facing adversity

Well this week has definitely been an unexpected week of trials. First off, EVERYONE IS SICK! Sunday afternoon I started feeling not too hot and now there are about 10 of us in the house who are sick unfortunately. I guess you can’t expect to stay healthy when you live in a small room with 11 other people and some of those people are throwing up. But hey, its life, we are just hoping by tomorrow people will be feeling better so we can continue working! Our second trial of this week has been our Nabuti village project with Moses. We met with the village again and after a lottt of thought and heart ache decided that the village doesn’t have a clear idea of what they want to do to help themselves and therefore it is going to be hard for us to start a project that will be sustainable. With that all said we have scheduled a meeting with the community leaders to basically tell them that we really love their people and the village but until they decide what THEY want to do for their community and for themselves, and get started on it themselves, we can’t work with them anymore. Obviously it is bittersweet but two lessons I learned from this experience. One, you cant force a community to do something if they aren’t fully invested in helping themselves. Two, development work is FULL of disappointment. I have never done any sort of development work in the past so I had no idea how it went but with this project falling through I learned that doing a thorough needs assessment is a big success in itself and not all things will go in your favor but that is why we are here. If things were working perfectly and the community was doing well we would have no reason to be here! But with that all said, things will move on and now I am focusing on the Musana jewelry grand opening next Tuesday! We are really excited about the store opening and hoping all goes as planned for this project!

            Besides those two things all is well in Uganda! Its nuts that two weeks from Saturday I will be home but I am excited for that day to come too. I have learned SO much about myself already and learned that this experience is something I need to do. Whether I leave loving Uganda and wanting to come back or not, I have learned how to endure trials, how to live with no basic living necessities and how to deal with the circumstances you are placed in. I will forever be grateful for my time here but hope that things start speeding up just so we can enjoy the work before we have to leave!

            Hope all is well back home or wherever you all are. Love and miss you all!