Leanne Kaemingh has a different look about her these days. The 17-year-old Grade 12 student at Fort High is sporting some nifty braids—courtesy of some new friends she met last month while in Africa.
That’s right, Africa.
It all started with a phone call back in November from a friend in North Dakota. Kristy Wood’s father is a director of an orphanage located just outside Kampala, the capital of the central African nation of Uganda.
“It’s [the orphanage] called New Hope Uganda,” Kaemingh noted, adding Wood was planning to visit that orphanage and asked Kaemingh if she wanted to tag along.
The response was pretty automatic.
Like Wood, Kaemingh is very active in her church—the Christian Reformed Church in Emo. As evangelicals, the congregation, including Kaemingh, considers missionary work a part of their duty.
So when the teen approached her dad, Arnold, with the idea, she was fairly confident she’d get the green light.
“My dad said, ‘Sure. Go,’” she recalled.
Of course, it wasn’t quite that simple. First, there was the matter of expenses. Kaemingh said the trip cost about $3,000, which her aunt in England and her parents helped cover.
Then there was the matter of inoculations; there are some pretty nasty tropical diseases in that part of the world to which North Americans have no immunity.
Kaemingh had vaccinations for hepatitis A and typhoid at the Emo Health Centre, then travelled to Thunder Bay for a yellow fever shot. She also equipped herself with malaria pills, which she took every day in lieu of an inoculation.
With all that taken care of, Kaemingh left Feb. 5 and arrived at Entebbe Airport on Feb. 7. She spent the first day in Kampala, then went on safari for two days before reporting to the orphanage.
While on safari, Kaemingh saw firsthand what has fascinated explorers and sportsmen for centuries. She also shot more than 300 photos with her digital camera.
“I had a lot of batteries,” she remarked.
Kaemingh said she was particularly impressed with the elephants, which roam wild in the area. She found they are quite protective of their young and did not tolerate humans getting too close, so she was mostly restricted to shooting her pictures at long range.
When she reported to New Hope Uganda, Kaemingh found herself with a group of about 20 people from North America and Europe, as well as 100 locals ranging in age from infants to young adults.
She said the orphanage was started about 10 years ago by a man from North Dakota and has been operated by missionaries ever since.
Kaemingh and Wood quickly were indoctrinated into a special local custom. Women in that part of Africa traditionally wear their hair in braids (because it is both practical and low-maintenance), so two of the local girls soon had Kaemingh’s long, blonde tresses tied in braids, to which they added brown strands of a hemp-like material that gave her a two-toned look.
Kaemingh was so pleased with the result, she still sports that look today—and says she will continue to do so until at least the end of March.
Kaemingh quickly learned there were other local customs to which she was expected to adhere. For instance, it is considered immodest and offensive for women to wear shorts in spite of the oppressive heat, which averaged 110 F every day.
Instead, they were expected to wear skirts that come to well below the knee. Men, likewise, were expected to wear long pants.
Only children could get away with shorts.
The children lived in family groups of 10-15, where they currently are supervised by several American missionary families. As the children get older, some of them take over looking after the kids.
Infants are looked after in a special nursery called Baby House until they are about two years old, when they are assigned to one of the family groups.
Unfortunately, there does not appear to be any shortage of orphans due to the ongoing AIDS pandemic throughout Africa. Kaemingh said as many as one-third of the adult population in Uganda is HIV-positive.
The children, however, are all screened for HIV before they are accepted at the orphanage, where they attend school and learn the other life skills necessary to survive.
The orphanage grows much of its own food and while she was there, Kaemingh tried her hand at plowing with oxen. February is near the end of the dry season, so the ground was being prepared for planting when the rains return in March.
The food, for the most part, was American. Kaemingh was warned not to drink anything but filtered water and she avoided the local meat. She did, however, try a local delicacy called jackfruit, which she described as large and rubbery with a flavour like bubble gum.
The local bread also was quite wholesome and tasty.
After seven days, Kaemingh left Uganda and spent four days with her uncle and aunt in England before flying home Feb. 18. But Africa has not seen the last of her as she intends to return in a few years on a real mission after university.
That sort of thing seems to run in her family as she has an uncle and aunt who currently are missionaries in Nigeria. They, too, are sponsored by the Christian Reformed Church.
Kaemingh has been accepted in the nursing program at both Lakehead University in Thunder Bay and the University of Calgary. As well, she has applied at McMaster University in Hamilton, where she also has family.
Given her choice, though, Kaemingh said she would prefer to go to Calgary since she is an avid snowboarder. She also plays recreational hockey and Muskie soccer.
But after graduation, she wants to return to Africa, where she can serve her church and put her nursing skills to work.
“I really liked working with the kids,” she enthused.
Fort Frances Times
Local News from Across the Rainy River District
