Visiting Mubende

Last week I had the opportunity to visit some of the rural ARM schools in the Mubende district. Our mission was to take hundreds of Bibles and some teaching resources to help improve the religious education curriculum at the schools. We left early in the morning to start our 2 ½ hour trek out to the first school. Some of the roads were paved, but you know the roads are bad when the driver drives on the dirt shoulder rather than the paved road because of the numerous potholes.
Our first school visit was to Agape Christian School. Abby, the director of schools, met with the teachers to tell them what we had brought and her expectations for using the new curriculum. She also asked them what their biggest difficulties were. The consensus was the lack of text books- something that would never happen in the U.S. When we passed out bibles, the students were so excited to open them up and read them. Something about the children out there in the village is different. The children have this genuine thankfulness that is so sweet. Before leaving, we visited the ARM staff at this location and ate lunch: matooke, posho, beans, greens. The same thing could be said of the staff as the children: there was just something rejuvenating and exciting about being around these people. They were so gracious that we had even come to see them.
As we were leaving for the second school, it began to rain. In a matter of minutes, the dirt roads became muddy and slippery. Now, it would be a challenge just to make it to Grace Christian School in Kachungwa village (which means Orange and made me think of home in the OC). As we slipped and slided along the small dirt road, I was thinking we would definitely slide off the road and fall over into a ditch. We did get stuck a couple time in the deep mud puddles, but the teachers, ARM staff, and pastor came to the rescue and pushed us out.
The best part of visiting this second school was that my sponsor child, Ruth, goes to this school. This was the second time I have been able to visit Ruth (the first time being last summer when I was here for two weeks) but this time I was in her home village. I met her two sisters, who also go to the school. Then, while it was still raining, we traveled to her grandmother’s house, whom the three girls lives with. The path to the house was muddy and slippery as well. Renee even took a tumble. At the house, I met Ruth’s grandmother (jaja) and another elder sister who live in the small dirt floored home. I walked in and saw two small benches, a radio, a mat on the floor, and a jug that is used as a type of refrigerator. There was another small room they showed me, where the girls sleep. There were 3 mattresses covering the entire floor of the room and a rope strung across the middle of the room with all of their clothes hanging from it. The kitchen in the back of the house had just collapsed due to the rain- smoke still rising from inside. We sat in the front room and the grandmother told me about raising the girls on her own and how much she appreciates my help through Ruth’s sponsorship. After speaking with the grandmother for a while, the girls went to get my gift. They came back carrying a chicken! I didn’t want to take their chicken since I knew they needed it much more than I did, but it is rude to refuse a gift. They were so excited to give me this token of their appreciation. I left Ruth with a small gift as well, but I felt is was nothing in comparison to what they gave me.


Driving back we had to take a different road, because the one we came in on was too steep to take with the roads being so slippery. A boy from the school came along with us to show us the way. Only, he thought he’d take us down a shortcut that was only as wide as a village walking path. We were tearing through tall grass and bushes until we slid off the path and into a matooke tree. For several minutes the driver tried to maneuver around the tree, but the road was too slippery and we kept sliding right back into the tree. More and more children came to watch, so they were recruited to help push the van. We managed to get around that tree but then came up to another one we couldn’t get around. The wheels sped around in the mud creating a deeper and deeper trench that we could not get out of. All of a sudden the men from the school/church came around the corner to help us. Abby go out in her high heels to help as well, but we were told just to stay, so we did, despite our guilty conscious for not helping. All of a sudden a man with a machete ran at some of the children scaring them down the road. Apparently it was the landowner. We were ruining part of his field. He was told he would be compensated, and then he was all in on helping us out of the ditch we had created. It took a lot of manpower, spinning wheels, and prayer to get us out. Then, we slip-slided within centimeters of a house before getting back to the main road. By the end of it all, I was glad to be home, but so thankful for the experience.