Kids and concerts

Anyone who has met Lutaaya when she is in her safe environments, will know she loves music and dance.  She simply loves it.  This week opened up the door of opportunity for Lutaaya to experience two very different aspects of music.  Firstly off we trotted to the Wales Millennium Centre to see her first Musical, We Will Rock You.

Outside the Millennium Centre

It was very loud and very bright.  Lutaaya moved with the music throughout the show and smiled/laughed at the funny parts, making me know she understood the story line.  What she couldn't process were her thoughts on whether or not she liked it??  It's difficult, when you travel with a bus full of people, for them not to understand that it takes Lutaaya a little longer than most of us to process her thoughts and construct an opinion.  She needs time to mull things over and then make a decision on her thoughts on something.  So being bombarded with questions of, 'do you like it?' or 'are you enjoying it?' or 'is it good?', are still too difficult to answer on the spot for my little girl.  Each question always answered the same way, with an, 'I don't know!'  It's not that she doesn't understand what you've asked or that she's being rude, it's her genuinely not knowing what her answer will be.  And she won't talk about anything until a good few hours later or even the next day.
Living with Lutaaya, you get to see the response of when she's made that decision.  If something is too difficult to deal with or she doesn't understand she can either start asking questions or simply become withdrawn and not speak.  Two very different extremes to her behaviour.  One thing is for sure though.  If she likes something, you certainly know about.  She will chat about it for hours and for days after.
So, as I put her to bed, she answered the many questions asked her today, singing a line of one of the Queen songs.  If it's sunk in enough to be repeated, it goes on the 'like' list!

Later this week we had the honour and privilege of seeing the Watoto Children's Choir perform locally.  Amazing, awe-inspiring, tear jerking night.  Lutaaya loved the traditional songs and dancing and it certainly made her Lugandan come back a little.  What was difficult for Lutaaya to deal with was hearing all the children's stories.  Each child with their own unique story of desperate times and destitution.  All the stories of these children thankfully end in hope due to the Watoto charity.  If you're interested in finding out more about Watoto, don't take my word for it, see their website here.  They do amazing work.  Sadly, in the back of my mind, as in the minds of everyone else who has been to Africa, are the many children who still live these destitute lives without anyone advocating for them or helping them out of the absolute poverty they find themselves in.

Comic Relief

Since coming home Lutaaya has had a bit of a fantasy Uganda.  She spent the past 7 years of her life in an orphanage so to her that is the Uganda she remembers.  Other than her first 2 years (give or take some months due to the age), she wouldn't have experienced the utter poverty of the slums.  Her walk to school, long though it was, passed by some of the more privileged homes.  Most had four walls, some huge driveways and all with the essentials we need.  Only on a few occasions when we were in Uganda did Lutaaya see a glimpse of slum life, when our beloved taxi driver, Henry, tried taking a short cut (which often proved to take us longer than the normal route), and we ended up the other side of a river to the one slum in Uganda.

Even so, she knows suffering.  She knows what's fair and what's not.  She knows when life is too tough for a little one.  She summed it up nicely the other day when she told me we don't have poor people in Wales.  I tried explaining that some people in Wales are poor, and she responds, but not like in Uganda.  And no.  None of us in Wales are poor.  We have an easy ride.  We ALL live beyond our means.  We have a very nice benefits system, that we all have our opinions on, that is there to catch people when they fall.  We also have a benefits system that people manipulate to their financial gain, but thats a whole different story.  Lutaaya knows, at 10 years old, that we are not poor here.  We will never know the suffering of poverty in Africa.

Then along comes comic relief 2011.  A night of TV that helps raise the profile of projects in Africa and here in the UK, helping the poor and needy.

Now I've been very restrictive over what Lutaaya watches on TV.  The soaps are banned here.  I mean, next time you turn on a soap, just list the story lines in your head and tell me they give children a balanced view of the world.  The tell us of a world filled with crime, violence, fear, broken lives.  Bad news sells!  Not what any child needs to hear, let alone a child who may have experienced the topics in reality.  So watching Comic Relief was a BIG decision.

See the Mbale hospital appeal here!   Mbale is one of the places I visit in Uganda.

And the decision was for Lutaaya to watch the evening of programmes that helped raise money for the charities involved.  I kinda gathered that if it affected her in a bad way we could turn over at any time.  No need for that plan.  She was engrossed.  She took on every aspect.  She talked about the children's feelings living in the poverty and she then became motivated to help!  Yay I have a child who will follow in my footsteps and help others.  Not through self-gratification, simply to feel a duty and be moved to act.

So it's back to the baking and Comic Relief or Red Nose Day cakes.

Lutaaya had fun making them and then she sold them 50p a cake.  She was so keen to get the money to comic relief and said, do it now Mam, those children are dying!  Such simple, truthful words.  Did you give?  If not to Comic Relief, then find a charity working in Uganda and helping street children or Aids orphans.

Bikes, bumps and bruises

Lutaaya asked for a bike for her birthday and I managed to get her just that.  We haven't had the weather to go out and learn to cycle in the days after her birthday so it's been put to one side and the bike simply sat there.  However, lately the weather has been kind to us and the sun has shone.  So out we go.

My grandparents have a lane at the back of their house that is very quiet.  It's the ideal place for a learner bike rider.  Lutaaya looks the part in her cycle helmet.  Her balance however took some work.  She genuinely believed that she would simply sit on the bike and be able to ride.  Little did she know that it would end up in her being in a heap on the floor.

Bless her!  Her little face as she realised that maybe this wasn't going to be as easy as she'd imagined.  But still she tries.  Each weekend we've been blessed with good weather, we've been out in the lane trying our hardest.  Her balance is improving but she's not there yet.  So for the time being I will run at the side of my little princess and help her steady herself on her bike.  I know at some point I have to let go, but knowing that this will likely result in a bump and bruise, at the moment is putting me off.  I'm sure in the next few weeks I can gain the courage to let her try alone and simply watch as she wobbles and falls.  My role will then change to picking her up and dusting her off.  She will see this as my fault and will hold me as being accountable for 'letting her fall' but we'll work through that one as and when it happens.  For the time being I'll enjoy watching her learn.

Shrove Tuesday

I realise that in the reality of life my blogs are becoming fewer.  So I make a promise to myself and all you blog followers that I will try and set time aside to update it more regularly.
So back tracking from the past few weeks, here are a few updates.

Lutaaya had chance to eat pancakes on Shrove Tuesday.  You wouldn't believe these photos were taken just after a major tantrum!  All sweetness and light that she is.

Trying to add a learning aspect to our cooking

Trying her hardest to be the best cook in town

And even though they got the thumbs up, she wasn't a fan of pancakes!

Yes adoption can be difficult.  There are times when things just don't go the way you would like them too.  There are always days when there aren't enough hours in the day to do all that you'd like too.  The whole notion of attachment is a whole different story but it lingers in the background of every day.  My friend Bethany wrote about attachment in her blog.  You can read her article here  It took a lot of bravery to be as truthful as she was in her blog and I'm thankful that she had such courage to share her thoughts.  There will always be people in the world who will not understand attachment or fail to acknowledge that it's there.  Believe me it is there.  It does exist and we're working through it day by day.  After all, if you or I were abandoned as a baby or young child, wouldn't we also fear to bond with one main carer?  Wouldn't we live with the worry that they may too give up on us or leave us?  It's a difficult concept to understand if we've never been in that position.  So if you are interested in the attachment issues all adopters face, type attachment issues into google and see what crops up.  It may be worth a read.

Dydd Gwyl Dewi Hapus!

Or Happy Saint David's Day!

Gypsy getting in the mood with our national flowers: daffodils.  Couldn't have planned her pose better!

1st March is the day of the Patron Saint of Wales.  This year, Lutaaya had to join in the celebrations!  She loved every second.  Dressing up in her Welsh rugby top to head to school, eating Welsh cakes and using some of her new found Welsh words. 

Bakery Blog

Lutaaya has two very special Aunties in her life.  Auntie Nancy and Auntie Sara.  They visited Uganda and still do.  Their next trip is booked for a couple of weeks time, so please keep them in your prayers.  They love on the kids at Lutaaya's former orphanage so much.  They take gifts and spend a lot of time with the children.  True Aunties, in every sense of the word.

Lutaaya was so pleased to know they live a few miles from our house.  They visited when she first arrived and have been keeping up to date with our progress.  Lutaaya loves them and they dote on her.  They invited us to visit their bakery.  So Lutaaya and her friend spent the day at their bakery.  What a lovely day it was.

We started off by looking the part with our health and safety hats.  Giggles all round!

They had lots of baking organised for us:  bread!

Bread rolls!

Welsh cakes!

Icing cup cakes!

Lutaaya was blessed so much by these lovely ladies while she lived in Uganda.  The gifts they gave her while she was in the orphanage were the only things she had in her possession when she left.  This broke our hearts as she had no personal belongings, nothing to call her own.  She simply fitted in an orphanage and fell into the bracket of an 'abandoned baby'.  She had no identity.  Only recently has she realised she can have favourite things and an opinion on what she likes and dislikes.  I am forever thankful to people like Nancy and Sara who spend so much time loving the children in the orphanage, the people who put their time, effort and money into seeing these children as individuals and treating them with the resepct and love they deserve.  Now we are blessed to have them live so close that they can share times like today and make such happy memories.  The photos will certainly be added to her memory photo album.

Ugandan Elections

Uganda has been very much in our prayers and minds over the last few days. The Presidential elections have been held and the result has been announced.  The preparations were taking place while we were there in october/November.  So many people lived in fear of the elections, as the atmosphere can change suddenly in times like these and trouble can break out so easily.  Thankfully, this time, this has not been the case and the elections have been peaceful so far. 

Museveni, the current President, has been re-elected.  This seemed to be the way things would go, by talking to people on the streets, but the opponents have tried hard to win the presidency.  Still the possibility of trouble is likely as the opposition refuse to accept the results, so please keep Uganda in your prayers.  The country has enough to deal with, without having any trouble to deal with.  My friends, Mark & Keren, are living in Uganda at the moment.  You can catch up with the election updates on their blog here. 

I received a text from the lady I stay with in the mountain village this morning saying that even though the trouble had been held off, still people had been bribed to vote for the opposing party, and the army had been deployed to oversee votes.  She stated that this put a lot of people off voting.  I think when we casually walk into voting booths in the UK to put our crosses in the boxes, we forget how fortunate we are to have freedom of speeach and the right to vote.  For so many this is not the case!