Uganda: One Sunday in Africa

I had to go to the toilet in the middle of the night. As I got out of bed, my foot got caught in the bottom of the mosquito net. I ended up wrestling with the net and in the end it won convincingly.

From Uganda 2012

We began our Sunday by traversing south for three hours - once again in beautiful Uganda. It is so easy to see that Kipling called this incredible country the “Pearl of Africa.” The vistas of the mountains and cloud formations will remain in my head for a long time and I will visit them when I need a passive moment.

Our distribution site, in the district of Busia was quickly arranged to suit our needs to efficiently deliver the bedkits to the precious children. A couple of Inner Wheel ladies had arrived earlier and organized the location. Basically-another smooth operation.

Our drive back to the hotel was highlighted by four baboons by the roadside. Needless to say it was a little bit different than the Gardiner Expressway!

Tonight as I go to sleep I will long to hear the little voices bid thank you for the bedkit and to tell me they are fine. I will sleep better knowing they are also sleeping better.

Karen
for Team Uganda 2012

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Uganda: Bunangaka Distribution in Manafa District

From Uganda 2012

Today marks our half-way through with 3,000 more bedkits to give.

We witnessed another successful distribution. What a wonderful day it has been with all the smiling faces and cheering from the parents. Manafa is Bantu-speaking and uses the Lugeso language, a language so different from the other areas where we have done distributions.

We had an overview of the country-side which gave us the better view of Mount Olgen Mountain. We are staying at a hotel where we only have the side-view of the mountain. The road was meandering and had some hills, with the road becoming narrower allowing only one car at a time, as we approached the distribution. The children could not contain their happiness.

Being a weekend, a number of people came to witness the distribution and there was very good crowd control which resulted in a smooth flow of the distribution — allaying our fears. The people in Manafa are just wonderful and the kids were all smiles with some kneeling showing their respect when receiving the bedkit. It was very touching but we know for sure that today the children will have sweet dreams.

Thanks to the Canadians donors for making a difference in the children’s life and that of the parents.

Elizabeth Mukondiwa
for Team Uganda 2012

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Uganda: SCAW Ladies read this

From Uganda 2012

Want to be sleek and sophisticated, look good for three to six months?

Then, get your hair braided or knitted! The ladies of the Inner Wheel of Kampala look good at 6 A.M. and 6 P.M., after a long, hot, dusty distribution day.

To have your hair braided or knitted is a long process taking one to three hours, according to how thick you would like to have the braids.

Knitted hair has to have a synthetic material incorporated into it.

To keep your hair looking good, use shampoo and conditioner as usual, with oil or cream in between the braids to keep the scalp moisturized. Repairs can be made to the braids as the hair grows.

This hairdo may be a bit tight for the first few days, but a warm damp cloth will help minimize the pain – but hey, it’s worth it!

Jill
for Team Uganda 2012

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Uganda: On the Nile thousands of kilometres from Egypt

From Uganda 2012

We started the day from the community of Kamuli in the eastern plain of Uganda. While our bus was being repaired, we took the opportunity to visit a nearby private primary school. In Uganda, all schools, public or private, require the students to wear school uniforms. All children are required to go to primary school, but considerably fewer go to secondary school and far fewer get to college or university. The forty students in the classroom that we visited, attend school from 8:30 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. with meals provided. We have been extremely impressed with the emphasis on education in Uganda.

We then drove for several hours through the verdant plain we had experienced yesterday. There were some differences today. Along the paved roads we could see teams of oxen pulling plows, larger fields and larger houses. Once we left the highway, farming was again done by hand (primarily by women and some children) and many of the houses had thatched roofs. But today many of the roofs were thatched with papyrus.

The source of the Nile is a river that enters Lake Victoria at the city of Jinja. Our travels today took us through that river valley. It moved us to realize that there were so many fields of the papyrus that the ancient Egyptians had used to make paper, and yet we were in Uganda thousands of miles from Egypt.

At the end of our drive we again found hundreds of smiling students, parents, teachers, and volunteers patiently awaiting our arrival. In this case, the distribution was in a public primary school and we felt that the teachers were just as excited as were the students. We were thrilled to listen to 500 happy children presenting their joyous songs to us and to Canada.

We do our very best to explain to everyone, that everything we do, especially the photographs, is to ensure that, as you intended, your gifts are reaching truly deserving children.

Tonight we settle in to the city of Mbali which will be our base of operations for the next three days.

Peter Adams and Bob Conway
for Team Uganda 2012

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Uganda: Our first rural days

From Uganda 2012

We travelled for several hours, in a bus packed with SCAW volunteers, Inner Wheel women (our Overseas Partners) and all the paraphenalia for more than a week of bedkit distributions. We left the congested streets of Kampala and emerged into a wonderful, luxuriant, green, countryside. Uganda is a wonderland of plant life, a glory of colourful and useful fruits, vegetables and flowers. For most of us, this was our first experience of rural Uganda. It has to be one of the food baskets of Africa.

We arrived at our first distribution site and were greeted by 500 colourfully-dressed, smiling children, chanting and dancing a warm welcome. It is difficult for us to express the emotional effect that this had on us all. Some of these children had walked long distances and waited many hours for us to arrive.

We visited three different villages like this in the Kamuli district. We personally handed your bedkits to 1500 individual children. It is impossible for us to describe our emotions as we gave out your gifts to these children. It made us realize just how fortunate we are to be able to so this on your behalf.

The smaller children in particular, often have only a hazy idea of what is going on until they actually receive a bedkit. They get dressed in SCAW clothing, wait, have their photos taken and then arrive at the distribution site where they receive this wondrous gift. Depending on their personalities, some children are wild with emotion while others are made shy by the great occasion. Many say “Thank you very much,” but all, through their eyes, body language and, above all, their smiles, are able to express their gratitude.

These days in Kamuli have made us even more excited about SCAW work in Uganda and we look forward with increased anticipation to working here.

Our team wants to thank the ladies of the Inner Wheel of Kampala, all the regional volunteers who help them, and the teachers and others who prepare each distribution site. We especially thanks all those in Canada, and elsewhere, who support SCAW and make this great work possible.

Peter Adams and Bob Conway
for Team Uganda 2012

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Uganda: Workshop/factory Checks

From Uganda 2012

On this distribution, we were lucky enough to be able to visit places where the bedkit items were made, before beginning the distributions. We have never been able to do this before. The great advantage of this is that in addition to checking on the local procedures for choosing the sources of items selected for the bedkit, all the team gets to appreciate the economic impact of SCAW purchases and the extraordinary effort that goes into purchasing them. The economy of each country that SCAW visits is different so that the purchasing procedures and the manufacturing systems are very different from one country to another. This is one important reason for the variety of bedkits that SCAW supporters see in their photos.

Here in Uganda, although we distribute bedkits widely across the country, most bedkits items are made in the capital, Kampala, or in the countryside around it.

Our first visit today was to the place where this year’s boys’ clothing was made. This was a small home-like operation with fewer than ten workers where young people, men and women, worked at sewing machines making clothes. One of the workers told us that he learned his trade at school. He said that he enjoyed the work as they got to make a variety of garments. He offered to make Peter a suit! One of the women told us that she could make ten of the garments she was working on, in a day.

The owner of this little factory was a woman entrepreneur very like the members of the Inner Wheel who, for many years, have been SCAW’s wonderful partners in Uganda.

Our other visits today were to small, Chinese-owned, factories managed by Ugandans or Chinese, located in rural areas. One, with 500 workers, mainly women, had won the order for our bedkit bed sheets. This was an open, airy, building with around 20 Chinese staff onsite. The second was a much smaller operation where this year’s mattresses were made using a foam, based on local materials. This plant had allowed the Inner Wheel volunteers to assemble and store all 6,000 bedkits onsite. This was an important contribution to this year’s SCAW operation as safe, clean, storage and an assembly site for a small mountain of bedkits is a critical part of our enterprise.

Our last visit was to the place where the bedkit flip flops were made. They were produced by a plastic press, using, what appeared to be local materials. This plant was part of a small complex of factories where 85 Chinese work. All those we met had been there for more than a year, one for ten years. The plant was founded 35 years ago.

Did you expect to read about China in this blog?

Jill and Peter
for Team Uganda 2012

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Uganda: The team has arrived

From Uganda 2012

The 2012 Uganda travelling team: (Left to right) Don McCormick, Dave Dryden (Team Leader), Karen MacKay, Bob Conway, Jill Adams, Peter Adams, Elizabeth Mukondiwa.

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Togo: Dagninou

Splish Splash and Going Nowhere Fast!

The heavens opened as we pulled away from home base today and we drove for hours in a moderate to heavy rain. The depth of the pools of water in the clay roads was difficult to gauge, but our driver did a fabulous job of avoiding problems until we plowed into a mystery hole that blew out our tire. It was replaced in record time and we drove into the school not too far behind schedule.

We were greeted by some very energetic children who did not let the rain dampen their enthusiasm. There were drums beating and several women who welcomed us with dance.

We set up for pictures in one of the classrooms because the rain was still coming down as we started the distribution. About 20 minutes later we were able to move outdoors when the weather cleared. For the first time, the temperature was moderate and we were lucky enough to have continuous breezes. What a treat!

Our trip back to Lome was more than a little exciting. The road was closed because the President of Togo was visiting a building to honor its opening. We were directed to a detour that headed directly into a stand of trees with the skinniest road possible down the middle. We bumped down to the end of the road and turned right … and realized we were the last in a very long line of cars that was going nowhere. As it turns out, two lanes of traffic were trying to traverse a single-lane road, which was decorated on either side with deep trenches. We inched our way along, thanks to some masterful traffic cop maneuvers by Dan and the boys.

On our way to today’s distribution -- our last -- we discussed our mixed feelings as we approached the school. We were happy to complete our task (the delivery of 5,000 bedkits!!!), but sad to see the story end. Each one of us has had the amazing opportunity to step out of our conventional lives (student, scientist, computer guy, attorney, and retiree) and take on the role of caretaker to those in need. It is amazing to consider that we have brought comfort to 5,000 children and have, by virtue of the mosquito net in the bedkit, reduced by one=third the chance that those children will be infected with malaria (8 hours of sleeping in a 24 hour day).

Including the 5,000 bedkits delivered by
the Togo team this year, our total is
now 1,221,130 bedkits since Sleeping
Children began in 1970.

Of course, none of this would have been possible without the generosity of the donors to SCAW. We are indeed grateful that you gave us the tools to do some good here in Togo. And we could never have been as efficient and successful as we were without the amazing coordination of Laurent and his AED team. Thank you, Laurent, for your partnership and guidance. Thank you also to Dosseh, Segnon and Messenh, who never let us out of their sight for one minute and to Bill, who prepared wonderful meals for us and negotiated vigorously for each of us in the marketplace. (You have not experienced life until you have sat in a van with a ‘money changer’ and watched the back and forth on the exchange rate first hand!).

Most of all, thank you, Togo, for being so friendly and receptive to strangers in your midst.

Eleanor Uddo for
The 2012 Togolese Rock Stars

p.s.: Stock up on Tide … we are heading home!

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Click here to see the photos in the Togo 2012 Photo Album.

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Togo: Mission Tove

My, oh my, how time flies when working together with like-minded individuals geared towards a common cause. At this point, with just one delivery to go, the team continues to function like a Swiss watch and did not miss a beat despite this being the hottest day to date.

This morning started with a relatively short (45km) drive but the earthen road was washboard like for 2/3 of the way which reduced our speed significantly. However, our tremendous driver Messah got us to Mission Tove safe and sound. He is indeed a master at his craft.

Upon arrival in Mission Tove we were literally swarmed by 500 children clad in a rainbow's hue of bright color calling out "Bonjour et Bien Venu!" (Good day and welcome!). Wow, what a personal welcome. As with any large group of young boys and girls, they were a boisterous lot indeed; however, with the support of the local team, all was in place and under control quickly as we prepared for our first picture: 100 children which is the largest taken to date in the five years of SCAW Togo activity. Not easy to get 100 kids to smile at once! The kids were very patient though during set-up and, needless to say, under the astute camera work of Bob, a wonderful picture was created.

Due to the relative proximity of Mission Tove, and the smooth working of the SCAW delivery team, we were back at the at home base by noon and all made a bee-line to their showers. Hot Day. with 102.6 degrees measured locally. Lunch was served: a great spaghetti meal which was wolfed down in no time flat. For anyone thinking that the SCAW team would loose weight in Africa, forget it ... and our great cook Bill would comment to the contrary! Merci, Bill!

With only one delivery left, we are looking forward to yet another of Freddy's end-of-delivery balloon chases which has become a favorite of the SCAW team and the children. One has to see to appreciate the joy of watching Freddy being chased by approximately 200 kids while he holds an inflated balloon aloft ready for a threatened release at any second. Drive the kids into a joyous rampage and is a great spectacle. Run, Freddy, Run! ! ! !

In closing, it is funny that, despite the early starts, long bumpy rides, heat, humidity, dust, fatigue, and being away from family and friends; we have all looked each other in the eye and within ourselves and have felt the pangs of sadness knowing tomorrow is the last day we will interact with the beautiful and precious young girls and boys of this great and proud people.

As they say here: "à demain" (till tomorrow!)

Cheers,

Dan Chiasson
for Team Togo 2012

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Click here to see the photos in the Togo 2012 Photo Album.

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