Stay In School, Kids!

Rebecca, Kelley and I visit a hospital. One of the nurses shows us around. She has a very tiny nurse hat on top of her head and I ask to take a picture, but she says no. I have one of her in front of us as we follow her through the hospital. Pregnant women everywhere, obviously. We hang up just a few nets and aren’t allowed to hammer in the wall for the others. We tell them how they can buy lumber and make four posts to hang the nets. We get the hospitals promise that they will hang the nets and that the pregnant women can take the nets home with them.

We go into a three-story building that looks just like the one Jeff and I explored yesterday. The stairs slant and there are no outside railings to keep people from falling off the ledge of each floor. Each level of the building has patients on mattresses on the floor. There is a little girl in a Hello Kitty nightgown. She looks like any familiar picture of a hungry African child. Her face is sunken, her arms terribly thin, her belly bulging. With her weak arms she lifts a large cup of porridge to her mouth. I smile when she looks at me, “Oli otya?” (How are you?)

She whispers, “Gendi.” (I’m fine, or, I’m here.)

I ask the nurse on the way out if she will be alright. The nurse says the girl has a liver problem. I’m comforted that she had three family members around her who I can tell love her, but I’m still upset.

We are going to visit one of the Volset volunteers for lunch. She is the headmistress of Nakaseke Parents Primary School. The walk is long. We pass a mansion belonging to the owner of the college across the road from him. It is a two-story, bright orange house with white trim. I take a picture and Rebecca laughs

We meet up with Jeff, Geoffrey and the Headmistress on the way to the school. When we arrive she shows us around her school. As soon as some of the kids see us from their seats in the classroom they erupt in screaming and cheering.

The school has a program for new mothers. They meet and talk about nutrition and health care. Some of them live at the school. Kelley and I hang nets in one of the dorms on the beds of students with HIV.

The Headmistress really wants us to address her school. We can tell it’s important to her, and she has already assembled the 400+ students into the main building. We walk in and they are completely quiet. There are chairs for us in the front. The headmistress says, “Good Afternoon.” to the children, who immediately stand and in unison answer her greeting.

“Good Afternoon, Headmistress. How are you?”

“I am well, and how are you?”

“We are well, thank you.” They sit down in unison and smile in our direction.

“How many of you want to be friends with these Americans?”

The rush of their hands going into the air is audible.

We each get a turn to address the students. We keep the comments very brief. Jeff says, “Stay in School, kids!” haha. Kelley and I follow his lead. I tell them that getting an education is one of the most important things they will ever do. I tell them I am so impressed with them already and hope they continue all the way through S6. “Your life will be so much better with an education than it could possibly be otherwise.”

The headmistress translates of American English into Ugandan English for the children in case they haven’t understood us.

After lunch, Kelley and I head off to the Nakaseke Primary and Secondary schools to take pictures of the sponsored Volset students and get thank you letters for their sponsors. The Headmistress (is it obvious by now that I have forgotten her name?) pays three boda bodas to take Kelley, Geoffrey and I to the schools.

I start laughing on the ride to the schools because I feel like I’m in a scooter gang.

When we get back to the house Kelley goes to the trading center to get her hair washed and conditioned. Jeff and I sit in the house reading. Kelley gets back and has a towel over her head. The beauty salon told her to let the conditioner sit and come back in 30 minutes.

Jeff and I go to get a rolex. I miss the ones in Ntenjeru – these aren’t as juicy. We hear some commotion and go the side of that building we explored. There is a group with some speakers, a keyboard and microphones. They are singing and doing skits about HIV. They want to encourage people with HIV to come to their hospital to get treatment.

All the kids in the village are right up front dancing away to the songs like it’s their job. I laughed so hard. I felt bad at some points of the performance because a quarter of the audience was facing the opposite direction, staring and the three muzungus.