INDEPENDENCE DAY FOR UGANDA!

NO PICTURES: Sorry I have not been able to take pictures. There is a strict policy here at MOP that there are no pictures to be taken of any of the buildings, grounds, Brothers or children at any of the homes. I need to get permission from Father Henry first. He has been out of town and we have not had a chance to sit down and talk just yet.

Things are rolling along well at the Busega Bethlehem Home. I didn’t realize that I have a volunteer that has been doing “PT” since Patricia left in the spring. Her name is Sister Florence and she is wonderful! We even had another volunteer, Sister Anne, who used to come daily to work with the children until she found a job. She joined our ranks on her only day off. She is also an angel. We have worked out a simple schedule to get the children seen more 1:1. We started working with 3-4 at a time in the room and then cut that down to 2 at a time.

We made a strict rule of no one in the PT gym unless they are getting PT. This has helped a great deal to cut down on distraction. Many of the able bodied or more mobile disabled boys want to come in to play with the toys. I can’t blame them, as they have nothing to play with. We have been having the able bodied boys help us get the children to and from the gym which has been lovely. We need to find a way to appoint “helpers” and designate them as such and give them some praise for this.

We managed to see 8 children with 2 of us on Monday and 14 with the 3 of us on Tuesday! We were all very tired but felt good about working with so many of these needy boys. I found the PT charts that Patricia had started and have been able to add to them with my own notes. I need to get the medical history and add this as well so that new volunteers are able to follow and proceed from where we left off.

Tuesday was Uganda’s Independence Day celebration of 50 years! The Brothers did things up right for the kids who were all off school. They had a feast including fried chicken (the ones that were riding with us to work in the truck the day before), ice cream and cake!

The Brothers and the volunteers usually feed the disabled children at lunch. Today, the able bodied boys helped feed their disabled brothers before they ate. It was the most heartwarming sight. There was no whining, no pouting. They went about their jobs as if this was the normal thing to do and with the most tenderness of compassion. I saw one boy holding his brother in his lap to keep his head up and was slowly spooning ice cream from a small cup into the other boy’s mouth. He was sure to scrape the sides of the child’s mouth so that most of the ice cream went “in”.

Now if that isn’t the sight of Jesus, I don’t know what is!

We had out own feast, not only at lunch but at home. Father Henry returned from Nairobi today and I was finally able to meet him in person. He is a young energetic Philippine Priest who is loved by all. We only met for a moment, as there were celebratory preparations to me made. Father Raymond was celebrating his 19^th year as a priest and another Brother was celebrating his 46^th Birthday.

We had a feast out in front of the building. The Brothers and Father Henry served all after a wonderfully sung blessing. The ladies did get to go first. We had fried chicken, greens, fried potatoes, rice, a meat/veggie stew and sodas. Dessert included the cups of ice cream and carrot cake (which is a very dry crumbly consistency and the frosting very hard like a glazed candy but good) Ugandans LOVE speeches and there was no shortage of them tonight. We had a quiz on all the Uganda presidents, the party leaders, how they came into and out of power. It would have been very interesting but I could not hear what anyone was saying. Despite the microphone, they speak very very softly. Everyone else heard because there was laughter at several points.

The funniest part was when the priests were teasing each other about the “old days”. They kept talking about the fact “now that I am old” and “ you young one’s need to do the work as we are tired and cannot work as hard” etc etc. They all looked so good I asked one of the brothers how old they were. The Brother celebrating his birthday was turning 46 today. YIKES! I am older than he! Maybe I ought to apply for a desk job here! One of the funniest stories was when one priest was trying to teach the other priest (they were young brothers at the time) how to plant “garbage”. One argued with the other…”You don’t plant garbage!” but the other Brother was adamant. Turns out he was trying to say, “Plant cabbage”

It’s time to turn in. I have unfortunately caught one of the many bugs I have encountered here at the Monastery and the children’s homes. Such is the way of a new environment with new bugs and less access to hand washing. Hopefully I will have the stamina to work with the kids to finish out the week (which ends Sat PM)