a lot of great things going on

The beautiful little Suzan Gayle


Hello again! I know it’s been a few days since I posted anything. The good news is that it’s because there have been so many good things going on. I’ll try to catch you up to date.

We have a new head teacher for the school! As of yesterday, a wonderful man named Emmanuel officially accepted the position. He will spend the next few days moving and will start to work next Tuesday. “Head teacher” actually means school principal/administrator here. He will also be helping to develop individual studies and focuses for the children, and overseeing their work, so he will be their teacher as well. He will likely be hiring some tutors to further help the children in the near future as well.

Because the children have such varying educational backgrounds, as they get closer to high school we are focusing more on meeting their individual needs and less on a traditional classroom setting. Emmanuel is a very creative person and we are excited by the possibilities that this non-traditional environment will offer to all these beautiful children.

We are also using this opportunity to do a little remodeling and face-lifting to the school. Here are some of the projects we’re working on:

• Repainting all the walls
• Recovering the screens that serve as moveable walls during the school day
• Building 2 more classroom tables and chairs for them (a footnote on this one: while there are still plenty of young and small children, it’s one of the really great blessings to me that a good number of the children have grown up so much since they originally came that their knees are now higher than the tables they used to sit at and so it’s time for “regular height” tables)
• Building “cubbies” so that each student has a place to store his or her work and personal belongings

Hopefully in another week or so I’ll have pictures for you of the children with their new teacher, as well as the progress on the school!

In the meantime, here are just a few more great moments that I haven’t yet had a chance to post. Enjoy! (More are coming very soon, I promise.)
These flags are a tribute and memorial to the children who have died at Aidchild. There are nine total. They are replaced from time to time to keep them bright and beautiful. The children assist in changing them out. Pictured here are Kato #2, who shimmied up the pole to retrieve a broken line, along with Rose (left) and Rogers.

A "double-wide"swing was recently installed to accomodate the posteriors of us adults, who don't fit so easily onto the smaller swings. The children were delighted, and Mariam (left) and Diana decided it was just perfect for them!

a week of smiles

Did you know that in Uganda, the Easter holiday includes a 4 day weekend? In addition to Good Friday, the Monday after Easter is also a holiday from work and school. It's an excellent idea, I've decided. And if that isn't enough, Aidchild had their celebrating extend even a little longer -- with parties on Tuesday (at Mpigi) and Wednesday (at Masaka)!

We're still having time to get work done too though, even with all this fun, and have been conducting interviews for the new head of Aidchild Academy. With a title of Lead Academic Facilitator, this role will serve as the head of the school from both an administrative and education standpoint. We're very excited with how this is going and I hope to be able to announce who that new individual will be very soon.

At Mpigi, Okello flashes his great smile while he waits for his egg to dye.

One of the beautiful little girls at Mpigi definitely held her own against the "big kids" during the egg hunt! (She is new since the last time I had visited and I'm afraid I forgot her name.)
















At Masaka, all the toddlers took this egg-dying thing very seriously. Here they are on their way down to get started. Mbabazi kindly served as their host and guide.












Even after instructions were given and the eggs had been dropped in the cups, Jack still wasn't totally sure what he thought of this idea...


















The bigger kids took the the process with a little less skepticism and dyed eggs with enthusiasm.







I seem to have reached my limit for how many pictures I can post on today's page, but after kids hunted the eggs, they rehid them so the adults could hunt them. They got great pleasure from then showing the adults where they were hidden.

After all the dying and hunting at both parties, we enjoyed french fries (or chips as they call them here), sodas -- and boiled eggs!! Oh yes, and some chocolate and jelly beans that I managed to get from the States without it melting (or me eating it). All in all, the parties were a huge success and the kids ended both parties by thanking us for the party. They're pretty great!

Happy Easter!

The two beautiful faces above are Brian and Dorah.














This is a familiar sight – the kids hamming it up for the camera. Pictured here are (L-R): Simon Peter, Ezra, Kato #2, Opio and Sam. (For future reference, between the 2 homes, there are 3 sets of boy twins named Kato and Wasswa – I’m calling them 1, 2, 3 according to age order.)





















And this one of me and my young friends is also a pretty typical scene. Anytime Elizabeth or I sit down for more than a couple of minutes, we soon have kids of various sizes crawling on and around us. We don’t mind!

As I’m writing this on Sunday afternoon, most of you are probably just starting to get up and think about getting ready for Easter Sunday. But here, the children have long been changed out of their church clothes and we have had Sunday dinner and are enjoying a rather lazy Sunday afternoon.

We had a special meal that included chicken – a rare treat for the children – to celebrate the day, but we will continue our festivities on Tuesday and Wednesday, with a special party at each home. This way there is plenty of time for coloring and hunting Easter eggs, good food and lots of fun at both places, and we'll get in on both parties.

In other news, it has been raining! I know I shouldn’t be surprised since it IS the rainy season... It usually just rains for 3 or 4 hours, but while it’s raining, it really pours and finds every window, crack or any other little place where water might come in.

I don’t mind the rain, actually. It started late this year so everyone was relieved when it finally came. Uganda isn’t a place that usually gets dry and crispy, but they were more that way than usual this year. The reason I think I’ve been noticing the rain so much though, is that, while I managed to pack most of what I needed, I’ve been amused by the one small thing I forgot. My rain jacket.

In about 20 trips during the last 5 years, I remembered it on every trip. And yet, here I am in Uganda during the rainy season, and my jacket sits in its handy pouch on the shelf in my coat closet in Colorado.It’s nothing a trip to Kampala won’t solve, but it is funny! In the meantime, I’ve found one more great use for the plastic grocery sacks I always have on trips – a rain cap!

It's also a bit chilly in the mornings and when it rains at this time of year. So I spend quite a lot more time that you might imagine in a sweater. I don’t mind though. If it weren’t quite so humid, the hot days and cool evenings could be Colorado. Plus, this way we get to enjoy a fire every evening while we have dinner and it’s very cozy.

Let me fill you in on a few other things that have been happening.

Driving lessons! As an incentive for good behavior, some of the older children have recently gotten to start learning to drive. The driveway here sort of does a big loop that makes the perfect practice route. There are about 7 or 8 of them so far who have had the opportunity to try, and they’re all doing quite well – and it’s a 5-speed truck, so I think they’re doing pretty well just to be able to reach the clutch. Pictured victorious here are Kato #1 and Topista. In the photo with Kato is Nathaniel Dunigan, director and founder of Aidchild, and now, driving instructor as well!

Photography lessons! One of the boys, Kato #2, has been completely intrigued by my camera ever since I got here. Yesterday afternoon, I asked him if he’d like to learn how to take a picture. He was very excited and between his limited English and my drawing pictures occasionally to help explain, I think he may now be on his way to a love for photography.

Kato holding the camera soon attracted a lot of attention and quite a few of the older boys started asking to take pictures as well. This was fun because they tend not to hang around as much as the little ones. So this started about an hour of taking turns posing for and shooting pictures. The little ones joined in and didn’t even ask to use the camera. They seemed to realize maybe it was just for “big kids”.

The first picture above, I am afraid I don’t remember who took it. The second one was by Mbabazi. He seems to have a near perfect eye for framing a picture, and got the hang of pushing gently to focus and then snapping the picture more quickly than anyone else. What I also love about these is that the children were just arranging themselves. We would tell them “scoot back”or “sit down lower”, but otherwise they got to be in charge of the scene. I thought they did a pretty good job!

A few more pictures

Hello again! Today is Good Friday and it’s a public holiday here. So the children are enjoying a day away from school. Although after a long downpour this morning everything -- including us! -- is a little soggy, so there aren’t a lot of outdoor activities at the moment. The sun looks like it might come out soon though so maybe things will dry up a bit this afternoon.

As I type this I have an adorable little guy crawling over and around me. His name is Sam and he’s about 4 years old. He’s very curious and it’s a little hard on him that I won’t let him click the mouse or play with the calculator or take the key laying here on the desk or anything else that looks especially interesting and appealing to him. And yet he’d evidently still rather be here watching and climbing in and out of my lap than off doing something else, and so he tolerates all the “NOs”.

Here are a few highlights from the last couple of days:














Yesterday we had an Africa geography lesson, led by Elizabeth, who is here volunteering for a few weeks. She has been kindly going through school materials and monitoring responses to the job advertisement that was posted, and lots of other wonderful things.

Thankfully, you can't see too closely the map she's standing in front of. We had no large map of Africa anywhere so she asked if I'd try drawing one on the board. It was a bit shorter and wider than it should be, but when the kids walked in the room they still said "Africa!" so I was glad to know it was at least recognizable. Over all, the country borders weren't too bad either, except for poor Angola -- they were the last country drawn in and sort of just got what was left!















Tomusange (Tommy, left) and Mbabazi are more quiet than some of the boys. They are about 11-12 years old. They both have very sweet, gentle personalities. They let me take this picture while we were waiting for others to arrive for classtime.

More to come soon, I hope!

I made it!

Well, I had a nice long posting written and when it was almost done, the power shut off and I lost everything. So I probably won't write as much right now and just hope that I can get a picture posted before it happens again! Hopefully I'll work out some of the kinks and have a little more success as time goes on.

But here are Bula and Ezra hamming it up. The kids are very intrigued by the fact that the camera I've brought this time lets them look at themselves on the back of it after I take a picture. Bula (right) is five now, but is his same funny, loving, loyal self. And Ezra, who was recently arrived and quite sick when I was here in 2004, is now a lively and stocky six-year-old -- but he still has that same slightly gruff little voice that I loved so much and answers "How are you?" with a deep "I am fine. How are you?"

It's great to be back!

Heading to Aidchild

Welcome, friends!

I'm heading to Uganda! As many of you know, I've had the chance over the last few years to take photographs for an organization called Aidchild. They have two homes in Uganda, East Africa, for orphans living with AIDS. The homes are among the most incredible, hopeful places you will ever see. The children receive holistic care, including schooling, emotional nurturing, nutritional and health care, antiretroviral therapy (ARVs) and lots of love.

Aidchild is in a period of transition, growth and change. The number of children has doubled in two and a half years, and there are now three in high school and a dozen more ready to follow. This is truly amazing if you consider that when these children arrived at Aidchild — many of them several years ago — their life expectancy was only 30 days.

This time of growth has led to the "Aidchild Academy Expansion Project." The school was originally begun when the children were young, and now is in an exciting transitional stage as it expands and adjusts to continue to provide the optimal learning experience for the children. I feel privileged that they've asked me to be a part of the project. I've been blessed to get to know many of the kids during my visits and love them all!

I am heading to Uganda on April 8 to devote 6-8 weeks to this project. We'll be focusing on assessing such areas as:

• Curriculum development and expansion
• Optimal classroom size and layout
• Current and future teaching staff needs
• Expansion of educational tools and resources

I'm so excited about this opportunity and wanted you to know about it. I so appreciate you keeping me and this project — and all the beautiful children I get to spend the next few weeks with — in your thoughts and prayers!

Several friends have asked me about the financial aspects of what we're doing. Aidchild is helping me take care of my personal expenses. The anticipated costs related to the project (including expansion expenses, purchasing resources, expenses of hosting me, etc) will be $4,750.

One thing I greatly admire about the way the Aidchild homes are run is how self-sustaining they are. They have poultry and vegetable farms, as well as two amazing art galleries that bring in resources and income to fund a large portion of the daily operating expenses and care for the children. So as we plan this project, my personal hope is that we use as little as possible of Aidchild's regular support and income to finance it.

So many of you have listened to my stories, looked at my pictures and fallen in love with the children over the last couple of years, and most of you have been involved in various fundraising endeavors for them. With the financial and emotional investment you already have in the home and the children, I thought you may also want to be a part of this project.

If you're interested, you can donate in a couple of different ways. The easiest way is to go to the website, www.aidchild.org, and click on "Donate" in the top right corner. When you enter your credit card information, you can type "Aidchild Academy Expansion Project" in the "payment for" line. If you'd rather pay by check, you can send it to: Aidchild, P.O. Box 26100, Christiansted, VI, 00824-2100, USA.

Also, if you have friends and family that you think might be interested in this, please feel free to pass this along to them.

I'm very excited about the coming weeks and will do my best to keep you posted!