Hello everyone,
It has taken me a week, but I have finally been able to purchase wireless internet, so it will be very simple now to update my blog. My first week passed quickly, so I will give you a brief overview of what has happened.
The first night I stayed in Backpackers Hostel and the next day the owner, Frank, drove me to Mukono. I was so thrilled to make the aquaintance of this man-- he is probably the most unique Ugandan that I have ever met--he is a Buddhist engineer! We had a wonderful conversation and it really started my trip out on the right foot.
As I said in my last blog, the first day I got to see Leslie, which
was rad, as we like to say here. The next day Lee came to see me and it was great to reconnect with her as well. I spent most of the day at the Mukono guesthouse with a volunteer named Vanessa from Florida. She was sick with Typhoid, apparently the vaccination doesn't stop you from getting a mild form of it (which involves a high temperature, vomiting, and a running stomach--WOO HOO!). Her and her friend Chelsea, also from Florida, were heading back home in about a week, but I was happy to meet them because they were both fun girls. I met a lot of volunteers who were in from the villages for the weekend. There are a lot of interesting people from all over the world. Angie is a Danish girl who is living in the same house with me, Chris is Australian, Naimh and Kim are Canadian, Beth and Sheena are from New Zealand, Anna is from Portugal, and Steven, Stephanie, Adam, Phil, Megan, and Jason are American (please forgive me if I left anyone out but there are so many!) My friend Dustyn (a volunteer from Tennessee that I met on my first trip) was also back and it was amazing to see him. He is volunteering in the north of Uganda where he started his own organization called CreatED Uganda (check it out online!)
On Sunday Valence picked me up and took me to Lugazi to where I live with him and his wife Doreen and their son Joe. It has been amazing to see them and spend time catching up. Doreen was pregnant with Joe when I was here the last time, so it has been a new experience having a baby around the house. He is one and half now and is running around and babbling. He says words in Luganda and in English. Sometimes I think he is just babbling, but then Doreen tells me that he is saying something in Luganda.
On Monday I went to the Children's Village, which is the primary school where I volunteer. It was great to see the school and some of the kids. On the plus side, the school has expanded very much since my last trip, thanks to the donations of volunteers, and most of the temporary classroom structures that were just made of stick and boards nailed together have been torn down and replaced with brick structures that have concrete floors. This makes the learning environment much more agreeable and now when it rains it doesn't flood the classes out, except for the two that still are in temporary structures. On the downside, a lot of the children that I knew are no longer at the school. Of course some of them are too old to be there now and have moved on to secondary school, and some of them have moved schools, but I know that a lot of them have been forced to drop out because their family cannot afford to send them to school. Out of a class of 25 kids for example that were in the fifth grade during my last trip, and should therefore now be in seventh grade, there were only 8 remaining.
After that visit we made a stop at one of my favorite villages called Buyenje, which literally means cockroach. I made a very quick and close relationship with the people there the last time and they even held a feast and traditional dance where I was the guest of honor during my last trip. All of the villages I work with are quite rural, but this one in particular is more isolated than most. To get there you have to turn off the main road and take really rough dirt roads, until you finally turn off the road all together and you better either be walking or in a four-wheel drive or else you wouldn't get there because the village is in the middle of the trees on the side of an enourmous hill. I got to see a few of the ladies that I knew, but because the visit was unexpected, many were not there.
I was disappointed to find that the village women's group was not operating as usual. The way it works is that The Youth Focus Africa Foundation (YOFAFO) goes to villages that are interested in their empowerment projects. In this village, the women had elected a council of women leaders to observe the needs of the community and listen to villagers about what their needs are. They then would pick a project and raise some money to start it up, along with money from YOFAFO. They may not be able to put in much, but their participation empowers them by putting them in charge and making them partially financially reponsible.
One project that they had been working on was a piglet project. Women who were interested in having a piglet would notify the council of their interest and based on how many piglets there were to give, they would pick the women based on need and responsiblity and give them a piglet. They would then raise the pig until it was old enough to breed. When that pig has piglets they would give one to the breeder as a payment, give some back to the village to expand the project, and keep one or two to expand their own project and sell one or two for income. Another major project they were working on was building a community center where they could meet hold village meetings and events, and organize their projects. Villagers had come together to clear the land and put up the skeleton of the building with local materials, such as wood from local trees. After putting in the man power, YOFAFO saved money to invest in iron sheets for roofing. Eventually money was planned to be saved to brick the walls. Unfortunately, after the villagers had put up the structure, the person selling the land, which was a relative of the president of the women's council, decided he did not want to sell the land after all. This was a crushing blow to the project as everyone had saved money and put in so much manual labor. This also made them loose confidence in their president. The whole operation was put on indefinite hold.
Now that I am back, and very passionate about getting their project up and running again, Valence and I are talking about the feasability of restarting the program there in Buyenje from the ground up. It will take a lot of trust and a lot of discussion, but I am quite excited to get to work on it.
That's all for now, but now that I have internet, I will be able to update more often.
Take care,
Courtney
"Progress. It's two steps forward and one step back."
It has taken me a week, but I have finally been able to purchase wireless internet, so it will be very simple now to update my blog. My first week passed quickly, so I will give you a brief overview of what has happened.
The first night I stayed in Backpackers Hostel and the next day the owner, Frank, drove me to Mukono. I was so thrilled to make the aquaintance of this man-- he is probably the most unique Ugandan that I have ever met--he is a Buddhist engineer! We had a wonderful conversation and it really started my trip out on the right foot.
As I said in my last blog, the first day I got to see Leslie, which
was rad, as we like to say here. The next day Lee came to see me and it was great to reconnect with her as well. I spent most of the day at the Mukono guesthouse with a volunteer named Vanessa from Florida. She was sick with Typhoid, apparently the vaccination doesn't stop you from getting a mild form of it (which involves a high temperature, vomiting, and a running stomach--WOO HOO!). Her and her friend Chelsea, also from Florida, were heading back home in about a week, but I was happy to meet them because they were both fun girls. I met a lot of volunteers who were in from the villages for the weekend. There are a lot of interesting people from all over the world. Angie is a Danish girl who is living in the same house with me, Chris is Australian, Naimh and Kim are Canadian, Beth and Sheena are from New Zealand, Anna is from Portugal, and Steven, Stephanie, Adam, Phil, Megan, and Jason are American (please forgive me if I left anyone out but there are so many!) My friend Dustyn (a volunteer from Tennessee that I met on my first trip) was also back and it was amazing to see him. He is volunteering in the north of Uganda where he started his own organization called CreatED Uganda (check it out online!)On Sunday Valence picked me up and took me to Lugazi to where I live with him and his wife Doreen and their son Joe. It has been amazing to see them and spend time catching up. Doreen was pregnant with Joe when I was here the last time, so it has been a new experience having a baby around the house. He is one and half now and is running around and babbling. He says words in Luganda and in English. Sometimes I think he is just babbling, but then Doreen tells me that he is saying something in Luganda.
On Monday I went to the Children's Village, which is the primary school where I volunteer. It was great to see the school and some of the kids. On the plus side, the school has expanded very much since my last trip, thanks to the donations of volunteers, and most of the temporary classroom structures that were just made of stick and boards nailed together have been torn down and replaced with brick structures that have concrete floors. This makes the learning environment much more agreeable and now when it rains it doesn't flood the classes out, except for the two that still are in temporary structures. On the downside, a lot of the children that I knew are no longer at the school. Of course some of them are too old to be there now and have moved on to secondary school, and some of them have moved schools, but I know that a lot of them have been forced to drop out because their family cannot afford to send them to school. Out of a class of 25 kids for example that were in the fifth grade during my last trip, and should therefore now be in seventh grade, there were only 8 remaining.
After that visit we made a stop at one of my favorite villages called Buyenje, which literally means cockroach. I made a very quick and close relationship with the people there the last time and they even held a feast and traditional dance where I was the guest of honor during my last trip. All of the villages I work with are quite rural, but this one in particular is more isolated than most. To get there you have to turn off the main road and take really rough dirt roads, until you finally turn off the road all together and you better either be walking or in a four-wheel drive or else you wouldn't get there because the village is in the middle of the trees on the side of an enourmous hill. I got to see a few of the ladies that I knew, but because the visit was unexpected, many were not there.
I was disappointed to find that the village women's group was not operating as usual. The way it works is that The Youth Focus Africa Foundation (YOFAFO) goes to villages that are interested in their empowerment projects. In this village, the women had elected a council of women leaders to observe the needs of the community and listen to villagers about what their needs are. They then would pick a project and raise some money to start it up, along with money from YOFAFO. They may not be able to put in much, but their participation empowers them by putting them in charge and making them partially financially reponsible.
One project that they had been working on was a piglet project. Women who were interested in having a piglet would notify the council of their interest and based on how many piglets there were to give, they would pick the women based on need and responsiblity and give them a piglet. They would then raise the pig until it was old enough to breed. When that pig has piglets they would give one to the breeder as a payment, give some back to the village to expand the project, and keep one or two to expand their own project and sell one or two for income. Another major project they were working on was building a community center where they could meet hold village meetings and events, and organize their projects. Villagers had come together to clear the land and put up the skeleton of the building with local materials, such as wood from local trees. After putting in the man power, YOFAFO saved money to invest in iron sheets for roofing. Eventually money was planned to be saved to brick the walls. Unfortunately, after the villagers had put up the structure, the person selling the land, which was a relative of the president of the women's council, decided he did not want to sell the land after all. This was a crushing blow to the project as everyone had saved money and put in so much manual labor. This also made them loose confidence in their president. The whole operation was put on indefinite hold.
Now that I am back, and very passionate about getting their project up and running again, Valence and I are talking about the feasability of restarting the program there in Buyenje from the ground up. It will take a lot of trust and a lot of discussion, but I am quite excited to get to work on it.
That's all for now, but now that I have internet, I will be able to update more often.
Take care,
Courtney
"Progress. It's two steps forward and one step back."
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