We awoke early to the sound of loud birds, roosters, and honking cars on Ggaba Road. We can see Lake Victoria through the smog and mist from our balcony. We ate a small breakfast with some wonderful fresh juice before Michael and David from ARM picked us up in the morning.
Our van took us through the bumpy dirt roads along the lake, which are lined with tiny shops, salons, and grocers. We visited the Ggaba Community Church Campus, including the ARM offices and Ggaba Road Schools. It was great to see where all the ground-level work goes on for the organization where Kelly worked for several years in America. We met nearly everyone on staff including an old friend, Kenneth, and learned more about their programs and future plans. It's located right along Lake Victoria with a breath taking view.
David then drove us to the Loving Hearts Home for Babies, an orphanage for babies age 0-2 years. The house has about 18 babies in it and we spent the following two hours playing with the toddlers. They were very intrigued with our glasses, our hair, and Kelly's necklace. These children were either found abandoned, surrendered to the orphanage, orphaned by death of parents and various situations. We were left alone in a room with about a dozen babies who wanted to be picked up, sang to, and just needed someone to climb on. We were barely in the door before about 4 started walking toward us with open arms. It's exhausting work and we were only there a short time! We helped the "aunties" settle the kids in for lunchtime and fed them cereal. It was difficult to leave knowing how much attention these kids craved, but we had to head off in other direction.
We ate lunch with David at an Italian restaurant. It was a nice little joint, nothing fancy. It was cool to eat somewhere local. There's an abundance of "international" food in Kampala.
Next, we visited the school that Nicholas, the student that Kelly's former office staff at Africa Renewal Ministries US sponsor together. Nicholas was a very quiet boy at first, but we asked him a lot about his classes and home and such. He is in Primary 4 grade about 11 years old and lives with a caretaker who lives close by to the school. We learned more about his story later, but essentially Nicholas had been passed around among family members for a while, none of them could take care of him. He is now in the care of a wonderful family and supported by ARM to go to school.
Lastly that day, we visited Stuart's school in the Deo ARM Project. We drove into the gate of the school and parked, seeing kids running everywhere in the yard and wondering which one is Stuart. Instead, Stuart found us immediately as we exited the van. He was so quick that we didn't have time to react. It was a wonderful reunion of sorts. We have been writing to Stuart and reading his letters for so long and we finally got to meet our little guy! We went with him to the school office to meet with the staff for a bit and talk to him about school. His english is great!. One of the translaters there asked him in Lugandan if he needed help translating. He said, "No i've been practicing" He's a bright kid, funny, strong, healthy, loves soccer and outdoorsy boy things like handstands. You could tell he was pretty proud of us being there. It became obvious though that Stuart was getting bored sitting in the office while his peers played in the yard or waited in the doorway to meet us, so we went out with him and asked him to show us his soccer moves. He was delighted to show us! Stuart and the students played the wildest soccer game we've ever seen. Every corner of the yard was fair play, with no goals in sight. It was total pandemonium, but it was a game that would never end if allowed to go on.
Eventually we gathered Stuart and his brother Brian and walked back to Stuart's house a few blocks away. He lives in a house behind some shops, guarded by a steel gate. They have concrete porch and a small parlor where we sat and visited for a while. Stuart's mom, who we call Mamma Gitta, was wonderful. The whole family speaks excellent English, so we were glad that language was not a barrier. They decorated the house with posters of photos that we sent them mixed with photos of their family. We learned that Reagan, the oldest brother, is attending a college to study mechanical engineering. We were also sad to learn that Stuart's dad died a few months ago, leaving the family without his financial support. They seem well-off, considering this fact, and we know that Mamma Gitta is a very smart lady who knows how to handle money and resources well. Kelly and Mamma really hit it off. She is such a cool lady. We gave Stuart some new clothes and a soccer ball and just enjoyed each other's company for a while before heading out. We knew we would be back soon enough.
Dinner at the hotel was lovely. Kelly made a special request for matoke and local fish (tilapia) , which was not on the menu. It's a staple food in Uganda made form steamed, mashed green bananas. It is a lot like mashed potatoes but with a slight banana taste. As we finished eating, the power went out and a generator at the hotel kicked in. The generator would continue to power the hotel until about halfway through the night when we noticed the room get warmer because the fan stopped working. The climate here is cool enough that we don't ever recall seeing and air conditioner, just lots of open windows and fans. Sometimes in Africa, the power goes out, and it does not come back on for a long time. Everyone seemed to be pretty used to that.
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