We arrived home today after another stint in the village, (with Simon and Alex to stay with us for the weekend) seems like Wednesday to Saturday we do the village thing and then Saturday pm to Wednesday am we are back in Mukono. Bit rushed tho as it seems when we are in Mukono all I do is unpack, wash, repack, fill water bottles (about 50 1.5 litre bottles for each stint in the village!) school a nd read emails without much time to blog or reply to emails so sorry if your email isn’t answered promptly these days.
It is good tho, life is very busy, the days pass quickly (probably because everything takes so long, it takes 1 hour to start the fire, boil the water for a hot drink and then cook the toast) and you never know what is going to happen in a day at the village.
The payloader guys up and left on Sunday 27th with 50m still uncleared. They were becoming unco-operative and even took some of the diesel for their own use, Deane was rather happy to see them go in the end. Anyway God had a plan, they left and Deane phoned his friend Jim that had graded the road into the SOS property. Jim bought his grader and just about cleared, smoothed and made everything look great in 1 day!!! So it worked out well in the end.The grass men came and started planting, by hand, the entrance strip into the house sites with grass – paspalym which they say will grow fast and take over, Deane laughed and said we weed spray that in NZ, its a painful weed to have in your lawn!!!
After delays with all sorts of things, everything is starting to take off with the project. Deane had some local men there digging the strainer holes ready for concreting in the strainers and hoping to have the fence finalised by the end of the month.
Even Bri had a good time at the village this time, she took out two skipping ropes joined together and all the kids (including Deane and I) had great fun and competition skipping.
We went to visit the LC2, each village has an LC1, LC2 and LC3, who look after the village and villagers and we were supposed to meet them (not that anyone told us) and register as regular visitors to the village, they have a register to record who comes and goes in their village and anything that happens they know about., The higher authorities were concerned for our safety and the safety of our belongings, cos everyone for miles know the muzungu’s have shifted into Kubamitwe. On the way back from visiting the LC2 we went through a village about 3kms from our house and everyone was looking and waving and then this young group of kids yelled out – “HI MUZUNGU ZACH!!”, Zach wasn’t even in the car, they just knew him and relate every white person they see with Zach, we all cracked up. Alex and Simon can’t believe how well Zach and Sam fit into the village and the way of life and asked “have you lived in a village before” Zach answers, YES we lived in Havelock North village in NZ!!!!! Only we know the comparisons – NONE!!!!!
Sam woke up one morning with a mouse nibbling at his back and then the next night the same mouse was in between his sheets!!!We had a good stay, caught another RAT, seems to be more food and each night we set the trap (don’t tell Bea and Laura Major tho until they have visited or they might not want to stay at the village)
The week before we arrived the entire walls of the longdrop were blown down by a storm, so Alex, with Bri’s help reconstructured the walls. Bri then made a path with a stone edging and a welcome sign and even convinced Alex for the need to concrete in a toilet roll holder!!! First class toilet is what they now call it.
