Infectious Joy

I apologise for not updating my blog as frequently as you and I would like. I have been regretfully lazy with writing as I am addictively finishing days with ‘switching off’ evenings.
So much happens too that when I dedicate the time for pen to paper, my head overflows and I can’t puzzle all that’s happened back together. Enough excuses : )

I am content not knowing where I’ll be or what I am going to do this year. I am still in Namuwongo, Kampala and have been working with Uganda Hands for Hope. I am helping establish a tailoring program for women living in the slum that is self sustainable, empowering and enables them to care for themselves and their families. I hope this will equip the women with valuable skills and a trade they can establish anywhere.

I need to grasp the truth that it’s not going to blossom by itself, I need to just run with it and that trial and error are learning leaps, without these how can there be success.

Finding stable market places for the products and consistent orders are my focus right now. This wasn’t what I thought I would be doing, sorting the accounts isn’t my highlight and sourcing of fabrics and all material items has reminded me of being in a stressful, uncontrolled, chaotic video game.

When buying fabrics I always went with another crazy enough person to push through the wild crowds, rummage through the street shops and then use your final energy to negotiate a locals price with. Last time I went by myself, unwise and regretful. I found myself distressingly lost, panicking from the men throwing their bodies and lips against the sides of my car and involved in my 3rd experience that week with police with their most familiar lines of – ‘your under arrest....were taking your car or your licence..’ but fabric being the symbolic victory was in the palm of my hands at the end...all is well that ends well.

I love the tailoring program and it has been an honour and joy to watch the women and the unfolding of the potential a tailoring program can deliver. The women are so beautiful with such unfathomable testimonies and strength. I feel as there is now a trustful friendship with the ladies, which is very meaningful.

Hands for Hope is an incredible organisation and I am constantly reminded of the vast help there offering to children and families who without this aid would be forgotten.
Being with the children you sometimes forget where they sleep each night. When I walk up the hill from the project and those inescapably, contagious smiling faces walk down to the slum I become rather emotional watching their precious feet about to step into such hell.

I helped an afternoon class and felt like I was learning so much through the kid’s dynamics between each other. Some of their work brought up there family members and life. I’m not us to sitting in a classroom and a child crying from death of parents or refugee life. Or children demanding more math equations and homework.
I was completely lost when a darling brought up her workbook for me to check, which she had been proudly writing a story in. Naively, I turned the page and her eyes sparkled with the prospect of my marking.

“My father died...my mother cannot work...my brother always cries....we were given 27 days before we are evicted because we cannot pay the rent...I’m praying for God...this is my life story”

How can I ‘grammatically check’ this through my teary eyes, heart pounding and not having the courage to look this girl in the eyes again for her ‘brilliant writing.’

My 2 lovely new house mates and I put on a ‘Uganda’s Got Talent’ show for the afternoon class they teach. The kids were tremendously excited and were planning their acts all week; it seemed they wished to fly with this moment of fame! There was traditional dance, singing by younger and older, break dancing, modelling and plays that the kids had written themselves and performed.

The talented written plays were in Lugandan so I didn’t understand them verbally but anyone could understand them visually. They were about situations from their life like housing problems, drunken fathers, not having money to pay the landlord and going through rubbish humps. Yet these were made somehow hilarious and all the kids and adults couldn’t stop laughing...All the kids were given medals. One of the girls was still wearing her medal around the school the other day : ) It was a very special and proud day for them, but I believe more so for us.

It is becoming colder and wetter now. Good and bad. Cold = rain = slum become worse than hell. The smell hits you like sewerage and from a distance you can see all the rubbish from the hills raining down the sea of people’s homes. The other night I kept waking up from the cold and thunder thinking of the people in the slum that tonight would not be able to sleep, that disease would be brewing everywhere, THEY would be freezing and homes would be flooding and collapsing with water and rubbish. And what can they do? Yet the following morning the kids are at the project running up as per usual with their infectious joy....

I have spent today researching all I can on the prospective of getting the tailoring products into fair trade shops in Sydney and hopefully have some wonderful ladies to host like ‘product’ parties....who would have thought partying could change Uganda! Ha I think it would be amazing awareness and a special personal connection between the maker and buyer...

Depending on how deep I look through my idea kaleidoscope I can overwhelm myself but we shall see....sometimes though it seems the impossible is more achievable than the possible.
Love x