Uganda - January 29, 2013

Today Patty and I went out to the clinic (formally the St. John's Kayoro Health Centre II) to work on plans for Thursday's Official Opening activities along with Katie, GUW volunteer staff in Kenya who was here helping with the travelers.  It was two days before the event, and we realized the budget didn't include some important items that had either been forgotten or underpriced.  When all was totaled up, we had a budget about 1/3 more than had been allocated and was available.   After phone consultation with Anika, we three Americans did some suggestions for cutting which the Ugandan staff had to check on and implement.  It was difficult for them to give up some of the activities for which they'd been hoping (e.g. outside entertainment), but they did a fine job in following through.  Patty, using the skills of both her paid job and her volunteer job as chair of St. John the Evangelist's "Party" Committee, did an excellent job of keeping the group on task.

Our other primary task at the clinic was unloading the suitcases full of medical supplies that we had brought from the U.S.  (Each traveler's allowed second suitcase for the plane was filled with things for the clinic.)  There was a LOT of stuff.  The store room was quite filled.  Staff will be busy in future days organizing the contents, I think.  While Patty, Katie, and I were doing that, Sarah, the GUW Uganda Program Manager, was meeting with representatives of the 7 Kayoro groups to plan their part of the opening festivities.  The "porch" of the clinic makes an ideal meeting place -- outside for the breeze but shaded from the sun and the rain.

While there we were served lunch.  Rebekah, who is a member of the Ngiyo Ber group, was hired as the cleaner and cook for the clinic.  Because it is so distant from town, it is necessary to cook for staff each day; volunteers were added in today.  Before eating I washed my hands using the rainwater storage tank, paid for with the money raised at St. John's for our Rector Frank Wilson at his departure.  He asked that the funds be dedicated to the clinic; they were used to add the gutter catchment and storage system for rainwater. 



We were picked up at the clinic site at 4 p.m., and the volunteer group accompanied Cammie to the Maari community where she was to conduct an interview with one of the Maari members about the new homes into which they had recently moved, a task she accomplished successfully.  Our own Cecil B. DeMille!  

The Maari Abled Group consists of families who have at least one member who is handicapped in some way.  Because the disabled are so discriminated against in Ugandan society, they came together to provide mutual support and assistance.  With the help of Give Us Wings a new house for each family was built in a contained village.  (Before, they had lived in several of the slum areas in and around Tororo in rental housing.)

 
As we drove though the adjoining Juba slum the bus was followed by a large number of children who then joined with the Maari children in following the visitors around.  Fabian, the newly-elected group leader took some of us on a tour, looking something like the Pied Piper.
 

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The houses look very nice -- all have three rooms with a concrete floor, metal doors, and a concrete apron outside the front door.  Each also has a separate cooking building.  Unfortunately, there are some construction flaws (problems are the same the world over) which GUW staff and the Maari community are hoping to resolve soon.  Some plantings have been done.  More are planned (a volunteer activity) to help prevent runoff within the site and a perimeter hedge around the site.


I was amused to find one house (the one shown above) with additional concrete poured connecting the porch with the cooking building.  It is the house of the former leader of the group.  Apparently he used his position to get a little something extra from the contractor!  People are the same the world over!

The Maari Village has a separate latrine building with 14 individual latrines, many modified to deal with the variety of handicaps found in the community.










We returned to the hotel about 6, gathered for dinner and debriefing around 7.  Three people had done business assessments with the Hera group, women who live in the Bison slum of Tororo.  The volunteers were impressed with the business abilities of some of the group.  When I was here two years ago, we watched as some of the women showed off their ability to write the alphabet and their names; literacy classes are one of the group's primary activities.  Cammie and Mary had done videotaping of the various activities being done by volunteers, traveling from place to place via motorcycle, sandwiched in between the driver and Eunice from the GUW office.  They seemed to enjoy it; no way I was getting on a motorcycle!