Teaching, bodas, and mushy faces

Today we served at a new ministry called Mengo Youth Development, they have a children's home and school for forty 6-14 year old boys and girls on the outskirts of Kampala and a street ministry in the slums of Kampala for boys around aged 20. We went to the home and school today.

The teacher relinquished all responsibility and we all got an opportunity to teach. I led 10 kids in class Primary 2, they were between 8-11 years old. The kids were really well-behaved for having a mazungu in their class who they could have tried to take complete advantage of. We worked through some English, I taught them about the calendar a bit, and did some mathematics. The very visible difference between American schooling and in Uganda is that here repetition is how they learn, they don't get taught concepts at all, that is except when I'm around. Today I don't know if God blessed me with a lot of patience, a good class or he was trying to tell me that I'd make a good teacher.

After they had lunch we headed to the field where I broke all the kids into 4 groups for some football (soccer) and then a tag game! And the teams that weren't playing got use frisbees and jump ropes we brought with us.

We had a great time today, I continue to get sun, run around like a crazy woman, and enjoy the abanna (children). I've lost 15 pounds between not totally loving the food and running around like a crazy woman; it's a bit difficult expending a lot of energy on the days I'm serving when at the same time I'm fasting, but I do make it through and I think about the sacrifice that much more.

I've also been getting more daring with boda boda experiences (these are motorcycles, but slow ones, not quite scooters, without helmets but with insane traffic conditions) . I've gone from clinging for my life to a boda driver to sitting back and holding on to the bar behind me to even sitting side saddle with a cake in my lap, holding on to nothing, but praying fiercely!!

Check out some of the kids at home letting me give them mushy faces: Jerom, Esther & Don

Well, I'm about to attempt sleep, despite having just watched a mouse run across my floor, up my suitcase, up my curtain and into a hole in the wall. I don't have much in my room to seal it up with and its raining feverishly outside, so I covered the hole with 2 toilet paper rolls and used band-aids to keep them up, I'm praying that they hold. Also, I'm also super excited to find out if I'm having a neice or a nephew, I just have to wait a few more hours; not sure if the anticipation will also hinder my sleep?!