Banange is an exclamation of surprise, similar to our use of
“Oh my goodness!” or “Really?!” in Luganda.
So… Really? I haven’t blogged
since when?! BANANGE!!
Well, I hope this post finds you well. Since I’ve last chatted, I’ve been up to a
lot here in sunny Uganda, including visiting quite a few NGOs (non-governmental
organizations), such as: Noah’s Ark—an orphanage, Invisible Children (yes, the
famous/ infamous creators of the Kony 2012 videos for those of you who are
facebook savvy), and Amaziman Ministries (founded by the author of the book,
Kisses from Katie).
Here’s a little run-down of my impressions/ experiences at
these places. I visited Noah’s Ark on International
Women’s Day (March 8th) because as a national holiday, hospice was
running on ‘on-call’ capacity and only the most critical patients were seen so
I wasn’t needed. So, I went with some
other students to Noah’s Ark since orphanages run full-time regardless of
holidays! It was so much fun for me
because I spent most of my time there with the infants, and if you know me
well, you know I’m a sucker for babies!
Seriously, I think my dream job would be holding and caring for
babies! So, I had a blessed and
refreshing time there with some gorgeous and loving babies.
Later on, about a week later, I visited Invisible Children
with some fellow social work majors. We
were able to speak with
one of the mentors as well as a staff member from the finance office. At the
office in Kampala where we were, they deal with coordination and logistics for
the other sites in Uganda as well as overseeing the mentorship of the 255
university students sponsored by the organization. Those students are mostly
from the north (areas most affected by the Lord’s Resistance Army-LRA) who had
been living with financial difficulties and would be unable to afford tuition
for university. We asked Robert, the mentor we were speaking with, about his
interaction with the new Kony video that has had a lot of recent media
attention. He gave his personal opinion, mostly, emphasizing that it is
important to remember that Kony is still terrorizing places in Africa even
though he has left Uganda and it is important to be reminded of this. There had
been some controversy throughout the country here because the film traumatized
people in the northern parts of Uganda. He agreed that it may have that affect
but it is still important for those people to be able to talk about the trauma
they experienced to initiate and improve healing. Furthermore, we talked about
advocacy in Uganda and how we, as American college students, know more about
the organization than most college students in Uganda. He agreed with that and
said more could be done to advocate in Uganda but that there were more barriers
to advocacy, especially technology. It was really helpful to talk to him to be
able to process the complexity of the issue that had been so prevalent in the
media around that time. For the sake of controversy, even though all the fuss
has mostly died down by now, I’m not going to express any opinions about the
video or this agency specifically. If you are interested in either supporting
the organization and their work, I only ask that you ensure you are informed
about the situation. Healing is still needed in Uganda for the terror enacted
by the LRA.
The other
NGO we visited was Amaziman Ministries, a ministry in near Jinja, about an hour
away from us in Mukono. At the Saturday outreach that we visited, we interacted
with a lot of the children who are sponsored by the ministry. They come for a
worship service, lunch and fellowship with each other and the staff. The team of
staff also visits schools and works to provide lunches and sponsorship for the
children. I am always encouraged by the NGOs wherein most of the staff is
Ugandan even when the founder/ director is not. In the case of this ministry,
the community is obviously healthier and more productive than it had been
before the ministry started, and the children were very lively and loving! Here
are a few pics of their bright, shining faces =)
Other than visiting NGOs, we’ve been up to other fun things,
too, such as seeing an Ndere Troupe Dance.
This is also kind of an NGO because it’s a group that works to preserve
the arts of Uganda by training young people in traditional dance and then
performing a few nights a week. The fees
they charge for the shows go to support lots of kiddos and pay their school
fees. Below are a few pics! It was a fun night and a good bonding time for
those of us that went =)
Another fun weekend was spent at Sesee Island! About 10 of us left campus midmorning on a
Friday night and travelled to Entebbe where we caught the once daily ferry to the
island (about a 3 hour ferry trip!). We stayed at a rustic little camp run by a
German couple and their great dane. The island was beautiful and it was a very
relaxing weekend (despite the not-so-restful 2 nights of ‘sleep’ in our little
‘dorm’ due to a few critters!). The
island was beautiful though and it was nice to get away from typical quiet
weekends on campus.
Be blessed,
Ruth
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