We Built a School!!

Oh it has been an incredible week! I have spent the last four days in the village of Bubita just building my school. You know, nothing major. That's a lie. It's sooo major! This week has been full of the hardest but most fulfilling work I have done all summer.

As you know, we fundraised the money to help build the school for David Zaale and PDI, and the skeleton and half of the iron sheets were already up. Last week we bought the rest of the iron sheets, but I hadn't been up to see the school since before then. When I did get up to the school on Tuesday, I was blown away by the progress that had been made. It looked sooo good! And I was too excited, and maybe a little teary for a second.

The type of building that we are making is a mud building, which is a popular building technique in Uganda. Ugandans are so cool because they just use absolutely everything that the land gives them, and don't waste anything. I love this school because so few elements of it are actually man-made. The skeleton of the school was built using wood 2x4's (which aren't actually 2x4's but just logs that have been split a couple of times). Once the vertical beams are up, they then nail smaller sticks/twigs horizontally across the beams all the way from the roof to the floor, about a foot apart. They also nail the horizontal sticks to both sides of the vertical beams, so when it's finished it's like a giant connect 4 board. Okay, that was probably a bad explanation....just look at the pictures.

So when we got to the school on Tuesday, the iron sheet roof had been finished and all of the sticks were up. Hannah and I went up on Tuesday night to check things out and make a plan with David, and on Wednesday morning the rest of the construction team came up. We had about 12 people from our HELP team come to the school ready to work...and we definitely worked! Our job was to put mud into the little grid that had been made with the sticks, that would become the walls. We had so much fun digging our fingers into the red Ugandan mud and turning it into a wall. We developed a pretty good system, and I was so impressed with how fast we worked. I was blown away by the team's energy and enthusiasm. We just worked and worked. And it was hard work! The mud was really heavy and our school is huge!! It was definitely a good workout. It combined cardio with strength training of probably every muscle in my body. But it was so great.

With how impressed I was with our team and the work that we did, David was ten times as impressed. He came by after we had been working for about an hour and had a whole wall done, and looked at me with big eyes and said, "Wow! You are serious!" He continued to make comments like this the whole time we were working. He definitely didn't expect us to do too much. Ugandans have this idea of mzungus that we are fragile and pampered and not capable of working or getting dirty. Compared to what hard workers Ugandans are, this is semi true. But we aren't completely helpless. And we certainly proved that this week. David planned for the mudding to take us 4 or 5 days. It took us 2 and a half. We are too good.

In addition to getting to build my school, this week was great because I got to spend it at the Zaale's house. Which means when we weren't working, we were waiting to eat, eating, or having a dance party. I've decided I want to have a house like theirs where every night after dinner, we just have a crazy dance party. I have to learn how to dance before that happens though. The Ugandans show me up every time. They are waaaaay good dancers! Also the Zaales are the best hosts in the world. Like really. We get room service at their house. It's a little ridiculous. And wonderful. They take such good care of us.

The Friday Team

Wednesday night was extra special because it was also David's 69th birthday. All day when we were building we were asking him what he wanted to do for his birthday, and he told us he was already doing it. That night, he gave a little speech and told us that this was his most memorable birthday ever because of the help that HELP has given him, and the fact that we were working so hard on making his school a reality all day. He also gave a special shout-out to Hannah and I for making it all happen. It was really sweet. Earlier in the day, he compared us to manna from Heaven that came just when Moses' people were getting desperate. Is it possible to express gratitude more fully than telling someone they are like a miracle sent from Heaven ? I don't think so. I definitely don't feel worthy of all the thanks and praise that he gives us, but I am so happy that we have been able to make him so happy. It makes everything worth it.

The elders from the village stopped by to see how things were going

By the time we were wrapping things up at the school yesterday, I was exhausted and really ready to be done hauling mud. But I was so happy at the same time. It was seriously such a great feeling to look at that cute school and know that I had helped make that happen. I'm so excited that I have something so tangible to leave behind with these people that I love so much.

The finished product

Oh! Also! The kids! The first day we were working, all of the PDI Nursery School kids came over after school got over to see their new school. Seriously so cute. They ran into the first room that was finished and started jumping up and down and singing and dancing. It was so great. Seeing them so excited really solidified for me why we are doing this. It's all about the kids. The second day we were working, some of the kids came over after school and actually helped us with putting up the mud. I was sooo impressed with how helpful they were! A lot times when little kids want to help, it's cute but you end up having to go back and fix everything they did. That was not the case with these kids. They worked so hard and were so helpful! It was really cool to get to build this school alongside the kids that will be learning there.

Just dancing in their new school

All in all it has been a very fulfilling week. And exhausting. I spent today laying by the pool recuperating. We still have lots of work to be done before the school is actually finished, but with the roof and the walls up, we have finished the most critical parts. David plans to have the kids learning in their new school by the end of next week. So great! I will keep you updated.

The brains of the operation.....minus Hannah who went home sick :(

 Also, I got my hair braided

And then I took them out...

Better than the Best?

Seriously? Every time I think life could not possibly get any better, or my smile could get any bigger, it does. Let me just give you a little run-down of the amazing week I have just had.

Saturday: A big group of us went and hiked Sipi Falls. Sipi is actually three different waterfalls all relatively close to each other. And they are BEAUTIFUL! The hike was pretty intense to get to and from the first waterfall, but it was so so pretty. Also, I had a little African boy who helped me along the whole way. I have to say, I have never felt more ridiculous than when I was hiking up and down a mountain, carrying a goofy walking stick that they gave all of us, and having a 14-year-old boy wearing crocs running in front of me, and holding my hand and helping me up and down all of the tricky parts. Mzungus are pretty pathetic. The falls were absolutely gorgeous though. I really can't get enough of how beautiful this country is. I'm fairly certain that heaven looks an awful lot like Uganda.

Sunday: For some reason, Sundays in my little Mbale branch always make me super happy and super emotional. This Sunday was no exception. We had three confirmations before the sacrament (they baptize people like crazy in this country....it's incredible). Our sacrament consisted of talks from our brand new mission president and his wife. Which were wonderful. Their enthusiasm and love for these people is already so obvious, and I just couldn't help being excited with them. My favorite part of the meeting was the special musical number in between the two speakers.....which was put on by my cute primary kids. This was a huge thing for this little branch. The church has only been in Mbale for three years so it still has a lot of learning and growing to do. Primary is one of those areas that still needs a little work. I was talking to Sister Barton (our ward senior missionary) about it, and she was telling me how most of the people here don't quite understand the importance of teaching children gospel principles yet. For them, primary is a place to send their energetic little kids to be corralled for two hours, while they go to their classes. Which, in a sense, it is. But it's also so so important for kids to have this time to be taught simple gospel stories and principles so they can continue to learn and grow in the gospel all throughout their lives. These kids are so blessed to be a part of this church at such a young age, but it's a waste if they aren't given the opportunity to be using all of this additional time they have to learn and develop a strong testimony. With all that said, this branch has definitely never had something like a primary musical number in sacrament meeting. The first week we were called to be primary teachers, Hannah had the great idea to teach the kids a song and have them sing it in sacrament meeting. And that's what we did. After the first speaker, all the primary kids gathered in the front and sang all three verses of "I am a Child of God." I cried and cried and cried. Listening to primary kids sing always makes me emotional. And, like I said, the Mbale, Uganda branch makes me emotional. Those things combined with the fact that these were my primary kids, and this was such a huge thing for this little branch, left me shamelessly wiping tears from my eyes the entire time. It really was amazing.

Primary has been kind of a tough thing because Hannah and I were pretty much left alone to deal with about 20 really energetic kids for two hours.  It has been a lot of work, and most of our time is spent trying to get everyone to sit down, stop leaving the room, and be somewhat quiet. Most of the time I don't feel like anything we are actually teaching is even being heard, let alone sinking in. This Sunday was a little different. Just a little. We had a lot of kids and they were all restless. I was teaching a lesson on forgiveness, while Hannah worked to keep everyone under control. Out of the 20+ kids that were in the room, I think I had two that were listening. But somehow that was enough for me, because they were really listening. I could tell that the things that I was saying were really sinking in, and they wanted to keep learning even when everyone around them was being disruptive. They answered my questions, and at one point I asked if anyone could tell us the story of Alma the Younger (I figured that would be a long shot). But to my surprise, little Ben Butali (the son of Stephen and Sarah Butali who I have talked about before) stood up and told the whole story of Alma in waaaay more detail  than a lot of people my age probably could have done it. I was blown away. My enthusiasm may or may not have been a little over the top for something like summarizing a simple scripture story. But it was so great. It was such good evidence that little Ben has incredible parents (not that I didn't already know that) and he has been taught gospel principles and stories in his home while he has been growing up. I was so proud of him and his family, and it gave me so much hope for the continued growth of the gospel in Uganda. They are working so hard and it really is paying off.

Monday: We had another meeting with our little savings and loans group. And it was wonderful. Everyone saved the agreed upon amount, and our awesome leadership made sure everything went smoothly. The meeting was run with very little input from Sam and I, and I'm confident that they will be able to handle everything just perfectly after we leave. I feel like this group is our little baby that we are helping to learn and grow, and soon we will be able to send it out on its own. And its going to be so successful.

Tuesday: This was right up there on the list of best days of my life. No question. Over the last two weeks we had been working on our team fundraiser (as you know). I was so passionate about this fundraiser because I was so passionate about the people we were hoping to help. It really is hard for me to explain. I just love these people so so much and desperately want to do anything I can to help them. So, when I woke up on Tuesday morning with about 13 e-mails from indiegogo saying we had received donations (some from people that I love very very much) I couldn't help but cry....and laugh....at the same time. Donations kept coming in that morning, and by the time I left to go out to my projects, we were only a few hundred dollars away from our goal. And I couldn't stop smiling. Once again, I can't adequately put into words how I felt. Beyond happy. It was like a little miracle. Just the day before I had been stressing because we were nowhere near our goal, and we were quickly running out of time. But people are incredible, and they pulled through for us. I really was blown away by the generosity of so many kindhearted people. I really just can't even tell you how much it meant to me. I felt so loved and blessed, and also felt the love that all of these people had not only for their friends and family on the HELP team, but also for the people of Uganda that they have never even met before. I could go on and on about how amazed and grateful I was. By the time I went to bed that night, we had exceeded our goal, and by the time our fundraiser officially ended this morning, we were $500 over what we had hoped for. I don't even know what to say. People are amazing.

Wednesday: We went with David Zaale to the hardware store to start buying supplies for the school. Another incredible day. Who knew buying iron sheets and bags of cement could be sooooo great?? We couldn't stop smiling. And David was so excited! Ugandans don't show a lot of emotion most of the time, so the fact that it was so obvious how happy he was really says something. I was pretty sure I saw tears at one point. Best day.

This Weekend: Sam, Hannah, Alyssa, and I are going to Jinja for a couple of days to shop and eat and just chill. And I am so excited. It's going to be great. Jinja weekend here we come!

Mostly things here are so wonderful. We are going to go up to Bududa next week to put the mud up for the walls on the school. I'm so excited for that. I have about a million other things that I'm working on right now. Which is great. And stressful. And so exciting. So much to do and so little time!

P.S. Sorry about the lack of pictures. I have some good ones, but they are all on different cameras, and the owners of said cameras are already asleep. So you will have to wait on those.

Help HELP Help

So, as many of you have probably heard by now, I am currently working to raise money for our HELP team fundraiser. Yes I said fundraiser, but please don't tune me out just yet. I really hate asking for money, but I love the people of Uganda way more than I hate asking for money. So for these two weeks I am setting my pride aside and doing whatever I can to raise the funds needed to help these incredible organizations.

I have already talked a little about the projects that we are raising money for in previous blog posts, and I wrote the description on our indiegogo site, so I won't take the time to write all the details on here now. But to summarize, we are raising money to finish construction on the new, four-room school building for PDI, and to build 5 new latrines and a clean water system for the Liahona Education Center (the school owned by Stephen and Sarah Butali).

While this fundraiser is technically our team fundraiser, it has kind of become my baby. The two projects that we are raising money for are two projects that I am a co-lead on, and obviously care a lot about. Because of that, I have also been put in charge of co-leading all of our team's fundraising efforts (hence me putting together the indiegogo site). I wish I could adequately express how important these projects are to me. When I first arrived in Uganda, things moved a little slowly for me because I was trying to find something that I was passionate about to really put all of my efforts into. I have found my passion in these two schools and the construction that we want to do for them. I have given my heart completely to the Zaales and the Butalis and all of the sweet children that they are already giving so much help to. I care so much about these people and desperately want to do anything I can to help them. Lucky for me, I have found a way to give them the help they need. Unlucky for me, I can't give them that help by myself. It would truly be a dream come true for me to see us raise all the money we needed and complete these construction projects before I leave in a month (is that really all I have left??). I have already seen so much gratitude from these incredible people for the smallest things that we have done, and I can't wait to see how happy they would be if we gave them these things that they so desperately need.

The people that I have met here have helped and taught me so much, and now it's my turn to give back to them. Any help you can give to make these projects possible, I would be more grateful for than I can even express. Whether it's giving even the smallest amount of money, or sharing this story with others who can give; anything helps.

Check out our indiegogo site at http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/help-help-help-schools-in-uganda/x/774192?c=home to learn more and to donate. We only have a week left to raise $3,200!! (P.S. I came up with the name for our site....I'm pretty clever)

Thanks so much for all of your love and support! I am so blessed!

Hakuna Matata!

Okay, I feel like a broken record right now, but I would just like to say again that I have the BEST life ever. I just had the most incredible weekend of my life. Seriously can’t even put into words how amazing it was. What was so amazing about it? It was AFRICAN SAFARI WEEKEND!!

The team!

I have wanted to go on an African safari probably my whole life, and it definitely lived up to my expectations. On Friday we took a charter bus the four hours down to Kampala, and spent the night at the hostel of the safari company “Red Chilli.” We got up super early the next morning, grabbed some breakfast, and jumped in our awesome safari cars. We had about a three hour drive from Kampala to the Murcheson Falls State Park (I can’t remember if it’s actually called a state park, but the same idea). Once we got into the park, we opened our windows, watched for animals, and sang “Hakuna Matata” at the top of our lungs. So great. The first day we didn’t see a lot of wildlife, but we did come across some baboons, warthogs, buffalo, and some other species of monkey. After driving for a while, we arrived at Murcheson Falls, which was sooo beautiful! (I will just let the pictures do the talking) We ate our picnic lunch and went for a little hike around the falls to see them from a better angle. They were breathtaking.

Murcheson Falls

After the falls, we jumped back in the safari cars and drove a little further to the Red Chilli campsite. The campsite was pretty nice with flushing toilets, real showers (though not too warm), a bar/restaurant, and big tents with real beds in them.  Oh also, the campsite had warthogs and baboons, just running around. No big. We hung around playing games for a while before heading to bed, where Hannah and I had quite the adventure getting a lizard out of our tent before we could go to sleep. There may have been some screaming and jumping on beds involved. It may have been me doing those things. Lizards don’t usually bother me too much, but when one is running around where I am about to go to sleep….yeah, I wanted him out of there.

This wasn't the lizard in our room, but it's a cool picture I got

The next morning, we got up super early to start the best day of my life. Seriously the best. We got in our safari car with Hassan, our awesome driver. He made sure we were the first car everywhere we went so we got to see all of the best stuff. We went in our safari car on a ferry that took us across the Nile to where the animal reserve started. Once we were across the river, Hassan opened the roof of the car so we could all stand and look out. I was in the back seat and ended up sitting up on the roof of the car in the back. Perfect seat. I won’t go through every detail of our four-hour game drive, but it was so great. We got really lucky and saw everything that was an option to see in the area that we were in. This included: buffalo, antelope, hartebeest, lots of little deer things, a giant lizard, lots of cranes and other birds, opaki, warthogs,hippos, giraffes, elephants, aaaaaannnnd……. a LION!!! Aaaaaannnd……a LEOPARD!! It was amazing. After our game drive, we went for a boat ride up to the falls that we were at the day before. While we were on that beautiful little cruise, we saw some elephants way up close, TONS of hippos, more cool birds, and two HUGE crocodiles. Also amazing.

There she is! Bummed it got a little cut off...

My awesome sister let me take her nice camera on the safari. Which is why I got such rockin pictures. And was named the safari team photographer. 

Besides all of the animals, the scenery was also incredible. Definitely prettier than I expected safari scenery to be. It was so green and full of the coolest trees, and in the morning with the sunrise behind the clouds, the sky looked incredible! The whole day was honestly breathtaking. I had to keep reminding myself that this was real life and I wasn’t just watching a super awesome nature video, or going on the Disneyland safari cruise. It’s one thing to see all of those animals and the beautiful scenery in pictures and movies, but it is an entirely different thing to see it all in real life right there at my fingertips. I couldn’t wrap my head around it. There was a long stretch of our drive that I just sat in silence on the roof with a silly grin on my face, looking out over everything and just trying to take it all in. The whole day was literally a dream come true and I couldn’t get enough of it.

Wish the pictures did it justice

The last day, we had another mini game drive in the morning, hiked to another beautiful waterfall, and then Hassan drove us in our safari car all the way back to our house in Mbale. And I definitely had vacation let-down when I got back. I just wanted to stay in that little tent going out on game drives every day for the next month. But, there is work to be done. So I will just have to come back again. It was amazing.

P.S. There was one thing that made me excited to leave the safari campsite; I was so sick of mzungus!! Red Chilli is a pretty hot tourist attraction so all weekend we were surround by other Americans, and Europeans, and Australians. And I just didn’t want them! I missed being surrounded by Africans and having cute babies wave and say hi to me. As we were driving home, I got so excited when we were passing through villages and I could see the real Africa, rather than the touristy Africa I had been in.  I really just feel like I am Ugandan and I live here. I kind of hated myself this weekend for being such a tourist. It won’t happen again. Sometimes I forget that I’m not black and I haven’t lived here all my life. This is just home. And if this weekend was any indication, I am going to have a very hard time to going back to America where I am surrounded by mzungus constantly and there is not a chapatti man in sight. Can’t think about that yet.

Love this place!

Happy Fourth!

You guys, I seriously have THE best life. Sometimes I have to pinch myself to make sure it's all really happening. It is. I am just living a dream life right now and I can't get enough of it.

Last weekend I went rafting on the Nile. Can I say that again? I went rafting on THE Nile River. You know that big river in Africa? Yeah. Rafted it. It was incredible!! We had a great guide, great team, great food, great weather, and great rapids. Plus, we totally rocked it at getting through those rapids. We only flipped our raft on the last one, and we all survived so it was fine. More than fine. Sooooo much fun!

Today we had a Fourth of July party. Probably the best one I've ever been to. I've been super bummed that I was missing out on the parades and boating and fireworks and s'mores happening in Burley, but we did pretty good here. The whole team spent hours cooking all the American food we could think of (hamburgers, hot dogs, fruit salad, potato salad, coleslaw, sweet potato fries, chips and salsa/guacamole, corn on the cob no bake cookies, and banana cream pie). We also invited all of our friends....which I've pretty much decided consists of the entire city of Mbale and its surrounding villages. We had about 60 people at our house tonight!! It was incredible. I seriously love all of those people so so much, and I don't think I've ever laughed so hard as I did with them tonight. So fun.

It was also fun to be able to embrace and share our American culture today, rather than Ugandan culture. I even wore jeans for the first time in almost two months to celebrate being an American today! We played American games, listened to American music, ate American food, spoke in American accents, and even educated some Ugandans on why this holiday is so important to us. We all ended up wearing red, white, and blue and some of our Ugandan friends even came dressed in patriotic colors (not sure if that was intentional or not). It was so fun to share this holiday that means so much to me with these people who have come to mean so much to me, and they were more than willing to celebrate with us.

I love Uganda, but living here has definitely made me appreciate America. I really love America. We have it so good. Grateful for days like today that help me stop and remember how blessed I am to live in such a wonderful country. God bless America.

I have so much more I could say about this last week, but I am mostly just on a high right now from my rafting and Fourth of July party. So we will leave it at this for now. Also, to add to the dream life I am having, I am going on an African safari tomorrow. I really must be dreaming right now.