Rats Ate My Parachute

Can’t quite believe I’m writing this, but…. Hey, we’re going to Uganda!

Since the last blog in 2019, I’ve been overseas once with Global Care - a brief trip to Albania last year, to interview some lovely women working on an agricultural project initiated through Global Care funding. The trip was also a goodbye, as the venture is helping the local project become self-supporting. I went with CEO John White and was much too busy to write a blog!

Over the last five years we’ve continued volunteering for Global Care in the UK – increasing our hours during lockdown. For those who don’t know, I work for the Communications and Operations teams and Tom does some work with the Ops team too. In 2020, GCare gave me work, friendship, & a reason to get out of bed. Reading stories about the devastation the pandemic brought for GCare families and communities challenged and motivated me, and once again reminded me to appreciate my privilege. I got fit – cycling the equivalent of 2.6 marathons in a week and walking ’50 miles in 30 days’ fundraising for Global Care can do that for a middle-aged woman! My friends and family were amazingly supportive, and generous to GCare.

Long story short, I reduced my hours a bit at the end of 2021, then I got covid, twice in six months, and ended up with symptoms which were worsening not improving. A diagnosis of Long Covid led to months of OT, physio, and exercise therapy through the Barnsley LC Clinic, and months of counselling. There were days when it all became a bit much. Plans for the new fit me disappeared in a fog of breathlessness and fatigue. I resigned from another volunteer job and reduced my hours again for Global Care.

Covid has also had an extraordinary impact on the work of Global Care. UK staff and overseas partners worked incredibly hard to provide hygiene, health, and welfare packs for project communities. Many families had no jobs and/or very little food. Many children were orphaned - in countries where there was little healthcare and no vaccines. Schools were closed and there was no online education in poor, rural, and marginalised communities. The effects of the pandemic are still felt by our overseas projects – rocketing prices, high unemployment, increased inequalities. Plus the destruction of livelihoods and lives where families rely on agriculture – due to unpredictable weather patterns and other effects of climate changes.

2023 was Global Care’s 40^th Anniversary - we manged a few events/ campaigns. I can function pretty well with ‘pacing’ and scheduled rests… Several overseas projects celebrated the anniversary, but for various reasons, it wasn’t possible in Uganda. The UK team began planning a volunteer trip for 2024.

I was in the GCare Coventry office, and someone said, ‘Would you be interested in a Uganda team trip?’ I laughed … for too many reasons for 1000 words, it didn’t seem possible. And I imagined I’d be more of a hindrance than a help now. I went home and told Tom. We parked it.

A few weeks later it’s mentioned again. ‘Even if you don’t go to Uganda, how about using your experience of trips to help with the planning?’

Hesitatingly, we say ‘OK’.
You guessed it – a few weeks into the planning, we say we’ll 'possibly' go.
We really can’t decide. We talk, we pray, we talk to other people….
Then we have an idea. Our friends have often said they’d like to go with us. Let’s ask them.  If they say they want to go, we’ll definitely go (half expecting them to say ‘No’). After due consideration our friends say, ‘Yes!’ No more getting out of it… we’re going.

It’s been a busy few months, but now we have a plan. A team of 10 - Steve (Head of Operations), Tom and me, and 7 other volunteers, are travelling to Uganda in December.  The main focus is 5 days in Rukungiri (southwest), running children’s camps and visiting homes.  The children coming to the camps are either on the sponsorship programme, part of a Girls’ Clubs initiative, or were included in the disability project I’ve written about in previous posts.

I’m both excited and terrified. I agreed to go on condition I can sit down any time/ anywhere, and sleep when I need to. Tom’s condition is that I won’t try and play very physical games with the children. For those who don’t know me well – this is an impossible request. I’ll likely fail on day one, then be so fatigued it’s not an option for the other days!

I can’t describe how much we appreciate the spiritual, emotional, and financial support we’ve had from our friends and family over the years for our trips, and for the work of Global Care.  We’re expecting up to 130 children at each ‘camp’. We’re meeting in two schools - we’d like to leave them some of our sports equipment. There will be parachutes (yes - the rats ate one in Moses's storeroom!). We’d love to give each child a small gift like a notebook and pen. The children will have a simple breakfast, some will have travelled a long way to get there, and meal at lunchtime. There are obviously lots of other costs. The team contribute to their flights, accommodation and food. For the children who come, this is an opportunity to play, have fun, meet white people (Mzungus), eat, and know they are loved, appreciated and valued. Many of them have little or no opportunity to play on an average day – they’ll usually be doing chores and looking after younger siblings before/after school.

I've written about *John (The Girl With One Shoe) a disabled boy we met in Rukungiri. John’s mother was told he would die, so she left him with his father and paternal grandparents – who also looked after his cousins while his aunt worked in Kampala. He walked to school (but didn’t go every day) using a walking frame. When we first met him, he was sitting on a mat at the back of a nursery classroom – isolated and not integrated in the class. In 2019 John joined the Children with Disability project.  When we saw him again 6 months later, GCare had funded the construction of a new block of latrines at the school, including an accessible toilet. John had a special chair with a desk and was chatting to his classmates – and he got up and ran to hug me. Earlier this year, Steve, visited 11-year-old John at home. John’s grandparents are elderly and frail now. No one in the family works. John is happy at school, fully accepted, and has many friends. The school told Steve they are waiving John’s fees in recognition of the family’s difficult circumstances – and hoping Global Care will find a sponsor for John. They also provide John with breakfast and lunch. He wants to be a Lawyer when he is older.

I’ll never forget John. It’s worth a bit of fatigue to be able to help give children like John the chance to play for one day.

Next month I’ll give you an update on our Orientation Day – it will all be very real after that!

There’s a JustGiving page…