My name is Kathy Houk I am from Nashville TN. Currently I am living in Kampala Uganda. This is a blog about my experiences in Uganda I am here because God put this ministry on my heart ... He told me to go to Kampala and work with the Street Children. He has put many wonderful people in my life to help. I am so greatful to be able to serve. Please enjoy these posts from me. Some will be funny, some might make you cry, some will touch your heart. You too can help. Come and visit me. We have a volunteer house that is safe and we have a lot of work to do.
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We can use your help. The projects in Uganda need a few more (no, they need a lot more) monthly donors. Will you consider sending whatever you can each month? These children are trying to stay off the streets and get an education. We need monthly donors to help with the monthly school costs. Will you please send a monthly donation?
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this is a difficult blog to write.....sort of a goodbye to my dear friends here as well as a thank you for all the moral, physical and mental support rendered to me these past 4 1/2 months. 4 1/2 months? how is that possible?i don't own a watch or a clock or a calendar, so i rarely know what day it is here. i'm quite good at guessing the time, it's relative to how loud my stomach is growling. sometimes i 'miss' entire days and say things like 'wait....what happened to wednesday?' it happens. george says to use the calendar app on the computer but i like paper ones that u can clip notes and receipts and 'to do' lists to. but i digress.....as usual.
this trip has been so stressful. to those unfamiliar with life in africa, it might seem as though i have accomplished little. i leave the continent with the same issues i had when i arrived...still no ngo renewal and still no work permit. can't begin to say how many sleepless nights this has caused....not to mention the money, the hours wasted impatiently waiting to see someone, the times i was 'reamed out' for being rude, arrogant, stubborn, strong willed and unappreciative. it's ok though, the issues will be waiting for me when i return and an old tom petty song plays in my mind...."i won't back down". and, thanks to a suggestion from someone who actually works at the ngo board, i have a plan B.
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sometimes yubu will ask me what the program is for tomorrow and sometimes i say: "it will be a short, easy day". then we laugh because it seems as if every short, easy day becomes an emotionally charged marathon day filled with surprises and challenges. we never expected to spend last saturday at Mulago Hospital, a government owned facility offering 'free' services to the people of kampala. i had toured Mulago several years ago, but certainly was not prepared to witness first hand the treatment (?) rendered acceptable to the people who can not afford an alternative private health care facility.
the day started pleasantly. yubu arrived early, we loaded the van with portable chairs, a table and first aid supplies and headed to watoto suubi village to pick up gus, a desana uganda volunteer and (thankfully) a nurse by profession. we then started making our way to kisenyi slum. along the way both joash and katamba phoned to say they would be meeting us there to assist cleaning and bandaging wounds and injuries. we parked in a corner of the playground because some of the kids were exercising amidst a mountain of plastic bottles in preparation of a soccer game. everything was going smoothly, people were polite and asking if we would provide food later. both seka and shanitta stopped by to say hello and thank us. i gave seka money to order the food and shanitta told me she had made kabalagalas for me. (her pancakes rock!) all of a sudden there was a huge commotion and a mob was rushing toward us. people were yelling and pushing and 4 guys were coming our way carrying someone by his hands and feet. he was covered in blood, his stomach was bare, there was a stab wound and some internal parts were visible on the outside. gus got clean bandages and restrained the flow of blood. we threw all our 'stuff' into the back of the van and put the young man, "Frank", in the back seat. a lot of people got into the van and off we flew to Mulago. my unofficial job was to yell at drivers who were in our way to "let us through, there is a young man in the back seat who has been stabbed. if he bleeds to death, it's your fault" this, of course, was not rehearsed, just what came out of my mouth in the moments of panic! anyway, yubu got us to the hospital in record time and we were all amazed at his extraordinary driving skills through the kampala traffic jams.
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WHAT? food poisoning AND the flu AND a meeting i cannot possibly miss.....what else? oh, of course, no electricity so all appropriate clothing looks as if i slept in it (which i did not) and no hot tea to help clear my oh so stuffy head....! seems as if breakfast will be a glass of room temp coke zero with 2 cold tablets, a malaria pill, a heart pill and a stomach pill! let me say i am extremely grateful for the coke zero and the sharpie marker to 'touch up my pedicure'!
a package just arrived from the states (THANK YOU GEORGE).....jelly beans, yellow, stale peeps (stale candy in uganda is infinitely better than no candy), gummie savers, some medicines, lotions, batteries and flashlights...all sorts of good stuff tucked inside my BOOTS! i have seriously missed my boots and i will wear proudly them to my meeting because Texas cowboy boots go with anything and are always appropriate! guess i didn't need to 'sharpie' up my nails after all.
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can it really be april? 3 months in uganda have flown by.....my birthday, valentine's day, president's day, my anniversary, st patrick's day and Easter....all history in 2013. all passed quietly, with little fanfare. well, except for Easter and our "annual" picnic at Lake Victoria in entebbe with 37 kids ranging in age from 10 to 14! yes, it is approaching insanity to many people, but to us it is so much FUN! games and food and most importantly, SWIMMING! truthfully, very few ugandans can swim. for the most part, they fear the water. (my son, josh, asked if there were crocodiles in the water! haha) these kids LOVE the water and stay where they can touch the bottom. ok, unless they are riding on you piggyback. somehow peter and zhanna and i couldn't stay out of the water and had the best time swimming in our clothes. (nothing like a pair of heavy, wet jeans!) the kids loved the fact that we joined them in splashing and dunking games. eventually we all dragged ourselves out of the lake and i buried 3 kids in the sand. onlookers thought that was hilarious and were taking movies, etc. maybe that isn't normally done in africa, but the boys loved it and all the attention that they received from strangers!
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we had a terrible storm last evening....torrential rain and high winds and rolling thunder. the power has been off since then. i can see lights not very far away, so it must just be around our immediate area. i'm really used to living without power, gayaza road was a challenge for sure. now it seems to simply be a minor inconvenience...definitely a step in the right direction! hmmm, well, let me think about that a bit..is getting used to living electric free a step forward or is it a step backward? will need to discuss this with my facebook friend, daniel, which by the way is not his real name. i can't pronounce his real name, so a year ago he said it means daniel....perfect, but last evening he asked "why do you keep calling me daniel"? haha...one of us is daft, and i'm not sure which one that is. at any rate we have interesting discussions concerning food, God, horses, lots of things!
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It has occurred to me that i have met many 'characters' in Uganda over the past year....most have, in one way or another, made me smile and many have certainly brightened my days! One of my favorite is Yubu, my driver. When i first met him, i thought that he was way too quiet and how would I spend so many hours in the van in the company of someone who never spoke unless spoken to. I have known him about 6 months now and each day he breaks out of his shell just a little more. We often find ourselves lost and laughing about it...like how can we not find an embassy or a mall. He often argues with me that he has not been somewhere before and in my complete confusion regarding the streets in Kampala...I will say "oh, you know, next to where we got the good samosas from the man who looked like Buddha and asked if we were gooda" and eventually Yubu realizes he knows exactly where to go! He has been stopped numerous times by the traffic police because no one believes he is 31 and not 13. He says that i am Americanizing his speech...haha...he now says "UH-HUH" and coke rather than coca cola. He has a really funny sense of humor....last week when i asked him the name of a crunchy sweet snack, he said they were called chewchew-whys. i said surely not, but he insisted. However, no one had heard that name and i finally found out they are called 'daddies'. He appreciates anything you do for him or his family, especially if it concerns FOOD! His daughter, Bridgett is adorable and likes to go to church with the mzungu because she knows it means donuts or ice cream afterwards! I love the way unlikely friendships develop, making your life just a little more interesting.
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february is proving to be another challenging month....meetings, reports, plans, budgets....YIKES! anyone that knows me well knows that these are not my 'things'! GEEZ, anyone who can sit at a desk for longer than 30 minutes has my utmost respect and kudos, because i don't know how they can do it. i have a short attention span when it comes to reviewing documents or amending constitutions and i admire people whose mind doesn't drift to an old bon jovi song or what they need from the market. it wasn't this bad in my pre-chemo days....but then in my pre-chemo days i was mucking stalls and riding horses and throwing bales! hmm, guess there are some things i really do miss about the farm! (not the snakes, i don't miss the snakes!)
speaking of snakes, i have not seen ANY in uganda except in the snake park. and that is good because i am still working through my fear of snakes. i don't think i am alone in this phobia. Pastor Jones says fear of snakes represents fear of satan. makes sense, i guess. i have just constructed a wall of steel wool in a cabinet in my kitchen! i am hoping that will keep some of the mice out. i trapped both mickey and minnie last night......Ewwww! you know, i don't fear many things......fear exists when faith does not! right? i have ridden horses whose sole purpose was to have me on the ground spitting out teeth (and a few did just that!), have bicycled down a volcano in maui, ridden a camel in the sahara, ridden a motorcycle into the andes, run down the inca trail from the sun gate at macchu pichu, been hot air ballooning above turkey, and sailed the tradewinds in the south pacific just to highlight the most fun things!! but seriously, rodents make me cringe and send me into a panic! what is that all about? it makes no sense.....mice are even cute but i am terrified of them! ii know, i know...it's childish and insane....there are people who seem to fear nothing, like that guy named Bear who had that t.v. show...and there are people who seem to fear everything. little joan, who is in pre-school and lives next door, also fears mice. it's nice to have a compadre, even a mini one....haha