Travel With Grace: Kitabi Update

Thank you so much to everyone who have donated to the Kitabi Poets! I am so glad so many of you saw in the group what I have seen: hope for the youth of Uganda.

I spent last Saturday with the Kitabi Poets. And I thought the performances last show (see here) were amazing! This time around the group hadn’t just come from church and skipped lunch to meet with me, so they had much more energy.

Before the show I did some capacity building exercises with them to find out what the greatest needs in the village were and how I could help them help themselves. We had some great discussions and I have a much better idea of where the great is coming from and where they want to go. Next learning curve, writing project and funding proposals!

Anyways, back to the shows! There were numerous dance shows and a great play that covered lack of education about HIV and included messages concerning:

1) the dangers of using witchdoctors and bloodletting (whichdoctors use razor blades to cut sick people and then the rest of the family must also be cut. Not a smart way to stop the spread of HIV);

2) that it is ok to share food with people who are HIV positive;

3) the benefits of ARVs and medical clinics in area

4) healthy eating and not drinking if you are HIV positive;

5) and so many more!

There were a few songs, but the one that really shook me was done by four orphans ranging in age from 8 to 11 years. I have been trying to a couple weeks now to upload the video but to no avail. The best I can share is transcribed words (see below) and the pic of the four of them as they have a last minute costume check (see above). The content of their song is not what little girls should have to sing about, not what they should be singing about. At this age I was singing “you are my sunshine” and worrying about getting a cabbage patch doll. Those of us in the west have known about the horrors of AIDS for years and yet this young generation in Uganda is still dealing with the death of their parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, sisters and brothers.

Speaking of which, the theme for this years World AIDS Day is leadership – making our leaders put their money where their mouth is. They have promised for years to eradicate AIDS in Africa. So, why is it still around?

We Shed Tears

Lord forgive us, lord forgive us, lord forgive us, lord forgive us all.