Hello Mzungu!

This morning I went into Kampala with Carolyn, who is one of the ROS full-time staff here, to take three children (Gift-5, Peace-4 and Raymond-1) to get immunizations or “impezos” as they say in Luganda. Since there were no parking spaces close by the hospital when we got there I took the children inside while Carolyn went to park quite a ways away. When I got inside I was surprised by the total lack of privacy in the hospital. I took the children to sit on a bench in this long crowded hallway where you could see sick people lying in their rooms along the hall. It was really quite sad. While we waited for Carolyn I was the only white person in sight and had these three beautiful black children clustered around me, holding my hands and sitting on my lap, which I guess was much more interesting to watch than anything else in the hall because people couldn't stop staring at us. We ended up waiting for a good two hours before they gave them their shots, even though “appointments” had been made in advance. They brought us into this big open waiting room crowded with mothers and their children. They have the child sit down by the desk at the front of the room and give them their shots right there. Before the girls could get theirs they had to watch another crying little boy get his shots. I felt so bad for them. Little Peace bravely went and sat in Carolyn's lap, still as could be, but as soon as she felt her shot she broke into heartbreaking tears. I held and comforted her while poor Gift, who was already crying at this point, had to go get hers. I felt like crying myself!! Finally baby Raymond got his. He sat there happy as could be until the nurse stuck him, then he started bawling as well. When we went to put his shirt back on him he kept waving his arm and pointing at it like he was trying to say, “Um hello? Did you not just see what they did to me?!” We took the three teary eyed children to get them juice and biscuits. By the time we left I was covered in crumbs from Raymond and juice from Gift's juice box that she seemed to find great delight in squeezing rather than drinking. Between the hospital, myself being so white and three children it was quite the experience!

In the afternoon, after dropping off the children, eating some lunch and doing some work around here, I ended up going into Wakiso with Patti. We dropped some school papers off to get photocopied where the owner kept hugging me and telling me how welcome I was. While we waited for the copies we walked down to the market to buy some fruit. It was dirty and smelly and honestly kind of gross. Piles of trash littered the ground, bugs swarmed over the food and there were big piles of whole dried fish to sell, which didn't help the smell any. When we stopped, this group of children seemed to materialize out of nowhere. They crowded around me peering at me with big eyes, smiling, some playing peek-a-boo and waving their little hands at me. They were so cute. I just wanted to scoop them all up and take them home with me! On our way back to our village we took a different route that took us along this road where there were hardly any cars and definitely no white people. All along the way children kept running out waving, smiling and shouting “hello mzungu!” (That is what they call white people here). 

In the evening after dinner I went for a walk around the village with Maama Anna and her 10 girls. They showed me plants they eat and things they are good for. We laughed and shared stories about our homes. I love those special moments. I don't have time to write anymore right now but at some point this weekend I will write more about this past week and try to put up some pictures.