Last Post

Home: loving family arms reach to hug me... and I them; a light snow is falling; the accumulated winter's snow is retreating from the front wall of the house to reveal the very first tiny plant pushing up ~ a dandelion!; cosy flannel sheets on the bed (no ceiling fan circling lazily above my humid body); slowly coming to terms with no longer being in Uganda; enjoying being with my family again; gradually taking up all my usual responsibilities....

Just a few last notes:

Bridget and I spent an interesting and impressive morning at Watoto Bulrushes in Kampala ~ their baby home. It is very well set up and equipped, and seemed to be smooth-running, but we were only there for a morning. I'd like to go back some time for a longer visit. We helped feed the 4- to 6-month olds their rice cereal, then their bottles. I managed the interesting task of feeding two babies at a time ~ there are so many babies to be fed that this becomes necessary. Bridget fed a very active little guy who was actually 10 months old. He had arrived as a tiny newborn preemie of only 850 grams, so was actually doing quite well.

A story I didn't have time to tell you at the time it happened:

While I was still at Amani, all we volunteers spent part of one Saturday visiting two other local orphanages. One, "Our Own Home" was started by a young woman named Holly who had come at age 19 to work at Amani for a year, and then stayed for another year. After that, she felt that she wanted to open her own orphanage, but for children who are all HIV positive, which she has. She is now married to a Ugandan, and they are caring for about 35 children, mostly aged about six to sixteen, though they recently received their first baby ~ a very small boy of two years old.

When we arrived, all the children were asked to introduce themselves. When it came to the turn of one 9-year-old boy, he introduced himself as "Spiderman"! Apparently he lived and breathed his hero, and he longed for some Spiderman items, such as a poster or clothing. One of the volunteers had recently arrived at Amani, and had brought a large bag of clothing with him from his church. Since they were too large for the Amani babies, we had brought the bag to this orphanage instead. When they went through it later, they found a Spiderman T-shirt... just the right size! God hears the heartfelt prayers of the young.

Several days later, as I helped Camille sort out sheets and blankets at AOSC, I found a large Spiderman blanket. Camille agreed that we could give it to the same little boy, and I'm sure he was delighted.

As before I had a riveting journey flying over northern Uganda, Sudan (not far from Darfur), and especially the Sahara. A very nice young man was sitting next to me who was equally fascinated by all we could see below us. In the Libyan Desert ~ part of the Sahara ~ we flew almost right over a huge volcano. It turned out that Kevin, my companion, was part of a contingent of soldiers from the British Army, and he remembered that he had his Global Positioning Device (?) in his bag. He was able to get a "fix" on the volcano, and when I returned home I found an e-mail telling me exactly where to find it on Google Earth! Very interesting.

So, dear friends, this blog comes to an end for now. I've enjoyed writing it, and the feedback I have received is appreciative, which is nice. I'll probably write another one the next time I go to Uganda....!

God bless you all,
Jill

Photos: (probably not in thei order... sorry)
1. Spiderman
2. William, Holly and their family
3. Camille and Jill
4. Bridget with ex-preemie
5. Jill feeding bottles for two!