random..facts..stories..photos.

We got a new baby into the orphanage today. His name is ben. He is one week old, and weighs in a 3 pounds. He is the tiniest thing I have ever laid eyes on. Esther(the lady who runs the place) just left to go pick u another one from the hospital- apparently is a year/half old, but is so malnourished it looks like she is a week old as well. Esther was just irate as the mother was there and was apparently fat and healthy and trying to come up with excuses why her baby was sick. It is things that that that break your heart. I love the babies at the orphanage, there are defiantly a few that just capture you as favourites, even though you shouldn’t…but when little john picks me a flower and then kisses my cheek about 10 times, it’s hard not to.

I just thought I’d post a few more photos of stuff around here- like the side of the road driving into my town of jinja, and a house that we walk by every day on our way downtown. AND the famous bugigali falls, on the nile river… we rafted over them.

The girls both got a case of “the scurge” yesterday. According to the brit kids we live with, that means puking out of both ends, good ol’ travelers diahhreah. They are both really pumped im writing about it. Haha. I haven’t been hit with it yet, but assuming at some point in time I shall.

Oh yeah, the “brit kids” we live with is actually about 8 uni students from England who are here teaching at some of the local high schools. We have become quite close with them and it’s a pretty fun set up to live in a house with a load of people our age. We go out to eat, or to the local backpackers for a drink quite often..good times.

Or most evenings you can find us three crazy Canadian girls eating avocados and mangos and cans of tuna out on the porch. It’s our favourite spot.

Avocados are about 10 cents each. Mangos set you back maybe 30 cents.
It is the GOOD life!!
More random facts and stories to come.

PHOTOS!!

OK PHOTOS!!!!

FINALLY!!!

They take forever to get on here, so you better appreciate them. I’ll try and exlplain them, ok.
The one of me and two other girls is of my best girlfriends here, Lindsay, (far right) and leslie(middle) they are both from ontario and I don’t quite know what I’d do without them here! Linds is heading home next week unfortunately, but leslie is here with me to the bitter end..we are hoping to do some traveling in Rwanda after our volunteer placements.

The one of all the adorable children is of some of the kids at my orphanage.

The one of me pointed at water? That’s where the river nile begins, where it and lake Victoria meet. It’s quite the touristy thing here, we went on this sweet rickety old wooden canoe to see it.

The one of me and Lindsey in skirts on the road is one day walking home from town…scorching hot. And long skirts are the ‘culturally approprite’ thing to wear when you are going somewhere.. cultural? I forget what we were doing that day. But I defiantly didn’t bring enough nice clothes to be appropriete everyday that’s for sure.

And then the vertical one is when we were on a boat tour, this was a thatched hut by the side of the lake. Just up the hill was a big mansion, so we are assuming this little mud hut is where the workers lived.(for the mansion) I tried to get the mansion in the photo as well but it didn’t work. The contrast between housing here is actually unreal. You can have a row of mud huts with dirt floors and charcoal fires, and then right next door is a massive new house with a big gate and security guards. The house we live in is neither.. quite moderate but has everything you need.
Ok whew that’s all the photos I can do right now…thanks for looking. Will try more later.

childrens choir

This morning lindsey and I found ourselves at a local primary school seeking out some possible volunteer positions. We ended up outside in a field with the music director and true African childrens choir who proceded to wow us with their voices. It was fantastic! Only to be put on the spot myself when Gerald, the director turned to me and said, ‘ok, so…what would you like to teach them? A song? A drama?”

Ummmm what/????

I was caught off guard a little, with 30 kids standing in front of me expecting me to bust out some north American music with nothing but my measly vocal chords. (not like I can offer anything else either, even if I had it)

I felt at a loss, to say the least. So I stammered that I didn’t have anything prepared, So reluctantly the director (obviously disappointed at my lack of improv skills) got the kids to sing some African songs in their native languages..which was oh so freaking cool, way cooler than anything I could possibly think to TEACH them??? ME?? What on earth could I offer???

BUT anyways I am pumped, as I will be helping out for an hour everyday at the school getting the kids ready with their songs/poems/dramas for national ‘childrens rights’ day coming up next month. Also I’m going to be teaching a bible study there on Wednesday afternoons, which is awesome.

Kids singing and clapping and shaking their booty is pretty much the coolest thing in the world.

rafting the nile

Yesterday I rafted the nile river. (well, not the whole thing obviously)
I’m not sure how to summarize the day but it was pretty unreal, grade 5 rapids(the biggest are grade 6) and they were HUGGGGGEEE!! Our boat flipped I’m not sure how many times, I think there were 12 rapids and we flipped of fell out on at least half of them. A couple times were downright scary, and on the last one “the bad place” my face smashed someone’s helmet and I got a swoillen lip, and then when the guide pulled me into the boat DURING a rapid his paddle smashed my eye, so now I have sort of a black eye. Neat.

Our guide, a finnish dude, have quite the hay-day of making us terrified, and I’ll tell ya it sure worked. I just had visions of when I first did white water kayaking in new Zealand and freaked out, closing my eyes and throwing my paddle in the air and going down a set of rapids half underwater and unable to flip myself back up.

So, my way of dealing with an upcoming rapid? Squeeze my eyes shut, hold on for dear life..hahaha..sometimes throw my paddle and curl up in a little ball and pray for it to be over soon. Maybe I’m just not made for whitewater, maybe Vicki, you should stick to lakes. Hahaha. I actually enjoyed most of it though, it sure is a rush. And the nile is sooo warm and beautiful..lots of birdlife. No crocs, however on the bus ride back into town we saw one down below.

The girls and I are doing a safari up at murchisen falls in a couple of weeks, and one girl leslie and I are looking into taking on Rwanda for a few weeks when we are done our stint here in jinja mid july. The mountain gorilla trek seems too good to miss, and we want to see the genocide memorials and the mille Collins and all.

Well, I shall be off…until I have another adventure to tell you of..

MUCH love
vicki

ALIVE IN AFRICA!

That’s right, I’m BLOGGING from Africa. Eat that, Ryan. ;) just kidding. I’m actually typing this on word and then copy and pasting it to the site as internet access is incredibly slow here! As in, the other day I typed two emails in an HOUR. So.

What to say so far…I don’t know how to post this all or somehow explain life here or what I am experiencing. I arrived into the airport in Entebbe, Uganda, after 3 days and two nights of constant flying…and sitting twiddling my thumbs in airports, trying to sleep in planes, you know. Needless to say it was long, but nothing went wrong!!!! I am SOOO thankful for that as lots of you know my seemingly bad luck with airports/airlines/flights/visas, etc.

Anyways. Ok. In brief. I spent the night at a guesthouse in Entebbe for the night to get over jet lag. A driver picked me up in the morning and drive me to the capital Kampala, to get myself oriented and meet the Ugandan coordinator for my organization, Dennis; and my contact person in Jinja, Emmanuel. We toured around Kampala, got money changed, got a cell phone, went to the museum, went to some tombs….. finally driving out to my home town here of Jinja, with stops at the edge of the NILE RIVER and the white water rafting site for the company my organization is teamed up with- ADRIFT. Finally we ended up at my guesthouse in Jinja where I met Lindsey and Leslie, who are also volunteering with GIVE. We clicked strait away and are pretty inseperable now; which is also a huge blessing.

So the past few days then…I have gotten aquainted with two orphanages, which I think I might do a few days a week at each. I’ve eaten fried cassava from street vendors, rode a ‘boda boda’ (scooter form of taxi transport), met amazing people, ate the biggest and best avocado from an old lady on the street(for like, 10 cents), and like..shoot I don’t know what else to say!! It’s been surreal, and unreal, but at the same time feels like normal and casual to be here.

Today the girls and I were walking downtown and heard loud African music coming from the local high school, so we wandered over to check it out. Introduced ourselves to some ladies going in and they took us along- turned out to be “JINJA FOR JESUS”, a big conference. It was amazing. It was ALIVE! Jesus is so alive and vibrant and….i don’t have many words for that either. We clapped, we jumped, we danced, we raised our hands in the air, we laughed, I nearly cried…we saw some old man shake his booty like I’ve never thought possible!!! If there is anything that is so apparent to my faith here it is that GOD IS REAL. I love it. The girls and I want to learn how to drum and how to dance. Honestly, these people put beonce to shame. And MUSIC is brilliant. Im trying to think of how I can fit like, 10 drums in my backpack to bring home.

Shoot I could go on forever. But I just wanted everyone to know that I am safe, I feel increbibly safe..my guesthouse is great…sleeping under mozzie nets makes me feel like im in a princess bed..hahaha. haven’t really even seen a mosquito but I know malaria is very real so YES im taking my drugs. Oh, and food? Lots of sweet potatos, cassava(like potato) maize, (like corn) g-nut sauce (which is a different color everywhere you go, so im still not quite sure what it is…) cooked cabbage..matoke (umm..a kind of mashed green banana). Meat is somewhat to be desired unless you are in a nice restaurant, the “hygienic butcher” shop on the side of the road is enough to make the matoke reappear in my mouth.

OH and I finally got to drink a decent coffee today. Roasted here at the shop im in right now, its like my beanery of jinja so I am happy to have found it. Otherwise we just have instant at the guesthouse (rob you were right..i should have brought some over) BUT there is no coffee pot either so yeah. Lots of things remind me of new Zealand, british saying and the way things are done so I feel at home.

The children are gorgeous and id like to bring them all home with me. I am reffered to at the orphanage as “auntie Vicki” and am constantly being climbed on and having my legs hugged. How can your heart not break when you learn which ones are HIV positive, which ones have been there for so long and not yet adopted.. but looking at all their hands folded and saying a prayer of thanks together before a meal certainly would have my mother a constant waterfall… ;)

So this actyualy is brief compared to all I would love to share with you. However I probably wont be doing this that often so I figure ill make up for by wrting long posts. OH so I have a cell phone, and its free for me to receive calls and texts from overseas soooo if you so desire to call or text, my number is..umm
256-077-31-09-991


much love to you all…until I post again, thanks for your thoughts and prayers. They are appreciated!
VickI…

summerland girls

here are a few photos of

a. last "summerland girls" night for awhile

b. last day at the pool with robyn and

c. last day at the beanery.

all these friggen awesome ladies were in the same room drinking wine with me tonight, just enjoying the summer evening and our friendship and how it just keeps thriving no matter what the distance. WOW that was cheesy. but oh so true.

summerland girls .. hold down the fort . drink iced americanos. pull the chairs up into the sunshine in the middle of main street. go wine tasting. make pink t shirts with elephants on them. drive barefoot. listen to sufjan. longboard like crazy. wear massive sunnies. bbq everything. and email me.

much love

v