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

Click to leave your comments.