The adventure begins at 7:45 to the waking of, "Beep! Beep! Beep," the annoying and antagonizing tune of my alarm. I don't know what is worse, the alarm or the screech which invariably follows, "Get up, Michael. Your alarm went off hours ago, (my mother always exaggerates), and you've still those goats to do. I'm telling you, you'll be in your bed earlier to-night!" Last summer, being the sole guardian of two lively goats seemed such a good idea. I felt like a real farmer paring their feet, de-lousing them, mending the fence, milking them night and morning and distributing the healthy milk to ailing children in the neighbourhood. Someone has said, "It is more blessed to give than receive," and I found that to be the case. It gave me a feeling of real worth being of assistance to my fellowman. However at 7.30 am with the blankets over my head and in a nice warm bed, the goats didn't seem like such a good idea after all.
On getting out of bed, the first task in my adventure is to find a clean white shirt and I can tell you that it is not easy in my bedroom. I'm out of breath getting to the door after hiking over mountains of dirty clothes on the floor. By now you should be able to tell I'm not exactly the tidiest. I eventually find my clean white shirt and I now head for the bathroom to hang my uniform over the radiator to make it nice and warm and a greater incentive to come out of the balmy shower. I am very grateful for my comfortable shower in the morning now because on my summer holiday with my dad I was lucky to get even the occasional cold shower. I spent half of my summer in Uganda helping my sister with her job. She works in Uganda as a missionary and physiotherapist. Her job was to find disabled children and offer them what treatment was possible. Seeing children with severe disability was bad enough but learning of sad family histories was even worse. Imagine being born with two clubfeet and then being abandoned by your family because they believed you had an evil spirit. The villagers only care for you at their own convenience so that by the time you reach your sixth birthday you look like a three year old, despite being a boy wear a dress because you have never been toilet trained and suffer from tuberculosis. I had the pleasure of befriending that wee boy and such a lively, interesting young character he was. Fortunately there is a happy ending to his story. The tuberculosis was cured, the clubfeet were treated and he was re-introduced to his family who then accepted him. Africa has made such an impression on me that I hope to return some day and offer my skills to improve the quality of life of any disadvantaged people.
On getting out of bed, the first task in my adventure is to find a clean white shirt and I can tell you that it is not easy in my bedroom. I'm out of breath getting to the door after hiking over mountains of dirty clothes on the floor. By now you should be able to tell I'm not exactly the tidiest. I eventually find my clean white shirt and I now head for the bathroom to hang my uniform over the radiator to make it nice and warm and a greater incentive to come out of the balmy shower. I am very grateful for my comfortable shower in the morning now because on my summer holiday with my dad I was lucky to get even the occasional cold shower. I spent half of my summer in Uganda helping my sister with her job. She works in Uganda as a missionary and physiotherapist. Her job was to find disabled children and offer them what treatment was possible. Seeing children with severe disability was bad enough but learning of sad family histories was even worse. Imagine being born with two clubfeet and then being abandoned by your family because they believed you had an evil spirit. The villagers only care for you at their own convenience so that by the time you reach your sixth birthday you look like a three year old, despite being a boy wear a dress because you have never been toilet trained and suffer from tuberculosis. I had the pleasure of befriending that wee boy and such a lively, interesting young character he was. Fortunately there is a happy ending to his story. The tuberculosis was cured, the clubfeet were treated and he was re-introduced to his family who then accepted him. Africa has made such an impression on me that I hope to return some day and offer my skills to improve the quality of life of any disadvantaged people.
