Dateline: Saturday, March 31, 2012
As we close out the month of March, I mark 1 1/2 months of time here in Uganda. It has been a rewarding, enlightening and enriching experience thus far. I'm still adjusting to the culture, climate, food and bacteria. I've had a few rounds of intestinal disturbances, an upper respiratory infection and some minor skin irritations. All and all, I've fared well. I think the biggest challenges for me are missing my children and the lack of a nutritionally balanced diet. Case in point, for lunch every day at the school we eat posho and beans (see picture above). Posho is just maize flour and water cooked to a gelatinous mass. It has no nutritional value and no taste! Ugandans do not cook with spices at all so most all of their food has no flavor to it. They concentrate on filling you up not on nutritional content or flavor. The good part about the seriously deficient diet is that I'm loosing weight! I could stand to loose a few pounds anyway.
This week I stayed in Entebbe and worked on the school's budget, or should I say lack thereof. The school has not been using any kind of budget to operate on and consequently has not been running very efficiently. This seems to be the case with many organizations and institutions here in Uganda. Organization is a weak point in Ugandan culture. So, upon examination of the school's cashbook and cash envelope I found that nothing added up or balanced! This will require some major changes in the operation of the school program and lots of teaching to the current school administrators. Now, anyone who knows me, knows that mathematics and figures are NOT on the list of my strengths and so this week has been a major headache for me! However, I know it will all help in the end to make the school run more efficiently and be able to provide the students with many more learning opportunities.
This week I also met with the mother of one of our students whom I mentioned in last week's post, little Nabante, who is crippled. We met with her and her mother to discuss the possibility of taking Nabante for a consultation with an orthopaedic surgeon to see if her problem could be corrected with surgery. The meeting went well and Nabante's mother, Florence, said she would be willing to meet with a surgeon and discuss what options there would be for Nabante. All of this will only take place if we can secure funding for her and for the surgery. If anyone is interested in donating to this cause, please let me know. I will also be posting a link to a fundraising site we will be using for this purpose.
While in the village, I stopped in to visit my host family to see how they were doing and to see how construction of their new kitchen was coming. Last week when I left the village, they had torn down the old, outdoor kitchen and were ready to construct the new one. This week, Wednesday, they had the new one completed! It is constructed of wooden poles woven together by other thinner lengths of wood and filled with mud brick pieces. It is really quite a feat of engineering as you can see from the photo above. All this was done without the use of power tools, safety equipment, or modern construction techniques. Everyone here seems to have a little knowledge about how to do anything.
This week's prayer requests are that we get funding for Nabante's surgery, that I can help the school learn to budget their money and keep track of their expenses, and that I can find a variety of nutritious things to eat.
So long for now. Love to all from the Pearl!
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