first three days in Uganda

I have been in Uganda for four days and it has been insane.

Saturday:
Visited a "remand home" which as basically a prison for for minors. Some of the kids have been there for years waiting for a trial. A lot of them are there falsely accused. If a parent does not like the boy dating his/her daughter he can basically cry rape and the kid will be arrested no questions asked. Then they sit and wait for a trial for a while and when they finally get one the remand home does not have the $ to buy gas to send them to the trial. Restore International is trying to get them represented for a fair trial.

We also visited a girls home where most of the girls were found living on the street. They feed them and give them shelter as well as mentor them. The one thing the at all the kids have in common is that most of them do not have parents because of AIDS. While AIDS has been on the decline in Uganda, the reprecussions of the last 20 years is that there are many parentless children.

Sunday:
We north of Kampala to the Cornerstone Ranch. We stayed with a woman named Maggie who is originally from Seattle. She teaches cooking and hospitality for an organization. www.tiptopwebsite.com/maggiejosiah She is training at-risk children(almost all of the kids in Uganda are at-risk) in skills of hospitallity and cooking. She is an amazing woman.

Monday:
We drove back to Kampala. Bob Goff, John, Blake, and I had the opprotunity to meet with two high court justices that Bob has brefriended. It was really cool to see these two Christian men with the power that they have really affecting their country. The goverment is very corrupt but these two men are pillars of justice.

Then we had an amazing opprotunity. We got to meet the first lady of Uganda. Her husband has been the president since the late eighties after years of turmoil and dictators(Amin & Obote).
She is a strong Christian and recenlty ran and won a seat and parliment. She truly cares about the children of Uganda and her concerns right now are getting water and electricity to Ugandans. I actually got to talk to her about Young Life! I can't believe that I spoke to a first lady of Uganda about YL...craziness. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janet_Museveni

After that, we drove 6 hours to Gulu, the war-torn part of the country that is just starting to recover after a 20 year war. The road was filled with pot holes and people literally lined the street all the way there. We actually saw a dead woman on the side of the road that had been hit by a car. We got to Gulu late Monday for three days. My next blog will be about my time in Gulu.

I apoligize for my grammer, spelling, etc. I am a horrible writer and had about 20 min. to write this. I am leaving out a ton of details, most of which are about the amazing people that I am meeting and those that I am travelling with. More to come.