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