Wednesday 25th February 2009

Today I headed down expecting a battle.   The local electrical supply company had connected electricity when we started, but still have not managed to get us onto the system yet so that we start receiving bills.  We had been paying monthly installments so as to prevent an astronomical bill when they get their account together.  Late yesterday, around 6:30 pm they had come to Akanyijuka to disconnect the electricity, but Pamellah had managed to fend them off and they said to show up tomorrow with 600,000/= (Ugandan Shillings) or they will disconnect us.  I arrived to talk about it and things went surprisingly well, they said they will get onto it and we will get a bill in March, and that we will definitely not be disconnected.  It almost seemed too easy, just hope they don’t change their mind or something.

I was going to go and share with the boys at the drop-in this morning but when I got there I was a bit late and someone else was sharing something with them, so I took a few photos anyway.

Henry:

Kaleb:

Patrick:

Alex:

Myumba, aka House:

Here are some of the workers/volunteers, Lawrence:

Shaban:

Patrick:

It was great to see Pam and Kathryn getting in and doing their bit too:

Then in the afternoon after a chicken egg run - we went to collect the eggs from Akanyijuka land and bring them to town for sale, we headed to Akanyijuka for some birthday cake.  Today was Patience’s day and she was happy about it:

Tuesday 24th February 2009

Today we went to Akanyijuka and Kathryn did a performance review with one of the matrons, who was doing a great job, so it was easy for her.  While she was doing that I just sat with the other matrons, who don’t speak English, which made for an interesting time.  At least all the matrons are comfortable with us now and act easy with us around and it was good to just sit and watch what a great job they do.  The light was not the best but here is a shot I tried to get of an African Kitchen, a bit different from those back home:

Then when the school bell rang for mid morning break, what a difference.  It was nice and quiet and then all of a sudden there seemed to be hysteria outside with the children running this way and that, so I took the chance to get out and play with them a bit, missing the days in the beginning when we almost played with them all the time when we visited.  I managed time for a couple of quick photos, little Janette:

And Samuel and Gilbert having fun:

Last week Sultan, one of the local Indian shop keepers, gave me some of their home made yoghurt which I took home and had a go of making.  At first it was very tarty, but since then we have been trying a few different things and have now got some nice vanilla yoghurt and some nice thick Greek style yoghurt happening at home.  So this afternoon we took some up to the Wards and they are having a go also.  Pam’s mother is visiting for a few months and Pam has just booked a ticket to go home when her mother goes.  At the moment she is heading home for a one month visit to catch up with family and friends, should be good for her.

Monday 23rd February 2009

Today was spent mostly chasing information for reports and applications, but we did finally get to visit the Child Probation Officer and greeted her in her office.  She managed to put us off until Thursday, when she said she will call us to let us know if she can come and visit.  It’s a pain because we can get other people to come and visit and they all say have you got this one to come, and she is the one we just can’t get to come and visit.  Here’s hoping for Thursday then.

I put my cooking skills to the test today, to see if I had forgotten while in Australia.  I managed to not cook at all while I was there, thanks Dot it was a nice treat.  I cooked a curry that I used to do when we were here, but I must have halved the spices before as this time I went by the recipe and boy was it hot!!!  Back to my old tricks again.

Last week I had Pamellah take a few pictures with the camera to start to get a bit of experience and this is one she came up with, Kathryn trying to get Favour to look at the camera:

Monday 16th – Sunday 22nd February 2009

Still struggling to get into a good habit of writing up blogs, sorry about that, but I am trying – in many ways I’ve been told.  This week gone we got stuck into a few things, but it is good that the pace in Uganda is slow as it was good to be working but not to be flat out.  We managed to visit both the water and the electricity boards to find the process of applying to get water and power to the site from its nearest location.  We also tried catching up for a review with the local Child Protection Officer, but she put us off until next week.  We sat down for a finance meeting with the VCCS treasurer, who has set up lots of good procedures for VCCS, including, Akanyijuka to operate by, but I am not sure how he will go with doing the book keeping and giving reports, not much happened when we were away.  He did say that he would manage, but we will see, as we are the ones to have to bring it up to date as it needs to be done sooner rather than later.  I got back into doing the shopping with Pamellah this week.

We did have what seemed like one major problem at Akanyijuka with one of the previous guardians wanting to take one of the children back.   But as usual things always seem a lot worse then they end up being and I think both parties ended up happy, with not too much changing at all, just a bit more visiting time back with the previous guardian in school holidays. 

We managed to visit the Drop-in a couple of times and caught up with the boys there that are not at school.  All the boys that went to school last year were sent back to school again, even though there was not commitment for sponsors for all of them, so there was a bit of concern about where the money will come from, but all those that sponsored last year helped out again and all the needed funds to put the 11 boys back into school for a second year has come in.  Now we are looking at trying to get some of the others into a home that can help provide for them by keeping them off the streets and give them the opportunity to go to school also. 

In an attempt to save money on car maintenance and fuel costs I had a lesson this week with Ben Ward on how to ride a motorcycle, or should I say he told me how the gears worked and a few other little things and left me to ride around.  Later in the week I borrowed Edward’s bike, as now the Roberts have left he uses his car a lot more and the bike was just sitting around.  Even in my limited experience with motorcycles I can tell that it leaves a lot to be desired, but it is easier to ride than Frank’s – the one I learnt on.

Our garden patch in the yard is now stocked of seedlings and seeds ready for the wet season, which is just coming on now. Graeme and Lisa left the avocado tree fully stocked and a bed of literally hundreds of carrots which were harvested and given to Akanyijuka.  The good thing about the avocado tree is that although there are loads of ripe avocados, there are also some not far and again there are some baby ones coming on. 

We had the Wards over for dinner one night this week to catch up with them, which was great and also went to Maria’s place for dinner one night.  Maria is a lady who is in Kabale with the U.S. Peace Core.  As usual she dished up a great feast and invited a stack of people, again a few new ones that we previously didn’t know and a couple we did not know to well.  Maria has been here about one year and it is good to see she has really started to fit in with life here, the heater in her bathroom had boiled over and water was spurting onto the bathroom floor and spreading to other rooms.  It was only when power went out that we heard the noise and knew something was happening, but while others were a bit stressed about it, Maria was too concerned with just carrying on with dinner and conversation to worry.  When she finally got up to look at it, she simply said somthing like ‘Ohh, there is a lot of water isn’t there?  It’s a nice foot bath though!’

Saturday afternoon I went to sit outside and read a little when Junior came over and we started to give each other language lessons, mostly counting, though it was interesting as he only knew English up to 10 and I knew no numbers in Rukiga.  But we struggled on and I got up to 100, or how it should go, down on paper and can go over it later when I get a chance.

Saturday 14th & Sunday 15th February 2009

Saturday was spent mostly around the house, Pastor Edward  had asked me to share in church on Sunday so I spent time preparing for that.  Sunday, in the afternoon, we took the chance to go and see the children and give out a few gifts that people had given us to pass on.  For the girls there was bracelets and for the boys a little Lego box project each.  Everyone was happy with their presents and we spent hours helping with all the Lego projects, it was even a learning experience for the Matrons as they attempted to help out also.  Here are some photos:

Some of them enjoying the presents:

Some having fun:

 

Some general shots:

 

And some ‘one’ trying to be in all the photos:

Friday 13th February 2009

It is good to be back and to be having birthdays at Akanyijuka again, and I think they have missed Kathryn’s cakes also.  Today was Elisabeth’s birthday and we also celebrated Susan’s birthday, which was actually earlier in the month. 

Here is Elisabeth:

And Susan:

 

And some general shots from the day:

Monday 9th – Thursday 12th Feb 2009 part 2

During this time we also managed to visit the matrons for a personal visit to give them gifts from Australia.  It was great to see how a few things can give so much joy even to the adults here.  We gave them little gifts from Kathryn’s parents and also some necklaces and they even got the mirror out to check themselves out in the mirror.

Here they all are showing off their gifts:

Last Sunday when we first came to visit we had left some photo albums with 4 photos of each child from different stages, and the matrons said that it was great because it showed them how far we have come in the 18 months since we first started. 

I am also putting in a photo of Andrew; I caught him pulling his usual funny face:

Monday 9th – Thursday 12th Feb 2009 part 1

This week was spent mostly getting things organised at the house and spending time to get our heads around how things are going.  Hopefully next week we will be ready to get in and get busy again.  We managed to visit a lot of old friends and also to see all the staff and volunteers.  On Tuesday we went to visit the land at Bubale (the land we purchased before leaving and was cleared while we were away).  It actually looks really good and is ready to go.  It makes us excited about getting in and building.  Here are a couple of snaps of the land, the first one is where we will build the homes:

These two are where we are going to put the school, though they do not show the land as well as being here, I am standing in the bottom corner for these shots:

 

The chickens are doing ok, not as well as Edward had hoped, all the brailers have been sold, except for two (one which will end up on our dinner plate and the other at Edward’s place).  It seems that there is not a big enough market in Kabale to run with them at the moment, unless of course we could get a deep freezer to store them when they reach the right size.  The problem we have is that when they get to the right size we can’t seem to find a buyer and they keep eating away at the profits until someone eventually needs them.  If we had a deep freezer we could slaughter and freeze them without losing out.  We still have all our layers though and they are now starting to lay, at the moment only around 30 or 40 a day, but this number will increase in time.  Edward has been trying to brood some of the layer chicks but this is not as easy as the brailers especially when they are not nearby.

Here are our layers:

The young ones being brooded:

And the re-modelled house:

Here is a photo of the man behind it all – Pastor Edward, looking like he is trying to look busy:

Sunday 8th Feb 2009 – The Day We Had Been Waiting For

We started the day with moving our stored things into our new house (that is the Roberts old house) and started to set up things.  Then in the afternoon we decided we should head to Akanyijuka to see the children.  Apparently everyone in church was distracted all morning as they knew we were in town so they thought we might be at church.  Then in the afternoon Pastor Edward was at Akanyijuka and everyone there was getting cross at him because we had not come to visit yet, as they were about ready to tie him up we arrived and all chaos broke loose.

We could hardly get out of the car properly before we were swamped with a sea of happy children, it was the greatest experience ever to have so many children love and appreciate you so much.  Even ones that previously were not too affectionate where ecstatic to see us, showing emotion like we hadn’t seen previously from them.  Finally when things started to settle a little I received the biggest hug I had had for a long time from Pamellah, who near lifted me off the ground in excitement.  As we moved inside Kathryn had tears in her eyes over the experience.

I had spoken to someone in town and they were saying that it is great to see children so happy at Akanyijuka, that it was a rare thing for Uganda.  I think they are right, but I would dare say it is rare to see children so happy anywhere.  Sorry I did not take my camera as I knew that we would just want to enjoy the moment so you will have to wait for some photos.

Friday 6th & Saturday 7th Feb 2009

We had a few simple tasks set for Friday and then on Saturday we were to drive to Kabale from Kampala so Edward could be ready to share on Sunday.  We had to go to immigration and get my work visa sorted, get a few things from the shops and then a few things done on the car in the afternoon.  Sounds simple, well it started out good, we got to immigration and my application from 4 months ago had been processed but required an updated NGO certificate as VCCS was in the process of renewing their NGO status.  The NGO will not be processed until next month, so we did all we could there and after about half an hour (possibly my briefest visit ever) we set to tackle the next item on the list.  Of course shopping was easy and we even had time for a nice lunch and coffee.

On to step three, this is where the problems began.  It’s funny how some people have the knack of getting you really upset and wanting to tear strips off them, but when you see them they seem to make you happy with them anyhow.  This is the type of character we had to deal with.  The mechanic we went to is actually a really good mechanic, except he doesn’t seem to know we wanted to get the job done quickly, even if we tell him.  We had the fuel filter replaced as water was in the fuel and the filter was giving an alarm, causing the car to run really slowly.  This happened really quickly and well, then we had to have the steering pump replaced as it was gone.  This is where our problems began.  It was now around three in the afternoon and the mechanic had to go and pick his daughter and would be back in one hour, so he sent us off and we came back at four and to our surprise he was actually there, the only problem was that he had not yet left and was now going.  This meant that we would have to come back in the morning for an early start.  The mechanic said he would be in at 9 am in the morning and the job would not take long at all.

He was right about the job not taking too long, just he had a few call outs in the morning and did not arrive until around 11:30 am.  Finally we hit the road around 1.30 pm after getting back to the hotel and loading the van.  The trip down was good, but the roads are as usual.  Infested with pot holes and other vehicles with dangerous drivers.  It was great to arrive in Kabale and we ended up staying the night with the Wards, and had a late dinner there, I say late as we did not arrive until around 9:30 pm.