Sunday

Another glorious day in Uganda - blue sky, sunshine and awesome people to hang out with.

Church was a great way to begin the week with great worship some fantastic teaching from Pastor Glenn and chatting up with old and new friends.

After church was lunch and a bit of a relax, some of the team checked out the finished mercy ministry house and others slept. Then we heading down to YSU for a farewell celebration. there was a bit of a delay with a bus break down - the team had to walk and Glenn had to wait for help to arrive.

It was awesome to be in the YSU youth centre and seeing it facilitate the purpose for what it was built. Great dancing, fun games, good food and lots of youth. Brooke led us in some great team building games that helped with connections.

It was really nice to walk home at the end of the evening with the VOH girls as we continued to share lives together.

Friday

The team spent the morning in two places - Half went to the Home of Hope where they ran some craft activities with the kids in the green shed!!  It was great to see the kids interact and proudly accomplish some fantastic craftwork. (sorry no photos)

The other half of the team spent the morning with the YSU Mercy Ministry finishing the house for the grandfather and his three grand children. Some mud shenanigans and hard work saw the house completed in the afternoon by the YSU crew.

In the afternoon the team headed for a bit or R&R to the pool - but we decided to take a 100 kids with us - Not so R&R-ish!!  it was a great afternoon of fun and games, some swimming lessons and some ice cream on the way home.

In the evening we had the HopeBuliders Builders join us for dinner at Subbi house - UNO, chicken curry and a Robert K history lesson.

Thursday

An another Epic Day
Today marked the inaugural Village of Hope Games.  A brain child of the older children working together with the social workers Sharron and Kevin and the village coordinator Sam. It was an awesome event which included the traditional sack race and egg and spoon race as well as the less traditional poetry and tongue twisters as well as a cross country run that was held at 6:30am. In between were dance and song competitions, doughnut eating, and apple bobbing. Team Muzungu cam an admirable 3rd out of 6 teams. The teams were combination of houses who were each given a colour - Team Pink - houses 5&6 - were the eventual winners!!  It was such a fun day with a great atmosphere and fierce competition.  One of the best bits about this was that we did not organise any of it and came as participants and only helped by funding the prizes. It created a great vibe in the village in the days leading up to it and the children and mothers were well engaged and excited.

Afterwards team Muzungu recovered by having lunch at Jinja Sailing club and having a boat ride on Lake Victoria and going to the source of the Nile. We finished with a bit of shopping in Jinja and came home for a meal of Nachos made for us by the Box Hill boys - Ablie, Ben, Pete, Phil !!

Wednesday

Another full day in Wairaka!!   It began with a trip up monkey mountain to watch the sun rise which is always a special team moment.
 In the morning the team went it's separate ways - Some joined the YSU team on the mercy ministry, others ran a computer tutorial at the village, others met with with the planning team for the "village Games" which are happening tomorrow and some stayed at subbi for some cooking with Juliet.

The mercy ministry house is taking shape with the roof going on and mud begining to go on the walls. The YSU youth team are an amazing bunch of young people who are making a great impact in breaking the cycle of poverty in their local community.

The Village Games is another example of young people stepping up to make a difference with the older children from the village partnering with the social workers to plan this activity day for the Village. Team Muzungu is looking forward to competing!!

Phil Ben and Pete did a great job in computer teaching with the 3 new Village laptops.

The afternoon included a visit to the YSU tailoring class where we were warmly welcomed and there was great interaction with the team and the girls.

We finished of the day with a Management dinner at All Friends which also was a great night of connecting and laughing!!!

Tuesday

Tuesday started with an early morning run up monkey mountain for a few of us. The views are beautiful up there and it ends up being worth the long slog of 2.3kms! Afterwards we enjoyed Juliet’s AMAZING banana pancakes which I couldn’t get enough of and then we commenced the morning activities.

Myself and a few other team members then continued building the hut for the ‘mercy ministries’ project. We put logs on the side and top of the building in preparation for the roof and the packing of mud in the walls. I had a great time working with all the local Ugandan’s and we had some great conversations and laughs with each other. Our work was cut short due to rain but I thoroughly enjoyed it!

After a beautiful lunch, we headed to the village of hope to make chapatis (a wonderful flat bread) with the village mummas and the kids! It was hard work and took about three hours because we had to cook for all the kids but we all learnt some useful tips in kneading and got to chat with the village mummas.

We enjoyed a great dinner of Chapatis, potato and beans and then we sang a few songs and told a few stories which I loved! The kids are so passionate about God and I found it really inspiring and challenging to my own life.

All in all we had another great day and I’m loving Uganda so far!!

 Peter Weinlich

Monday

The best way to start a day – With Juliettes Rolexes! For everyone at home, these are basically an omelette wrapped in a chipattie – a Ugandan wrap. So delicious!

After a nourishing breakfast, Dale, Jim, Brooke and Phil headed off to build the framework for a traditional Ugandan hut! The huts are made from tree trunks and are packed with mud for the walls and has sheet metal for the roof. The day consisted of digging holes for the framework, pumping water for the locals to drink and heavy jerry-can carries from the well to the construction site.

Meagan, Anche and Liz headed off to Youth Support Uganda [YSU] site to tutor the female youths in business management and crafting love letters. During the afternoon, Anche put her engineering cap on and worked on equations for the supporting beams of YSU centre.

Albie, Ben and Pete headed to ‘Home of Hope’ to put their physio and Occupational Therapy skills to the test by giving exercises to the youths there.

All team members worked hard and thoroughly earned their keep.

For dinner, Juliette and her gang were given the night off and were invited to enjoy some Sheppard’s Pie and salad, prepared by Meagan and Brooke. Juliette gave the meal a thumbs up and was thoroughly enjoyed by all.

After dinner, team members headed to ‘The Village of Hope’ for movie night! The movie was ‘Mouse Hunt’ which the Village kids thought was hysterical!

It has been a wonderful experience getting to know the children and people in Uganda. Team members reflected on this and the fact we are only here for one more week! Time has flown!

Phil HULLS