Home from Home

Isn’t it wonderful how you can visit some places and right from the start they feel like home?  Then each time you return, your new extended family is sitting waiting for you to arrive, watching down the road for the sound of a car.  And it doesn’t matter that there are some things that are unusual and even at times uncomfortable because the more you visit the more its all just part of the experience.

Today has been another exciting day.  We arrived last night and had greeted some of the team but today we met more – both old friends, and new folk who are working at the centre.  It’s been great to catch up with how the skills centre is progressing and see the sewing machines Hope House bought last year all being used by new students.   I was shown the effects of a drill I sent out which is being used to make bead curtains (It was one of the things I bought with the money ‘a Good Yarn’ raised).   They had been going to make seed jewellery with it but there has been a problem with getting the seeds.  I took a crochet basket my friend Ruth made, decorated with the handmade beads the skills centre make.  Immediately they came up with loads of ideas…baskets, table mats, cushion covers. 

I love this team!   They have such passion for the area and for the children and have set up many sustainable projects for both the families of sponsored children and the community in general.

The highlight today though has been spending time with the children at the day care centre.   

They are a fantastic bunch of loveable children who shrieked with delight at the new toys we brought and who as the day wore on became more relaxed and responsive to us.  These children mostly have fairly severe physical disabilities and have problems with uncontrollable movement, paralysis, deformity, loss of sight and learning disabilities.   We met up with one of the boys Tom spent time with last year and didn’t recognise him at first as he has begun to increase in size. We heard tales of mothers who ran away when they knew their child was disabled, a baby abandoned at the hospital, mothers who can now work because they can leave the child safely.  We watched as the lovely Ida cleaned the children up, fed them, bathed them, changed them, cuddled them and played with them, helped by other members of the team throughout the day.  Tom & I had mixed success at feeding the children or giving them chai but the children laughed at us making a mess, and we laughed at them making a mess!

I feel full of love and appreciation for my Tom and Okello Tom and all the work they did last year in support of Global Care’s disability centre project. The research, and their determination to let the guardians of the children say for themselves where they most needed help, has had a real influence on the whole set-up.  To watch the pair of them working with the children, loving and caring for them, playing with them and ultimately interacting with them was truly moving.    

The more we hear about what Global Care has done and is doing, the more we know that this is absolutely the right charity for us to be involved with.  Our trip is making us realise how short they are of support and sponsors, here, in Kampala and in Rukungiri.  There is a seemingly never ending supply of horror stories and absolute poverty and vulnerability of children. Both here and in Rukungiri the waiting list for sponsors is so long they have to turn new people away.  When you’ve seen first-hand the effect that sponsorship has, and realise how little it costs for us who live in such luxury and relative security to sponsor a child or support the projects here, I can only ask myself how to decide when I have given enough.  More importantly, how can I go back to my job, my house, my holidays, my delicious varied diet and my weekly supermarket shop and each year let the enormity of what I’ve seen fade?

One of the great things about today is our current accommodation.  For £18 for both of us we have B&B and have been given the executive room with a coffee table and arm chairs – we haven’t had much in the way of comfy chairs for the last 2 weeks.  When I got back to the guest house tonight, I had the fabulous luxury of a hot shower and soap I brought from home, and I washed off the dirt, spit, food, urine and dust I acquired with the children today.  I only hope it won’t be so easy to wash away the memories in the comfort of my UK home.