Friday, June 20th

Last night, we slept at a hotel as we were still far away from Kampala where we are staying. Not your normal hotel, but a hotel. Luke and I shared a small room, had a bathroom and a bed and one working light. When we woke up and ate, we saw the beautiful scenery that we hadn’t noticed the night before as it was dark when we got in. We were actually right on the beach of a huge lake in Uganda. We could see the mountains in Kenya on the other side of the lake. We ate breakfast and then went back out visiting families. What an emotional roller coaster today. We visited a 17 year old who had lost both parents last year to aids. He was now caring for his 5 bothers and sisters. He was still very sad at the loss of his parents and having to grow up so quickly to be the caretaker of his younger siblings. It was sad to see the younger child (had to be less than 2 years old) was sick. Most likely with aids as his mom had just recently died of aids and had aids during this child’s birth. Also sad to see that literally about 10 yards from the house that this family lived in was the grave of their parents. They don’t really have any graveyards around there, so when someone dies, they are buried right on their own land.

While we were there, I noticed a young girl being held by her older sister and this little girl was obviously very sick. Luke and I found ourselves with the opportunity to give the little girl’s mom some money to transport the girl to the doctor, get checked and treated. I know the little girl was sick. I felt her and she was burning up. Amazing to realize that this family simply was not in a position to do anything for the little girl as they did not have any money to see about getting her treatment. She was just out with the other kids hanging out. It was great to be in a position to provide assistance on the spot. The mother was extremely grateful. She bowed down as she accepted the money from us. It is a typical tradition for them to bow down to others to honor them. A little uncomfortable, but I had been told about this and that we should not try to tell them not to bow down as that would be an insult.


Next we were off to visit another family that was not sponsored yet. We met a big family. Not sure how many children, but a lot. Another case where the children were cared for by the grandparents. We gave them some water while we were there and these kids drank that water like they had not had water for some time. We asked them how often they ate a good meal. Answer, almost as expected, was that they really do not eat good meals at all. They have one meal a day – dinner with whatever they can pull together. Their mode like many others is simply – survival. Their circumstances moved a number in the group and we were able to give them some money on the spot to hold them over while we hopefully get then a monthly sponsor soon.

While we were there, we were introduced to Rose. I will put her story in another post as it is a story unto itself.

Lastly, these children love seeing their pictures after you take them. It is so cool to see their faces light up when they see their pictures. They don't have mirrors so they really don't see themselves much. When they see their own pictures, then usually give a big smile or act embarrassed, but it is a lot of fun.

First picture, Luke and Gene outside a typical hut/home. Second picture, Luke getting hug from the grandmother I wrote about above.