been so nice to have graduation as well when I was in pre- school as a kid. But very soon I figured out why we don't celebrate it in Austria. It is so so so much work! And I'm not even exaggerating. The children had to learn so many songs poems and skits. Children in Austria would be way to shy to perform like they did. But it wasn't just much to do for the children, also for the teachers. We first had to mark all the exams from all the different subjects and put them into files. Then we made hats for the children and cleaned the school. After that we cleaned the hall were the graduation took place. We even had to scrub the wall. We had to bring all the chairs and tables from the wohl YWAM base to the hall and clean each one of those chairs. Just to mention some of the work we did. But graduation day was nice. I could see how proud the parents were and how much joy the kids had while performing. 

preparing the hall

performing a song

Diana

Nayrin

The day after graduation I went back to Soroti just for 10 days. This time I helped with a camp for HIV+ children who used to be in the Amecet orphanage. It was called 'Amun Week' (amun is Ateso and means 'hope') and the slogan was 'I am chosen' out of 1.Peter 2:9-10. They planed this week to encourage the kids, to train them in taking their HIV medicins and to strenghten them in their relationship with God. During the time of preperation the leaders of the camp told me I would be resposible for the games in the afternoon. First I thought it would be easy but then I found out the age of the kids was between 8 and 19 years. So finding games which the younger kids unterstand but which are not too boring for the older ones was hard at the beginning. Especially because I would have needed materials for most of my ideas. I tried to remember what games we used to play on all the kids and youth campes I went to. Fortunatly the kids and teens all liked the games and we had a lot of fun. I was glad I could give them some hours where they could forget their sorrows. During the teachings about HIV and Aids so many children cried. Most of them lost their parents because of Aids and some friends just recently. Having the same desease ist very frightening for some of them. But I could see how the mood of many of them changed during that week. I was so touched by one of the songs we sang in the end. One phrase was: 'Jesus I'm gonna make it with you, on this journey that seems so long.' Seeing all those childen who have a long journey indeed going it with Jesus was such a joy.
During that week I realised how much work a kids camp is and how many volunteers it needs. Since I'm 7 years old I went to a camp almost every year and I never thought about what's going on behind the scenes.

time table

Rehema & me

playing some games

Rehema & Rebecca

our tent

Michael & me

playing some games

explaining the game was difficult because of the different languages

group picture

Now I'm back in Jinja again. I am tired of traveling . I've already told you how exhousting traveling is here in Uganda... I guess it wasn't the last time that I have to travel...

Before the base is closing for the Christmas break I have the opportunity to check out some other ministries which work with children. Next year I will help with the preperations for the coming primary school starting in february. The base leader wants me to teach then as well there so I'm very curious how that will be. 

I wish u all a Merry Chistmas and a Happy New Year!

Blessings from Jinja,

Raphi

my time in Soroti is almost over!

Dear friends & family,

time is running so fast and I can't believe that I'm already here for more than one and a half months. But on the other side it feels like if I would have been here for so much longer. I don't even remember how austrian food tastes and how a real shower feels like. But I'm having a good time and I will miss Soroti a lot when I leave back to Jinja on Saturday.

Here some updates about my time in Soroti:

I really enjoyed working in Harmony Pre-School and I hate to say good bye soon to all those little children. It seemed like they really enjoyed it to have me in their class. Normally they do lot of copying from the black board. But I tried to teach them a different way. We did our lessons most of the time in groups which was very new to the children and even to the teachers. But very soon they realised how effective this kind of work is. With 35 children in one class its pretty hard and almost impossible to help every child with their need. But if you just work with 11 or 12 children its possible. And because we were 3 teachers in our class we could just split them in 3 groups and so reduce the amount of children. Sometimes I just played some learning games with the children or taught them some songs. We also did a lot of drawing and paper work. I could feel how much they enjoyed that. In Austria it would not be special for children but here it was very special. It was so new and precious to them to have paper for drawing because normally the school doesn't provide. First I could not believe it. For so many years I took it for granted to have an endless amount of paper in pre-schools. And after I bought paper here to use it for the school I was even more shocked because paper here is not that expensive. But on top of all of that I brought my laptop one day to finish our topic of animals with a disney movie. That was the biggest highlight. Even some parents came to tell me that their child was talking about a 'video' in school all day. 

teaching a song

making some masks

Nestor with the monkey mask

It took me pretty long to remember all their 35 names. Most of them are not English. That made it so much harder. For example the name of one of my favourite 6 year old girls is 'Kemigisha'. But even with the English names I had some problems because the Africans pronounce everything so different. And you know how children are, they don't like it if somebody pronounces their name wrong. But names were not the only language problem I faced. So many times the other teachers corrected me because I was using different words then they usually do. For example during my project about transportation I used 'airplane' instead of 'aeroplane' or 'bike' instead of 'bicycle'. I really thought it wouldn't matter but it seemed to be very important for them to use the words which are more familiar to the children. So I tried to use their words instead of the ones I would use just to avoid an argument. But besides that I really liked the other teachers. During break time we always had interesting talks. It was good for them to hear about the differences in teaching between Uganda and Austria. I think it changed their view a bit when they realised that all those clever europeans did not start writing and reading until they where 6 years old. When I explained to them why it does not make sense to me at all that they start teaching them how to write and read when they are 2 or 3 years old some of them actually started thinking about my arguments. Hopefully something will change in the future.

Dube

Kemigisha

Emanuella & Naume 

me & my class (some kids are missing on that picture)

me, Anyat and teacher Betty

If you are a teacher you know how exhausting it can be to sharpen the pencils every day. But now I really miss sharpening austrian pencils. Here the pencils are just ridiculous. The quality is so bad that I have to glue the lead to the wooden part from about half of the pencils everyday. And sharpening pencils with tons of glue is not fun at all. The lead is breaking so easy and some times I try to sharpen till the whole pencil is gone. My fingers on the right hand are full of blisters.. I promised the school to send proper pencils when I'm back home to give them a break from this job. 

Working in Amecet was good as well. I never thought that I would enjoy working with babies so much. Noemi helped me a lot in the beginning because I had not a lot experience with changing diapers and feeding bottles. But after doing it several times it turned out to not be as hard as I expected. But it's still not easy when babies are ill. When they vomit on you, have diarrhoea or cry the whole day I'm always tempted to quit. But then I always remember that they are orphans and that they need me and the other workers more than I can ever imagine. I always had great parents who cared for me and I always felt loved and wanted.. but what about them? They will never experience to have someone who will always be there for them. Therefor my prayer for those little one is to get to know God sometime. They need a close friend and heavenly father so much. They need to know that their identity is not being an orphan but to be a child of the the king of kings.

me & Agnes

me & Cathy

feeding baby Luca

Some of my favourite babies are already adopted. That's somehow good and I'm glad that they have someone who cares for them now. But I miss them a lot and I'm afraid they suffer. In Amecet they had everything they needed. Food and medicine was provided and when they were crying someone was holding them. But I think in the villages its different. They don't have so much food there and real medicine is rare. I pray that God will provide. 

Alice - my favourite baby who left about 3 weeks ago - I miss her a lot!

The last week we got a lot of new babies. Some of their mothers died while giving birth to them and others are sick and unable to care for their babies. One mother was just 17 years old and gave birth to her baby alone in the forest. This mother disappeared. So maybe she is still alive and the baby can return to her sometime. We also got 3 kids between 8 and 12 years. Those children are HIV positive and did not take their medicine properly. So they are pretty sick. One boy is very skinny and doesn't understand English. The whole situation must be very hard for him.

baby Jessica

Two weeks ago we went to Mount Elgon in Eastern Uganda to see the Sipi Falls. We just travelled about 200 km but again it took us very long to get there. Some Austrians who are staying in Soroti as well asked us to join them on their trip. So we didn't have to organise anything, that was nice. Unfortunately it started to rain very hard about 30 minutes after we started our hike. Although I had my rain jacket I got very wet. First we went behind the falls. It was amazing to see how all the water came down right there in front of me. I never thought it would be so loud inside a water fall. I could not even hear the guide anymore.

The way up there was so slippery and without help I would have rolled down the whole mountain. Because the rain didn't stop we decided to take a break. We went to a cave and there we found some other people making fire. We were all freezing so it was very nice to warm up our hands at the fire. I could not believe how cold it can be in Africa. 

After we waited for about an hour the rain stopped and we continued our way up the mountain. The way was still wet and muddy. My shoes and pants got so dirty and I tried not to think about the washing afterwards. But reaching the top of the mountain was all worth it. The view was amazing. And it was the first time for me to see falls so close by.

Last weekend we went to a village about 200 km up east called Usuk. Some friends invited us to join them to see their relatives there. On the way we had a beautiful view and we even saw some baboons.

When we reached Usuk I realised to what kind of adventure I said yes to. The area there reminded me so much to the place in Tanzania where I did my outreach. No running water, no power but lots of heat and dirt.   People are much poorer there and they don't even have real houses. They live in little huts.

But even though those people were so poor they welcomed us so full of love. They cooked almost all day to show us how much they appreciated our coming. Some of the food they served was very new to me but most of it was nice.

Almost all day the old people of the village were telling us stories from the past. They spoke about the different tribes and how they used to fight. They also talked about Kony and Idi Amin. I heard a lot about those two men the last years but listening to their experiences was very impressive. 

Our friends told us that there would be a lot of children in the Village so we brought some sweets. Noemi even brought some toys and bubbles. It was so amazing to see how they liked the stuff we brought and how they enjoyed it that we played with them. 

That's it so far! Miss you all!

Blessings from Soroti,
Raphaela