Destinations

Sorry for the lack of posts, we’ve been busy and not having too much to report on.  Firstly it looked like we were going to have to stop all building, but due to three separate and generous donations we were able to build temporary school structures for classrooms and then to start some proper toilets for the school. I say temporary structures, but they will probably last for at least ten years, so they will be usable for other things when the proper school is completed.  Here are photos of the school structures:

Things are going slower than wanted because we are still working on operating funds as we wait for more building funds to be raised.  We are still moving slowly although, five of the six houses have cooking places and chimneys – though a few finishes are still required and we’ve just started to put supports in for water tanks ready for when money comes in for that.  We really need water tanks as we currently employ someone to fetch water with a bicycle and jerry cans.  Another project we are trying to get started is toilets in each house, and a septic tank.  Currently we are using an unsatisfactory toilet that was built for the site workers.  In fact some people have complained to the authorities about it, but fortunately the local authorities have been lenient with us as they see we are trying to get things in place and that we are in fact doing a good job with the project.

February saw us have some birthdays also; first up was Susan on the 1st:

Elisabeth on the 13th:

Patience on the 25th:

Now that we are moved in, the children enjoy seeing the work going on and even pestering the workers a little:

During building we also had a regular visitor to the site, who is now a common sight at Akanyijuka, coming to play with the children and to see the Mzungus; little Daniel:

February saw some Ladies from Sydney, Australia come and visit, enjoying some time with the children.  Rosie and Hayley were greatly enjoyed as the first visitors to the new homes:

They were here on a whirlwind trip to start a project similar to ours, joining with a friend of ours from a local organisation.  They are just starting out and trying to get all the red tape sorted to start in a year or two with a school in Bukinda, a village nearby, on the road to Kampala.  They also helped out with some of the street children that we knew by putting them in boarding school and some in a home with a carer to go to one of the better Primary Schools.  You can see a little about them at www.foundationsau.org.

On a personal note, sometimes here you just wonder what you are doing here.  All the frustrations that you can get, about dealing with the way things are here, the people, the lack of things you like from home, missing family and friends, wondering why should I be the one doing this.  Then out of the blue you get a reminder.  Usually I leave the rubbish to take when I go early in the morning, hoping I will not run into someone on the rubbish bins and have to give it to them.  One morning I threw our rubbish in and then a man, probably in his late twenties, pops up and says thank you – with all sincerity for the bag of rubbish I had given him.  I could not help but think that in ten or twenty years that some of the boys at Akanyijuka might have been there if we had not come along.  Sometimes we also see boys from the drop-in centre on the rubbish tips and being involved with the drop-in makes us glad that we might one day help them to also not be in that situation.