A Day Full Of Adventures

This morning we had devotions on love and loving one another even when we are wronged. It was interesting. We talked about how when Jesus washed the disciple’s feet, he also washed the feet of Judas, knowing that Judas would soon betray him. That is so incredible to me. I have such a hard time forgiving the simplest things sometimes. I don’t know how I would ever humble myself to that level to someone who had been so cruel to me.

After devotions we headed to Katawalma. Francis’ chair was not ready and neither were a few therapy rolls and wedges I ordered for the therapy room at Sanyu. To be honest, I was a little upset, and I let them know (in as nice a way as possible of course). I am paying significantly more than the average customer for the items and I was promised on multiple occasions that everything would be done before today. They swore to me that everything will be done next Wednesday, and Amanda said she would call and “have a chat” with them tomorrow as well, so hopefully everything will be taken care of.

After dealing with the orthopedic shop, I headed to the physiotherapy room to help Karen, the same physical therapist that I worked with last week. This morning, all of the nurses were gone, so Karen was in charge of wound cleaning. I helped her with it some, we mostly just changed bandages on surgery incisions, but then Sansom from last week came in and needed to be treated. Since Karen couldn’t abandon the long line of children waiting to have their wounds cleaned, she asked me to do his treatment on my own. It was a bit overwhelming at first. And by a bit I mean hugely overwhelming. I was really nervous at first, but after about 5 minutes, I started to feel a lot better about it.

I officially did my first therapy session from beginning to end all on my own!

I think it went relatively well. Also, because I was by myself, I was able to sneak a picture of Sansom. It’s going to break your heart. The good news is that Sansom was able to use one of his hands to partially grip a few large beads. I know this sounds like nothing, but it’s actually huge. Karin and I are going to work on getting him to release items as well. Hopefully eventually he will have functional use of his hand. His chair will also be ready next week which will have a huge effect on Sansom and his parent’s lives. Right now, his parents carry him around everywhere!

After Sansom I treated a 2 month old little boy named Ryan who had Erb’s Palsy. Erb’s Palsy is an injury usually obtained during birth (as in Ryan’s case) from the doctor pulling too hard on the baby’s arm to remove the child from the birth canal. This pulling causes the axillary nerves in the armpit to tear, resulting in a loss of sensory and motor function in the arm. This actually happens to a lot of children in 3rd world countries, but most don’t receive treatment right away, which results in poor use of the arm later in life. Ryan has a significantly better outcome than most babies because he is being treated early. I am really excited to work with him again next week.

After we got back from the hospital we had about 10 minutes before we had to leave to go to Clive College for another Scripture Union. I coordinated, Kevin spoke, we sang songs, and did a skit. The skit had no meaning and was just supposed to be funny, which really confused the students. They were all asking us the spiritual meaning behind it. Other than that though, it went really well.

We had a really late lunch after we got back and Tommy and I were on dishes duty again. After finishing dishes, we had an evaluation meeting to evaluate the missions to Gulu and Luwero. It was long and boring.

In a strong bit of irony, our security guard, Rocky got arrested last week for stealing a phone. He is not really a thief, but his friend owed him money so he took his phone as collateral. The friend then pressed charges. Rocky has been in jail for the last few days. Today he finally got out and it was really great to have him back. He told us some stuff about his experience. He slept on concrete and only got one meal a day. They didn’t even feed him at all the first two days he was in prison!

After the meeting and talking to Rocky, Tommy, Kevin, Andrew, Brett, Amy, and I headed downtown to walk around for a little bit. It was the first time I have gone any where in Uganda without a Ugandan with me, but we held own on very well. Kevin is really good at getting around the city. We stopped at a sports shop to get Ugandan national team jerseys. I was able to find a youth size that fit me and the guy gave me 10,000 shillings off.

We also went to a pizza place called Dominos. We had pizza and milkshakes that were so good. It was almost like being at home! It was absolutely wonderful. It was also a lot of fun to hang out with everyone. Its weird that I’ve only been around these people a month (or a week for some) but it feels like I’ve know them for a large majority of my life.

On the way home our taxi broke down trying to go up the hill. The driver tried to drop the transmission four or five times, and the taxi kept on stalling out and rolling backwards down the hill. Brett and I couldn’t stop giggling about the situation and we were really annoying everyone. The driver finally made us (us as in everyone on the van not just Brett and I for annoying everyone) get out and pay him half of the fee that he quoted us. We were stuck on the side of the road for a bit before we stumbled upon a driver with an empty taxi. We told him what happened and asked us him if he would take us the rest of the way home for 300 shillings as a joke (the regular rate would have been 500). He laughed and said he would charge us 100 if we sang to him the entire way. So we did, and he sang along, and it was awesome.

When we got out, he didn’t charge us any fare at all. What a great adventure!

Tommy and I had to do dinner dishes before I watched Aladdin. I also finally started on my paper today for school. And by started I mean I wrote a 5 sentence introduction. At that rate I’ll finish around Christmas. I’m going get serious about it for real this weekend. I promise.

I solemnly swear to work on my paper this weekend,
Jenna