The first 24 hours(:

Monday, 29 July 2013

So much has happened in the past 24 hours, I'm going to have to start taking notes on my iPad then copying them on to the blog when I can find wifi. I don't even know where to start!(: I thought that when I got here I would feel nervous because it was a new place and a complete different culture, but when we walked out of the airport it was almost like I had been here before. I don't really know how to describe it, but I guess it was kind of like when you're away from home for a long time and then you finally pull in the driveway, see your house and you can exhale. Except for me, it was walking out of the airport, seeing metal sculptures of rhinos and a huge wooden fence across the street covered in amazing graffiti, and smiling faces everywhere I turned. I guess I just knew I was exactly where I was supposed to be, and that feeling has only gotten stronger. 

The place where we are staying is about 20 minutes from the airport, and the bus ride here gave me flashbacks to China. No one uses turn signals, and paved roads aren't common. It was around 9pm, so all I could really see was headlights from oncoming traffic, usually coming straight at us because the driver would swerve in to the other "lane" to avoid the huge potholes. But, he seemed pretty good at it so I wasn't too worried.(:

We're staying at a guest house at a University, and I don't know if this town is called Kijiji, or the school... But it's a gated place and it's pretty nice. It doesn't look anything like a University in the U.S. There's a main dirt road that goes from one gate to another and there are tall plants on either side of the road. The school is very small, probably only 4 or 5 buildings. Off of the main road are houses and a small apartment complex. Also, there are random cats, dogs, roosters, (and apparently a monkey...) that roam around the property..

Last night when we got here, everyone was pretty worn out so we went to our rooms (2 people share each) halfway unpacked, and tried to sleep. The first thing I saw when I opened my suitcase was crayons-all.over.the place.. Of course the one box of crayons that dumped was one of the boxes of 64! I found all but 4 of them last night, then found the remaining 4 in my shoe this morning, not sure how that happened..haha(: 

This morning my roommate, Ashley, and I learned the hard way that our hot water didn't work... And didn't get hot, or anywhere near warm after being on for 15 mins. But, it definitely woke us up!  

We ate breakfast at the guest house, then left to go to Beacon of Hope for the day. "The Beacon" is a place that women and children who are affected by HIV/AIDS can go to receive free medical care. They also have a vocational school for the women, and a school for the children, up to age 8. We split in to two groups and toured the campus, starting with the clinic. It was a small building with tiny rooms and only one doctor, but it was very clean and organized. One of the therapists was telling us about what they do and it was incredible hearing how involved they are with the community. Most, if not all of the people who come to the clinic for care live in the slums nearby. If one of the patients misses an appointment, they go out and find them to make sure they are okay, and still on track with their medication. They have support groups and really do a lot to try to remove the shame that a lot of people who are "positive" feel. 

Next, we saw the vocational school where the women learn to sew and weave. For the wool rugs, they spin and dye the wool there. One of the women taught me how to weave, but her hands were moving so fast, it took me a while to get the hang of it. I finally figured out how to go across the whole row at one time, but I still wasn't as fast as her!! 

Then we went to the primary school, and  that's when God really started talking to me... He was just kind of like, "get used to this, because you're going to be in a lot more places like it." The school was really cute, there were 6 rooms-2 on 3 sides and an office on the fourth side-all in a square centered around a small courtyard in the middle. The walls were white with a blue roof, and the outside walls were covered in paintings of every different African animal I could think of, loveddddd it!(: When we got there, the kids were leaving to go to lunch, and we went to the dining room next as well. They were all packed in to low to the ground booth like tables, and even though in some classes there was a 30:1 student to teacher ratio, they were really well behaved. I wish I had recorded their faces when they saw Matthew Wright's magic tricks, it was priceless. Then we saw their garden and the new school they are building for higher grades. 

We had lunch there, and it was reeeaally good. I took most of my pictures on my camera, so I don't have a way to get them on here :( but, I did get a good picture of our lunch! It was rice, cabbage, squash, and some type of meat stew. It wasn't beef, pork or chicken... So I'm thinking goat? I might not want to know, but it was delicious!(: