Sing for me. Lead a revolt.

Super speed…… Woke up. Slept bad. Edited photos. Took a shower. Ate breakfast. Brushed teeth. Walked to C.O.G. compound.

This is where it gets interesting… We hitched a ride to a few local villages today where our kids will be coming from. We left the compound as 2 vans but split up and went to different villages. After experiencing the villages from yesterday I am prepared to see some things on another level. The van we were in was sort of like a silver euro van with rear facing seats on one side. Our driver for the day was Paul who is a 35 year old Ugandan. In the front seat riding shotgun is a woman named Colleen. Pay attention because this is where it gets good. Colleen is the MVP of our trip… she’s 80 years old! She has a super rich passion for the kids here and especially the kids she sponsors. Almost every time she speaks about her kids she begins to cry a little. So we took Colleen to visit a few of her sponsored children and their friends. In our van we also have a Ugandan woman named Layla that works for Children of Grace as a mentor. She has 100 kids that are under her sight and it is her job to know everything about them. Basically C.O.G. gets kids sponsored and pays for them to go to school, come to learning camps, and provides a route for young kids to grow up and make money. You should know that if the kids don’t perform well in school behaviorally, they lose their funding.

So we pull in to our first village and we are on this muddy road. The road has gutters ditches on both sides that are 2 or three feet deep and wide with little bridges that allow people to cross them. Along the sides of the road are little shacks where people are hanging out and selling goods. When you drive through the town, everyone is looking at the car. When they see white people in the van they go in to laser lock mode and follow you until you are out of site. We drive to the center of town and stop the van. Now what? We get out of the van... I could feel my heart start to pump a little more here as I struggle to throw my camera rig together. You get this total fish out of water feeling. Or maybe this is what it feels like when you release a caged animal in to the wild. I am on ground zero here.  All Ugandan eyes are on us. I have my camera in hand and it looks pretty serious with the grips and follow focus plus a shotgun mic on top. Some kids nearby begin to shout “Mzungu!” which is white person or traveler. Remember the scene in Little Nemo when the seagulls see Nemo laying on the deck and they begin to close in on him. This was just like that. Kids began to flock to us as we started to walk down the road to our first house visit. They come out of the woodworks to see you. We ended up having a little flock of kids behind us the entire way. Everyone wants to see the Mzungus. I immediately began to interact with the kids and take their photo. Cameras are rare to see here and people only use them for work. The kids love to be in front of the camera and they love it when you show them the photo afterwards. I bent down to show a group of them and I could feel there little hands like 100 little suction cups all over my body as they seemed to breathe in rapid fire breathes because many of them are so excited. The kids are easy. They don’t hesitate to talk to you and when you respond it makes them so happy. The adults are different… they stare at you until you do something back. I have found that it only takes a simple wave or friendly smile to cut the tension. Most of them will return a smile and wave. Some of them just keep staring… You can’t win them all I guess.

We made it to our first house and the mother was outside when I arrived on scene. She told the daughter to come outside and we simply said hello and  told her we can’t wait for you to come to camp. The kids we were visiting were very shy. I imagine it was because 6 Mzungus just showed up at her doorstep and one of them has this camera he’s waving around. After our meet we packed back in to the van and I took a moment. What just happened? What did I see? I just saw a band of children with half ripped clothes climbing all over us. I got a glimpse of how many people live in this world. I only have one thing to say to myself…

"You have absolutely NOTHING to complain about!"

Oh what’s that self?… someone put your shirt in the dryer and it shrank? Well maybe the kid with half a pair of pants will want it! This is insane. That kid over there doesn’t even have pants on! Here I am worrying about getting my old shoes in the mud and this kid doesn’t have shoes on so he is just standing in the mud. Ok.. he’s a kid maybe he likes the mud. Let’s take a look at his house… The room that I am in right now as I write this blog post is bigger than his house. The door that is on his house… wait that’s not a door that a curtain with a floral pattern on it. Well maybe he will invite me in to sit down… oh no he can’t because he doesn’t have a place to sit. Want to help a Ugandan family out… start an organization that makes cheap furniture and give it to Ugandan families in villages. (Actually that could be a great idea). To sum this up lets just say that when you actually get to see with your own eyes how the people live here… you understand why people have such a heart for helping.

The day went on and we visited more homes and it was much of the same thing as before. Something I saw that was really great was a girl that was walking down an alley by herself and she was singing. It was low. It was pitchy. It was very beautiful. I looked at her and she looked at the ground. I asked her if I could take her photo. I asked her if she would sing for me. She said “Yes”. It made me so glad to have her sing. She told me that she loves to sing. The team was ahead of me at this point so it was just she and I. This is another moment I won’t forget. It was a little glimmer into one girl’s life.

We got in the van again and went to a catholic school. The school seemed like a ghost town upon arrival. It was raining very hard. We met the head of the school and he told us some of what they do here. I filmed him and then left the room to go explore. I figured this place is empty and I could probably get a few good shots here. I walked around the corner and down the side of one of these buildings. I see 2 guys standing against the wall to the right looking me. I look to the left and I see 3 or 4 sets of eyes peering at me through slats in a window. I walked up to the window and I realize there are almost 60 kids in this classroom and they are all looking at me and they are quite. Maybe 2 seconds go by while I decide what to do here… I hold my camera and through window I asked them… “Can I take your photo?” It was like the Giants just hit a grand slam at the World Series! They exploded with excitement and began to jump on their desks and yell and scream. My heart went through the roof! What did I just do?! How is this happening?! I am a man from a small town called Simi Valley in a country half way around the world… No I am in one of the craziest countries on Earth standing in from of 60 screaming kids that are excited to have there picture taken! Bananas! This is bonkers! I have never felt anything like this feeling before! At the same time it’s like fighting off a pack of wild hyenas! Do you know what it’s like trying to organize 60 kids in to a photograph?! NO?! CRAZY RAD! Again… I left the others in the room so it’s just me and some kids. I began to walk out the door and they started to follow me! Now I am leading this revolt out of the classroom! Ha! Amazing! The scene ended by me going toward the team and they wouldn’t follow. It’s like I passed some sort of imaginary boundary that they couldn’t cross. I met up with the team in the next building and they with confused faces they asked… “What happened?”. I guess they could hear the commotion from over here.

They day is over and we are back at the compound eating a much needed meal. We are tired and I can’t help but think that it’s because of all the emotional fatigue. What a day I had. What a day we all had. We close it out by talking about some of the things we saw that impacted us as well as out thoughts about our trip so far.

Oh yea… I am sick now.