I'm in Uganda!

I just thought I'd give you all a quick update to let you know that I am currently in Kampala, Uganda for a 3 night mini-vacation.
We left on our 2 month Kitale anniversary and took a Kangaroo (ha!) to Eldoret, from where we caught the Kampala Coach...to Kampala.
We have been in a small town too long I think. I was just gaping out the bus window at all the lights and tall buildings of the city. We are staying at Adonai guest house #1 which is absolutely wonderful! We feel like royalty. You can check out their site at www.adonaiguesthouse.com (I think)
Thanks for reading, sorry for the short entry...this Kampala internet is darn expensive.
Oh, and for all of you who pictured my hopping down the road on a large bouncy animal...(I really really hope that some of you did) Kangaroos are a type of van here.

Kisumu

My alarm started blabbering away at 4:30am and I wanted to squash it. I pushed snooze a couple of times and then finally got up at some ridiculous hour that was before 5am. I forced myself to eat a couple pieces of chapati even though my stomach wasn’t ready to function, because I didn’t know when we would be eating lunch. Gershom and Monica (the manager and chaplain of the orphanage) picked Dane, Trudy, Nancy, David and me up at 5:30am and we drove out to Mercy Home to meet the chartered bus that would take us, 12 teachers, and about 50 or so kids to Kisumu.
Kisumu is the third largest city in Kenya, and it is situated the shore of Lake Victoria, in the western part of the country. Our team decided that it would be a worthwhile investment to take the standard 6&7’s on a field trip there so they could get out of Mercy Home for a while and see a bit of the area.
It was a 3 hour bus trip along a decent road. (“decent” is in Kenyan road standards...) Our first stop was the post office. I personally wasn’t exactly stoked to see it...but I guess when you are confined to a compound most days, even something like that is exciting. They got a tour, and got to go in the back rooms, and then we moved on to the courthouse. That was a bit more interesting than the post office, but it dragged on for too long. We sat in the courtroom for over an hour and a half while the kids asked questions about law.
I was feeling a little more than 12 o’clockish by the time that we got out of there, but we checked in to the place where we were planning to have lunch, and they told us that it would be more than an hour until our food was ready. We bought sodas for everyone, and then decided to head out to the airport. That stop was probably the most educational for the kids, because they got to have a tour of all the weather instruments, see a plane from Nairobi land on the runway, and even go up into the air traffic control tower.
The kids’ reaction to seeing Lake Victoria for the first time was funny. They started pointing and gasping when all we could see at that point was a body of water that resembled a large pond with vegetation floating in it. Eventually we were able to go to the shore and get a good look at it. It’s quite impressive. It was grey and choppy and looked remarkably like the ocean. We couldn’t see the other side, and we were only looking at the ‘small’ bay. It made me miss the real ocean, but at the same time it was comforting because I could almost imagine that I was home.
By 6:00pm we finally had 'lunch'. At around 3pm my stomach had forgotten that it was hungry, but when they put a plate of Tilapia, ugali and sakumawiki (sp?) in front of me...it remembered. Chapati and Fanta is really not enough to get you through a day of walking around a strange city.
I was so tired by the time that we got back into the bus to go home that the whole ride seemed almost surreal. After the long awaited meal, the kids perked up again, and sang beautifully as the bus bounced through potholes and over unmarked speed bumps. The lights of Kisumu disappeared into the distance as we drove back towards Kitale under a vast and intricate covering of African stars. I nodded in and out of sleep the whole ride home and felt thoroughly at peace.

The Truman Show

I’m sure that many of you are familiar with the movie “the Truman Show.”  I have only seen it once, about five years ago, but I still remember it clearly and it crosses my mind every once in a while. In it, the main character, Truman, is actually starring in his own hit TV series…but he knows nothing of it.  The entire world that he lives in caters to, and revolves around him, but he is completely unaware of it.  His world is confined to a bubble, and everywhere he goes there is a camera following him.  After watching that movie, it’s difficult not to become a little bit suspicious of your friends and surroundings, and wonder if they are actually paid actors and elaborate sets. 

A little while ago I was passing through the Kipsongo slum, (the place where a lot of the kids at Mercy Home originally come from) and I suddenly knew without a doubt that there was no way that I was on “the Candice Show”.  The world is too real.  I realized just how self-centred I can be.  Even if we don’t go as far as believing that the events of the world are a TV show unfolding with us as the protagonists, it’s easy to convince ourselves that we are more important than we actually are.  It’s easy to forget about the things that we don’t see, and imagine that the only things that are real are the things that are in front of us.

And GOD.  Wow, that’s another one.  I have had him in a box all my life.  I have this idea in my head of what he’s like, and it is so confined.  I have my own ideas of what worship is like, what preaching should sound like, how long church should be, what singing should sound like, and oh my word, things are so diverse here in comparison to Canada.  It’s incredibly exciting to imagine all the parts of Jesus that I never even knew existed!  Like how He sees the street children of Kitale, and loves them the exact same amount that He loves me and you, and how He ALWAYS did, even long before I considered coming over here to meet them.  Like how He doesn’t require our praises to be in English, and that I don’t need to understand what people are saying in order for it to bless the Lord.  (This sounds shallow and obvious I’m sure, but it had never crossed my mind before!) So I challenge you to start taking God out of the box that you have Him in.  He is so much more than assumptions and clichés…He is HUGE!  As long as we live, we will never fully understand Him.  But why not get a start?

So this is me on a camel...

The Hospital

Our team has made a new friend. Her name is Josephine. She is about twenty years old, and very good-natured. We hardly know anything about her because she speaks next to no English, and we’re not exactly fluent in Swahili yet either. What we do know is that she spends a lot of her time on the streets of Kitale. We took her to the hospital about a week and a half ago because she had these horrible wounds on her foot and ankle. It was like someone had taken a spoon and just taken out a few scoops of flesh. It made me feel a little weak in the knees to look at it. Sorry, that’s a disgusting description. Well anyway, we have been visiting her at the hospital quite frequently. It’s a scary place. There is a strong and distinct smell of sickness and disinfectant that makes me want to hold my breath or press my nose into my shoulder all the time. Josephine shares a bed with two other people most of the time, but lately she has been spending a lot of time outside, most likely to get away from the smell and constant moaning. I always try to stay focused and only look at Josephine while we’re there, but my curiousity always gets the better of me. There are disfigurations, burns, broken limbs and miserable looking people everywhere. I’m starting to get used to it, but every time I go I am so thankful for the medical system that we have back home in Canada.
If you could pray for Josephine then that would be much appreciated. Not only does she need a miracle with healing, she also needs one for her future. From what we can understand, she lives on the street, and has nothing to go back to once she is released from the hospital. We need wisdom on how to help her. During the past week or so, she has changed. She is smiling more, and making more of an effort to communicate. The other day when we were about to leave, she pulled me by the hand and gave me an African style hug; left cheek to left cheek, and then right cheek to right cheek. I would hate to see her land right back where she was before.

Oh, and by the way, my African address is:

Candice Veale
c/o New Bethany House
PO box 4448
Kitale, 30200
Kenya, East Africa

Pictures

Here are some long awaited pictures that provide a glimpse into some of my experiences in Kenya. Enjoy!

Our House

(There are a few more pictures of the house here.)

Candice with a group of children at Mercy Home.

(Another picture of Candice at Mercy Home can be found here.)

A picture Nancy took after her, Trudy and I experienced our first Tuktuk ride!