What if?

Every day as I walk past her house, the 14 year old is seated on the now broken fences and looking a far off may be in thoughts. She is heavily pregnant and staying at her mother's house. I say Good morning to her , she answers and then continues staring into space. And i wondered may be she comes out to sit at the fence every morning to look at her fellow age mates walk off to school and think If things hadn't been different , she would be walking off to school with them. But for her, what is there to look forward to everyday? Nothing much but crushed dreams for now.

This particular girl is of interest to me, because i have watched her grow from a child to a 14 year old , I have watched her go from a happy girl to a sad little girl and I have watched her grow so fast to a woman, the day her mother decided that it was best to marry her off to an older man because she couldn't pay school fees for her. Of course the marriage didn't last for that long, she had to come back home and the man decided to get him self a new wife. When i ask the mother about it " she says, I am waiting for her to give birth, I will keep the baby and she will go back to school. After she graduates from Lower secondary school, her husband has promised to take her back and give her a job." Then she adds, I wanted her to go to school but her brothers couldn't pay school fees and life is not easy, so i think i made the decision". What do i say to this?, Mmmh.

Why men are happy ?

Why men are such happy people?

Because your last name never changes

A car mechanic will always tell you the truth about your car

Wrinkles add character, they are not horror marks

You are in one mood all the time

Phone conversations are over in 30 seconds

Because a 10 day vacation requires only one suitcase

Because if someone fails to invite you to their party he or she can still be your friend

Because 3 pairs of shoes is all you will need for a lifetime

You have the same hairdo for 30 years

You only have to shave your face once in a while

You can wear shorts no matter how your legs look

You can do your nails with a pocket knife

You order your football ticket 6 months in advance but do Christmas shopping on Dec 24th in 25 minutes 

To be born a Woman In Africa

To be Born a Woman In Africa,
means that,
Your parents are either happy or sad that you were born a girl,
You  always take care of your self last,
Your always thought of last when it comes to who gets what in your home,
The decisions that you make are examined and if they do not fit into the plans others have for you, then they automatically have to change.
Your life is socially and culturally planned for you and your expected to follow the same path as your mother or your sister or your aunt.
Your expected to get married, have children and put your dreams on hold for everyone else,
Your expected to get a job and perfectly balance your work and married life and if you can't then your expected to quit your job.
Men do not make mistakes and are always right so you do not question any of their decisions.
Your not supposed to remarry when your husband passes away because you will always belong to your deceased husband's clan and so they will always make decisions for you
Your expected to give birth to a boy and if you can't then your husband is justified to go and sleep with other women and your are taught to let him do that because he is a man

She comes for a family planning education session, after listening to the nurse for an hour, she decides that she should may be try using one  of the methods because she had her last baby so soon and she wouldn't want to go through another child birth experience again. She waits patiently for her turn as she breastfeeds her four months old baby. When it's her turn, the nurse gives her a small container and instructs her to bring some urine to run tests. The stick is dipped in the tin and after a few minutes, two pink lines show and the nurse calls her back to giver her the results. The results showed she was pregnant with her ninth child.

She ponders this and then asks the nurse if he is sure about the results. He says yes. After murmuring a little thanks, she walks out and starts her journey home but a million thoughts are running through her head. She already has 8 children and does not want another child. May be if her husband was able to provide enough food for them, may be if they had a piece of land and  were not renting on someone else's  land, may be then she would not have minded another child, may be if she didn't have to go through nine months of carrying a child and then trying to work hard to feed the others. She finally makes peace with being pregnant and hopes that things will get better.

The labor pains begin one night but she has to wait until the morning because the medical people at the nearest health centre do not work at night. Early in the morning,she sits on a boda with her close neighbour because her husband has to stay home with the other kids, the ride is long and bumpy but she tries to be strong. At the health centre, she labors for hours untill the nurse decides she needs to go to a hospital. At the hosptial, a C-section is done and she gives birth to a beautiful baby boy but she is bleeding so much and the doctors try their best to save her life but it seems that that hope and life won't cooperate.

She knows she is not going to make it and as the breath slowly leaves her body ,she asks to see her son . As she is holding him, tears start rolling down her eyes because she knows she will never be able to see her son grow up, she knows he will probably not have a better life, she knows her husband will struggle bringing up these chidlren on his own and probably because she never got to say good bye to him. She looks deep in his eyes and murmurs a simple prayer and that she is sorry.

She becomes one of the numerous women who have died in child birth.
 

Hope

When we are born, the desire to Hope is engraved in our lives because Let's face it, if we did not hope, then we would never think of tomorrow and Hope that it will being us better things, we would never go through problems Hoping that tomorrow will be better but we learn to hope and some how that keeps us going every day.
The other day, I went to talk to a fistula patient about the idea of using a menstrual cup to hold urine so technically this would give them one hour of protection only that they would have to keep emptying the cup once it gets full. When I explained this to the patient, she was willing to try and she told me " I am Hoping that this works".
We sat quietly for one hour and this was the longest hour for this woman,  every time I looked at her, she seemed to be praying quietly, and deep down my heart i was hoping that it would work out so that this woman would have better days ahead of her. Eventually the hour elapsed, but our Hope was Thwarted because the Urine did not drop into the cup but it instead continued to leak outside the cup.
Later, the woman looked up to me and said " It might not have worked this time , but I will keep trying the cup and I Hope that it will work"

Connections
Today in the news papers, they showed a bunch of kids who got scholarships to go and study in the US. They even went ahead and showed us which schools these kids went to. They all went first class schools meaning they are all from well to do families since you can not take your child to such a school unless you have the money to do so. So at the end of the day, the halfs gain more from their connections and those that do not have continue leaving their miserable lives. I think if the US really wanted to help, they should roll out this scholarship to children from third class schools because I have met some who are really bright and given the chance they would even outshine these kids from first class schools.
But TIA, these things happen!! That's why developed countries always screw us up!!

Despair and Hope

Despair and Hope
I am seated in a taxi going to Jinja and in the back seat, there is a couple seated with a very sick child . He is probably 1 year but he has lost so much weight that you can barely recognize he is that age. Every one in the taxi is very concerned about his condition and every time some one asks what is wrong with the baby because his breathing is strained and he barely has the strength to cry, the father answers " He does not have blood, but we are taking him to the hospital and hoping they will give him the blood he needs"  and then he goes back to looking at his child. The mother is holding the child and very quietly , she listens to his breathing, i think to make sure that he is still breathing and in her eyes , you see the desperation every time the Taxi stops to pick up some one because every minute lost means her baby might die. She shoves passion fruit down the baby's throat and any time she stops , the husbands shouts for her to keep giving the baby more juice. At the end of the day, I wonder what these two parents are thinking but i know one thing for sure they are both praying to God to spare their child and praying that the hospital will have the blood they need.

Literacy and Knowledge

 The Power to think

Yesterday as i was walking home, i meet these two kids carrying 4 jerrycans of water slung across a big stick . Thoughts that ran into my head? I think they sat down and figured out how to carry all these jerrycans so that they will not have to go back more than one time and vala! they came up with a brilliant idea. This reminds me of a saying in our local language " Even if you said there is nothing you can do about a situation, you will always find a solution for this situation at the end of the day" And yes- God gives us brains to think.

The power of being Literate.

This patient goes for surgery and the surgeon accidentally leaves pieces of threads in her belly. She is discharged but later her condition worsens because of this. When she returns to tell the doctor what happened, the doctor talks to another doctor in English because they are sure she doesn't understand a single word in English. The doctor who is responsible never apologises to this woman because he knows that she is Illiterate so she wont actually sue him or say anything to any one else. She is sent home and told to come back next time. If this women was Literate , she would have demanded her rights as a patient, she would have made the doctor acknowledge his mistake , she would have sued the hospital for this and she would have been paid a lot of money in damages. 

But the doctor has the Power of being Literate , so he manipulates the situation and the woman didn't say anything to the Doctor because its assumed Doctors know everything and never make mistakes. She slowly walked home praying that God let her live because from the looks if it she wont probably make it.

My neighbor's kids and sex

Its 6pm as I open the gate to my house only to see the next door neighbor busy hitting her two children. I greet her and as am entering house, she informs me why she is hitting her kids ( not that i care to know).The kids are boy and girl and they are 5 and 4. So from the story, the" boy had sex with the girl" and they are sister and brother , so that is incest!! As she is spanking them , she keeps asking them " Why am I spanking you" and they kept replying " for doing bad stuff". So I wondered what bad stuff , these kids had done!! 

And how do you talk to a 5 year Old and a 4 year Old about sex instead of spanking them!!

If this parent had sat down with their child and imparted knowledge in their heads instead of spanking them, it would have made a difference, because am sure they have no idea why they were beaten !! and will probably remember sex as bad stuff even when they grow up !!

Come back

It's one of those days when i wonder why I remembered i had a blog and i thought to my self - i should write something on it , just so that whoever reads it knows am still alive. Oh Yes! am and loving the Bounties that God blesses me with every day. I have started volunteering at the babies home in Iganga again and oh how the children have grown. ( The two babies am holding in my laps on my Blog were sent to another home for older children . I feel bad , i did not say good bye to them. The ones that were a few months old, are now toddlers . Why do i go there, because i like spending time with children.

An unknown Loss

A few days ago i called my former work place to talk to one of my favourite woman and i was told that she died of Throat Cancer and they buried her 2 months ago. This left me wondering how such a thing could happen and i was never told and then it dawned on me that not every one can acess a phone and then i thought may be if i had gone to visit regularly , I would have known , so for now i intend to visit all my friends who do not own phones regularly.

The New year

Happy new year ! to my self and to every one. I guess every new year comes with hope and the yearning to do something new and different. what do i want to do different? A lot but i know all depends on God and what he wants you to do, so this year am going to be the one he desires me to be. The last year has been a hard one for me and some times i have had to make very difficult decisions but what to do when a lot is at stake. I will have to come up with more solutions to very cross- cutting issues both at work and outside work. Sometimes when a lot is going on , you wonder whether you alone are in the world. Guess some people have it easy, so i hope i h ave it easy this year.

updates

Guess i have spent like months with out writting anything at all, why i do not have a particular reason but i have just been busy. A lot has happened in the past few months , i might not even remember everything, but it is almost the rainy season and all the farmers are getting ready to plant their crops.

Work is going on with my women that i work withand i will meet them again the end of this month. We have a village bank and it is amazing to see these women come to the bank all the time to get loans, they are farmers but they are not afraid to get the loans and i have seen lives improve so much. Guess if we want change in africa, we should empower the women first , that is the way to go.

Last time i went to an HIV clinic and i saw 100 children who were positive and they had already started taking their Antiretrovial medicine , i wondered at what was happening in this country , such is a big number and they all looked calm and had accepted what ever life had given them.It hurt me so much i just did not know what to do, God we surely need a miracle , i pray that you heal all those children.

what should i say!

blogging, its been a long time! why! i dont know! life has been a little bit upside down, got sick with malaria, had busy days and had fun working with women and children, thats what i do for life. Amazing how small things change people's lives and how they appreciate the little things that you do for them, i have been busy selling baskets made by women here and at the end of the day, i will give them back the money, you should see the smiles on their faces and the questions they will ask, is this my money and you go , yes! , what are you going to do with the money , she replies , i will take my child to school or i will take them to hospital or buy them a cup of milk, these are things that we take for granted at times, but they matter a lot.
Or the smile of a child when you tell them that you now have some one to help pay school fees for you, the relief they get is not imaginable any where else, those are the things that matter most in life.
am now in masaka full time and i surely miss my friends, church and family but i have a family here that love me and cares about me a lot.

God's ways and life frustrations

The past few weeks have not been that easy for me, my friend lost a son and he died in his sleep. life is so short you never know whats coming next, that makes me wonder why we spend so much time working and yet we will leave everything. God rest his soul in eternal peace , hope to see you again some day and may he strengthen us your mums so much and may he bless us with other children that look like you. we love and miss you so much.

This week not good at all, a lot happening, have you ever wanted to say something so much but then you can not say it because when you tell people you are scared they will not keep it to them selves, thats the life i live right now, God knows how long this will have to be .
Have you ever wanted things t to change so much in life but then they do not? what would you do?
God keeps on blessing me with new friends everyday and they are really interesting people. i have a room mate who is actually not my room mate but i do not like calling her name, i have AK 47 who is so interesting and the list goes on and on

Thoughts

i usually take long to write , i dont know why, i guess i got no reason not to. ihave spent the past few days wondering why we do not appreciate the little things in life or the fact that we are that person who we are. Here am praying to God to give me a miracle about something a friedn might think is so obvious but thats life.
Too much has been happening and it makes me question why we human beings do not accept that things are wrong at time and them instead we become over protective, eventually it costs us so much that we later regret in life. people do make mistakes in life but if we dont forgive them , them why do we want to be forgiven, funny how we pray forgive us to God and we do not forgive others.
Am a kind of person who deosnot like being too dependant and too me if that happens it sucks! so i think with time to come will have to figure out some things

Life

i know i have taken so long without . sometimes you just dont know what to say to people and you wonder what you should say but then you have no answer.
it is the rainy season and oh God! there are soldier ants everywhere i just hate those tiny creatures they really suck!
i was able to spend time at church with my kids and my family at church and it was the best time i have ever spent in my life. You just cant imagine what joy i have seeing my kids move form another class and then when they see you they still remember you and say they have missed you, to me thats worth living for and loving people every day.
Life has been good and God too, he has done great things ! am singing !

Reflections

i have not written for the past weeks not because i do not want but sometimes you have to give up on somethings to gain others.
i have been busy with the women empowerment project and we are trying to set up some project that are sustainable . Very soon they are going to start a micro-lending initiative of their own, call it a small Grameen Bank. You dont know how a bank intimidates a rural woman and the fear of borrowing money from the bank but they are so excited with this idea and i cant wait to get it running.
I have been thinking of what drives me to do certain things for people and i realized its not because of me but it is the passion and compassion that God put inside me.
i have seen how love can even change the hardest of people and yah! some times it frustrating especially when you can not accept the facts about life .
i have also realized that i have responsibilities now and yah! its time to grow up , thats the way things run in africa, we grow up so early and the troubles of life wear you out so much but am not complaining .

God's amazing work in me

i know i have taken so long with out writting, not because i have nothing to write about but because i have had alot happening in my life. A m also trying to deal with some of my friends leaving which is hard becuase i will never see them again.
Lat week i had a very distrubing incident and one thing i have learnt in life is that things do not happend the way you want them to and that sometimes silence is the best answer becuase it means you do not have to regret anything.
It has also made me realise that God is doing a great job in my life and i have seen that he has answered some of my prayers. I asked him to teach me to forgive people easily and forget about somethings and he has done that , i realized that even when people hurt me so badly that they make me cry , at the end of the day i will forgive them and still love them. Thats an achievement for me .
To my blogs friends , God bless you so much this year and to my small sisters and brothers who have new families , one day remember that we did not choose for you to leave because we do not like you here but because God had willed and because you needed love and care and those families were the ones that choose. We still love you and be good kids.
Moreen
Uganda

its been long since i last wrote , a lot has been happening and i have done some soul searching about my life and what i want to happen the next years. i have tried to understand every one and what they want in life and i realized we are not the same all the time, but i think thats what God wants ,me top realise.
i have busy this past week trying to visit all the women and trying to understand their needs while respecting them at the same time. Its hard working with women that are older than you, one time you are thinking about what to tell them and them you think about it and you realize that they have probably seem more in life that you have but they sit and listen to you all the same .
Its going to take me so long to accept that they are things that i can not change in life but God help me accept these.
Am also trying to see if they is a place that i can get free formula milk cos they are kids who need it badly.

i know i have takenlike ages with out writing . A lot has happened like me graduating , something i though i would never be able to do bu trust God and his ways , he helped me do that thats why i just cant stop thanking him so much.
Am sick with malaria right now but i think he is already making me better and there are days when i feel like dying cos of what is happening in the world, it just makes me sick that people are busy taking other's lives something they are not supposed to do cos no one ever created a person on this earth. Oh God open our eyes and give us wisdom to think before we do anything