Juliet

Yesterday was so amazing! Chels and I met the World Vision team at their office and started the long trip to the Rakai district of Uganda (about 4 hours south). It was a great road trip, especially because we were in a private vehicle with only 4 people as opposed to a taxi with all kinds of folks practically in your lap! (We enjoyed that on Tuesday 3 hours each way to Jinja!) It was 3 hours to the district office where we picked up James, the man who checks on all 300 sponsored kids in his area, and the last hours or so of the trip was all off road! It was a crazy four wheel drive experience, but we were cutting through the most gorgeous countryside, very hill-y and the most beautiful sky (Kampala's way too smoggy to see much sky). I was so excited to find that "my girl" that I sponsor was reached even out there in the middle of nowhere. It's crazy that James visits all these children frequently, when all he has transportation wise is a bicycle and most of the time he can't take that because the families live in these steep valleys, so he'll trek down to check on 2 kids in this valley, climb back up, trek to this school to see these 3 kids. What an amazing work they are doing though. We stopped at Juliets' school at first and all the kids swarmed us; we were so far out, not many had seen a "Mzungu" yet. From there we headed to her house (very bouncy ride) where the family was waiting for us. They are so beautiful! They live on this hillside where they grow their family garden, they had 2 neighbors relatively close by (still, a climb), and they all walked over to see what was going on. I met the beautiful Juliet and her best friend Fiona. :) She was extremely shy, especially at first, and James sat with us on a mat and interpreted for us. Once Chels and I gave her gifts she loosened up a little bit and was very excited to try her dress on. Her little sister, who's about 4, started crying and saying "Where's my mzungu?!" so we took more pictures with her too so she wouldn't feel left out. She is registered with WV, and waiting to be sponsored. We were very honored by how they treated us, and the father stood and gave a speech thanking us over and over for coming. I didn't know it was such a big deal to be visited by a sponsor, but that is how much they honored us. And for me it was a huge honor to see the good thorough work that WV is doing (the huge team that it takes to take care of these kids), to be invited so closely into the family's lives for that visit, and to sit with this girl who has been sending me letters across the ocean. I am sad at the thought I may never see her again, but excited to keep writing to her from home, building relationship that way. I met a girl Sarah, who attends university and interns with WV, she was sponsored through Compassion as a child and it made a huge impact on her life, she still has all the letters from her sponsor family in an album. She made the long trip back to Kampala with us.

We have a crazy week ahead of us: one more trip to the slums, one more to Ssenge, then out to Queen Elizabeth Park for a safari; off to London for our 19 hour layover (we're going to explore a little) and then home! It's gone by too fast. Don't know when I'll have internet again and there's so much I haven't written about, but it'll be on here at some point! Thanks for reading!