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

first update

Jambo Rafikis,

The last 2 weeks have been full of highs and lows. But I know that I am at the right place right now. God has been so faithful and I know he will continue to do beauiful things.

Okay I dont know really where to start now. So maybe I'll start with writing about my first day in Uganda. We arrived on Monday the 16th of September around 1pm at Entebbe Airport. After we got our luggage we faced the first difficulty. There was no one picking us up from the airport. I tryed to call somebody from the base but my Ugandan phone was not working. Then finally Benni called me. He said that Charles, who was supposed to pick us up, had to do something else. So another man from the base was coming. But it took us about an hour to find him. So at around 3pm we left the airport to start our way to Jinja. Because of traffic and a problem with the petrol we arrived at around 9pm. Just 120km and it took us 6 hours. Unbelievable! But thats african time. By the time of arriving I was not feeling very good. Just the fact of travelling for 19 hours without sleeping was too much for me. But then the people on Hopeland just welcomed me so full of love . Everyone was just hugging me and telling me how great it is to see me again. That totally changed my mood and I was so excited for my time in Uganda. I could feel how God used those people to show me how happy he was that I made my way to Uganda. And then I saw our nice room. We had our own shower and even a sitting toilett (not just a hole on the ground like I had it during my DTS time). I was so grateful.


So my first week in Uganda I spent at Hopeland. I was attendig a staff orientation week there. I thought it would be just some thoretical stuff but it turned out to be more like a time of fixing the relationship with God and growing in my real identity to be able to lead others - like the motto 'You can just give what you have.' It was so good to focus on God and to give him everything that was holding me back. I could release all my sorrows and just trust in a new way. At the end of this week we had a free day so we went to the nile. It was nice to see the beauty of uganda again and to spend some time with Benni and his fellow students.






On Sunday the 22th of September we travelled to Soriti. One of the leaders from Hopeland was going there by public transport and we decieded to join him. We could have also taken a privat car but that would have cost us about 200 Dollar. Taking the public transport was just 6€. But chosing the cheeper way was not very comfortable. We just had very little space and by the end of our trip I could not feel my butt anymore. But we made it safely to Soroti that was the most imortant thing. And it just took us 6 hours for 250km. So I guess that was good for travelling the african way. 

The people in Soroti welcomed us full of love as well. And again we have a very nice room, just for us two. And we even have a sitting toilet. God is really blessing us with those small but very important things. But the food here is a bit different than it is in Jinja. Here they eat more Posho but less Noodles and Potatos. I guess I just have to get used to Posho now. Maybe there is a little chance I will like it at the end of the 6 weeks here. And the other thing is that I feel like we won't have power very often. The last week we hardly had power and the last 3 days we went completely without. And we don't have Internet where we stay. Just at Amecet there is internet sometimes.





 

I really like working in the pre school though it's very different to austrian pre schools. Here the children have to know how to write when they start primary school. So in public pre schools they start to teach the kids how to write when they are 2 or 3 years old. And here the teachers are allowed to beat the childen when they do mistakes. And public schools are quite expensive so not all the children here in Uganda are actually going even though they are supposed to. The pre school I'm working at right now is a private one running over YWAM. It's called 'Harmony' and the school fees are very little so that even poor kids can come. Harmony Pre School is against violence and all the teachers are christians. This pre school has 3 classes: Baby class, Middle class and Top class. I teach 35 childen in Top class together with Teacher Betty from Kenya and Teacher Lorenz from Uganda. I really like working togehter with them and I'm glad that they help me with getting to know the Ugandan curricuim. I have to prepare now two lessons a day for the subjets 'general studys' and 'social studys'. Each lesson takes 30 minutes. It's new for me now to prepare without all my materials and books. Last week we didn't even have power or internet . So to prepare the first lesson was very hard for me and I almost lost my courage. But teaching them was great and I felt how God was using me.

 

 

 












Today I did some paper work with the kids. It was very new for them because normally they don't have paper. That sounds very weird I know, but the school just doesn't have the money to provide paper. It took me quite long to find paper by the way. I had to ask several people in town where to get it. But the most important thing is that the kids had a lot of fun today.









Because school ends at 12:00 I work in the orphange called 'Amecet' in the afternoon. It's so sad to see all this little babies without parents. Some stories are so touching that I had tears in my eyes when I heard them. But it brings so much joy into my heart to see them smiling when I play with them. Amacet has about 14 babys and little children and 2 teenagers who got raped and are pragnant now.















Last weekend we went to the clinic with one of the babys because it was vomiting for 2 days. When they gave her the IV I almost cried because it was so hard for me seeing her in so much pain.  I feel so sorry for little Alice that she has to go throu all that without even having a mommy who cares. I feel so blessed to have a mom.

  

On thursday and friday last week we went to the prison. There we did worship with the prisoners and one lady from YWAM was preaching. I went there with mixed feelings. Someone told us that the prison we are going to has all the murders and mans how raped from this area. I thought:"How could I ever feel love for those horrible people and minister to them?" But God made it possible. As soon as we reached this place I felt so much love and couldn't stop smiling at them. It's was so good and necessary to show them that they are love by us and God although they did horrible things. Others may not believe in them anymore but God will do it forever.


I think that's all so far what happend. I will try to write my next blog when I finished my time in Soroti.



Thanks to eveyone who is praying for me!

Miss you all!

Love from Soroti,
Raphaela