Ruhanga, Uganda, Part 1: Holiday Celebrations + I Become A Godmother!

From Rwanda, I headed to Uganda to volunteer at a local school that I'd heard about a couple weeks earlier.  I figured it would be a nice time of year to give back, and maybe would also selfishly ensure I wouldn't be alone on Christmas (fun fact; the first Christmas of my ENTIRE LIFE that I've spent without my family. Cryy.).  

I found an organization called Uganda Lodge through my friend Melissa from Nepal (well, from Spain - but I knew her from Nepal) - she had met someone who had volunteered there and really liked it.  I e-mailed them, applied for a volunteer role, and before I knew it, I was sitting on a super-sketchy, definitely NOT air-conditioned local bus from Kigali to the school.


What It's All About:
Uganda Lodge is a combination school/community organization/guesthouse based in the tiny town of Ruhanga (which honestly isn't even a town - it's a "blink-and-you'll-miss-it" stretch of road).  It's located a couple hours from the Rwanda/Uganda border in Southwestern Uganda. Given its location in the middle of nowhere, there are no stores, no WiFi, no anything.  The closest city to the school is called Ntungamo, which is about a 15 minute drive away, and even that is a sad, tiny little town with nonexistent internet, no supermarkets, and only one ATM that works only intermittently.  Needless to say, I was pretty much off the grid. Hence the two-week radio silence.

The is the bustling metropolis of Ntungamo, the closest "city" to Uganda Lodge

However, the amazing parts: the area is completely GORGEOUS - there are rolling green hills as far as the eye can see, it's totally peaceful and quiet (all you often hear are the super-annoying roosters who seem to be confused as to what time it is), and the surrounding community is amazing. Out here, the kids get super super excited to see foreigners, often shouting "mzungu!" (foreigner/white person) when they see you and yelling "hello!" or "bye!" in at attempt to use their English. Locals are super welcoming, babies cry when they see you because you look so weird, and life here is the calm, slow pace I imagine life to be in the countryside. Nobody is ever in a hurry, and time seems to be completely arbitrary.

Just the most beautiful view ever from Ruhanga

I can't even describe the amazing, crazy, random series of events that have transpired since I've been at the school. But I'm going to try.

Cliffnotes of Week 1:

• Basically showed up to the bus station in Kigali (which is pure, complete chaos) - and found a local bus taking the 12-hour journey from Kigali (capital of Rwanda) to Kampala (capital of Uganda). This is because, another fun fact, timetables don't seem to really mean anything in Africa.  Anyhow, I was instructed that I could just ask the bus driver to stop anywhere I wanted to on the way, a.k.a. in Ruhanga, which nobody seemed to have ever heard of. 

The bus driver was super nice and let me sit in the front, where I could catch amazing views, such as this local man hitching a ride with a semi truck.

Rwanda and Uganda have the most gorgeous countryside views ever

Passing by a local market

On the bus, I was adopted by this lovely lady named Sharon - she's originally from Uganda/Rwanda but now lives in Canada. She was back visiting relatives for the holidays, and took me under her wing for the bus journey: making sure the driver knew where I needed to stop, helping me with the border crossing, and buying me corn on the way. She was so great.

• And miraculously, almost 6 hours later, I arrived intact to Uganda Lodge!  Given it's the holidays, the school is on break and there was only one other volunteer there - Selena from the UK. Selena was awesome - we got along really well, and it was actually super fun having the run of the entire lodge to ourselves. It was like having our own private compound, where meals would randomly appear in the food hall at mealtimes, and we could make our own schedules every day. Even though school is out, there's still enough going on to keep busy - the school also offers vocational computer/sewing classes, and the school's host - Dennis - had his kids and their friends staying next door for the holidays. The kids were really sweet and cute and also maybe completely exhausting (how do people with children handle hanging out with them 24/7!??! I'd take 4/3, tops). 

Here is Uganda Lodge! My dorm is the one on the very end

The hills to the back of the compound

Selena, me, and three of the kids - Joel, Ivan, and Jordan 

• Coming up to Christmas, Selena and I planned some Christmas-related activities for the kids.

I had all the kids make Christmas stockings and hang them up.  On Christmas morning, Selena and I had attached some lollipops and notes from "Santa" to each kid's stocking. Which unbeknownst to us, kids in Uganda call Santa "Father Christmas", so they were all like "Who is Santa!?!?!" 

The kids also helped make this "Merry Christmas" banner and the paper Santa Claus.  Seriously, all I did was trace the outline of the letters and make "cutting the letters out" sound like an incredibly important job, and they were all clamoring to cut them out for me and decorate them. Genius. 

We played a game of "Pin the Star on the Christmas tree"

Close, buddy.

Selena had brought cookie-decorating supplies to decorate Christmas cookies.
L to R: Calvin (who had maybe split his head open on the concrete two days earlier, hence the giant bandage), Ivan (his dad is Russian so he speaks English with this Russian accent and it's adorable. He's also a complete hurricane of a child, but had some incredibly sweet moments) , Jordan (the Uganda Lodge host Dennis' oldest child), Joel (Dennis' middle child), and Patricia (Dennis' youngest, and the only girl.) 

Then finished the day off with a rousing game of musical chairs.  Which we tried to make Christmas-themed by using Christmas music, but given the no internet situation.....we may have played all 10 rounds to Taylor's "Shake It Off" instead. Anytime the kids heard "Shake It Off" from then on out, they'd be like "CONNIE IT'S YOUR SONGGGG!!!"  Even kids in Uganda know.

• Selena and I finished off Christmas Eve by taking a hike in the hills behind the school, and doing our own child-free Christmas activities.

10 minutes in, and here is the view!  Ahhhhh Uganda, you are so pretty

Christmas Eve mini-hike participants

And then we dragged plastic chairs up the side of the hill, found some random person's banana plantation, and set up shop there to watch the sunset. I may have brought knitting and Selena brought a book. Every local who passed by us looked at us like we were insane - these two random girls sitting in plastic chairs in someone's banana field, knitting and reading and chatting and watching the sunset.

Christmas Eve dinner. Fish and chips!

And then Selena and I made paper wreaths to hang on our doors for Christmas

• CHRISTMAS MORNING. Eeeeeeeeee I love Christmas. Though I am officially going to dub this the most random Christmas of all time.  But a lovely day, nonetheless.

First off, Selena and I went on a morning Christmas walk. And these random little girls just walked up and starting holding Selena's hand on the way

Our morning Christmas walk was gorgeous. This is a path right near the church

The kids were so excited to find their Christmas stockings with messages and candy.  To keep up the ruse, Selena and I had written notes from Santa to each other as well (which worked pretty well - when the kids asked if we'd written the notes, we were like "No, Santa wrote US notes too as well!" And then they bought it: hook, line, and sinker).
On a side note, Santa seems to know that I like vodka. 

And then we went with Dennis and his kids to the local Christmas church service; one of the most interesting services I've ever attended.

Church lasted for 4 hours, and involved the preacher calling for donations every 20 minutes. Also, given the service was conducted in the local language, Selena and I had zero idea what was happening.

The church asks for donations like, 20 separate times during the service - for those who can't afford to give money, they bring in some of their crops as donations instead. These are then auctioned off at the end of the service. These people are bringing up sugarcane as their church donation

The auction part at the end is my favorite - and also how we scored tons of bags of Christmas mangoes

Christmas lunch at the lodge. The yellow mashed potato-looking thing is called matoke, and is the local staple of Uganda. It's a banana that isn't sweet, and they mash it up and put it with basically EVERYthing.

The kids got Christmas coloring books, which they loved. Another cool thing about Ugandan kids - there's no delineation about "girl" vs. "boy" toys - the boys are just as happy with ballerina coloring books and My Little Pony toys as they are with trucks and traditionally "boy" items.

I'm not sure why all the kids look so, so miserable. I swear they were happy.

Some more local kids came over to play - or get in on some of the lollipop/pencil action that Selena was handing out.

• The day after Christmas was another big day for us - when I'd arrived, Dennis had mentioned that his son Jordan was going to be baptized, and they were going to have a big baptism party. And an even more interesting twist - literally the day I'd arrived, Dennis had mentioned that his sister's child Freya was getting baptized as well - and he asked me to be the godmother. "Ummm........shouldn't the godmother be someone who's actually met the child?" was the first question I asked, as I'd never even seen this kid. But Dennis was insistent. On that same note, Selena was chosen to be his son Jordan's godmother. To be honest, I think it's kind of a status symbol to have a mzungu/foreigner be a child's godmother - it's probably kind of a bragging right - but on that same note, Selena and I were secretly wondering if in 10 years, we'd randomly get a call and be like "Heyyyy your godchild needs school tuition!"  (seriously, all the locals also seem to think all mzungus have money and have no qualms about asking for it all the time).  But Dennis wouldn't take no for an answer.  And that is how Selena and I found ourselves the godmothers of these totally random children in Uganda.

Baptism day!  And all the kids got matching suits made; Dennis, the host, is in the back. They look like some kind of stylish boy band. I LOVE IT.

Certain days of the year are baptism days at the local church, and they'll do multiple baptisms in one service. Which means it was another 4-hour church day. 10 minutes into the service, and this is what the kids looked like.

Here's Jordan's baptism, with his new godparents looking on. Jordan must be extra lucky because he has two mzungus as the godparents: Selena and Duncan (who is a former volunteer of Uganda Lodge and now lives part-time in Ruhanga). 

Ah, and here's my new goddaughter Freya, who I've met twice at this point, being baptized. Note that I have zero idea who the godfather is next to me, or what really is happening at all.

The kids would get so bored at church that they would beg to go wait in the car - which basically consisted of this: the kids sitting in the car and acting like royalty, while all the other kids of the community, who were incredibly poor and couldn't afford cars, would surround the car and watch them.

Church was also my favorite because some of these kids come from incredibly, incredibly remote areas. Every time Selena and I showed up at church, they would surround us in groups and just stare at us - some would come up and hold our hands, or touch our hair. I was sitting on the grass and a huge group of kids came to stare at me - two sat in my lap, and the rest were completely fascinated with my iPhone camera. I may have taught them how to selfie. They were delighted.

Selfie tutorial, take 2.

The cutest thing of all about Ugandan kids - they are so, so well-behaved. They don't have constant entertainment or TVs or anything, so they get very used to very boring situations and learn how to amuse themselves quietly. Later on, when I went back into the church, the small boy in the black suit on my lap came and found me and sat on my lap for the last hour of church. Even though he was completely bored, he was the most well-behaved child. He sang quietly to himself and played with my bracelets for the entire service. I DIE. CUTEST.

After church was the grand baptism party for Jordan and Freya, which consisted of a huge lunch.

Calvin loves my sunglasses

And then they had a giant cake. Another fun fact, Ugandans get the "L" and "R" sounds of English very confused - they kind of sound the same. So the baptism cake said "Fleya" instead of "Freya."  Amazing.

And half the community came out for the party. And the emcee randomly came up to us and asked us to make a speech to our godchildren. Selena and I managed to weasel our way out of our speeches - especially because, can you imagine what I would say!?!?!  "Uh...Freya....I've met you twice....and when I hear you cry...or wait, that could be the other child that is here at the Lodge, I don't really know...but you seem like a good kid?"  

And then the craziest part - they made us stand behind all the kids and then basically asked everyone to come up and donate money in a basket to Jordan and Freya. And when they did, they received a piece of cake.  Some of these people are super poor, so they come up and pretend to put money in the basket, and then take a piece of cake and go. And then the rest of the party consists of over 3 hours of speeches.

Fun Facts of the Day:

• Buses in this area of Africa don't really have timetables - they usually just wait to fill up, and then leave. Therefore, a 12pm bus could easily leave at 12:30pm, or they might wait until 4pm if the bus takes a long time to fill up. Nobody seems to care about schedules or times here at all.
• On that note, when a local tells you they'll meet you at noon, they most likely won't mosey over until 1 or 2pm. And it'll be like nothing happened. But I was getting really confused because I was helping with the computer classes and the lady would be like "I'll come around 1pm tomorrow!" and then wouldn't show up until like, 2 hours later. Every. Time.
• Locals in this area of Uganda speak their own local dialect that is different than the rest of Uganda. "Hello!" is "Agandi!", but that's not gonna help you anywhere else in the country but here. You're welcome.
• Is it concerning that I was a part of a baptism but I've never been baptized myself?
• Asking for money is incredibly common here, and much more up-front and direct than in Western culture. Seriously, where else would you go to a party where people go "Ok walk up here and give us money! Even though we have more money than you! And only then you can have a slice of cake!" So weird to me.
• Speeches at parties are huge here. Selena had attended a wedding the weekend before, where there were 4 hours of people making speeches. Same with the baptism party. Person after person after person came up to make speeches - so many that we had to excuse ourselves three hours in, because I was dying.