THANK YOU!!!!!!
I would like to use this blog to thank some people.
First of all I would like to thank Henry, my parents, my parents-in-law and Louis and Beertje for taking care of Puk and all other family members and friends who supported me so I could go to Uganda.
Secondly I would like to thank all the people who gave me children’s wear before I went to Uganda so I could give this to the children of the project. I did not know beforehand that they really needed the clothes that much. If I had taken 10 extra bags instead of 1 extra bag, they would be able to use it and it would be all spend well too. The Agape project was really grateful and the kids kept on thanking me!
Of course I would also like to thank all the people who were so generous to give me money so I could help the center. I was able to buy a lot of school supplies and crafts materials, which will help them to continue with the structure I have implemented. I wish I could show you the face of Innocent when I gave her all the supplies. She was so happy and grateful, it gives them the opportunity to offer lessons and activities to a larger group of kids for a longer period of time.
And I want to thank Agape World Ministries to offer me the opportunity to do my volunteer work there, all the people who work there but especially Innocent with who I worked closely and for who I have a lot of respect. And last but not least all the kids of Agape, for opening their hearts to me and letting me in, trusting me and showing me that you can find happiness in the small things in life if you look closely.
I would also like to thank the other volunteers in the Doingoood house, especially Marloes and Ariane, because of them my time in Uganda was even better. We had a lot of fun and some good conversations. We shared some great experiences, which I will never forget.
Last but not least I would like to thank Doingoood for making this all possible and then especially the local coordinator in Kampala; Inge, who was there for all our questions and as a support mechanism.
To all of you THANK YOU!!! It was a great experience, for me it was a dream come true and I will never forget all of this.
Lots of love, Jennita.
Weekend Jinja.
The four weeks Uganda are coming to an end. On Thursday and Friday I did some groceryshopping for my final day at the project, Monday the 29th. It is going to be hard to say goodbye to al the kids and to this amazing project, they really make a difference in a lot of lives!
But I also wanted to celebrate my last weekend here with Marloes and Ariane, in this short time here we became good friends. We decided to go to Jinja. Marloes wanted to go rafting and she has been trying to convince me from day one. I was a little bit scared to go rafting to be honest, but on the other hand, rafting on the Nile is one of the top 5 things to do in Uganda, so we decided to go. Our pick-up place for the shuttle bus to Jinja was the Nakumatt mall and we had to be there at 7am, which meant that we had to be on a boda at 6:30 on a Saturday morning….
When we arrived in Jinja at the Nile River Explorer we got a nice breakfast and some coffee while the crew explained the program of that day. Then we took some sort of truck to the start. There is nothing really I can say about rafting, you just have to take a look at the pictures. It was probably one of the most terrifying, horrible, fantastic, thrilling, exciting, mind-blowing things I have ever done. Halfway our 35km raft we had our lunch on the water, one of the kayaks was put upside down on the safety boat (the boat for the people who were afraid or injured) and was used as a table to chop the pineapples, just amazing. While enjoying our lunch we could also take a swim in the Nile and enjoy the beautiful surroundings but we also realized that we were not the only ones swimming there, crocodiles do live there too. Luckily we did not see one, we only saw a gigantic lizard on a rock. About 5 hours later we arrived at the end, where a buffet was waiting for us and men we were hungry. We enjoyed the good food and a nice drink and then it was time to go already. We went to the Explorers River Camp where we were spending our night. On the way there we already had a big party in our truck with a lot of beer and very loud Americans. The party went on at the campsite with music and more liquor. We were having the time of our lives; this was the first time here in Uganda we could party. Up till now it was all very goody-goody. It is not advised to be out after dark and it gets dark here at 7 already. We only went out for dinner once a week with all the volunteers and the coordinator but the rest of the week we are all in bed before 11pm. So we were definitely ready for some fun and dancing. It was a great night; we had a lot of fun observing other people. The best part was noticing all the new couples that were made that evening…. A lot of mzungu women who completely fell for the African men. We almost felt ashamed to see how easy and desperate some white women were, but it was fun to watch. But the evening came to an end, the music stopped, the bar was closed so there was nothing else to do then go to bed.
The next morning I was the first one to be awake and I decided not to waste any time, now I am almost leaving and I ordered a nice breakfast and enjoyed the view over the Nile. While sitting there the geckos were walking around me it was amazing. After a long and good breakfast and reading a book at this beautiful place, we had a few hours to spend there before the shuttle bus would take us back to Kampala. We decided to relax and we lay in a hammock for a while, reading a book and enjoying the view. I also went for a walk to take in the beautiful surroundings while the other two were asleep in a hammock and on a couch (a little hung-over
Agape World Ministries.
Agape contains 4 stages.
Stage 1: outreach
Stage 2: the drop-in center
Stage 3: the home
Stage 4: resettlement
The outreach.
During an outreach social workers from the center go into the slums. Innocent does that and she takes Moses along, one of the older kids, who has been there from the start of the drop-in center. Moses knows a lot of the kids in the street and they listen to him and then he takes them to Innocent who tries to convince them to come to the drop-in center.
Life in the slums is not easy. The kids work to survive. They collect plastic (bottles) and metal and they sell it to a guy in the streets and they get some money for it, which enables them to buy food. They sleep wherever they can. To get through the day and to just forget a lot of them use drugs. They sniff a blend of kerosene (yes the stuff plains fly on, but here they use it for kerosene lamps and you can buy it everywhere and it is cheap) and glue. Kids live in the streets for all kind of reasons, for instance both parents died (in the war of from HIV/aids), the father died or the parents got divorced and the new man in moms live doesn’t want to raise the kids from another father, kids are beaten at home, or they have alcoholic parent(s) or both and they just ran away.
I went along with two outreaches and it is hard to see. Most kids we saw, have been in the center before and we just pursued them to go to the center instead of hanging on the streets, but most kids have to walk quite far to the center and they just hang in the street and do not always feel like coming. They just play soccer, hang around in video halls and play pool at outside pool tables or they work. But we also ‘found’ new kids, they hardly speak any English and they walk around in torn and very dirty clothes. Innocent talks to them and tells them what the drop-in center offers the kids and most of the times they come along. One of the times I went along on an outreach, three new kids walked with us to the center.
The drop-in center.
When a new kid arrives at the drop-in center the kid first gets a bath and then he gets new clothes. After this Innocent tries to get as much information out of the kid as possible regarding his living situation, how he ended up on the street and his family. She will have this conversation about three times in a few weeks and if the story is consistent she puts it in the file of the kid. Agape needs as much information as possible if they are going to resettle the kid. In the drop-in center they get food, lessons and (craft) activities. They also get the chance to bath and to wash their clothes. If they take the program seriously and if the staff thinks the kid is a ready to move on and if there is space the kid will move into the home.
The boys-home.
Around 15 boys are living in the home. They are there 24/7. The home is their family. The teacher lives on the premises and the ‘mother’ of all the boys, who cooks and cares for the kids also lives there with her own son and daughter. Also Philip one of the social workers lives there and is responsible for the boys 24/7. At the home they have normal classes and activities, the kids do duties and they go to church every Sunday. Agape teaches the boys values and they make sure they are ready to go back home and back to a regular school. The goal of Agape is to ‘resettle’ the boys back home or with other close family.
Resettlement.
When the boy is ready the resettlement takes place. The boy will go back to his parent(s) or close family. Agape offers the family a resettlement package, which contains a mattress, food, school supplies, a uniform for school and money for school fees amongst other things.
Sometimes there is no family and then Agape stays their home, but the older boys usually go to a boarding school then (for instance to the school of mechanics) and they are only at the home during holidays. Agape pays for their school fees. When the boy has a diploma and a job, they are on their own.
Drop-in center.
A few months ago Agape started the drop-in center for street kids. The volunteers who were there before me did a wonderful job together with the kids of fixing up the place. Innocent is responsible for the drop-in center and I have a lot of respect for her. In the first two weeks I was there I have been observing the place and I tried to help wherever I could. I have also been on an outreach (I will tell you more about an outreach in another blog) twice.
The drop-in is there to offer the kids from the street some education and other skills and a lunch. But I had noticed very quickly that most kids only showed up for lunch or a little bit before that. The first days I was there there were only about five/six kids at the time I arrived (from who two live in the drop-in center and two young kids from the neighborhood). At around 11 am the kids slowly started to come in. Sometimes there was a lesson, sometimes they offered craft and sometimes they just played soccer outside.
During the outreaches I asked Innocent how we could get the kids to come earlier. Innocent said that we needed a pull factor but she did not really know what.
So I thought about it a lot. For me it was quite obvious that they needed some structure in there. Kids need to know what they can expect when they come, but just structured lesson times would not
get them to come earlier I was afraid. But it was also clear to me that food was the biggest pull factor. The biggest number of kids was always achieved around lunchtime.
So I made a plan, which starts with offering them breakfast and then after breakfast a structure up till lunch to keep the kids there all morning. (Around 2/3 pm the kids always go back to the
streets to make money and to find a place to spend the night). I first discussed this plan with Innocent and Philip (another social worker who works in both the drop-in center and the home) and
both of them were really enthusiastic and thought it could work. After that I spoke with the ‘big boss’ of the center and the home and he said that I could give it a try. But Agape is completely
reliable of funding and money of course is always an issue. So I offered to pay for it the first weeks to see if it would work and that he could try to realize the funding in these two weeks to
guarantee the proceeding of the program after I leave. He agreed and promised me that if it would work well he would make sure he would arrange the money for the breakfast.
So that is when I started. Monday the 15th we offered breakfast for the first time. The Friday before, we informed the kids and we told them to be there between 9 and 10 am to get breakfast, after 10 they do not get breakfast anymore. Innocent said to me that they would arrange black tea with sugar for every kid and I would buy the buns.
That Monday the 15th there were about 18 (!!) kids when I came at 9am. And the number increased up till 25. During this week the numbers of kids kept on increasing and this morning there were 48 (!!!) kids. This means the plan is definitely working and we are all very enthusiastic. It also means that the social workers there and we as volunteers need to be creative in offering them all lessons on there own level and offering them interesting crafts lessons and they need enough material. But luckily I got some really generous gifts from you back home who responded to my request to help me, help the center, which enables me to buy a lot of material for the coming months. So THANKS to everyone who was so generous to help me, help the center.
Last week I started together with Moses, one of the older kids who is there from the beginning, to paint the structure on the wall in the center so it is clear for all the kids and Moses finished it while I was on safari, he did a great job!!! (See pictures)
I am proud, to be honest, to see my plan has worked up till now. The kids are getting lessons every day now and every day there is an (craft) activity organized. I hope it will keep on being successful and that they will keep the structure of the day even when I am gone next week. But there are other volunteers who will be there longer then me and they will keep me updated.
Murchison Falls National Park.
Picture this:
‘The alarm goes off at 5:45 in the morning. You take a quick shower, pick up your packed breakfast and you step into the van and drive to the Nile. At the Nile you witness a beautiful sunrise with the hippos greeting you from the water. It is the most amazing thing you ever saw. After crossing the Nile the baboons are there waiting to welcome you. Then you drive with the van into the North side of the park and within 30 minutes you see elephants and giraffes within no more then 15 meters of distance’.
This really happened to me and it only got better, so take a look at my pictures and you will be amazed!
(read the comments with the pictures for more info
A weekend of opposites.
This was truly a weekend of extreme opposites. To start with the weather, the weather this weekend was fantastic!!! Opposite to what we have had, with the heavy rain showers we had a week before. This weekend there was no rain at all only hot burning sunshine.
But the biggest contrast for me this weekend was the difference between the poor and the rich. On Saturday, Marloes and I decided to take a relax day after a week of hard work. We took a boda and went to a resort, we did not really know what to expect but it exceeded our expectations; it was beautiful; a really nice big pool surrounded with palm trees and stretcher beds and a bar. As soon as we walked in, there was somebody to guide us to our stretchers and he made sure there were some pillows on there. We were treated as royals. We had a swim, ate a delicious lunch (a relief after the daily lunch of beans and rice at the project) and a few drinks. It was so relaxing, but we kind of felt guilty too. I have been to all-inclusive resorts before when I was on holiday and it felt normal then, but now knowing how life is as soon as you walk out of the gate and living that life now on a daily basis it just felt weird. So we had some mixed feelings but we did really enjoyed our day of luxury.
On Sunday we did a hike. In order to reach the peninsula where the hike was, we took a boat and crossed a part of the Victoria Lake. The surroundings there were beautiful, this was really back to basic here and definitely the complete opposite of the luxury of the day before. We walked 14 kilometers up and downhill, on rough dirt roads in the burning sun and there was no swimming pool to dive in and cool off. But the hike was beautiful! The people who live there hardly ever see white people and as soon as they saw us, the kids came running and shouting ‘Hi mzungu’ and ‘Bye mzungu’ (mzungu means white man) and they wanted us to take pictures of them and then we had to show the picture to them. Our guide told us that when he first did this tour and the locals saw the mzungus the locals started screaming and running, they were afraid the white people came to take their land. But now they know that once every two months a hike is organized through their village and that we are only there to walk and look around.
All in all, it was a great weekend despite or perhaps thanks to the big contrasts. The pictures will make it all clear
(pictures will follow later because uploading them will cost loads of time and I need WIFI for that, so hopefully tomorrow or Tuesday)
message copied from Facebook
Beste familie, vrienden en bekenden,
Hier ben ik alweer. Na een week in Uganda geweest te zijn wil ik meer doen dan alleen 4 weken een handje helpen. Een aantal van jullie had dit natuurlijk al van ver zien aankomen, maar hoewel ik
natuurlijk wel zou willen, beloof ik dat ik geen 1 van deze fantastische kinderen mee naar huis neem. (ook al zijn er nu al een aantal die ik nooit meer ga vergeten en nu al een speciaal plekje in
mijn hart hebben, omdat ze hun verhaal met mij hebben willen delen).
Maar wel wil ik graag iets achter laten. Ze kunnen echt zoveel zaken goed gebruiken, morgen ga ik mijn tas met kleren verdelen zodat er een gedeelte naar het Agape drop-in center kan en een
gedeelte naar het Agape home, het is hier super welkom. Dus van een ieder die mij kleren heeft gegeven: super bedankt!! Ze zijn echt zo dankbaar en blij. Maar ik zou graag meer willen doen,
schoolspullen aanschaffen, knutselspullen etc. Dit kan ik hier allemaal prima kopen, maar nu dan toch mijn vraag: wie wil mij hiermee helpen? Als je een paar euro kunt missen en dit fantastiche
doel wilt steunen stuur mij dan even een prive bericht of stuur mij een emailtje (jennitatroost@hotmail.com), zodat ik je mijn bankrekeningnummer kan geven om het op over te maken.
Voor meer info over Agape (mijn project) kijk op de facebookpagina van Agape World Ministries. Of kijk op de site van Doingoood ( http://www.vrijwilligerswerk-afrika.nl/projecten/agape_ministries), ook daar kun je informatie
vinden. Ook zet ik 1 dezer dagen een uitgebreid stuk over wat Agape nu eigenlijk doet en inhoudt op mijn blog.
Over 3 weken ga ik alweer naar huis en zou dan ook graag de spullen willen aanschaffen en geven in de week van 22 - 26 september. Ik zie jullie reacties graag tegemoet.
Groetjes vanuit een zonnig en regenachtig Kampala!
A regular day at work.
My alarm goes off at 7:30 am, I jump out of my bed right away (to the contrary of how I wake up at home and snooze about 3 or 4 times). I take a shower (a cold one 80% of the time) and I have my breakfast, toast with jam and coffee. (without my smoke, because as most of you know I smoked my last one the evening before I left to Uganda).
Then I get my bag and my helmet and leave the compound. Usually a boda boda driver is there really quick and I negotiate the price of the drive to the drop-in center and off we go. Usually I arrive at my project around 9am. The boys drop in slowly but steadily. Today I presented the social workers of the home with my plan to get them in earlier and to bring more structure. They were very enthusiastic and we will present the plan to the ‘big boss’ to see if we can put it in practice next week. As soon as the boys are there I can do whatever I propose and want to do with them, they do crafts and they get lessons. The hardest thing is that they are all on a completely different level. But I like to practice English with them and I offer them games. Today we practiced the alphabet, the numbers 1-50, days of the week, parts of the body, colors and reading time. Some of the boys only did one part and some did all, but it was nice to see that a few of them are really committed and eager to learn.
Around 12:30/1:00 pm the boys at the drop-in center get lunch and I take off. I always say to them before I leave “I hope to see you tomorrow” in the hope they will come the next day, because they do not always come, sometimes they just stay at the streets.
Again I take a boda and go the Agape home. As soon as I arrive at the home one of the kids brings me my lunch, which is so sweet, I hardly have time to put my bag and my helmet in the office. At the home the boys are always so happy to see me, it is touching. I get a handshake, a box or a hug
At around 4/4:30 I leave the home and usually I go for a drink somewhere with one or more of the other volunteers with who I live with in the Doingoood house to a place which also offers free WIFI
Then we get some groceries for dinner and we have dinner together and after dinner I usually take an hour or two to prepare things for the next day at my project and if I still have some energy left I try to write my blog.
Then off to bed because the next day my alarm goes off at 7:30am.
