Slums and Orphans

I've seen so much these past two days already.. really heart wrenching sights that's hard to digest but I will try and express what I have seen as best as i can...

Namuwongo has a long dusty road running through it, with trade from shacks either side.. if you walk through the trade area you reach a very long old railway track which signifys the beginning of the slums. As I walked over the railway track all I could see was endless slums.. just like slum dog millionaire.. the slums nearer the track are mainly slum market/shops (if i can even call it that) habited by people trying to sell what they can to other slum people.. banana's, beads, home made beer, pancakes, sweetcorn etc. As we continued to walk deeper into the slums the smell got worse and worse.. faeces everywhere, uneven dirt alley-ways with sewage ditches running in and out of the slums until it reaches a large field of plant trees which becomes a big bog when it rains full of rubbish and peoples excrement. Not a pretty sight.

The hygience is horrendous.. as in it couldnt get any worse.. the kids all run about in rags or oversized clothes and flipflops over ditches, unsafe ground, rubbish heaps and running about in the dirtest water I have ever seen. The water is literally black. They have dogs and ducks drinking from this water too which they will later eat, which obviously is no good.

As we walked through the slums, a big group of 'Mazumgus's', I personally felt so invasive. It just didnt seem right us marching in there like a big rich parade with our camera's and no knowledge of their language. The kids just literally charged at us like we were royalty.. some even bowed! They had huuuuge smiles on their faces and most only knew how to say 'hello, how are you and bye' so thats all they kept repeating to us. They just wanted to hold our hands and had huuuge smiles on their faces as soon as we just paid them a little bit of attention. One girl was carrying a massive bottle of water on her head.. with no hands! she even did a little jig for us whilst balancing the water on her head she was so kool! As we walked around, more and more kids latched on to us and as the team continued on their tour i just got so wrapped up with the kids... they just surrounded me and i was trying all different ways to make them smile.. i just couldnt say hi and then walk on.

Its such a sad vicious cycle.. young girls get into prostitution for as little as 50p per night!!! to help feed their family.. which in turn leads to pregnacy and HIV.. which in turn leads to the death of the mothers, leaving traumatised kids as orphans who then fall into drugs and prostitution themselves and the cycle continues. We saw women dying of Malaria and AIDS.. they looked so sick.. so warn down and yet had a large number of kids which they could no longer cater for.. unclothed and uneducated... so so sad.

Hope has a system of going into the slums assigning children to their support system to provide food, clothes and education. However they dont have that much funding so they obviously cant help every single child. We had a lot of parents presenting their children to us which such desperation in their eyes, begging us to take their children on board. Its so difficult to say no.. I guess there does have to be some system of control some how.. we just need more money and more people to help.

Today we visited the Babies Home. This is where the babies who have been abandoned by parents who have died of Malaria or HIV etc go. The children are so lovely. There is this one partcular girl who was abandoned at birth and is now 10months.. but the size of a few week old.. being fed through a tube because she is so weak due to malnutrition. I fell in love with this one girl aswel who is 2months and has the cutest smile and these huuuge eyes. She was laying in her cot and just was fixed on me and we really connected. Can I take her home please?? There was also this 2month child who had cerebral palsy. He was constantly crying. I went in to help and observe the physio the staff do with him and they really are not educated very well on how to help these kids. He clearly had epilepsy and they didnt even know.. he had at least 2 seizures whilst I was there and they just put it down to him being 'spastic'. It was so frustrating to watch coz this boy really needs more help and medication. I'm going to try and pass on as much knowledge as I can from what I have picked up from work but I dunno.. its just so hard when there isnt the resources.

We then went to a school in the middle of another run down village. This school is so run down I cant even express it. The rooms are concrete and brick.. no bigger than my bathroom back at home! They sit on old wooden benches and have A scrap of paper for their text book. They are soooo low on resources. It needs a lot of work. The team here are going to try and revamp it as much as possible.. I suggested us invading the place one weekend with paintbrushes and loads of resources.. the kids uniform is the equivalent of 5pound and they cant even afford that.. they make beads out of varnished paper to try and sell to raise money for the school.. we were all in shock how little they had yet how much faith in God they had. It was quite an eye opener.

I would like to make an appeal to anyone out there back in the UK who can help.. they really need pens, paper, text books, games, storage... anything and everything. A little bit of money can seriously go a really long way here. If you could contact local schools and ask if they could help donate either money or resources it would be sooo gratefully recieved. I cant express how much they need it. Please email me on tiarna4jc@hotmail.com if you can help in any way or send any thing over here and i will tell you how to do it. Seriously guys if you could see how little they have it would bring you to tears. it did us.

Anyways Im guuna stop gabbling now.. such an emotional day i need to chill out for a bit! A big Happy Birthday to Fee, I love you all,

Tiarna xxx