(sorry about all the different fonts and sizes but the blog has a mind of it's own and I can't do anything about it. At least this week it's not green.)

The Friday night thudding of stereos determinedly turned up to full volume is just starting up from all directions, all but drowning out the bleats of goats tethered by the roadside and the last birds of the evening… Later it’ll provide some competition for our local orchestra of baritone frogs and soprano cicadas, with perhaps the early morning accompaniment of our resident carpenter: “Ahiya-maa-aihya-yee-ah-aihya-ouuu.”

The faint glow of the sinking sun is just enough to illuminate the keyboard through the evening haze and our room smells of citronella to frighten off the first of the evening’s mosquitoes.

We’re off down to the Nile for a well-earned end-of-the-week meal soon with our next door neighbour, Ted, a fisheries researcher and some fellow PHD fish experts, but before things get overly academic and fishy here’s an update on our time with SALVE – now half way through but still with plenty of new and exciting experiences to discover each week…

So after another relaxing weekend (largely spent lying under a palm tree in a tropical paradise of dragonflies, weaver birds and black-and-white kingfishers hovering over the river Nile, brightly coloured flowers and a shimmering swimming pool), we were ready to jump into what rivals our busiest and most productive week yet.

Monday started early with the street clinic. Before Stephen arrived we already had two candidates lined up for interview. We couldn’t believe it – whereas last time we had searched high and low and felt we were fishing in a pool of shy fish, now they were already flocking to us without any prompt!

Hassan was the first. He was unmissable as he crossed the road towards us in his mud-coloured coat that reached down to his feet. He held out a skinny hand and muttered a well-practiced, heart-braking “I’m hungry”. We couldn’t fail to feel the pity he was so good at engendering and gave him half a loaf of bread. He sat with us eating it carefully and savoring the almost-moldy flavor while we waited for Stephen to come and find out more about him.

In the meantime we glimpsed a smaller boy (who we later learned was nine), who was hovering unsurely in the distance but watching the bread-eating with hungry interest. Initially we thought he must already be cared for, as despite his bare feet, he was clean and well dressed. We called him over and talked as much as we could, finding out his name was David and that he lived on the streets.

By this time Stephen had arrived and we began to collect more information on both the boys.

It turned out that both had lost their parents – David five years ago through HIV (after his father had abandoned his mother she had turned to a busy life of prostitution to gain a living. David’s youngest sibling had died through her neglect, or perhaps through being born with the virus.) After her death David had found his grandfather selling peanuts in the street, and had gone to live with him along with his younger brother, Patrick. The grandfather had come down from Northern Uganda to escape the political conflict and was penniless but was being homed and supported by a local church enough to survive. He looked after the boys as best he could but both were malnourished and were not receiving a proper education.

David had turned to the streets where he could beg for food and at least escape the teasing from neighboring school children for being supported. With the money he received he was able to buy himself clothes and enough food to live on yet he told us he felt hungry most of the time and had to sustain himself with regular trips to skips where he could find scraps of rotten food.

Hassan’s parents had both been killed in a car accident just four months ago. With no known relatives, he came to the streets to also beg for food. However he would not agree to take us to the area that he had lived with his parents for the required checking of information and to find a possible relative or guardian who could give their consent for SALVE to give their support.

There was nothing more we could do for Hassan for the moment but schedule another meeting and hope he would warm to us attempting to re-connect him with a relative.

In the meantime we asked David to lead us to his grandfather’s home for the required consultation. It was some distance from Jinja along the main road so we got boda-bodas – much to David’s delight!

We got off at a green area leading away from the busy road. David led us past the church to a square concrete building with a flaking door. Inside the room something stirred and a grey head poked out to see two mazungus with his estranged grandson. The grandfather exchanged some brisk words with David, who suddenly became quiet and wouldn’t look anyone in the face.

We explained who we were and that we had come to offer some help and he promptly found the pastor and disappeared back into his hole. We spoke for a while with the pastor and confirmed the information from David, finding out that in David’s absence, his younger brother had been taken to a children’s home. The brothers had not seen each other in three years.

We knocked on the flaking door again and eventually the grey head surfaced. He seemed a bit surprised when we explained that we wanted to talk to him but once he got talking he became very open and told us firmly that he loved David and wouldn’t say anything bad about him. He gave his unofficial blessing on us helping David and was pleased to hear that he could be taken from the streets and given an education.

We left it at that for the day and said a friendly goodbye, anticipating meeting in a couple of days time with Mike.

-o-

Good morning, I got a bit carried away last night and didn’t manage even to get half way through before dinner. (The researchers didn’t turn up but we met an orphan home volunteer and micro-finance worker and ate fajitas with yummy mince and guacamole and sour cream while the fire flies glimmered over the river and danced to all the lanterns and candles casting shadows over the lawn with its frog-orchestra in full swing).

Now I write to the sound of cockerels crowing to each other and the busy splashing of sheets and towels being washed and hung outside my window.

-o-

The following day Hassan did not turn up as scheduled but David came in his place. We were impressed by his persistence. So we asked him to take us to his local haunts so we could gather photos of his eating (above) and sleeping places. It was my most moving experience yet hearing this sweet and intelligent young man give us the practical details of his every day life.

If he was lucky he might find a discarded box left at one of the tips or down a back-alley. This meant that he could lie inside it, with less likelihood of being found and beaten by the police or an older street child perhaps on drugs; worst of all he feared the “thugs”, who would wonder the streets at night, searching for heads to cut off and sell for witchcraft. Otherwise, he would wait until the streets were deserted and sit outside a shop on the main street, pulling his t-shirt over his legs and tucking his head into his knees. He’d awake as soon as it started getting light to avoid abuse from passers-by.

We gave him more bread for his time (in which he could have been begging or searching for scraps), which he stuffed into all his pockets with a grin that wouldn’t fade for a while, and we hoped to be seeing him with Mike the next day at his grandfather’s.

Next we took a bus and a long walk up dirt tracks through forest and fields, escorted by helpful locals when we didn’t know the way, to the home where we were told we could find David’s brother Patrick.

We were welcomed by hoards of small children, some no older than toddlers, who clung to us like limpets as a couple of staff led us to the manager’s office. The manager was very welcoming and happy to see us and gave us a little more information on David’s circumstances. Then he bought Patrick to us; a very quiet little boy who politely answered our questions and gazed in bewilderment until we showed him photos of his brother and grandfather, whom he still recognized even though he hadn’t seen them since he was three.

It was such a privilege to connect them together and give the assurance to each that their brother was still alive and well. We left promising to bring David to visit if and when we were able to take him into our care.

Next was our visit to the grandfather with Mike. Unfortunately David had just left when we arrived (I doubt he has any way of telling the time and he was clearly wary of being there as a neighbour claimed to have seen him hiding behind the toiled block). The grandfather was fast asleep and without David there was little point in waking him so we spoke with a small group of interested neighbours and teachers.

They were aghast when they saw my pictures of David collecting rubbish and sleeping rough. It was difficult for them to associate the grandchild of their respected neighbour to one of the vagrant tramps they were accustomed to seeing in town.

Mike counseled their negative attitudes, encouraging a more positive outlook which would be open to the possibility of acceptance and change. We left hoping to find David once more in town to arrange the awaited meeting.

We set off back into town with Mike, to discuss, amongst other things, the recruitment of new staff and a recent donation to SALVE, which Mike was keen to put towards our big plans for community education.

We are currently planning the recruitment of two new workers: one to live in the home in Bugembe to give extra support, counseling and care. The other worker will be based more in town, helping particularly with the street clinic and community education project. There are always numerous other jobs that need doing, and once we are registered as a Community Based Organisation (very soon we hope! The constitution is just being finalised) there should be plenty of working alongside and learning from neighbouring institutions too.

In terms of community education plans, it’s going to make a huge difference having extra funding to increase our educational resources, particularly in the employment of a small team of professional counselors and other possible social/health-related professionals in training local communities in the varying issues which are leading children to the streets. We may also instigate various vocational projects, such as crafts-making, and perhaps things such as tailoring or carpentry, in order to provide a livelihood amongst families who are currently unable to support their children (or relatives’ orphaned children), or mothers who are turning to prostitution and exposing themselves to inevitable HIV infection.

Mike is currently working on the plans and I look forward to discussing further in the near future. In the meantime I am looking into the reasons for children coming to the streets, and from which communities they come. Once we have correlated the two and discover the reasons for particular communities falling short in certain areas, we will know which resources to focus where.

I got the first chance to do this, this past week and it has been immensely useful already. Stephen (my interpreter) and I were literally swamped by interested children, most of whom were more than happy to answer my interviews and give useful comments and opinions. On hearing that we were also running the street clinic, a group of older boys even offered to find and bring younger boys (more fitting to SALVE’s age requirements of being under 16 before we begin to help) to our clinic next week.

In fact we have quite a number of appointments arranged for next weeks clinics already, mounting up from all the interested children Caitlin and I have been meeting outside clinic hours this week. I just hope we won’t be inundated!

Sadly I have found that almost all children are reporting being beaten by the police. This is something I am still keen to work on, and once I have gained enough claims I intend to go to the Officer in Charge (who is apparently unaware of the situation) and perhaps with the support of other organisations (once we are a CBO), present the statistics.

Already I’m also finding that there is a great deal of interest in vocational courses, and I think it would be fantastic to provide some sort of training for the children we are unable to directly support through the SALVE home. We’re just thinking through the practicalities at the moment but perhaps we could start small, maybe with one of the mothers of poor children at the Joy School teaching paper beads-making (which can be done from recycled leaflets etc and is reasonably self-sustaining) and see how it is received. Obviously if the children spend every penny they earn from selling their wares locally, on food then it can’t keep going but if they plough it back into the project with new materials etc it has the potential to go really well.

The other thing the research will provide is a general overview on the circumstances of those on the streets – data on where they are from, how they make a living (surprisingly diverse - from selling scrap metal to carrying water and washing for others); how many are on drugs (sadly most so far); problems on the streets and their hopes and aspirations (all say education in some capacity). At least it’s reassuring to know that SALVE stands for what literally 100% of the children have their main hope in.

I hope you’re still with me! There’s something very exciting to say… we actually had a call from CRO this week. Elizabeth, the manager, had read our letter asking for her cooperation with scheduling the long-awaited meeting we had hoped for, and had signed her approval, arranging a meeting for next Friday.

(Hopefully a signature means something here…)

In any case just after her call an English guy called Harry randomly started talking with me and it turned out that he and his wife are partnering with CRO and have some useful contacts amongst the staff… so hopefully something will come of this if not with Elizabeth.

Something less encouraging was that as we dropped in to CRO to pick up the letter, we saw David running around with all the other kids, wearing the yellow t-shirt! He ran up to us excitedly and threw off the t-shirt as soon as he realized its implications. We spoke with a motherly looking staff member who told us that they had just come across him in the streets the previous day (after having apparently supported him some six months back before he returned to the streets) and he had told them that he was in the process of being supported by SALVE but that he would come along to CRO for the meantime. The lady, now joined by Elizabeth, affirmed that David was free to choose from whom to gain his support.

We will meet with David and Mike on Monday.

JOY SCHOOL:

Caitlin has also seen some big developments this week. She has moved on from assisting in the English class to taking it on herself. She says the kids are great, making a wonderful class and are getting on famously.

She has also taken auditions for her drama class’s play of “Noah’s Ark”. They have chosen the parts, SALVE’s Ronald being Noah! She is now busy making masks (which the children will colour in) and costumes.

My search for seeds has so far yielded little success and I have decided on a self-holed white seed (you pull out the insides which makes a natural hole for threading) which can be bought cheaply from local villages. It’s nice to think that the project will be benefiting rural villagers too.

So this week has been a lot of trying to reproduce a fairly intricate necklace design we saw at the extreme sports camp last week and creating an earrings design.

Finally, one more thing I want to share. As I was coming back from the beads workshop yesterday I came across one of the children Stephen and I had met earlier on and had arranged to meet on Monday. Duka, who was now sitting along the main street propped against one of the cement pillars that hold up the shops and was wrapping his toes in rubber bands, had been carrying a heavy jerry can of water to earn money when we first met him. He must be about eight and is one of the sweetest boys I have ever met. In his hurry to get the water to its owner we hadn’t had long to arrange the meeting and I just wanted to check that he would be coming.

I managed to get a passer-by to deem to speak with him, and translate for me. As the man was speaking (and making a bit of a show of his openness to speak with a street child), a small crowd developed around us, looking in surprise and horror at us for getting so close to their imagined contamination with an untouchable. One lady, standing well back, even held a handkerchief to her nose and mouth.

Once I felt fairly sure that Duka knew when Monday and 9:30 am was and it transpired that he didn’t know where our meeting place of the post office was, I took his hand and guided him through the quickly dispersing crowd and along the street where the usual friendly greetings and shouts of “mazungu”! became looks of astonishment or disgust. I couldn’t resist taking Duka into a shop and buying some bread (the equivalent of cake and even used as a substitute for wedding cake in many cases) on the way.

We reached the post office and I left him with a note reminding him of the time and place which if he can’t read hopefully someone else will. I hope so much we will see him next week.

Until then bye from me and I hope you’ll still have some energy to come back and hear Caitlin’s account next week!

Lots of love,

Esther xxx

PS I forgot to say – our nice guesthouse worker Hassan has just had his first baby (well his wife did) – all went well and it’s a boy apparently with the same head as Hassan (we can well imagine this as he has a very sweet baby-face!). He promises to bring it around for us to see soon – I’m sure we’ll be putting pictures up when he does : )