Hookers and Orphans

Yes I'm aware that the title of this post is fairly tasteless and offensive. But we learned pretty early that If you can't joke about some of the horrible things we've seen here it'll just beat you down. Here comes sarcasm to the rescue.

Anyways as I mentioned last time we've found some extra stuff to do while we're here. The more interesting of the two things I started this week was teaching english to girls who used to be prostitutes. I'm doing it with one of the OLMs down the street. Basically the girls are trying to get real jobs that don't involve turning tricks (apparently the term actually carries over here in Uganda. Weird). Anyways one of the best jobs they can get is working in hotel management and trying to get money from the muzungus that come to visit here. To do that they need to learn to speak some english but more importantly understand english the way white people, mostly americans, speak it. Here comes the whitest person in Africa to save the day. (seriously though I glow compared to the people here. I need a tan STAT) Anyways basically I just read newspaper articles to them and ask them questions about the readings. Maybe I'll show some american tv shows or play some music or something who knows. Whitney (the OLM) warned me that the first question they would ask me was "are you searching?" (AKA do you have a wife/gilrfriend) Wasn't really sure what the right answer was to that question when faced with a roomful of 15-25 year old ex-prostitutes...

Anyways that gig's pretty cool but not nearly as much fun as our other new activity. David and I have started going to Elshidai which is an orphanage about two blocks from our house. The cool thing is that there are no adults in charge of the place. The kids run ti themselves. The older ones (some of whom are actually older than me) take care of the younger kids. Prettyc ool place. We don't actually do anything constructive. Just hang out with the older people and give them something to do or play with the younger kids. My favorite's Fred. Mostly because he has a puppy but whatever don't judge me. He's "only feeding it supper so it will grow up to be tough." Funny but also a little depressing. It probably explains why his last three puppies died...

Anyways that's about it for now. I actually taught some classes for real today but I'm too lazy to tell you that story right now. Maybe tomorrow. Kaleh (For the record I feel like a tool for ending with this and being "that guy" who tries to seem all hip and cultured or whatever but hey Kaleh's African and it's my Africa blog. I'll end it however I want.)