This morning Valance came by to pick up the donated money. When I told him what we would pay for he was so moved. He just looked at me and said, “sometimes it is so overwhelming and I don’t know what to say, thank you very much.” I started to cry. In fact, this whole last week I have cried a bit every day. I know it is going to be very difficult to say good bye this time. Valance also told me to thank everyone who contributed, which I thought was great that he didn’t think it was just me and remembered that there were many people behind this. I gave him enough money to build the two classrooms as well as doors and windows for 2 other classrooms. It was the second largest donation we made next to the lunch program at Nalusse. Not sure if I mentioned this already but things hear have almost doubled in the past year and a half since I was here. The lunch program is now $4000 and the cost of building supplies has sky rocketed. We are still making a huge difference but the money doesn’t go as far as it did last time. At this we have the exchange rate on our side.
The rest of the day was a day of sacrifice on my part. Nansubugu has been begging me to come to see her garden because I was the one who bought her trees last time I was here. She really wanted me to see how they were doing. As all of you know, I am not a garden person and really don’t like getting dirty, so I could care less about the garden but felt obligated to go.
It was about 10:30 at the time and I told Nansugua that I needed to be back at the school by 1 because I promised the kids I would show them a video. As usual with Africa we didn’t leave until 11:45 so I knew we weren’t getting back by 1.
We took a 1 hour boda bodo (motorcycle) ride to the garden, which was at the end of a road in a really remote village. When we got there she gave me some rubber boots to wear, and of course I had no socks so that was pretty repulsive for me. We walked around the whole 5 acres and she pointed out every tree and plant. When she started picking greens I just stood on the side because I wasn’t about to work in the garden. My dress was fully of thorns, it was hot, I didn’t have any water and I just wanted to get the hell out of there. Finally we left after Nanusubuga tore a strip off there garden helper for not doing good work.
Once we arrived in Mukono, Nansubuga insisted on taking me for lunch. We talked a lot about the garden, her son and life in general in
I spent the afternoon with the kids and showed them a video of some South African kids who are orphans and who have made a CD and DVD of themselves singing. The kids seemed to really like it, but when it came to the part of a man dying of AIDS a few of the students started to cry. There is so much death and sadness here that you never really hear about unless you end up having a private moment with someone. At the end of the movie they tried singing some of the songs even though they were in a completely different language. It was very cute.
During the video Jimmy called me and asked to meet me at the nearest road by the school. I asked him why he didn’t come to school and he said his cow had a calf that morning and he was looking after it. He wanted to talk to me about the phone I wanted to give him. Apparently his aunt heard me talking about it and asked him to ask me if she could have it. I was a bit pissed that she would even ask because I know she has her own phone. When I told Jimmy this he told me that someone came and took her phone this morning. I wasn’t buying the story. Just when I thought I was making head way with his family and that things were becoming clear she turns around and tries to pull that. I wasn’t impressed.
After school Nansubuga insisted that I go to her house for tea. I went with her and another female teacher from the school. She had a lovely house and 2 house girls to do everything for her. We had tea and some plastic looking cake then discussed the garden again and a few personal things about the female teachers. I learned that teacher Milly’s husband recently died from Diabetes, which was very sad to hear. Finally after the proper amount of time I told her that I had to get going because it was dark and I can’t see well at night. They found me a boda boda and I headed back to the guesthouse.
Luck for me, the girls at the house decided to cook spaghetti so we had a nice western meal that night. I recently caught a cold from the 2 little girls that live with us so I decided to take it easy and go to bed early here. When you get sick in Africa it hits you like a ton of bricks because your body isn’t at full strength and can’t fight it as well as it would at home. I know tomorrow it’s going to be bad
Jenn
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