Boat ride, Bible Study & Nanaimo bars!

Hello dear friends and family,

I'm into my second week at Amani now...... time flies when you have lots of babies to feed, cuddle and play with, and nappies to change!!

Last Saturday we took some of the 3- and 4-year-olds on a boat trip on the Nile. Since there are 8 volunteers currently, we could take 8 children, though actually we took 9 because one sort of sneaked in to the group waiting to leave and we didn't have the heart to say she couldn't come. The children were over-the-moon excited. They go on outings on rotation, so each one doesn't actually leave the Amani compound very often. My buddy was Francis, aged 4, whose adoptive family are actually arriving from the States tomorrow.

We packed into the Amani mini-van and drove to the Speake obelisk at the source of the Nile ~ where the Nile leaves Lake Victoria on its 6,000 km (?) journey north through Sudan and the Sahara to the Mediterranean. John Manning Speke finally identified the "true" source of the Nile as being this very spot in 1862, because a substantial spring used to flow from this spot. This supposedly ended the centuries-long debate, however, Uganda's claim to the source of the Nile is still hotly debated by other countries further upstream.

The boat was just big enough to accomodate our group, and was close to the water. The kids loved it! We went out into the river and wandered along the shoreline and around some small islands, including one that has a huge square block of cement that apparently sealed the spring when they made a dam. We saw lots of birds, including a malachite kingfisher resplendant in orangy-buff in front and iridescent turquoise behind. We also saw a water monitor (lizard that can grow up to about 6 ft.), and, most exciting of all, a troup of velvet monkeys in the trees ~ at least that is what one person called them. My book refers to them as Vervet monkeys! We spent about 1 1/2 hours on the boat and found it a most enjoyable time for all. Francis liked watching the two fishermen in the long narrow boat thrown their net out into the water and pull it in again.

As some of you know, I led the weekly Bible Study for the volunteers and Mamas today. I am so grateful to all of those who were upholding me during the preparation and the presentation. I talked about God's love for us, and through us to others. I wanted to sing 'Jesus Loves Me' (the African version that has lots of hand-clapping) in Luganda ~ their local language. So, earlier in the day. I approached several Mamas to ask how to say it, and they all told me something different! I told them that that was too confusing, and please would they come up with a consensus.... which they did, and we all enjoyed singing it aat the B. Study. Siouxanne told me that she really liked what I had to say, and apparently the Mamas told her (and me) that they appreciated it too... so all praise to God!

On the surface, Uganda is a delightful country, but not far below the surface there is a lot of evil stuff going on ~ witchcraft is pervasive, endless duplicity and fraud, as well as many illnesses and deaths, not only from HIV, and not only Ugandans. I cannot walk safely outside the gate of the Amani compound at night. But I don't, so don't worry! So I feel that it is important to take the opportunity to teach when possible.

Tonight I went over to Siouxanne's house, which is a 10-min. stroll from Amani. S. is both the Amani nurse, and also the volunteer co-ordinator...so a busy lady. Being of "a certain age" as I am, we gravitate towards each other, amongst all the early-twenties.... who are nevertheless mostly very nice. Knowing I was coming from Canada, she e-mailed me to ask me if I could make Nanaimo bars (other end of the country, but O well!). I told her no, but that if she'd tell me what she couldn't get in Jinja, I'd bring it with me. So I did, and tonight we made them. The only bummer for me is that I seem to be as sensitive to chocolate as to coffee in terms of being able to sleep after ingesting them, so I'll have to wait until breakfast!

Several people have said that thy have been unable to add a comment to the blog.If you have something you'd like to say, you can always e-mail me at jjstafiej@gmail.com.

Much love to all, and I am praying for you all at St. Stephen's,

Jill

Photos:

~ Francis and me waiting to leave for the boat trip

~ Snowy egrets on water hyacinth islands on the Nile

~ looking at the 'velvet' monkeys
~ singing 'Yesu njagala' ~ Jesus loves me

~ Chief Mama Lois reading People magazine to Gift

~ Bonafamu ~ a cheerful little lad who loves balls and cars

~ Shop sign in Jinja

~ suppertime for Baby Room C ~ babies who are able to walk.

Supper is rice and beans, eaten Ugandan style with the hands

Some photos from Amani!

Dear everyone,

Here are some photos of Amani. I haven't yet managed to get them to stay in sequence, but I'm sure that you can figure out which title belongs to which pic!

This morning all the volunteers scrubbed the toddler bedroom furniture ~ with toothbrushes!! ...to get between the cracks. Dislodged several cockroaches and lotsa spiders ~ my favourite passtime so far... NOT!! Never know what you're going to do on a missions trip!

1. One of my favourite little girls ~ Gift, aged 1 year

2. The pelican tree

3. Amani Baby Cottage ~ the house

4. Matthias and Francis with preemies Michael and Helen.

Some of the children are namen fter volunteers, or are named by volunteers, if they arrive with no name.

5. Mama Lucy with Debra. There are quite a few special needs kids here. I work with Mama Lucy most of the time. She is delightful and loves gospel music!

Blessings,

Jill

Early days at Amani

Hello dear family and friends,

I've had 3 days at Amani now, and am just beginning to settle in and feel that I have the start of a grasp on how things happen here.

The Amani Baby Cottage is a large, two-story building of the Colonial era, located on a large plot of land with grassy lawns around it (the whole lawn is cut by whippy-snipper, then raked!), tall shade-trees with white pelicans and maribou storks in them and flowering bushes with brilliantly coloured sun-birds... it's all pretty lush and attractive. The building is old and not in great repair, but they have done a lot of work on it, and are hoping to have enough money soon to be able to purchase it.

I believe that 63 children have passed through Amani since it first started in 2003, and that they currently have 47 children, from two tiny preemies of 5 and 6 months to 5 years old. I have been assigned to Baby Room A for most of the time ~ the littlest ones who have not started crawling yet. The Ugandan Mama in charge is Mama Lucy, who is very nice. She plays Ugandan gospel songs in the nursery, and loves her 7 little charges. My responsibility is to generally do whatever needs doing... feeding bottles or meals of rice and bananas, changing clothing and especially playing. The volunteers seem to provide most of the entertainment and stimulation. I'll tell you details about the babies in a later edition.

Amani is located about 20 min. walk or a few minutes on a boda-boda, or motor-bike taxi, to the shopping area of Jinja. It costs 500 Ugandan shillings one way, or about 30 cents!! I actually took my first boda-boda ride yesterday to go with some of the other volunteers to purchase "rolled-paper" necklaces (ask Heather...). I won't tell you how much I paid for them since I'll be hoping that you'll buy some from me for an outrageously inflated price!!

My routine: I work in the morning from 8 to 1pm, I'm off from 1 to 4pm, then I work again from 4 to 7pm-ish. A lunch is provided for everyone that consists of any of rice, matoke (non-sweet, mashed bananas), peanut sauce, greens, lentils, "Irish", or regular potatoes, sweet potatoes etc. ~ so, pretty healthy. I am very blessed to have been given the only private room, (assigned by a fellow grandmother!) which even has its own bathroom! Breakfast fixings and lunch are provided, but I have to purchase the food for my supper and prepare it. I am feeling somewhat guilty because it is all rather 'cushy' compared to my previous missions trips. I'm used to the rigors of sleeping in a tent in the bush with no electricity or running water etc. However, by the end of a day of entertaining 5-month to 18-month-olds, much of it sitting on the bare floor, I feel sufficiently fatigued to take the edge off my sensitive conscience! Also the electricity is off sometimes, as is the water..... (will that do?)

There are about 30 Ugandan Mamas who care for the children, do the cleaning, the laundry, including cloth diapers (imagine that mandate!), the cooking, overnight supervision and folding of the laundry and so on. They are lovely ladies, and I enjoy talking to them as much as I enjoy the babies.

Yesterday I sat with the Mamas to eat lunch, and we talked about malaria. Unbelievably, they have it on average twice every year... and they just try to ignore it and come to w0rk anyway... O boy! There is a cheap (free?) medicine available, but it has horrible side effects, so people don't like to take it. They can't afford the better medicine that is available, that most Mzungus (white people) use as soon as they feel the symptoms coming on. I asked about mosquito nets, and I think they all have and use them. The difficulty for them and their families is that the mosquitos come out when the sun goes down (around 7pm), and they are still outside cooking then. They can't afford anti-bug spray. No easy solution to that one.

Well, that's all for now. I'll try to attach some pictures tomorrow.

God bless you all,
Jill

Travel and first days in Uganda

Hello friends,

Greetings from Uganda!

After a good night's sleep I am in better shape to let you know how things are progressing....

The take-off from Montreal was interesting ~ 20cm of snow with a driving wind ~ but the plane was not delayed as I had feared. The de-icing of the plane was quite something to experience, and I had a window seat to observe it all. Two men in fireman-type gear were in two 'cherry-pickers' with enormous hoses with lights and red antennae on the end, which waggled up and down. They sprayed some sort of antifreeze all over the wings and body of the plane in great clouds of spray, all lit up by yellow, stadium-type lighting, and the snow continuing to blizzard down, or rather, across. It was all quite 'other-worldly'.

As usual, I didn't sleep on the flight, so my 13-hour layover at Heathrow was a mixture of dropping off for naps, staring vacantly into space, a few conversations and once using the internet. I managed to procure time on a comfy sofa so had a bit of a sleep there. I also read some of the wonderful notes given to me, and was blessed by them all over again. Thank you again to all who wrote.

The flight to Uganda is 8 hours, so I took a sleeping pill and actually slept quite a bit. I was met by my friend Bridget, who helped me put the 3 x 50-lb bags, 37-lb carry-on suitcase and 20-lb backpack into her car. My own stuff took up the carry-on suitcase and part of one of the large bags, and all the rest is destined for Amani and various other people. Bridget, and her husband John, are good friends from Christ Church, Beaurepaire now living in Entebbe, and they most kindly invited me to stay with them for the weekend, to give me a chance to get over the time change, the travel exhaustion and the change in the weather (that part didn't take long ~it's sunny and comfortably warm, with occasional thunder showers!!)

An interesting event happened at the luggage carousel. A fellow traveller, Canadian I'm sure, must have brought some maple syrup with them. Sadly for her/him and also for me, the container broke, and my 3rd bag was liberally doused with the sticky stuff. It was a good thing that I had packed almost everything in plastic bags, so much of it was easy to wipe off, but unfortunately it dripped into a box of small NT's and booklets too, so Bridget and I spent much of that afternoon washing the bag (yours, Heather!) and wiping off each individual book...

Yesterday we went to a nearby Wildlife Centre to admire lots of African animals, and also lots of fabulous wild birds in the trees all around. B. is very knowledgeable about the local birds now, so that made ID very easy.

This morning we went to a home fellowship of local missionaries for church, led by a young couple in their early 20's. It was a lovely time of worship, learning and fellowship. The youngest person there was a little 5-month-old girl ~ Hannah Grace ~ who has an amazing and horrifying story. Shortly after birth she was tied in a bag, the placenta still attached, and dropped into a local "long drop" or latrine and left to die. By the grace of God someone heard her cry, the police broke the concrete and sent a man on a rope to go down and rescue her. After a short stay with a Ugandan family who ended up not being able to keep her, she is being adopted by the lovely American family I met this morning. She is a beautiful, healthy, chubby baby. What a story of the depravity of man and the grace and mercy of God. She was literally "lifted out of the muck and mire..." and given the gift of salvation. The family has two little blonde girls of their own, and have another adopted Ugandan girl of 6 who has AIDS. The 4 sisters look so cute together, and are very attached to each other. What a family! I'll attach a couple of photos.

Tomorrow, Monday, I am going to Jinja to start my volunteer work there at the Amani Baby cottage. Thank you so much for praying. I am pretty much over the time change etc. YOur prayers for the transition to working at Amani would be appreciated.

This afternoon we are hoping to meet up briefly with a team from Lakeshore Evangelical Church who have been here for 2 weeks building a classroom for Watoto. It'll be fun for Bridget, John and I to see Ron and Sheila Elvidge again, and also Carol Brassard and Pastor Mario Sassi. They fly out tonight.

With much love to all,
Jill

Last preparations

Hello all!
My last day in Montreal, my third (extra) bag is more or less packed, last items bought, an hour's visit to the Bank (because I'm easily confused by money matters) for $$ in US, L's sterling and CAD funds ~ I'll get Ugandan shillings when I arrive ~ so I'm close to being ready... I think! I was given a wonderfully warm and supportive send-off by St. Stephen's on Sunday. They gave me lots of hand-written notes which I am saving to enjoy, slowly, during my 13-hour layover at Heathrow airport on Thurs. I'll pray for each one, with a grateful heart.
I am immeasurably grateful for the outpouring of love and support from all who have expressed their interest in my Missions trip, sent a card, donated stuff for me to take to the Amani Baby Cottage and who have contributed towards my trip expenses.
Thank you every one so much!
A small point of possible concern is the forecast of up to 25 cm of snow that is supposed to fall on Montreal tomorrow. Please pray that my flight is not delayed... or at least not so that I'd miss my connection to Uganda.
I'm going to try to attach a photo taken just a couple of days ago of me with my two beloved granddaughters, Michaela, 13, left, and Hailey, 9, right.
God bless you all,
Jill

First post...

Hello friends,
Wow! I have a blog! I feel so "with it"!
I'm going to add posts to this blog every few days (hopefully!) so that anyone who is interested can follow along on my Missions trip to Uganda.
Only 6 days to my departure ~ life is a whirlwind of packing, last-minute purchases and trying to remember everything I should do before I leave.
For the time being.... here's a pic of our little Australian grandson, Tyler, aged 9 months, enjoying driving a camper van!
Love and blessings to all,
Jill