As I said yesterday the week was going to be busy. We started with dropping off Kathryn and picking up Prossy, as Edward was away we needed her for interpretation. Our first point of call was with a grandmother that was looking after her two grandchildren one of which is currently being sponsored by another organisation, but had come to us for help. We decided to leave the decision of if we would formally apply to the other organisation to take over care of the sponsored child, up to the grandmother, and she decided that she would leave the child to be cared for by the other organisation. We did however decide to take in the child’s sister, as there is obviously still a great need in this family’s lives. We did not like to split the siblings, but the grandmother was more than happy with the situation as she could obviously not sufficiently care for the child, even with the other organisation helping out. Perhaps later she will see the difference and allow the other sibling to come with us also. I believe that the only reason she wanted to keep the sponsored child was because they were building a house for her, and there would be no hope of this happening if the child was not sponsored anymore. We are of a strong opinion that it will not happen anyway.
After this we picked up Harriett Manzi and went to look at another two girls that Quinton had not gotten a chance to visit last week when he went out with Edward and Prossy. After this we went with Harriett and a land brocker to visit three more blocks of land. I would be very surprised if we ended up taking any of the land we had previously seen over one of these three. Two of the blocks are more expensive then most blocks we have previously seen, but they are flat, flat and flat, and of considerable size also. The third however, though not really big enough for what we need, has the most potential (I think) because it is a bit further out of town, has many vacant and also flat land surrounding it that we are going to find out if it is available too.
Then we picked up Kathryn, Erica and Amelia and headed back to headquarters, home that is, for lunch with all the team to discuss the final decisions for tomorrow’s intake of children. We came to the decision that we will take in 7 children, four for each new matron. After observing the way the first matrons handled their children, there is no doubt that the new matrons will be more than fine with four each. We have 4 girls and 3 boys, all except one is under 6 years of age and two who are siblings. I have no pictures to post today, but will try posting some tomorrow.
After this we headed back to Akanyijuka to set up rooms according to the requirements. This invovled, of course, chasing up the furniture place to chase up outstanding furniture that we are still waiting for. It may seem funny that we keep going back to this person as they always let us down on time frames, but he is probably no worse than anyone else around and if we know what to expect we can make allowances for his delays. We have all the essential items, but the other things would be good also. We always have fun putting the beds together, as they are built as double deckers and then cut in half with a piece of steel in the centre to hold them together inside the rooms. This is so we can move them about easily, but the problem is that the holes never line up and are always too small to just slip in, so with our extensive tool collection we use a hammer and screwdriver to widen the holes.
It was good to get home and think about the new children coming in, and to talk about what we will do tomorrow etc. This is what it is all about, getting to see them change over the next few weeks and getting to know them ourselves is a bonus!!!
