Welcome to our penultimate blog!! It has certainly been a hectic, emotional, stressful but massively rewarding week and I’m really excited to tell you all the news! I apologise if this blog is a bit erratic but I’m currently on a massive high (purely emotional, don’t panic Mum and Dad!) and so my thoughts might be all over the place. I’ll try and be as coherent as possible.

You find me writing this at five to seven on Friday night after an incredibly long day. As CRO gave me their consent yesterday to take Richard (one of the boys, along with David, who we’ve been trying to help for a really long time) with us into our S.A.L.V.E home I got up early to make sure I was at CRO nice and early to whisk him away to his new life. I was dealing with Simon, a social worker at CRO, who told me all about how Richard had stolen from a neighbour in his home in Kaliro, and was thus outcast by the community and threatened regularly with murder. It was therefore unsafe for Richard to go home. His mother a

nd father, as Mike and I discovered after the long journey to Kaliro a few weeks ago, had separately moved to unknown destinations and so we would have huge difficulty tracing them. As both SALVE and CRO want to put the safety and well-being of the child first, we all agreed that it would be best for Richard for CRO to refer him to us and give us permission, as a registered Ugandan NGO (we are still in the process), to have him. Yesterday, as you can imagine, I was incredibly pleased. It made it even better when I called Mike to ask if tomorrow (today) was too soon to bring him home and he agreed that it was a good idea for it to be as soon as possible. So, as I was saying, I went to CRO nice and early to go and greet Richard with the good news. I spent the whole day waiting for him as he was busy collecting scrap metal from the streets of Jinja. I eventually gave Margaret, another social worker at CRO, my number and told her to call me if he arrived. I’d given up hope but by 4.15pm, as I was back here at the guest house, computer on ready to write the blog, I got a call saying Richard was waiting for me. I bounded out the door and ran to get a boda boda to take me there as fast as possible. Margaret had run out of calling credit to let me know of Richard’s arrival and gave Richard some money to go and get some for her. Richard refused her money and, as he was so happy at what the phone call would be achieving, personally funded her credit with precious money he’d earned on the streets. At the moment I learned this it totally confirme

d to me what a special, beautiful young man he is. It is so amazing the capacity you have to unconditionally love and I really feel that, along with all the other SALVE children, I have developed such strong feelings for all of these children.

Anyway, I took him, after some ‘good luck’s and ‘be good’s from CRO staff, to get his HIV test. I expected another nervous wait for the result, as with Luca, and this was no different. Richard’s face was in utter agony at the thought of having a needle stuck into his arm but I held his hand and we got through it together. Thank goodness he turned out to be negative! The doctor gave him some cream and anti-biotics to clear up the rash caused by lack of hygiene on the streets and then we ventured to the market to choose him some new clothes, shoes, and toiletries. All the way through his face and my face were beaming and we must have looked a sight walking the streets of Jinja together. I took him on the bus to Bugembe and had his head shaved. As we reached the home and Tiff caught sight of us his face lit up as he remembered his friend from the streets and they both looked very excited to be reunited. Tiff showed him his new bedroom and let him choose a bed and they both kept nudging each other’s arms, happy to be back together again and to have a new playmate at home. All the other children are with relatives at the moment but I’m sure they’ll be just as pleased to see their new brother. I left Richard helping to clear out the wilting flowers from Mike and Robina’s wedding, keen to get stuck into some household chores in his new home. I got on the bus back to Jinja and smiled the whole way home.

But anyway, there is so much more to tell you about so I shall stop gushing and move on! As I just mentioned, Mike and Robina had their wedding on Saturday and it was a very special day! Mike had put so much preparation, time and energy into organizing it all, along with his ‘wedding committee’ so I think he was really glad to finally reach the day but also because of his pleasure in eventually officially marrying the lovely Robina! In keeping with Ugandan tradition the wedding didn’t kick off until an hour later than planned and Robin

a was even later arriving, bringing with her a downpour worthy of the monsoon season in Nepal. Both her and Mike looked stunning and their faces equally in awe of what was going on – Mike couldn’t stop smiling in a way which said ‘I can’t believe this is happening’, and Robina was the embodiment of pure dedication to the ceremony. I felt really emotional watching the two of them together, secretly thinking ahead (WAY ahead!) to my own wedding day as I think Esther was as we excitedly both drew our wedding dresses later on that weekend! As the happy couple and all of their entourage came out and paraded around looking incredibly beautiful we went up to congratulate them on their union. Mike grabbed my arm and said ‘in the absence of Nicola and Helen one of you must make a speech’! As Esther is a little shy of public speaking I agreed to do the honors. We ventured over to the reception and were met with sparkly lights, gorgeous arrays of colour, and a massive number of guests. The whole thing was so Ugandan – lots of food, speeches and dancing. The choir was incredible and there was such a happy feel to the whole thing. I think the SALVE kids who were there really enjoyed seeing their Uncle and Aunty married and so joyful. I think my speech went well; I was just so pleased to be able to let both of them know what I felt about them. My family and friends will know how enthusiastic I am about communication and telling people how you feel about them and I was really happy to be able to let Mike and Robina know how grateful I am and lucky I feel to have met them and that I will consider them friends for life.

So after the fun and excitement of the wedding and a relaxing day on Sunday, Monday inevitably had to come around and the week started very busily for both of us. Esther has been manically trying to organize SALVE’s and CRO’s meeting with the police after all her weeks of community education research. Unfortunately things became a bit complicated after Elizabeth insisted they had some more meetings to discuss what would happen and when. Esther has been back and forth trying to arrange things with CRO and has finally secured the meeting with the police for next Wednesday at 3pm, where all the local media will be in attendance, along with some very important members of the police and the local council. She has been busy writing up her report which is very impressive, showing lots of visual data which explains the real situations behind Jinja’s street children. I really do hope that the meeting is successful in persuading the police and the local authorities that street children don’t do much harm and actually contribute to the community by cleaning and helping people. We hope that beating will stop and that they will think about whether rounding groups of street children up, putting them in prison for the night and then releasing them, is really a useful option. Next week’s meeting will be explained in the blog in full and we’ll let you know its success.

Esther has also, as part of the community education research, been to Mafubira, an area fairly close to Joy school, to discuss how useful the community education plans for SALVE are. She was met with much enthusiasm and help by the local people who all agreed that it would be really good to have parenting and marriage counseling to prevent the problem of street children. Steven is certainly getting into his role as SALVE staff member and is becoming very confident and assertive in explaining what SALVE does and how we can help the community. Esther really enjoyed this aspect of her week which is fantastic seeing as this is what she wants to make a career of – researching problems in international communities and then evaluating, monitoring and implementing change.

She was also supposed to go and do some background research with a CRO staff member on Jinja’s female street children by going to a couple of their homes but unfortunately plans got confused and she didn’t end up doing this. She met a few on the streets and they confirmed that they come to the streets to collect food and do jobs but then retreat back to Masese where some of them rent accommodation with other street girls. She spoke with Rose, another CRO social worker, who told her that girls tend not to come to streets because of the dangers attached and cannot rent in Jinja (because children are not allowed to do this) so Masese is their only option. It is great to have this information as we thought we may be missing girls on the streets as they were hiding somewhere but now we know it is not likely we will find any and Masese would be our only option.

Esther has spent the day today teaching the mothers to make all the different variety of bead products so that they can produce some materials ready for Esther to take home next week. They all seem so enthusiastic which is fantastic and we really hope that the market in the UK will welcome Joy Crafts with open arms.

My week started with a successful street clinic, whereby Steven and I discussed with CRO the initial prospect of getting their consent to take Richard, and then going out to meet with our regular group of street children – a group of about 6 or 7 boys. It turns out 2 of them are children we’d been looking for to help and it was great to take their profiles down ready to give to the next interns to continue building the relationships with. These boys are called Musa and Robert. Musa told us he really didn’t want to go home as he felt he wasn’t loved. He has an aunty working in one of the shops on Main Street who also was negative towards Musa so Steven and I went to the shop to see if we could talk with her in an attempt to find out a bit more background information on Musa and try and counsel her as to the nature of street children and how to help them – having a positive attitude for change. Anyway, she wasn’t there and so we vowed to return in the next day’s street clinic. It turned out she wasn’t there then either so we spent the morning, Esther too, playing games and having fun with our regular street boys. We’d discussed that it would be great to give them some team-building and relationship-building exercises and also some fun to fill their day with. We bought each pair a newspaper and gave each pair a stone and told them to build a tower, sturdy enough to hold the stone (we were given this task in our SALVE interview!) – the first one to complete the task would win a fudge and a few sweets. It was so great to see them working together and thinking of innovative ways of building. Musa and his partner won and were grateful for the sweets, doing a victory dance around the field. We then played some ball games, introducing ourselves, and then played with some balloons Esther had bought from home. It was a really good morning! I’ve been met throughout the week with enthusiastic waves and beckons to come and join them all and today was told about their new business venture – selling clothes for profit and was asked my advice! I think they need a bit more start-up capital and I hope they’ll get this with all of their odd jobs! I’m really going to miss all of these boys as well as the ones that SALVE has already been able to help.

(As a quick aside – Luca greeted me today with a huge grin and kept saying ‘Bugembe!’ and nodding; I hope this means he has been thinking about life on the streets and that there is hope for him yet.)

The rest of my week has been spent finalizing all of the link-school programme materials. I have created a report, based on some research done in schools on the impact of global learning, to try and persuade the UK school we will be approaching that linking is a valuable thing to do. I have created a profile for Joy School which will go in the Resource Pack which I’ve been working on – this will be given to the secured UK link-school and also Joy School (without their own profile!). Along with this I’ve been writing linking practice advice, encouraging the link schools to adhere to the aims and strategies of the programme. I am so hopeful that it will all be achieved as I really think it will bring so much to any school in the UK and also be incredibly worthwhile for Joy school to profit from learning about international cultures and hopefully gaining some fundraising for their construction work. Speaking of which – I was supposed to be going with a member of SoftPower Education’s construction team to get a quote for the building work that needs doing and we’d arranged this for Wednesday. Maybe Steve, the Australian construction worker who rang me to arrange this, has been living in Uganda for too long as he called to cancel on Wednesday morning. We’ve rescheduled for Tuesday next week and I’m really looking forward to having a quote so that I can get on with getting some donations back in the UK! Next week I’ll be asking all of the SALVE kids to draw me a picture of their school with a big THANK YOU beside it so that anyone who donates some money will get this as a receipt.

I also met Harriet, our new full-time staff member, to visit our home in Bugembe to acquaint herself with her future residence. She met the few children who were there and she was utterly brilliant with them and I became a massive fan of hers as well. She’s so down-to-earth and easy to chat to, getting on with anyone she meets. I received a glowing email in response to chasing up her references which was so gushing about Harriet and her personality and work ethic. We’re so lucky to have found her and I’m really looking forward to seeing how she gets on. She’s requested that she start on Monday but, to give Mike a bit of time to find a new place for him, Robina and baby Caron, that she stays living in her own house and commutes everyday to learn the ropes and get to know the children whilst they’re on holiday. I’m sure she’ll get on with everyone and be a welcome addition to SALVE.

So as you can see it has been non-stop this week and we’re both looking forward to a relaxing weekend which it feels like we haven’t had for weeks. I cannot believe that next week is the final week of our SALVE internship. I’m getting increasingly sad about the prospect of leaving so many people I’ve come to like and love, but am excited about the thought of seeing so many people I equally care about back home.

Esther will do next week’s blog and will let you know all the goings-on of our last few days work in Uganda. I'll write a quick goodbye at the end just to officially end our SALVE internship! Thanks so much for reading again; I hope I’ve made sense and that you’ve enjoyed learning about the new addition(s) to SALVE’s family. We will be welcoming even more in a couple of weeks when the new interns, Alice and Esther arrive.

Lots and lots of love to you all,

Caitlin xxx

P.S. from Esther – I just have to say that we just saw two sheep’s heads roasting on a spit! Not a very nice sight for us but our resident carpenter was sitting by expectantly and looking forward to a very special meal…