busy old week

Sorry, it has been along time, well on Sunday we celebrated our pastors 10th anniversary at the church which is quite an achievement here so we had a 4 hour service in stead of 3! We had a really nice do in the evening until it rained and everyone had to run for cover in the house, it was still very nice, very cosey. He is such a quality man and he really has caught the vision of the project.

I had to have Monday off work as it was a bank holiday as on ex-president died and was being buried that day, but he had been in exile for 20 years so mixed feeling sabout him coming back. Things are heating up here politically as well as we have elections next March and the current president Museveni has been in power as long as he can but has got the rule changed so he can stand again. It was though it would be a dead cert that he would stay in power, but an opponent of his who has been in exile has come back to Uganda and is going to challenge him. So could be some interesting stuff kicking off in the next 6 months.

things are really beginning to happen with the project, the bushes and trees are growing nicely and we are looking to get the first training room built by Dec so we can start in Jan, yeah!! I cant wait, get very excited about it all really starting.

I haven't forgotten about the photos, I realize there is a lack of them but still haven't worked out how to transfer them from my new camera, will keep on trying, and in the mean time you have frodo to remind you all of me!!!

Do I look like frodo?

I went out for dinner last night with friends, I was having a lovely evening, lots of laughs and fun.
my friend Pete was sitting at the other end of the table and at a very quiet moment told me 'jess you really look like frodo baggins sister', now I think he meant this as a complement, (he is from Belgium and they have very strange sense of humour) but do I look like a hobbit? I am now having to try and hide my big hairy feet and wear my hair down all the time hide my big pointy ears!

More excitement!

The last week was just manic and as a result a spent the weekend in bed being ill, but am fully recovered now and am fighting fit apart for a very over active snot gland!!!
We had Ben who is from Oasis UK office here visiting Mbale from Thursday till Saturday, it was really great to see him and he brought chocolate and masrhmellows so will always be a friend of mine now!
Robbie is back from England and has brought Andy who will be here for a year, it is so good to have the house full again and he also brought a bag of stuff from my parents, lots of exciting stuff and a digital camera that I bought, which is really good, it has lots of buttons that I am not sure what to do with yet! So expect lots more photos soon and I promise some more of me, just need to get it set up this afternoon.

ground force here i come!!

The GAD team have been packed up and I brought them back to Mbale on Friday, they seem a really nice team, very keen to get stuck in which is great.
As soon as I got back I headed off to pick up 1000 bushes and about 70 trees that we were going to plant on our land the next day.
It was a very early start on Saturday, we left the house at 6.20 am and drove to musoto which is completely off road and over a very built up railway track at one point which was slightly scary. As you drive over you have to go at it at very sharp angles and I only just missed someone's mudhut!!
we had such an amazing day, the church turned up in force to help plant and the local kids gathered and became my little helpers which was so cute! See the picture above
I had some training on the art of planting bushes before so I tried to direct the work which at time was quite challenging as people were so keen they wanted to plant before the ground was ready and even after myself and Dave telling them to stop and Pastor Nelson in the local language they still carried on planting!!!! It was good that they were so eager though and they stopped in the end!
we got everything planted and watered by 2pm that day which was great and just as we finished it rained which I think was a sign from God that he was pleased! Just need more rain now!
we are off to Kampala again today as we have meetings that we need to be at and we will be coming back up to Mbale with Ben, who organizes all of our placements from the UK end, he will be up here until Saturday which will be good.
So am heading off to the big city, looking forward to meetings and hoping to get some good pizza while I am there!!!!

A successful training day

It started off very slow yesterday, everyone working by African time and turning up about an hour later than when it was going to start! In the end we had 40 people which was great, the training was brilliant, the doctors and nurses did a very good job and communicated really well. It was really encouraging for us how knowledgeable people are already about medical issues and how willing they were to learn. People were so honest and open, talking very frankly about personal issues such as HIV/AIDS and how it has affected them.
We have had such a good response with the volunteers forms as well, people seem very willing to give their time and skills which is great!
I am off to Kampala this morning, I am traveling down with the doc team and then going to meet our new Mbale GAT team which will be very exciting. Tomorrow I tell them about Mbale and what their programme will be and then travel back up with them on Friday. All exciting stuff!

chocolate and insects!

Well at the moment I am currently munching on a dairy milk bar which a lovely friend has sent over to me, it tastes soooo good!!
Last week was quite manic, trying to get the health section of the course finished and checked over, it also involved a lot of bug fighting as I was invaded throughout the week a very large family of ants decided they wanted to live in my bedroom, they are now all dead outside my bedroom window thanks to doom! The strongest bug spray in the world, then I ended up with a lizard in my sink, it could not get out and would not let me help it so the only thing for it was the cat, gizzy grabbed it very well and took it outside but the unfortunate part of the tail(!) was it did leave its tail behind in the sink still moving about!!! yuk! The final stay was that the cockroaches came out to play this week, they are very big and quite ugly, I know they are meant to be the creatures that survive an atomic bomb but my good old faithful doom is getting rid of them! I guess I should worry what is in doom really! All fun stuff though!
this week is going to be a busy one as we have a meeting tonight with a team of docs and nurses that have come over from the UK, to plan the training session they are doing for us tomorrow, the morning session will people for people who could be potential volunteers for the project and the afternoon will be for the potential families we will be working with in the future.
I gave a talking in church yesterday about how people could volunteer for the project and the role they can have, so I guess we will see how effective my speech was by how many people are there tomorrow! I hope it is not just me and Dave!