Elephant Charge!

So, here it is! The famous elephant charge I talked about in this post.  

Pretty crazy! 

What we did in Africa.

Our amazing country director, Whitney, made this amazing video. She did an amazing job - It makes me miss Uganda so much!

Wonderfully Rewarding Week!

This past week has been amazing. I feel like my whole trip here has been worth it now. I have been having a little bit of a hard time, feeling homesick, and wondering what I was doing here. But after this week, I think I am really going to miss Uganda.
This past week, we did an "empowerment" seminar for girls at a nearby secondary school (basically a mix of middle school and high school - there are 6 grades). I had been wanting to do something like this all summer, but just hadn't known where to start. I came up with 5 different aspects of empowerment: building self-esteem, learning a marketable skill, understanding our bodies/taking care of them, self-defense, and effective communication. Another girl in my group, Lindsey, had wanted to do a similar thing, but needed  ideas, and so we joined together and started to work on it. In the meantime, we got some of the boys in our group involved, and they developed some empowerment classes for teenage boys. We taught a 2-3 hour class each day to about 120 girls (broken up into 3 classes throughout the day) On Monday, we taught about self-esteem - it was a great lesson! I felt like we were teaching a lesson at girls' camp, because it was so fun. The girls really liked our object lessons and stories. I was so happy to start the week out on a good note. The next day, I had Richard come in and teach about looking for business opportunities. He did a great job, and the girls LOVED him! They laughed at all his jokes, and at the end, one of the teachers told me that they all thought he was a great teacher. After we ended the business class, we had an optional craft - and everyone stayed to learn it. I taught the girls how to make paper beads, and I think they had a really fun time. It was so chaotic trying to teach all those girls at the same time, but I hope they can use that skill in the future. The next day we taught about Maturation and menstruation - it was the first class I felt really comfortable with - I knew the material really well, and because I care about it a lot, I really enjoyed it. The next day was self-defense, and you know how passionate I am about that - it was such a fun day! I LOVED every second of it. I started out by teaching about safety, and setting personal standards for what is and isn't okay for boys to do, etc., and then after that, we moved all the desks to make a space in the room and started teaching some of the moves I learned in my self-defense class. It was great! The girls (and teachers) were so excited to learn, and they got a real "kick" (pun intendended) out of practicing everything. I had so much fun that day! The last day, we taught about communicating effectively in our relationships. It was a good lecture, not as fun as the day before, but still a good one. After we finished our lecture, we went to the auditorium and had a big ceremony with speeches and I even gave an impromptu speech (Africans LOVE speeches, so no matter what you say, they still think you're brilliant and give emphatic applause). Then, we gave out certificates (they also LOVE getting certificates) so that was fun too. THEN, we went to the home ec room and taught the africans how to make american pancakes - they LOVED that too! (Richard had talked about selling "Mzungu pancakes" on the street in the business class, so they wanted to try them).  The headmaster even suggested setting up a partnership with a school in the U.S. so that the students could get to know the students in America.  I thought that was a great idea! 

I feel like I just walked out of a perfect dream - I don't think things could have gone any better, or been more rewarding.  I LOVED this past week!!!

Pictures to come!

Safari Part 2: Craziness

I mentioned earlier how crazy transportation is here. Well, we tried doing public transport for our entire trip, and we really had no idea what we were doing. We were sooo incredibly lucky with the timing of everything - at first we were so annoyed because our taxi got 2 flat tires and what should have been an hour and a half trip took about three hours. We missed our bus to get to the next city, and had to take a different bus on a different route that happened to be leaving pretty quickly. We first thought we were really unlucky, because it was the most miserable ride any of us have ever had (there were 5 of us - me, Richard, my old roomie Jen, her cousin Meg, and our friend Remmick) The entire 5 hours we were on the bus, we were jostled and bumped and thrown around...it was like the Indiana Jones ride at Disney Land...for 5 hours. Richard was so sick after that...poor guy.

We met a guy named Eric who knew all about the area we were traveling through and to - he is a soldier who works there. I didn't realize it, but we were traveling through what was recently a very dangerous place to be- the Karamojo area. These people have been historically very hostile and agressive toward any outsider. Unfortunately, we found out thatwe were to stay over night in one of these Karamojong cities - called Kotido. Kotido was a very dangerous place to be about 2 or 3 years ago. We were scared, and we stayed in a shifty hotel that night (look at the pictures in our web album in the previous post), but we were safe, and it was ok! Eric helped us the next day, to find free transport to the next city, which was awesome - picture 16 people in the back of a tiny pickup truck, loadedwith all of our baggage, plus like 20 boxes of groceries. It was great - totally Ugandan-style. :) The rest of our trip there was fine, but on the way back, we had acrazy/scary time getting home. We took a really roundabout route toget home, because it was the only way we had a chance of getting home in the same day. I met a man (George Mark) on one of our busses who claimed to be a driver, and said he would take us all the way from Lira to Mbale.. When we got off the bus, we were swarmed by about 10 other taxi drivers who were also drunk, and they were saying all kinds of things to make us worry about driving with George. At that point,we had gotten in the car with him, and Richard was like "we are not going with them, let's get out." so we did, and George got so angryand started yelling. We were so scared! But it felt worse to get outof the car, and think of staying there, so eventually we got back in his car with him promising to take care of us and keep us safe. We were all just praying that we would be okay, and after awhile, werealize that we were in good hands. We got home at 5AM the next morning, and we were so exhausted! It was such an adventure.

I am just so amazed at how everything worked out - it really can't have been by chance that we made all the friends that we did, and had a successful (yet frustrating) trip. I hope you all are doing well! We love you lots and miss you all! I will write more next time about our projects we have been doing.

Our first Safari!

A couple weeks ago, we went on a safari!!! It was exciting, interesting, and stressful. Trying to plan anything, especially vacations, in Uganda isveeeeerrrrry different than planning in the US. You never get astraight answer from people when you ask them questions, or you get conflicting answers, or you getpeople telling you what they think you want to hear...its veryfrustrating. And then with transportation - whenever people tell youit will take a certain amount of time, its always safe to add on acouple extra hours, so you don't get frustrated.

We went up to northeastern Uganda to do our safari - it wasone of the coolest experiences ever, and it was everything I hoped itwould be! It was just like being on the real-life scene of the LionKing. I loved it! We got to see all the animals we wanted to see,both from a distance, and up close! The very first night, when wearrived at our 'bandas' (little circular huts) we saw a whole herd ofzebras in the field across the road! We were so excited! They are socool looking! That night, we also saw a warthog, and a waterbuck.

The next morning, we woke up to seeing an elephant walkingthrough our campground - apparently, it had been 2 months since he hadlast been there - we were lucky to see him! We also heard later onthat there had been a couple of lions walking through the site earlierthat morning...ahh!!!

When we finally left on our morning safari, we were so excited! Theweather was perfect, and we had already seen a great variety ofanimals! We took it as a very good sign, and it was! We started outby driving through a herd of over 1,000 water buffalo, which wascrazy! We were completely surrounded! They are kind of funny-lookinganimals, and they are very jumpy - they would run away anytime wemoved too quickly. We also saw some giraffes and elephants in thedistance, and of course we wanted to see them up close, so we took offin our truck to catch them. We finally got close to the giraffes -they were right next to our truck, and we got some awesome pictures ofthem! Giraffes look so funny when they walk or run. But they arereally beautiful, I loved seeing them! Then, we looked to the otherside of the road, and saw a big herd of elephants! Unfortunately, wecouldn't get very close to them, but we were hopeful that we would seesome later on. We saw all kinds of beautiful birds there - big andsmall, and all sorts of colors. My favorites were bright red, yellowand bright metallic blue. Beautiful! Oh, we also saw a littlecrocodile - maybe 3 feet long - on the side of a water hole.

On our afternoon safari, we really lucked out! Almost immediately, we saw 2 lions on a rock a few hundred yards from the road -they were just laying there, relaxing. It was so exciting to seethem! Pretty soon after that, we drove up to a herd of elephants.Did you know that elephants are among the most dangerous animals to beclose to? Its true, especially if they have babies they areprotecting. Well, we were lucky enough to get within 50 yards of amomma elephant and her two babies! When she noticed we were closethough, she started charging at us...I never knew how fast an elephant couldrun! It was so intense! Richard luckily got it all on video, I can'twait to post it here (it'll probably have to be after we get home, since internet is so slow here) After that, it started pouring, and wehad to cut our safari short. We went back and it rained for the restof the night.

The next morning, we had to leave to go home, but on our drive out ofthe park, we saw some monkeys on the road and in a tree close to theroad! THEN, we saw a lion in the distance, tracked it down, andeventually, it came onto the road right in front of us, and 'escorted'us for awhile - it just walked down the road in front of us. We wereso excited, although we were a little disappointed we didn't get agood picture of him. But to our delight, just ahead, we saw two morelions just sitting on the side of the road, looking so relaxed. Oneof them was literally right next to our car. After awhile, he got up,crossed the road right in front of us, and got his buddy to get up andgo with him. It was great! We were sooo happy we got to see that! Ifeel like we were given these little tender mercies, all throughoutour trip - even though seeing animals up close isn't really all thatimportant, it meant a lot to all of us to be able to see them that closely.

A little update

Hello Friends and family!

We apologize for not updating in a while! As you can probably imagine, things have been very busy. It’s crazy to think that we are more than halfway through our time here. 2^nd wave ended basically right when we got back from safari, so we are now in the 3^rd and final wave. July was the only full month we would be here in Uganda and it’s already over! We have been so blessed to have this amazing opportunity and we look forward to what the last three weeks will bring.

Projects and things have been very good. I don’t know if I have mentioned much about the Namatala Slum Ultimate Club that I started with a team member. Well, the Ultimate thing just REALLY was not working. The kids were catching on well, and enjoying it, but it was too difficult to keep control and the language barrier is a serious issue. (Yes, the official language is English, and yes, most people “speak English”, but that doesn’t mean that real communication actually takes place.) So, my team member and I decided to switch to Soccer instead of Ultimate, and things have been much better ever since. We’re starting to get a consistent group of youth and we now have two volunteer coaches who have started to conduct practices (which is good news for us because we don’t know jack about Soccer). In addition to those good things, the municipality is interested in our project and is wanting to help fund it which is very good news. So things are going well with that. Namatala is a very large slum right outside of Mbale, and it is full of problems. Our sports club is designed to fight idleness which is a big problem, and to get kids off the streets and doing something worthwhile. We are especially trying to get youth who are not attending school to come.

Business projects have also been going well. Last Saturday I was invited somewhat last minute to a business convention held by business leaders in Mbale and surrounding areas. I guess Jonathan from Step radio had told some people about what we were doing, and they were intrigued and insisted that we come to this meeting of about 100 business persons. I was naturally pretty excited for this opportunity to network. So the invitation said to be at Mt. Elgon Hotel at 2pm prompt so we were there at 1:55pm. We were among the first 5 people there, and they weren’t even finished setting up yet. They didn’t actually start the meeting until 3pm. I knew about “African time”, but I thought that things would be a little bit different with this being an important business meeting and what not. I was also informed that I would be giving a speech and they asked me how much time I needed. I told them I wasn’t prepared so maybe five minutes or so, so they told me I had twenty. Thanks….. I had about two minutes to prepare, but I think that things went pretty well. The meeting itself was one of the more boring I have attended. Unfortunately, the majority of it was not in English. And, we thought that the meeting would last two or three hours, but it lasted six. The main highlight was this crazy guy we met at the beginning who kept telling us he was the mayor and who wrote for us a whole page of contact information. Anyway, at random intervals in the meeting when it would be quiet, he would stand up and yell “sank you vedy much!” holding two thumbs ups and then mutter a bunch of other unintelligible stuff and sit down. Also, at the end of the meeting there was a dinner. That was also an experience. I think I literally almost got trampled in the mad dash to the food line. Then when I got in line, about 23 people cut in front of me until this lady who worked at the hotel recognized me and for some reason thought I was important so she grabbed my arm and pulled me to the almost front of the line in front of everyone else. Once there, the struggle was not over. First of all, I was packed in there like a sardine, so it’s not like there was much opportunity for somebody to cut in front of me, but it still happened! There were six or seven large Ugandan ladies who managed one by one to wedge their booties between me and the person in front of me and booty me right out of the way! Don’t worry, I did eventually get my food, but it was pretty cutthroat!

While kind of on the subject, here are some funny/interesting cultural things about Uganda

- Organized lines rarely exist. If you are waiting in line at the grocery store, you will be waiting for a very VERY long time. It’s basically whoever gets there first

- African time is something we deal with every day. We regularly wait for people for a half hour or hour sometimes

- We eat basically the same food every day. It’s actually pretty darn good food, but it does get a little repetitive sometimes. The main foods are as follows: matoke (mashed up plantain bananas. Has a taste and consistency similar to mashed potatos. I think it’s pretty tasty), posho (boiled cornmeal stuff with a consistency of play-dough. Very tasteless, but good if it has a good sauce), beans (yum), rice (yum), Irish (Irish potatos), and chippati (yummy bread fried in a lot of oil). We also eat a lot of pineapple, avocado, mangoes, cabbage, and bananas.

- English here is funny. You can say “well done” when you are greeting a person. When you are saying that you’re basically assuming that the person has done something good that day. When you and another person are parting you can say “nice time” which I think is just funny. They also say “please” after everything. “Thank you please” and “okay please” are both totally appropriate and encouraged. Also instead of saying “kinda” you say “somehow.” There are many others, but those are the only ones I can think of right now.

- Trash cans don’t really exist a lot here. Funny example: we were waiting in front of a hotel near our house for a taxi to come get us and Megan, one of our friends, had just finished eating a banana. We were talking to one of the hotel employees and she asked if he could direct her to a trash to throw away the peel, but he was kind enough to take the peel for her. After she thanked him for his kindness, he took about four steps forward and chucked the peel into the bushes/road. We had a good laugh from that.

There are many more funny anecdotes, but so little time! We will write more, I promise! We love you all and are glad to hear from you whenever you have time to update us!

Love,

Richard and Marissa

Slide Show!

Here are a bunch of pictures from our trip so far!

Our Hike up to Mt. Elgon and other stuff

One of our first weekends here, Richard and I went on a hike with a bunch of people in our group to the nearby mountain - Mt. Elgon.  It was such a beautiful place, and of course, pictures couldn't even come close to capturing the beauty there.  It was breath taking, and we LOVED it.  When we signed up to go here, I didn't think we were going to be going to such a beautiful, tropical place.  I was really expecting to be in a dry brown area, but it is far from that.  It is lush, green, and beauty is everywhere.  I love Uganda!

We hiked to the top of that waterfall!

The view

Climbing up the natural ladder - it was made out of branches that were lashed together with vines - crazy!

Riding in the back of a truck to get to the beginning of our hike

Richard showing the kids how to whistle with grass

This is from a completely different experience, but it takes so long to upload pictures here, that I am not going to reorganize!  These are the children at the "Child of Hope" Primary school - they are so sweet, and I love them!  We (our group) have been doing a lot of projects with the Child of Hope Organization - they are located in one of the largest slums in Africa - Namatala - which happens to be very close to Mbale.  There is a lot of work to do there, which means a lot of opportunities for us to help!

I LOVE Uganda!!!

Oh man! Where do I begin?? Things have been amazing here and I am having a blast! We just finished our business seminar about an hour ago! It was so much fun! Yesterday we had 55 people come and today we taught 75 youth! Both days were a blast as we taught them basic business skills, goal-setting, planning, etc. The participants were really into the seminars and we were pleasantly surprised to receive much more participation than we had originally anticipated.

Here are some more highlights of the week:
- Getting caught in a torrential downpour and riding the boda boda through it we were soaked to the skin 5 minutes later
- Eating Mercy's delicious African food every night
- Getting everything set up to start my Ultimate Club in the Namatala slum on Monday

My time is running short, but I will post later! Life is amazing here!!

My thoughts lately

Living in a third world country, I have started to think more about why things are they way they are, and what I can do to change them.  One thing that Richard and I were talking about today was that

It is interesting how materialism is such a part of our culture in the U.S.; we base so much of our personal worth and value on what we have, or what we do.  We relate best (or think we do) to those who have the same hobbies, or have the same things, the same level of income, or who have the same ____ just like we do.  While there is nothing wrong with finding things in common with others, I do have to argue that there is something wrong with only focusing on material similarities.

 After being here for less than two weeks, the people and culture here are making me realize how materialistic I am, and how much I have hidden behind “things,” and used “things” to help me feel valued.  I have noticed that when I meet people here for the first time, they don’t seem to notice how nice and clean my clothes are, or how I did my hair, or how fit I am. 

Here, these people don’t have as many material cares.  Many only have a few dirty clothes (that they value for the sake of having something to cover them), and it seems that all the locals have run-down homes, and very few material possessions. 

They are automatically accepting and welcoming.  There have been so many times that I have been greeted with a hearty hug, when it was the first time I had ever met the person before.  I have noticed myself even becoming a little uncomfortable with people wanting to get to know the real me…without valuing how I look or what I have, etc.  It is so shallow, and it kind of made me sick to realize how much I have placed some of my value on material things, when I always thought I didn’t really care very much about material possessions.

This week's Update!

Friends and Family, we have had a great week! We are still loving it here in Mbale, and we are excited about all of the projects we are involved in, and the opportunities we have here. 

Here’s our update:

 Richard:

Life in Uganda has been amazing. The people are amazing, the weather is nice, the scenery is beautiful, and the projects that we are working on are exciting! Devin and I have been the project leads putting together a 2 day business seminar. We have been working with a local NGO named “God’s Mercy” which takes youth in the Muluku area and trains them in things such as furniture making, hair cutting, door to door sales, etc. After much negotiation, we arranged for the business seminar to take place this coming Friday and Saturday at a local venue that we convinced to significantly reduce the cost of using the meeting room and providing lunch. Each day we will have about 60 participants. The first day will consist mainly of youth participants and the second will consist of slightly older men interested in business development. We are really excited for these business seminars because we are designing them to be the kick-off event for future business trainings that we will have at the church every Wednesday and Thursday from 6-730pm. We have WAY too much material to teach in just a one day training, so our goals are to give the participants just a few business basics and to get them excited enough to continue coming to our Wednesday and Thursday meetings that will be held weekly thereafter. We just have so much going on, and we’re so excited! We talked to a local radio station which has agreed to put announcements on the radio advertising when our weekly trainings will be. It will be a big deal! Also, we are going to go into their recording studio and record business seminars in 30 minute segments for them to play on the radio as a series. How cool is that?? We are not exactly sure how we are going to structure that, but I’m thinking that Devin and I will set it up as a discussion format with 2-3 Ugandans. So we would have a structured discussion in which we teach business principles through our discussion. We are really looking forward to the potential that is in that. As far as our weekly business classes go, we are also excited because we have met some really awesome Ugandans that we think could potentially continue to teach the business classes after we come back to the states. One guy’s name is Julius and he is a stud. He went through the God’s Mercy program where he learned door to door sales. After going through the program, he started a business selling books to schools, and it seems that he has done quite well for himself. The biggest reason why this is so awesome is because all of the businesses here are exactly the same. There is a huge lack of creativity in the business scene here in Uganda. You can drive down the street and see business after business and each is exactly the same. I talked to him for a long time last week as we were walking around Mbale, and he had a lot of good insights. We will be having him as a guest speaker at our seminars and our plan is for him and some other like-minded Ugandans to come to all of our trainings and be able to take over teaching after we leave. There is a HUGE need for business education here. We are very excited at the impact we can have.

Another exciting thing is that I am finally getting my ultimate frizbee club going. One of the things that has been holding me back has been trying to find a place to implement it that really has a need. There is a slum called Namatala that is right outside of Mbale where I have decided to implement it. This slum has many needs. One of the big problems of the slum is that alcoholism is quite high because there is nothing for people to do there. I am working with an NGO called “Child of Hope” that works in Namatala. I ran my proposal by them to organize an ultimate club for the youth that will meet twice a week and play games. He liked the idea as it would give the at-risk youth something to do. I am excited to be doing this also because I feel like there are a lot of things that I could do with it. In addition to just doing ultimate twice a week, I can combine it with education, or service, or whatever I want. It’ll be good.

There are many other exciting things that we are doing but I don’t have time to write them all! You will have to stay posted for more updates! Anyway, life is amazing here. I am soooo glad that we are doing this!!

Marissa:

On Monday, I was finally able to get my suitcase back!!!! After a week of wearing the same 2 shirts, and borrowing people’s skirts, I finally have my OWN clothes to wear, and my own shampoo, my own medicine, etc.  I am so grateful to have everything again!  Getting my suitcase was an all day affair – one of our country directors, Whitney, was nice enough to spend the entire day with me, just getting my suitcase.  We left in the morning, and drove four hours to Kampala in a very crowded, hot, stinky taxi (I believe there were 20 people in a van that was meant to carry 14).  When we got there, we were able to get to the airline office and get my suitcase without any problems (which was kind of refreshing, since everything here takes longer than expected), and then we got right back on a bus and drove another 4 hours back to Mbale.  It was long, but it wasn’t too bad, because Whitney and I got to talk to each other.  I really enjoyed bonding with her and getting to know her better.  On Tuesday, I had my first official full day of work here in Mbale, and I really enjoyed it!  I went along with a sanitation outreach group to a school called “Child of Hope,” where they taught the kids there about hand washing.  It was fun to be with the kids – they are so cute and friendly, and always happy to see us.  I love them!  When we first walked in, the kids just flocked to us, and I had so many kids holding both of my hands, and when they ran out of room on my hands, they started stacking up my arm.  It was so cute. 

Me and a few other girls got together and put together some survey questions to ask about women’s health.  We plan to ask these questions in the villages that we visit, to get an idea of the health needs of the women there. 

Richard and I and a few others went and visited the city of Bugobero to look at a school that a member of our church – Stephen – started a few months ago.  It is named the “Liahona Education Centre.”  They were in need of some serious help – we don’t know if we will be able to help them yet, because they have a lot of needs.  They need to have 200 students, but are only able to teach 60 right now because of the size of the school.  They have the walls built for a few more classrooms, but no roofs for those classrooms.  So, they need corrugated tin for the roof, plaster for the walls, and wood for the desks - it is going to be very expensive, this is why we don’t know if we can help them yet. 

            Another project I am excited about is we are learning some Ugandan crafts, and we will teach some women who have no income how to make and sell them.  So far, we learned how to make some paper beads – they are everywhere here in Uganda.  I think they will be really easy for the women to learn how to make.  

This week's Pictures!

Today, Richard and I went and worked at a baby's home, it was a sad sight, because the babies seem depressed, and you can tell they know they are orphans, but we were happy to be able to play with them and make them smile and laugh.

At our branch building

 Below: Richard and some other guys on the team decided to sell pancakes on the street, to see what it is like to be a street vendor here, and to try to raise money for their upcoming business training seminar.  They made $0.17, after earning back all they spent on supplies...

More Pics from Africa!

These are all from Palisa town except for the hair mayonaisse which was in the local supermarket

I don't know how to work this blog thingy!

The cutest kids EVER singing and dancing for us at Palisa town

First views of Uganda. This is outside of the capital, Kampala

More Kampala

Our fat kid ankles from sitting for two days straight!!

I don't know how to do this blogging thing, so all these pics are in reverse order. Sorry!

We are in Africa!!!

Hello friends and family!!!!

The traveling experience:
Everything went smoothly as we flew through the states, but once we got to London, things started to get a little out of control.  We got there in the morning (but it was the middle of the night for us), and decided we wanted to tour London for the day (we had a 12 hour layover).  We got off to a slow start, trying to decide what to do, but once we figured that out, and how to use the subway, we got to London pretty quickly.  The one thing that could have made everything better would have been if we would have left our carry-ons at the airport.  But we were feeling invincible, so we took our backpacks and 2 suitcases, and trekked all over London.  And I mean allllll over.  Our goal was to go to the British Museum, but getting there turned out to be quite the challenge.  Not only were we exhausted from walking all around, but halfway through our walk, both of the wheels on our suitcases froze up and wouldn't turn anymore.  I was about in tears, but luckily, Richard has been working out for the past couple months, and he used his big strong man muscles to carry both our suitcases for the rest of the way.  By the time we finally got to the Museum, we realized it was time to head back to the airport, and so we didn't ever get to go inside.  Needless to say, we were pretty bummed.  We had spent way too much money for way too little fun.  I think the one good thing about that trip was that we had some fish and chips...that was one expensive lunch!  Anyway, when we got back to the airport, we found out that our flight had been delayed for 2 hours.  Needless to say, we were totally grumpy with the way our London experience turned out.  The last highlight (if you can call it that) of the trip was that I lost my main suitcase with all my clothes, medicine, toiletries, and more..which was pretty upsetting.  We are 6 hours away from the airport, and it is not easy to go back.  Luckily, they were able to find it yesterday, so we will be getting it in the next couple of days. 

Richard and I made it safely to Mbale, Uganda - we got here very late on wednesday night, and jumped right into the work the next day at 7:30AM. 

We went to a small village called Pallisa - way out in the middle of nowhere - and had an AMAZING first day experience - I feel like we really experienced Africa.  I couldn't believe my eyes, and the whole time, I just felt like I was watching a movie...except we were actually there! Here are some of the highlights from that experience:
 - being called "Muzungu" (white person) by many of the African people
 - Playing with and teaching the children
 - Being sung to by the children and the women of the village
 - Having the best dance party ever with the villagers - they were so crazy, and we loved it!
 - Interviewing the members of a polygamist homestead - Richard and I asked them about the children and their education, and other people asked questions about health and other topics
 - Eating an authentic African meal of rice, posho (boiled water and cornmeal - it makes a flavorless dough..ick), fish, beef, and pineapple - we felt that they were very generous to us. 
 - Traveling on an extremely bumpy dirt road for about 2 hours with 19 of us in one toyota mini van

Unfortunately, we didn't have time to upload pictures, but we will do so in a couple days!

1 week!

(Us being excited)

Its official! Richard and I are leaving for Uganda in exactly 1 week and 1 hour (not that I'm keeping track or anything)!  We are excited and nervous, and very much looking forward to it!

This week, we will be packing and cleaning our apartment, moving everything into storage, and getting our suitcases ready for our trip! Its a lot of stuff to keep track of, but its all starting to come together.

We are really proud of ourselves, because we have already gotten a lot of the packing into boxes done. Usually we don't start packing until a couple of days before we have to move, so this is an improvement (this will be our 6th move since we have been married..ugh).

Anyway, wish us luck as we enter into the final stages of craziness before we go!

We need some help!

Dear Friends and Family,

Richard and I are leaving for Uganda in just 12 days! We can hardly wait! We know that this will be a life-changing experience for both the people in Uganda, and especially for us.

We hope to come back from this experience changed, and for the better. We will be working hard each day, helping the people of Uganda to improve the quality of their lives. We will be sweaty, dirty, tired, and loving it.

Poverty is terrible, and education is an essential tool for getting out of it. We can all agree on this fact. And we all feel for those who suffer due to lack of education and resources. Richard and I feel so blessed to be able to directly contribute to the solution to this problem this summer. We know that not everyone has this opportunity, and so we want to give you the opportunity to be a part of our experience.

Image c/o Aubrey Olsen, fellow HELP team member

As you can see on our sidebar, we have a long ways to go before we reach our fundraising goal.

I have struggled with the idea of asking friends and family (and even those I don't know well) to help us in raising the money for Uganda. But, then I remind myself that we’re doing this for the greater good and, well...we want to change the world.

We are asking you to join us in the fight against poverty so we can work to empower the people in Uganda.

Your contribution - whether it is $1 or $100 - will have a direct effect on helping us to improve education, health, quality of life, and more. We, and the people of Uganda appreciate your donations of any amount you can offer.

You can make a quick and easy donation to HELP International by visiting http://help-international.org/donate-now, and clicking on the PayPal link, making sure to include Richard and Marissa Patterson in the “designation” box.

We invite you to participate in our experience by following our blog this summer and offering words of encouragement!

Thank you in advance for your support!


Sincerely,

Marissa and Richard

Empowering Women

My sister Rochelle and I just did a blog post on our craft blog about the need for sanitary pads for feminine hygiene in underdeveloped countries. Check it out to find out how you can help! I talk about the problem a little bit in our post, but I wanted to say a little bit more about the issue here.

The Problem:

A major health issue for women and girls living in poverty is their menstrual period. When a girl has her period, she will stay home from school or work for the 5 days she is menstruating, to avoid embarrassment and discomfort. The cumulative effect is around 50-60 days of school or work missed per year. Eventually, this girl could end up dropping out of school because she is so far behind, or losing her job. All of this is the result of one simple thing: a lack of feminine hygiene products.

Buying pads can cost about $1 per month for a woman - a negligible cost to us - but when a family must survive on $1 per day, buying pads isn’t an option. As a result, women use rags, bark, or mud in place of clean, safe, store-bought pads. This often leads to infections.

Women waiting in line at a clinic because of chronic UTIs.
Image Courtesy Of Grow.Learn.Give

The Solution:

In Uganda, I plan to implement a program where women and girls will be taught proper hygiene, how to make their own reusable pads, how their menstrual cycles work.

The impact of having things as simple as feminine hygiene products is huge. Some of the possible results could be: fewer infections, the option of a full education, the ability to have a steady job, and an enriched community that values the contributions of its women. The effect would be continuous, with future generations having the same opportunities.

My sister is AMAZING!

My little sister Cara is so inspiring to me! She is working in Portland this summer, and pretty much changing the world.

Cara works for a company called Dialogue Direct on behalf of Children International. She gets to be outside all day, talking to hundreds of interesting and inspiring people about the organization she represents. She is completely passionate about the cause, and believes that what she has to say to people is worthwhile.

And it is.

Each day, she (and each person she signs up) changes the world for one child at a time, all over the world. The people she partners with agree to sponsor a child in a developing country, which allows them to go to school and get and education.

Education, as we know, is a major solution to getting out of poverty.

Poverty is something we have always known about, and felt sympathy for. I think Cara addresses it well: "Danny and Tawny always ask people how long they have known about poverty. Then we tell people that we talk and talk about doing something about poverty, but we never ACTUALLY do anything about it. This sponsorship is the perfect way to take action. One person isn't going to change the world, but their sponsorship does change that child's world, and they become the world to that child. It's such a beautiful relationship too!"

Cara has started a new blog about her experiences and adventures working in Portland - I think it is truly inspiring! Check it out: http://caracae.blogspot.com/

HELP Video for Lugazi, Uganda 2010

Educating Girls and Women

Education is so important in changing a community living in poverty. So many opportunities arise for those who have a formal education. There are more job opportunities, which makes it possible to provide for a family. While having an education is important for everyone, it is extremely important that girls and women have an education. The benefits are endless. The following are a couple of quotes that I think explain this concept really well:

“If you really want to change a culture, to empower women, improve basic hygiene and health care, and fight high rates of infant mortality, the answer is to educate girls.”
--Greg Mortenson, author of Three Cups of Tea and Stones into Schools

(Image c/o Girls Who Rock)

“What we are learning around the world is that if women are healthy and educated, their families will flourish. If women are free from violence, their families will flourish. If women have a chance to work and earn as full and equal partners in society, their families will flourish. And when families flourish, communities and nations do as well.”

--Secretary of State and former First Lady Hilary Clinton

I found this poster on a website for the organization, "The Girl Effect." Learning about this and other organizations is what got me fired up about educating women and girls. Click on the image for a more close-up view.

(image c/o girleffect.org)

3 weeks...

The time is flying by so fast, I can hardly believe it! We are leaving for Uganda in 3 weeks from today!!! We can hardly wait, we are so excited!

I am so grateful for the timing of this trip - originally, we had planned on leaving the first week of may, and returning mid July, but then our plans changed quite a bit when Richard got accepted into the Marriott School of Business for the Spring term. We are so grateful that he was accepted into the program that was his first choice, and now he gets to study what he loves! We are so excited. Anyway, now we are leaving on June 13, and will be in Uganda until August 24 - about 2 1/2 months.

Even though we were kind of disappointed that we wouldn't be leaving right at the beginning, with everyone else, we are realizing what a blessing it was for the delay in our trip. We never would have been able to do all the preparations necessary to leave by the beginning of May - we were FAR too busy. I was finishing up my internship, studying for my big credentialing test, AND trying to finish my independent study class, all during March and April, and Richard was extremely busy with his classes and his job as well. We realize now that we wouldn't have been able to do all of that AND get ready for our trip AND move out of our apartment AND do fundraising. I'm so grateful Richard followed the impression to apply for the business school for Spring term, things couldn't have worked out more perfectly.

We have decided that we will be updating this blog regularly, throughout our time in Uganda - hopefully at least once a week, so you can look forward to lots of pictures (assuming the computers there will allow us to upload easily).

Also, please feel free to read our team blog: http://ugandambale.help-international.org/ There will be regular updates on the projects that we are doing as a team posted there.