Pictures!

On the left is Hannah, who I talked about in an earlier post, and on the right is Ishimat. Ishimat is 3 years old and starting school for the first time tomorrow. His nickname is monster, he loves to smile like this, and Didas is his brother. You can often find him wearing brightly colored clothes, sometimes with flowers on them. This is somewhat true of all the boys though, because all the children share clothes and they don't seem to care how it looks.

This is Elijah and he's 3 years old. He's a bit of a troublemaker, but he also has the sweetest smile. It's always hard for me to understand what he's saying because he mumbles, yet somehow the other children always understand him. He's still too young for school, so he's one of the 4 little ones that will be home all day with us.

Here's Evan and Bobo... he's 10 years old and was the second child that came to live with Robert in 2006. Evan is trying to become his best friend because he has "the purest heart." He's very curious and always investigating what's going on around him. He also has an incredible smile and a contagious laugh.

Here's Didas teaching our pup, Kovy, how to skateboard. Didas is 7 years old and one of the smartest kids at the house. He's really cute, with eyelashes that go on for miles, and he's very well-behaved. He says he wanted to be a pilot when he grows up, but we think this is only because Viola, one of the older girls, has been saying for years that she wants to be a pilot.

This is where the young kids eat everyday, and in the back left you can see the kitchen where the aunties prepare the food. They also have a fire with charcoal outside where they cook most meals.

A few days ago one of our goats had a baby and he's still learning how to walk.

More Pictures!

Here's the Malayaka House! The front door is on the right side, where you walk into a small room with a table where the children do their homework. On the first floor there's also a laundry room with a washer and dryer and a separate room where all the clothes are kept. On the left side is the garage. Upstairs, the front right side of the house is a big room where the 20 or so youngest kids sleep. The left side above the garage is Robert's bedroom and office. In between, on the back side, are two more bedrooms - one for 10 of the older girls, and one for Hakim, Viola, Jacinta, and Jacinta's babies (Mercy & Diego).

This is the tree house climbing structure that Uncle Leo built a couple months ago.

This is the guest house where I sleep, which is right next to the big house. It has 3 bedrooms, a kitchen, a bathroom, a shower, and a big room that functions as a dining room and library.

This is Evan's pizza from Tuesday night, with peppers and onions.

Pizza nights, crafts, and a new guest...

Hi Everyone,

This was the last week of summer vacation here in Uganda and some exciting things happened…

- On Saturday night, while Fran was staying at a friend’s house in Kampala rather than being our protector at the house, Evan and I were awoken by Alice, the security guard, outside our window. She doesn’t speak too much English and she has a thick accent (and it was 4:25am), so all we heard was “outside the gate.” Since Fran wasn’t home, and we weren’t sure what was outside the gate, Evan grabbed the big stick that Fran gave him and we went out to the gate. There we found Marta, a volunteer from Poland, who had been waiting outside the gate for 30 minutes. Before Robert left for the U.S. (I’ll explain that later) he had told us that Marta would be coming at some point, but she hadn’t booked a flight yet and so we were surprised to see her. But luckily she’s been here before and she had a friend drive her and wait until she was let in, so she was safe, and obviously so were we. She enjoyed telling everyone the story about Evan’s stick the next morning.

- A little more about Marta… she’s really great. She’s 27 years old and recently opened her own orphanage for babies in a different part of Uganda. She’s here for about 6 months and will be travelling to her orphanage in Masindi occasionally. She also has an interesting potential project for us here at the Malayaka House that I’ll talk about once it’s evolved a little more.

- On Monday we had a business meeting with the girls involved in the craft business. We have 3 different distribution plans… (1) we’re going to make some nice displays of jewelry, aprons, and bags in the room where the women sew during the day, and hopefully the volunteers that come through each day will take a look at all the items and buy some for a higher price than locals would; (2) we have some items in a shop called Anna’s Corner and we’ll soon have some at the Lake Victoria Hotel, so that will be a steady monthly paycheck; (3) when volunteers go home to the U.S. or Europe they are welcome to buy any amount that they can afford and then re-sell them at home. The items they make are beautiful and I’ll post some pictures soon in case any of you at home want to purchase something for me to bring back this summer.

- Tuesday was our first pizza night… and it was excellent! The girls worked all day – making cheese, making sauce, making dough, making juice, cutting vegetables, cooking meat, cleaning the outdoor seating area, cleaning dishes – and the outcome was great. They had a candle-lit table and they served the most delicious meal we’d had yet. As a thank you and congratulations, we got some ice cream and enjoyed dessert with all the girls afterwards. Thursday night’s dinner went just as well and, after just two nights, it looks like the Malayaka House won’t have to put any more money into the business and it can run on its own profits.

- Hakim, who is starting S1 on Monday (the first year of secondary school), got his Primary Leaving Exam results this week. Your score on this exam determines which secondary school you can attend, and Hakim scored in the first division! He was so thrilled and showed everyone his certificate. Uncle Tony took him to Entebbe Senior School to get his uniform and we got him and his friends some ice cream to celebrate. He’ll be going to the same school as Viola now and, just like the primary school, it is one of the best in the country.

- So, as I mentioned above, Robert isn’t at the House right now. He usually goes back home every summer to work, but money was getting tight here so he’s in Houston for a few months coaching tennis. As sad as I was to learn that he would be leaving here, it’s been incredible to see how this place functions without him. I’m eagerly awaiting his return so that we can hang out and I can get to know him better but, until then, I’m enjoying the responsibilities that he passed on to us. The aunties and the older girls take care of nearly everything, and they are unbelievable with the children. The kids do exactly what the aunties say and you can see just how much respect they have for the older girls that have helped to raise them.

So those are the highlights from this week. Keep commenting and emailing friends!

Video

For those of you that want to know more about the Malayaka House, how it got started, and what kind of work it does in the community, here's a 12 minute video that has a lot of good information.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiznU5WdKsg

Pictures!

The slow internet connection makes it hard to upload pictures, and not only does it take a while to do each one, but it also uses a lot of megabytes which means more money.... but here are a couple photos and hopefully I can put 2 or 3 up each week. Eventually I'll put up at least one picture of each kid so you can learn a little about them all.

This is Hannah wearing her new TOMS shoes. She's 3 years old and will be starting nursery in a couple weeks, so she just got her first school uniform. Her nickname is Hannah Banana and it has stuck so well that sometimes the children, aunties, and Robert just call her banana.

This is Jimmy, one of the 6 year old triplets, with the new puppy. Jimmy is awesome. He's well-behaved, really smart, and he has the sweetest smile. He wants to be a doctor when he's older, so anytime a child is sick Robert also brings Jimmy to the doctor because he likes to learn.

Field trips, entrepreneurs, and a puppy

Here are some updates about our activities this week:

- Fran bought a bunch of eggs and gave them to the aunties, so they’ve been cooking us eggs for lunch along with homemade French fries and fresh vegetables… it’s been a nice break from rice & beans everyday.

- Me, Evan, Fran, Denise (our new German housemate), Anna and Kato went out to an Italian restaurant for dinner. The owner is the one who taught one of our girls, Jacinta, how to make mozzarella. The food was good and the restaurant itself was really cool.

- There are many young Germans who teach at a nearby school and come to the house frequently to do a variety of things, so on Wednesday they came and we all walked with the kids to a local playground. This is going to be a weekly Wednesday event once school starts.

- Evan and I have spent a lot of time in the last few days working on the Malayaka House “cooperative of businesses.” As I mentioned in an earlier post, there are a few businesses in the works including jewelry, mozzarella cheese, and a bi-weekly pizza night. We are doing our first pizza night on Tuesday so, in order to properly prepare, Evan and I did some research and learned the basics about making a proper business plan. Yesterday we met with Namatov, Naiga, Jacinta, and Kato and created a draft of their business plan and set goals for where we want to be one month from now and three months from now.

- Today, as a follow up to yesterday’s meeting, Namatov took us to the market where we bought nice plates, glasses, serving plates, and a pitcher for water. We’re going to set up a nice outdoor dining table with candles and the older girls who are serving the food will be dressing up. For the first pizza night (and maybe the first 3 or 4) it will only be me, Evan, Fran, Denise, Anna, and Kato eating. We’re hoping that in 2 weeks the girls will have a good system down and we can invite other friends of the Malayaka House to come in for dinner.

- Yesterday Fran took us to visit another orphanage run by a Ugandan woman named Remy. She started taking children in around the same time that Robert stopped, and all of her 20 children are under the age of 5. She’s been having success with adoption though, so hopefully that continues. We took two of our children with us, Didas (age 7) and Jimmy (age 6), and the boda boda driver let them each have a turn sitting in front of him on the bike (one on the way there and one on the way home). Remy’s place was incredible and her aunties are just as fabulous as ours. Their house is spotless, probably because most of the children are too young to make it dirty. They have a small playground, swingset, and a trampoline, so our children love visiting their friends there. It was nice to see another orphanage home, especially one run by a Ugandan.

- Yesterday Denise went into Kampala, the capital and closest city, with some of the other Germans. They came home with a very tiny, and absolutely filthy, puppy. They found him on the street lying next to his dead brother and decided to save him. Luckily they at least took him to the animal care place in Entebbe and got some shampoo that kills fleas and ticks. The pup is adorable and looks like it’s mostly German shepherd. They named it the German word for flower, but we’ve been calling it Kovy (after a NJ Devils player) and the kids are catching on to our name. Fran is a dog lover, but he’s annoyed that the Germans brought it here to begin with because there’s enough going on with 36 children, 5 dogs, 8 cats, and tons of farm animals. He had the task of training the house’s youngest dog, Lola, last year when he was here and it looks like he’ll be doing it again with this new one.

I hope all is well at home, and please feel free to email me!

Exciting start to the week...

On Monday morning Evan and I piled into the van with 30 kids and Tonny brought us to Entebbe Junior School. Robert was buying all the school-aged kids new uniforms which, I learned when we arrived, are not cheap. The process of fitting all the children was painfully slow, and not because taking measurements took long. They only thing the woman measured on each kid was the waist to the knee, but then she gathered the 2 shirts, 2 shorts, sweater, and socks that each child needed, and she didn’t move quickly. But the kids were ecstatic to have something new that they could call their own, especially because the clothes at the house are generally shared with everyone. Plus a handful of kids just graduated from nursery last year and this is their first school uniform for starting primary.

After lunch we had some exciting guests visit the house… TOMS SHOES! For those of you who don’t know, TOMS is a shoe company started by a young man who had travelled to Argentina and found that many children didn’t own a single pair of shoes. He eventually started this project where people in the US can buy shoes and for each pair he sells, he donates a pair to a child. The company has exploded in the last few years and he now distributes shoes in many different countries. Here he has partnered with an NGO in Kampala to distribute shoes to Ugandan children. The group that visited us was headed by Abraham, a young Ugandan man who grew up here and then attended USC. He studied film and photography before returning to Uganda and starting a non-profit that focuses on art (check it out HERE). The kids were thrilled to have new shoes and I was so happy to see how the other end of TOMS Shoes works. I have 2 pairs and I was pleased to see that the shoes they distribute are very similar, but more durable. The kids loved that I had the same shoes as them and they’ve since become called ‘ninja shoes.’

So TOMS was the big excitement on Monday, and on Tuesday is was a trip to the dentist. Helen, the dentist, had come to the house last week and looked at each kids’ teeth to determine who needed to have work done. She had decided that Mastula needed a cleaning, Didas and Shakira needed a cavity filled, and Bobo needed 2 teeth pulled, so on Monday we took them to her nearby office. Robert dropped me, Evan, Namatov, and the 4 kids off and we sat with each of them while they had their work done. They were each a little nervous, but very brave. The cleanings and fillings were pretty routine, though it was interesting to compare to my dental experiences. Helen’s entire office is about half the size of each room at my dentist. There is one chair for patients, one desk for her things, one small sink in the corner, and one toaster oven in which she sterilizes her tools. When she does fillings, she puts a small amount of a powdery substance on a piece of glass, then puts a drop of a gel substance on it, and mixes the two together. Oh and the kids don’t get a shot of Novocain before a filling.

The first 3 kids had no problem though. When it was Bobo’s turn, Evan sat in a chair with Bobo in his lap rather than having him lie in the dentist’s chair. Bobo’s about 9 years old and is one of the first kids Robert took in in 2006. He had been excited to go to the dentist, until Helen tried to pull his tooth out without giving him Novacaine. Obviously he yelled and squirmed, and Evan winced, because the tooth she was pulling wasn’t even loose. She quickly realized that wasn’t going to work so then she did give him a shot of Novacaine, but the poor kid was freaked out. He squirmed a bit when the shot went in his gum and then, after they waited for it to take effect, he was a good sport when she pulled the 2 teeth out. I don’t know how he did it, and I don’t know how Evan sat through it with him. Evan told me afterward that when Helen was trying to pull it out she told Bobo not to cry and that he should be strong, so once she turned away to get more tools Evan whispered to him that he could cry if he wanted to and that he knew it hurt. The poor kid looked traumatized the whole drive home. Robert tried to cheer him up by letting him drive home… once we were on the dirt road that the house is on he put Bobo on his lap and let him steer the car. This made him laugh a bit, and it also made everyone else laugh when our gate opened and we turned into the driveway and the other kids saw Bobo driving. Evan went upstairs to the bedroom and read a couple books to Bobo before he took some medicine and slept for a bit. By the end of the day though he was back to being Bobo and ran around playing games all night.

Other events from Tuesday…

- Denise, a 23 year old German, arrived at the house and will be staying 2.5 months. She speaks very little English but the kids already love her and I think she’ll be fun to have around.

- We had noodles for lunch, another welcomed break from rice & beans, though they were still served as well.

- The older girls make food each night after the kids are in bed and tonight it was corn on the cob and cassava. The corn was very different from ours, not nearly as good, but the cassava was delicious.

- Fran taught me how to use the big saw and I made a balance board out of some scrap wood and taught Hakim how to use it.

- I got our mailing address here for those of you who want it… but Anna warned that sometimes it takes 2 weeks, sometimes 6 weeks, and sometimes things don’t arrive at all. But here it is:

Malayaka House

c/o Sarah Regan

P.O. Box 934

Entebbe, Uganda

The Weekend

This weekend we got lots of much needed sleep after having a hard time with jet lag. On Saturday we slept in and then played with the kids for a few hours. Lunch was rice and beans, as it had been for the 3 previous lunches as well, and after we ate we got ready for the beach. The children all put on clean clothes and we piled nearly 30 people into our van and Robert dropped us at the beach. We ran around, ate watermelon, and then everyone stripped down to their underwear and went swimming. The lake is absolutely beautiful and the water was incredibly warm.

After swimming for a while, we got dressed and walked to a nearby rugby field. Kato, a friend of the Malayaka House, plays in a rugby league and the children go to watch whenever his games are in Entebbe. After the game ended we drove home, ate dinner, and the children played a little before bed. Once the kids were upstairs and in their pajamas I went up and read them a story. About 18 of them share a room so we put out a blanket in the middle and I sit with them and read a book. For some reason, we haven’t figured out what it is yet, the youngest children don’t go to bed with the others. So Elijah, Amina, Mercy, and Diego were up playing with us a bit longer.

Once all the young children are in bed, the older kids stay up for another 4 or 5 hours playing games, hanging out and making food. So, on Saturday night, I learned how to climb up to Hakim’s tree house that he built a few months ago. It’s extremely high in the air so I was intimidated, but I knew the views from up there would be great so I wanted to practice climbing up. I also spent some time skateboarding and playing basketball with Hakim. He has a basketball rim and net in the garage so we’re going to find a good tree to attach it to sometime this week, and then he wants Evan and I to help him practice. When Hakim found out that I like to rollerblade he made me put on his friend Joseph’s pair that he was borrowing and we rollerbladed through the first story of the main house (because the concrete outside the house isn’t smooth enough to ride on). According to the data at the Malayaka House Hakim is 12 years old, but I think he’s actually 14 or so. Robert said that many of the recorded ages are incorrect because when children come to the house they are often behind in their schooling, so he would record their age as being younger than they truly are. This way they could stay in school longer and hopefully catch up on the education they had been missing. Since Hakim is so much older than all the other boys (the next oldest is 9 or 10), he spends his days hanging out with his friends, sometimes at the Malayaka House and sometimes out around town. I think we’ll have a lot of fun at night with him and the older girls who kind of lay low during the day when the kids are running around.

We also slept in on Sunday and then spent the whole day playing and reading. We had all the young children’s names down by last Friday but there were still a handful of older girls that I didn’t know. They spend much of the day making beads that they later use to make necklaces, bracelets, earrings, key chains, and bags. They make the beads by cutting a long thin triangle out of colorful paper, then you roll the paper up (starting with the wide end of the triangle), and it becomes a bead. I learned how to do it on Sunday and it’s very difficult. The things they make with the beads are incredible and it’s one of the businesses that have developed here at the house. They have their items in a few markets in Uganda and Robert is taking tons to the US when he goes and he’ll be putting it in shops there. Aside from the bead making, there are two women here (Carol and Dora) who spend their days sewing bags, aprons, cushion covers, pot holders, and a few other items. The goal is that one day, hopefully in the near future, the profits from the sale of these items can cover the costs of a few salaries and this can turn into a business for two of the oldest girls here, Namatov and Naiga.

Another business that we have is cheese-making. Jacinta, another one of the oldest girls, has learned how to make mozzarella cheese. A friend of Robert’s, Julio, who has a local Italian restaurant taught her the entire process and now she makes several kilos each week and it is purchased by two or three shops and restaurants nearby. Jacinta also learned how to bake bread and pastries in the brick oven we have here and we’ll soon be combining these skills into a new money-making endeavor. Starting next week we’ll be making pizzas on Tuesday and Thursday nights and inviting guests and friends to come eat at the Malayaka House. For 25,000 shillings, or $11, dinner guests will get a large ‘made-to-order’ pizza with exactly the vegetables and meat you want on it, a small fresh salad, a few small loaves of bread, juice or soda, and a dessert pastry. Jacinta will make the cheese, sauce, dough, and bread, and the goal is that eventually all the vegetables and meat will also come from our own farm. Robert figures that even if we only have four people come each pizza night, that’s 200,000 shillings per week (almost $90), and it would cover a portion of the aunties’ salaries.

I’m sure I’ll be posting frequently about these businesses because right now they are a major focus, both because the job market for the older girls is frightening here in Uganda, and because the Malayaka House needs to find ways to cover the salaries of the people it employs so that Robert can stop paying out of pocket.

The last thing I want to mention is that I went out for dinner Sunday night with Evan, Fran, and two other Spanish guests. They were only here for two nights because they were just delivering donations from Spain. They both work in the cabin crew of an airline and are somehow connected to Dilia, Robert’s partner, in Spain. Because they fly for free, it is cheaper for them to come here and deliver the donations than it would be to ship them. They were nice people and had some interesting stories because their life is centered on travelling. Fran took us to a very nice restaurant, called Faze 3, in the wealthy part of town. They call themselves an Indian restaurant, but they have a very wide menu. I ate ‘English style’ fish & chips, and it was delicious. It was a welcomed break from rice & beans. To get there, we walked the half mile to Entebbe town and then took a ‘boda boda.’ Essentially these are motorcycle taxis and it’s the preferred form of transportation in this part of Africa. It was a little frightening and will take some getting used to, but it’s very cheap and very fast. So that was how we ended our weekend.

We're here!

We made it! After 21 hours of smooth travelling, including a layover in the incredible Schipol Airport of Amsterdam, we arrived at the Entebbe Airport where Robert was waiting for us. We were happy to see that he brought one of the children, two year old Mercy, to greet us even though it was late at night. It was only a 5 minute drive home from the airport and when we arrived only a couple other children were awake.

Our first 2 days here have been an odd mix of comfort and chaos. Our room in the guest house is a great size and we have plumbing, a warm shower, a small kitchen, and a little library all in our house. I feel very comfortable with our living arrangement and the children have welcomed us with open arms. They are so fun and so full of energy. They go to bed early, around 7pm, because the malaria mosquitos come out once it’s dark so this means they’re up pretty early in the morning and have energy to run around all day. During the day, we spend 95% of our time outside and they are always ready to play.

As entertaining as this is, it is also quite overwhelming. We have 26 children that are 12 years old or younger, and a big bulk of them are 6 and 7 years old. On day one I felt like I’d never learn all their names, but after day two I’m feeling confident. Tomorrow will be a test though because every time they change their clothes it’s a struggle again. Aside from the fact that we have a set of triplets and set of twins, we also have about 32 of them, both boys and girls, with the same haircut. That makes it hard to know their gender, let alone their name. But I already feel like I’m developing relationships with many of them and I think I’ll have their names down in a week.

Another aspect of this transition that’s overwhelming is that we’ve heard so many great things about past volunteers and the lasting impact they’ve made on the Malayaka House, so a high standard has been set. Robert and Anna, a close friend of his, explained to us that the most important thing to do in the first couple weeks is watch the aunties and learn how things are done here. They have this place running like clockwork and it’s really incredible how they get everything done. They do all the laundry, make all the food, clean all three houses, bathe all the children, feed all the children, and they do it all so gently. I hope I can find a way to spend time with them without getting in the way. It’s even harder to learn their names and keep them straight because I feel like a fool introducing myself multiple times.

There is so much to say already and so much has happened in the last 2 days, so here’s a list of some interesting things:

- Hakim, the oldest boy (13 years old), has a farm at the house that he takes care of. He has goats, pigs, ducks, chickens, roosters, turkeys, rabbits, and some newly acquired pigeons (when we asked Robert about them he said he had no idea where Hakim got them).

- The older girls are busy everyday making jewelry, handbags, and aprons. They are incredibly talented and are hoping that this can develop into a business. Tonight they taught me how to make beads but rolling up long triangles of magazine paper, which they will later thread together to make necklaces.

- Today Evan and I read with some of the kids and they absolutely loved it. I figured that with so much going on at the house and us reading outside they would get bored quickly, but they had me read book after book and didn’t stop until lunch was being served. Many of them just learned how to read in the last year and they enjoy it very much. Robert told us that they sometimes punish the children by making them stay home from school because they love it so much.

- Every Saturday Robert’s friend Anna takes the kids on “safari,” which means either a trip to the playground, the park, the zoo, or the beach, then they go and watch a rugby match. She also takes the older girls to rugby practice in the morning. We’ll be doing this tomorrow, as well as going to the market that happens in town every Tuesday and Saturday. Anna is German and came here 2 years ago to volunteer but loved it so much that she stayed and now works for a local safari company.

- We were asking Robert about adoption and he said it’s not possible for him and the Malayaka House because he is white and people often assume that that means he is a human trafficker. This is unfortunate for the children here, but luckily his Ugandan friend opened an orphanage when Robert stopped taking new children last year and she has facilitated successful adoptions. Anna, who I mentioned above, has adopted a young girl from this other orphanage and now houses the two oldest girls from the Malayaka House so that they have their own space.

- Today we met Tonny, a very good friend of Robert’s who lives up the road. He has an undergrad degree in social work, but because no one here has money to pay for social work services he has begun farming, as well as assisting the Malayaka House in any way that he can.

- Robert just began employee a security guard for the house last month. Her name is Alice, she is very sweet, she works 7pm to 7am patrolling the perimeter of the compound, and she carries a rifle. There had been some minor issues of people jumping the fence and stealing from the house so Robert thought it would make everyone more comfortable having someone here awake at night. He hired a security guard who is a mother so that she is comfortable being here with the children and vice versa.

- Uncle Fran, a volunteer from Spain, arrived last night and he will be here for our entire stay. He’s been here twice before, once for 3 months and once for 6 months, so he’ll be a big help to us. The kids love him and he spends a lot of time building things for the house (tables, benches, chicken coops, anything).

I could go on, but that’s long enough for now. I’m sure I’ll have interesting updates about the weekend.

Malayaka House

By the time this is posted I’ll already be in Uganda, but I wanted to start this blog with a short explanation of why I’m going on this adventure and what I’ll be doing (thanks to Andi for this idea – check out her blog from Mongolia when you’re done reading mine).

Evan and I will be living and volunteering at an orphanage called the Malayaka House in Entebbe, Uganda for the next six months. After studying abroad and teaching in South Africa we wanted to find a program that would bring us back to Africa and have us working with children again. This summer, through our good friend Erin who works at St. Mike’s, we met Robert. Robert came to Uganda in 2005 to do some research and, through a series of wild events, found himself starting an orphanage for sick and abandoned children. Now, just over six years later, “Uncle Robert” has 36 children between the age of 1 and 19 living under his roof. He also employs eight Ugandan women that the children call “Aunties” and they take care of absolutely everything at the Malayaka House. They create their own schedule and ensure that the children are clean, healthy, and well-fed.

Because this project wasn’t one that Robert intended when he came to Uganda in 2005, everything about the orphanage has been developed and altered along the way. Up until last year Robert was still taking in children whenever the local police would call and say that a child was in a life or death situation and needed a new home, but right now there isn’t any more room to grow. The cost of living in Uganda has risen drastically in the last year and Robert has the children in a more expensive school. So right now the Malayaka House is looking for new ways to raise money and develop businesses for the oldest children.

We met with Robert in August because we were interested in learning more, and he immediately invited us to go stay at his guest house and volunteer for as long as we liked. With very little knowledge of the Malayaka House, but with a great deal of confidence in Robert and what he is doing, we decided to go for it. Our role at the house is abstract and will be determined by both our abilities and the needs of the children and their aunties.

So follow us on this journey to Uganda , and please check out the Malayaka House website!

And a special thank you to all my family and friends who donated both money towards my trip and clothes for the children, I’m extremely grateful!