Well, I think this has been the longest hiatus from blogging since I first started at the beginning of this adventure. And to truly put into perspective how long it’s been, I’ve since left Uganda. Visited England. Returned home. And left home again. And here I am now, in Toronto, not exactly where I started this journey with ACTS back in August of last year; but it’s where I’m going to end it, blogwise anyway.
When I left off several weeks, almost a month ago, I was still at Canada House (the ACTS Ugandan HQ) in the town of Mbarara, the closest home I had while away from home. After leaving Mbarara, I spent my remaining time at Another Hope in Kampala, just trying to squeeze a few more days in with the kids before I had to go.
And I had a wonderful last few days with the kids. Most of them had just finished their term end exams, thus marking the end of the spring term and even better, the beginning of a two week break (slightly different than the North American system, they have a few several week breaks rather than the two month summer break we have). This meant that, like my first visit at Christmastime, the orphanage was once again all hustle and bustle with twenty plus kids doing their best to, well, hustle and bustle from before dawn until after dusk. =D
The Monday following my arrival, exam marks came back and report cards were ready for the picking from two of the schools where combined, the majority of the kids attend. Namutebi, one of the oldest girls, and at senior six, the highest level of schooling among all the kids, went to the schools to pick up the reports. Now, as a kid, I remember report card day – the anticipation and excitement, or perhaps it was the anxiety and fear. =D Either way, report card day was kind of an important day, especially if your parents went to each and every parent teacher conference that always followed the report cards, as did mine. Point is, like it or not, report cards are kind of a big deal.
And so it was as Namutebi arrived back with the fifteen plus report cards in hand and we all sat down in the living room to read them. All the kids crowded around, the ones who were most excited trying to squeeze to the front while the ones who know they didn’t doing as well understandably lingering in the back. For most of the kids, it was their first report at their respective schools. Many of them had been switched from a different school that wasn’t as reputable, and for the little ones, it was because it was the first time they’d been to school! And as we went through the reports, one by one, the general trend was that nearly all of the kids had improved in at least some of their subjects, some very markedly so even! And I guess I the feeling that came over me as we looked at each report was that of what a parent would probably feel when their kids brought home a good report card - pride, delight, overall satisfaction.
For the most part in Uganda, teachers are undertrained, understaffed, and under resourced. It’s totally understandable, expected even, for them to write generic comments in the report cards. So it’s all the more exemplary when they do have something different to write. For me, the ones that stand out the most were for Moses, in P3, which said something along the lines of ‘displays a good potential for leadership, with some time, who knows what could develop?’ And for Jackie, in P2, who is regularly attending school for the first time because her step mother didn’t allow her to when Jackie was living with her, ‘one of the brightest and positive students in her grade’. How could you not be proud of these kids?
Other parting memories with the orphanage focus more on the food. Back at Christmastime, me and another volunteer, Julia from Arizona, had decided to teach the kids to make Smores (melted chocolate and marshmallows sandwiched between two graham crackers, for those of you who may not know). Well, that led me to think of other treats that kids back in Canada would normally have that these kids would enjoy. So, I sent a request to the other engineer, Chris, who was returning to Uganda, for some Jell-O. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the chance to actually make it with them and see them eat (and probably also play with) the Jell-O. Still, it was amusing trying to get them to understand how they simply had to mix the Jell-O powder with boiling water, and then put it in the fridge where it would automatically solidify, but not like ice.
Then, Jono and Jana, the couple from Urban Systems who had come to see the water projects, had also brought some soup mix that their church makes and distributes to food shelters and such. Now, I hadn’t yet seen the kids eat something that they didn’t like, but they met their match in this instant vegetable soup mix. Even worse, I guess everything else that I had introduced to them would fall under the ‘sweets’ category, so naturally, there probably was some assumption that the soup was also something similar. The kids got all excited that we were having “SOUP!” as they said it, that ‘Uncle Wesley’ had brought. Well, that excitement disappeared pretty quick when they tasted the stuff. In a way, it was kind of disappointing to disappoint them, but it was also funny to see them trying to eat (in a ginger nibbling manner) something that is so ordinary in our culture, but yet, so foreign to them. I may have been the only one who enjoyed dinner that night. The only thing I have seen them dislike more was when one of the Korean volunteers generously made spicy chinese-onion-pancake-like things for the kids. I’ve never seen them so generous and quick to feed the cat. ><
Anyway, it was definitely sad to leave the orphanage and Uganda as a whole. The whole time as we were checking in at the airport, boarding the plane, and as we were lifting off, with the ground under us rapidly disappearing, I was in quite a cheerless mood. Plus, we’d had to wake up before dawn to get to the airport in time, so part of that can also be attributed to lack of sleep. But still, it was tough to watch Uganda fading off, as we headed off to England, to the ‘1st World’, to civilization as some might even say.
There are so many things that the people in Uganda have better than us in Canada and the other western countries. They may not realize it, and we westerners most definitely don’t recognize or even know it, but they are there. And as the plane headed back to this ‘other’ world from where I had come from eight months earlier, I couldn’t help but feel as if I was headed towards, not departing from, a deprived and destitute place, as comes to mind for many when you mention Africa. (bad grammar, I know, I hope you get the picture though.)
I’m going to speed this along a little bit for the sake of brevity. So, I arrived in London, England for a brief one week stay. England was, not surprisingly, very English. Just picture red double-decker buses, London bridge, everything you might have glimpsed on that CBC show, Coronation Street, and of course, those all too distinctive English accents. To my surprise, I very much enjoyed London. The history, the architecture, the extensive subway system, the overwhelming grandness of the buildings was no doubt all very impressive. And I think the critical factor was that it was, thankfully, different enough from North America that I felt as if I was in yet another new culture, discovering things anew. I’m a little embarrassed to admit that I played tourist for a week, aimlessly wandering about, taking too many photos of really non descript things. However, it was an effective and necessary break between my departure from Africa and my reintroduction to Western society.
Then, it was back on a plane, destination this time, Vancouver, Canada, Home. But, not for long. A few stunted nights of sleep thanks to jetlag, a long time friend’s wedding (congrats, Jim and Brittany!!), and a few days trying to recover from the few sleepless nights, and then, yet again, it was back on a plane. My grandma in Toronto had apparently fallen and broken a few bones, and since I had already thought about visiting them once I returned to Canada, it wasn’t a hard to decision (plus, I had a Westjet credit that was already past expiration =p).
And so it was off to Toronto where, upon arrival, my cousin told me that my grandma was already much improved and walking. Sure enough, when we arrived at my grandparent’s home, there was my grandma, walking, and wanting to go for Dim Sum. But although I was somewhat misled into rushing off to Toronto, it’s been great to get to see my grandparents, my cousins (a few who are also here after fielding the same distress calls! =D), and friends!
I will be returning to Vancouver (hopefully for a little longer this time!) on Monday morning. From there, the road is a little less defined. I’ve been away from Canada for the last eight months, but I’ve essentially been away from Vancouver for much longer than that, not having spent more than three consecutive weeks there in the past six years. Jobwise, I may have a position with Lecor, the engineering and construction company that funded my internship to Uganda. Otherwise, there is a lot that remains to be determined. So, I guess it leaves me in a little bit of a similar situation as my first post, back in August, just prior to my departure to Uganda: ready to embark on a new adventure.
And I think that is where I will end off. If you’ve been keeping up with the various work and things that I’ve been doing over the better part of the past year, thanks. If you’ve been praying for the work in Uganda, the Ugandan people, or the various things associated with those, thanks, and keep it up. And if you’d like more information about the work that I was involved in, the places that I visited, or anything of the sorts, please, don’t hesitate to ask.
There’s always a great need for more workers, more volunteers, more people to go abroad. Whatever your thing may be, there’s almost definitely a role for you in places such as Uganda, just as much as there is a role for you wherever you are now. So, if you haven’t considered it before, I’d urge you to start now; if you have thought about it but haven’t done anything yet, take those convictions and put them into action; and if you’ve been involved with missions and/or aid work before, by all means, keep it up, you know better than anyone the need! Once again, thank you for all the support, encouragement, and prayers over my time abroad. I do hope that I’ll have the chance to support you in the same way that you have me!
Wes
