So this weekend past we visited Father Divine’s Love Ministries in Jinja, which is a home that caters for over 50 orphaned children. The American girls we are volunteering with were at this home last summer and invited us to come along. David, the founder, is a local pastor who set up FDLM after the death of his brother. His brother, on his deathbed, asked David to look after his children. After what had happened David felt compelled to continue with this work, caring for other orphaned children. The home is so different to our home in Kampala, but they all have the same ethos; to care for kids who have no one to care for them.
Jinja is about 75km east of Kampala, and lies at the source of the Nile River. We arrived early on Saturday and received a warm welcome of hugs from all the kids. Jinja is much more rural than Kampala, is as green as Donegal, except the sun was shining (we heard that your good weather is over…haha!) At lunch time we were introduced to Rolex’s (kinda like a breakfast burrito…..only better), it’s safe to say we’re hooked. As there was some renovation work going on, we picked up our brushes and began painting! After a long day of painting and playing with the children, we ate our “Irish” potatoes (that were cooked with egg!) and hit the hay.
The next morning, we had the best breakfast we had since arriving in Uganda; omelette and chips! We needed it, because unknown to us, we were about to sit through a marathon church service of almost 4 hours!!!!!!!!!!!! Myself and Amy almost had a heartattack (no hyperbole!) when we were asked to come up the front and introduce ourselves….AGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH Apparently Ugandan’s don’t get embarrassed.
A perfect culmination to the weekend was our visit to Bujagali Falls; a series of waterfalls/rapids on the Nile river. We even got to witness some eejit surfing down the rapids on an oil drum! Crazy Africans!
And so we were back on our Matato to Kampala, a ride that should hae taken around 2 hours, HOWEVER our driver decided to take a “shortcut” through forests and dirt “roads”. It was rougher than any rollercoaster we had ever been on, almost rolling maybe 3 times. We were going to bypass to the hospital to check for internal bleeding! But all you can do is laugh…..x
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