The week has passed too quickly, I’ve been running back and forth between the crafting co-op, visiting the homes of the ladies who are sewing for us, visiting Christine’s home and trying to bring her back to school and Amazing Grace where we are beginning construction of the first water tank!
It will be the second tank we’re providing for Amazing Grace, but they continue to take in orphans and are helping so many families in the area when there is no water that another tank there will benefit so many! They currently have over 400 students enrolled and almost half of them either don’t pay tuition or pay a very small fraction of it.
Visiting the homes of the ladies from the crafting co-op has been extremely enlightening. Sylvia and Benna are each 18 yrs old and have been sewing with us from the beginning. I’m writing a biography for each of the girls to put on the website and sell their crafts, so I wanted to visit their homes, see their lives, meet their families and hear their stories. We visited Sylvia’s home first and while we were sitting on the grass mat on the floor, I was asking questions about her life and family. Her mother told me, “Thank you for the work you have given Sylvia. This job has saved my family.” Sylvia’s Father died two years ago and her income from the crafting co-op is the only income that supports this family of TEN! I gulp hard and try to remember how much money Sylvia has made in the past year…it isn’t much! Her mother also tells me that Sylvia doesn’t spend any of the money, she brings it all home to support her eight brothers and sisters and her mother. The home was small and simple, but clean. Eventually we walk through more fields of beans to another compound where we find Benna’s home. They are “cousin sisters”, which from what I can understand, is cousins who were raised together, so they are like sisters. Benna’s home has wooden benches against the mud walls, but the house smells of mold and the dirt floor is uneven and slippery. Her mother comes in to greet us; she is tall and has a booming voice. We soon realize she is very hard of hearing. Benna tells me her mother is too old to dig in the garden, which leaves all the digging to Benna. Her income is also the only income that supports the family of four. They walk for hours to fetch water every day and even longer in the dry season. They also walk for hours to get to the crafting co-op every day, hoping to find work there. After many prayers and thanks we finally make our way back to the road where we left the motor bikes. I tell them I’d like to find lunch, it’s past 1:00, so we go to the nearest trading center and search for food. Sam is surprised I want to eat there, but I figure rice and beans here are just as good as rice and beans in town, and it was! Plus, I noticed no one was cooking or building a fire for cooking at either of the homes, so I figured Sylvia and Benna must also be hungry. While we wait on the little, wooden benches for our food I question them about why no one was preparing food. They laugh and tell me, “no food”. I regretfully learn that they eat one meal a day, the evening meal. They thank me repeatedly for the food before we leave and the only thing I can think is, “we really need to sell these bags!” The website will be updated soon with an option to buy!
On our second trip to Christine’s home the Director of Amazing Grace and I found her at home, luckily it’s only about a fifteen minute walk from school. Her mother was sober, the pathetic little home had some minor improvements, such as a mud wall separating a small sitting room from the rest of the house and even two small benches and a short table to sit around. We learned of her brother’s death and that they just buried the twenty year old outside their home two days earlier. Christine agreed to come back to school, but she had conditions; she’s learned how to get what she wants, this is not the first time we’ve come to drag her back to school. She insists she must be allowed to come home on the week-end because someone has to look after the old woman (her mother) and also she lists the things she needs; a bucket, a mattress, shoes for church, the nice ones with a heel! And a few other necessities, I agree to all of them, they are minor things. I’ve never heard her talk so much as she and the director discuss the death of her brother. I sit patiently and wait for the translation to come. Eventually I learn that her brother was drunk and urinated in someone’s shop. The shop owner got upset and pushed him off the stoop of the shop. He fell off the stoop and then fell off the rocky cliff next to it. They found him there in the morning, face down and dead. Before we leave, she remembers she also needs bed sheets. They wrapped her brother in her bed sheets when they buried him. Of course, I nod my head as we head back out into the sunlight and tell her I’ll get her new bed sheets.
It turns out my “perfect” little room that I found isn’t so perfect after all. At night, the little pub across the street produces more noise than I ever imagined could come out of such a small place, the volume of the music is deafening. As my friend Vinny says in regards to volume in Africa....volume is free, so you use ALL OF IT! All hours of the day and night, the trucks and motor bikes that zoom past sound as if they’re driving right into my bed! However, it is clean! With the smallest of effort, like putting a light bulb in the socket in the bathroom, it has become very homey! It has a tile floor that I am not afraid to touch, it even has a sink with running water where I can brush my teeth and wash my hands. I put a bar of soap there and so far I’ve had to replace it every two days. I’m grateful for the many little hotel bars of soap someone sent along with me! I’m hoping eventually everyone in the place will have a bar and a bar will remain at the sink!
Nothing but love, Bonnie
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can make a difference, in fact it’s the only thing that ever has.” -Margaret Mead
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| Visiting Sylvia's family |
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| Benna, Sylvia and I with Mt. Muhabura in the background |
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| In the trading center, looking for food |
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| Beautiful lake Mutanda |
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| Fixing the Sewing machines with many helpers |
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| So many beautiful, little faces |
I hope this e-mail finds you happy and healthy! The week has passed too quickly, I’ve been running back and forth between the crafting co-op, visiting the homes of the ladies who are sewing for us, visiting Christine’s home and trying to bring her back to school and Amazing Grace where we are beginning construction of the first water tank!
It will be the second tank we’re providing for Amazing Grace, but they continue to take in orphans and are helping so many families in the area when there is no water that another tank there will benefit so many! They currently have over 400 students enrolled and almost half of them either don’t pay tuition or pay a very small fraction of it.
Visiting the homes of the ladies from the crafting co-op has been extremely enlightening. Sylvia and Benna are each 18 yrs old and have been sewing with us from the beginning. I’m writing a biography for each of the girls to put on the website and sell their crafts, so I wanted to visit their homes, see their lives, meet their families and hear their stories. We visited Sylvia’s home first and while we were sitting on the grass mat on the floor, I was asking questions about her life and family. Her mother told me, “Thank you for the work you have given Sylvia. This job has saved my family.” Sylvia’s Father died two years ago and her income from the crafting co-op is the only income that supports this family of TEN! I gulp hard and try to remember how much money Sylvia has made in the past year…it isn’t much! Her mother also tells me that Sylvia doesn’t spend any of the money, she brings it all home to support her eight brothers and sisters and her mother. The home was small and simple, but clean. Eventually we walk through more fields of beans to another compound where we find Benna’s home. They are “cousin sisters”, which from what I can understand, is cousins who were raised together, so they are like sisters. Benna’s home has wooden benches against the mud walls, but the house smells of mold and the dirt floor is uneven and slippery. Her mother comes in to greet us; she is tall and has a booming voice. We soon realize she is very hard of hearing. Benna tells me her mother is too old to dig in the garden, which leaves all the digging to Benna. Her income is also the only income that supports the family of four. They walk for hours to fetch water every day and even longer in the dry season. They also walk for hours to get to the crafting co-op every day, hoping to find work there. After many prayers and thanks we finally make our way back to the road where we left the motor bikes. I tell them I’d like to find lunch, it’s past 1:00, so we go to the nearest trading center and search for food. Sam is surprised I want to eat there, but I figure rice and beans here are just as good as rice and beans in town, and it was! Plus, I noticed no one was cooking or building a fire for cooking at either of the homes, so I figured Sylvia and Benna must also be hungry. While we wait on the little, wooden benches for our food I question them about why no one was preparing food. They laugh and tell me, “no food”. I regretfully learn that they eat one meal a day, the evening meal. They thank me repeatedly for the food before we leave and the only thing I can think is, “we really need to sell these bags!” The website will be updated soon with an option to buy!
On our second trip to Christine’s home the Director of Amazing Grace and I found her at home, luckily it’s only about a fifteen minute walk from school. Her mother was sober, the pathetic little home had some minor improvements, such as a mud wall separating a small sitting room from the rest of the house and even two small benches and a short table to sit around. We learned of her brother’s death and that they just buried the twenty year old outside their home two days earlier. Christine agreed to come back to school, but she had conditions; she’s learned how to get what she wants, this is not the first time we’ve come to drag her back to school. She insists she must be allowed to come home on the week-end because someone has to look after the old woman (her mother) and also she lists the things she needs; a bucket, a mattress, shoes for church, the nice ones with a heel! And a few other necessities, I agree to all of them, they are minor things. I’ve never heard her talk so much as she and the director discuss the death of her brother. I sit patiently and wait for the translation to come. Eventually I learn that her brother was drunk and urinated in someone’s shop. The shop owner got upset and pushed him off the stoop of the shop. He fell off the stoop and then fell off the rocky cliff next to it. They found him there in the morning, face down and dead. Before we leave, she remembers she also needs bed sheets. They wrapped her brother in her bed sheets when they buried him. Of course, I nod my head as we head back out into the sunlight and tell her I’ll get her new bed sheets.
It turns out my “perfect” little room that I found isn’t so perfect after all. At night, the little pub across the street produces more noise than I ever imagined could come out of such a small place, the volume of the music is deafening. As my friend Vinny says in regards to volume in Africa....volume is free, so you use ALL OF IT! All hours of the day and night, the trucks and motor bikes that zoom past sound as if they’re driving right into my bed! However, it is clean! With the smallest of effort, like putting a light bulb in the socket in the bathroom, it has become very homey! It has a tile floor that I am not afraid to touch, it even has a sink with running water where I can brush my teeth and wash my hands. I put a bar of soap there and so far I’ve had to replace it every two days. I’m grateful for the many little hotel bars of soap someone sent along with me! I’m hoping eventually everyone in the place will have a bar and a bar will remain at the sink!
Nothing but love, Bonnie
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can make a difference, in fact it’s the only thing that ever has.” -Margaret Mead
Resilient Uganda
P.O. Box 7
Kisoro Uganda AFRICA
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