Tuesday

Leon and Elton headed out after devotions to the Hardware Market to purchase the remaining needed supplies to drill the well. When they returned, the pipe was threaded and they got the casing ready. Randy, Justin, Don and Elton headed to the village to set up along with Abdu, Betty (his wife), Moses (2 year old son), plus James, the local person who is in training, and Derrick (Zimbabwa team member). We loaded all of our supplies into a small Nissan pickup that had been rented and ALL of us loaded up, along with the driver. Before leaving town, James gave a Boda driver some money and gave him instructions to bring lunch. About 2:30, here he came with rolexes! They were excellent. A rolex is like a breakfast burrito. Excellent progress was made in setting up the sight so we decided to get a jump start on drilling. The rented truck and driver were an excellent asset. After hauling us out there, he joined in and worked. Originally we planned to set up today and start drilling tomorrow. We drilled 4’ of hole…if you use a short tape measure. The local people were very interested in what was going on. The kids started picking up our empty water bottles and James said something in Lugandan to them and they scattered! The children got sticks and started imitating drilling a well. We are told that all of the village knows by now that a new well is going in. They are full of excitement. Our workers are exhausted. Elton was overheard saying, “I am too tired to eat, but I think I’ll get some more French fries anyway.” Grace had prepared an American meal of hamburgers and French fries tonight. The really special thing was the fresh avocado, tomato, onion and again for dessert, fresh pineapple! The plan is to leave at 8:00 tomorrow morning and EVERYONE is going. The women are rounding up their work gloves.
When the pickup driver brought them back to the Compound, Elton asked him if he would take us down to Lake Victoria. All but Byron and Justin piled into the back of the pickup and rode across town to take in the view. It was amazing!
The students of the Next Generations Technical School were rested and ready to go first thing this morning. The sander broke down. The belt was jumping off, but Abe fixed it. About a dozen desk tops were routed and sanded. They started building the second group of 50 frames today. About half of the first 50 are fully painted. Half will be orange and half will be blue, the school colors. The local workers will go solo tomorrow while we are out drilling the water well. This will be an opportunity to see how well they have learned. We plan to deliver the desks on Friday. It will be an exciting day. The desks sure are looking good. The students at the school will be so excited.
The ladies walked to the Boda stop to head across town to the Amani Baby Cottage. The neighbor from across the street drove up and offered to take some of us so 4 ladies rode in the car and 3 rode Bodas. The scenery was beautiful along the way. As we approached our location, you could see Lake Victoria about a block away. The Cottage was a beautiful compound that the organization had found in disrepair and fixed it up over the past 5 years. They have been using sweat equity to pay the rent instead of cash. They are now trying to purchase it at the cost of $170,000 (a steal in the US!) and they still need $40,000 to complete the purchase. We met Siouxanne who is from Tulsa that had come to Uganda on a short term mission trip, went home, liquidated her assets, and then moved back and has been here for 4 years as a volunteer. She is a Registered Nurse and is the Volunteer Coordinator and is the Medical Officer. She has a medical clinic on the grounds and told us that it is better equipped that the local hospitals, and she did not have much. They have 47 children from infant to 5 years old, which is the oldest they are licensed to keep. The children are either orphaned or abandoned. Most do not have a mother unless she is in prison or dying from AIDS. The imprisoned mothers can keep their children with them as long as they are nursing them. The Orphanage either reunites the children with extended family, transfers them to another facility when they are too old for theirs, sets them up in a Foster Family or finds a family to adopt them. They accept 10 volunteers at a time and most are college age girls from various countries. We met young women from the US, UK, and the Netherlands plus two young men from Texas (a whole OTHER country!). They generally stay for 2 months. There was a mother/daughter team there and the mother was getting ready to fly home tomorrow and the daughter was going to stay for awhile to travel the country. They gave us a tour of the grounds and the buildings and we got to see where the children sleep, play and eat. It was a wonderful home for the children. It was very clean and organized. The tile floors were immaculate. Then we went outside to cuddle the babies and play with the toddlers and older children. The local women who are hired to give physical care to the babies are called Mamas. The volunteers that come to play with the children and show them affection are called Aunties. There was a wall with pictures of the children currently at the Cottage, pictures of those who with their new families, and pictures of those who were lost to AIDS. There were at least 3 or 4 children there today we could tell had AIDS. Eight month old Josephine was Jodi’s constant companion. When we got ready to go, the little girl Karen was holding wouldn’t put her feet on the ground. Pat got to play with a little boy named Micah. The children did not want us to leave. The Aunties told us we just need to put them down and go, that they will be okay after we leave. One of the ladies that works at the Cottage made beaded necklaces for sale so we were able to do some gift shopping while there. The beads are made from paper.
We left the Baby Cottage a little after 1:00 and caught a Boda ride to Ozzie’s café and had excellent salads and wraps. This is the place we stopped for a snack a few days ago and had cinnamon rolls. We were instructed by the men that we had better NOT come back with cinnamon breath again, so we brought home a dozen. Then we did some gift shopping before riding the Bodas home again.
While hanging out in the courtyard before supper, little 8-year old Sarah started teaching us an African dance. She got some great laughs when we tried it! We have some practicing to do.