July 14th, 2011

July 14th, 2011


Today was full of more new experiences. It’s about a mile to Musana and I walked it by myself this morning. It is sometimes peaceful to just wonder off on your own. There is a true sense of being out in this vast world completely alone, completely free. The kids were roaming around again today so we hung out with em for a while before they had to get back to class. Nahia, the most darling little girl of all time, let me try some of these weird little beans that are apparently some sort of snack food. The taste wasn’t bad but it lingered in my mouth for quite awhile. It was soon time for the kids to return to their classroom so I started walking with a boy named Samuel as he lead me to his P3 classroom. Sam is an amazing kid and him and I always go after each other while playing capture the flag. He’s that really fast kid who will actually come close to outrunning you. Anyway, he then told me the P3 teacher had left for the day, which was odd because the kids still had class. I assumed whoever the teacher was that they were involved with the choir, since they were practicing - and have been - non stop. Sam and a few others then grabbed my hands and asked me to teach their class. I said I wasn’t sure if I could and was rather hesitant. Really, what was the harm? I mean, they would have just sat in a classroom without a teacher for over an hour if I decided to not teach them. I literally had no idea what I was doing.....at least with the teaching part. I thought of all the stuff I learned in Elementary school and decided to just look through one of the kid’s books to get a feel for what they have been learning. It ended up going better than I thought. I showed them nouns, proper nouns, adverbs and adjectives, similes, metaphors, opposites, then some sentence structure, punctuation, spelling and vocab, and even had many of them come up to the board and fix sentences that I wrote wrong. I now see why teachers use lesson plans. Teaching off the top of your head at a whim is pretty chaotic. I am glad I experienced this though, and I think the kids were ok with my performance. I decided to let them out for lunch break early anyway so they had to love that.

We started painted more in the afternoon and then Brenda and I went to the village with Dennis. He is the craft room coordinator/manager. This village is sort-of near where the farm is located and Musana employs women that live out there to make things so we can sell them which helps support the orphanage. Turns out, making paper beads it much more difficult that it looks. After the first few my fingers started cramping. I was impressed with the ladies that continuously made beads all day. They also make bags and laptop cases. It is so awesome to see women getting to work and learn skills so they can provide for themselves and their family through Musana. It is just another way Musana is reaching out and helping within the community. Not only this, but this project also helps lead Musana to a self sustaining orphanage. The goal is to have enough businesses developed so that Musana doesn’t have to have donations to function. They of course will still accept them, but they won’t be the primary income for the employees and the children.

For dinner Gala (another volunteer) had brought home some chili oil stuff she bought on the street somewhere in town. Ugandans usually don’t like spicy stuff so this was a pleasant surprise. Though it added flavor, the surprise turned out to be not as pleasant as intended. This was probably the hottest chile oil sauce I have ever eaten. Literally a couple drops of it sent your mouth straight to the fires of hell. My lips were tingling for the next hour. The reason it turned unpleasant was because this incredible crazy burn didn’t just stay in my mouth. I was stupid enough to touch my nose after handling the container it was in and then touch my eyes. There was a huge increase of miserableness in my life after I did this. Immediately my nose caught fire and then I booked it to my room to take out my contacts and douse my eyes in solution. The burning wouldn’t quite unless I held my face in front of the fan. After it subsided a bit I returned to the group to eat dinner. It was interesting eating and not being able to see the remaining food on my plate or anyone’s face. The contacts that I had in are certainly contaminated, maybe for good, because trying to put them back in a bit later brought back the intense burning. I’m not saying this was like being pepper sprayed in the eyes, but it is the only thing I can think of comparing it to......so overall it really sucked and I don’t wanna ever experience that again.

The lessons that you wish you never learned probably stick with you the longest.