Butterflies And Babies
The power went off with a clunk sometime in the middle of the night and with it, the air conditioning stopped working. As I lay there in the dark, wrestling with the mozzie net that I seem to get tangled in every night, I could hear all kinds of weird and wonderful animal noises outside. Howling, growling and cock-a-doodle-doing into the wee hours and a loud trumpeting noise that sounded a whole lot like an elephant. Could it have been? We are in Africa after all. My breakfast buddies really didn’t think so but you never know…
Again this morning the team split into the “Builders” and the “Babies”. They couldn’t drag me away from that baby bus if they tried. Molly and Maisy donned their work boots and gloves and opted today to join the boys on the building site so there were only about 8 of us ladies that went to the baby home.
We had arrived just in time for Music Time and the beautiful voices of the African staff were enchanting the babies (and us). They rocked and wriggled in time to the beat and clapped their cute little hands along to “She’ll Be Coming ‘Round The Mountain” and “My Bonnie Lies Over The Ocean”. We washed and sterilised all the bottles and their feeding paraphernalia during nap time, while we waited as patiently as we could for the babies to rouse. As soon as it was time, I made a beeline for my favourite little newborns. Mandy was helping me with the babies today and as we walked into the quiet little sanctuary with the carers, Brenda and Sharon, the snoozing bubs all around us were as silent as a mouse. It was precisely that moment that I realised I may have been over-indulging in baked beans and it just may have been a mistake to have had them on my toast every morning this week. Into the peace of the room came a trumpeting sound that shattered the tranquility. Maybe it was that elephant I thought I’d heard last night? I wish. I looked at Mandy and she gasped in open-mouthed horror. If only the floor had an escape hatch I could swiftly open and jump into but, alas it did not so I did the next best thing and, red-faced, apologised profusely for my disgraceful spontaneous eruption. Suppressing their mirth, Sharon and Brenda accepted my apology and we got on with the business of babies.
Still as irresistible as they were yesterday, these tiny Ugandans, with names like Mercy, Patience, Blessings, Charity and twins named Joseph and Mary, kept us busy and entertained. We changed them, fed them and got to cuddle them to our hearts’ content. It was great to get to know Sharon and Brenda and apart from the fact they could still love me despite my little indiscretion, they were really willing to open up to us about their lives. Sharing stories of our families, Sharon told us of her brother’s plight. According to Sharon, her brother had discovered a murdered body and had called the police, only to be arrested and gaoled as a suspect in the case. In Uganda, someone is guilty until proven innocent. He is an innocent man, who’s been awaiting trial, in deplorable conditions – 50 men in a small cell, sleeping on a concrete floor – for seven years! We asked why it has taken so long to get to court and discovered it all comes down to money. Unless he can come up with a substantial amount of money (a tad hard when you’re incarcerated), he will stay in gaol. It seems so unfair. We need to be grateful for our justice system!
Mandy and the girls and I discussed some deep topics : the ins and out of afros vs cornrows. How wide could their afros go if left untamed? We discovered that Northern Ugandans are from the Acoli tribe (pronounced “acholy”) and the language they speak is Luo. Sharon let us taste what she’d packed herself for lunch – some salty baked cassava, which was very yummy and tasted a lot like potato.
Sharon gave baby Vivienne a short-back-and-sides, taming her tiny afro while talking to us and watching the other babies. Talk about multi-tasking, and on a moving target. True skill indeed. The ladies asked us about our families and I showed them a couple of family photos. They were so excited to see my family and Brenda seemed entirely genuine when she looked me in the eye and said “that is the most beautiful family I have ever seen”. Gee, what a compliment. From there the kind words continued to flow. They told me they loved my hair and that I didn’t look my age among other nice things and I was feeling humbled by her gushing kindness. Saving the best till last, Sharon came home with a clanger: “I love your figure Sarah…”. Really?
“Me too”, Brenda agreed.
“It’s just so…(wait for it)……
ROUND”.
Hmmm. Thanks, I think. Mandy gasped, open-mothed for the second time today. It was a genuine compliment too. Maybe I should move to Africa?
The other girls with us at Baby Watoto spent he morning with the toddlers, blowing bubbles and playing with balloons. They were so impressed by just how well-behaved the kids were. Mandy and I had a brief visit with the older babies but Rachel lingered and spent her time lovingly acting as a piece of playground equipment with babies climbing all over her and giving her loads of cuddles. We couldn’t believe they were watching Australian Play School and loved the way they put their little hands together in prayer before their morning tea of fresh pineapple and watermelon.
After a few more cuddles with the babies we boarded the bus back to the Neighbourhood centre, where Delwyn and Debbie were teaching a room full of women how to sew a butterfly brooch. Delwyn, a sewing enthusiast and natural-born teacher, was in her element, giving step-by-step instructions to the fifty-odd women, while Debbie, a retired high school textiles teacher, guided them through the process. The tin-roofed building was like a sauna, the roof magnifying the intensity of the already sweltering day, yet not one of the women uttered a single word of complaint. With smiles on their faces they diligently persevered with their butterflies, (which incidentally looked pretty darn complicated to me) and were beaming with pride at their finished products, urging me to photograph them wearing their bespoke creations. There was a lot of chest puffing going on, and deservedly so.
Kathy had used some of the money we had raised through our pre-trip fundraising to buy rice, dried beans, packets of oil, laundry soap and sugar. It was our job to prepare little ‘showbags’ for the women in the neighbourhood project, like Nancy, who we had visited yesterday. With some help from Dennis, the resident sewing machine repair man and Vicky who looked after the kids, we spent the next few hours working up a sweat, scooping rice and beans from huge sacks into individual bags for the girls. It was hot but rewarding work and we are all excited to be presenting them with their goodies later in the week.
One of our team members, Jeanette, who is a teacher passionate about her vocation, was keen to visit a local school while she was in Uganda. She had been granted permission, under the impression as she headed off, that she’d be acting more or less as a teacher’s aide. Instead, she was surprised to find she was the special guest in a Watoto organised school project called “Keep Girls in School”. They spent the first part of the morning making little packs for all the school girls, who customarily have their heads shaved for all of their schooling years. The packs, containing two new pairs of undies and some sanitary pads, were tied up with ribbon and later distributed to the girls in the school. Jeanette was called upon to give an impromptu talk, which she took in her stride.
The builders also had a sweaty but productive day, getting to spend quality time with the Ugandan builders and getting to know them. For their first day on the site, Maisy, Molly and Lexi all worked their fingers to the bone, only managing to lean on their shovels very briefly in the course of the day. Everyone pulled their weight and worked really hard. At one stage, the team gave away some more soccer balls to some nearby school kids, throwing them over the fence and causing great jubilation. Such a small gesture brought so much joy and again drove home to us the things we so easily take for granted.
Progress on the greenhouse was halted prematurely when the mechanical hole digger thingy (technical name) broke down. God was good to us though and we heard news after dinner that, thanks to the clever and industrious Ugandans on the site, the digger had been repaired and they’d finished digging the holes. Uganda is slap-bang, right on the Equator so it was no surprise the team was exhausted after their hot day shovelling dirt in the sun, secretly delighted the malfunctioning machine had given them an unexpected early mark.
It was great to have some down-time this afternoon and reflect on the trip so far.
