New Creation Centre

Oliotiya friends?!

Yesterday I was able to  visit New Creation Centre, the school that my amazing friend Sherry runs. Most of the students are Sudanese refugees – a population that so desperately needed schooling here in Uganda while there was an influx of Sudanese refugees from the unrest in Darfur in the earlier 2000s.

Currently, their P4 teacher is only part time, so different missionaries substitute in the classroom on Wednesdays & Fridays when the teacher isn’t there. So – that was me!! I dressed in my best missionary substitute teacher outfit & headed out to New Creation Centre bright & early. The kids are lively and actually pretty naughty. Once I told them that I am an actual teacher with a degree in education, some of them actually wanted to listen. The rest of them were trying to write notes to each other & show off how many shillings (money) they brought to school . So – after a real discussion about rules, we got started on some work. I was told I could teach anything I wanted – and religious education is part of the national curriculum, and I never get to teach that at home, so I thought I would start there. So I opened the book to the lesson of the week, which was about Jesus being the Prince of Peace. Well, after just a glance at the lesson, I realized that it was about the birth of Jesus. So, yes, I taught about the meaning of the Christmas season in mid July. Oh, Uganda. But – the kids actually had some fun which I think was a nice change of pace for them. They were all about 10-12 years old (grades here go by your knowledge and not by your age) and are so used to just copying from the board and repeating things their teachers say. We played some review games and I taught them how to write an acrostic poem.

During lunch I got to hang out with Sherry and meet her long term missionaries Jeanine & Leslie. They are so awesome and I’m so happy her ministry has two new very dedicated people. Then – Sherry introduced me to Veronica, who I have been sponsoring for about a year now. It was such a special thing to finally meet the girl that I am constantly receiving updates about & praying for. I guess she had been saying how excited she was to meet me, until I was there – and she got very shy and bashful. It was sweet. I think she pictured that I would be older, and was a little confused. Veronica is 9 years old and has a mild cognitive impairment. She is in P2 and does a great job according to her teacher, Sara. She is an awesome girl and I’m THRILLED that we got to meet over our tasty lunch of rice, pinto beans, & cabbage J I had my first boda ride in the rain on the way home. A boda boda is a motorcycle taxi – you ride on the back of the motorcycle – holding a handle on the back of the motorcycle for stability. It sounds scarier than it is, because they really don’t drive very fast (well they honestly can’t because there are no rules of the road, making traffic horrible). Matumba, our boda driver, apologized profusely for driving me in the rain (even though I agreed that we could!). It made me feel like an authentic Ugandan – except I was the only woman out and about without my head covered to block my hair from getting wet! J

Wednesday nights our team at Rafiki has a time to discuss our weekly highs and lows and pray for each other. We decided that we would take our last Wednesday meeting to Café Marie, a little café in a small mall a few blocks away. Since being in Uganda, most of us girls have developed an intense sweet tooth. Café Marie has a pretty great dessert menu, and we all ordered shakes and ice cream sundaes. And to make the night better, we watched our server walk to the grocery store next to the café to purchase the ice cream and scoop it into fancy dishes to serve us. Oh, Uganda. So awesome.

Tomorrow will be my last day at Kireka Home. It will be hard to say goodbye to the awesome kids and dedicated staff. I hope that in some way I can continue to serve them in the future. I see so much potential in their programming if only they had more materials to work with. On Friday we will be serving with Tricia at Africa Arise in the Acholi Quarters (yay!) – and on Monday, back to New Creation Centre to say goodbye to my new rowdy friends in P4.

I can’t believe I leave in six days. I finally got into my groove and am back to feeling at home here in Uganda. I know these six days are going to FLY by. I love the pace of life in Uganda and how I don’t resort to my typical time fillers (internet & endless episodes of Friends & Glee). Since being in Africa I have read 4 books (well, I’m almost finished with my 4^th) and made some great friendships with the other girls & staff serving at Rafiki. And actually, a lot of our conversations revolve around the books we’re reading because everyone is trading and sharing thoughts on our favorite parts. I am on the last book of The Hunger Games trilogy and can hardly rip myself away from my Kindle (thanks to my parents & bro – it’s the best gift they could have given me!). The power has gone out every night this week for extended amounts of time, leading to a lot of chatting by candlelight (or Maglite, also thanks to mom for that awesome and extremely useful gift) and laying on the driveway to marvel at the incredible amount of stars. As always, I just pray pray pray that life brings me back here to Uganda very soon. I love this place more than words & hope that everyone reading this gets to experience their own “Uganda” – somewhere or at some time in their life. The love I have for this place & these people is something that everyone should be able to experience.