on the day in which I show you around my neighborhood...

Welcome to the Suubi Children’s Village!

So I’ve been living in the middle of nowhere now for the past 3 weeks. Well, okay, not nowhere, but out of the city and in the village! Can I keep saying over and over how much I love living out of the city? What a contradiction from home. Nonetheless, hopefully this will be “home” for at least the next couple of months. 

The Suubi village is located about an hour outside of Kampala, but with road construction these days, a trip into town is sometimes averaging about 2 1/2 hours. Good times. We keep that to a minimum of about once a week. This particular area is full of big beautiful hills, and the Watoto Children’s village that I am now living in, is located right at the top of one of them. Makes for a very peaceful environment with stunning views of sunrise, sunset and the storms that roll in to the surrounding areas. 

The village is built on several levels running down the hill. At the very top, is the primary and secondary schools, along with the fabrication unit. This is used as a trades school for many of the older students to teach them woodworking and metalworking skills, and serves as the source for all of the furniture that is used in the Watoto houses or the babies homes. There is a community hall that is used for the village church on Sundays as well as housing for teachers and several boarding students that attend the Suubi secondary school. 

Heading down the hill, is the start of the Children’s Village. There are currently over 1000 children and moms living in this village, so although it is  a little quiet right now with many people away for the Christmas holidays, it is generally a pretty bustling place. 

The children’s homes are built in what they call clusters; 9 homes in a circle with the first house being the “senior” house of that cluster. The houses hold 1 Watoto mom and 8 children (usually 4 girls and 4 boys) with ages ranging from as young as 2 up to university aged students.  They are completely furnished with a living area, kitchen area, dining table, bathroom, 2 children’s bedrooms and a bedroom for the mom. There is power in the village which is run by a generator, but not on too often in the homes. Food is delivered and distributed weekly, and there are large water containers onsite; the children take their water jugs and fill them up so that they can have running water in their homes. 

It's safe to say that there are not a whole lot of us mzungus (which means "white people" in the local language) living in the village. So needless to say, we attract attention whenever we are out and about. I go for a long walk through the village on most days, and anytime you are up by the children's houses, a little crowd always comes up to you and says  "HIYAAA MAZUNGOO!". It's not uncommon to end up with the occasional tag-a-long on my walk :)

Throughout the village there are many pockets of vegetable gardens and fruit trees; all part of Watoto’s ongoing sustainability projects.

And this picture below is the road that I live on :) The building off to the left in the distance is the Suubi Babies home, and it is located just on the edge of the property.