Ssenge

I feel so miserable today that I feel kind of useless. The doxycycline is really starting to affect me and I have about 95% of the side effects it warns you may get. I'm really bummed out because I feel like I'm missing out on enjoying this experience. I am forcing myself to stay involved, though. Raquel has helped with that. Knowing another person is relying on me to go places and do things helps because otherwise i might be tempted to just stay in bed all the time. Honestly, I don't think I would really do that but the temptation is still there.

Today and yesterday we spent at the Ssenge home, with the boys there. We colored with them and gave them sidewalk chalk to play with.
Here's a funny tidbit: Obama is a hero here and everyone knows who he is. One of the team members gave out ties to all the boys at Ssenge. One of the boys put his on and said, "I look like Obama!" I thought that was pretty funny.


We also taught them Rummikub (or a more simple version of it). The kids love matching the numbers and putting them in order. My favorite boy is Abdul. He is so shy and holds back a lot. He doesn't know English and he has a hard time with numbers. But he loves Rummikub. I helped him the first few times. On the third game, he actually won and he was so PROUD you could see his face beaming. He made a little shout and gave me a big hug. He didn't say anything but you could see everything on his face. It was my favorite moment of this trip. He is such a sweet boy. I spent a lot of today with him, too. He colored with me and asked me to draw for him. haha. Yeah, so i traced something. Raquel is the artist, not me! These boys are amazing artists, too. Some of them are incredibly talented.

The boys love taking our cameras around with them and taking pictures and video. They LOVE being on camera, especially on video because they can watch it afterwards. They filled up my memory card so fast that I have to upload all my stuff to Raquel's thumb drive. When I get home I want to put all their video onto DVD and send it to them. Abby, the girl who lives with them, has a DVD player so they can watch it. They love to take tons of video of them singing and dancing and the watch it afterward. I remember loving that as a kid myself.

The pictures below are just a few of MANY they took. It's fun at the end of the day to look through and see what they did. This is the inside of their house by the way. The floors are concrete and they are in the middle of a large field.


Here's my sweet boy, Abdul, below (helping make our lunch- fish, matoke, and rice).







Here are some pictures of the field behind the house:Here's one of their "toilets". Yes, I have use it many a time.When the boys scrolled through my pictures the other day they laughed so hard when they saw this one. CLEARLY, I am not from around here. ;)

We had a really good couple of days with those kids. We only get to see them on weekends because they are in school during the day and too far away to go see at night. I am really happy with how much busier we've become lately. Our first few days were pretty slow. it was a good transition but I am eager to make use of our time here. I feel that it has been incredibly difficult to build many relationships here because we are rarely in the same place twice. I think that the kids in the slums will be the ones we get to know best because we'll see them three times a week. I am getting to know and love the babies, too, of course, but they're too young to ever remember me or for me to make much difference in their lives. I struggle with this concept in general. I am not sure how much good I am doing but maybe, as a part of the bigger picture, I am making an impact.

I do feel badly that I don't love it here. Abby asked me the other day, 'Don't you love Kampala?" I didn't know what to say. I don't even like it here. I keep focusing on the kids to get me through. That's what i came for. I just wish I loved the country but I don't. I miss my Zimbabwe girls more than you know.

Yesterday, we also visited an orphanage called, "Open Door". They have about 80 kids that they currently house and put through school. They work to put every kid back in their home with parents or relatives. Others, they adopt out. We only spent about an hour there but it was the sweetest hour. I adored those beautiful little girls.

UGANDA!

As most of you know, my best friend, Raquel, and I have been talking about our desire to go to Africa for a long time now. We started planning a trip to Uganda about 8 months ago and were all set to go with a secular global volunteer organization. Well, about 3 months ago, we both felt God telling us to change our plans. WHAT? But we like having an exact schedule of what we'll be doing and where we'll be! Well, God had a different "plan". We listened.

We told the organization we weren't going. We requested our refund. We waited. A month went by and we still didn't know what we were doing. We waited. We prayed every week for guidance. Where could we find a place that could use us in Uganda? We kept meeting people who knew people there. So, we emailed them. We were making connections but nothing was resonating with us yet. God was telling us to wait. We searched diligently online for organizations who were there or organizations who were going. We still had no idea what we were going to be doing. All we knew was that God was saying "Go." Money kept rolling in. We kept praying. We kept waiting.

We held a last minute garage sale and God gave us $800! We said,"Okay, God. You are still telling us to go.". We were going on faith now. We requested the dates off of work. Still no flights purchased, still no organization to go with, still no place to live once we got there. We waited. Another few weeks passed. Then one day, with 6 weeks to go until our departure date, Raquel emailed me, saying that a Christian organization (African Hearts) had contacted her regarding volunteering on the exact dates we had already planned to go. How did they find us? GOD. It turns out that they are doing exactly what we have been longing to do more than anything else- spending time with kids on the streets and in orphanages. It was God's answer to our prayers, so clearly!

All of a sudden, things were falling into place. We booked our flights, got our vaccinations, and started packing! This organization fits us better than anything we had imagined. We will be spending all our time with kids. No schedule of subjects to teach, no skill set needed (just our style :). We can just BE. We can be with kids, loving them, learning from them, investing in them.

We will be spending three days a week in the city's slums, giving medicine to the kids who live there and spending time with them. In the afternoons, we will spend time with the boys from the orphan homes that African Hearts takes care of. We will teach them Bible classes, music, games, and art. During the evenings, we will live at a Babies' orphan home (also sponsored by African Hearts). On Sundays, we get to take our boys to church. On our free days, we have the flexibility to go wherever we were needed or simply spend time with the various people we are sure to meet.

On some Thursdays, it turns out we may be "preaching" or giving our testimonies to the kids at another orphan home that we had contacted earlier. Even though we will not be working with them as we had anticipated, they still want us to come. We're also going to go visit a little girl who Raquel sponsors through World Vision. Uganda is exactly where we are meant to be. God told us so. Isn't it amazing to be so completely in His hands? I couldn't be more in awe.

Raquel's Birthday

Raquel and I have been best friends for 13 years but we've never been together on her birthday. That has mainly been due to the fact that she moved to Illinois during the beginning of our friendship.

Well, I was extremely blessed when she moved out here in February for a year. I knew that this was the year when we would finally spend her birthday together. So, my scheming began. I originally intended to kidnap her and make the entire thing a surprise but I just couldn't keep the secret so I told her to plan on spending the day with me but I wouldn't tell her where we were going. So, I loaded up my Ipod, cleaned out my car, and sent her this little email:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hey Campers!

We are so happy you're going to be joining us on Sunday, May 18. Below is a list of items you will need. See you there!

Don't Forget:
Jacket or warm coat
Comfortable (but cute!) clothes
Stuffed monkey
Camera
Sunglasses
Bottled Water
SENSIBLE SHOES
Umbrella
Bathing suit
Cardboard box
A block of your favorite cheese
Walking stick
Compass
Instructions on how to fashion a tent out of garbage bags and duct tape
Garbage bags
Duct tape
Bible
Journal/Pen
Anti-caking agent
Parental consent form (see below)

Please do NOT bring:
Electronic devices
Weapons of any kind
Live animals (taxidermied animals are acceptable)
Boy band paraphernalia
(If any of these items are found in your baggage, they will be confiscated immediately.)


_____________________Tear Here_____________________________
PARENTAL CONSENT FORM

I, _________________________________, hereby give my permission for Raquel Angelique Lomelin to join Chelsea Lyn Dilbeck on a day of random escapades (full of excitement and wonder). I do not hold Chelsea responsible for any alteration (physical/mental/emotional) to said victim- I mean Birthday Girl. If any alteration exists after Raquel's return to civilization, I vow not to sue Chelsea for damages.

Sign Below:
_________________________________________________
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It was a team effort, the list compiled by my mom, Mallory, and myself. We had a blast putting it together and I knew she would be completely thrown off as to where we were going.
Sunday finally came and she arrived at my house in the morning. I had borrowed my mom's GPS so I inputted each of the four locations we would be travelling to that day.

I gave her four postcards, each one to be opened right before reaching the corresponding destination. Oh, the suspense I put her through all day! I only hoped that our activities would live up to the anticipation.

Each stop during the day was chosen for a specific reason. Our first stop was the marina in San Francisco, because Raquel had often mentioned that she missed the ocean most of all, since moving out to Illinois. Once we got there, we walked against the extremely strong wind and found the little spot, at the edge of the water, that I had been looking for. It was called the Wave Organ, and it was a dock made completely from the gravestones of a cemetery that was torn down awhile ago. It was actually really pretty. The reason for the name "Wave Organ" is the multiple pipes that come out from the cement and go down into the water below. If you put your ear up to the pipes, you can hear the ocean rushing beneath the stone.

We ate a picnic lunch there, even though it was really windy and really cold. It was still nice, though.
The next stop was MOAD: The Museum of the African Diaspora. It took us forever to get there because was couldn't find cheap parking. After driving around for twenty minutes, we finally settled on parking five blocks away, on a street marked "free parking". We prayed over my car (that it would still be there when we returned) and we went on our way.

The museum was incredible. It was small but beautifully done. There were a few rooms showing how Africans have brought their culture to America and how they have created history here in this country. We watched a few short films, one about how Africans celebrate and another about Nelson Mandela. Raquel and I were even more inspired than we already had been to go to Africa. My heart is for Zimbabwe and Raquel's for Malawi. We talked about Africa the rest of the day. That tends to be the topic of our conversations together anyway, but that museum really brought it to the forefront of our minds and hearts. I loved being absorbed in the culture for a few hours while there. I am craving Africa...

After our visit in the museum, we made the walk back to our car. On our way there, a homeless guy pushing a shopping cart hollered at me, "I'm rich, I'm just faking it. You're beautiful. Don't tell anybody!". Ah, the joys of being in San Francisco...

We got to the next block and another homeless guy looked at us and asked, "You're not going down there, are you?" We answered that we had to go that way and kept walking. He told us, "I wouldn't go that way." Sure enough, we ran into the hippie convention. We had seen a few on our walk to the museum earlier but they had tripled in number since. We had to shove our way through the lovefest and the weed (oh, and all of the guys standing on the corner with one index finger in the air). One lady walking through dryly commented, "Cute...smells like hippies." There was nothing creepy about it, just awkward and very, um, crowded.

One block away from our car, we were walking faster, eager to be in our car and driving away, when we passed a (wo)man who looked at me and said, "Hey, beautiful." I really think it was a woman but Raquel wasn't sure. Anyway, it was the capper for an eventful walk through San Fran.

Safe in our car, we happily drove to to our third destination, Golden Gate Park. The week before this eventful day, I found out, in a roundabout way, that Raquel had a secret love of buffalo. Well, on a whim, I went online and typed in "San Francisco + Buffalo". Funny thing was, something actually turned up! Apparently, there are buffalo in Golden Gate Park.

When we arrived in Golden Gate Park, we saw tons of people in the craziest costumes. It took awhile to figure out what was going on but we finally learned that it was Bay To Breakers that day. Honestly, it was the most entertaining day I have ever spent in San Fran.

Once we parked and started walking, I realized, with a twinge of worry, that this park was BIG! I didn't have a clue as to where the buffalo actually were and the GPS wasn't going to tell me. I just went in the general direction that I had recalled form the map I had found online the day before and hoped for the best. While walking, Raquel was seriously wondering what I could possibly be taking he to. He postcard had said, "I always knew you were a country girl at heart but only recently learned how true this is." She was convinced that I was dragging her to some Billy Ray Cyrus statue or something.

At the point where I was about ready to give up and admit that I was lost, I saw them, tiny brown specks in the distance.

She was the happiest Raquel I had ever seen! She hugged me so many times and kept taking pictures of the big nappy animals. It was pretty cool, though, considering I've never seen one in real life. We stayed there for a good while, watching them, well, pretty much stand there. She loved it, though.

Our last stop of the day was our chance to be kids again. This was my favorite part of the entire day. We went to a little (and I mean little!) park at the edge of town, tucked in a tiny residential neighborhood. There were 2 cement slides there. This was where the cardboard boxes came into play. Until this moment, Raquel really didn't know that I was serious about bringing them. One look at the slides and the boxes in my hands, and she looked a little freaked. I don't think either of us was so sure that we would be able to go through with it. Well, we'd come this far.

By the time we walked up to the top of the slides, it appeared a whole lot higher than it had from below. Sitting on our cardboard, at the top, was not a little bit scary. We just willed ourselves to go and (after counting a couple times) went for it. I swear I got, like, 3 feet of air that time (Napoleon Dynamite fans, you dig?). I actually did come a little off of my seat at the bump in the middle. That was the scariest. I got the biggest adrenaline rush I've had in a long time. Once we started to go down, we couldn't stop because there was no friction. Scary but totally cool!







What a rad way to end Raquel's birthday. We had so much fun and she really seemed to enjoy every place we went. I had a blast planning the whole thing and spending the day together so I call it a success!