Merry Christmas from Uganda!

I can officially announce that rainy season is over. We’ve been back from Rwanda for 4 days now and there hasn’t been a drop of rain. But even more importantly, it’s about 30 degrees! The air temperature has lost its tinge of cool and we’re sleeping with the fan that we just bought blowing on us. It’s going to stay hot now until March when the next rainy season will begin.

This heat makes it a little hard to feel like it’s Christmas, even though the calendar tells us that it is. But Christmas it is and this is what it’s like in Uganda…

We did manage to attend two craft sales. I belong to the Kampala Stitch and Bitch on Facebook (I’ve never actually been to a meeting though) and they have posted all the craft sales on the page. The first one was at Kampala International School and it was huge. There was even an East Indian Santa! We thought it would be an hour event but we were there close to 4 hours with lunch in the middle from a Thai buffet in the food court. Didn’t buy much but it was fun to wander around. I did get a poinsettia, a staple in my Christmas decorations. For the kids who were bored, the school pool was open…

The second craft sale was just on the grounds of a shop that makes great glasses but the vendors were the same as the first one, there were hundreds of mzungu stuffed into a small place, and the prices were high. Just like a craft sale at home! We walked in, bought our glasses that we had forgotten to pick up at the previous sale, and left. I think Apollo was quite relieved!

The stores started adding Christmas stock to their shelves at the end of November but it has really been in the last couple of weeks that more Christmas wares have been available. Even the street vendors who come to the car window to sell toilet paper and electric fly zappers are now carrying Christmas trees of assorted colours.

I asked Bree to bring a couple green tinsel garlands for me to make a tree on our window bars but I needn’t have worried as Corey found a pack at Embassy Supermarket the last week in November that we bought to decorate the school. We have used the green garland and Bree’s to create our tree. The decorations are from Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda and I even got a bit of Rwanda snow that fell off the tree at Iris Hotel and have added that for a much more authentic winter feel.

The stockings are from home and the knit garland around the curtain rod is one we had with us in China as well. Mum sent us a Christmas table runner and place-mats that she made when we were in China so they came too. We have our standard travelling Christmas pack!

My first Christmas card came from the Reception class at school. “Merry Christmas. Miss Erika thank you for giving us books.” I received two other cards from students and the mail has brought others from around the world. It’s been lovely receiving them. Thank you!

Of course, I have my Christmas clothes. Luckily for me, it was a ‘cooler’ day when the school had its end-of-term party so I was able to wear my Christmas shirt. For some strange reason, I also travelled with two pairs of Christmas socks. They are part of our decorations too.

In Canada, Corey and I avoid the mall after November 11th unless we know exactly what we need and it's a run-in-run-out event. The Saturday before Christmas is completely off limits. So why we thought going into town for some last minute items on Saturday the 21st, at 1pm, would be a good idea, is beyond me. Traffic was insane and the mall was packed. We had to park in the delivery bay on the top floor of the parkade! Silly mzungu!

We even went to Shopright on Sunday but that wasn't so bad. Everyone is in church so when we arrived at 10, it was really quiet. We were trying to get our internet fixed and after 1.25 hours, we were no further ahead with wifi but we did have a faster modem stick. We can Skype if you want! There was a brass band playing carols outside the MTN office that was lovely.

The afternoon of the 24^th, my friend Robert who used to be that Art teacher at Kawanda came over to drop off a Christmas cake he had made for us.

It was nice to see Robert because we have been abandoned by Apollo (left) and Edigar, our amazing driver and incredible groundsman. They have both headed to their villages for the week to spend Christmas with their families. The neighbourhood actually seems quieter because many people have moved into their villages. They send money to their relatives to buy chickens and matooke for their family Christmas meals and then they pile into the buses (virus death traps) and travel home.

As an aside... there was frequent playing of very loud Christmas carols from trucks and bicycles. It was like those singing birthday cards, playing the same song over and over.  There was also someone who must have been performing the recorder/pan flute at church who has felt the need to practice every night starting at 10:30. Hopefully the performance went well and his days of recorder playing are now over!




In Canada, we always have a liffy-laffy dinner on Christmas Eve with cold meats, cheese, salmon, salad, bread and crackers. We managed to buy several imported cheeses at exorbitant prices as well as cold meats and tinned asparagus, baby corn and artichoke hearts. We can’t eat raw veggies so the salad was all canned. I tried to find a cucumber to peel but there were none available. Nice bread is really hard to find as well so it was just a cracker meal. Doesn’t matter, the food was excellent.


 In order to try to add a bit of winter to our evening, we also had a snow storm video playing. We thought about getting the fan and trying to make it feel like we were in the cold wind but then decided that it wouldn't make much of a difference.

We found out on the 23^rd that our friends Muhamad, Hanifah and Kuluthum were coming to join us. We had invited mid-November but had been told that they would be in the village. As we were watching a movie, Hanifah texted me to say they were coming and what time should they arrive? It was a multi-cultural event!

Lots and lots of loud church services of course. We would have been surprised if there hadn’t been! Hearing the carols and hymns was quite beautiful but Celine Dion at 6:30 this morning was not so wonderful... The Congolese bar had a party last night too with a live band. Nothing to do with Christmas. There will be lots more parties over the next two nights.

This morning began with gifts, including our traditional chocolate letters that we would normally get on the 24^th but as we had unexpected guests and we didn’t have letters for them, we saved ours for Christmas morning.Santa knows me well and bought me a popcorn maker! Yahoo!

We then changed into our bathing suits, lathered ourselves with sunscreen and went to Cassia Lodge for a Christmas swim.

 

After our swim, we treated ourselves to Christmas lunch at Cassia: cheddar soup, turkey with morels and rice, spice cake and custard (they called it figgy pudding with brandy butter). Not like home but not a bad substitution!

Things I miss: family is number one of course, candy canes, nanaimo bars, snow...
Things Corey misses apart from people: taitai, nuts and bolts, snow...

Now, as you wake up and start to tear open your gifts, we sit back, relax and reflect on the Christmas we have just finished celebrating. We wish you all a very Merry Christmas filled with food, family and fun. And maybe some snow too!

Love,

Erika and Corey (and Bree too!)

PS – Serena Resort had a great Christmas greeting:

Whatever is beautiful

Whatever is meaningful

Whatever brings you happiness

May it fill your home

This holiday season

And throughout the coming year.

Merry Christmas from Simba, the Christmas Dog, too!

Rwanda - Been There, Done That!

I love travelling. That should come as no surprise seeing as we are spending a year in Uganda, have lived in China, and frequently find ourselves away from home. It is our hope to travel at each break while we are in Uganda and have easier access to another part of the world. Seems silly to not take advantage of another piece of the world that is on our doorstep.

We have just returned from 5 days in Kigali, Rwanda. While Rwanda is beautiful, it’s not because it is in Africa that a place is super exciting. Kigali is a big city. Lots of parks, very clean, fresh air, but I think it’s like going to visit Drumheller. Everyone goes to Drumheller to visit the dinosaur museum but once you’ve spent the day there, it’s hard to find enough to fill the next three.

After the 45 minute flight to Kigali, we entered a lovely airport with no signs as to where to go to get a visa. We had our entry forms and as we were filling them out, a man in a suit came up and

grabbed Corey’s passport right out of his hands. Corey grabbed it right back and told him to keep his hands off his passport. Turns out the man was a visa checker and needed to see our letters of admission from the government before we could go any further. He initialled our papers and we were allowed to buy a visa and go through immigration to get our luggage. It took a little longer than expected because Bree had applied three times and had never actually received an admission letter. She had printed all the documents to say she had applied. A woman took those and disappeared and we waited. She could have gone on her lunch break and we would have still waited without knowing who she was or where she was. The passport grabber told Bree that it was ok and she went to pay and he told her to go to the immigration desk. “Before I pay for the visa?” “No. Pay first then go.” Exactly what she was doing.

The hotel had arranged for a pick up and we were whisked to the Iris Guesthouse. I would just like to say that if you are a driver and picking up mzungu, it would be nice to have some sort of commentary about the place instead of being on your cell phone all the time. We had that in Tanzania as well so that is just an Eastern Africa thing maybe?

The hotel was unbelievable. We booked a 2 bedroom apartment and it was three times the size of our home in Kelowna. It reminded me of a casa in Mexico: slate floors, three bathrooms, big bedrooms, upstairs patio, surrounded by huge trees and so nice and cool. It was perfect. Until the toilet overflowed because the arm on the float broke and water went everywhere before Corey could get the water turned off. He went to tell the front desk clerk and she said “oh” and that was it. I then went 15

minutes later to ask about getting it cleaned up and she said someone was coming. But not within the next 30 minutes… Then when we went out, I asked about the toilet being fixed and she said that someone was coming later. When we got back it still wasn’t fixed so Bree asked the front desk manager who was now at the desk and he had no idea what she was talking about it. He was most upset. It was repaired within 15 minutes. Sigh.

Monday afternoon after we checked in, we walked into town. I had located the Tourism office on the map in my book so we headed there to get a city map. Kigali touts are very aggressive. Each corner we were assaulted by paperboys and people selling phone cards, jackets, jeans, maps, postcards and even possibly themselves. In Uganda, they ask if you want something and when you say no thank you, they move on. These ones keep walking next to you and repeating the same thing in a variety of ways. One guy got so close in my face that I was startled by his proximity. I

was incredibly uncomfortable and not so happy when we got to the location of the tourism office and found the building demolished.

We went into the Nakumatt mall, pushing the taxi drivers aside who were blocking our entrance (how can I buy groceries and need a taxi to get home when you are stopping me from even going in???) and asked about getting a map there. Yes, there were maps in the book section. Great! So in we went and were told at the book section that they were all sold out. Out we went. Luckily there was a coffee shop in the mall and we were able to have a coffee milkshake. I always feel better after a coffee milkshake! We decided to see if the bookstore up the street had a map so we pushed our way through the touts and climbed through them in front of the bookshop (“Books! Maps! Postcards!”) to see if they had anything. I found several postcards but stood at the counter for 10 minutes without any of the 6 clerks coming to sell them to me. And they didn’t have maps either.

We headed back home and decided to see if the Hotel Mille Collines (the one from Hotel Rwanda and Sunday at the Pool in Kigali) had a map. We met a lovely concierge names Fiable (Reliable) and he gave us a map, showed us what was around, told us how to get to the post office and then walked us to the gift shop to buy postcards. When they told him that they were sold out, he offered to go into town and buy some for me. He also gave us his number to contact him if we needed a driver. It was like a little piece of heaven and an angel had come to soothe my angry heart! Recharged, we followed the back way to the post office and got stamps, postcards, and then walked home. We ate an amazing dinner at the hotel and booked a driver (not Fiable but the same gentleman who picked us up, Fidele (Faithful)).

Tuesday, we were picked up by Alfred, the owner of the car company, to be driven to the Kigali Genocide Memorial Museum and two memorials 30km south of town. Alfred either yelled into his cell phone or completely ignored us. When we actually started asking him questions about the city, he put in his ear buds and turned on the radio to drown us out. I had to ask him once to stop looking at his cell because he kept weaving into oncoming traffic and then he was dozing off as we drove to the villages. A nightmare.

However, the museums and memorials were powerful and heart-wrenching. The museum has over 250,000 people buried there and the two other memorials have over 45,000 each. That is just a fragment of the people who were slaughtered during the genocide. The statement that affected me the most said: “Genocide is not a single act of mass murder; it is thousands of acts of individual murders.” Haunting. The two guides at the Ntarama and Nyamata are survivors of the genocide. The two churches are locations where the people took shelter by the thousands and were betrayed by their priests. In Ntarama we were actually led down into the crypts where there are thousands of bones piled on top of each other and each coffin has over 250 skeletons inside. There is one coffin under glass and it contains one woman with a baby tied to her back. She was impaled after being raped by over 20 men. It is only 20 years ago that this happened. It doesn’t seem possible. Rwanda is now one people – no Tutsi, no Hutu, no Twa. Just Rwandans. The distinction was originally made by the number of cows the individual had, not even real tribes.

Wednesday we arranged to have Fidel come to pick us up at 9 to explore the craft markets and other museums of note. I had asked Martine at the front desk to tell me where we should go in Kigali and she had nowhere to suggest because we had already been to the memorials. I had my trusty map though and there was a tourist information board identified on there so that was going to be our first stop. The office was in a big office building and the man helping us had nowhere to suggest apart from the memorials either. But the map did show where the craft markets were as well as all the coffee shops. We started our eating tour at Brioche where we had yummy pasties and coffee before heading to the shoe market cooperative. We were hoping for leather shoes but found a rubber boot factory that was out of production. We did spend a lovely 30 minutes chatting with the owner who has family in Montreal but who has never been able to secure a travel visa for his wife to visit their daughter and family there. We then tried finding Rwanda Nziza, a craft cooperative that was under the big yellow Tusker sign, or so said their webpage. We drove past it 3 times as the sign is now a green Heineken sign and their shop sign is dark grey on black so you can’t read the name. Even the boda drivers had no idea where it was. That’s saying a lot.

We went to the Presidential Palace in the afternoon and asked Fidele to contact one more craft market that sells weaving and tapestries while we were exploring. I showed him in the book and said “Do you know this place?” He said that he did. “Can we go after here? Is it far?” “Oh. I don’t know it, I can just read the name of it.” There was a number with the name so I asked him to call. We had a great tour of the never-ending palace filled with secret rooms and a balcony big enough for a helicopter so that the president could escape easily. It even has a chapel and Pope John Paul II preached there when he was visiting Rwanda. Ironic that the president had such elaborate escape and hiding systems at his home and his plane was shot down in the next field as it was coming in for landing just before the genocide got really nasty. We saw the wreckage. We also saw where he kept his giant python. The following president lived there but the current president actually lives the next block over from our hotel. Beautiful grounds. Lots of guards so we didn’t get any photos.

When we got back in the car and were heading back into town, I asked Fidele if he had called the weaving market. “No. I don’t have MTN.” I wonder how long we would have driven before we would have realized that we were heading back to the hotel! We then decided to go to another coffee shop near the tourism office and we asked him to go back along that street so that we could look for it. He tried to go back into the parking lot of the tourism office but we caught him in time to continue along the street. When I told him the name of the café, Shokola, he said that it was not in that area. He drove to another location nearby but certainly not on the same street. We ran through the rain and entered the coffee shop.

“Where is the bathroom?” asked Bree. “Down the hall.” So off Bree went and back she stormed. “Do I need a key?” “Yes.”

“Can we get to the bookshop downstairs without going outside so

that we don’t have to get wet?” “Yes, down these stairs.” So down we go and into another coffee shop below. “How do we get to the bookstore?” “Outside and around the corner.” Through the rain. Sigh.

The next morning we decided to walk around a bit to explore the city further. We knew about the touts and were going to be strong. There were also little shops that were highly recommended for unique clothing and Rwandan handicrafts and the websites even had maps. How naïve we are. We did go into one shop and each time I stopped to look at something, the woman would come and stand right in front of what I was looking at, between me and the item. I asked her, “Do you have to stand so close to me?” She replied, “Yes.” We didn’t buy anything!

As it was early on a Thursday, there were fewer touts and we had our ‘go away’ faces on so we weren’t as bothered by them. We decided to have coffee milkshakes again before ending our walking tour at the post office. Corey ordered samosas which came in an order of 1 or 3. “I’ll have the three samosas

please.” He returned with 3 plates of 3 samosas and fries. Don’t even ask about Bree wanting a chocolate milkshake with a banana (he came back to make sure she really wanted the banana bread mashed into her milkshake) or my coffee milkshake which was a vanilla milkshake with a shot of coffee. Don’t deviate from the script please.

 

The post office has a box that is for ‘local’, one for ‘foreign’ and one for ‘unknown’. I hope my postcards that were put into the ‘foreign’ box were dropped in the right one. I didn’t ask what the unknown box was for.

We spent the afternoon reading on our balcony. It was a lovely afternoon and I read “Y: A Novel” from cover to cover. Well worth the read if you are looking for a great Canadian story.

Our time at the airport was just as funny… I was yelled at by the guard to “make line” when I was standing next to Corey before we went through the security screening. Bree was asked if she was sure there was no laptop in her bag. Sure? I was told to go to the next ticket agent with a big sweep of arms and hands but when I got there, she wasn’t ready for me because her computer was down. That’s why she hadn’t made eye contact and called me over. So the guy next to her tssst-ed me (a lovely sound, as nice as being whistled at or snapped at) and called me over. I told him that she had our passports and he tssst-ed me again. She gave me back the passports but not my papers so I asked for those back. “Which?” “The papers I gave you.” “Papers?” “Yes, the ones on your counter please.” “These are yours?” Sigh. I had the same conversation as we left the other counter with the guy who had tssst-ed me. “Papers?”

We went through emigration without the guy actually even looking at us or saying anything to us. Not sure how he managed to know we were the same person as our passport. We went to the café and sat for 20 minutes before the 4 men at the counter stopped laughing and playing with the espresso steaming wand and came over to see if we wanted anything. We sat in the comfy chairs in the corner (they were the only ones left) and we had the joy of a young couple who sat with us on each other’s lap. The chocolate croissants that were in the display cabinet took so long to come we thought they had forgotten and we had to gulp them down to get through the next layer of security. (“Laptop? Sure?”) The women’s bathrooms were beyond anything I experienced in China. Then we sit in the gate area and suddenly everyone gets up because one attendant made a hand gesture that meant “get on the plane.” We weren’t asked if we were heading to Entebbe until we were outside and heading to the plane.

Rwandans in Kigali are not friendly. There are always exceptions but we didn’t encounter many. They even make the obtuseness of Ugandans seem minor. Ugandans always smile. Rwandans never do. We did eat some amazing food though: lunch buffet for 3,000 francs ($4.50) at Afrika Bite and Lalibela, two meals at Khana Kazana, three meals at the hotel restaurant, and one dinner at Heaven where I had banana flower salad. It was delicious!

I don’t regret returning to Kigali and travelling out of Uganda. However, my advice to anyone thinking about going would be to spend a day in Kigali before and after going to the Virunga Mountains to do a gorilla trek. Don’t just go to Kigali unless it’s just a long weekend or you need a few days of fresh air. My lungs loved it. Ironically, Corey had massive asthma attacks because the trees that were in bloom were pollinating and there was no smoke and burning garbage to mask the allergens! He breathed a sigh of relief when we got back to the hazy air of Uganda!! We spent a lot of time laughing on this trip and all agreed that it could have been one day less. We do “tssst” each other now and bark to “make line” so we have some funny memories to share. Enjoyable but not an experience to be repeated.

Amazing Place, Amazing People, Amazing Projects (part 1 & 2)

CCVS

The Centre for Children in Vulnerable Situations is located in Lira, a town to the east of Gulu. Speak to those who are working to help the population affected by the war and they will tell you that this area was much harder hit than Gulu during the war but was more difficult to access so the international community set up in Gulu with the intent of "sharing the wealth" with Lira. That never happened.

Lira has few mzungu, narrow streets, and what seems like thousands of people. A new market structure is being built across the street from the current street market and the projected opening is in 2014. Roscoe, the psychologist from Kampala that works with CCVS twice a month, isn't hopeful. At least the population is happy about the move to the new building. Talk to the vendors here in Kampala and they refuse to move from Oweno Market to the new government structure. More on that in a later blog... maybe once I have left Uganda!

CCVS has a small office and a meeting room in a local high school, just past the airstrip. It has two support staff and three counsellors: Patrick, Jennifer and Denis. It officially opened at the end of 2010 but started seeing patients in January 2011. Since then, the three have met over 1000 patients. Each can see five per day but of course some are repeat clients.

While the name implies that they work exclusively with children, they actually counsel children, youth and adults who have been traumatized by the war. They do a variety of therapy programs depending on the situation and attend training that happens in Gulu. This past summer they completed extra training for victims of torture and extra training for family therapy. Some clients require 12 or more sessions and others only one to help the person realize that what is happening is not witchcraft but rather post-traumatic stress. Many clients have been abducted, raped or have witnessed killings. The Mental Health institute in Lira will refer new patients to CCVS if they feel they need counselling more than they need drugs. The three also visit the men’s prison every week to do individual and group counselling sessions. When an inmate is to be released, they work with the inmate to prepare him and they go to the village to prepare the community for the re-integration of the individual.  

Other clients come to the office or Patrick, Jennifer or Denis travel to the villages up to 50km away. They have a boda (motorcycle) that they use to reach the outlying communities. It is in need of repair but still chugging along. Unfortunately the same cannot be said for their computer that has just crashed. It is their hope to move into new communities in 2014.

In the two half days that we spent with them, we learned about their programs, visited the Mental Health institute and toured the prison. These three soft-spoken individuals are also incredibly passionate about their work. They speak of the value of working with these victims of war in order to rebuild the community. They speak proudly about their successes as they well should because the work is great and they are only three. However, the funding from the Belgium government has not been secured for the coming year so the centre is in crisis itself. The Congolese branch is still getting funding but it is still in war. But people don’t just wake up the morning after the war is over, feel all better and move on. These people need someone to talk to.

If they cannot secure funding, they will close their doors in February 2014. Total operating cost for 5 local employees, the psychologist from Kampala, the offices, the boda, the fuel and all other expenses: 100,000,000USh. That’s about $45,000cdn. Crazy.

COHU

Corey and I met Esther and her husband Solomon just over a month ago when they were in Kampala. We have a mutual contact in the local Rotary club and he arranged for us to meet. Esther is the founder of Children of Hope Uganda in Lira and in a short period of time, she has established a lot. Esther and Peace, her “second in command”, met us at our hotel in Lira and travelled with us to the main hub of their work, a vocational school in Barnolyo.

Barlonyo is a small community about 45 minutes’ drive from Lira (which could be just 10km on these roads, who knows.) This community was victim of a large massacre by Kony and the LRA in 2004 when 300 people were rounded up and killed. Kony then cut off their heads and hands then made stew for the rest of the community to eat. After the rebels left, the government collected the bodies and buried them, counting 122 victims but they failed to count the ones who were thrown into the bush. The memorial plaque says 122 but the community is fighting in court to have the real number of 300 on the plaque in order to honour all the dead and bring the reality of the massacre forward.

COHU’s vocational school currently offers 6 month tailoring classes for women from the community who want to develop a skill that can help lift their family out of poverty. They have fewer machines than participants but the women work in shifts. The goal is to provide the graduates with their own machine so that they can start their own business. The first set of graduates received a machine but the most recent graduates did not. COHU does not have the funding to buy them at the moment. Bree and I brainstormed with Esther and Peace about ways to make the donated machines sustainable for COHU. Apparently some of the women from the first group just sold the machine. We have learned that those who do not invest in a project don’t value it so that is disappointing but not surprising. The women make animals, dolls and clothes and one suggestion was that they could make these to sell to pay for their machine as they earned their own money as well. Once the machine was paid for, they could keep it.

Another program at Barnolyo is a nursery school. They have 3 rooms on the land of the vocational school and employ 3 teachers who share the 280 three to seven year olds. Did you get that? Let me repeat: 3 rooms, 3 teachers, 280 kids under the age of 7.

Esther has also established a sustainability program that helps provide funds for children to attend school. COHU does not believe in school sponsorship because it only supports one child and maybe it’s not the right child or maybe that child will leave the family when they have finished their schooling. So they provide a sustainable project (chickens, pigs, goats) to the caregiver and then the money earned goes toward educating all the children. “No mother is going to favour only one child. She will share the resources between them so that they all have the same opportunities.” It’s hugely successful because all the families who are involved in this program are paying school fees for all their children.

Peace also runs a savings program with small groups of in a variety of communities. Each week, the members must make a contribution to their savings. She trains one member to be the accountant and the funds grow weekly. The minimum donation is 1,000USh a week. For the amount you save in the first 2 months, you get a 15% interest rate. It is also possible to borrow from the account as long as the others are willing to be your guarantors. Depending on the amount of time it takes you to repay, the interest rate goes up. This covers the 15% interest that is promised.  The three women in this photo are part of the Barnolyo savings program. The woman on the left is the accountant for the group.

COHU works in 5 other communities as well but trains tailors without having a big vocational school like in Barnolyo. It is Esther’s hope that one day there will be other programs such as culinary arts/catering. At the moment there is tailoring, brick making/laying and a couple others that slip my mind. They also run health workshops and sanitation groups that monitor the cleanliness of each other’s houses.

We had planned to present to two groups at Barnolyo but only had one day and they had intended us to come for two. Our presentation was very dynamic and there was one older woman name Eunice who added comments and got all the women laughing. It was great because everyone relaxed and we had a lot of fun speaking with them. Esther and Peace were great and we left the second batch of kits with them so that they could do the presentation the following day. “Are you going to teach us how to make the kits?” What a common refrain. We do really need to find PUL.

Esther has an interesting history. She was orphaned in her mid-teens and her brother and his wife died when she was 18, leaving her to raise 3 children. She had the opportunity to train to be a teacher so her other brother cared for the children for those 2 years but once she was done, he married and moved away. She was left to raise these children as she began her teaching career. When she married Solomon, he understood that the three children were part of the package deal and now they have three children of their own. She no longer teaches but focusses full-time on COHU and its projects. She is 36. Peace will be 30 early next year. Incredible women who have accomplished amazing things.

As all groups, funds are hard to come by. The vocational school has poultry, pigs, pineapples, and fish ponds to help pay for the programs. Unfortunately there is no fence around the school so theft and visiting grazing animals do affect their profits. “No-one wants to donate to a fence,” Esther declares.

COHU does have an amazing champion in Toronto, Lorna, who is working hard to get funding for them. Visit Danier Leather anywhere in Canada and you will find small animals made by these women in Lira. Lorna has managed to get their product into these stores. Mr. Danier even donates $2200 per month to the organization and will send all the money raised by the sale of these animals back to the organization. Go buy them! I know the women who will benefit from those purchases. They are using ISEE’s sanitary kits! These women here are stuffing elephants and zebras and rhinos that will be in a Danier Leather shop near you!

Two more amazing projects and groups of people. Being in the north always re-inspires me and makes so thankful to be in Uganda working with these amazing people! Lucky me!