Learning about Kirabo

First a quick update: We spent the morning getting yet another TB test for Kirabo, this time for the embassy.  Then went to the hospital to turn in his samples to check for parasites (not my favorite moment of the experience…) and to pick up the rest of the tests they took last week.  After waiting 2 hours, we were seen.  The results were normal for most everything except a parasite and an amoeba.  He is getting treated for amoebas which cause lethargy among other not so pleasant things which we have experienced J  We are looking forward to getting that all cleared up!  Then, we headed for a good old fashion “westernish” café and got Kirabo his first milkshake!  He loved it!  He wouldn’t stop eating his fries and see below to what he did with my onion rings!  It was a very funny lunch.

A few things we are learning about Kirabo:

He gives the best high fives of anyone I have ever met!  He just whacks you every time!

He loves loves loves his ball.  A ball is called Mupira and his favorite thing to do is kick it and dribble it.  He practices all the time.

He is very determined.  He works really hard to do everything he does.  He will work and work to practice dribbling a ball, get his underpants right side out after taking them off, taking several minutes to dry his hands making sure there is not a drop of water left off, etc.

He is incredibly neat.  He will take a few times making sure his shoes are perfectly straight.  When he wakes up, he will fold his blankey and try several times to get it folded perfectly and then will lay it neatly at the foot of the bed.  Finally, someone as OCD as me in the family!  Coincidentally, my mom tells stories of me taking several minutes to straighten my step stool after using it so it was perfectly straight!  He certainly is a boy after my own heart!

He has the babiest cry I’ve ever heard.  It makes us chuckle every time.  He will so much as bump himself and then he falls apart in these baby sobs.  James will try everything to calm him down and he is inconsolable.  He’ll say, “lets go to Mommy,” and Kirabo will run for me and literally all it takes is the briefest of hugs and he runs off in all smiles.  It’s pretty funny. 

He loves to wrestle with James proving once again he fits perfectly into our family.  He will go and jump on James and fall into hysterics.  It is so wonderful to watch him just giggle and giggle.  He has the greatest laugh.  He then loves to run the length of the room into my arms and then I lift him up and give him hugs.  He rotates between the two of us.

He is at the same time as ticklish as could possibly be but somehow, when he shuts down and withdraws, no matter how hard we try, he is completely un ticklish.  I wish I could figure out how to just turn my “ticklish” off!

When he laughs he scruntches up his face and juts his bottom jaw forward, it’s hilarious.

He has no idea what a kiss is and since I can’t seem to stop kissing all my kids I have been teaching him J  He sort of smacks his lips so he is not very close, but we are working on it!

Kirabo clicks his tongue when he is happy.  We look forward to that sound.  Often it happens when we are in a quiet place just chilling.

We are looking forward to adding to this list!

He loves his new Ugandan Football jersey and tries to wear it everyday!

He plays with my phone and holds it to his ear and says "Hulloooo?"  It's so cute.

Time to relax!

After a long hard working week we were ready to relax and play this weekend!  We drove to Jinja, about 1 ½ hours away, on Saturday where the source of the Nile River is.  It’s the longest river in the world and the only one that flows north.  James bungee jumped head first 140 feet, into the Nile, which drew applause from a group of tourists in a boat, and from everyone on the property…except Kirabo.  He just stared at James and wouldn’t move until he saw him safely back next to his side.  My newly found fear of heights kept me firmly on the ground.  Right before he jumped, we saw a huge green animal swimming right towards where James was going to land and I thought it was a crocodile!  It turned out to be a huge monitor lizard just swimming in the river! 

We went on a bird watching boat trip to the source of the Nile which you have to access by boat.  While neither of us are really that into birds, it’s remarkable how beautiful they all are.  Even their dragonflies were unique and breathtaking in their own right.  When we got to the source of the Nile, they had “American Pop” blaring out from speakers.  We just started laughing.  Seriously?  It’s this beautiful, peaceful scene and then you’ve got Maroon 5 blaring out just ruining the nature!  Kirabo did not like the loud music and I tried to cover his ears.

the view from our boat, it was so quintessential Ugandan, I had to capture it.  It's one of
my favorite pictures from our trip

us in front of the actual source of the Nile.  The Nile begins where the outlet to Lake Victoria meets the spring water and flows northward. The bubbles coming up behind us are from the springs underneath.

We saw a beautiful waterfall along the river and hiked through the mud to get to a particularly close and pretty view.  I’ve been nauseous all week since I got here and just assumed it was nerves and anxiety.  But now that court is over and it’s even worse today, I’m starting to think it’s the Malaria medication.  It can have that side effect.  So, I’m going to take it tonight and see if that makes a difference.  Before I left, I had this vision of dozens of mosquitos flying around me constantly in the evenings and I’ve seen maybe one my entire time here.  I brought dozens of bottles of insect repellent but haven’t met one person that even wears it!  Even Muzungus (white people.)

Today we woke up and got ready for church.  We put underwear on him for the first time today instead of the pull ups we’d been putting on him.  He never wore any underwear at the orphanage, only shorts.  He thought they were his shorts and wouldn’t let us put any pants on him.  He gets really stubborn and pouty and jerked away from us.  When I tried to still get them on he started on his baby cry and collapsed into a heap.  James tried to force him to do it which was the wrong approach.  He ran to me for a hug and within 2 seconds of a hug, he was totally fine.  If he so much as bumps into something he falls apart.  James said he needs to toughen up but my take is he’s had to be tough his whole life, I don’t mind catching him up on the comforting!  Sooner or later we’ll work on “brushing it off” but that time is not now.

So after a 30 minute drama of getting him dressed, we left for church.  It is a beautiful building only about 5 minutes from where we are staying.  They have a key board but no one to play it.  Their pews are amazingly comfortable and the people so kind.  For music the chorister, a returned missionary, sings the first line in the key we are to sing it, and then we begin and sing accopella.  It was beautiful.  They were the most beautiful voices I’ve heard and they were singing perfectly in 3 part harmony.  The earnestness in which they sang and beautiful tone to their voices brought tears to my eyes as I listened to them worship through song.  The spirit just filled the room.  I couldn’t wait until Kate and Charlie could witness this.  It was fast and testimony meeting which means people could get up and speak voluntarily.  The person conducting was hilarious because he gave everyone a 2 minute time limit at the microphone and if you dared to go longer he didn’t hesitate to stand up and publicly ask you to sit down right there!  It was like watching the acceptance speeches at the Academy Awards get played off the stage!  They must have a problem with long talkers!  They certainly had no problems with dead time as there was a constant line of people waiting to share with the group how much they loved their Heavenly Father.  They kept much more to the point than I hear people do in our own testimony meetings!    Kirabo did great during this meeting.

I walked him to nursery for the second hour and for some reason he wouldn’t even walk down the hall.  I’m not sure what set him off but he pulled away and ran away.  At that point he wouldn’t even hold my hand.  I’m not sure if it was the tile floors that looked like the orphanage or all the African women who were paying attention to him but he had shut down again.  When I suggested we go back to daddy, he was very eager to do that.  He sat with us during gospel doctrine and it was our privilege to hear a lesson given by a returned missionary who was very charismatic and dynamic.  He kept mentioning in a cute way how he promises to get married soon and that he “is working on it!”  Every time he would call on someone to comment he would give them a time limit.  Based on who they were he would say, “Yes, you have only 30 seconds.”  Or “1 minute only please brother.”  They seem to be very fixed on time limits but no one minded as they were all so involved and engaged.  Once there was only one hand up and the teacher said, “Oh please, anyone but brother xxx.”  It was really funny how blunt they were.

The third hour both James and I tried again and walked Kirabo to nursery.  This time we got through the door and there was a 1 year old and 2 adorable 4 year olds.  The two women in there were so sweet, Jennifer and Sister Rose.  We talked for a long time about the adoption and they were so supportive of what we were doing.  I had several people come up to me and thank me for what we are doing.  The general feel here is gratitude to us for helping them take care of their children.  Pretty soon Kirabo started playing with the toys and eating a biscuit.  The women were so sweet to him and we realized Sister Rose was the mother of Ivan who taught Gospel Doctrine!  She had 6 children including 1 set of twins.  They give you a special name if you are the mother of twins, which is why I had a hard time understanding her name.  She introduced herself as Sister Rose Nalongo.  (Sister Rose, mother of twins).  We said that meant that James’ mother is Margaret Nalongo!  They all just loved Kirabo and were so impressed with how well he is doing.

While we were waiting for our ride to pick us up, I went to the chapel and played on the keyboard.  Sister Rose walked up to talk to me and I told her my ten year old plays hymns and could play some prelude music when he comes if they would like.  She said, “Oh well I’ll have to let my husband know, he’s the bishop.”  I started to laugh, Sister Rose was mother to 6 including Ivan the Sunday school teacher and wife of the bishop and wonderful nursery worker!  It looks like Charlie will have a temporary calling when he comes and play his hymns while people walk in to the chapel.

We came home, had lunch and put all of us down for a nap.  We were so exhausted!  When we woke up, we couldn’t go outside because of that cat and Kirabo’s paralyzing fear of him, so we went up to the terrace where they were playing American pop music and danced.  Kirabo loved it!  He jumped around and danced and danced.  He is very musical.  I learned two songs they sang to him at the orphanage and we sing them a lot.  He loves to sing along with me.  Then, we played soccer which is his absolute favorite thing to do!  He picked up patty cake very quickly and loves to play peekaboo which he also learned.  One time he actually said peekaboo which was so fun to hear.  He also said bye bye for the first time today while waving goodbye to the couple missionaries at church.

It’s been a nice relaxing day and a welcome change from the long days of last week.

His favorite trick, he laughs at himself when he does it

"mupira" or ball, he loves to play 'football'!

wrestling with daddy

Court Day-Warning-Extra Long Post!

We woke up at 5:00 this morning and left to pick up our lawyer, Mark, and Kirabo’s uncle, Godfrey.  Then we set out on our 3 hour drive to Masaka court.  We had everything packed the night before and packed toys, snacks and his new suit to wear for court.  I took advantage of the car ride and having Mark there to translate Lugandan for me and asked Godfrey as many questions as I could think to ask about his family and especially his sister, Angela (Kirabo’s mother).   He was very sweet and patient with me as he tried to answer every detailed question.  I told him I was trying to construct Kirabo's timeline and would like to put together a family tree for him but it’s just so different here where no one knows their age, or remembers names, or when things happened or for how long they happened, and surnames don’t exist.  We hit the jackpot when he told us he had a picture of Angela.  He promised to let us copy it when we saw him next.  It was too good to be true! 

We got to the court and found out the other witnesses, Mattia and Godlive from the Good Samaritans and Gertrude, the great aunt were on their way but were really late.  Then, we realized we had forgotten the backpack with Kirabo’s court clothes in it!  We were so disappointed and felt really bad.  While we were waiting I told Kirabo to go see his uncle Godfrey.  I thought  Godfrey might want to spend some time with him.  Godfrey immediately put his arms around him and pulled him on his lap.  He said Kirabo looked a lot like Angela.  Then, the judge was right on time and our witnesses were not, and we were called into His Lordship’s chambers.  Our lawyer was so nervous we were going to have to come back when all the witnesses could be there on time.  The judge was amazing.  He seemed like a very kind and fair man.  He praised our lawyers for having such thorough documentation and he had poured through the paperwork already.  He said he had no concerns or questions that hadn’t already been answered.  Then, he asked how long we had been here (I answered  4 days) and he wondered if Kirabo liked us.  The social worker for the babies home said he had already shown improvement since meeting us and she could tell he wanted to go with us.  He made sure Godfrey approved of us and he did. He said he didn’t need to further waste our time and was officially ruling today that he appointed legal guardianship.  He would issue the written statement on Tuesday.  We were hoping for Friday, but really things had gone so smoothly you could hardly feel bad.  He hadn’t even mentioned the other witnesses being gone!  Most people go to court in Kampala and have to wait a week for a verbal ruling and then another week or longer for a written ruling.  We are waiting 5 days for everything! 

Godfrey, Kirabo's uncle

in front of the court house

We couldn’t believe it, he was ours!  He had no way of knowing how momentous that moment was.  We all took pictures in front of the court house and I said to everyone, that to celebrate, we would like to take them all out for lunch.  We met the other group of witnesses and ate at Ten Tables.  It was the first time most of those witnesses had ever eaten at a restaurant.  We talked and laughed but could hardly communicate.  They laughed hard whenever I’d try to say one of their names or a word in Lugandan.  Mattia and Godlive kept staring at him and commenting on how amazed they were at how well he looked, compared to his condition when they first got him.  Then, Gertrude made the comment that he didn’t talk and he should be talking more.  Godlive responded that of course he was behind because he hadn’t received the proper nutrition and had been so starved.  I wondered if Gertrude even made the connection it was her severe neglect that did it.  She didn’t seem to anyway, nor did she seem to care.  They all wanted a turn holding him and loving him.  He went to each of them easily…until Gertrude.  She reached for him and he immediately flinched and pulled away aggressively and looked frightened.  Everyone laughed but my heart broke.  The pain that must be there even in the subconscious is enormous.  It’s an excellent study on how early these little ones remember.

Mattia, head of Good Samaritans with Godlive, a member of Good Samaritans who took Kirabo in

Gertrude, great aunt who took Kirabo in when his mother died

After lunch, all 10 of us piled in the van to begin the tour of Kirabo’s history.  First, we went to the village where Godlive lived who had taken in Kirabo as a foster parent when he was taken from Gertrude’s home.  She was so excited for us to see her home and led us to a tiny 1 room mud hut and we sat on a reed floor mat and smiled at each other because neither of us could communicate to each other!  Kirabo didn’t seem to be very comfortable and I was worried about him.  Godlive’s grandchildren all knew who he was and wanted to see him and play with him.  Everywhere we went everyone just loved him and were so excited to see him.  

Godlive's home

one of Godlive's grandchildren that knew Kirabo.  Kirabo didn't seem to recognize or acknowledge that he knew them

Godlive's grandchildren

A picture of Godlive's picture of Kirabo when she took care of him

When we left we passed by the school (which was just a clearing outside in the grass) and all the kids gathered in a huddle to see us.  I held out my hand to shake hands or give a high five and they were really hesitant to do so.  All it took was one brave older child to reach out and shake my hand and they all started giggling and swarmed me to touch my hand.  We all laughed and I shook each of their hands about 5 times and we took a picture together.  I was sad I hadn’t thought to bring a USA soccer ball on our trip to give them.  We have a few in our room at the guest house. 

The next stop was the Catholic church where the Good Samaritans meet.  

Kankobbe church where the Good Samaritans meet

Father Sylvester holding Kirabo

Kirabo was very worried the second we went to Kankobbe.  He was not comfortable here at all.

Sister Beatrice

Then we went to Kankobbe Orphanage next door where Kirabo went when Godlive couldn’t take care of him anymore.  He immediately tensed up and clung to James who was holding him.  He buried his head in James’ shoulder.  The sisters there were so excited to see him and they had a bulletin board in the home with kids that had been there and the majority were of him!  Sister Beatrice told us how much they all loved him and they were the ones that gave him the name Kirabo which means Gift from God.  We took pictures of the pictures they had of him on the board.  They again reiterated how withdrawn and neglected and tiny he had been when they first got them.  They took him away from us much to our concern and fed him an entire plate of potatoes and matooke (mashed plantains).  He sat there obediently and ate but we didn’t feel good about it and kept trying to sneak away from them to be with him.  He was very tense and withdrawn here.  He definitely remembers this place as it was about 1 ½ years since he’d been there.  It’s really amazing.  They wanted all sorts of pictures and were really very sweet.  It was difficult to be careful of not hurting their feelings and still protecting Kirabo’s.

Gertrude, Godfrey, Matia, Beatrice

Gertrude and Godfrey with Kirabo

We took pictures of the pictures on the wall of Kankobbe Orphanage.  The ones of Kirabo were still up!  They just loved him.

Kirabo when he first got to Kankobbe Orphanage, we think around 18 mo?