Post-Christmas Blog

29 Dec 2010 1 Comment

by danrennt98 in Uncategorized

Merry Christmas Everyone!!! And Happy New Year soon!

So, I just posted how I was before Christmas.. and now let me tell you about my Ugandan Christmas and my first Christmas away from home.

But.. you should also read Anna’s blog about the Christmas preparations before my arrival and there’s some pictures on there of me and the kids at her place that I don’t have:

http://missannuganda.blogspot.com/2010/12/christmas-eve.html

Anyways, I wasn’t really as excited for Christmas this year, mostly because of the weather and the lack of Christmas spirit/decorations here. People here don’t decorate and I doubt that they could afford to even if they wanted to. The fact that it’s 70-80 degrees everyday doesn’t really make me feel like Christmas time and when I’m listening to Jingle Bells in that heat, well, it just seems silly. I opted to join my good friend Anna at her place in Nkokonjeru (shortly out of Kampala, closer to the Lake, the name of the town literally means White Chicken) as opposed to traveling to Masaka, where a bunch of volunteers spent Christmas together. And it was a wonderful decision indeed! I had a spectacular Christmas.

So, I arrived on Friday morning in Nkokonjeru and realized that I didn’t get any cell service on my new cell phone number/provider there, so I had to switch and take the sim card out of my internet modem in order to call her to tell her I was there and to talk to my family on Christmas Day. I did this all as about 15 children watched my every move in front of a store there. I soon met up with Anna, whom I was incredibly happy to see, and she took me to here house which is in the compound of the Nkokonjeru Providence Home for the Disabled. The Providence home usually has about 110 children, but there was only about 45 there at the time, as many had gone home for the holidays. Then, there were also about 15-20 elderly/older people that are also disabled that live there as well. The home is also a convent for nuns, who run the place, and nearby is their church and a home for retired nuns, as well as a church. So, as I entered I met some of the nuns, some of the kids and elderly, all of whom are wonderful and nice. I was in a Luganda speaking area, and when a few of them caught on that I spoke Lusoga, not Luganda, they greeted me in Lusoga which was really nice and made me feel at home.

She showed me to her house and where I put my stuff down and hung out for a while. Then, she showed me around the compound. There’s a girls dormitory, boys dormitory, all the elderly have their own little “townhouses”, a main hall, a workshop for sewing, the sister’s convent, and some other buildings as well. The place is really remarkable and the kids that are less disabled take care of the ones who can’t do too much and really help each other out. The sisters feed them some meals, but they also can cook for themselves and take care of their dorms. Which I found really great. She took me to the bakery, when they earn some income by selling loaves of bread, and where I found two other muzugus with delicious cakes. One muzungu staying there is Chris, who used be a Peace Corps volunteer there before Anna, about 5 years ago. She had just come to visit and help out for a few months. Chris is wonderful and I was sharing a room with her and here I actually had a bed to sleep in. And I also met Dulcie, who is from the UK and has been traveling around with her BF Nate for 18 months, spending some time in India, Malawi and Tanzania and will be staying at the Providence home until April. These two were wonderful and the 5 of us spent a lot of time together and had a blast!

So, we had a delicious lunch with the nuns and a delicious dinner at home.  Better than I cook for myself, because cooking a huge meal for myself, which I can’t save for later just doesn’t make much sense to me. Then, we made some drinks, mostly gin and fresh passion fruit juice and enjoyed the rest of the night talking and getting to know each other and sharing stories. Anna and Nate went to Midnight Mass, while Chris, Dulce and our Ugandan friend (Matogo — I forget his name) hung out for a while.

Christmas Day — when we woke up it was POURING RAIN. From about 9 am to 1 pm it was raining so hard. It was then that I realized just how much hotter and drier it was in Kamuli compared to there, which is ridiculous because the distance between Kamuli and Nkokoneju is like from Cape May to NYC and the climate is very different. We had pancakes and omelets (real omelets with gouda cheese! mmm) for breakfast and then started wrapping Christmas gifts for the kids and elderly. The last volunteer left some money here to buy gifts and food for Christmas day. Each of the older people got one small gift of their request (a thermos, shoes, etc.) and a goodie bag of candy and toothpaste. The kids either got bouncy balls, cloth bags, coloring books, bubbles, a radio, and all got some candy. Once it stopped raining we went down to the main hall, which we had decorated the day before. We were like Santa Clauses for the kids! Because we had the bags of presents, bags of ballons, and when we came, shortly after all the food started pouring in that the nuns had prepared.. There was matooke (of course), lots of chicken, beef, pork, potatoes, cabbage, bananas, pineapple, and sodas. This was a special treat for the kids as well as us, even though we ate such a big breakfast 2 hours prior.

After lunch, we put all the presents under the Christmas tree and I took a picture of all the kids.

The Providence Family

This was a really happy moment and made me feel like a part of something this Christmas, and that I did something meaningful and every time I held up the camera everyone started cheering, which made it even better, especially cuz I had 3 cameras in my hands. I was taking pictures of everyone giving out gifts. And to see the smiles on everyone’s faces whether they got a pixy stick or a thermos for Christmas, they were all more than content. Then, they all paraded around showing their gifts and dancing to the music. So, we danced and played with them. And probably the most hilarious part was watching the nuns parading around on these bouncy balls:

Bouncing Ugandan Nuns

Chris and Designer dancing

One of the nicest ladies receiving her Christmas Gift

2 Kids Sharing their Christmas Treasures

So, later we proceeded to back to Anna’s place to have an amazing Christmas night. It was Anna, Chris, Motogo, Nate, Dulcie and Me, and we had so much fun. We played Kings and talked about the differences between British English and American English. And I haven’t laughed that hard in a while. Cards, broken glasses, beer, cheese, sausage, popcorn, laugher, vodka watermelon juice and music sums up a good portion of the night.

There was no cell service all day on Christmas, but the network finally started up around 11:30 pm Ugandan time and I was able to text my parents and tell them they could call then. So, it was great everyone was at dinner at my cousin’s house and I got to talk to everyone as they passed the phone around. So I was really grateful to talk to them on Christmas and was really jealous of their Christmas dinner and hearing them spending time together, but I was also very satisfied with my Christmas Day, having experienced something that many people will never in their lifetime and then sharing good times between people from across the world through the night.

But I did miss everyone at home and I hope everyone had a good Christmas. Stephanie also called me on Christmas Eve and I got to talk with her and her mother, which is always funny. I’m glad she called on Christmas Eve because of the cell service and I probably would have gone with her to visit her family this time of year as well, so it made me feel like a part of home, and of course we had a hilarious conversation sharing funny stories about Uganda and East Windsor, NJ, two of the most ridiculous places this world has to offer.

Sunday was a relaxing day of cleaning, eating cake, making dinner, and popcorn. I decided to stay an extra day because I was having such a good time. We played Phase 10, which is a tiring game similar to Uno, and then Quiddler a word card game, not unlike scrabble. Some inside jokes were developed after I tried to use the word “Clel” during the first round. Then left Monday morning, spent some time in Jinja and now am home back in Kamuli! These two days at work were fairly lazy. I had screens installed in my windows yesterday finally, even though the carpenters made a huge mess. I’m not sure why they even bothered to measure the windows because the screen “holder” they hammered around the window area is about 1 ft. too big on each side. But such is Uganda. Tomorrow, I leave for Jinja to celebrate New Year’s, where I’ve organized three days of fun! Cheap Hotel tomorrow, nice hotel with a pool for New Year’s and overlooking the Nile/Lake Victoria with a restaurant, and then an island on the Nile with a private cottage for the 3^rd night. Then, back to Kamuli for a week or two to get back to regular life.

I really hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas, and I’ve been checking for packages every few days but I think Kampala is really overwhelmed with stuff. So I hope some of it gets there before we leave for In Service Training on the 13^th. But thanks to the Shrimpe’s and the Krupa’s for sending me Christmas Cards! They were a warm and welcoming reminder of home for the Holidays! Have a happy new year everyone! And I’ll post about my new year’s in Jinja upon my return sometime next week!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year with Love From Uganda,

Dan