yesterday we killed a goat. we killed it because the security guard Patric wanted us to have one of his goats to say thank you for all Dave has done for him. so a couple days ago we went up to his village which was about a three hour car ride to the middle of nowhere to pick it up. so then yesterday we went to his home near where we live to kill and then eat this goat that he had given us. it was crazy but it was actually quite good.

everyday im here i seem to be seeing and feeling things in a different way. still my artistic abilities seem to be improving greatly even though that will be happening my whole life. but it has been such a change that cant help but know that it has transformed me into some way different than i was before.

i have done so much i dont remember what i have been doing. Sunday was suubi where they actually buy the necklaces but i did not go i was with Patric's son but we went and watched some soccer games at a restraint. it was crazy because one of the matches was Manchester United vrs. Arsenal. and these teams are the best of the best and they are rivals so half the people here are for arsenal and the other are for Manchester. so fights started and all kinds of stuff like that. it was fun.

today we are going to help with literacy class again thats at 2 30 so that should be good. next week Stevie and I are going to go up north where are the fighting has been going on. so that should be quite an experience.

Dave and his friend is going home today so Stevie and i are going top be here for another two weeks with out them. its bummer but their faimlies need them.

So for the last couple of days we have been doing quite a lot. A few days ago we went to a small village only a couple minutes away by car. And what we did is some of the girl volunteers the night before made some chapattis which is like nan bread only flatter like a tortilla, and they also made a ton of juice to hand out to the children. As well as a woman from the village made beans to go with it that the volunteers had given to the lady a day or so before. So we went up and it was a mad house the children were pushing and steeling each other’s dishes just to get some food. I don’t blame them though because some may not have even had food for a day or two. But we did do our best to make sure that no one came through for seconds or if we spotted someone you who taken someone else’s dish we would get it back but there was hundreds and hundreds of kids so it was very hard. At the end we did not have enough food so some went home hungry which was really sad and easy to go home and think that this was a failure but we had to keep reminding ourselves that we just fed over three to four hundred kids. So it was a bummer but at the same time it was amazing.

Yesterday we went to Danneda to do what this whole Suubi thing is about. We went up to purchase the necklaces the women had made for us. Now it sounds simple but it was a three-hour process! First there was quality control check then the purchases then we handed out new clasps and then we had put together some bags full of gifts for the women so we handed those out all inside of a room about 20 ft by 20 ft with 62 women and 7 of us volunteers. It was hot and stinky…

Today we went up to Walukuba to interview a few of the Suubi women. Their stories are crazy. What they have seen and gone through is crazy. And to see them now and how hopeful they are is so amazing. I don’t know how they do it but they do.

This place is blowing my mind I don’t think that anyone will ever fully realize what its like unless you come and see it for yourself. We will try with this film but no guarantees.

This place is amazing! It’s so beautiful. The people when you get to know them they are so fun and full of life. Just the other day we went to Walukuba and they put on a whole going away dance for one of the volunteers that’s going home and it was so cool. They even made some of us get in on the action. Like they made me play this huge gourd with a metal thing that you beat it with.
A couple days ago we took pikis(small motor bikes) up to Walukuba and walked all around there and Danneda just seeing the land where most of the Suubi women stay and just getting use to where and what and who we will be filming. It was a lot of fun by the end of the day we had about a hundred kids following us just wanting to be filmed or photographed or some just came up to hold our hands and walk with us. It was so cool…
This place just seems to be changing a lot about me. One is my artistic abilities have improved mainly because of Stevi for she is always challenging me without even saying anything. Just the work she is doing and her suggestions are amazing. My photography and even my drawing have improved greatly.
But as well as just my prospective of the world has changed like everything I had before this means nothing and everything I worked for is nothing. These tribes here work hard just so they have enough food for the day or they sacrifice food so they can send their children to school. Its crazy. I only really work hard and long so I can buy the stupidest things…
Anyways yesterday we went to an AIDS orphanage to just hang out and they ended up serving us lunch, which was rice and beans, and letting us take pictures and footage. But seeing these kids and life that they have and what they make of it was so unique because here they are with nothing and they have AIDS but yet they are running around and having fun and just living life as a kid does instead of what you see on the TV where they are just sad looking and sitting on a pile of trash or something. It’s not like that at all from what I’ve seen. Even in the villages where the children really do have nothing and their toys are medicine bottles tide to a string that they drag around have so much personality and life in them where like I said the TV makes them seem like they are living for nothing and they are so unhappy. But to be honest they don’t know what America or the rest of the world is like so they have fun with their medicine-bottle-pull-cars and running through the streets like wild animals. They do have lives and they are having fun and its not 100% bad here. At the same time by no means am I saying that they have an easy life because mostof them have had brothers and sisters and fathers and mothers die and some nights they might not have any food and a lot of them have AIDS, but there is this other side to them that us as foreigners never see because we only see the bad in this country and with us being here filming and photographing we are hoping to show you our readers and watchers and everyone else who will ever see this work will understand that there is so much more to Africa than is shown on the news or internet and mainly that there is hope of making this continent even better than they have it now. It seems that things can only get better because more and more people are learning and doing things to improve things here. It’s quite an exciting time…

BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE!

Enjoy the pics! More to come soon.

At The Airport

yesterday we drove up to Denver. it sucked. we hit a rock with our car and trashed a wheel and punctured the gas tank, but after a couple hour charade we got another car and made it the rest of the way.
now we are waiting to board our first flight to Detroit. from there its to Amsterdam and then Kampala.
i really cant wait to get out there. two months ago i never even thought of going to Africa i never had any desire to go really. Now that i am i really cant wait to leave the country again and see another culture and another way of life.
but still we wait for our flight...