Pictures!

This is Che Che, one of the 6 year old triplets. Evan had some of the kids pretend they were walking down a cat walk the other day so that's why he's posing like this. Che Che is funny and wild and can cry on command, a skill he turns on quite often. He was missing a front tooth when we met him, but it's growing in now. Everyday Evan holds him by the upper arms and does bicep curls and Che Che thinks that he's the one getting stronger.

This is the older of the two Justine's at Malayaka House. She's in P6 and plays on the rugby team. Justine has a great sense of style and enjoys looking nice all the time. She can often be quiet and reserved, but other times she explodes with confidence. We discovered last weekend that she's an excellent dancer.

This is Hadija, trying to carry all the girls water bottles after the rugby match last week. She's on the team, but hasn't played in matches yet because she's young and quite small. She speaks less English than most of the girls, but we've discovered that she's very funny. She came to Malayaka House last year with 9 other girls that had been living in an awful orphanage that has since been shut down. These girls are family to each other and the 8 oldest are inseparable. Hadija fits in perfectly with them while still being totally unique.

This is Fran, our Spanish housemate. He stays up late to protect the house, so this picture sums him up well. If you look to his right (your left) you'll see his 1.5 liter Coke bottle and his panga (a large knife) stuck in the ground. He usually has a cigarette in his hand as well, and when he's not acting as security guard you can usually find him in the garage building things.

And this is Kovy. He's growing everyday and changing color rapidly. I'm sure Evan will blog about him again soon.

Market, School, and Pizza...

Here are some highlights and interesting things about the last 10 days…
- Me, Evan, and 4 other volunteers went into Kampala last Friday with Jacinta, Namatov, and Naiga. We went to the big market and I got a feel for how much different items will cost. As in South Africa, there’s a lot of back and forth between the merchant and the customer before a price is decided. Because we’re white, we get the “mzungu price” which is always really high, and then you have to talk them down to a small fraction of what they originally asked. The market had everything from jewelry to bags to wooden salad bowls and spoons to animal carvings, and much more. After the market we all went out for lunch and treated the girls to something other than rice & beans.
- Last weekend, after a couple volunteers did a barbeque for the children, the older girls stayed up dancing in our house for a while. At one point they had a soda chugging competition with the sodas left over from the cookout, then the dance party turned into a fashion show. Some of them are quite shy with us still, so it was nice to see another, more confident, side of them.
- On Tuesday and Thursday of this week I went to Entebbe Junior school, with Evan and Marta, to observe our children in class. I spent a couple hours each in baby class, middle class, and P1. There are 2 classes for each level so I didn’t get to see everyone, but I was with Ishmat and Ruthie (baby class), William (middle class), and Jimmy, Johnny, Che Che, Achen, Lucas, and Malayaka (P1). For the 3 nursery levels, the classes are split randomly, but starting with P1 they are divided by ability. The P1 class I attended is called East and it’s for the weaker students. We have one child, Shakira, in P1 West, which is the stronger class.
I was impressed with the nursery program and pleased to see that our kids were well behaved there. The teachers are enthusiastic and kind, and they have an effective teaching style. The kids are learning their numbers and letters, as well as important social development skills. The sing lots of songs, read stories, and participate in physical education twice a week. I think it’s a great introduction to school for the young ones.
The P1 teacher that I observed was also very nice and seems to well-liked by the kids, but the Ugandan education system needs a lot of improvements. It’s known as one of the best in central/eastern Africa, but it doesn’t compare to our schools in the U.S. All the kids do is copy material from the chalkboard, repeat after the teacher, and memorize material. There’s really no critical thinking involved. For example, the kids in P3 are learning about maps, so at home when we asked each of them what a map was they all responded “a map is a projection of an object as seen from above.” Besides the fact that this definition is incorrect, the kids are only learning the exact words that are written by the teacher. If we ask them more questions about maps they usually can’t come up with an answer that’s in their own words. Now that we’ve seen the way they learn, it’s obvious why this happens. The teacher repeats things many times and the children just parrot it back to her. They don’t ask open-ended questions and they don’t use any creative teaching techniques. Plus, because there are no text books, and because the teachers stress good handwriting, the children spend most of their time copying things into their workbooks. The all have excellent handwriting (all of our P1 kids from Malayaka House write nicer than Evan), but it takes them forever to write.
We’ll be back at the school a couple times next week so I’m sure I’ll have more to say about the P3-P6 classes. And on Saturday I’m going with Marta and Evan to the parent-teacher meetings for the nursery children so that might be interesting.
- Lastly, we had an exciting pizza night last week. We had 17 guests which included the usual volunteers, some German teachers, a couple of our business partners, and a group of Spanish guys who work for the UN. The East African hub of the United Nations is here in Entebbe and some of the guys spend time at Malayaka House in between their projects in the Congo, Sudan, Burkina Faso, and many other troubled countries. Jacinta made 14 pizzas and the night brought in a profit of about 150,000 shillings ($65). It was a bit of a crazy night, and the girls were exhausted by the end of it, but all the guests enjoyed the food and the atmosphere so hopefully they’ll tell their friends.
That’s all for now – thanks for reading! I’m going to post soon about Uganda in general and what it’s like living here, but if there’s anything specific that you’re wondering about, or a subject you’d like to hear more about, feel free to comment or email me at sregan3@mail.smcvt.edu.

Crafts!

patchwork apron

zippered bags

paper bead bags

paper bead necklaces

paper bead earrings

I know there are some people at home who are interested in the crafts made at the Malayaka House, so I wanted to put some pictures up. If anyone wants me to bring items home for them when I return, just let me know. I'm hoping that by the time I leave here I will have found a couple places at home that are willing to sell some items. Robert is friends with the owner of Healthy Living, a grocery store/cafe in Burlington, and they have a display of jewelry with some information about the Malayaka House. I would love to be able to set up a similar situation with some more places. Because there are so many people in Uganda that make the same crafts, the girls can't sell them for much here, so it's great when they get products to the U.S. or Europe where they can be sold for a price that reflects the amount of time they spend working.

So here at the house, Naiga is the head of the craft business. She's 17 years old and finished S3 last year (junior year of high school). She might go back to school next year, but right now she's working on the craft business. She goes to Kampala and buys supplies, makes all the beads by rolling paper very tightly, designs the jewelry and bags, makes the items, dips them in varnish so they're weather-proofed, and hangs them on the clothesline to dry. During school holidays the other girls love to sit and make beads with her all day. Robert told us that Naiga doesn't ask for help, but the girls just want to spend all their time with her because she's so funny and kind.

In addition to Naiga, we also have two employees from outside the house who do the sewing. Carol and Dora work Monday-Friday in our craft shop and they sew aprons, bags, cushion covers, pillow cases, change purses, and curtains. Carol does beautiful work, and she's teaching Dora everything she knows about sewing.

Enjoy the pictures, I'll put more up as they make different things.

Week 5 in Entebbe

The last week has been pretty routine, with a few fun adventures mixed in. We had 2 more successful pizza nights, we had 4 days with no running water, we had our first rainfall after 32 days of sun, and we used about $13 worth of internet to watch the Super Bowl. The most interesting, and frightening, part of my week is that I unintentionally joined a rugby team. Last Tuesday I went with Marta, Denise, and another volunteer named Anya to the older girls’ rugby practice. I thought it would be a good opportunity to spend more time with them and learn a bit about a sport I’d never played before. It turns out that one of their starters is injured and, after practicing again on Thursday, they needed me to play in the matches on Saturday. I really enjoyed the practices because most of the team is still learning how to play, and its fun to learn an entirely new sport, but they matches were terrifying. I spent most of the time trying to casually avoid being near the ball, although Evan says my game strategy was obvious. Both times that I had to try to tackle an opponent, it ended with me on the ground and them carrying the ball several meters past me. I did score a try, but as soon as I crossed the line I was thrown to the ground. So, needless to say, I’m a bit worried about getting hurt and having to visit a Ugandan hospital, but we’ll see if I can keep avoiding the ball until the injured player returns next month. All the children and aunties came to watch the matches on Saturday and had a good laugh when they saw me get run over. But it is fun to play with the girls, they’re improving greatly with each practice and they really enjoy the sport.

In other news, Evan and I took the babies to the zoo on Friday while the other children were at school. We left Diego at home because he’s too young and just took Mercy, Elijah, and Amina. I won’t say too much because Evan’s planning on writing about our day later, but we had fun and saw a lot of cool animals. On Saturday night we went to a barbeque at the hotel residence of a Spanish volunteer. His name is Raphael and he works for the UN, which has their Central African base here in Entebbe. There are 12 men in his crew and they are pilots, co-pilots, flight attendants, and mechanics. They stay here in a hotel that the UN rents out, and they fly to projects in Sudan, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Benin, Burkina Faso, and other countries. When Rapha’s here in Entebbe he comes to the Malayaka House to play with the children, and sometimes take them out on field trips. So we went to their hotel, enjoyed delicious food, and talked with some of the guys about their work. They have interesting stories because they go to places that most people aren’t allowed to visit, usually because it’s dangerous and/or there’s political unrest.

Two volunteers from Germany, Walther and Jessy, arrived early Sunday morning and the children were so happy to see them. They’ve both spent a lot of time here in the past couple years and are important people in this project. They’ll be planning some activities for the kids, implementing programs for us to continue once they’re gone, and contributing money that’s been raised for Malayaka House in Germany. Walther is a primary school teacher at home and played a big role in getting our children situated at Entebbe Junior School. He spent time observing classes there and establishing the necessary support for our students that are far behind in their education. So on Monday he took Evan, Marta, and I to Entebbe Junior and introduced us to the head teacher of Nursery. Miss Grace was very nice and showed us around her classrooms for the Nursery, Middle Class, and Top Class. Five of our kids are in her program, and we had heard tremendous things from Robert about how she runs the Nursery. The classrooms are colorful with displays of the children’s artwork, the school schedule, and effective teaching tools. Grace introduced us to the new headmaster, Erasmus, and we talked briefly in his office. The school just got a whole new staff last week so Walther explained to Erasmus who we were and what he had done at the school last year. He asked if we could spend some time observing in our students’ classrooms so that we’d have a better understanding of the Ugandan education system and how each of our kids learn, especially the older girls. Erasmus said he would love to collaborate to improve the education of our children, so hopefully sometime soon we’ll be going back to the school. Even without observing in the classroom yet, we’ve found major issues with the education here, but I’ll talk more about that later.

Thanks for reading!

Mozzarella Cheese

I’ll be updating about the past week’s events soon, but I wanted to talk first about the cheese business because it’s been a focal point of the last few weeks. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the older girls at Malayaka House are developing a ‘cooperative of businesses’ because there is almost no job market in Uganda. Right now we have a craft shop that produces handmade jewelry, aprons, and bags; a pizza restaurant that serves dinner to guests at the house every Tuesday and Thursday; and a mozzarella cheese business.

Jacinta, the oldest girl at Malayaka, has been making her own mozzarella cheese for a few months now. She was taught by an Italian man who lives in Entebbe and owns a popular restaurant. Right now she’s making about 13-20 kilograms of cheese each week, depending on the demand from our clients. On days when she makes it, she gets up at 6:00am and takes two boda bodas (motorcycle taxis) to a nearby farm. At the farm she purchases 70 liters of milk and then transports them home with the help of the boda drivers. Each driver sits with a jug in front of them, and Jacinta also holds one behind the driver. Once she gets back home she works for several hours in her kitchen and usually has about 6.5 kilos of cheese made by noon.

Right now she sells cheese regularly to three clients: Anna’s Corner, a small café; Entebbe Backpacker’s, a nearby hostel; and Boma, a backpacker’s and restaurant. Whenever they call with an order, Namatov, another one of the older girls, delivers the cheese via boda boda. Jacinta also sells 2 kilos of cheese to the pizza business each Tuesday and Thursday as it is used on the pizzas here. Jacinta, Namatov, and Marta, a volunteer, have been visiting local restaurants and trying to find more clients. They’ve been dropping off samples, spreading the word about the Malayaka businesses, and even inviting people to the house for our pizza nights.

Namatov is the bookkeeper for all of the businesses and she’s been keeping detailed balance sheets for months now. When Evan and I first arrived here, we put some money into the businesses, but after just one week of organization the cheese business has been self-sufficient. Every time Jacinta needs to buy milk, the money is taken from the business’ profits, and the balance continues to rise. After working with the girls for the last 4 weeks on this business, they are already eager to expand. They have a system that works well, and we’ve found that there are very few competitors in the area. Rennet, the ingredient that is needed to make mozzarella, isn’t produced in Uganda so the Malayaka House gets it from volunteers that come periodically from Spain. This is somewhat of a nuisance, but we’ve found that it may work to our advantage. Many restaurants that the girls have visited informed them that they currently import their mozzarella from Nairobi, Kenya because they can’t find a local supplier. This is excellent news for Jacinta and Namatov because they can make a good profit on each kilo while still giving these restaurants a much better price than they’re currently paying.

They’ve also found some stores that import mozzarella from Kenya and would be interested in buying from the Malayaka House instead. The issue with this is that we need to find a way to package the cheese effectively. Right now, since they only sell to places that use the cheese for cooking, they haven’t needed to package it. We’ve been researching for the last week, trying to find the appropriate machine that can vacuum seal each kilo or half kilo of cheese, but we’re having trouble. There is so much potential here for this business and, in turn, some job security for these girls as well as the ones that will follow in their footsteps.

I’m hoping that we can continue to help this business grow because it has already proven to be so beneficial for the girls involved. When they come back home after visiting a restaurant or talking to a hostel owner, they are smiling ear to ear and simply overjoyed about the entire experience. The confidence they’re gaining from creating a product that people all over Entebbe enjoy is really inspiring to watch. These two girls are 19 years old, they grew up with the label of ‘orphan’ hanging over their head, and now they are developing skills and a greater sense of self-esteem. Jacinta just came to Malayaka House 18 months ago, she has 2 young children, and her life has been anything but easy, but the pride she has in her work and her ability to talk to clients is absolutely remarkable. In just a short amount of time we’ve all seen tremendous growth in this business, but as we learn from our experiences and develop a better knowledge of packaging and marketing we hope it will expand even more.

Hakim and the babies...

A few days ago, we looked out our front window and saw Hakim playing with Mercy, Elijah, and Amina. He had put a long board on top of his skateboard and was riding down the pavement with them, then having the kids push him back up it. We thought it was funny. Notice that Amina gets tossed off at the end.

Puppy Profiles- Nina

Hello! I thought all you people could use a break from Sarah and hear from me, Evan. I have thought of a few topics that the people might like and from time to time will contribute. One topic that I thought would be fun, like Sarah’s picture and profile of the kids, would be a profile of the dogs we have around here. I’m not sure if you know yet, but we are obsessed with our puppy Kovy. Each puppy profile will give an update on him as well. Here we go with this installment.

Nina

Nina is the matriarch of the dogs around here. She is the mother of Nico and grandmother of a few others. She came early in the Malayaka House days, you can find some adorable photos of Nina as a puppy and Malayaka as a baby playing. However, now she is a little more grizzled, with a stretched out tummy from her puppies. She is still a very pretty dog though. Being the matriarch has its advantages and she has the power to shoo the other dogs off. Often she will be sleeping and when another dog comes by she gives a little growl from deep in her throat and they know to keep on moving. She is not always like this and enjoys playing and being active. I hear she is a very tough dog and is a tough fighter with stray dogs when she sneaks out.

Kovy’s Corner-

Now about 4 weeks old, Kovy is growing rapidly. He transitioned in about a day from being a newborn pup to a crazy puppy. He used to spend 90% of his time sleeping or eating, but then all the sudden his energy kicked in. He no longer spends all his time in our house, but goes out exploring and following around the other dogs. One of his new favorite spots is where the aunties cook so he can get the spare bones and meat scraps. His loo

ks are maturing as well, he also has been losing small patches of hair on his back and the black on his head is quickly turning brown; his legs seem to add a few inches every day. Although he is growing, he is still our cuddly little pup. If we forget to close our door you will almost certainly find him sprawled out asleep in a pile of clothes that he pulled from our dirty laundry.

Coming Soon- Nico

More Pictures!

Getting dressed for the first day of school!

From left to right - Jimmy, Didas, Lucas, Malayaka, and Che Che.

Piling 27 kids into the van. They were actually more excited than they look here.

This is Diego, the youngest child at the house. He just turned one last month, and his mother (Jacinta) and sister (Mercy) live here as well. He rarely wears clothes, and when he does it's often a dress. He only has 2 expressions, confused and happy, and this one in the picture is confused. It makes for funny photo shoots when he wears his sneakers naked, and this was the only picture without some indecent exposure.

This is William, he's 4 years old and has a twin sister named Isabella. This costume is his favorite thing to wear to bed. Willie's usually very sweet, though he knows how to cry and pout when he's unhappy. He loves to play with soccer balls, playground balls, beach balls, etc, and he'd kick a ball in the air for hours if I agreed to sit and watch him.

On the left is Achen, she's 6 years old and her smile takes up her whole face. Her laugh is incredible too. She can only see out of her right eye because, as a newborn, she was abused badly and left for dead by her mother. She's a tough kid who loves to climb on anything and her smile, which lacks 2 front teeth right now, could light up anyone's day.

School and Kampala!

Last Monday started early as we got up at 6:30 to help the children dress for their first day of school. They were all excited, but none more than Hannah Banana. Auntie Flo said she was the first one awake and couldn’t sit still all morning, as Monday was her first ever day of school (along with Ishimat and Ruthie). They kids were so happy getting their uniforms on and eating their porridge. Uncle Tony came to get them and the 27 of them piled into the van.

The school structure here is very similar to at home in the US, but they call it by different names. So at around age 3 children start preschool and are typically in it for 3 years, each with a different name – Nursery, Middle Class, and Top Class. Then they begin primary school and join the class labeled as P1 (what we would call first grade). Primary school goes up to P8, then you go on to secondary school. Freshman year is S1 and senior year is S4. A major difference between schooling here and at home is that in the US, you can usually guess a person’s age by the grade that they’re in, however this is not always the case here. Children start school at different times, or switch from a poor school to a better one, or miss out on several years of schooling for any number of reasons, so there’s a wide range of ages in each grade. Even at Malayaka House we have children of different ages in the same grade because most of the children didn’t have good schooling before coming to live with Robert. In order to give them the best opportunity at a full education, Robert often adjusted their documented age to reflect where they should be in school, as long as it was within a couple years. But just to give you an idea of the children at Malayaka House… we have 4 children too young for school, 3 children in Nursery, 2 children in Middle Class, 7 in P1, 3 in P2, 4 in P3, 2 in P4, 2 in P5, 3 in P6, 1 in S1, 1 in S2, and 3 that are no longer in school.

So now that the children are in school, Evan and I get up around 10am and spend the morning/early afternoon with the young children and the girls that are done with school. We’ve been dedicated a lot of time to the businesses that they’re working on, and we’re so pleased with how it’s going so far. This week Jacinta, who makes the mozzarella cheese and does all the cooking for the pizza nights, went with Marta (another volunteer) to a few local restaurants. They brought samples of the cheese with them and shared the story of the Malayaka House ‘cooperative of businesses,’ and they were well-received everywhere. We already sell cheese regularly to a nearby backpackers and a pizza place, but now that Jacinta is very good and a system has been developed, she’s ready to expand. There’s a particular ingredient needed to make mozzarella cheese that isn’t produced or sold in Uganda, so we get it from volunteers that come from Europe. Although this is somewhat of a nuisance, it seems to be benefitting us because there are few competitors. One of the nicest restaurants in Entebbe is interested in buying from Jacinta because they currently have to import their mozzarella from Nairobi, Kenya. So, long story short, we’ve been spending time with the girls (Jacinta, Namatov, and Naiga) and brainstorming ideas on how to expand effectively and get a fair price for their items. It’s exciting to be a part of this stage of development because it’s been a long time coming and we’ll be able to witness the fruits of their labor in the next few months. Sometime soon I’ll post some more details about the cheese-making process, Jacinta taught Evan how to make it last week and I’m hoping to learn this week.

Evan and I eat lunch around 1 every day, and then the children in Nursery, Middle Class, P1, and P2 get home around 1:45. They immediately go inside and take their uniforms off because the aunties wash them daily (and polish their shoes!). Then they do their homework and play all afternoon. Everyone in P3 and higher gets home around 5:15, then they all eat dinner around 5:30. The young kids go to bed around 7 and the older ones do their homework and sometimes help the aunties with cleaning and washing. During the day there are always 5 aunties at the house – making meals, washing clothes, washing dishes, cleaning the house and the outside areas, playing with the children – and then around dinner time 3 of them go home to their own families and 2 stay overnight. They each work 6 days a week and they make their own schedules, which is something Robert felt was important and he’s been doing it that way since the beginning. I haven’t talked much about the aunties yet, but I will soon because they’re all incredible.

Besides school starting this week, another exciting event was our visit to Kampala. The older girls starting playing on a rugby team a few months ago and their first match was in Kampala on Saturday, so me, Evan, Fran, Marta, and Denise decided to go watch. To get to the capital you take a matatu, which is a 15 passenger van, and it costs 25,000 shillings (a little over $1) for the 45 minute ride. The matatus are everywhere, constantly going back and forth from Entebbe to Kampala, and practically every other city in Uganda. The traffic in Kampala is really bad, so once we hit the edge of the city we got out of the matatu and on to a couple boda bodas. I had been a little frightened the first time we took a boda in Entebbe, but this ride through Kampala made all those trips in Entebbe feel like a casual bike ride. The boda boda drivers squeeze between cars and they seem to think that the rule about driving on the left side of the road is simply a suggestion. But we made it safely to the rugby club, watched the match (though our girls didn’t actually get to play), and then walked around a bit. We went in a supermarket that seemed infinitely bigger than any that we have in Entebbe, and we were very pleased to find all of the snacks and candy we loved in South Africa. We had a delicious dinner, spent the night at a couple different bars, and slept at a backpackers on the south side of the city. Kampala’s very big, and it’s situated on 7 hills, so you can never see the whole thing from one location. It was nice to experience something different, and to enjoy the comforts and conveniences of a big city, but I was happy to come home to Entebbe Sunday morning. Kampala is extremely crowded and very dirty. When we got out of the matatu in Entebbe it felt like we were breathing fresh air again. I’m sure we’ll return to Kampala fairly regularly though, if only because the ride is easy and the food is cheaper.

That’s more than enough for now, thanks for reading!