No electricity last night....no blog! Here's what I wrote but couldn't post yesterday......
If I'd had a gun I'd have shot those birds last night!! What a rough night: Zoe clambered into bed with me feeling unwell, thunderstorms overhead & those pesky birds!!
But 9.30 (a half hour lie in today!) and we boarded the buses and headed for Kiwi - this is the orphanage that Possibilities primarily supports, I'd heard so much about it over the years and today we would see it. The children would be at school but we'd be able to look around and assess what work we'd do tomorrow. I hadn't realised I had an image already in my mind of what it's be - it wasn't. We met Bernadeta, the amazing woman who at 63 is running the orphanage. She welcomed us like long lost friends. She took us into the home. We wandered through and straight outside to talk about work she'd really like done to the wall outside. In the very small space she has a cow, a calf and chickens. We also discussed decorating the boys and girls bedrooms. We couldn't get into the boys room as it was locked; this wasn't a room this was a shed attached to the house. However, we could see the girls room. As I stood in the bedroom as it keeps doing, my mind shot back home. Home to my children's nursery which they slept in as babies, then to Zoe's 'big girls room' with its big bed and pink and pastel colours and stencilled flowers on the wall and ivy climbing over her archway, then to her most recently decorated room in its dark purples. I saw her beds, she's had three, including a high sleeper with a desk and now her mid sleeper. My mind came back to this room, only a little bigger than Zoes. Here the room contains 4 three tier bunks where 20 girls sleep. There is just room to move between the bunks. There walls are bare. I knew these people didn't want my pity, I knew they have achieved so much and are so proud of what they've accomplished. I knew that this is good, its very good comparably. I therefore knew I shouldn't do it, mustn't do it, I tried really hard not to but I just couldn't stop myself and I stood and cried.
Tomorrow we will decorate their room.
Attached to the orphanage is a small business run by Bernadeta, they make bags and mats out of recycled straws. These people are so resourceful, so determined and so brave. This is a quality product they are producing - you should see them, you should buy one!!
After deciding what needed doing tomorrow we headed out to visit some goats in a small community. The goats are sponsored by Possibilities and on some land that belonged to Benny's family. It was a long way from the orphanage! I felt like we'd driven half way across Uganda!! We bought food on the way which we were told the ladies of the community would cook for us. We had such an African day!! We picked maize and prepared leaves for cooking. We watched as the ladies with babies on their backs prepared food, wrapped vegetables in banana leaves and steamed them over an open fire. Only the pictures will do this justice. We were in the heart of Africa, in the heart of a rural community, cooking on open fires just sitting and watching and waiting. This surely is Africa. When the children returned from school - we all ate the feast together. After the meal, Benny called a community meeting where she stressed the need to work together to look after the goats that possibilities have provided - that these goats are helping to provide hope and a future. The community are in desperate need of a bore hole, they must provide some money in order for the government to provide one. Possibilities agreed there and then to match anything the community could raise - the community leader cried.
Arrrrggggghhh I'm out of time - I have to catch the bus to the orphanage........ that'll have to do for now!!
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