our journey to Uganda-Mbarara

Mbarara is PCM's biggest school. They have about 300 children and 20 staff. About 2/3 of the children board there. Of those, half have families they go home to when school is out and half are true orphans, so they stay at the school all the time. The other 1/3 are day-schoolers. PCM has done work here the longest, and when groups come, they usually spend several days here since it is only 10 minutes from the hotel. We spent time here 4 days, so the bond with these children was a little different. 

Here the children are praying.

Oh my, precious Sherinah. This chica looks like she's going to PROM! No idea where she got this dress!

They are waiting in line for lunch.

A good ole composition book. Their printed handouts, etc. are very limited. So the teacher writes questions on the chalkboard and the students copy them down in their book and answer them.

We had the privilege of sitting in this class while Teacher Emmy was teaching bible. The kids are SO smart! At one point he asked them to name the miracles that Jesus performed, they blew me away with the answers they had.

Fish and Matoke (steamed bananas) for lunch

Also had beef for lunch. This was a treat for the kids. This cow was killed that morning. Some of the other team members climbed a tall hilll with the kids that morning and watched the cow get slaughtered on their way back down. And then we saw it served for lunch...lovely.

How they make the Matoke.

Robinah, Grace and Elizabeth. Love them :)

Cool story about Robinah! Some of you may have seen me post on facebook while I was gone about finding a sponsor for her. 

Well I had a few bites, but the last day we were making videos for the children that aren't sponsored yet and went ahead and made Robinah one. While we were taping it, Brad (one of our team members) comes and scoops her up and says "I will sponsor her!" I wasn't there when he did this, but it's cool to watch! It wasn't planned!

Here are some posters that are in the classrooms at Mbarara.

One of the nights we had a "Texas Night" for the kids. Cavendar's donated bandanas, so they each got one and we made them vests out of paper bags. They turned out so cute! Some of the group tried teaching them the Cotton Eyed Joe, Cupid Shuffle and a few other dances. We all had a blast! They even got popcorn!

If you've missed my previous blogs about Ibanda and Rwemikoma, check those out. I have 2 more posts from our time in Uganda coming tomorrow and Saturday.