“Every child has a name and a story; everyone has the right to health, learning and protection, the right to their full potential and the right to participate in the shaping of their world”
UN Press Summary, The State of the Worlds Children 2002.
So last Wednesday we got ourselves sorted with a volunteer project here in Kampala. We had two contacts arranged for volunteer work.....Sanyu babies home and compassion international(more about this later!)
Anyways we started in Sanyu babies home last Wednesday. This is an orphanage that cares for up to 50 abandoned and parent less babies. Their ages range from newborn to 4 years. The children are found in many varied places; from maternity wards, and hospitals; outside houses and, police stations; in taxis, and taxi parks; to rubbish dumps, pit latrines, and often just by the side of the road. We've seen this poor babies and children lying at the side of the roads, waiting and hoping to be picked up and fed.
When a child is brought into the orphanage, efforts are made to find their parents or extended family but in most cases this proves unsuccessful. The main objective of Sanyu Babies Home is to see the children resettled back into the community with relatives or with foster families. Some of the children at Sanyu are fostered and adopted into local and overseas families, the other children move onto other homes and orphanages as they get older.
So, volunteers are greatly welcomed by the orphanage as you can imagine. There are full time staff there who are qualified in certain areas. But you don't need to be qualified to feed, play with and wash children, so thats what we help do. Volunteers are allowed stay and help from 8am till 1pm monday to friday.
Our typical day starts with helping the staff bath and play with the 18 babies that are currently under the age of three. For a man who finds children alot of hard work, I've adapted very well over the course of the past 7 weeks. When you see a baby in a malnourished and neglected state laugh...it would melt your heart. Its tough to imagine how their life will manifest itself from this early age, with so little and no one to bear responsibility for them. They sit in the kindergarten area for a few hours every day and get fed, washed and if their are enough volunteers - played with individually. Their emancipated bones stick out like rocks on a barren hillside, but their smiles and play full happiness are amazing to witness.
After playtime, we help feed them. Their dinner is a small portion of mashed potatoes with some soup mixed through it and some sort of baby milk afterwards. They eat this at a speed that would make someone like me who eats very fast, look very slow. Their are usually alot of tantrums at this stage as a few hungry hands go robbing neighbours food when their own is finished!
When dinner is over, we help bath and change them before they are put to bed for an afternoon nap....which is around the 1pm time.
Its hard to imagine, but we do be mentally wrecked come time to go. We can only imagine how difficult it must be for the full timers who are there around the clock. Its emotional stuff to be honest and it takes alot out of you both physically and mentally. We have saturdays and sundays to ourselves.
We are staying in Kampala for three weeks in total and then we will move to Kigali in Rwanda to volunteer there.
Helping out at an orphanage like this is not only rewarding, but a real life experience. To see life through the eyes of an abandoned child is truly humbling and life affirming.
Regarding the other organisation that we had a contact for....Compassion international. This seemingly is a big enough worldwide group, although I never heard of them before or either did Florence. Needless to say, after our meeting with one of their representatives, I had heartburn in my ears!
We went and met with one of their officers at the Kampala office last Tuesday(day before we started in Sanyu babies home).
We told the man, who was called Jackson about what we wanted to do and and what we had done already in Tanzania. He said that they are a Christian organisation and that they run different projects throughout Kampala as well as the rest of Uganda.
To be "allowed" to participate as volunteers however, we had to answer a few personal questions....if we didn't mind!! We said fire ahead.
First question: what religion are we? Catholic I promptly answered.
Second question: Whats the name of your church? St.Josephs church....obviously not the answer he was looking for, as he looked at me suspiciously! Maybe the correct answer was the Roman Catholic church...I don't know.
Third question: Are we a couple? Yes I replied.
Fourth question: Are we married? No I said as I smiled politely. Obviously another incorrect answer as Jackson looked very displeased at this response.
End of Interrogation!
We were told that we would be contacted the next day.......a phone call that we still haven't received, and do not wish to receive.
What a load of crap! We both knew exactly what this guy wanted to know. He wanted to make sure that we were of Christian/Catholic beliefs and hoping that we were married...before we would be considered to help out in any of their projects! I don't know if this has happened before, or is part of their policy over here, but its a complete disgrace.
So in order to give a helping hand to poor children and babies you MUST be a Christian believer?? It would be appropriate to also be married, because we are man and woman.....a couple...we must therefore be married? Ridiculous. 100% absolutely garbage. This man looked down at us because we were not married. Its not just me thinking this...Florence was there as well.
And also because I said St.Josephs church, which I don't think was the answer he was looking for, he probably thought that we were not Catholics...and just making it up because we wanted to help volunteer with them.
An absolute disgrace this is.
Sanyu babies home is also a Christian organisation. But were we interrogated when we arrived? No, we were welcomed with open arms and all that was expected of us was to sign in and out every day and give the babies as much help at we can...pure and simple. No questions about religion or marital status whatsoever!
And that's the way it should be full stop. I'm really baffled at the way we were treated, considering that we are volunteers, asking for no payment, and wanting to lend a helping hand in some of their projects. Maybe I should return to Jackson's office and demand why we were not contacted as promised by him.
Naturally religion should not come in the way of helping children out in third world countries. I'm not saying that this is the way in which "Compassion international" operate their business(well I hope not), but this man definitely did not entertain us after he found out we were not married, and he probably suspected wrongfully that we were not Catholics....which should be not big deal either. We were there to help and instead got interrogated. Good luck to that I say.
So I got that rant off my chest :)!
No other news really. We are going to head to a little town on saturday, which is about two hours away. Its called Jinja. Its more of an adventure town and is the source of the river Nile! So there's white water rafting, bungee jumps and quad biking trips all to be had there. The quad bikes are definitely getting a good doing. I love them. We went for a quad bike safari through the Sinai desert in Egypt two years ago and it was the brilliant craic. So looking forward to that.
Have a few funny observations about African life that I'll give its own update sometime soon.
So hope everyone is keeping well and thanks for everyone so far for the texts messages and words or support and wisdom :)
Chat with ye in a few days again.
Ciao!
Monday 9 March 2009
A local tradition
I had this entry typed up from a few weeks ago while I was in Tanzania, but for some reason I forgot to publish it........
Its been said that if you get invited to the home of an Tanzanian(or indeed any African) that its both a great honour and experience to you and your host.We have been lucky enough to have gotten four different invites to such an occasion. We did our research and were prepared for the local traditions that awaited us.
Basically when you are lucky enough to get invited to spend an evening at someones home, its bad manners to refuse...especially if your a foreigner like us. The Locals take great pride in inviting you to their home and unless you've got a pretty darn good reason not to go...you accept and be happy about it.
Taking small gifts for the family is in order. Men like tobacco or other such items, while women prefer anything that keeps down their household expenses, be it sugar, coffee, soap or a few loaves of bread! Kids of course love sweets, but you give them to the mother or else you'll end up getting mauled in the stampede that follows.
Make sure you leave a big hole in your stomach before you arrive at the house, as the hosts will more than likely make a big play out of the fact that your not eating enough, even though you probably have eaten twice as much as they have.
Before eating, one of the women of the house appears with a bowl, soap and jug of hot water to wash your hands with. Food is eaten by hand from a communal bowl or plate...though you may be presented with a plate and cutlery, its best if you try and eat with your hands as the gesture will be valued!
When eating, you ONLY use your right hand! Eating with the left hand as we found out is bad manners and this is because the left hand is seen as a "dirty" hand...associated with going to the bathroom and the likes :)
Ugali is the local staple. It is generally made from maize and water which give it a porridge like consistency, or a dough like substance. Vegetables or meat is usually also served with it.
The traditional method of eating ugali as a main course (and the most common in the rural areas) is to roll a lump into a ball, and then dip it into a sauce or stew of vegetables or meat. Making a depression with the thumb allows the ugali to be used to scoop, and to wrap around pieces of meat to pick them up in the same way that flat bread is used in other cultures. Ugali can also be eaten with a spoon or a knife and fork....although as I said already this is frowned upon.
So we have had this experience four times so far in the five weeks we've been in Tanzania. The first time was in a little village outside Nairobi with Beatrice(see early post). When the Ugali was presented to us and we had washed our hands with the provided bowl of water we picked up the knife and fork and started to dig in! The host started laughing and she kindly informed us that we have to eat the food with our hands! I looked at Florence and we both thought the same thing....."good old paddy's from Ireland"!!
Anyways, we survived our first taste of Africa.
The other three invites came from the three female teachers at our school, who were more than eager to invite us to their house. When I say house I mean its a single shed about 8 foot square located somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Cooking was done outside on small little charcoal fires along with the washing. Inside the room, they have their bed, a small knee high table and two/three stools for guests/visitors. Clothes were in a ball at the end of the bed..presumably a makeshift wardrobe. And another table held everything and anything from food, butter, jam, hair brushes, pictures and other personal items. At first we were saddened that the conditions that they lived in were so basic in contrast to what we've been accustomed to in western society, but after a while we forgot about it and saw that they couldn't miss what they never had.
We have been very fortunate to have experienced such hospitality. I've heard from people who have been living and working in Tanzania for months, that they've never gotten invited to a locals house to eat. Even Tanzanian co-workers haven't invited them over to their house(yet).
We hope that we get many more invites before we go home as its a nice alternative to spending the evening at the hostel squatting mosquito's on the porch.
I got some lovely photo's our our visits to each house and I look forward to putting them up online when I get a decent connection again that won't take hours to upload a small file.
ciao
Its been said that if you get invited to the home of an Tanzanian(or indeed any African) that its both a great honour and experience to you and your host.We have been lucky enough to have gotten four different invites to such an occasion. We did our research and were prepared for the local traditions that awaited us.
Basically when you are lucky enough to get invited to spend an evening at someones home, its bad manners to refuse...especially if your a foreigner like us. The Locals take great pride in inviting you to their home and unless you've got a pretty darn good reason not to go...you accept and be happy about it.
Taking small gifts for the family is in order. Men like tobacco or other such items, while women prefer anything that keeps down their household expenses, be it sugar, coffee, soap or a few loaves of bread! Kids of course love sweets, but you give them to the mother or else you'll end up getting mauled in the stampede that follows.
Make sure you leave a big hole in your stomach before you arrive at the house, as the hosts will more than likely make a big play out of the fact that your not eating enough, even though you probably have eaten twice as much as they have.
Before eating, one of the women of the house appears with a bowl, soap and jug of hot water to wash your hands with. Food is eaten by hand from a communal bowl or plate...though you may be presented with a plate and cutlery, its best if you try and eat with your hands as the gesture will be valued!
When eating, you ONLY use your right hand! Eating with the left hand as we found out is bad manners and this is because the left hand is seen as a "dirty" hand...associated with going to the bathroom and the likes :)
Ugali is the local staple. It is generally made from maize and water which give it a porridge like consistency, or a dough like substance. Vegetables or meat is usually also served with it.
The traditional method of eating ugali as a main course (and the most common in the rural areas) is to roll a lump into a ball, and then dip it into a sauce or stew of vegetables or meat. Making a depression with the thumb allows the ugali to be used to scoop, and to wrap around pieces of meat to pick them up in the same way that flat bread is used in other cultures. Ugali can also be eaten with a spoon or a knife and fork....although as I said already this is frowned upon.
So we have had this experience four times so far in the five weeks we've been in Tanzania. The first time was in a little village outside Nairobi with Beatrice(see early post). When the Ugali was presented to us and we had washed our hands with the provided bowl of water we picked up the knife and fork and started to dig in! The host started laughing and she kindly informed us that we have to eat the food with our hands! I looked at Florence and we both thought the same thing....."good old paddy's from Ireland"!!
Anyways, we survived our first taste of Africa.
The other three invites came from the three female teachers at our school, who were more than eager to invite us to their house. When I say house I mean its a single shed about 8 foot square located somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Cooking was done outside on small little charcoal fires along with the washing. Inside the room, they have their bed, a small knee high table and two/three stools for guests/visitors. Clothes were in a ball at the end of the bed..presumably a makeshift wardrobe. And another table held everything and anything from food, butter, jam, hair brushes, pictures and other personal items. At first we were saddened that the conditions that they lived in were so basic in contrast to what we've been accustomed to in western society, but after a while we forgot about it and saw that they couldn't miss what they never had.
We have been very fortunate to have experienced such hospitality. I've heard from people who have been living and working in Tanzania for months, that they've never gotten invited to a locals house to eat. Even Tanzanian co-workers haven't invited them over to their house(yet).
We hope that we get many more invites before we go home as its a nice alternative to spending the evening at the hostel squatting mosquito's on the porch.
I got some lovely photo's our our visits to each house and I look forward to putting them up online when I get a decent connection again that won't take hours to upload a small file.
ciao
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