Welcome!

Welcome to Noelle in Africa!

For those of you who are first time visitors, I hope you enjoy this read!

My blog is the central place for me to tell stories, share moments of beauty, and give you, my readers, a glimpse into what it's like to live in Africa!

As they say in Uganda... Most Welcome!

I recently got a digital camera, so soon my blog will not only be filled with colorful stories but also photos too.

Feel free to browse through past entries. They hold 2 years of photos, adventures, revelations, and thoughts on this African life.

My blog is a place where all are welcome to come and read about what I do and what life is like in Africa. If you would like to receive more updates about the detailed ins and outs of the different works I am apart of, please send me an email. Emails are sent out every 4-8 weeks. They usually contain more about the work I am doing, then the adventures. I promise I will never Spam your in box!

If you want to get connected to the email list, simply write me at: noelle.gornik@gmail.com

Let me give you a small tour of my blog before you go.

At the top left, you can enter your email address. What this does is allow you to get my most recent posts directly to your inbox! This way, you never miss a post, and it comes straight to you!

Next to that email box is the “subscribe” button. This is the button to push to become a Partner for Transformation! Partners for transformation give monthly to my work in Africa. The money is directly withdrawn from your bank account each month, and you even receive a tax deduction. Partners for Transformation make the biggest impact! Please consider becoming one!

Under the “subscribe” button, you will see the “donate” button. The “donate” button is for one time tax deductible donations. Feel free to push it as often as you can!

To the left, under the email box, is my wish list. These are things which I need to take back with me to Africa, which will help me to live better in Africa. ALL items donated can be donated as “in kind”, which means you will get a tax deduction based on the cost of the item. My biggest need right now is a regular sized lap top.

If you have any questions, comments or thoughts, or if your organization or parish would like to sponsor me, don't hesitate to email me at noelle.gornik@gmail.com.

Thank you for being a part of my work in Africa!

Peace to all!

Missing the Ugandan Sun

Some of the recent days here in Michigan have been somewhat overcast.  Today as I looked out at the dull day, I thought that I really do miss the beautiful, perpetual Ugandan sun.

Being back in America is strange.  The other day I got incredibly overwhelmed in the paper isle in Michael’s.   While I was living in Mbarara, I wanted to paint.  I am an artist and it is a good way of expressing myself.  It took me 3 months to find paper which the water colors I had managed to find, did not destroy.  And there I stood, in the isle at Michaels surrounded by more paper and canvases than can be used in 20 years.   I just wish there could be a more even distribution in life.

My plane ticket is all set, to return on August 16^th.  I am excited to go back, because there is a lot of great work waiting for me.  Right away we will be doing some training courses for teachers, which should be fantastic.   I am really excited to work with a good Ugandan team.  I love working with Ugandans who are very capable and able to teach character development with me!

I had great news the other day.  My best Ugandan friends are moving into my apartment complex in Uganda!  This will really be wonderful.  It will mean people to spend time with, more time with their baby, and getting to just enjoy daily life together. 

For now though, I think I will enjoy being in America.  There are a lot of great people and things here.   My sister is coming home from Europe on Thursday, I haven’t seen her in 2 years!  The joys of an international family.   Let the month of Gornik Family begin!! 

Longevity: A success story

I won't use names in this post, just first letters... but today's events has shown me that my work in not in vain, and that it's worth the effort.  I hope it encourages you too.

I am in Detroit, Michigan.  For those readers who don't know, I lived in Detroit from September of 2006 to August 2007.  It was a year of service with an organization called Youth Works Detroit.  They run programs for children, youth, schools, and have a small community in the woodbridge area called Detroit Community Outreach.  

It was a challenging, formative, and beautiful year for me.  I served, voluntarily, with the after school program called Bezalel, the high school youth group, school programs and retreats, and a bit of office administration.  I also worked about 30 hours a week in order to pay rent.  It was an intense year.

Obviously, throughout this year working with the young people from the local projects, we form relationships.  I met a family who had been in touch with Youth Works for some good amount of time.  The first people I met from their family were J and C, both of them were wild, and often disrupted our after school program.  Then their sister H started coming around.  She volunteered with us for about 6 weeks and H and I became close.

We, the staff of the afterschool program, use to argue with J a lot about whether or not we could bring her little sister D home with us in the vans when we picked J and the other kids up from school.  D was 5 years old at the time, a small, skinny wide eyed child in a harsh environment.  This was 5 years ago.

J, C, H and D are now part of the YouthWorks family.  We haven't "fixed" them... C is not in school these days, he got kicked out.  H just had a baby.  J is a good kid, still spending a lot of time with Youth Works.  And D is now in the afterschool program which J went through when I was living in Detroit. 

Today I visited their house.  I have regularly come back to Detroit since I left, it's a place I feel I should continue to show my face and give some love.  I usually see J and D, and sometimes C.  I hadn't seen H in about 3.5 years. 

J is leaving for the summer, so a friend who knows their family wanted to go say good bye.  When J opened the door she looked at me and suddenly yelled "NOELLE"!  She gave me a HUGE hug and asked what I was doing there.  J yelled up the stairs who we were, and soon H came down the stairs, holding her beautiful 2 month old child.

We went out and sat on the stoop.  I held the baby and talked to both H and J  with my friend.  I grilled H about being a good mom, and tried to encourage her to get some mothering advice.  As I held her baby, I also got to hold her.  Wrapping my arm around her shoulder she put her head on mine and just let me hug her.  She seems tired, she's seen the rough side of life.  It was so beautiful just to be able to tell her how much I love her. 

J is doing well.  I'm proud of her.  She is still so very much herself; loud, and funny, she will finish school soon, which is in an of its self a miracle.  

As we are visiting on the step, someone comes riding up on a bike.  Tall and skinny, J says "Hey that's P (a family nickname for D)!"  So I go running after her, a normal tradition by now.  

As I am running after her, she says, laughingly with a giant smile on her face; "don't want to see you cause I'm mad at you!"  I, still chasing her, ask why.  Finally I catch her and she tells me it's because I missed Partner Day.

For several years after I lived in Detroit, I helped paid for D to attend the afterschool Bezalel.   This is a beautiful partner program, where the young people get a chance to spend time with the people sponsoring them, so they form a strong relationship with them.

I told her that I was in Africa, and reminded her that I had sent her a picture and letter.  I could tell she was totally faking the "being mad" ... then later she admitted she forgot my name, before running off laughing.  The 5 of us spent about 45 minutes just visiting and talking about different things.  Later I got a bit of time with D, who was sad to hear I wouldn't be in Detroit all summer.  I think I'll stop over there again before I go to give her a gift.  

I have known D, H, J and C for 5 years.  I have visited regularly during that time, trying in some very small way to stay in these peoples lives.  Did it stop H from having a baby with no Daddy, no.  But maybe knowing me and Youth Works Detroit will help her be a better mother.  Is C still in school?  No, but I know that Youth Works will ever give up on him.  Will J finish high school, unlike the others in her family?  Yes, and I can say for sure that it is due to our influence.   Will D grow up to be one amazing adult?  I really hope so.  I am pulling for her.  

It's been 5 years.  We still laugh, and tease.  I still miss D's sarcasm because she's so good.  We hug a lot, and remember old times. H can be weak with me, what is that?  I don't know... something beautiful. We talk about people who've come and gone... through YouthWorks, and through the Projects. 

This is a hard place.  And yet, suddenly, unexpectedly, a flower breaks through the concrete, and love is the only thing that makes sense.

Thank you for your encouragement, support, love and prayers throughout the years as I have volunteered in 10 countries around the world.  This story is for you as much as it is for me.

Home Sweet Home

This is Noelle in Africa...in America!

My mom mentioned that I haven't even been home a week yet... that is crazy to me.  Africa feels very far away.

I am sitting in one of my favorite places in Michigan.. Mary J's apartment in Lansing.  Mary and I have been very close since DSO 4 summers ago.  I'll be staying with her while visiting many friends here in the Lansing area.

I was in Traverse City the last few days for my cousin's graduation party and family hang out time.  It was great, but freeeeezing cold.  I mean like 50 F.  That is very cold after Africa, considering it was 96 and humid when I arrived back in America!

Culture shock has not set in.  I think I am just too happy to see all these great people!  It's been wonderful to catch up with my closest friend.  Friends, Family, and food will revive any weary traveler! 

Just so all the readers know, the wish list at the side of my blog are "in kind" donations.  This means if you donate something on that list, you get a tax deduction!  I have reordered them in order of greatest need.  The thing I need the most is a normal lap top, as my small one will be used for traveling and a normal sized one to keep my major work on.  If you have one you can donate, you will get a tax deduction and really help me out!

It's been great to be back.  I have no idea what the future holds, but am trying to take it one day at a time. 

Out of Africa

How many blog posts have been titled "Out of Africa"... thousands I would bet.  :)

I am sitting here, listening to Phil Collins, wearing a freshly (badly) pressed white shirt.  I have a weakness for Phil Collins, he's pretty much the only 80's musician whom I consistently love.  I don't know why.  I am still terrible at ironing, after months of it.  Oh well. 

I am going soon.  I will leave my house in about an hour an a half, to get into town.  Esther and I are taking pictures together right before getting in the car to go to the airport.  I am flying Ethiopian, which I have never done before.  Getting my first sights of the country of Ethiopia will be awesome.  Sadly it won't count as a country visit, because I am not staying over night.  Maybe that will happen in September, I hope!

The flight today/tomorrow is Entebbe-Addis - Rome- Washington- Detroit.  Woot.  29 hours of travelling.  Africa is really far away from the world!  How exciting... 4 countries in 24 hours!!

Yesterday was an adventure.  I got up and went to church.  Then I came home and felt really strange, and crashed.  I slept for 2 hours, then did NOTHING because I felt so strange.  I had a fever pretty bad.  I was getting worried because I hate travelling sick, and I was afraid that it's malaria.  This morning I am feeling better, though still not great/100%.  I am well enough to travel, and I don't think I need to start malaria meds.  This is a very good thing.

Last night the power cut at about 8, plunging us into total darkness.  I was trying to finish up odds and ends, and that is a frustrating thing to do by solar powered lamp.

So Esther and I went out.  I wanted to introduce her to Hummus and falafels.  So we went and got them... sadly the hummus was not nearly as good as it usually is, so Esther didn't like it.  Oh well.  I bought meds too.

She was feeling in a fun mood, and, even with a fever, I was up for an adventure.  Because she knows the area so well, she could tell that power was still gone.  So we went to Nakumatt, I waited in the car while she ran in, coming back with a tube of ice cream and two spoons.  :)

We went up our hill, yes we live on one of the hills of Kampala (posh)!   We found a great viewing point of the city and sat and ate ice cream... then had a mini dance party.  Just as we drove down the hill, we saw power coming back to the area.  Perfect.  It was a great last housemate night.

When we got home I gave her a bunch of little gifts as a funny way to get her through the next few months. Then we both tore apart my room trying to find some money which I had hid, which we found ... eventually.  You always have to have one heart attack the night before travelling!

And now there isn't much left to do or say. 

It looks like rain today. 

My bag would be incredibly small if I wasn't bringing gifts.  I feel like Santa!

Namagongo: Short trip

Today I took a short trip to Namagongo.

This coming Friday, June 3rd, is the celebration of Uganda Martyrs day.  It's a public holiday in the country, and a massive celebration for all Christians.  The Catholics get especailly into it. 

The Uganda Martyrs have a beautiful story of not forsaking your faith, even in the face of death.  The peace and love they showed to the very end is inspiring.

I had never been to Namagongo, the site of where the Martyers were killed.  I considered going on June 3rd, when HUGE crowds decend on the place.  But then I also needed to meet with Deo about work projects.  He happened to already be there... having done an 11 day walk from Kabale (which is crazy far from Kampala).  Ugandas are intense sometimes.

So I decided that since I'd never been it'd be nice to see the place and also have a work meeting with Deo.

On the way, I realized that my fear of venturing out has drastically decreased.  Going new places use to stress me a lot because I was afraid of getting lost or overwhelmed.  These days, I get directions and find it to be no problem.  I think I'm finally getting use to it all.

The trip was very short from my home to Namagongo, which was nice.  We passed some pilgrams on the way, carrying their belongings on their heads and babies on their backs.  They could have walked from any corner of the country to celebrate on the site.  On arrival there was mass, which had already started, so I did a bit of work in some deep shade until mass finished.  Then Deo and I sat on my Kitenga over looking a large pool where many pilgrams were fetching water for their makeshift camps.  We got all of our work done, and it looks like we're in a good place on the Kabale Coffee Project proposal. 

The Large pool

 After our meeting, I wanted to tour the place a bit and take some time reflecting on the Martyrs.  However, as Deo and I finished talking, he informed me that the president was there!  I hadn't noticed any big to do, but apparently it had happened and the president was indeed in the church.  I would have stayed and waited until he left, but very large and looming black clouds had begun to gather in the north, spitting their warnings on us as we sat under the large trees.  So I went and visited the outdoor Grotto and then sadly stood and looked at the church, very bummed that getting inside was not possible due to the desire of the president to keep face.  Then I managed to quickly find a taxi that easily took me all the way to the stage near my house.  It was great.   

The Bascilica Church

I am very ready to head home to America.  My schedule is quickly filling, which is exciting!  I can't wait to see all my favorite people.  There are things about Uganda I will miss, but I'll be back very soon.  For now, America is in my eyes and I'm ready to go.