Friday, July 13, 2012

Call Katie Brinklow shoeless. In the afternoon, we journeyed to the top of one of the mountains – really. Lake Bunyonyi was microscopic from where we were. We went to the home of Agnes, the auntie of Alex Byaruhanga, the Brinklow’s orphan. Agnes is 27 years old and unmarried. She is afraid of what might happen to Alex if she marries. You see, if she married, the man she married might reject Alex who would be homeless then. Alex’s father died and his mother remarried and the new husband rejected Alex so Agnes, the aunt stepped in to care for him.Agnes works in the field digging to earn money. Agnes says she is being harassed by neighbors who are upset because her nephew, Alex’s, school fees are being paid for through the Muko HOPE program.

Another woman who had been in the back of the van riding along with us turned out to be Oscar Atwine’s Mom so Lazara and Karen spent time with her greeting her and being joyful.

Dave, Charles and Curt spent the day in Kabale meeting with Marion, a woman from UK who runs an organization for African children. She has a builder who has worked all over the world building schools. They drove with she and her builder Chris, to Muko to evaluate our building. They also stopped and saw some of his work. They have trained plumber, carpenters, etc. that they work with. The quality of their work was similar to standards in the U.S. The latrine they saw was dug 50 feet. They actually were watching the bricklayers laying bricks. They understood our situation and what our choices might be to move ahead. They will meet with Marion, Chris, a plumber and engineers about how much it will cost to complete the building salvaging what has been so poorly done. They basically concurred with the assessment of the evaluator ACT Muko has already hired. The ACT Muko board will discuss this tomorrow during their meeting. One of the water taps in the village was broken open and continuously draining. Dave is taking a plumber to fix the tap for the village.

Sydney was in charge of the project of handing out 384 little pillowcase dresses. It started out pretty well handing out packets. The parents who had been segregated from the children began to intermingle and push and push toward us. It was mayhem. Karen played her violin to entertain the parents while we tried to set up for the distribution.

We got to ready to leave and as the team began to get in, the bus was completely full of Ugandans. We had to pull some of them out to get our team in. We drove to the top of the mountain to visit Froelidah who is being sponsored by Dale Anderson. She is the guardian of her younger siblings living alone. She walks two hours a day to and from school. Dale gave her some gifts and paid her school fees for the next term.

Karen, Dave and Sue went back to Kigezi school to teach a music lesson. Dave describes how the kids came out and grabbed his hands and remembered his name. We handed out recorders and books and she gave them a lesson on their recorders as well as showing them how to play the handbells. Because we met outside for the music lesson, Dave held out his arms and had the music charts duck-taped to arms and chest to facilitate the meeting.

We arrived back at the hotel for dinner and are just finishing our debrief. We deserve a good night’s sleep!

No pictures today, sorry! But we will try to post the shots we have of the girls in the dresses tomorrow! So cute!