Thursday 29th May 2008

Thanks to Peter MacLenaghan and his year seven class in Brisbane, I was able to inform the Wards that there is money coming for the sponsorship of another street boy from the drop-in to go to school.  Just talking with Pam and Eddie and it seems that they are hoping for one more boy on top of this to go to school, then all that can go will be going.  The plan at the moment is that after this has happened then they will look into trying to get a hostel/home up and running for the remaining boys that have absolutely nowhere that they can go.  Once adequately housed and looked after then arrangements can try to be made for them to go to school also. 

I went with Pastor Shaban to look at a few cases that had been brought to us for looking into in regards to new children for Akanyijuka.  It was not a big trip as both were not too far away, but at the moment we are not sure if the children we saw are suitable. 

I also was looking into prices for roofing sheets, last year they were 10,000 shillings, but the cheapest I could find them for this time was 18,000 shillings.  This is just an indication of how things here have gone up in price.  About the only things that don’t seem to go up is locally grown fruit and vegetables.  Anything that comes from somewhere else is increasing in proportion to rising fuel prices, and being at the end of the road in Uganda does not help either.

Wednesday 28th May 2008

Today was meant to be busy but ended up being a quiet day without much on for me. Kathryn was teaching at Akanyijuka and I was supposed to go with Pastor Shaban to look at some children to consider them for our next intake. Shaban was still trying to find out details as to where they all are so we put it off until tomorrow, so I hung around the drop-in until it finished. It is good to be there a bit more these days, to know what is going on and stuff.

In the afternoon I just had to pick Kathryn up and I had a chance to hang out with the P1 class as they were outside playing for a bit.  As we were driving away I thought to myself that it is strange; I cannot even communicate properly with the children, I’ve known some of them for almost one year, and they are not related to me at all (obvious that one), but for some reason I really do love these kids.  I can’t imagine leaving them, I hope I never do.  These are just a few shots I took today, that show why I feel this way:

Tuesday 27th May 2008

Today was a fairly quiet day.  The morning consisted of me welcoming our new matron, Sylivia into Akanyijuka and sorting the necessary papers.  Then we had a few errands to run.  In the afternoon, Lawrence came up for a drum lesson with David and this is where the quiet day became not so quiet.  So, a good quiet day and this is why this post is not so exciting for you all to read.  Ah there’s always tomorrow!

Hope this photo of our newest matron will make up for the lack of information for today:

Monday 26th May 2008

A day of beginnings! Today Akanyijuka started back at school; it is second term of the year:

 

A new day for Promise.  Last year she was living in Kabale and completed her last year of Primary school, but this year she started Secondary school in her home village and things were very undesirable; as far as quality education goes.  When it was heard about by someone from Australia, they said they would pay for her to go to boarding school here in Kabale for the rest of the year.  Here she is, arriving at the boarding school: 

A new day for Akanyijuka mums, as it was the arrival of Sylivia, our new matron.  We will go down and sort out paper work and things tomorrow.  I spent the afternoon chasing up furniture and mattresses etc. for her so she didn’t have to sleep on the floor.  The bed was to be delivered this morning, but of course they had to delay, as is the proper thing to do here in Kabale, until I happened to catch the owner in town and chased him up.

Saturday 24th & Sunday 25th May 2008

This weekend was pretty easy going.  We had the Wards over for dinner on Saturday night, the only problem was that the dish we made had a little too much pepper in it for Sam to enjoy it.  He did seem to enjoy digging into the caramel tart that Kathryn had made though.  Sunday we just went to church and that was about it.  We managed to get this photo of the Akanyijuka children and mothers in their Sunday best though:

 

Wednesday 21st – Friday 23rd May 2008

We set out on what was planned to be a nice and easy day, before going to a seminar on Thursday and Friday.  The only major thing we had to do was take Pamellah shopping for Akanyijuka, buying bulk goods that need transportation in a car.  The day quickly changed from easy to crazy starting with being pried out of bed by Pastor Edward’s arrival to go and see some land.  The Local Chairman (LC1) for the area that our current land is, had told Edward that someone nearby was wanting to sell their plot.  We saw the land and Pastor Edward managed to reduce the asking price of 6M UGX to a buying price of 2.5M UGX.  The block is only small, but it was decided that the land would be advantageous for the future so we decided to buy it.  So we got arrangements together for going to the lawyer to write up a contract, though it could not be signed today as the owner’s wife was in Kampala and she needed to sign for the contract to be legal.  The contract was signed on Friday when the owner’s wife arrived from Kampala. 

It had been arranged for an American lady, Linda Ikeda, involved in the seminar, to come to Akanyijuka to talk with the matrons about helping the children to associate with new parents and other counselling topics relating to orphans or adopted children.  Pastor Frank rang this morning while we were at the lawyers to arrange for them to come this afternoon at 2 pm also.  Edward and I have also been trying to arrange for a temporary/cheap structure to be built at our house for housing some chickens in an attempt to get some eggs and chickens for Akanyijuka happening; attempting to reduce running costs a little.  So after we had been at the lawyers we were busy trying to gather the required resources for a cheap, locally designed mud building.  By the time we got home with a supply of poles we had commandered from Henry for a low price, i.e. free, it was about time to head off to pick up Linda Ikeda from her hotel and head to Akanyijuka for her to speak with the matrons.

I was the lucky one who got to attempt to look after 32 children that I have a big problem communicating with, while the others sat in and listened.  It turns out that all things went smoothly, I had brought some printouts with school work on and they were all happy with that, though at one stage they got a bit noisy and Benalita had to come and tell them to be quiet.  Oops!  The talk that the matrons had was really good also, everyone said that the material was all really good, and we were given a lot of photocopies that covered a lot of other issues etc. that will be compiled for future sessions.

By the time we left there it was after 5:30 pm and we still had to take Pamellah shopping, so eventually once we had finished that it was around 6:45 pm and we thought that it would be easier to just go out for dinner, as we had not even gotten the things needed to make dinner, let alone having the desire to do so.  So that was another easy day gone crazy, hopefully not too many more of those.

Thursday and Friday we attended the seminar, which was good.  I managed to get myself utilised as a taxi for a couple of ladies that were doing other things around town.  This was ok though as the other things included counselling and other stuff for the drop-in centre and also again at Akanyijuka on Friday.  On Friday night we headed to Pastor Frank’s place and had a light dinner with the ladies from the seminar, who then left on Saturday.

Tuesday 20th May 2008

It always seems that the days you think you do not have much on, are the ones that end up being big days.  We went to Akanyijuka to settle in the new teacher and to show her around.  Which we did, but on the way we met with Pastor Edward at the drop-in for signing of papers.  While we were there, a couple of Americans involved in a seminar that Pastor Frank is organising for later in the week came for a visit.  As it turns out one lady is a counsellor who deals with adopted children and their parents and part of that involves association counselling.  So Pastor Edward arranged for them to come on Friday to talk with the Matrons about association.  Although the matrons we have are doing a great job in this area, I am sure it will benefit in some way.

After this we arranged for Gilbert, our sole external student, to come and live with Akanyijuka.  His current living conditions have started to become hard and it was decided that it was in his best interests for him to come and be a part of Akanyijuka.  So now we are 32 children.  Here is a photo of Gilbert I took this morning:

 

Monday 19th May 2008

We had the normal run of the day activities sorting out a few little things here and there, but the event of the day comes thanks to the Roberts.  We had afternoon tea to celebrate Phobice’s (Pastor Frank’s wife) graduation of a course she had been doing.  It was a great chance to relax and catch up with all that were there, talking easy without wondering if others comprehend what we are saying.

After this Pastor Edward headed off to organise things for a girl named Promise Rukundo to go to boarding school.  She was a member at Pastor Jackson’s church but had to move back to the village as she could not afford the next year of school in the town, but was going to a village school instead.  There were four subjects that she was meant to be doing but could not because the school did not have teachers for them.  Someone from Australia had sent money for her to go to a boarding school not too far out of town, so she is starting next week, and Pastor Edward was helping by getting last minute things together for her.

 

Sunday 18th May 2008

Birthdays at Akanyijuka are always well received.  Firstly everyone lines up in the birthday person’s dining room:

Then we sing happy birthday:

Then we eat:

Some pretend to not like the cake:

But everyone really does:

It’s always the same, today Samuel made everyone happy by turning seven.  Afterwards Kathryn and I hung around giving the children some very ad-lib revision work to do.  I took a few other snaps while this was happening:

 

Saturday 17th May 2008

New teachers – where are you?  It is not always an easy job finding a good teacher in Kabale, as all the good jobs and money is elsewhere in the country.  Kabale is a big town, but it almost has a village mentality,  this is probably due to there being no big business in the area.  People have to go elsewhere to get a good education and then stay elsewhere as there is nothing for their good education, to be used for in Kabale.  As a result it does not help with finding staff. 

Today however, Kathryn, Rogers and Pastor Edward sat for interviews with what was going to be four but ended up being three prospective teachers.  The fourth is automatically excluded due to not showing for the interview.  I think we have decided on taking a lady called Tumwikirize Judith, things will be sorted out on Monday, after which I will post a picture for you.   After a long day Kathryn did not feel up to tackling my cooking so we went out for dinner to relax.

I on the other hand do not seem to have too much to account for from today’s efforts, but I seemed to be going non-stop anyway.  I did however manage to order new furniture in preparation for a new matron that will be starting soon.  Edward had found a prospective matron at a conference held by one of the Pastors from VCCS and she was interviewed by Pamellah.  It appears that she was good and after meeting her ourselves she was invited to start on Monday week. 

Today’s photo is one of the town as you come into Kabale:

I have also added two new profiles to my photo site, Blessing and Christine; so check them out!

Davesphotos