Monday 28th January 2008

Today was the start of a week that was flat out trying to accomplish a page full of tasks each day, while managing to only get a few things done.  Though mind you, all in all, things did go well and it was a good week.  The day started with seeing off the Thompson’s early and then heading out to see what I could accomplish.  Luckily, or not so luckily as you will see later in the week, Edward was travelling with them to Kampala to meet up with the Roberts and also to take care of some other business.  He had recently acquired an old Nissan Dual Cab ute from a friend that left the country and he left it with us to use.  So Kathryn and I headed out to try our luck with a big list of things to do.

First stop was Akanyijuka, the landlord had met with us last week to discuss some things he wanted to do.  Usually things do not go too well when we talk, he always wants to do things and we don’t want him to; or he wants more money we don’t want to give, etc.   The meeting today actually turned out ok, that’s assuming he carries through with what he said.  There are some people using some extra building at the front of the property and they are moving out.  To cut a long story short we may end up with an extra two rooms to use as wash rooms, and an extra area to house another Matron and family, all at a reasonable cost; which is not what I was expecting at all.

While we were there we discussed extensively with Rogers, our new teacher about a lot of different issues regarding school starting next week.  It is very good to have him on the team, he is very proactive and has already started teaching the children in the times he has free from organising for next week, and he really seems to love teaching and will be great for the children.  Then we went off looking for text books that we will need for Primary 1, but we had no luck at all.  We passed on a message for Quinton to go hunting around Kampala for them.  Unfortunately, in typical Ugandan fashion, even the publisher was out of stock in Kampala.  So we have to scout around a bit for spare copies from other schools until they have some new supplies.

On top of that we ran around doing other day to day requirements as well as organising the final preparations for when the Roberts come later this week.  We took Charles and Fred, our gardener and night guard down to do a final run over their yard and also arranging a little inside work also.