Tracy's Story in Kaliro

11/1

I walked over to the kitchen for breakfast and was so excited to see Dorcus preparing a rolex. I talked with her about drive thrus, explaining that it's called a drive thru because it's not necessary to get out of the car. She was shocked and said, "Ahh! You have easy life." And, in so many ways, we do! 

I went with Andrea, Haril, and Solomon to Kaliro, where Musana is building another high school. Cory, Musana's director of communications and marketing in the US, had asked me to capture some pictures and videos of the construction. 

After seeing the secondary school campus, we headed to the primary school campus in Kaliro. The kiddos were SO cute and wanted to give fist bumps. Andrea kept saying, "Bonga" when she fist bumped them, and I asked her if that was Kiswahili. She said that she wasn't even sure if it was a real word, but that's what she was taught 😂.

After visiting the primary school, we drove to Tracy's house. Tracy is a girl who will be attending the high school in Kaliro on scholarship once it is built. We wanted to capture her story, one that is truly moving, just like so many other Musana students. Tracy has four siblings, and she is the second born. She had five, but one of them passed away, as well as her father. Before her father died, he had built a house for his family, but Tracy's relatives kicked them out. Her mom is still alive but, at the time, had left to go visit Tracy's grandma and hadn't been back in two days. Tracy and her sister were left with a few kilograms of posho. To make money, the two of them are hired to dig in gardens for people. Haril talked with her and comforted her as tears rolled down her cheeks. He told her that she was going to be able to go to school soon and gave her some money so that she could provide for her sister while the mother was away. The pictures below show Tracy, her sister, Haril, and the place where the girls stay.

 

On the way home, we talked about Tracy and how so many other children in Uganda are faced with the same extreme conditions. One of the questions that came up was if the reason so many people are hungry is because of the increase in prices. The statistics that followed shocked me. Haril said that East Africa is on the verge of the worst hunger crisis in the world in 70 years. Ukraine supplies East Africa with roughly 40% of its grain. The turmoil in Ukraine, along with drought and the after effects of COVID, are hurting Uganda tremendously. 

Once we got home, I taught Joziah how to write an A and a G. Man, do I applaud kindergarten teachers. God has given me so many opportunities over here to practice patience, and this has definitely been one of them 😂! Also, it didn't help that Joziah kept eating the pencils and colored pencils. Dezi learned about trees and leaves, and then we did a math worksheet. This worksheet was nonsense. I've taken more than a handful of math classes in my lifetime, but I've never seen something like that. The way the book was trying to teach kids to subtract was wild. It took me 10 minutes just to understand the example and then explain it to Dezi. But, she finished it, and I was proud of her. Dezi, Joziah, and their friends kept touching the bag that held the cupcakes that we made the day before. As you can see below, the remaining cupcakes looked extremely appetizing. Kids are somethin else 😂. 

I was exhausted, and so I made a cup of coffee, before sitting down to prepare for my biology lesson. It was on this day that I realized that my efforts were not going unnoticed. I honestly don't feel as though I need to be recognized for anything, but the occasional appreciation helps motivate me because at least I know that my presence is leaving somewhat of a positive impact 😊. When Andrea came back home, she was so thankful that we got so much of Dezi's schoolwork done. And, when we did happy, crappy, silly, scary (see earlier post), both Dezi and Solomon included me in their happys. They made me feel special haha. Dezi's happy was doing homework with Abby (which in all honesty, doing that absurd math sheet was probably my crappy 😂), and Solomon's happy was learning new camera tips from Abby. So sweet. After dinner, I put the food away because Damalie never lets me help with dishes. Then, I continued to prepare my lesson and watch football (American soccer). Joziah wanted a bedtime story read to him, and so I piggybacked him over to the bookshelf. It was a pleasant surprise that he picked Oh, the Places You'll Go! because that is the book that every WLCVB senior gets on senior night with every page signed by teammates. It's also the book on which I based the WLC graduation speech. It's such a cute book and actually has a lot of good life lessons! This day was a good day!