New arrivals

Hi all,

So it's our first post from Uganda and you'll be glad to know that we made it here safe and sound. The journey was a bit of a long one and we're pretty tired so we've spent the last few days adjusting to our new surroundings and sleeping!

It was great to finally meet the Ugandan team. They've all welcomed us with open arms and we've already had some good discussions about the kinds of projects we want to work on together. A priority is writing the project proposals for the community education carpentry and jewellery making projects to get these finalised, funded and off the ground. We also discussed starting some sort of tourist education with the overland tours that come through Jinja. A major problem seems to be that children are encouraged to stay on the streets by large handouts from wealthy toursits- a practice which may seem helpful in the short term but only exacerbates things in the long term. We'll also be concentrating on the street clinics as have past interns. All this starts next week and I'm sure as things develop we'll have more on our plates so stay tuned!

We just missed most of the children who have all (except one) gone back to boarding school now. We're looking forward to visiting them soon though and have plenty of things to do planned for when they come home in December. The one child who remains in the house is Junior. He joined the project 3 months ago having been on the street for 4 years previous to this. He's settling into the house at the moment and we hope he will be able to start day school as soon as possible. He's a lovely child- full of smiles and energy and a keen artist. He hopes to be a pilot and fly to London one day so we need to get him started on maths and physics I think...

As for us, we're just settling into the house and getting used to having constantly grubby feet covered in red dust! It's pretty big and we've got electricity which is great as alot of houses in the area don't. Steven and Assy have big construction plans to make it spic and span for when the children get back in December one of which involves a wall and a sledge hammer... although I am assured that Steven has plenty of experience in construction so no worries there.

Yesterday was Eid and a national holiday in Uganda. The whole day had a party atmosphere from 8am when the music started next door. Bugeme's residents were out in force and their finest and the main street was absolutely buzzing in the evening with people out and about enjoying the day.

Thats all for now,

Emma and Imogen