I am stunned half the time....

I am sitting at the Eva Ruf Center in Kampala, Uganda. I am stunned half the time I am here. Maybe more than half. The Niteo Africa organization has partnered with many needy institutions in and around Kampala - but it is a level of need that is beyond my experience. From what I am learning, at least at the places we have been to such as the Nateete Orphan School called Living Hope and the Sanyu Baby's Orphanage, this has not been a reading culture. Mothers at a neighbouring pre-school have said that their own mothers never read to them, so they do not know how to do it with their children.

Dylan and I read with the primary students today in a classroom in the Nateete slum. It looks like a barn stall, only not a very nice one. The children crowded on to their benches and echoed the words that we said. We asked a question and they answered in unison. They come, they want to learn, there are no books in their classroom, just an old chalk board that is very hard to write on. You can't see the chalk very well. When I wrote on the board, the teacher first sent a student out across the dirt and mud 'center courtyard' - though courtyard is far to grand a term for it. He went to a neighbouring classroom for a piece of chalk. It is a precious commodity here. I have broken three pieces writing on that crude chalk board and am acutely aware of it in a way that I would never be in Kelowna.

Yesterday, I was working with older students at the same school. I was teaching about the continents and had them sketch in their books. Some started right away and some just sat there. I stood back to observe. Why wouldn't they work? They seemed so polite, and it seemed like a good enough lesson to me - replete with chants and rhymes, drawings and instruction....and then it all became clear. Each was waiting for a pencil. A neighbour had to finish first. Then the pencil was passed on and all was completed beautifully in the single book where all their work is done.

Mostly the students sit quietly and wait upon the teacher. Sometimes one will cuff or elbow the other in an effort to clear a little space on a small bench fit for 3 which holds 10. It is warm in the open air shacks and there is not much breeze. There is water and garbage in the ditch that runs through the school area... and other things that add to a rather close odour at times, and yet, something makes my heavy heart sing. What is it? The joyful faces of the children as they take their plastic mugs and get in line for their snack - runny porridge and a slice of dry casava? The ready gaze as I teach, explain, sing and look into each beautiful face trying to have at least one shared moment with each child? They way they celebrate us - the 'muzungus' who have come to a neighbourhood slum that wouldn't attract many visitors? The children chant that word as we drive by. " Muzungus, Muzungus..." I wondered at first if they were taunting, but my experience suggests otherwise. It seems they are as happy and stunned to see us as they would be a unicorn. What are we doing there? Why would we come?

We come because we have been inspired by the children and by the work Niteo Africa is doing here. It is a vision to educate each child, to give them freedom through literacy. I didn't know the power of this mandate until I got here. The children come to the Eva Ruf Center for the books. The shelves are lined with our cast offs, the books we didn't see value in anymore but here the have regained their luster. "We want to read." "There is no other place that is free and has books for us." "We can study here and it is hard to study at home."

Beyond the center, Niteo Africa seeks out the needy institutions to provide support to the teachers and staff who cannot provide resources on their $3.00 a day pay. We provide books, inservice the teachers, tell them to try to read at least one book a day to their students, give them pencils for the children, and paper. We bring medical supplies to the primitive medical hut in the Nateete slum where you can get surgery or have a tooth removed by a general practicioner, to Sanyu Baby's Orphanage, to King's Daughters - a program that rescues girls from the street. In time, they hope to place resource centers in other needy neighbourhoods in Uganda. The value of these centers is high and the need is great. The value of these children is high and their need is far greater than I have ever seen or imagined. It is a privilege to be here, to see past the walls the keep the tourists at bay.

Rhonda