(origineel bericht op be-more.nl)
The second week
Hi Everybody,
This is going to be my second blog here in Uganda. Another week has past by. It was a busy week. Because we talked with our project that we wanted to do some more work. In Uganda they don’t know a middle way, it is doing nothing or a LOT. So we did a lot. I’ll talk first about my project and then about my weekend.
<strong>Project – CEPO</strong>
Last week was a busy week. Samantha (one of the founders of my project) had a surprise for us. She had bought some plants and she wanted to plant them in the garden. The plants came from the area around Lake Buyoni and they could be an opportunity for the community. But before she introduce them, she wants to plant them at our place to see how the growing process goes. She calls them tomatoes plant, but it are not tomatoes… I have no clue what will grow out of the plants. The only thing that I know is that I have to give them water every evening and morning. But as people know, I am not good in that at all. If I have plants at home, they will die within a week. So maybe it was a good thing that I was not around this weekend. In the afternoon we went into the community. We did some physical work. We build a stove and a drying thing (droogrek)… Yeah I don’t know the English word for it. They use the Dutch word over here. But it looks like a … yeah it is not possible to explain without pictures… But lucky for me there is google translate and they say it should be a drying rack in English. That was hard working. Everything goes buy hand. So we digged some holes, did some carpentry (?? Getimmerd) and we stamped the mudd. So this day I turned a little bit red, not from the heat but from the sun:( But then again it turned brown now, so I don’t complain. Ooh I totally forgot to tell the story of the women who we build the things for. She is 65 years old. Gave birth to 10 children, 8 died, the girl(child) gave birth to a lot of kids and also more then half of them died. Her husband left her… So she was very lonely, but had a life spirit!! She was very happy that we came to help and she had a lot of fun that they. Because we were totally unexperienced so it would have looked pretty funny how we tried to help. The said thing of this day was that we had to walk back to the office. I think a hour walk or something. Because our Boda driver was/is sick. He had some troubles with his eyes.
The next day. On Tuesday we did some home gardening. Well we started the day with a visit to the local shop. Then I decided tp wash my underwear, because that is the only thing that our cleaner does not wash. Totally understandable! As soon as Samantha woke up we started with home gardening. We had to think of a way to protect our plants that we planted the day before. Because the chicken walk around the compound. So that is what we did. We also gave them water of course. After this we had to some laundry again. But this time the clothes that we were going to hand out on Thursday. IT WAS A LOT!! I was exhausted after that. But it was quite strange, because they just throw shoes into the water and started cleaning them… But at the end al the clothes were clean. Well around 2 pm we needed a break. So we asked one and went into Masaka. It was a really good day!
On Wednesday we had to build stoves again. But this time we also gave some lessons about it. First we told to some women from the community why they need a stove like that. Furthermore we explained how to build it. After this we went to the home of one of the women and build one there. She has an awesome back yard!! Well that is what we would think. She lives all the way back into the community. When we looked behind her house, there was only a great field of nature. It was SOOO beautiful, but so far away of other people’s houses. And again we had to walk back, because our driver was still sick. But halfway thru a boda driver picked us up. So it was not as long as the day before. Again the women was really thankfull of what we did together. So the other women know now how to make it and are able to make one for themselves. This afternoon Jeroen from Be More came to our house. He had to give me my memory card back. But we also had a really good talk about the project with him and we know now what to do. So tomorrow we will talk with the people of our project and get the most out of it.
On Thursday we had a really busy day. We started with some home gardening. But we did some office work. So this morning we worked on the laptops of the project. After that we went to the office. From there we went into the community to hand out some food. We had to split up of the timeframe so I went with Samantha to Christine. We have been there the week before. This women is around 78 years old. One and a half year back she felt and since then she not able to walk anymore. She just lays down on a matrass and other people have to take care of her. When we came there she hadn’t eaten yet and was really weak. So sad to see her like that. So Samantha found a child that was willing to buy a boiled egg and some coke for her. We waited until he came back and gave her the drink and food. She looked so bad compared with the week before that I am wondering is she is still alive this Thursday. But janniek went to someone with Aids. When CEPO found her, she couldn’t come out of her bed. But last week she walked to Masaka… Well I can tell you that would be a 3 hour walk or even longer for someone like me. So I was really impressed. So there are positive stories and sad stories. After this we went to teach the children. We tried to teach them how to write them names, handed out some clothes, gave them some candy and played with them. This was a really awesome day!
Well because my blog is turning a bit long I am going to tell really short about my weekend.
We went on a safari to the Murchison’s falls. It was really great and we saw elephants, crocodiles, giraffes, monkeys, hippos etc. .
That was my weekend. I don’t have much time left. So a short update about the sponsor money. In total we can spend 395 euros. That is lot for people over here. We don’t have a exact goal for it yet, so we will talk with people of the project tomorrow.
Everything is going well and I think that this will be one of my last blogs. Maybe one next week before I leave. Speak to you all soon!
Cheers,
Ps. I can not post photo’s because I forgot my cable to connect my camera to the pc. Sorry for that!