While we were travelling today, over roads that were 90% clay, to our second furthest point from Kampala, we thought of Nancy, our original team leader and team leader here last year. At the last minute, for personal reasons, Nancy was unable to come with us. She was replaced by Dave. Nancy guided our team throughout its training. She planned this trip in detail, working with the ladies of the Inner Wheel of Kampala. At every turn, we have been conscious of Nancy’s thoughtful care and planning. We all miss you Nancy. Our love and thanks! Hope to see you soon
Today, we presented 500 bedkits in the hamlet of Obalanga, Amuria District. Although, as the crow flies, this is only 35 km from another community we visited, the people of the two places speak languages that are unrelated to each other. None of the Inner Wheel ladies who are travelling with us can speak this language. The lady who went ahead to organize the arrival of the bedkits, worked through an interpreter. Once again, we were in a poor rural community with family-worked fields. It seemed to us that there were more cattle than usual.
Someone told us that in the lower grades of the public elementary school, they have up to 200 students in a class. She said that one of their many problems is feeding children during the long school day. Parents may give them bananas or fruit, or some children gather such things on their way to school, but this is not easy for the younger kids. She said that, in theory, it would not be difficult to prepare, say
mutake (the national cooked banana dish) at school but because the families are very dispersed, looking after several children at home, and working in the fields, there is not much free time to walk the many kilometers to school and cook.
We have seen uniformed children playing soccer around what must be private schools but there is little sign of sports in the schools where our distributions take place. Of course, children who walk an hour or so to school get plenty of exercise.
We again visited a home of a bedkit recipient. Again this was a homestead with three or four round, thatched, buildings The smaller huts are for storage, one of the larger ones for the six boys and the other larger one for the parents. These little houses were wattle and daub with the outer daub being cow dung, smoothed and polished to form an easily-cleaned (we were told) surface. The boys of this family played soccer with a homemade ball (something packed into an outer net made of rubber). One of the boys could use this just as though it was an inflated soccer ball.
Tomorrow is another day in Uganda.
Team Uganda 2012
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