Birmin'ham!

So we are in B-ham... Today is our last day here and we are going to miss it! We have been staying with the Chaplin family, and they have been so nice to us, giving us free reign of their house! We had beds and showers and food on demand! It was really nice!

We just finished a screening at a high school called Vestavia Hills and it went swimmingly! Lots of kids showed up (try 600!) and they were really responsive to the film and such. (By the way, if you haven't seen the film yet, click here: THE RESCUE.)

We have been on the radio in Birmingham as well as on the local news, talking about the movement, about the tour and about our reasons for being here. There is a real buzz regarding the whole tour and the super awesome van certainly helps!

Here are some photos from the last few days!

This is our mission to the moon:



Making some sweatshirts with the new stencils!



Sleeping in the van:



How roadies eat: Stock up big time...



My shoe versus Sean and Sarah:



Sean and me. We are best buds!



Cleaning out the van (sort of):



Hanging out with Gus (our van):

Georgia

So if you hadn't heard about the rains in the Atlanta area, read this: http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/09/21/southeast.floods/index.html

So with all the rain and flooding, we had some hurdles to jump. Cancelled/rescheduled screenings, closed roads, heavy rain, rough roads and being perpetually wet. We had an awesome time with the folks we stayed with, especially Jackie and her roomies, the Mirolli family, the Michael family, Jake, Whitney and Dana, and Brandon and Brian. People have been more than generous with their time and their money toward me and my team. We have had nothing but great responses from folks at the screenings, wanting to know what they can do to further the cause. So exciting.

I have never really experienced living in an area that was hit hard by a natural disaster. Never really seen emergency aid in action. Never seen people who lost everything to something as simple and necessary as rain. Never have I been affected by such a thing other that a little bit of leakage in my basement.

There was a huge response from people in the Atlanta area to help those around them. One story that we heard at church one day was of a woman with 5 children. She had lost her car to flood waters and her home was destroyed. Her husband had left her 2 weeks before the storms and he had cancelled her home insurance. She was literally left with nothing. When she went to a local restaurant that had advertised free food for folks who had damage and asked for food for her and her kids. As she was telling the store owner what happened, a man came up and said, "I'm sorry to have eavesdropped, but I heard what has happened. My father invested in Microsoft in the 80's and I now have more money than I know what to do with. My financial advisors have told me what should be done with the money, but none of those things seems right. Now I know why I have this money. This is right." And he promised to buy her and her kids a house and a car to GIVE them. So awesome. God's deliverance in a time of need. So crazy.

Anyway, that is my inspiring story for you. Here are some pictures from the past week!

Yes. The Deep South Roadies are superheros.


Too much work, too little sleep. This is 3am, outside of a Milledgeville, GA coffee shop, stealing their wireless internet.



Hanging out after a screening:



Replacing the fuses that we blew:



Hanging out in St. Simons, Georgia. Super cool sunset followed.

Okello Robinson

While in Uganda, I had the opportunity to shadow a student named Okello Robinson. He was a Senior-6 in Awere Secondary school, so he is about to graduate. He is 19 and lives in a hostel near the Awere campus. We laughed and joked, listened to music on my iPod, walked through Gulu to see all sorts of things, were caught in a heavy downpour, then dried out minutes later. He introduced me to his friends and we all sat and ate lunch together in one of the classrooms.

He is just like me, a normal 19 year-old kid going to school with his friends. Except, he isn't.

Since the war in Northern Uganda took a nasty turn in the mid 90's, Awere had to move away from its original site, about 30 km from Gulu. The conflict has claimed thousands, if not millions of lives due to fighting, hunger, displacement, disease, etc. Okello Robinson had lost his mother to HIV/AIDS and his father was killed by rebels that stormed his town while Robinson was away at school. He has been living on his own in a youth hostel, not only going to school from 8am to 5pm and studying, but he has also been working to raise money for schools fees, for food and a place to stay. This is no normal student. This is a boy, who for 8 years, has been his own parents.

Here is what he said that changed my life: (and I quote)

"I sometime do not eat. That way I can have money for school fees. That is it."

This blew me away. I started thinking to myself, "Would I do the same thing?" and the answer is I don't think I would. I have taken my education for granted and to hear this from someone so committed to their education.

I also saw his relationships with his teachers and the headmaster of the school. They were awesome in helping him through whatever he needed help with.

And so my major will be changing when I get back to school. I would like to be able to share how all this changed my life and be encouraging to students like Robinson. I will be studying secondary education to be a World History or English/Film teacher.

Uganda changed my life. So totally worth it.

Also check out the Invisible Children blog about what Andrew Morgan (the IC Uganda communications officer) had to say about us being there. http://blog.invisiblechildren.com/?p=1589

This is the classroom that I was in with Okello Robinson.

Back from Uganda!

So Uganda was awesome! This post is going to try and sum up the whole week and what we did and what I thought. This is going to be a long one so feel free to take it in parts. I will also be including some sweet pictures of things. Here we go.

So I was given the chance to be the person from the Deep South Team to head to Uganda for a week to get a better understanding of the programs that Invisible Children has there. I am not going to say it was ALL work, because we did have some fun!

This is our trip through Kampala as we headed to Gulu.



We toured through Owino Market in Kampala, which was an experience in itself. There were all sorts of people grabbing from the left and right telling you to come and check out their wares. We went on a game drive through one of the national parks in Uganda. Yes we really got this close to a giraffe! We rode on a boat on the Nile to see Murchison Falls, the most powerful waterfall in the entire world.



This waterfall channels the Nile, which is 49 meters wide at the top into a 6 meter gap. It is truly amazing.



This is me and one of my friends from the California-Pacific Team on the boat ride:



I will write about the programs and work events that we learned about big time! (Should be up in the next couple of days.)

Travis

Winding down or Winding up?

The time has come. Today is my last day at the office. We have been booking screenings for the past 3 weeks and it is amazing to see how many people we are going to be sharing the story with. Last night we hit the 1000 mark! 1000 screenings of the Invisible Children film. The estimated count will be almost 300,000 people. 15 teams, 60 people, talking to 300,000. Freaking sweet!

But today is the last day that we are really going to be working on getting those screenings set. Next week is a lot of getting merchandise ready, packed in boxes, cleaning the house, accounting training, van repair, van maintenance training, and oh, TRAVIS IS GOING TO UGANDA! I leave early tomorrow morning to fly out to Kampala, Uganda with 11 other folks to tour the area that Invisible Children is running its programs. We will be there for 10 days.

I am getting really excited! I don't really know what to expect but I know I am going to have a blast! Who else get's to go to Uganda then be a Roadie? I can't wait.

I will not be able to access the internet as I will not have my computer, so it will be a while before I am able to post again.

I will make sure to take tons of photos and videos!

Here is a picture to make you laugh. This is my teammate Sean, getting work done!