So I somehow managed to miss a big event that happened on Thursday night. We had a “House Meeting”. This is where everyone sits around the table and talks about the things that they are having problems with, people or happenings, and Henry does his best to negotiate between the boys. The issues range from specific problems one boy is having with another boy, to there being no sugar, to people not getting water when there are supposed to, to people being too noisy, etc. The best part is that it is almost ALL in Luganda…lol. BUT Henry and I decided that if I am to know what is going on in the house, I need to be part of these discussion, so there I was in the middle of it all.
Henry does a great job of leading these discussions. It is opened in prayer, then a couple of words from Henry, and then each boy gets their say. Steven was sitting beside me and taking minutes in English, so that helped to me to get the general idea of what was going on. After each boy says what they have to say, it goes on to the next boy..and so on and so on until everyone has spoken. Then Henry takes the main issues, and they start to hash them out. Somehow I managed to get a pretty good idea of what was going on. David also came to sit beside me, and he was translating pieces for me so that I could get the general discussion. In the end it was decided that Henry and I need to come up with some ‘house rules’ for the boys to follow. There ARE rules for the house right now, but not officially set, and they don’t have consequences, and unfortunately some of the problems come up meeting after meeting, so it has been decided that we need some things set in stone. As you can probably guess this meeting was QUITE lengthy, and while I was supposes to speak at the end, I decided that I would say a short piece now, and then more later. Many of the boys heads were nodding, and they still needed to do homework and get to sleep. So THAT fun talk from Melissa will have to wait until another night. Yay…:S
Anyways, after when I was talking to Henry, I asked if it went any differently because I had been there, and he said now, which is a very good thing. We wont be able to get anywhere if the boys aren’t comfortable around me, or having me hear their issues.
Ok, on to Saturday. Guess what! Another birthday! Whoohoo J lol. This time it was Ambrose’s birthday! I woke up to make chocolate cake and icing (and then also made chocolate chip banana muffins because…why not?!!). I must say that make cakes are slowly starting to look more and more impressive! Siouxanne even let me have some of her star sprinkles, so that cake looked pretty darn good if I do say so myself :) Afterwards I headed to the boys house for some lunch, and then went to town with Ambrose. I think I mentioned a while back that he had preformed 4 times for the parents on speech day, as well as won an award for being the best student leader. Anyways, we decided that he deserved something special for this, and he chose SHOES! Now, we were not just looking for ANY shoes…we were looking for Board Shoes! Black. Size 9. I am not sure that I can even explain to you what it is like to do shoe shopping in Jinja. There are many different options of places to go to buy shoes. The first place we went to was something like a shoe market. There was tarp after tarp of piles of shoes. Sometimes sorted by gender, or sandal vs. shoe…and sometimes not. In the first pile we found the type of shoe that Ambrose was looking for..but it appeared to be to big…so we continued on our way. We searched through pile after pile, but with no luck. We decided to go somewhere else. This time, used shoe stores along main street. Now these shoes appeared to be in better condition, but no board shoes. Lots of addidas, puma, etc…but nothing that was the style he was going for. For the fun of it we decided to go into a NEW shoe store, but they didn’t have a single shoe the even resembled what we were looking for, so we were soon on our way. Finally we decided to go to the market…where they have booth after booth after booth after booth of shoes! Each booth that we went to tried to find us the type of shoe that we were looking for, and each booth was turned down. People even went up and down to other booths to try to find the ‘mzungu and the boy she was with’ the right shoe..but Ambrose knew what he was looking for, and none of them were it!
Now, I have to appreciate Ambrose for not just taking another shoe because he was there with me, and he didn’t want to miss his chance of getting new shoes. He stuck to what he was looking for, and I was proud of him for that. I was also getting ready to send out an email to everyone back home for a used (but still in decent shape) pair of boarding shoes, in men’s size 9. Lol. Anyways, many times when he was looking at shoes, he would compare them to the first pair of shoes he saw at the first place. We decided to head back there to see if by chance the shoes DID fit, and if so how much. In the end we bought the first set of shoes that we laid eyes on…funny how it works like that. BUT, it was a fun experience none the less. It was enjoyable to spend the afternoon with Ambrose, to hear more about his past, and talk about his interests. Being able to do little things like going shoe shopping, or to dentist appointments are the things that I love, because it gives me a chance to learn more about these boys, and see how they are out in the world.
That night we celebrated Abrose’s birthday, and I would have to say that chocolate cake with chocolate icing and multi coloured stars was a big hit! Also, I would say that Ambrose was a big hit. He is probably the boy that everyone gets along with, and everyone appreciates! The boys had lots of good things to say about him, and in return he spoke in thanks to many of them.
Each time there is a birthday, the boys talk about how thankful they are to have their birthday be a special day. So far each of them has said that this is the first time anything has been done for their birthday. The look on their faces with their friends are talking about them, and when they get to say their part is priceless. (And I’m sure getting a cake every time there is a birthday is definitely a pretty big catch to their enjoying eachothers special day). Lol.
Anyways, that was Saturday. Another boy well celebrated. I am happy.
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