When It All Clicked

It is amazing how things finally are starting to click! After a full month, I am finally feeling comfortable and like I am doing something here. I had an especially great day last week. I went into the Lukodi Primary School for the first time, and was only supposed to observe an English P6 class (which are about 12- 13 year-olds), but ended up teaching the class. The teacher just handed me the book 5 minutes before class and told me to start teaching that page, which was about restaurants and ordering food. There were around 45 students or so and the teacher and I taught a 40 minute class. I will be going in there every morning to teach that class until I leave in December. The day continued to go well because I taught my first class for the mothers and children at the center too. Because there are so many kids, I am separating them and having two classes: one for the children ages 2-5 and the other for the babies under 2. I had the class for the older kids and it went very well. I was a bit nervous because the kids had just woken up from their naps, but it went better than I expected. It was so good to see the mothers interacting with their children! I hope that the class continues to be a success. I am planning on having one session for each of the age groups once a week. It is so good to feel that I am finally doing something here and I can see my program going somewhere. Before my session started, I was sitting with one little girl in my lap as she was waking up from her nap. I was not sure when my session would start, so I was just holding her and singing to her. I realized then, that it doesn't matter if the session happened that day at all, or if my program does not turn out as I would like it to. What matters is that I am here and building relationships with the people here. That is all I had wanted to do in the beginning anyway. A year ago I just said, "God, please get me to Uganda". The program was just an added bonus. God got me here through CVI, and I am so grateful. I knew I just wanted to be with these kids. And here I am.

Other things that have been happening: some of the staff went cobra hunting around the compound, but unfortunately, without any luck. However, there have been two snakes found in my hut so far. They are not cobras, but they are still very poisonous. I pray that we do not find any more! I am literally losing sleep worrying about them! Also, we have made some pretty fabulous meals in the last week. We have made guacamole, banana cream pudding, homemade macaroni and cheese, and pizza! What a wonderful break from beans and rice!

I have also been thinking about my interests and how I have the freedom to be involved in whatever hobbies I want or have the time to be interested in whatever I want. In America, people go to work, come home, have time with their families, do what interests them, plan for vacations, holidays, and family gatherings. Here in the villages, people (especially the women who mostly do all the work while the men drink) wake up, work in the fields all day, go home and prepare food, clean, go to bed, and do the same thing the next day. I wonder, what right do I have that I can do whatever I enjoy? I am beyond privileged. I can read, go for a bike ride, go on vacations, and enjoy life. Do the people here enjoy life? They work, sleep, work; day in and day out. Do they have the freedom to have interests? When I get home, I want to enjoy my life by doing whatever interests me. Before I came here, I wondered what the purpose of life is. I came to the conclusion that it is to do God's will and serve His people. So by coming to Uganda, I was sure that I had found the purpose of life and was fulfilling it. Now that I am here, I find that I appreciate my freedom to do things that I enjoy and take an interest in. I thought the purpose of life was to help others, and that is what I wanted to do. I do still want to do that, but I find that I don't want to sacrifice my own interests. Am I following the purpose of life then? Or, can I follow God's will and help others while still being able to enjoy my own interests?