This past week, Lindsey, Isabella (our third amigo and the one that reminds Lindsey and me that patience is something we need to constantly work on) and I went to Gulu. Gulu is in northern Uganda and was hit incredibly hard by internal fighting especially with the Lord's Resistance Army. I wont go into detail surrounding that in the interest of a "happy blog", but everyone in that area has lost family and loved ones and the scars are still very fresh. Interestingly enough however, the people in Gulu are without a doubt the nicest and most welcoming that I have come across in Uganda.
Anyways, the day before we left, we were in Kisenyi feeding the boys and we happened to start talking to one 13 year old named Francis. Francis told us that he was from Gulu, but left 3 years ago to find his mother who he was told went to Kampala. Francis never found his mother and had been living on the street for the past 3 years. I can't imagine looking for someone for 3 years in every face that passed on the street. In the course of the conversation, Francis told us that he was tired of living on the street and just wanted to go home. We hear a lot of things from the boys in the slum about things that they want to do and many times there isn't much effort or action behind it. So, we told Francis that the bus to Gulu left at 6am and that we would take him if he showed up. Sure enough, Francis made it on the bus and we got to take him home to his family. For the cost of a $6 bus ticket and a $1 roadside lunch, we were able to get a kid off the street and back to his village. Sometimes helping is just about being in the right place at the right time and being open to the opportunity.
Our stowaway to Gulu
When we made it back to Kampala we decided to take the kids to the beach. Lake Victoria is about an hour away, so we loaded 29 kids into a taxi clown car style and off we went. The scene upon arrival was right out of the pool scene from Caddyshack (Caddies welcome 1:00-1:15) These kids tore into that lake like they owned it and for once, we got to see them act like kids. Seeing them deal with so much on a daily basis, they never have that excited, innocence in their eyes that we are used to seeing in children. They were laughing, smiling, playing (even nicely with each other amazingly) and for a few hours they seemed to forget their day to day struggles. We fed them peanut butter & jelly sandwiches that we brought and they were blown away by those. Even the Ugandan adults that we work with had never seen a PB&J which just goes to show that you never know what's going to be a hit. On the bus ride home they all sang songs which (although really loud) was incredibly heartwarming. Everyone had a really great day; us most of all.
Finally, thanks to all of you who donated, we are going to be able to fix Hamza's leg!! He doesn't know this yet, but we are taking him to the hospital tomorrow and we are all SUPER excited around here. He's a really amazing kid who deserves to get better so we couldn't be more appreciative of all of you back at home.
Full taxi to the beach!
Due to some pretty serious parasites, us Americans do not swim in the water. But it certainly looked fun.
Slide
Neil came to the beach.
The boys. The one in the back is Topher. He is one of the Ugandans that help us run the programs and he is GREAT. We have a crew of about 5 guys that we trust completely are very dedicated to helping these kids. All of them came from Kisenyi or similar places so they really are invested in making things better.
Discovering PB&J
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