Let’s put it out there… I’ve fallen in love with Africa! Praise to a country with all organic produce!
Just to be clear, I am the last person you would expect to find travelling to Africa, and definitely the last person to enjoy it! It all began when a friend invited my sister, mum and I on a group ‘mums and daughters trip’. Having never been anywhere like that I was very dubious to what I was letting myself in for, but alot of my friends have been travelling and bullied me into it! I am so thankful they did.
Even by day one I was hooked, Uganda is more than I ever imagined.
I was struck by their kindness, their intense positivity and overwhelming love.
Our aim whilst we were there was to teach a course to the students called ‘Shine Girl’ – we stayed at a place called Kira Farm through a UK based charity called Amigos. They take in both boys and girls aged 18-25 who have had really tough childhoods. Some of them have been kidnapped and forced to fight as soldiers, some have been raped and therefore have young children, some were also orphans from a young age. Kira Farm teaches them life long skills to be able to take into their communities in order to firstly, build a life for themselves and secondly to help others and teach them.
As part of Shine Girl, our goal was to work with the girls and teach them they are worth somthing. These girls think it was a mistake for them to be born, or they have been sold by their parents for one goat. Throughout one week, we taught them they were beautiful, unique and wonderfully made.
One of the sessions we taught was all about Nutrition, the purpose was to teach the girls how they need to value their bodies and health, much the same as what I teach in the UK, that idea is a worldwide mission. Very few of us value ourselves and our bodies enough. During the session, I taught them about great, easy vegetables and fruits they could grow, in order to sell but also to feed themselves and all their family. We also spoke about the importance of breast feeding for the health of your new little one. At the end I had bought lots of different fruits and vegetables for them to try, we blindfolded some girls and made them guess the fruits, we had alot of fun (except for green pepper – that didn’t seem to go down too well with them).
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It was wonderful to teach in another country about my passion, it was lovely to see them tucking into all the beautiful fruits, which they would never usually have.I think (hope) they took alot out of that session with me.
Everyone needs to know and beleive the importance of good nutrition in our lives, in order for us to be healthy and strong and want to jump out of bed in the morning! This life is ours to live and explore and make the most of everyday, not to be sick and in pain and miserable all the time.
Lets look after ourselves because if I have learnt one thing from Africa, we have an amazing country aswell and we are truly blessed with all the food we have access too in our supermarkets. Lets choose the good stuff and value ourselves more.
Roll on the next trip…
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