Music For Life, cont.

Music For Life

We were lucky enough to have the opportunity to visit Music For Life, a boarding school that is home to the African Children's Choir. Music For Life has recently moved to a brand-new campus outside of Kampala. We were given a warm welcome that included a performance!

Classroom buildings

View of the lake from the main assembly hall

Next-- videos of the performance!

Backing up

It's so weird to be back... now that I don't have a job, an internship, or class! Clearly, I have plenty of time on my hands to go through pictures and process the pieces of this trip that we did have. I do want to document more of what we did while it's still fresh in my mind. It was definitely an amazing experience, and it gave us all a taste of what it would have been like to spend the full 4 weeks in Uganda. Also, a few people have let me know that they weren't able to comment without a Google ID-- I have changed the comment settings so anyone should be able to comment now.

One of the agencies we were able to visit was ANPPCAN (African Network for Prevention and Protection Against Child Abuse and Neglect). ANPPCAN works to prevent the physical, sexual and emotional abuse of children throughout Uganda. In addition to the types of abuse we are familiar with here, the agency deals with practices such as child sacrifice and genital mutilation. The agency is able to collaborate with police, providing education and a greater capacity for child protection.

One of the things that really stood about about this agency and many of the others we visited was that they seem to get right to the root of the problem. In many ways, they seem to do a better job than we do here in the US of dealing with various social issues and providing services-- and with far more limited resources.

Many of the posters, brochures and other public service materials that we saw in agencies and in the city were much more direct and clear than similar materials in the US. A few posters in the ANPPCAN office:

Updates

What a sad turn this trip has taken. Making it especially frustrating is the discrepancy between how things seem here in the country, and how the situation is portrayed in US news outlets. Things are really fine here.

However, that's irrelevant at this point... we have new plane tickets and will be leaving Kampala on Tuesday. We'll arrive home on Wednesday after about 24 hours of traveling.

The good news is that Simmons has approved our scheduled safari for this weekend. We leave tomorrow morning. Lots of pics and more discussion of the end of our trip to come soon.

Cancelled

So, Simmons has cancelled the remainder of our trip. We have received the college's official decision that the course is no longer being conducted here, and we are all under instruction to return to Boston as soon as possible. In Boston, Hugo is supposed to figure out how to teach the rest of the course there.

I am so incredibly disappointed. I can't believe this is happening. We just got off of a conference call with someone from Simmons, relating our frustration and trying to figure out if there's any way to continue part of this.

This just absolutely sucks on so many levels.

Babies, continued

Babies!

dinner at Four Corners after our first full day in Kampala
Annie, Meghan, Sarah, Meghan

Meghan, Nathan, Ann, Annie

The ladies on the trip decked out to go into the mosque (men taking the picture)

Drums and other goodies at the craft fair

Uganda in pictures

Mosquito nets around the beds
(though we have a/c so not sure how much they're for show)

View from the cafe into the hotel courtyard

Another angle

Setting up for a wedding by the pool at the hotel. I didn't take any pictures later when it was actually time for the event, but it was gorgeous.

The first few days in Kampala

I'm fine. Nobody in our group was anywhere near the bombs that went off last night. (If you haven't heard about it, click here for an NPR article.) We didn't hear anything last night, and first found out what had happened when we got phone calls around 4am to make sure that everyone was accounted for. Hugo and Simmons wanted to confirm that everyone was safe and okay. We had been planning to go out at 5:45am for our first agency visit (a breakfast club serving orphans nearby) but decided to postpone so as not to travel in the dark while assessing the situation.

By 8:30, it was clear that things in Kampala were proceeding as usual. We were given the go-ahead to continue with our next agency visit-- the Foundation for Human Rights Initiative (FHRI), which works on human rights causes in Uganda. We also visited AIDS Widows Orphans Family Support (AWOFS), which provides a variety of services: counseling, microfinance lending, academic support, education and testing around HIV/AIDS and other STDs, etc. AWOFS provides services specifically to children who have been orphaned by AIDS, and to parents who have lost a spouse to the disease. These organizations were both really interesting, but I'm especially interested in working more with AWOFS.

After that, we visited the Babies' Home, which is an orphanage for children under the age of 6 who have been orphaned (mostly by AIDS). It was both wonderful and heartbreaking. The older kids were in classes when we were there, but the babies (probably up to a little over a year in age) were so excited to see us. We spent about an hour and a half holding and playing with the babies. The orphanage was sparsely furnished, with somewhat crowded little bedrooms. We spent time with the babies out in the yard. One thing that was striking was that there were almost no toys there. We are planning to go and get some to bring over the next time we're there.

I held a little girl named Gift for most of the time we were there-- she was probably around 9 or 10 months old. She found some beads in the grass and was really interested in trying to put them down my shirt. She was also excited about my camera. She fell asleep after a little while and stayed asleep until one of the volunteers came to get her for her bath. I also held a tiny little boy for awhile-- he was probably around 3 months old and hardly weighed anything. We helped the staff and volunteers get the babies ready for bathtime, and then headed out. Of course, when we put the babies down, they began screaming. It was so hard to walk away!

Kampala has been great to far, although this weekend has felt more like vacation than anything else. We have been able to get oriented to the city and unpack. Yesterday we went on a driving tour of Kampala, and visited an amazing mosque. We also stopped at a Catholic church and a Protestant church. Later in the day we went to a craft fair-- it was booth after booth of amazing things. In the afternoon, we went to a nearby resort to swim and relax. It was beautiful but so luxurious it was bizarre (considering where we are).

I've been so excited to start the actual work today, so it's too bad that last night's bombings have put a damper on things. I'll post when we hear any more news about the situation.

The internet is pretty slow at the moment, so I'll put some pictures in a separate post.

London pictures, continued

Big Ben

afternoon tea on the South Bank

Sally, me and Kara in the London Eye

At the top of the Eye... super high up!!

London pictures

Kara and I in a phone booth

Abraham Lincoln in London?





Westminster Abbey

More London, and another missed flight

Sally had to go home on Wednesday night, but Kara and I continued sightseeing on Thursday. We covered a lot of ground in the morning: we walked up ALL of the stairs at St. Paul's Cathedral, fought the crowds to see the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace, and then went over the London Bridge to have lunch with SUE TICQUET!

Sue was in charge of the Counselor-in-Training program at Pleasant Valley when I was 15, in 1997. She's been living in England and South Africa, though, so we haven't seen each other in 11 years! I actually thought that Sue was still in South Africa, and only realized she was in London and got in touch the night before. She is exactly how I remember her, and I'm so glad we got to catch up!

After lunch, Kara and I walked back over the Thames on the Tower Bridge. We looked at the Tower of London from the outside, but decided that we didn't have time to go in since I had to get to the airport. We headed back to the hostel to pick up bags, and I got on an airport shuttle bus.

That's when things started to unravel. The ride was supposed to take about an hour (to Stansted, just outside of London in Essex). We ended up being stuck in horrendous rush hour traffic, all the way through the city and then all the way to the airport. I saw a few accidents, so that may have been part of it. In the end, it took us two hours and 40 minutes to get to Stansted. By the time we arrived, I had missed my flight to Amsterdam. I had realized that this would happen while on the bus, and figured that I could just take the next flight… but didn't realize that Stansted is such a small airport, many of the last flights of the day are around 7pm (when mine was). The next flight to Amsterdam wasn't until the following morning, and was scheduled to arrive there at 9:40…. An hour and 30 minutes before my flight to Uganda left! I was really nervous about this because I had to collect my luggage and go through customs and immigration, and then go back around to check in, check bags, go through security, etc. If I missed the flight on Friday to Uganda, the next one wouldn't be until Sunday. But, there was literally no other way to get to Amsterdam so I switched my ticket to that flight. I had the last available seat on the flight.

I stayed at a hotel at the airport for the night, and found out that many other people had also missed flights due to the traffic that afternoon. Apparently, every hotel in a fairly wide radius was fully booked—so I guess I was lucky to be able to get a room! Kara also ended up coming to Stansted on Thursday night, because she was scheduled to fly out early on Friday morning.

We were at the airport at 5:10am on Friday morning, and it was already packed. Every airline had enormous lines to check in. Luckily, I got onto my flight to Amsterdam without any more issues, besides having to pay a completely exorbitant baggage fee (which would have been avoided had I had more time in Amsterdam on Tuesday to store my bigger suitcase). Things in Amsterdam moved pretty quickly, and thankfully, I was able to make it to my gate before boarding began! I have never been so happy to be standing in a security line.

Next up… London pictures and the beginning of Uganda!

London

I made it to London! Getting here was unexpectedly rocky... I was scheduled to fly out of Boston at 5pm on Monday (yesterday), and arrive in Amsterdam early the next morning. Then I'd booked a cheap flight to London. Unfortunately, my flight out of Boston was delayed by SIX HOURS due to mechanical issues (always what you want to hear). They had to fly in a part, and then make repairs... hence the lengthy delay. So, needless to say, I missed my second flight and ended up having to book a new one from Amsterdam. AND lug my second huge suitcase here, which I'd been planning to store at the Amsterdam airport. That will teach me to book flights on discount airlines when coming from the US.

In any case, I eventually made my way to London yesterday afternoon and found Kara and Sally, who had traveled from Germany and outside of London, respectively. We checked into our hostel, which is pretty much an un-impressive college dorm, but very centrally located in Piccadilly Circus. We had dinner last night with Michaelagh and Harry, who just moved here from Edinborough-- what great timing! I'm lucky to be able to catch up with so many friends on this side of the pond.

Today, we slept later than planned... oops! But it certainly helped with the jet lag. We managed to see a lot despite the late start-- we walked all over London, had breakfast in Leicester Square, walked through Trafalgar Square, spent a long time doing the audio tour of Westminster Abbey (which was AMAZING), saw Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, crossed the Thames, had high tea on the South Bank, and went up in the London Eye. Also amazing, a little alarming at the top. We stopped by the National Gallery just before closing, too.

Tonight, when re-checking into the hostel (we had to change rooms), we opened the door to a floor full of makeup and the overpowering smell of nail polish remover. Literally, it looked like these girls had dumped their makeup bags out all over the floor, and smelled like they had been drinking the nail polish remover. There was even a hairbrush that had somehow made its way over to the door. I am pretty sure that Frida and Liesl will be out later than us tonight... hopefully they won't be too loud or we'll have to return the favor when we get up early tomorrow for more sightseeing.

We caught the World Cup game at dinner and then at a true English pub-- unfortunately for Kara, Germany lost. And while the restaurant had been full of Germany fans, we figured out quickly as the game ended that the bar was full of Spain fans. Kind of random, but a guy near us commented that Spain has never been in the World Cup, so I guess that's a good reason to be supportive.

I have lots of pictures... so many today that I exhausted my camera battery! But they'll have to wait since I don't have the cord right now.

I hear it's hot in Boston... hope everyone is managing to stay cool!