changes come

Dearest friends,

My sincerest apologies for taking so many weeks to give a thorough account of my life in Uganda these days. There is now so much to account for I don't know where to begin!

I wish I could write back from the beginning-starting with the art/sports camp led by the American volunteers, but for time's sake I won't go into as much detail as I would love to. Instead I'll start with dropping the Charlotte team at the airport. Leaving Eva, Rachel and Laura was so difficult--they brought me so much joy and encouragement every day that I truly wanted to make them miss their flight and keep them in Uganda with me. (Rachel probably would have been okay with that!) I told them later it was like leaving a part of my heart behind when I left them at the airport! But more than that, the boys miss them terribly. Both the volunteers and the kids adopted each other into their families. Peter even cried today because he missed Laura so much...

After the Charlotte team left, Tatiana and I moved in with her host family from last summer-the Mutungi family. The family was so sweet to me and treated me just like one of their own kids. Both parents turned out to be great resources for me to talk to--the mom has worked with children's orgs across Kampala and the dad, an art professor at Makerere, has led community art projects sponsored by the Ford Foundation, the United Nations and USAID.

After spending some time with their family and interviewing Professor Mutungi, Tati and I met with the director of a children's village in Wakiso district. We spent Monday with him and visiting his children's home and primary school. He's been the best person, next to Victoria, so far that I've talked to about starting an organization. He listed every step for registering a children's home/school and gave advice I haven't heard anywhere else so far.

On Tuesday and Wednesday Tatiana and I did our best to turn the camp into a school. The boys were begging us for English and math lessons, so I took one subject (English) and Tati took the other. We were also able to use some country profiles that my dear friend Jenny Morgan made that allowed us to introduce geography: different continents and oceans, countries and capitals and how to read a map. We tried to organize the boys and cater to their different levels, and ended up teaching for non-stop during the days. Their desire for education is something I rarely see in students in the West--it was so refreshing. The experience really motivated me to start looking for schools in which to enroll them.

On Thursday Tracy and Pastor Phillip surprised all of us coming to the camp and bringing an American art teacher from Come Let's Dance to do a painting project with the boys. They also brought a lot of children books for the boys to read, which was so helpful. As much as we loved doing English and math with the boys, it was good to have a program for the day instead of trying to come up with an endless supply of vocabulary words! Tracy spent the night on Thursday with them and then led a focus group with them on Friday morning that introduced them to the UN Convention for the Rights of a Child and some basic ideas of child empowerment.

I dropped Tatiana off at the airport early Friday morning. She had been such a help and encouragment to me, I was really sad to see her go as well! But as soon as I dropped her off, I jumped into work and spent the weekend with Andrew, first securing a new house for the boys to move into and then visiting various primary schools in the area (Kitala) for the boys to attend. The house is on the other side of Entebbe Road, but walking distance from Banana village. It's very spacious with 4 bedrooms and well within out price range. If everything goes according to plan (which it rarely does) we hope to move into the new house next Monday. The only tricky matter at the moment is finding furniture for the house and moving it to the house this week.

I was back at the camp today with the boys, leading more English lessons, playing some ultimate Frisbee and recording for the documentary I hope someone will make for the website. When we arrived all the boys were painting outside, which was a wonderful sight to see. Kimbowa was doing two splatter paintings which he explained as representing his life on the street and then his life after coming to our project. In the first painting, he shared that the black and red represented the death and blood he witnessed on the streets, the green represented street children's love for money and the little specks of yellow were for the love and his best friend, Kalisti, shared for one another. The painting is messy, dark and depressing.

The second painting is orderly, though created with the splattering of paint. It is three colors-white, which represents the love that came from the people he met at our project, orange, which represents his happiness, and teal, which represents the love of his freedom to practice his passions like art. It was so encouraging to see such a young boy passionate about art and able to share his testimony through his work. Then again, that's what the Street Child Project is all about-seeing lives transformed and turning passions into professions.

Thanks so much for taking time to read this message-I know it's long and I'll try to limit the next ones! Hope all is well at home. Please continue to pray for our boys--that we will continue to see changes come and transform their lives and that each of their passions may be developed. )(Don't forget to let me know if I can pray for you as well!)

love,
Amanda