A visit to the village of Budondo

Life has been busy these past few weeks! There are a couple new volunteers here now which means it isn't just Sam and I and our nights are busier than when it was just the two of us so I haven't had much time to update my blog. I think in my last post I had said that a new volunteer was coming and that I hoped she wasn't weird. Well, she is definitely weird but in the best way possible. She's from Nebraska and has kind of a strange accent and talks about weird things, she never stops eating, and just in general she's funny. She has a refreshing outlook on faith and is very open to discuss it which I really admire. Her name is Sarah and here's a picture of her first experience on a boda. You can kind of see what type of person she is by this picture.

Anyway, this post is going to be about Budondo, the village that Amani tries to support by having a weekly Kids Club and community outreach during the week. I've been out there four times now and each time is so different the other trips because you always meet new people and families. Basically during the week, a social worker (Aaron) and a few of his helpers and then a couple Amani volunteers go out into the village and do house visits. We meet with families and Aaron writes down the names of all the family members, their ages, the occupation of the parents, and what their greatest needs are so that he can help to try and meet those needs through donations from Amani and other sources. As a volunteer we just hang out with the kids and kind of get to know them so that when they come to Kids Club on Saturday they know who we are. Aaron and the parents speak Lugandan with eachother so I usually have no idea what's going on but everyone is very welcoming. The people of Budondo are either Christian, Muslim or have no religion so this Kids Club is a great way to teach kids about God's love and grace and to let them know that that they are never alone, God is always with them, even when they might be starving or have no clothes. I think the fact that the people are so poor would be a reason to not accept God's love, thinking that instead He was at fault for giving them this hard life but it seems like quite the opposite. So many people here cling to their faith in Jesus because of the hope they now have for better things to come. The people in Budondo seem to be so happy. They also seem tired because they work so hard to try to provide what little they can for their families. The kids go to school in the mornings and then spend the rest of the day either getting water, tending to their siblings while their parents work, or helping their parents work in the fields. Some of the kids don't have parents and so the grandparents end up raising them so they are older on top of still needing to work hard. Life in Budondo is definitely not easy and this is the type of Africa that I pictured when planning my trip to Amani with mud huts, children with not clothes, and animals running everywhere. And yet, despite all this, so many people have cellphones! It's kind of ironic.

A few of the Mama's and other staff from Amani live in Budondo and have to make the long trek into work every morning and every night. The drive takes about 20 minutes and these people walk to and from work! It takes them over an hour. That's what I mean when I say that the people here are hard working. They get paid so little here that it almost doesn't seem worth it and yet they do it anyway because it helps them put a little bit of food in their children's stomachs and gives them new clothes maybe 2-3 times a year.

Here are a few pictures from my trips to Budondo so you can kind of see what it's like there. The landscape is so pretty right now because it's their rainy season. Also, just a side note - in Africa they don't fence in their animals like we do in North America. For example, we have cows, chickens, and goats in pens and have them fenced in and even brand them so we know their ours. In Africa, they just put a rope around the legs or neck and tie them to a branch or a stick in the ground so that they can't wander off. That's so different than what I'm used to!

This is a small market. They sell everything including meat (just hanging there), clothes, and a place to charge your cellphone since most homes don't have electricity.

This boy is Steven and he is two even though he looks like he's about six months old. Amani is giving his mom formula to help him get better and grow.

This is one of the families we met who invited us inside. If you look to the right, that's their bed. It's a filthy foam pad with ripped bed sheets. But there's also a cross on the wall.

This is another family we met. The grandparents are raising the two children because the parents both passed away. The grandparents insisted on putting on their best clothes for a picture.