First of all I like to say thank you to my host family Magezi Joshua and Harriet. They are doing a grateful work for these children in Wakiso. It is a big opportunity for the orphans-children to get educated and even the have a home community where they share food, love and hope together.
My husband Stefan and I came in July 2003 to Uganda us volunteer workers. It was a long process to decide that we are coming from Austria to Uganda, but it was the right choice. So we left our jobs, friends and homes behind us and came to Kampala, where Harriet and Joshua live.
We wanted to have a culture-exchange and not just working and staying in a place with others volunteers from our country. When you stay in a local Ugandan family you get much more into the culture. We cooked together, we ate the same food, we washed our clothes together with the people and we shared all the happiness and problems with the “big” family (about 15 people living at Magezi’s place). It was one of my best experiences in my life. It was not always easy, but very interesting to get into such a different culture.
I worked from Monday to Friday in the Wakiso-orphans village as a teacher in their primary-school (but I am not a primary-teacher at my profession) and tried to educate the kids in the subject Math, English and Christian Religions Education. In the beginning it was quite hard, because the kids are not used to speak English. So I tried to learn also the local language Luganda and you know … kids are fast in learning…and step by step it was going on the right way. I love the Children so much, they are so happy with small thing compared to the Children in “richer” countries. I wish a lot of people can see how “rich” the children here are. It makes a big difference to see what’s really going on, because you don t see children like this in Europe or in the USA.
On Saturday and on Sunday we enjoyed to have a break, visiting some friends or going to church or going for a trip to see some nice places of Uganda.
I like to say thank you to the “mothers” in Wakiso, they are looking quite well after the needs of the children. They are really hard working women, the look after the kids of course, but the also dig and plant a lot of food for there Children. They also build houses and make Sunday school for the children and collect firewood, and and and … That’s amazing how the project is working. They don’t have enough money, but with the little they try the best and they also have a big faith to god. If someone likes to do a useful volunteering in Uganda you should come to this project, because it makes a big difference to your life. I can give you a lot of Information if you want.
Send me an e-mail to Sabine Griesser-Schöfbänker:
s.griesser-sch_remove-this_@gmx.at
( please remove the “_remove-this_” before – this is a kind of spam-protection.)
