Kampala has been a bit of a sketchy place for the last few days.  It’s a long story, but boils down to a power struggle between the cultural head of state and the political head of state.  Anyways, there has been all kinda of excitement (rioting, tire burning, gun fire, crazy traffic jams, closure of a lot of business).  Don’t worry; we are all safe.  We have continued to go about our work, but it has forced us to alter our schedule as many things are closed and traffic is unpredicatable (I was struck in a traffic jam two nights ago.  We moved less than 1km in 3h!!!).

If you’d like to read more about the ongoing excitement, see the following links:

http://enteruganda.com/brochures/bugandariots/

http://www.newvision.co.ug/

It is really hard to believe that 5 weeks have passed already; it really doesn’t seem that long.  Hard as it is saying goodbye, knowing that we’ll be coming back makes it much easier.  We are really looking forward to a few days in Dubai as it should be relaxating without too much going on.

Vince

After returning from safari, we had a day of TAPP visits (visits to the homes of people affected by AIDS/HIV), and Jaja visits (visits to the homes of grandmothers who are caring for their grandchildren).  These visits are always a lot of fun, but also very sobering as these people really have a difficult life.  After the visits and a quick lunch at the Kitchen at Kasubi school, we went to visit HIS the Heritage International School.  We had a short tour around the place and headed home to prepare for our speeches at the youth convention.  Friday and Saturday were spent at the youth convention participating in various areas.  Pastor Cris, Eric, Tanya, Jessica, Jacquie, Marla and myself did speeches on various topics at the convention.  On the Saturday afternoon, we said goodbye to Toni and Cris, and later that night to the Appelt family who left on their own safari.  Saturday night, the group had an awesome dinner at the house of Sande, Glenna’s driver, then started packing up to leave Stevensons (the girls to travel home to Canada, and the rest of us to move into Glenna’s apartment).

Sunday, we had a quiet day at the Stevensons and sent Jessica, Jacquie and Tanya to the airport with Vince, and then home to Canada.  Marla, Vince, Walter and I moved to Glenna’s in the evening at supper time.  We had a day to rest (on Monday) then Marla and I spent a very long and sobering day at Mulago Hospital in Kampala.  We met many very sick kids in the hospital, many of whom had a poor prognosis.  One little boy was dying of a very quick growing renal cancer.  It was really upsetting, but I think we managed to get through the day without sobbing.

So all this week, whenever there was spare time, Vince has been at the International School fixing computers and doing Vince-like things to help out and get their system sorted out.  Wednesday and Thursday, we had quiet days of packing, shopping, and preparing for our upcoming village trips.  Then Friday headed out for the weekend to Gulu and Lira.  First, we went to visit the family of Sande in Bobi (near Gulu).  We met his mom, sisters and brothers, aunts and uncles and grandmother.  Sande’s grandmother gave Walter a rooster whom we called Bobi-after the village where we got him.  Walter was so impressed with the chicken that he carried him around the compound and spent the day petting him and chasing him around.  After a nice afternoon tea underneath the mango trees, we went to Gulu to stay in a hotel.  It was clean, but not real fancy.  But it was safe.  The bed mattresses were really thin, and we didn’t sleep very well though.

On Saturday, we went back for a short visit and breakfast with Sande’s family, then headed to Lira to visit with Pastor Martin’s family and to visit with our sponsor child and her family.  We had a really nice time of reconnecting.  We were then ushered to our hotel (brand new only a week old).  It was super clean, well run and really nice.  Our room had a fan, TV, and fridge to name a few things.  It was called the Gracious Palace and was a guest house only for Christians.  Our rooms had never been slept in either.  It was a really nice place.

So now we reach today, Sunday.  We spent the morning at church in Lira.  During the worship service, Walter had a really great time clapping and singing.  As we made the greetings to the church, some of the congre, then Marla and I taught the Sunday school class and handed out gifts to the children.  After church, we headed home to Kampala to Glenna’s place.

The goodbye in Boliso was a long affair, but a very good one.  We had an extended church service with many guests, formalities and speeches followed by a late lunch.  Part of the events of the day were that the local people donated items which were then auction off to raise funds for the Palissa Church district.  Somehow (I didn’t have anything to do with it Walter acquired a goat during the auction proceedings.  He is really quite pleased with his little goat which will be making the journey to KLA later this week.

Saying goodbye came as a bit of a challenge as we’d gotten to know many of the people well during our 6 days there, but we left on a positive note having completed a lot of projects and making a positive impact on the church, school and community.

All of the team is doing well and the general concensus seems to be that they can’t believe the trip is more than 1/2 over.  In some ways it seems like we’ve been here so long yet in others the time has just flown by.

I’ll try to get a few of the team members to write some posts tomorrow  to provide their point of view…

Vince

Vince

Vince

Vince

I’m still working on getting email on my cell phone (hopefully it will be working tomorrow), but our phone # (as called from Canada) is 011 256 75 6652138  Feel free to call, but PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT TIME YOU ARE CALLING!!!  We are 9h ahead, so don’t call us after noon your time.

We had a great Sunday and a very productive shooping day today.  Tomorrow we head out to the village to being our work in earnest.  Everyone is doing well and having a great time.

That’s all for now; hopefully posts will be more frequent once I get the data plan on my phone working as then we can post from wherever we are at.

Vince

Vince