I'm walking toward the train station with Jon Tan. It's almost 12 am. My mind doesn't really know what to expect. Up to that point, I had been awake for more than 42 hours straight and I was getting kind of tired. The wind's blowing hard and I can't feel my toes or face. Icicles hang down from the overpass we walk under, waiting to fall down on some unsuspecting passerby. The orange glow of the street lamps reveals a deserted downtown New Brunswick. I jam my hands into my pockets to avoid the cold.
At the doorway, there's a black guy smoking. His name is Jerry and he has cerebral palsy. He says hi to Jon, and I introduce myself. We walk inside. He stays outside to finish his cigarette.
Carol is stooping over in the corner. She reeks of stale urine. Little tufts of blond hair peek out from under her worn out Disney World hat. The stains on her green jacket look greasy and the leather gloves on her hands look like they've been used for years. The scrubs she's wearing look too small on her round, overweight body. She's trying to pick up a half smoked cigarette off the pile of newspapers at her feet but can't because she can't bend over enough. Her folded walker is leaning on the wall next to her. She's mumbling something under breath.
In the other corner is Jr. He's 59 years old with a gray beard and clouded pupils. The whites of his eyes are no longer white, but yellow and are streaked with blood vessels. He stands there leaning on the wall, with his small container of chinese food sitting on the window sill next to him. He is silent and only his eyes move. The wrinkles on his weathered face run long and deep.
Carol coughs loudly, hacking up mucus and spitting it into an empty Dunkin Donuts paper bag. She asks Jon to help her throw away her trash, since she has trouble moving. I awkwardly stand there, unsure of what to do.
She opens her walker up and leans on it. Then she starts to talk.
I am surprised at how well she can speak. She is not at all the mentally unstable, anti-social homeless person that I imagined. I hear about her circulation problems in her lower legs. I hear about how her medications are at a women's shelter she left because she was having trouble getting along with the staff. I hear about how her ride to the shelter stood her up this past wednesday. I hear about her beef with a hooker who "stole" her boyfriend.
Jon hands her a container of rice and chicken. She thankfully accepts it.
I hear about how someone took her cane once when she was in the bathroom. I hear about her secret hiding place for her walker behind a trashcan during the day so no one takes it. She asks for more napkins. I buy two coffees, one for her and one for myself, to give me an excuse to get napkins from the Dunkin Donuts guy. I hand it to her, and for a brief second, her hand touches mine. I notice her discolored nails from her habitual smoking and I instinctively make a mental note to wash my hands when I go home.
"Hey, you guys want it?", she says in her raspy voice, holding up an unopened Snicker's bar. I am thoroughly surprised. Jon tells her he doesn't eat candy. I politely decline. "Alright then". She puts it back in her plastic bag.
My heart is moved. Despite how little she has, she was still willing to share. She pulls out a cigarette and goes outside to smoke it.
Jon and I walk over to Jr. We make some small talk. I find out he used to live in East Brunswick, sort of near where I live now. I'm genuinely surprised, but he doesn't seem as talkative as the others so we turn back to Carol, who's back in her corner.
The night grows colder. The clock hits 1:30 AM. We bid our farewells and leave the station.
A train roars by. Jon and I are scurrying back; the wind bites at our ears and noses. I can't feel my feet. But for some reason, I feel good. I feel alive. Talking with them made me realize how good I have it. I utter a quick prayer of thanks to God for everything He's given me. I make another mental note to pray for Carol.
I want to do more. I want to care. Help me remember Carol.
-- Ps. I have a new website for my photography, if you can call it that. Find it at blog.ericdchang.com. I'll be keeping this site up though.
I just had the most harrowing experience ever with my dog Toby. But at least I learned something along the way.
[Actually, he's my brother's dog, but I end up cleaning up after it most of the time.]
So we have a cage for him that he stays in when he's home alone and inside that cage is his designated pee/poop area. Whenever Toby feels the need to urinate, he goes there, pees and leaves. Under his cage, which is actually a baby crib that me, ev, AND isaac all used that my dad converted to a cage, is a vinyl mat. Recently, Toby chewed up part of the mat so my dad just placed another whole piece under the chewed up one. So imagine a square of chewed up vinyl roughly 2' x 4' laying on top and the end of a 7' x 4' piece. Sorta like the chewed up piece was a pillow at the end of a bed. Do you see it?
As some of you know, my parents are in israel for their honeymoon i guess [25 years late] and my sister is in taiwan for a missions trip [her musings here] so I'm home alone with Toby and Isaac. Today, I guess i decided to clean up the whole house. I vacuumed, swept, and wiped the floors and finally i reach toby's cage.
Surprise, theres a puddle of pee there. At least his weirdly solid poop isnt there stinking up the house. I begin to clean it up and notice the fringes of the top, chewed piece are yellow. Crap i think. Please don't be what i think it is.
I lift up the top piece and my nose is assaulted with what can only be described as the most pungent, acrid scent in the world for me. I quickly turn my head away. My eyes are shut but they're still tearing up from the cloud of arguably pure ammonia. Yes. Ammonia.
Apparently, sometime during the last two weeks after my dad stuck that new piece under the chewed piece, Toby peed right on the beginning of the overlap. So unbeknownst to my brother and I, the pee had been slowly sucked under via capillary action. Not only did it get sucked under the top mat, it got sucked under the bottom mat and onto the kitchen floor. The pee had been sitting there so long that the urea had converted to ammonia. Needless to say, i cursed under my breath [and by under my breath i mean i screamed it out loud to toby's face] and in a storm of pent up anger at his general uncleanliness and the added responsibilities i had because of him, I let all my anger out.
"WHY DO I HAVE TO CLEAN UP AFTER YOU? I DIDN'T EVEN WANT YOU."
I turn to my brother and yell at him, "WHY IS IT THAT I SEEM TO CARE MORE ABOUT HIM THAN YOU DO? HE'S YOUR DOG, ISN'T HE? WHY THE F*CK AM I CLEANING THIS UP?"
I knelt there in awkward silence, slowly mopping up the yellow, almost gooey, pee, occasionally spraying disinfectant on the tile floor and the bottom of the mat. My brother stands there, unsure of what to do, for fear of receiving another verbal onslaught. I'm sweating bullets in my a/c-less house and yelling at Toby in my head, all while getting sticky, week-old piss over my knees and hands.
Thirty minutes later, it's clean. The cage is clean. My hands and knees are clean. The house is clean.
As i stand there in triumph, i realize something. No matter what, Toby is part of my family. There's absolutely nothing that i should complain about. It doesn't matter that my dad bought him on one of his usual shopping sprees without consulting the family. It doesn't matter that I seem to care more about him than his true owner, my brother. None of that matters because Toby is part of the Chang household.
And then it hit me.
Jesus looks at us. Me. And sees what i see. He sees a dirty, worthless dog-animal. Something that everyone and anyone else would give up on. He sees me, wallowing in my lust, my anger, my filth...my sin. And yet, He still loves me. He loves me despite everything I do. He loves me to the point of death. And even after conquering death, He continues to love me. Unconditional, unadulterated, untainted love.
I'm tearing up inside. I look back. Toby's staring at me inquisitively. I sigh, my shoulders sag and i utter an apology to my brother.
I just had the most harrowing experience ever with my dog Toby. But at least I learned something along the way.
For those of you who don't know, I went on a summer missions trip to Uganda, Africa last year and let's just say the experiences I had were definitely life changing. I've been meaning to post the journal entries that I wrote since then and I've finally decided to do it, along with pictures. Note that xanga messed up all my formatting so some words are going to be missing spaces which im not willing to sift through just to change.
And so it begins:
Note: All omitted portions of the entries were personalthoughts that I do not intend to share :). If you want in on my thoughts, askme in person. Otherwise, all entries are exactly the way they were written,errors and all.
Journal Entry 1
Mary’s House 6/21 4:10 PM
So I haven’t broken out the laptopuntil now. I was worried it was going to be broken since I bumped into so manythings on the way here [I put it in my carry-on so in our layover in London, itgot pushed around quite a bit] but God is good and it is thankfully in goodcondition. Of course, the laptop isn’t too good to begin with [for you geeksout there, it’s running on Windows 95 with 64 KB of RAM. For you non geeks, allyou need to know is that it’s heavy, it’s at least 12 years old, and it doesn’teven have USB ports]. I shouldn’t complain though, it beats the socks offhandwriting my journal entries [like the rest of my team].
Note: The following entry is just a summary of what I did on the way to London. Skip to entry 2 to begin reading about my stay in Africa.
So what has happened in the pastfew days. Mostly travel. It was really nice of Howie and Dan Liu [and his dad]to drop us off.
The bags of donations [think 3 ft X 3 ft X 1 ft] were allreally heavy [think 50 lbs each] and moving them around was a workout buthonestly, the more the better. We got to Newark really early and the check inline was literally non-existent. People kept staring at the huge cart of bagsthat we had and I could almost see the British Airways staff cringe/sigh. Allthe bags were within normal weight range but then…
Staff: You can only have 2 bags per person.
Grace: But we were told that we could bring 3. A group oftourists were able to take 3 last month.
Staff: I’m sorry, you can only take two…
Anita: …but the paper says 3…
Staff confers with manager
Manager: Are you missionaries?
Us: Yes!
Manager: [to staff] Just let them through.
It was pretty scary. In my mind, the first thing I thoughtof when they said that was to get rid of the toys. Med supplies first. Butthank God we were able to bring them all back [more on the donations later].
The plane ride was prettyuneventful. The entertainment system [which consisted of a personal 4-5 inchscreen mounted on the seat in front of you] was down so we didn’t get to watchany movies. Since it was the first time that I had been on a plane in a longtime, I couldn’t sleep very well, even with my earplug like headphones blastingHillsong [Hosanna]. We took off at 9:15 PM and roughly 5-6 hours later, wetouched down in Heathrow airport at 9:15 AM.
Our connecting flight was to leavethat evening [London time] at 9:15 PM so we had roughly 12 hours of free time[actually 8ish if you take out the time for check in and security]. We weregoing to take the Heathrow express but it would have cost us 29 pounds [roughly$58] so we just got an all day pass on the tube. The exchange sucks for the USDto the UKP. I blew out 50 bucks on 2 meals and some [very small] souvenirs. Ourfirst meal, fish and chips, was 9.5 pounds. The currency I mean. And that wasall…a breaded fried fish, and French fries. If you didn’t know, people inBritain call French fries “chips” and chips “crisps”.
I don’treally want to elaborate on where we went [I have pictures] but we wanderedaround London via the underground tube [“Watch the gap”…people who’ve been toLondon would understand that haha] and made our way back to the airport wherewe finally departed to Uganda. It was all very surreal to me. I couldn’t reallyfathom the fact that I was in Europe [first time for me], much less that I wasgoing to be in Uganda soon.
We met ourother team members right before our flight to Uganda. They’re a really nicebunch. I still have trouble remembering most of their names, but that’s to beexpected. Again, an uneventful flight, except the entertainment system workedthis time so when I couldn’t sleep, I watched movies [Blood Diamond, etc..]
We landed in Uganda in the morning at 7:43 local time. It was/is unbelievable. Somehow inmy head, I envisioned Uganda to be like the documentaries that I see all thetime on Africa. Huts, patches of green among a sea of reddish brown dirt,people walking around barefoot.
Man, I could not have been any more deluded.Even my pictures don’t do it justice [although if I could have wide angle lens,it might]. Lots of green. Think lots of green. And then the rest is eitherbrown [dirt] or blue [Lake Victoria]. It was really breathtaking and I wasstunned when I stepped out of the plane. The weather was amazing too. For thosethat have been to the San Fran area, think that, but a tad more humid [lazybreeze, comfortable 70 degree weather].
We loaded up all our baggage anddropped by a natural wildlife preserve [zoo] and tried to get the monkeys tocome out. After enough coaxing, they finally came and we fed them bananas andlollipops. Lots of pictures, especially on Joanna’s camera. It was quiteamusing. Initially, we couldn’t get the zoo people to let us in since we neededadmission and Sherry said that we didn’t want to pay but eventually, with hergo-getter attitude, she finally had her way. Arguably worth it. =]
On the way to our lodging, we drove through the capital, Kampala and let me say it wasanother surprise. I wholly expected huts and lots of dirt but it was really quitescenic. All shades of brown and green. Another thing I noticed was thatliterally every other house had some advertisement for Coke. No joke. Somehouses were even painted with the logo and slogan. Never underestimate thereach of franchises. There was a Shop Rite, Shell gas stations, and some othercompanies. Almost all the cars are Japanese imports [literally], with theoccasional Benz. Lots of advertisements for everything from pretty cool lookingcell phones, to loans and banks. It was pretty amazing.
We dropped off at the lodge that we were staying inafter. It’s called Maria’s Place and it’s actually quite nice. I’m in a single[by the way, I’m one of THREE guys. And the other two are all much, MUCH older.] and the bed is quite comfortable. I finally got to take a shower [I was DISGUSTING. Don’t even try to compare.] and after, I met some of the kids that lived nearby. One of them, Peter, was a World Vision sponsored child andeverything from his school fees to clothing was paid by this guy he referred toas Ed. It was pretty cool seeing the impact that people across the world canhave. Unfortunately, he said that his shoes were broken and that he couldn’tget new ones because Ed’s payments were being rejected by the bank…or somethinglike that. It’s hard to understand their English since it’s sometimesgrammatically incorrect and clouded by an accent. Still, the kids are adorable. It’s so amazing to see them smile and laugh. My mind is so full of images ofchildren with bloated stomachs, or refugees that it has become a surprise forme to see them smile. Some of them have holes in their clothing but hopefullyour donations [the most out of our team] will help that.
Well, dinner is soon and I shall cease to bore you. Moreupdates later.
Journal Entry 2
My Room 6/24 8:21 PM
So I haveroughly 10 minutes before I have to run down to the girls’ room for“debriefing”…whatever that means :). The mosquitoes are pretty unnerving. They fly righttoward your face [presumably following the trail of carbon dioxide] and thefact that they have the possibility of carrying malaria is quite unnerving.
The teamjust had an icebreaker time and it was pretty fun. I’m really starting to getto know everyone on the team, as well as the children. There’s this one kid whois about 3.5 feet tall. His name is Ian and he’s mad cute. Yes, “mad cute”. Hiseyes are kinda interesting too; the whites of his eyes are slightly yellow andyou can see a lot of the veins in his eyeballs. The other kids are alsoadorable. If you see any of the pictures [that I will upload after I comeback], you can see that they’re running around in broken shoes and tornclothing, yet they remain happy. I can’t really understand that. Are they justhappy at that moment, or are they just so used to it that they don’t careanymore? Probably the latter.
The peoplehere are really friendly. If you smile to them, it’s almost guaranteed thatthey’ll smile back. If you say “Oh-dee-oh-tee-ah” (how are you?) to them, it’slike a white guy saying “nee how” to a group of Chinese people. They really geta kick out of it, so combined with a smile, you’re guaranteed to elicitpositive responses.
We’revisiting a child orphanage later tomorrow morning (at 9:30 to be precise). Thechildren are from the Gulu area and if any of you have heard my boring talkabout Uganda, you know [if you were paying attention to me at least] that thatis the location where the night commuters travel to. Seeing stuff that younormally only see in documentaries like “Invisible Children” will hopefully beinteresting and educational.
Dinner waspretty good. Veggie rice [long grained white rice with bits of greenscallions], really really soft potatoes, bean curry and really good chicken. Ohand hand squeezed fruit juice. So fresh that the heterogeneous solution settledlike blood and plasma.
Uganda istruly beautiful. I want to do so much to help as much as I can for thesepeople. Before I came on this trip, I was a bit wary about Sherry Roberts’s[our leader] ability to lead. I talked to some people about this, but the factthat some people came back early from team 1’s trip and that her periodicalupdate emails indicated that she didn’t stick to her itinerary too much causedno small amount of uneasiness. Someone told me that it was because of RCCC andhow all events and meetings have a rigid schedule. Things are planned monthsahead of time and we try to stick to a premeditated agenda as often as we can.But seeing her today did a lot to resolve those inner conflicts. Her fluidityis an asset. A lot of things that happen here are tentative. Not everything isclear-cut I and I truly respect her ability to adapt to the situation.
I came intothe girls’ room at “Veggie Rice” and now, almost an hour later, we’re stilldiscussing topics that I find irrelevant or unimportant (at least right now).Oh no! Do I smell team dissention? Nope. Just me being tired :).
Journal Entry 3
My Room 6/21 10:03
I know, I know, 3 entries in oneday?? But I have a funny story. So after I moved in, I couldn’t take a showerso I just brushed my teeth. I forget to use bottled water to brush and rinse,since the safety of the water here is questionable but I notice that thetoothpaste tasted weird. I just assumed that it was the water. After eating myNutri-Grain bar just before, I remembered to use bottled water, except thetoothpaste still tasted funny. I figure it was just the oldness of thetoothpaste but when I turn the tube around, the text read “Brushless ShavingCream”. The tube looked like one of those generic white aluminum tubes thatUSUALLY have toothpaste in them. Now my stomach hurts [like it did before] andmy teeth feel even dirtier.
Ugh, off to bed. Hope I don’t getbitten too badly. I’m wearing this disgusting, greasy, tactical grade bug repellant.Oh well.
Journal Entry 4
Living Room 6/22 4:53 PM
So if youdon’t know yet, Uganda is a very different place. I feel very foreign. Usually,if you go to New York City, you can spot the tourists because they always havebookbags and cameras and a goofy grin on their face. That’s me. I’m so used tobeing the people on the other side, the people that look at them and go “Hah!Tourists.” Now, being the tourists, or the Muzungus (meh-zoong-goos, or whitemen) as they call us, we’re always being stared and laughed at. It’s reallyinteresting because I’ll walk past a group of Ugandans and about a second afterI pass, I hear uproarious laughter. It’s not really embarrassing, justdifferent. We also get about 1600 shillings for every dollar. Carrying around300,000 shillings isn’t that much but it sure seems like a lot. ManyAfrican souvenirs here are less than a dollar. The whole driving on the leftside of the road really throws me off sometimes too. Right turns take muchlonger and there aren’t really any road markers. IE: any part of the road isfair game as long as it’s empty. The drivers [including our native Ugandandriver] are really crazy. They pull some of the most aggressive passes thatI’ve ever seen [at least on a diesel, manual transmission bus] Some thingsaren’t different though. The fact that half of their gas stations are Shell andthat they have supermarkets with an eerie resemblance to Carre-Fours in Taiwanmake me almost say, “Uh…what the…”. That’s another thing. Kampala is really likeany major city [minus the large buildings]. Downtown is nice, but the momentyou walk out of it, you hit the slums. When I say slums, I mean it in the wholepoverty documentary type way. Trash litters the side of the road and peoplelive in really, really run down shacks. I don’t think they even qualify asshacks; think corrugated metal and wooden pallets (the things that merchandisesits on in warehouses].
Today wevisited the school that Sherry set up called New Creation Centre. The moment weopened the door [I was in the front], the children took one look at us andliterally ran at us at full speed. Everyone in the class hugged us like it wastheir job. I’ve never gotten a warmer reception. They did some traditionaldances for us and sang their school song/poem. It was really cute [insertvideos and pictures]. They really are a precious bunch. Most of the studentsare Sudanese refugees, with some local Ugandans mixed in. Apparently, theSudanese are viewed as outcasts and are treated accordingly.
After theschool, we visited the Sayu Baby Orphanage. It’s basically a home where babiesthat are left behind [in pits along the road, bathrooms, etc] are recovered andcared for. At first, I didn’t really touch the kids. They wore cloth diapersand to me it was like, “Do I really want to touch them?” I eventually got overthat and thankfully too, since the kids are a real joy to handle. It was reallymind blowing. There was this one kid, Eric. I took a bunch of pictures with himon Joanna’s camera but after I had to pick him up to bring him to the changingroom. I was pretty much done for after that because I really couldn’t put himdown. He’s got these really pudgy cheeks and whenever I pushed his nose, he’dgiggle and try to push mine. I kept thinking, “Eric, your mother is missing outon so much”. It’s really heart wrenching and I couldn’t bear to leave him butapparently, we’re going back so at least I can see him again.
I’ve alsoalready filled up both 1 GB SD cards that I brought…it’s those darned videos.Now I have to either edit them, or delete pictures. Darn, darn, darn.
Journal Entry 5
My room 6/23 8:38 PM
It’s been atiring day.
[Omitted]
So today, we went to a villagecalled Jokalaira to conduct hygiene class, physical checkups and dewormingclinics. The road there was pretty bumpy, and when I say pretty, I mean really.Our driver, Henry, is really good at driving because he hasn’t damaged ourHUGE, diesel, manual bus even though we’re literally driving cross country halfthe time. We went there, introduced ourselves and started. I really wanted todo the physical checkups but obviously, my lack of medical background preventedme from doing so. My other option was to do the de-worming clinic [Omitted].I eventually got to help out a bit, but I just played with the kids most of thetime. We handed out lollipops, or “suckers”, as our Kentucky teammate callsthem, and toothbrushes. We ended up leaving really late and going to visit ourdriver’s family. They were really sweet. [Omitted].
After, we visited KampalaPentecostal Church and let me say that I was COMPLETELY AMAZED. They had anelectric guitar, a mic’ed violin, a Roland EX300D keyboard, 4 vocalists, aguitarist, a good drummer, a bass player, AND a swaying choir in the back totop it off. Equipment wise, they were as good, if not better than RCCC. Lots ofspeakers hanging off the ceiling, lots of monitors, drum shield, etc. Theyprojected with Pro Presenter and even used live camera feeds as the background.The cameras there were HD too. It was pretty amazing. Their soundboard wasprobably twice the size of ours. The music was different, although they didsing a Redman song later. The people were all friendly too and it was run muchlike RCCC, complete with a VERY GOOD video announcement [Produced by the churchthemselves. It’s a weekly KPCNN [get it?] type thing and it looks TRULYprofessional.] Supposedly, worship leaders from that church had gone or weregoing to the Hillsong Worship College thing or something. The pastors all gotinvited to a convention in Hillsong too. The pastor that spoke today was great.He was funny, and even with his semi thick accent, he still got the point ofhis message across succinctly. Thank goodness for the worship, since it did agood job of making me forget about the beginning of the post. I really wishRCCC could be like that. Sometimes, E2 [omitted]. Anyway, I’m tired andI know I have so much more to write.
Anyway, I learned a lot of lessonstoday. I need patience and understanding. [Omitted].
Journal Entry 6
Living Room 6/24 8:25 PM
So in astark contrast to yesterday, I really enjoyed today. We went to Christian LifeCenter. Presentation wise, it was totally different from KPC. It looked like itwas in a warehouse and the chairs were the big plastic lawn chairs [about5000-6000 of them!]. The lights were the really weird white sodium halide bulbsand the power even went out half way through. The worship was good too exceptthey didn’t have the lyrics on the projector screen, which instead, projected thelive camera feeds [seems to be a big thing here in Uganda]. The preacher wassome guy from Oregon and even though his message wasn’t a gospel outreachmessage, the announcement person turned it around in the end and about 20-25people ended up being saved. It was really amazing to see that happen realtime. When I was leaving, I almost forgot my Bible and when we were leaving,random people would come up to us and be like, “Thank you for coming, PraiseGod that you are here.” Then they’d shake our hand and tell us that they lovedus. It was a really warm welcome…hint hint E1.
We ate at afancy shmancy Italian restaurant after and I ordered this steak that[unbeknownst to me] turned out to be gigantic. It was at least 11 inches longand about 5 inches wide and almost a pound, if not a full 16 oz. It was quitefilling and I got to bond with people next to me well.
After, wevisited Ntinda Public School where Peter, a 13 year old Ugandan boy, performeda poem with his class. We didn’t see him so we sat there for about 80 minuteswaiting until one of our team members went outside and asked him if heperformed already, to which he answered yes. There were a lot of traditionaldances and whatnot. Supposedly, the head honcho of the Ugandan ministry ofFinances was there or something.
Bondingafter dinner time was great. We’re all from different places, like Australia[Laurel], PA [Dreonna], Texas [Melissa], Kentucky [Britney/Tanna], Cali[Everyone else], so I was trying to learn the idiosyncrasies with everyone’slanguage. It was really cool because a lot of people pronounced thingsdifferently. Dreonna would pronounce root like “rut”. Britney would say “ull”instead of oil, or “bull” instead of boil. The kentuckiers also said “ya’ll” alot. It was pretty funny.
Anyhow, mystomach hurts now [might be the steak], so I will sleep [or hang out with theothers in the living room].
Journal Entry 7
Veranda/Patio 6/25 6:30 PM
Today was amix of feelings. So much to say, yet I don’t feel like typing it all out. Bothdepressing, funny, and amusing. We dropped off Esther and Breonna [people fromTeam 1 who stayed longer] at the airport and on the way back, it started topour.
The day started out by visitingMulago [?] hospital. It was a really depressing sight. People were sleeping onthe floor in the middle of the hallways [it was a public hospital] and theconditions were horrendous. The children’s ward was terrible. The blinds werefalling down, the incubators were cracked and broken and not all the children hadventilators. It was terrible to see children with cleft lips, under-developedlungs, and bandaged heads lie in such conditions. Apparently, the ENTIREneonatal ward only had 15 nurses on their roster, which meant that only 4 werethere at a time. Sad.
-incomplete-
Note: Out of respect, I tried not to take too manypictures in the hospital. The images of it are still in my head, one year afterthe trip, and remembering the problems and conditions that the children hadthere still breaks my heart.
Journal Entry 8
Living Room 6/27 8:25 AM
Seeing howI forgot to write the journal entry for yesterday, I figured I’d type it outquickly before breakfast started.
Theschedule yesterday was pretty packed. We visited Eagle’s Nest Secondary School,which was started by the son of a pastor of a church that Sherry’s parentsplanted. It was pretty cool since I got to do the boom mic while Ken filmed thewhole visit. Good A/V experience.
After, wewent to the Invisible Children HQ in Kampala where they make and store some ofthe bracelets that are distributed throughout the world. It was amazing toshake the hands of all that were involved. They import their special wood reedstuff [pretty resilient], pick out the bad ones, scrape and sand them, dye themblack with a special chemical, wrap them and store them ready to ship. Therewere so many different colors that weren’t out in the US [blue, lime green,green, red, black, brown, white, grey]. We got to purchase the bracelets at adiscounted price [5000 shillings = $3.14].
The lastplace we visited was the home of an artist that was going blind. He paintedtraditional African art called “batiks” and sold them to raise money to have anoperation done on his eyes in India. They were all so beautiful and it was amazingthat he could still paint, even with his disability.
Journal Entry 9
My Room 6/28 1:33 AM
I’ve been behind with my journalentries so this is actually the entry for yesterday [the 27th].
Rememberthe church that Sherry’s parents started? Well, the pastor who started is nolonger alive but his son, Butch, did start a boarding school and eventually,another one on an island [technically peninsula] on Lake Victoria. We had theopportunity to visit it and let’s say it was a bittersweet experience.
It wassweet in the sense that it was really cool how we got there and, at a verybasic level, what we did. We had to drive to the edge of Lake Victoria and takea large [dirty] wooden boat (around 25-30’ from stern to bow] with a SINGLEoutboard motor to the island. It wasn’t that far but the engine had to push areally big boat with a lot of people in it so we were probably going at a briskwalking pace. It was pretty slow but after going through the murky, greenwaters [think Raritan but a different shade] and through a trail like sliver ofwater, we docked on shore and took botabota’s [mopeds] to the school. THAT wasan exhilarating ride because it was 3 people squished on one and us driving atprobably 30 mph on an uneven, bumpy dirt road. I was scared that we would allhit a rut somewhere and die. The time we had playing with the kids was fun too.They’re really good at football and playing with them really took some effort[considering these kids were half my size]. Even when I was goal keeper and Ilet them kick penalty shots, they still scored about 50% of the time. It wasreally cool. We had a small rubber Frisbee and they were amazed that I couldhuck it the length of the field. After throwing it around a couple times, theywere instant converts [to ultimate] so that was pretty cool. We ate traditionalAfrican food after: Portia [a dish made of maze…think mashed potatoes with theconsistency of semi dried playdoh], a chicken broth extract dip, and otherdishes like hard boiled eggs and this pickled vegetable [the stuff that youstick in nyo roe myen (beef noodle stew)]. You had to mush the Portia into aball, push in a depression, and then scoop some dip into the depression, like aspoon. We put on a skit after for the kids and taught them some songs.
It wasbitter in the sense that I learned today that the kids are actually reallysmart and KNOW that we’re almost like ghosts. We’re there for only a little bitand then we disappear until who knows when. They understand that so they try tomilk us for all we’re worth and sometimes, they ask the deepest questions thatyou know will lead to the “can I come to America with you?” This one kid askedme why America was a superpower, and if they were going to colonize Uganda. Itwas pretty amazing to see how well informed they were.
When wewere going to leave, I talked to a guy that said he’d trade his sister for oneof the teammates haha. I just thought that was journal worthy.
[Omitted]
I ended upwashing half my clothes by hand in my 2-liter sink. Pretty difficult andtiring, but it’s done.
Journal Entry 10
Living Room 6/28 10:37 PM
Today wevisited Sherry’s school again. They performed the same dances that theyperformed last time. We went shopping at Uganda’s largest indoor shopping mallafter. Indoor is figurative in this case, since it was open air really. Therewas a sport shop there so Diana and some others and I bought jerseys. After, wewaited on the bus for a while for Sherry to come out. They visited an orphanagefor children that were brought in from the street. Sherry was screening forkids that she could potentially get to put into her orphanage.
After, we visited an orphanage run by a Canadian.The kids there were all orphans from Gulu. They were all so mature; they haveprobably seen more in their 13 years of life than I will ever see in mylifetime. It was interesting to hear the testimony of a 13 year old that wasalready preaching to adults and friends in Gulu. Apparently, he had to dig in agarden for food and he wasn’t allowed to go to school because he couldn’tafford a uniform. His sisters were married and they couldn’t take care of him.Eventually he cut down a tree by himself to make charcoal, sold it, and got1000 shillings [less than a dollar] and bought a white shirt. The school stillwouldn’t let him in so he cut down another tree, made some more charcoal, soldit, and bought a pair of shorts. It was just interesting listening to someonewho worked so hard to get into school and here in America we have children beingtruant and general unappreciative of the education they receive. The led us inworship and prayer and one of the kids, the same one that gave us histestimony, prayed for us. He prayed more sincerely than any kid that I had everknown. At the end, we all laid hands on each other and prayed for the kids.Then they prayed for us, and then we prayed for Sherry and right after theprayer, a rainbow came out. The skeptic in me was saying that it was acoincidence but it was truly wonderful to see that God was listening.
We came back late and dinner wasabsolutely great. There are no lunches since we’re always on the move and soI’m always hungry by dinnertime.
Journal Entry 11
Living Room 6/29 9:08 PM
Good sleeplast night.
We leftlate today and instead of doing anything really important, we stopped by asupermarket while others were at Mary’s place [a tailor] getting measured fortheir dresses. We went to an outdoor souvenirs market and we all bought stufffor people. After, we bought shoes for the rest of the kids at the New CreationCentre. One of the kids took a look at the crocs I were wearing and promptlysaid, “You need new shoes.” Another interesting tidbit is that a lot of theshoe sellers there take older shoes, dye them black, polish them, and sell themas new. I guess it’s the Ugandan way of life.
We visitedButch’s school again to see the chapel service that the kids lead and it waskind of weird at first. It was like a talent show, since kids would go up andsing and people would go up and put lollipops and candy onto the stage if theyapproved. There was a sarcastic comedy sketch after and then a speaker preacheda gospel message and a whole group of people got saved. Quite amazing.
Nothingreally out of the ordinary today. [Omitted].
[Super long omission]
Journal Entry 12
My Room 7/1 9:58 AM
Yep, fellasleep last night before I wrote the entry.
We mostlyjust did two medical/deworming clinics today. It was pretty ho hum but at leastI got to help out more [Omission]. The first orphanage was headed by a20 something year old and she herself was a street child. She takes care ofabout 135 children which I find totally amazing. The kids there are reallytalented too since they can sing in perfect harmony and dance at the same timeto boot. We played with the kids after and one of them was really good at hackysack. He hit a 43 kick run and I just thought it was amazing since all he waswearing was a dilapidated pair of sandals. I felt as if the kids knew we weregoing to leave though. Like I said bye to one of the kids there and he didn’teven acknowledge me, which is a really stark contrast to the usual farewells wereceive. It was almost as if they were saying, “Why come when you leave rightaway anyway?” It’s like they feel as if we’re appeasing our own conscience bycoming. Sometimes I feel that way too, and I really don’t know what to say tomyself when those thoughts run across my mind.
We visitedKPC again and it was just as great as last week. They even played two Hillsongsongs and to me, that’s just amazing.
[Omission]
Journal Entry 13
Living Room 7/1 7:58 PM
So todaywas a pretty interesting day, very relaxed. We went to Butch’s campus andattended his church and like all Pentecostal churches, the message and worshipwere very lively. The bread was actual bread and the grape juice wascarbonated…definitely the first time I’ve ever had carbonated communion.
After theservice, we found out that Henry’s father had died so instead of going to afourth of July party [an American only party, including missionaries andsoldiers] we just stayed home. We went to the country club to eat lunch [sherrytreats us out for Sunday lunches] and I ordered a “Indiano Pizza” whichconsisted of spiced tomatoes, green peppers, chili peppers, mushrooms and someother stuff. It was pretty good. We walked back to Maria’s on foot since Henryleft.
After alittle bit, I was bored and Dreonna and I walked along Ntinda road waiting forone of the Stevens to come back with a bota bota. Instead, we ended up justtalking and meeting the most adorable kitten ever because when we got back,Steven was there already. He brought us out to his friends and they let usdrive the scooters. It was really fun. The guy that I rode with was really niceand his English was excellent, which made me wonder why he was a scooterdriver. He explained about how there were only 3 gears and neutral and howthere’s a front and rear brake. I ended up playing around with shifting butwhat was really funny was that I was driving on the wrong side of the road[right as opposed to the left] and some guy pulled over and asked if I wasokay, which I thought was amusing. The scooter owner had to remind me twice ofthat fact. I also managed to hit every bump in the road. Driving it was a realcatch 22 because you would think that driving slower would give you morecontrol but it really doesn’t because it’s harder to turn. Driving faster givesyou much more control. We came back safe and sound, which, fortunately forDreonna and I, was a good thing.
After, wetried to teach the Stevens how to do hand stands and headstands and it was likethe newest and coolest thing they ever saw. They were afraid to do it too andit was just so funny to see them scream whenever their head touched the groundhaha. Britney is a gymnast so she did the whole hand stand thing and the wholerotating in place thing and they were simply amazed.
[Omission]
Journal Entry 14
Living Room 7/2 10:15 PM
HappyBirthday to me.
Today was avery touristy day. We got a new driver to sub in for Henry since he took theday off and went to shoprite to exchange money. Sanyu was next and I got to seeEric again. All the kids there were so happy to see us, and it was a real joyto be reunited with the kids. It was sad leaving them and seeing how I’m notfinancially able to support an adopted child, it was pretty much the last timeI’d ever see them. I wasn’t as retroreflective/pensive as I was last time butit was still definitely sad.
We visiteda cathedral next to see the graves of all the missionaries that died in Uganda,starting from the 1800’s. It was very peaceful and the cathedral was pleasantlyserene. A very good time for thought and reflections.
The lastpart of the day was the touristy part. We drove about 2 hours to the equatorand took pictures for about 30 minutes. There were funnels set up to show howwater swirls around differently but that’s all a myth obviously. [Omission]and after a bunch of pictures, we left. The ride back was agonizingly boringand tiring. The traffic and exhaust wasn’t helping either.
When we gotback, and dinner was done, Sherry and the team surprised me with a cake and icecream. It was really nice of them and I truly enjoyed the thought. It was thefirst cake I had with only my name on it ever. EVER haha. Definitely nice andthoughtful though.
[Super Omission]
I’ve played 30 games of Solitaire tonight and I haven’t wona single game.
Journal Entry Bonus
7/3 6:30 AM
Note: This was a product of the Mefloquine [Anti-malarialdrug] I was taking. One of the side effects is “vivid dreams” and when I wokeup with the dream fresh in my mind, I typed it down in this ‘bonus’ entry.Please, I’m not a nut job! It was the drugs! Be forewarned…it’s GRAPHIC.Certain names have been omitted to preserve anonymity.
My Nightmare:
-Dreonna gives me something and storms off
-Melissa draws a map to her house and her house number is308 and is on the left
-we’re in a car driving to her house and instead of turningleft we turn right into ---------’s HUGE mansion. HIGH ceiling and brown shadesof paint.
-her mom is watching tv? And everyone’s dressed for prom and3 elevators on the right open and people file out to go to prom.
-I’m in the master bedroom; I lean out and shoot two peoplein the head next to the door. Blood splatters onto the door and windows next toit.
-I go downstairs shoot 3 people eating potatoes with ketchup.-------- is one of the victims and the blood splatters onto the kitchenwindows. Their heads snap back but their eyes are still open and blood dribblesdown from the bullet wounds.
-the people I kill are --------------------------.
-I walk out, make a left onto hyde park and then walk downthinking “Shoot. Now what am I going to do” I distinctly remember that I hadprevious dreams like this an that God always woke me up from them …or“delivered me” as I put it and somehow this time I felt as if He wasn’t goingto come.
-I remember thinking that I had to hide the bodies and thatno one suspect that I killed them. I remember thinking about finances and how Iwould have to find my mom’s credit card.
-I walked to the intersection of Hyde Park and the entranceto my development and I see Butch as a policemen. I’m not worried. I see theTeam U there.
Journal Entry 15
Living Room 7/4 10:13 PM
Entry foryesterday.
His namewas Jimmy and he was 5 years old. He could talk remarkably well and could carryon English conversations with me. His IQ was probably really high. He sat on myshoulders most of the time and he’d always say, “Can I fly again?” and I’d haveto run around as quickly as I could. When I first saw him, he walked over to meand hugged me and I thought it was the most adorable thing ever. He said thathe wanted me to bring him downtown so he could eat jinglebread, muffins,pancakes and juice. And he has the most amazing laugh ever. He’d laugh atanything and everything. I wished I could adopt him. Thank goodness he was at agood orphanage who’s adopters list is so long that it’s closed off. Hopefully,he’ll go to a good family. We ate jackfruit before we left and it tastedlike starburst candy. There must have been something from apples in it becausemy throat started itching after.
Before allthat, we visited the Nile and it was absolutely amazing. The waves and rapidswere pretty awesome and we paid some guy 7000 shillings [less than $5] to swimthrough it and he did. We took a boat across the Nile river and explored asmall island. There were coffee plants, avocado trees, and the trail was prettyfilled with brush, shrubs and twigs.
Somehow, I guess i got lazy and stopped writing there. But the memories will forever be with me. I hope you guys enjoyed reading it.
On another note, two of my teammates from last year are going again, except this time, they're going up north, to Gulu. A little history tells us that that's where the Night Commuters went to every night to escape being abducted by the LRA. Both Joanna and Anita will be returning to Sherry.
It'd be awesome if you guys could partner with me in prayer for them. They're both leaving THIS saturday [5/31]. Pray for their safety and for God to work through them. If you guys want to be on their email list, email them at Team Gulu <rccc.uganda@gmail.com>.
