And Just Like That, the Holidays are Over

When we were first staring down the five-week holiday break the kids got from school, it was rather daunting. Five weeks meant A LOT of kid time every day, which is great, but definitely overwhelming. Now that the holidays are over, I can't believe how quickly it passed by. While there were indeed a lot of long, chaotic, and stressful days, overall our program during those five weeks was a huge success. We saw a lot of new faces at the youth center, averaging about 50 kids each day, and about 100 different kids showing up over the course of those five weeks.

Originally, we grouped everyone together for football training each day. However, we quickly realized that it was way too many kids for four of us to handle at once, and the effectiveness of the trainings really dropped. We decided to separate the older boys from the rest of the kids who attended and offer them an earlier training session each day. I chose to run this session and train the team of older boys, and it ended up being my favorite part of the holiday program.

While the younger boys and the girls who attend football love to play and have a fun time doing so, they can't really grasp any drills that are a bit more complicated or serve a purpose other than scoring a goal. With the group of older boys that I worked with though, they were able to understand more complicated drills, and participate in them at a much higher speed and with greater proficiency. Working with them marked the first time I felt like I was actually training a real team, and our training sessions each day really energized me and reinforced the reason I love coaching.

Not only was the football aspect of working with the older guys great, but I really enjoyed getting to know them as well. Some of them are a bit rough around the edges at first, and I think they were very skeptical of having a female coach, but as the break wore on we gained each others trust and respect. A few of the kids whom I had been wary about and thought might try to steal gear from us ended up being great kids. A few of them actually took it upon themselves to track down thieves who had stolen from us before and were able to return some of the gear. Others still chose to help us coach the later sessions with the younger kids and girls. It was so satisfying watching these guys grow and develop not only as players, but also as participants in SWB over the course of the five weeks that we worked with them. I really hope that many of them continue to attend our programs as the second school term kicks into gear.

So, now I am facing only two weeks left in Uganda, which I can barely believe. I am definitely ready to come home to the states, but I'm glad that we had such a positive experience with our holiday program prior to my heading home. While those five weeks were somewhat of a whirlwind of activity, these last two weeks here will pass by a bit slower and I'll have more time to reflect on everything that's happened over these past ten months. Only a few more blogs to go!

Samuel's Story

After having lived in Ndejje for almost nine months now, we have gotten to know many families on a personal level and have learned their stories over time. Since the community in which we work is made of largely of refugee families, many of their stories are touching, inspiring, rather unbelievable. I've been impressed time and again of the resiliency of the kids with whom we work, but today I am going to write about a young man who is the older brother of four kids who attend Hope School and with whom we share a close relationship.

Samuel is twenty-one years old and is the oldest sibling of five. His four younger siblings are Jaelle, Asheal, Jeledi, and Abigail, whose ages ranges from about 6-13 years old. The family hails from Burundi, and they have been living in Uganda for over a year now, after having spent time in Tanzania and Rwanda. When Samuel was sixteen years old, his mother was slaughtered in front of him and his four siblings with a machete. His father was thrown in prison, whether it was before or after his mother's murder we are not sure of. Both his mother's death and his father's prison sentence were a result of racial tensions in Burundi that had spilled over from the conflict in Rwanda. Since these events took place, Samuel has been the sole guardian of his siblings.

At the ripe young age of sixteen, Samuel accepted the responsibility of caring for his family, and quickly sought to get them out of Burundi, seeking refugee status in other countries. He succeeded in doing so, and his family has been on the move ever since, accepting asylum wherever it has been offered. After having given up any sort of normal teenage life, Samuel has been the only breadwinner for himself and his siblings. He has managed to provide them with a small one bedroom house which he pays rent for each month and daily necessities such as food, which is more than many other two-parent households are able to provide for their own children, regardless of whether or not they are refugees. As of right now, Samuel holds a night-shift at a local hotel, diligently showing up for work every evening at ten and working until about six or seven the next morning. He then comes home and sleeps for a while, before waking up to help with chores around the house and to spend time with his younger siblings.

The reason that I wanted to write about Samuel is because I am so impressed by his maturity at such a young age. So many people here ask for handouts from us all the time. Samuel has never asked us for anything, despite probably needing it the most. He is an incredible, incredible person who doesn't appear to begrudge his lot in life, and continues to work hard for a better future for his siblings. And not only does he put food on the table and provide a roof for his family's heads, but he also focuses on spending quality time with his younger siblings and takes an interest in what is happening in their lives.

He is currently working on finding a way to move his family to Australia, Canada, the U.S., or the U.K. through a refugee relocation program. While he has run into roadblocks thus far, he remains undeterred and is so committed to bettering his families opportunities. It seems as though the kids might actually have a better chance at being relocated or even adopted if he is not in the picture, so he is now willing to remove himself from the equation if it means that his siblings get to leave Africa. I have never met anyone who demonstrates that level of selflessness.

The other interns and myself are going to try and help Samuel with the relocation process through the Refugee Law Project and possibly UNHCR. Samuel has raised some incredible kids who are bright, polite, and happy children, despite everything they have witnessed and been through. He may well be the most amazing person I have encountered in Uganda, and I hope that some of you who read about him are as inspired as I am by his story.

Unity...And Other Craziness

So much has happened over the past week, and all of the craziness just confirmed my belief that you can never be surprised by anything that happens in Africa. I will start first with the good stuff.

Our program at the Youth Center has been taking off since the holiday break began. We have had upwards of 50-60 kids attending our football training sessions each day, and many of them come for the regular programming at the Youth Center prior to trainings each day as well. Our theme over break is "Unity" and we are modeling our teaching points off of a camp that SWB has run at its site in Nicaragua. We have split all of the kids up into about seven teams, with one team captain per group. Over the next few weeks we will have different competition amongst the teams for which they can win points. The competitions will range from games on the soccer field to spelling bees to scavenger hunts and the kids can earn points for their teams by winning at different tasks or by gaining attendance points each time they come to a program. The kids are really excited and will get to choose team names and decorate their poster this Monday.

The other interns and I are also excited for the Unity competitions, as it will be a nice change of pace from the programming which we have done in their classrooms. The organization of the kids into different teams reminds me of the TAG teams I had for summer training in college and the different tasks we faced as a team during pre-season. While we won't be implementing any early morning breakfast clubs or karaoke sing-alongs, the concept is essentially the same, and I've really enjoyed brainstorming different ways to get the kids excited about the concepts of unity, cooperation, spirit, and confidence.

In other news, I barely escaped being deported by the Ugandan Immigration Authorities, and the post-election riots that we were expecting in February finally occurred in Kampala, two months later...so right on African time essentially. First allow me to explain the deportation debacle.

Last fall, Adam and I didn't bother to renew our tourist visas which expire after three months. As we were catching our flights home for Christmas, we got scolded rather sternly at the airport for having stayed in Uganda on expired visas, so this time around I figured I should go to the trouble of getting mine renewed. So, two weeks ago Adam and I went to the immigration office and submitted our forms and our passports, requesting that our visas be extended. SWB is not officially registered as an NGO in Uganda, so we have been here on tourist visas this entire time. Well, Adam returned to pick up his visa on Tuesday, to find out that he had to go in for questioning and was ultimately denied an extension because the immigration officer didn't believe that he was truly a tourist. He was told that he had two days to leave the country or pay a $30 fine for every additional day he was here. The immigration officer also refused to return his passport to him. Nervously, I went to the immigration office on Wednesday, prepared with an elaborate story about my tourist activities in Uganda, should I be taken into questioning. Amazingly, the immigration officer returned my passport to me, with an extension, for free, and told me to have a nice day. I couldn't believe my luck! So now we are working with a lawyer to try and get Adam's passport returned and the fine per day reduced. So, hopefully, everything will be worked out within the next week or so.

Now, as for the riots. The politician who lost to Museveni in the presidential election, Besigye, has been causing mayhem since February. It finally came to a head last Friday, as some police officers roughed up his car a bit and sprayed him with tear gas during a demonstration. Lots of misinformation made its way down the line and many of Besigye's supporters flocked to cities all over Uganda and began rioting. There were large riots in Kampala, as people tried to burn down the main police station and set fires in other areas of the city as well. We have stayed in Ndejje for the past few days, but have managed to get reports from different friends concerning the ebb and flow of the riots. Things have calmed down now, but there are still rumors of more riots taking place at some point. It has been so interesting having lived in Africa this year, watching one dictatorship after another be toppled, or at least challenged. It really has been a ripple effect, and it looks as though Uganda could be next in line...