It has been a good day

The hotel room is good (Colin – it’s more than adequate!).  We have a bed, a mosquito net, two chairs, a table and places to store our clothes.  This is luxury compared to our last visit to Rukungiri where we had a bed and 2 hooks on the wall.  We have a flush toilet, with an unbroken seat, a cold shower and a sink with a cold tap.   We slept reasonably well and woke to the sound of squawking birds.  Last time we went to sleep once the disco had died down and woke a couple of hours later as the vans picked up people for work. This was one reason for us going to a ‘posh’ hotel that was a bit out of town – hopefully 10 nights with plenty sleep.  

 We had an excellent breakfast and met Ronnie the Zimbabwean head of the kitchen who is grappling with Tom’s ‘funny diet’.  We had a miscommunication with Charles which meant we were waiting for him at the hotel while he was waiting for us at the children’s centre. 

The photo on the left is the stairs down to our room which is in the block with the red roof (note, we don't have a front room with a view but a back view with a mud wall to wake up to - but we're not complaining!)

 For the business side of our day see Dr Tom Goes Global.  Suffice to say we achieved today’s planned activity and also went into town for lunch.  I treated Moses and Allen and Charles to lunch. In case you think this was particularly kind, the total bill came to less than £5.  We had been talking about food earlier and I wanted proper Ugandan food -  I had groundnut (G-nut) sauce with matooke (mashed plantains), rice and green baby aubergines (I realise fellow travellers may not see this as a treat, but I do).  My lunch cost 62p! I was so full I couldn’t finish it. 

We’d spent the morning talking about children with disability and what little expectation there is for them to be useful people in society. We talked about prejudice and gender, culture and stigma, and abandoned babies and how poverty leads to discrimination.  We discussed education and how in Uganda the focus is on following a set curriculum rather than looking for a child’s talents and strengths (sound familiar?) and how this impacts on children with disability. There were moments when we all felt that only a revolution could lead to change.  Then we remembered, you can’t do everything, you mustn’t do nothing, you can do something.

We saw the reality of how sponsorship changes children’s lives when we met ‘our’ Rebecca, who we last saw in 2008 when she was just finishing school.  She’s the same age as our Pete and we started sponsoring her when they were both about 7.  Since we last saw her (her sponsorship ended in 2010), she’s completed a course in business studies, got married, had a child and now runs her own business. Even writing this brings a lump to my throat.   

  

She didn’t know we were coming and when she saw us she immediately came and held me very tight – it isn’t exaggerating to say that I truly love her and this isn’t just about supporting a charity.   She asked about each of our sons by name and thanked us again for how we’d made it possible for her to achieve all that she has.  She looked very happy and well and it was a brilliant encouragement for us that what we do is founded on principles that work.  When I find it tough this week and the problems seem insurmountable, I’ll think of Rebecca.

As we got out of the car when Charles brought us back to Heritage Inn, he said, ‘It has been a good day’.  I agree.