hillary's uganda journal - aug 8

So this was my last time of visiting Lugazi :( I'm really going to miss that place. I think if I ever went on a long term mission trip to Uganda I would want to live in Lugazi. I was trying to figure out why that is, and I really have no other reason besides the kids being so flippin cute. Which they're cute every where, so I don't know what the difference is. It seems like there
are a lot more younger kids there, which makes it odd that I like it so much. I've talked about the little kids here before, they're crazy! They attack my hands like they're going to die if they aren't the ones holding onto them. Don't get me wrong, the children in Lugazi aren't some different species of Ugandans who wait they're turn, ask politely to hold my hand, and trade places with kids when their turn is over. They are just so innocently happy to see us. It's not a fight for who can become friends with the Americans the fastest, just to say that they are. I held a little girl that would look into my eyes and you could see that she was just totally in love with me. haha How is it that they can show us so much love barely knowing us? Each time I am with these kids I am humbled in some new way.

We got to Lugazi and were welcomed by the whole school running to line up with babies in front and older kids to the back to sing us all the songs they know. It looked a little less organized than it usually does, kids running all over the place and only half of them wearing the normal checkered uniforms. Every other time I've come here the kids are already lined up like
the only thing they have to do all day is to wait for us. I didn't think much about it. But I found out later that we were supposed to be coming on the 9th, so most of the students were washing their uniforms today so they could all be clean for tomorrow. I felt really bad, but they should know by now that they can't impress me with they're clean uniforms. The only thing I notice is their sparkling eyes and smiling faces! So they went through probably 10 songs, mostly all about Jesus. But I never get sick of their songs, in some villages the songs are so long and they repeat everything 50 times and they're about how much they need money and school fees. Which is also important to hear, but when you hear little kids singing about Jesus, it never gets old. I don't know if they truly understand all the words they're singing, but they have them memorized pretty darn well and they have the cutest performance ever!

We got to see Nakitende Oliva again! She was so cute! Except she shaved her head so I couldn't even pick her out when the whole school was singing. But after I saw her I couldn't take my eyes off of her! She was so serious again with me at the beginning, but then she started to warm up to us. Mom gave her a book about clouds and she loved looking at the pictures with a serious and intense concentration. But soon enough we got some toothless smiles out of her.

The teachers at Lugazi always really impress me. The teachers in Uganda are kind of unreliable, sometimes they don't show up and at other times they just sit in the classes relaxing rather than teaching the students. A lot of times they just seem uninterested in the kids and like they don't really care about them and have no imaginations in their jobs. But in Lugazi the teachers are always with the kids. They seem to actually enjoy being with them and playing with them. It's a really different atmosphere there. I am going to miss it soooo much!!