Monday was Patience’s birthday, and she was very happy to enjoy the time, here is a photo of her enjoying the celebration:
The rest of the time was spent organising with the landlord of our current location, some extensions and upgrades of our current location for Akanyijuka, trying to organise some space to house another Matron and family of eight children. So hopefully soon he will have completed that so we can possibly look at getting some more children in the future.
Firstly let me say sorry for the delayed post. We had a run of periods without power, internet as well as being away for one week. So I am trying to get things together to summarise our activities. Let me start with Saturday 23rd and Sunday 24th February. Let me title this section:
“THE WEDDING DRIVERS”
Saturday we headed off to Kabwohe to attend the wedding of Prossy and Aggrey and to see Erica dressed up as Head Matron. See the Siddans’ blog for a run down of Erica’s experiences there, some very nice photos also! We were heading for a nice relaxing time to attend the wedding, or so we thought! We drove there and found the town and the accommodation, despite it having no advertising to say that it was the place. Then we went to try and find where we were supposed to go, when we found out that we would take some of the bridesmaids to the church, at this stage we thought we would have to take a few of them. It was a little later on that we realised however that we had actually become the wedding car to drive all the bridesmaids and we had to take the old Delica beast in to get transformed into a wedding limo, complete with ribbons and bows. Unfortunately we did not get a photo of the beast in its finest moment, but you can imagine a dusty 1995 Delica with pink ribbon and bows, very nice indeed. I was concerned about the dust we had picked up on the 2 hour drive from Kabale that morning, but it soon became evident that this was not a problem.
Ok it is now almost 1 pm and we are finally heading to pick up the bridesmaids for a 12 pm wedding. Quinton and Amelia in the back and Kathryn and I in the front, expecting to pick up Benalita, one of the Matrons from Akanyijuka who had come to represent the staff of Akanyijuka, and two, maybe three bridesmaids to go for a short trip to the church. This was all very bad expectations on my behalf, I should have known better by now. We arrived at the hairdressers and there were five bridesmaids, two flower girls, Prossy’s brother and suitcases on top of bringing Benalita also. This caused for some major reshuffling of positions. At first we thought we would not fit them all in, but Quinton took on the driving, I crammed in the front passenger seat with Kathryn, and somehow nine others managed to squeeze into five seats, for what turned out to be over half an hour’s drive to some remote village over some rather bumpy and dusty roads. I soon learnt that it did not matter that our car was dusty before the decorations were put on as it was definitely dusty after that trip.
We finally arrived thinking that we were holding things up, but then had to wait for another three quarters of an hour while the pastor conducted the pre-marriage counselling, not sure what would have happened if he did not think they were suitable for marriage. I also began to wonder when the best man was running around looking for a bible. After what seemed like forever we all went into the church and then the bride came to the door, but had to wait while, in typical African style, people ran around trying to get some mats laid out on the floor for the bride to walk in on, something you would think they would prepare in advance perhaps? The wedding ceremony was all in the local language so we did not know what was going on most of the time, but it was good for us because it was short. What did strike me as odd was that there seemed like there was hardly anybody there at all.
Then we set out to Aggrey’s parents place for the reception, which turned out to be a trip to get us even more lost in the remoteness of outback Uganda. When we were not far off, the Bride & Groom’s car stopped as it was overheating, no one seems worried about little things like checking water in the radiator before driving people around on their wedding day, and no one seems fazed by the interruptions in the least. When we arrived at the reception we found out that this is where all the people were waiting, if they have to choose between the two locations, I suppose the one with the food is the place to go. I thought we would quickly go in to eat with all the guests, but they had already eaten and it was our turn to go off by ourselves and eat. Then when the reception was meant to finish, we went in and began all the usual formalities, where I had to give a speech on behalf of Akanyijuka. Generally good times, interspersed with lots of waiting.
When we finished it was dark and had no idea how to get back to our accommodation. Fortunately for us someone offered to drive in front of us to show us the way, which turned out to be like a rally race to try and keep up. We had Benalita stay with us over night so that we can get away early, as we wanted to drive to Mbarara to have breakfast at a place there that we know would be good. Which when we got there in the morning, Benalita was very shy about coming in, but we convinced her and got her to have something nice. Which the Matrons all laughed about when she was telling about her time away with us. So that was the end of our first weekend at an African wedding, long and tiring, but not too bad.
This week has been relatively easy going for me. School setting up has slowed down and things are starting to run normally now, though there was a little bit of running around organising this or that. The teachers have all set into the normal routine that schools usually have. I managed to visit the drop-in a couple of times, and on Wednesday it was great to hear that one boy was not coming anymore as he had started school that day, it is sad that I will not see him much anymore, but it’s great that he is where he should be. Another boy was being taken to sort out enrolment and a uniform after the morning was over. It’s great to see a difference being made in these boys’ lives, the ones that are still there have a much better hope and outlook on what possibilities may lay ahead.
The biggest highlight for me of the week though was the children at Akanyijuka getting uniforms. Here are a few photos:
The whole school:
P1, Teacher Roger’s class:
Upper Nursery, Teacher Ruth’s class:
Lower Nursery, Teacher Kathryn’s class:
The other news this week is that we are seriously looking into purchasing a block of land to help us expand beyond where we are now. Hopefully there will be more news on this in the future. This weekend we are all off to Prossy’s wedding about 2 ½ hours drive away. Benalita, one of our Matrons is coming with us to represent Akanyijuka, it will make for an interesting trip for her as she does not speak English well at all, probably as well as we speak Rukiga.
We had a slower day today so I took the opportunity of trying to fix up the washing lines at Akanyijuka and to view a plot of land that Quinton and Pastor Edward had seen, Pastor Edward was very keen for me to see it also. It looks very promising, big enough for us to get a good start with room for expansion and electricity, water and good access. Mind you it also has a good view. We have decided that it is by far the best block we have come across after extensive looking, we have been looking since not long after arriving, so we are going to go into negotiations, to see if we can get it for cheaper than we have been told and possibly then purchase our first piece of Akanyijuka land.
Saturday we finally had a relaxing day, we headed to Lake Bunyonyi for lunch with Pastor Edward, Peace and Favour. It was a great chance to relax and talk, not thinking about or doing anything serious. Other good news was that we had some more close friends from back home offer to support some of the boys from the drop-in centre to go to school. So far we have acquired support for 5 boys and this support should help another 3 or 4, depending on where they go to school and other support that may be needed.
Sunday we went to Pastor Jackson’s church and got to see his new baby boy. Then we went out for lunch with them. Around three o’clock I rang a contact from America I had made over the internet. They were coming from America to be in Kabale for around two weeks, and for some reason we did not get contacts exchanged properly, but yesterday we noticed them while we were at the lake and arranged for them to visit this afternoon. They are involved with another school just down the road from us, and were interested in seeing our work also.
When they arrived at Akanyijuka all the children were having an afternoon rest/sleep. Which was good, as we had time to show them around without the distractions. All the children all woke up before they left to receive their American lolly pops and to sing a couple of songs and do a couple of dances for the visitors. The American visitors were also kind enough to leave a small donation, which will go towards making some playground equipment, which I will post for them to view after it is finished.
Today was another busy day, Pastor Frank, Quinton and I headed to a remote village on the border of Rwanda called Kavu. When I say right on the border, I mean literally; half was in Uganda and the other half was in Rwanda. We actually drove into Rwanda to turn around and come back. The road was a good test for our 4WD and some of the edges were straight down, Quinton commented there would be no rolling involved if we fell off; straight off the side till you hit the bottom. The village was set in some of the most beautiful scenery we had seen, though most places you go to off the main road are like that around this part of the world. At one time Pastor Frank commented that some people would only get into Kabale town (30 km away) once every ten years or so, and that there would be some who would have never been there. With a place as beautiful as this you can understand why.
We had travelled this way so that we could visit a lady from one of Pastor Frank’s branch churches about a boy that might be a candidate for Akanyijuka. Unfortunately it turned out that he did not meet the criteria, but the trip was worth it to see the beauty, countryside and people. Isaac, the boy we went to see, was actually in a situation of need and we would be able to give him a much better life than he is destined for. Which is what makes being here all the more difficult, there are so many people in need that even some who could greatly benefit from our help are actually a lot better off in life then the ones we actually do help.
On our return to town we picked up the uniforms and sweaters for the school, quickly ducked home to label the uniforms to make it to Akanyijuka by 3:30pm to celebrate Elisabeth’s birthday. She was turning 8 years old this year and was, as usual shy about having everyone sing and all the attention involved. This however did not hinder her from polishing off the remaining pieces of cake, about a quarter of it after everyone had eaten some. Here are a couple of photos of the celebration. 
After this we headed back out to the school rooms to present the children with their uniforms. They were all so excited to receive them, and even the teachers had trouble having some of them sit quietly to give them out. Here is a photo of them all after receiving their uniforms. I will post class photos next week some time.
Teacher Rogers had told them all to take their uniforms to the matrons and then come back for classes, most went home and hastily tried putting on their uniforms.
Thursday, I thought, was meant to be a relaxing day, I had said that I will do nothing at all. Quinton and I headed out to take Isaac for a short visit to the doctors and to buy a few groceries to prepare dinner as the Wards were coming over tonight. It ended that Quinton was at the doctors for ages, and I ended up running around town with Rogers in search of the Health Inspector to try and sort out a few issues with him. By the way I did not manage to catch up with him at all, though Rogers did later on. Quinton and I then went around with Pastor Edward and a local property broker searching for land. We actually found some reasonable plots, with one in particular being especially interesting. We do not know however how much they are asking, but there are a few things going on with several plots that may lead to us purchasing soon.
We finally made it back home around 2:30 pm, just in time for the girls to go to the ladies fellowship at Akanyijuka. Quinton then gave me a hand preparing dinner for tonight, and when the time came we as usual had a good time with the Wards. Both they and we are busy lately so there was much to talk about and keep the night going.
Friday was actually a bit slower, we have power and I had time in the morning to catch up on some emails and stuff, before heading to the drop-in centre for the first time in ages. It was great to see the boys and their excitement of all wearing some clothes that Phil had left behind for them. I organised for the car to be serviced and washed today, it always looks like someone else’s car after a wash, even if it is only for a day or two. I managed to do the Akanyijuka shopping also on foot while that was happening, never realised how heavy vegetables could be. While I was out in the afternoon Edward also came and took Quinton out to see a plot of land that he saw. It sounds like both of them are sold on it, the best of everything so far and with a more than reasonable price, it definitely sounds good.
As I sit down to type this blog all I can think of is what a fortnight it’s been, mostly physically and emotionally draining. Firstly I need to apologise for the lack of posts, this is due to what seems like non-stop activity and the lack of electricity when I did actually get motivated to write something. Electricity has been the worst it has been in the whole time we have been here, I think in the last two weeks it’s been off more than on, and then last Sunday afternoon our street alone lost power for two days straight; which made it bad to look out at night time especially and see the rest of the town with power in the comfort of the complete darkness that envelopes our house. Because of electricity problems and the water supplier’s indifference to using the generators they have to pump water up the hill we also ran out of water twice.
Rather than give you a blow by blow description I thought I would just summarise what we have done in these two weeks. Firstly we had recently said goodbye to Phil, who has returned to Australia. It has been a big blow for the whole team and we all miss him tremendously. With his departure Quinton was in Kampala for a long time, having a blast it sounded like with Immigration, Customs and general Kampala – Kabale chaos that comes with any trip to Kampala. With both Phil and Quinton out of town I really learnt to appreciate the team that we came with. It was an extremely busy time and the whole two weeks has felt like we have been running around doing lots of things while, as it usually seems in Africa, not feeling like much is getting done. That being said we did actually do a bit.
The second big event for the fortnight was the arrival of the Roberts from Australia. They are from our church and have also come to Kabale to work with local churches here, but are not here specifically for working with Akanyijuka, though they will likely become part of the Akanyijuka team with being around and closely tied to the team. They stayed with us for about a week as we worked with them to set up the final touches to their house, and running around getting all that they needed to live. From soap to furniture; from a gas cooker to a night guard. It was great to have visitors and add a different feel to the house, though they could have picked a better time to arrive, no power and running out of water twice in the first week they were here! Their arrival also helped distract us from the fact that Phil had left, but I am starting to think more about the loss now that the pace is slowing a little.
Early on in the fortnight we were trying our best to get our heads around what it means to have two children that are HIV positive. What it means for us, the matrons, the other children and the two children themselves. One already knew they had it and had been on medication, but we discovered the processes of caring for and getting treatment etc for a HIV person.
Also we now have formally started Primary 1 school on top of the two Nursery classes that we have. This in itself is still causing us to run around a lot and has one major draw back for me. The new P1 teacher, who is the headmaster, is fantastic and has helped structure the classes better, which is great, but it makes it harder to just pop in and play with the children. Most of the times when we visit now the children are in class and although we can distract them for a bit, one feels that they should be left. Once all this running around finishes we will have to find something else to do. It is good though as our plans are to hopefully acquire some land to start building a purpose built facility, and this means we will be able to throw energies into that.
Starting P1 caused a hive of activity, trying to figure out when and how a new curriculum was being introduced. Then which books were required and recommended by the government and if it was at all possible to get them. What is actually meant to happen depends on who you talk too. We have however started on a track which we believe will be in line with what is required and will give the children the best. Then we had more furniture and supplies to track down etc etc.
Prossy is getting married at the end of February and we knew that she would be away for two months, but one Thursday she told us that she thinks that she should finish earlier as she knew she would not do her job properly and had lots of things to do. This was fair enough, but she told us that the following Monday she would be unavailable. So we had to rush about getting a replacement for her. It has been a blessing for us though as there is a lady called Ruth, the wife of one of the Pastors of VCCS. She runs a Nursery School of her own but does not teach there, and we were able to get her to fill in for Prossy. She will be a great asset and together with Rogers they will more than make up for our inexperience in running a school. Already they are getting us doing this and that.
We also ordered official uniforms and jumpers for all the children this year. It will be great to see them all dressed up. I will take photos and post them after they have been finished, hopefully tomorrow.
In the midst of this we had the usual things that one has to deal with when in Uganda. We borrowed a friend’s car while Quinton was away and the second day we had it the front left wheel fell of while we were driving. That in itself was not too bad, what was bad was that it was in the main street right outside the markets; probably the worst place one could decide to park their car. The car could not be pushed aside and the tow truck ended up being about four hours away. We still had things to run around town and do so we left someone with the car so the police did not tow it away. It was a funny experience coming past it every now and then. Today was shopping day for Akanyijuka and as I was taking Prossy around the town getting the usual mass quantities of food the tow truck arrives and wants me there straight away.
We have also had the landlord for our house continually hassling us about if we want to stay on after our lease runs out. I had told him we were not happy about a lot of things that had gone wrong and we had to fix ourselves, as well as a long list of things that were meant to be fixed or done before we moved in. For example the tap outside started leaking quite badly and we could not find a washer to replace it in all of Kabale. Quinton was fortunate enough to find one while in a shop with the Roberts in Kampala, so we thought we had fixed that problem, but then the thread on the tap broke so we ended up having to replace the whole thing. I have meant to do a list up for him and email it, but with the power problems I haven’t, but this has not stopped him from calling just about every day. Lucky for the Roberts most things were actually sorted before they came.
We have also been trying to find another boy to fill the last position that we have. It seems that all the ones we have seen this week are not quite right for some reason, but tomorrow we are travelling 30 kms out of town with Pastor Frank to see a boy he had told us about a while ago.
One day we hosted a welcome party for the Roberts, Kathryn was lucky she was at work that day. Erica and I were practically in the kitchen all day, but it was great to have the house full, or overfull, with members of VCCS. But Kathryn did make a chocolate cake as a contribution.
I have not managed to get to the drop-in at all during this time, but with the help of a couple of friends from back home and Erica’s family that were here recently, we have secured funds for 5 boys from the drop-in to go to school. There is a possibility that more may be interested also. We have put one of them into Akanyijuka school, he is of P1 level and has actually been taken in by one of the Pastors from Edward’s church.
Sorry if there is not too much structure or detail but it’s been a crazy time and I’ve forgotten most of what has happened, my diary filled but I cannot make much out of what I had written it just seems like a mess.
