See you later Kibaale

Two years have come to an end and we must say goodbye to Kibaale. We are so grateful to have worked here, made such wonderful friends, and worked with such a great organization! We’ve had the eye-opening, humbling privilege to have those affected by our stay approach us day after day and tell us of the impact we’ve had in their lives, from teachers to children to the old guy with no teeth in the hut down the road. It’s been great to hear, and has been so encouraging to us on the way out… sometimes you can forget everything that happens from day to day, and hearing that those small things you did actually made a difference and made enough impact for someone to approach you and say ‘thank you’ has really helped us ease out of this place and begin to prepare for North America. It has been so good spending time with friends, finishing up with work and reflecting on our time here… we’re going to miss everyone so much.

If you’re wondering what we’ve been doing the past few weeks we can sum it up pretty easily – Matooke. Eating, and eating and eating matooke and these huge glamorous meals of local food. We have been constantly full, waking up moaning for literally weeks now! It’s hard to express our appreciation for that, watching the sacrifices made to send us off full and knowing we are loved.

Thanks to everyone back home for the constant support in prayer, with finances, with letters and phone calls and packages in the mail, for keeping in touch and letting us know we were missed, for understanding when we said we would not be coming home for a leave even when it was possible. We’ve made the most of our time here and have no regrets, but it couldn’t have been possible without those behind us. Thanks.

So what next? Well, we’ve written this in advance, so, as you’re reading this, we are hurtling through the air on our way to Egypt. For headspace sake (and, let’s be honest, what better opportunity will we ever have?) we will be backpacking our way up from Uganda to England over the course of 27 days. No computer, so this will be our last blog post. Maybe we’ll post some pictures of our travels when we get back into Canada on October 28^th, but if not, consider this the final post as we begin our new life back in Canada.

Thanks again to everyone, for everything.

(We’ve attached some photos from the various goodbyes with people who mean a great deal to us)

Sleeping in the village of Kamuli

We're really winding down in Kibaale now, putting the final touches on everything before we go and saying our goodbyes to good friends. It gets sad when you start planning out where you will be and with whom for the few weeks remaining! We had been trying to get to Kamuli town, about 45 minutes from Kibaale through the dirt roads, for weeks. This is the home of Samalie and Joseph, and they kindly invited us over to attend their church, see the project they are beginning (there are no lower level schools in Kamuli, and illiteracy is incredibly high, so they are going to start one) and spend a night sleeping at their place.

We've been here awhile now and slept in some interesting places, but we really enjoyed staying in Samalie and Joseph's house. They moved themselves into a neighbour's place and gave us the bed, and we went to sleep with the sounds of the village all around us. Quite different from Kibaale. Waking up was great and we were able to be part of a Ugandan morning watching goats be slaughtered for Sunday lunch, helping to cook cassava, taking care of the infinite number of small children running around the village, all while watching an amazing sunrise and idly chatting the minutes away until church. It was a great time.

Kyalulangira and back. . . the long way round

Riding motorbikes is the perfect way to take in Uganda's true beauty and a
great way to spend a Saturday morning. We took off early in the morning,
filled up with fuel and took off on a road we've never travelled. Three
hours later we returned having ventured off the maram road and discovering
some of the most amazing scenery that's been just a few kilometers from
where we've been living this entire time! If only we had ventured that
direction sooner. A couple failed photo ops later and we rolled back into
Kibaale. Sean spent the rest of the day giving riding lessons to people of
various ages, and then riding down (and up) stairs with some small kids for
laughs. A good day.

Jamie will come back to Canada a dirt bike veteran, so watch out everyone :)

Junk in ma Trunk

And by junk I mean goats. This is one way to transport a big goat delivery-
in the trunk of the car. We untied them all and all the kids came to collect
their "kid" gifts. **no goats were injured during the photo session**

Heidi's sponsor kid

Last week I went to visit my cousin Heidi's sponsor kid. So we drove for
about 30 minutes and then walked up a huge hill for another 15 minutes - and
he lived right on the top of the hill. As we were all catching our breathe,
we had the warmest welcome from his family! David is the oldest of 8
children! His mother cares for all of them and his father recently took off
from the family- nowhere to be seen. David is 11 years old and this is his
first year at our school. He is deaf and schools in his area never provided
the opportunity to learn sign language. So, now he is learning how to sign
and communicate with his teacher, family and friends!
- Jamie

Heather's Girl!

This is Nampijja Joan and my cousin Heather is sponsoring her! We are only
here for two more short weeks, so I wanted to make sure I met her family and
saw where she lived before taking off! Joan's smile brightens up my day and
I love her so much! Her family is so lovely! She's the oldest, and then she
has two brothers (Marvin & Baby Andrew) and her sister Flavia. I sat on a
woven matt on the house floor, baby chicks ran around me chirping away and
neighborhood children were peering in the door. These are some of the things
that I'm going to miss- I'm not really going to get that in a Canadian
household!
- Jamie