Day 2: The Children

Sorry it has taken me so long to write about the second day of my trip. Yes i know right now I'm on day five! its crazy to believe we had been here for five days. any who the internet has been bad and thats why i have not blogged lately. So the second day. this day was all about the children. The  children of uganda have stolen my heart. So what we really did do today was go to see an entrepreneur. His name was patrick. we met him at his hotel. this hotel was an amazing five star hotel. You could tell he was a story teller. He enjoyed talking about his childhood and how he became successful. He also talked to us about Uganda's business world. Most of this talk was over my head since I'm not a business major... but i enjoyed afterwards talking to the employees and hearing about there job working under patrick. Next we went to the Martyrs shrine. This was a very interesting experience and i felt a bit uncomfortable being jewish during this visit. The shrine is in memory of the first Ugandan Christians who were killed by the Ugandan king at the time. The MUB students told us how they visit this sight every year on martyrs day. They go real emotional when we talked about it and visited the shrine. The highlight of this visit was going down to see what they consider “holy water”. At this pond there was a little boy. He looked to be about four. He was so cute. I waved to him and he came over. We took pictures with him and danced to the music that was playing. He was in love with the boys on our trip. He thought they were the coolest people ever. You could tell by the boys clothing and family that was near by that he was from a poor family. Yet you would have never have known it by his personality. He was rich in personality, smile and joy. He seem to have no worries in the world! He enjoyed trying on the boy’s sunglasses. He looked sad when he had to give them back. I remembered I had my NFTY sunglasses in my bag and put them on his head. His face lit up! He danced around with them. I got up to leave and he took them off his face and handed them to me. I put them back on his face to symbolize he got to keep them. He gave me a high five and dance some more. He was so excited! He made my day! When we went back to MUB I was able to get pictures with the junior soccer team. One of the girls looked so shock when I reached out my hand. She kept looking at my skin calling me mazungu. The next place we visited. Yes we did a lot in one day. Was the farm. This farm was in a village away from the city (kampala). When we first pulled up to the farm there were three little children playing on a blacket with there mother and grandmother. The MUB students asked to hold the children. After a while Rita (a MUB) student asked if I wanted to hold the baby. I was delighted. This little girls name was praise. She was adorable. Just sucking her thumb the whole time. She didn’t cry. Her older brother was at the age of stranger anxiety and didn’t want to be held. But myself and the other education major (mary) got to hold the twins praise and prince. (see pictures on fb!) praise was a sweetie!!! After holding praise and getting a tour of the dairy farm we went to the dean of MUBs for dinner. His house was past the farm and was gorgeous. He built it himself. His family prepared a wonderful meal for us. We were able to try Jack fruit (which I loved) and other fresh amazing fruits. This night was a great bonding experience. We played games with the MUB students and the deans children. We taught them American hand games and name games. I found out during this time that people in Uganda do not sit on the ground. I sat down on the ground not on a  blanket or chair and they all looked at me like I was crazy. They explained that no one sits on the ground. Religion was brought up during the night and one of the MUB students david commented on my earings. He asked if I spoke jewish. I told him yes I spoke Hebrew. He then asked me what religion I was. I told him I was jewish. He was amazed. I never thought of them as separate things. I always associated the language and religion together. He wanted to learn Hebrew words so I taught him the basics. The night was a blast! We stayed at the house very late!