Day Three (Thursday, June 13th)

A 5:45 wake-up call was not something many of us were used to, but everyone woke up quickly and happily this morning so we could drive to Mizgo and stand with Patrick as he greeted the children as they arrived at school. As Patrick stood in the middle of the street high five-ing each child and making sure they knew they were loved we lined up at the entrance to the school and struggled to say: “Good Morning” in Luganda. It was pure joy to see some of the kids start sprinting as they turned the corner, I’m not sure any of us would run for school unless we were late. Nell continued to have a secret talent of getting all the young children to love her and Matt was on his knees and had children running into his arms as they approached the school. 

Once all the children had been dragged to class by their teachers we left the school to return to our hotel for breakfast. We had about an hour long break to eat, sort supplies, and rest before loading back on the bus to head to another one of Patrick and Eva’s schools, Kigalama. This school is about 30 minutes away from our hotel on a mostly paved road. The drive was gorgeous as we got to see a variety of landscapes and quite smooth as this was a paved road. We turned off the road at the Maranatha Schools sign and many of us were confused as to where we were about to drive. In front of us was a large pole in between two larger buildings, but, our bus driver Harold was amazing par usual and squeezed us through to the next leg of our journey. However, the sight in front of us was even harder to imagine then the one that our eyes had just lost. This road, if you could call it that, was almost wide enough for two people to walk side by side, with many branches growing onto the path. Rather then getting out and walking we just kept on driving which was quite a bumpy road. It wasn’t long before we saw two buildings, one relatively new and in very good condition that housed the Baby - P7 classes. 

As we have in the other schools, we went around each classroom introducing ourselves, tying friendship bracelets, and answering their questions (in the older classrooms). We started with the baby class and those children followed us the entire tour, wanting to be picked up, smiled at, and tickled. It was such a drastic difference between the number of students in the baby class, which was around 60, versus the P7 class, which had only 2 boys and about 14 students. Once we had visited each classroom the children were allowed free time. The younger ones stayed in a group on one side of the field, while the older children went and played football (soccer), jump rope, and more with some outdoor equipment we had brought. At this school the teachers were very interactive and led games which allowed us to learn and participate. During one game, kind of like our Duck Duck Goose, the children told Margaret “Wowww you know how to run.” The teachers also helped translate when we wanted to teach the children one of our games, Little Sally Walker, which involves a lot of singing and dancing. After the games had died down everyone was in smaller groups playing their own games until Joanne decided to take out the iPod and speakers which the children loved. Surprisingly they knew many of the songs and created a huge mob around Joanne. We all got into the dancing, which they found hilarious. Soon however, it was time for us to go and we loaded the bus and headed back to the Enro.

At this point many of us weren’t feeling great and we dropped them off at the hotel. We had a small break and organized all the school supplies and nursery supplies,  packed them onto the bus and the healthy ones headed to Mizgo to put the toys and supplies away in crates Patrick had already bought for storage. Sorting only took us about twenty minutes and since this was right around the time the children got out of school we were able to go out back to the field and play games. Maggie was able to meet Ester, the child she sponsors, Dan met one of the girls sponsored by his college chapter, and Caitlin was able to meet the girl her friend, Eva, from home sponsors and give her a gift Eva had sent. This was very special for all of these individuals. After an hour of games we headed home to call it a night wrapping up with dinner and everyone sharing their highs of the day to remain positive even with many people not feeling well.