SAFARI DAY! The beauty of creation never goes out of style. Probably the only day of the year that I’m happy to get up at 4:30 am because the African sunrise takes the cake. The drive to get to and through the park is stunning, and Murchison Falls are powerfully breathtaking. We hiked down the falls and took a boat cruise down the Nile, seeing hippos, crocs, tons of birds, iguanas, elephants, water buffalo and many more. We ate our packed lunch by the ferry and waited for the sun to start to go down, because the animals don’t show their faces as much in the heat of the day. While waiting, two huge buses full of school children pulled up. The teachers walked up to us and asked if it was okay if they took pictures of the Muzungus with their children. We agreed to our celebrity status, and I can’t even begin to tell you the number of little nuggets that stepped off those buses. It was a whirlwind of camera flashes, foreign language, and commotion. Scared, crying children were being thrust into our arms, one after another, then being shuffled along into the sea of children. It was quite the spectacle and I imagine that’s about as close to experiencing the red carpet as I’ll ever get. We realized this wasn’t going to end until their camera batteries died, so we gracefully stepped out and told our safari driver that it was time to go. The safari was georgeous with many creatures, but sadly, no lions were found, even in our off-roading escapades. We drove several more hours to Chobe for dinner. We had to stop several times to remove fallen trees from the road, where the elephants had provided some road blocks.

Unfortunately, Zara, Nicki, and Jennifer all left us the next day. Something about have to go back to work…pshhh who does that? (shameless shout out for Doc and Cornerstone!) The rest of us spent the day cleaning up the house and doing our weekly chores, unlike the children who get up every day before school and clean their entire house: mopping, sweeping, laundry, dishes, cooking, gardening, and probably more that I don’t even know about. We choose to just live in our filth instead. Or really, the children are much better and harder workers 🙂 It’s quite impressive.  

After the lazy muzungus’ house chores are done, and the children finish cleaning the school, library and church, weekends are for laughter and fun. We found lots of water toys up in a storage closet, so we planned an afternoon of activites! The slip ‘n slide and squirt guns were a huge success, but the other activities not so much. The children thought it was more fun to take buckets of water and dump them on the muzungus. Bonus: we didn’t have to shower for the next week–kidding! 

The next few days were spent doing random things with the kids and in the clinic, but our main focus was preparation for teaching classes while the teachers had a conference. We had many meetings about how to handle the children, what the curriculum was, and how to teach with limited resources. It was such a blessing for RG to have so many volunteers here at one time, because they had a chance to bring in one of the top Ugandan Christian teachers to hold a conference. I volunteered to be in charge of teaching Top Class (15 kindergarteners – some who spoke English and some who did not…) The conference was only two days, but it sure felt like a week! Mad respect for these teachers and teachers in general. 

Thankfully, I had an assistant for a few hours of the time…she was a life saver! We prepared several lessons and interactive games and checked out plenty of books from the library. Day one was mass chaos. Lots of tears (both fake and real), hitting, kicking, biting, and chasing Auntie Banana around with sticks and rocks. (No, that was definitely not a planned or anticipated part of the lessons…the kids came up with that all on their own.) ALSO, on the bright side, solved math problems, quiet children, laughing, learning, teaching and having fun 🙂 Luckily, the children had a half hour of devotion that morning, so that ate up a good deal of time. BUT that’s where the preacher part comes in…

Uncle Robert, one of the teachers, approached me as the children were starting the worship songs. He said, “I was going to have Uncle Matthew speak, but I think it’s your turn today.” I laughed and asked if he was kidding. He claimed he wasn’t, but sometimes it’s hard to read whether a Ugandan is joking or not. I was still under the impression he was joking. I was wrong. As the music starts wrapping up, Uncle Robert says, “It’s your turn when this song is over.” Once again, I laughed and then there were 120 sets of eyes eagerly staring at me. Clearly, the Lord was the one who gave me the courage and words because I had ZERO minutes of preparation.

Day two of class was a challenge, because we had pretty much gone through all of our material that we had planned on day one. The language barrier and comprehension levels were different than I had expected…some things worse, but some things better! This is where a college skill i learned came in handy–winging it! After lunch break, less than half of my class came back to school. I was told the others were napping, which apparently is a good excuse not to come back to school…? All the children and teachers came out alive with only a little bit of blood from a lost tooth in class. After each day, the children clean and mop the classrooms. Not only was that neat to watch them work together, but it was satisfying to make the troublemakers in class do the grunt work, ha!

After school Uncle Robert approached me and said, “I’m very sorry for springing the devotions on you yesterday, so I’m coming to you early to ask if you will do weekly worship service tomorrow morning?”…..i’ll give it to him that he did have a valid point (if only you could’ve seen my face at that moment, I’m sure my poker face was not working well). I appreciated the time for preparation. When I showed up at devotions, I quickly learned that not only was i speaking, but apparently, I was also the only adult attending; therefore, I was in charge of running the whole service. Minor details. Throughout the days after, children demonstrated through words and actions that they listened to my message. It was very encouraging and lovely to see.

Sadly, tomorrow morning I depart for Kampala. Happily, I will be seeing my little sponsor child Betty and all of my friends who are a part of my previous missions! I’m not sure when my next post will be able to happen, but please continue praying for safety and blessings on all.

A deep and sincere thank you,
Auntie Banana/Kelsey