Into the Wild Blue Yonder...

I woke up this morning at 6:30 without an alarm.
I keep checking the same lists over and over and over again.
I have been loading my iPod with tons of NPR podcasts.
I have been listening to "Africa" by Toto on repeat for about 24 hours.

Time to go to Africa, hon! 

I can't believe it's been almost 2 years since my last trip (I also can't believe that the last thing I wrote about was a Kenyan Reality TV Competition.  Woof.), but I am super excited about this trip.  5 days after I land in Kenya, I will be joined by 7 young adults for a 3 week Come & See Mission trip.  This is the dream, why I started working for the AJs in the first place, and what I have been working towards for 2 and a half years.  It was heartbreaking when I had to cancel the trip last year, but I have been feeling lately that this is how it was all supposed to happen. 

Since 5 of the 7 Come & See participants are medical students at Marian University College of Osteopathic Medicine (including my awesome sister Allie!), this trip will have a medical focus.  When the group arrives, we will spend our first week in Kenya at the Apostles of Jesus AIDS Ministry (AJAM) in Kiserian, Rift Valley.  Then we will drive to Tanzania for a few days of safari adventures (Ngorongoro Crater!), before flying to Uganda to work at the Queen of the Apostles Medical Center at Lima Farm in Nakaseke. 

It is going to be a pretty intense three weeks!

I am going to do my best to keep this blog up to date.  I'm also hoping to have some guest bloggers, so you can hear from the people with whom I am traveling.  Of course, as ever, all of this is contingent on decent internet access. 

Be well, dear readers.  The next time you hear from me, I'll be on East African time!

Lima Farm

I had the pleasure of spending this past weekend at Lima Farm in Nakaseeta in Tanzania. The work that the Apostles of Jesus are accomplishing there, with the help of the Evangelizing Sisters of Mary, is downright awe-inspiring.

Back in the ‘80s, Bishop Mazzoldi and Fr. Marengoni, the co-founders of the AJs, purchased 268 acres of jungle in rural Uganda, about 60 km outside of Kampala. Then it remained basically untouched, except for the occasional squatter, for about 20 years. Then, in 2004, an Apostle of Jesus named Fr. Mugabe came and established Lima Farm as a mission, naming it after the late Fr. Lima, one of the original AJs. When he arrived, Fr. Mugabe started by removing the squatters, but he did it, in the truest missionary fashion, by purchasing different land for them to live on. Then he started building. He built a house, a guesthouse, a primary school, a clinic, a dispensary, a chapel, and established several agricultural projects. In 2010, the Evangelizing Sisters of Mary came to assist the Apostles of Jesus in their labor, purchasing an additional 190 hectares adjacent to the farm, which is currently undeveloped. In 2011, Fr. (My Man) Godfrey Manana became the 2^nd Farm Manager and has continued the good work of Fr. Mugabe.

During my all-too-short visit, Fr. Manana and Sr. Veronica took me on a walking tour of the entire Farm. They showed me the gardens where local people can come and learn how to grow their own crops. Since his arrival just 8 months ago, Fr. Manana has been able to reclaim acres and acres of overgrown farmland for agricultural endeavors.

After surveying fields intended for growing maize and beans and cassava, we went over to the primary school. A new school building is under construction, and everyone is eager for it to be completed, though it will certainly take some time. In the mean time, bedrooms in the teachers’ quarters have been converted to tiny classrooms, and temporary rooms made of papyrus reed mats have been built onto the ends of the existing school building. 190 students attend the primary school. Most of them come from very poor families who struggle to pay the 70,000 Ugandan Shillings per term; at 3 terms per school year, that works out to just about $87.50 each year.

Next, my tour guides took me to the brand-new, not-yet-open out-patient clinic. The clinic is an extension of the existing Queen of the Apostles Health Center. The building engineer proudly showed me the rooms designated for examination, dispensing drugs, storage, etc. It is a beautiful building and will provide much needed medical support for the region. From there, we walked past the site of a future fish pond, the chapel, stopped in at the canteen for some fresh mandazi (super yummy!), and headed over to the other building of the Health Center, a modest hospital with some facilities for in-patient care. Of course, I use the term “hospital” lightly; the building has 4 rooms total, an examination room with a laboratory, a room with two hospital beds for patients, a dispensary, and a storage room.

We walked back to the main house for some lunch before hopping in the car to go check out John Paul II Academy, a brand-spankin’ new secondary school located at the edge of the Farm’s property. The facility is home to approximately 140 boarding students and is a really beautiful campus.

It took all day to see everything that the Farm has to offer. The tired feet and sunburn were more than worth it. The entire region benefits from the presence of the AJs and the ESMs, but they could do so much more if they had more financial support. Most of the services they offer are either free or seriously discounted. Both Fr. Manana and Sr. Veronica shared with me their hopeful visions of future agriculture projects, including dairy, fish farming, and clearing 100 more acres for crops, as well as solar power and rain-water harvesting. I promised them that I would do whatever I can to help the visions come true. A daunting and invigorating task!