As I am writing this the house is shaking…and I actually do mean shaking from rain, thunder and lightening….I woke up to the sound of rain beating the roof…I can’t even explain to you how loud it was…it was literally pounding in my ears. I woke up in a haze..and could instantly feel water coming through my mosquito net…the room was flashing with lightening. I quickly unplugged everything in the outlet under the window and pulled my bed away from the wall as the rain rushed through the window….about this time the power went out…which just added to the eeriness of it all…I turned on my computer so that I could get some light from the screen, and decided to check out the rest of the house. About 3 steps out of my door I realized what a chicken I truly am..i felt like I was in my own horror movie…house all to myself…the light coming in and out of focus between flashes of lightening….the rain pounding so loudly on the metal roof that I could barely hear myself think..all I needed was to see the shadow of our guard and I knew that that would be the end of my sanity…so I quickly retreated back into my bedroom. I reacessed the situation at the window and decided that I would be best off to crawl back in under my mosquito net with my laptop and start typing…before doing this though I realized that I needed to have some human contact so that I didn’t feel so alone. After texting with Henry for awhile I am now fine. For the most part being in this house alone at night has never been an issue. I have always felt very safe, and never really alone. (it helps that the boys don’t generally go to bed until 1145 and get up at 7…J But tonight that was a whole different story….being in this huge house all alone was rather terrifying. Good thing I haven’t watched many (if any) scary movies or I’m sure getting back to sleep tonight would be much more difficult.
Anyways, I might as well take this time to keep you updated about my day. Lets see….it started off like every day does…up at 7 to unlock the doors so that the boys who are incharge of breakfast can get in, as well as anyone else who is an early riser and wants in the house. I take the bread and sugar from my room designated for breakfast, set it in the Kitchen, and then I crawl back into bed for another 45 minutes of rest. At about 745 I finally convince myself to get out of bed and prepare myself for the day. Once I’m up and about I go out into the house and greet any of the boys who are around, open the curtains, reorganize the sitting room and then sit down for breakfast…which is tea (cocoa, sugar and hot water) and 2 slices of plain bread..yum..? A friend from the States (Frank) so nicely brought me a French press (probably the best gift I’ve received out here!) so often one of the boys will prepare coffee for Henry and myself. Lately I’ve been adding some yogart to my mornings so that I am guaranteed some sort of protein. I’ve been trying to read my bible with breakfast (btw breakfast is a come and go ordeal…everyone takes it at their own time..as long as it is before 9am). Reading my bible with breakfast has led to many interesting conversations with different boys..and I want to try to be a role model to them about the importance of daily reading the word.
After breakfast I meet with the 2 boys who are incharge of cooking for the day (let me back up…each boy has a partner and a different job for each day of the week…so one day they are incharge of cooking, the next mopping the house, latrines, shopping, picking up/taking out the garbage, etc). Anyways, I come up with a list of what the ‘cookers’ want to make for lunch and supper, and then give the list to the shoppers who go and buy the food for the day. The market is just down the road, and with so many boys in the house, it is easiest to just buy much of the food daily. Although things like posho, beans and rice are bought in bulk and last for many weeks.
Many of the boys do their laundry in the morning as well. Its actually kinda impressive. Often times I will wake up and look out the front door and 2 or 3 of them will be washing their clothes. After morning chores it is then time to revise. They are starting a new school this year due to moving, so they have to prepare for entrance tests. Recently I discovered that one of the boys who is now in P5 (basically grade 5) can’t read. And not even can’t read…but he also barely recognizes the alphabet. Together we have decided that we are going to spend 2 hours a day working on his English. The problem (ok well one of the many) of growing up on the streets is that it means that you went to school off and on through out your entire childhood. Often the foundation of everything you need to learn (like ABC’s and 123’s) are not properly learned, or even well taught. Many times a child will start a term, but then not have enough money for school fees and then they will never complete the term. BUT, when it comes to the next year they we go on to the next level, having missed huge pieces of learning. Depending on the school they will have enterance tests…but often they don’t…and then end up in the wrong class. Anyways, this morning I worked with Moses on a program I found on the internet the helps with sounding words out and spelling!
Today I was taking Michael out for lunch at Two Friends (a lovely restaurant in Jinja). Henry and I had taken another one of the boys out there before and he ordered a WHOLE Talapia fish….this is now the standard of all food…they all want a whole fish. Michael and I have been talking about going out to eat for about a month now..and different things keep coming up whenever we plan to go…so I was glad that it was finally happening. We headed into town on boda and arrived at the restaurant. It looked like it was about to rain as we arrived, but I figured we could wait it out while we ate. We ordered our food, him the whole fish, me a chicken burger. About 5 minutes later the waiter comes out and tells us that they are OUT of whole fish…lol. Needless to say we left..seeing as that was the whole point of going there with plans to come back another day. We went into town instead and grabbed a rollex off of the street and headed to meet Henry at the Keep. Just as we got on a boda it began to POUR!!! He pulled into a gas station under a little pavilion and the heavens let loose. This time it was with huge pellets of hail…it was actually kinda fun being stuck out in the middle of a hail storm with a boda who barely spoke and English..and Michael…we even took some picturesJ About 10 minutes after is started, it let up enough for us to take a still very wet ride through the streets to The keep.
After the keep we went out in search for chocolate cake mix. I have done searches like this before..but for some reason today it was a impossible task. After about 5 shops, all carrying either NO cake mix…or only strawberry or orange cake mix…we finally came across a vanilla cake mix which we decided to just add coco to. Shortly after that we were on our way back to Bukaya.
So back to the school situation…while I was in town I was noticing that there were many children in different school uniforms around….Let me explain something to you…here, school seems to start at any given time…this term, because there are elections taking place in the middle of February it turns out that some schools are starting early…meaning we had missed the first day of school. Being the Muzungu that I am..this seemed to me like a really big deal…When I got home I was on a mission to figure out what was going on with the school we were looking at going to. Alex and I talked to the boys, and then headed out to St.Patrick’s Primary School to find out what was going on. When we arrived we noticed that there were no children there…and only a handful of people to be seen. We were immediately escorted into the Head Masters office where we learned what was going on. Techinically, school has started…but people were not well informed, and so many students were not prepared for school, as well as many parents do not yet have the money to pay for their children’s school fees. Why do I worry about things like this..to me (and I’m thinking many white people), not being enrolled/missing the first day of school seems like a big deal…here…its just the way it is…..i need to calm down…lol.
Afternoons/early evenings are the most relaxing at The Sanctuary. Most of the boys are out playing football or in their room reading….so this is my chance to get some office work done…or even email! (and if I’m really lucky..blog J)Around 7-730 they all start to trickle home and whoever is on supper starts preparing the meal (yes…930pm is a normal time to have supper here…:S). After supper is more revising, listening to music, and for me working with Moses on his reading. After the I’m done with Moses I spend some time with the rest of the boys in the house…and then kick them out so that I can get some sleep (usually this is around 1130pm).
And that’s a day in the life of Melissa at The Sanctuary….although its never really the same…that is atleast a general idea of what its like. And, if I haven’t mentioned it earlier…I love it! Yes its insanely busy, yes its tiring, yes at times the boys make me SOOO VERY frustrated…but despite all of the not so fun parts…there is no where else I would rather be right now.
No comments:
Post a Comment