team 9: blog post by rebecca

What a place! The last week has been nothing short of outstanding. Each child and person I have met has amazed me and stolen my heart. I am having trouble even deciding what event to write about, because every interaction I have had is one that I want to share and remember forever. These children are remarkable. I have been so lucky to spend most of my time here with the senior girls and more recently the senior boys. With these kids as my travel partners and tour guides – from the first day I loved Uganda, and I loved them. #ugandaloveit has become the title of my trip.

Scoiva and Alpha as my guides from the airport and through the school the first couple of days was perfect – it felt like a first day or school for me – I was so excited and a little nervous that the girls would not like me. But Scovia and Alpha changed that in less than a minute. Grabbing my hands and introducing me to everyone – I had two new best friends that were going to be my security blankets for the entire trip. Through these two beautiful girls, I met the senior girl class, and felt like a part of the clique. Over the next few days we shared so much – and what I wanted most was to learn about their plans for the future. And each girl has a plan and a dream. With their determination and the support of Change the Truth, I can see each of them reaching their goals.

Having a few days here with some extra time, I wanted to see Uganda and I wanted to see it while getting to know the kids of SMK better. With a trip to the beach with Rose, Claire, Evalyn and Rebecca  - just a few hours splashing and a soda or two later, we had plans to teach me a dance,  a debate over David Blaine’s ability to breathe underwater, and a mad dash back to school for a performance.  

Scovia and Alpha also were so gracious to accompany me to Mbale, a 4 hour drive away (which turned into 5), where we visited a Jewish village, met with the Rabbi and were shown the community. While this was something special for me, the girls were interested at every minute. We turned the 7 hours drive home into an excursion of its own – with a stop by the Nile in Jinja, a couple of tire changes with the awesome Ambrose (driver of the year) and a late night dinner and photoshoot. The girls heard Rabbi Enosh showing me his welcome sign, reading  “Shalom” – saying he wishes people to come in peace and leave in peace. Later in the car the girls asked me about this word – and by the end of the conversation I had sung them a little song that is a part of my Jewish life called “Od Yavo Shalom Aleinu” – a song about peace around the world. And today – the girls had taught ten of the young ones the song and made a dance. The performance had me in tears. Hearing these girls sing something that meant so much to me and having them work to teach it to the other children – made my heart beat so hard that the people sitting next to me could feel it. #ugandaloveit.

In the past, I have traveled with the mission of providing health education abroad, most commonly HIV education. So with the relationship built, and with the encouragement of Melissa, I gave a few sessions on HIV and health. Each session was mind blowing – the amount of knowledge and inquisitiveness coming from both the girls’ sessions and the boys’ sessions were higher than I have ever experienced.  But even though these conversations are hugely important to have – they served another purpose for me as well. I got to know the kids even better. After my session with the boys, we decided to take a trip together like I had been doing with the girls – hang out and maybe visit a clinic and teach them even more about healthcare and HIV. I could feel my face light up when they asked me. It gave me the courage to approach some of them one on one to talk like I have been with the girls, asking about their future and talking about what they can do to help themselves reach their goals. And let me just say – this place might be producing some of the worlds future artists, music producers, journalists and so many more. With the impact each of these kids had on me – I can imagine the impact they might have on the world’s stage!

More than one individual has found me on their own to take me aside and thanked me for talking to them about HIV, or thanked me for just being here and listening to them – showing me that SMK and CTT have raised children that are intelligent and grateful.

I have three more days here at SMK, and I can’t believe the time has gone as fast as it has. I find myself thinking about my next trip already – hoping to come and see these seniors take the next steps in their lives and #ugandaloveit.

- Rebecca

i went to a synagogue in uganda!

I won't be home for Rosh Hashanah, but I did just go to a synagogue near Mbale. Rabbi Gershom welcomed me with open arms, even though I had no appointment, just showing (up out of nowhere) in his very remote, hillside settlement on a boda-boda. The settlement he oversees is one of five in the area surrounding Mblae. The Jews in Uganda are called the Abayudaya (Luganda for "People of Judah"). Rabbi Gershom is actually the spiritual leader of all the Abayydaya. He was ordained at the American Jewish University in Los Angeles in 2008 under the auspices of the Conservative movement.

Judaism has been around here for about 100 years. There are about 2,000 Jews in Uganda currently; there were more before Idi Amin, who badly persecuted them. They are mostly farmers, and they are strict about observing the Sabbath and all Jewish holidays, as well as keeping kosher.

A very sweet and very smart young man called Samson gave me a tour of the grounds. I shopped (yes, they have a gift shop!!!!) and saw their four Torah scrolls. There was a palpable excitement around the place for the upcoming High Holidays. I wish I was going to be here for their services.

If you're interested in learning more about the Abayudaya, there is plenty of info available. Just do a Google search.

Eddie, get ready to don a handmade Ugandan yarmulke for Yom Kippur!

jews in uganda

More than 250 Africans converted to Judaism in Uganda last week.

The conversions were supervised by Gershom Sizomu, Africa's first native-born black rabbi, and other Conservative rabbis from the United States.
 A ceremony in the Abayudaya village of Nabogoye included converts from Uganda, Kenya, South Africa and Nigeria. Some 800 Abayudayans formally converted to Judaism in 2002. ‘The relationship between God and the Jews in the Torah resonates for many spiritual seekers,’ Sizomu said. ‘It is important that Africans and others know that they can choose Judaism as a spiritual path and that we are open to them.’

- www.jta.org

In the 1880s, British missionaries converted the powerful Bagandan warrior Semei Kakungulu to Christianity. Because Kakungulu was a Protestant, British colonists commissioned him to bring the fertile African lands near the Nile’s source at Lake Victoria under their influence. Kakungulu won the lands, but became disenchanted with the British when they limited his domain to a 20 mile square plot near today’s small city of Mbale, 160 miles from the Ugandan capital of Kampala. He broke with them in 1913 when he joined the Malachites, a movement that the British called a cult because it combined Christianity with Judaism and Christian Science, and began to rewrite the Christian bible as a Malachite tome. Kakungulu became more and more a follower of Jewish tradition and less a familiar Protestant. In 1919 he circumcised his sons and himself and declared his community Jewish.

Soon the British could communicate with him no longer and forced him from Mbale. Kakungulu fled to the foothills of Mount Elgon to a village called Gangama where he started a separatist sect known as Kibina Kya Bayudaya Absesiga Katonda (the Community of Jews who Trust in the Lord). After the warrior’s death, his followers split into two groups – one that retained a belief in Jesus and another, the Abayudaya, that became devout Jews. These Abayudaya isolated themselves from the Christians for fear of reprisal, passing Jewish traditions from generation to generation, maintaining their community through a succession of anti-Semitic regimes such as that of Idi Amin, whose soldiers outlawed the Jews’ rituals and destroyed their synagogues. With poor communications equipment and very little personal mobility, the Abayudaya did not establish connections with any outside Jewish communities; they maintained their traditions in total isolation. In the ‘60s and ‘70s the initial members of the Abayadaya community began to grow elderly and implored the rising generation to extend themselves to Jews outside of Uganda. The community reached out to Israel in the ‘60s and ‘70s and even had the first secretary of the Israeli embassy in Uganda visit them.

In 1992, Matthew Meyer, a Brown University student studying in Kenya, heard of the Abayudaya and traveled to Mbale to spend the Sabbath with them. He returned to the United States with photographs, cassettes of the community choir singing Hebrew prayers to African melodies and letters from Abayudaya community members in both English and Hebrew. Since then, other English-speaking travelers have visited the Abayudaya, bearing gifts such as a new Torah and money from the Brown University Hillel to build a synagogue.

- www.mindspring.com