Uganda - Village of Hope: Uganda team 19

Day 5

The day started, with a number of early morning activities, a before breakfast group Pilates session on the roof or a brisk run around the block or up Monkey Mountain. For the rest of us a “get up just in time for breakfast” was the order of the day.

Breakfast was on the sun deck. For the first time there were Rolexes left over. Either this was a sign of Juliet over catering or the start of rolex fatigue. We said goodbye to Emily, an Australian on leave from Midwifery, who had been staying at Suubi House and had been working with women groups in the area, teaching them on the subject of women’s health and pregnancy.

After Breakfast we all piled into the van and travelled back to Home of Hope to continue building and working and playing with the kids.

Building started with breaking rocks to make base for the floor, barrowing them up a narrow bridge on to slim boards across an earthen floor and then dumping them to be placed in a single layer to form the base.

Once the base was completed concrete was then mixed Ugandan style. Sand was piled in a heap on top goes “binding” sand and on top goes the cement. Then mixing was a process of moving the sand from one pile to another and back again until all the cement was mixed in. The pile was then flattened and on top goes barrow loads of a very coarse aggregate. Then comes the water.

Water at Home of Hope comes from a hand pump bore which you have to pump vigorously to fill containers that are then carried to the work site. The bore also caters for a primary school next door and working at the pump is more a social experience rather than a physical one. The whole school comes to watch and help during their recess breaks. “Muzungu what is your name?” and, “Muzungu how are you?”, are regular greetings from the school children.

Over the last 2 days of working close to the school the Team has got more and more involved, with Ben and Nathan sitting in on classes and Maddie and Josie playing impromptu games with the senior girls.

Once all the water was carried, the concrete mixed and barrowed on top of the bricks, and concrete mixture stamped into place, the floor was finished just in time for lunch.

Edith and the Home of Hope turned on lunch for the Hopebuilders Team and Emma and his building team. Lunch consisted of vegetable rice and beans. Very tasty and very nutritious.

After lunch Emma and his building team taught the Hopebuilders Team to lay bricks. Thanks to their patience and teaching skill the walls got finished up to the top of the windows. Robert Kafeero declared job well done and we called it a day.

All during the day while the building was going on, other members of the Team worked with the kids at the Home of Hope helping the staff to run the children through their exercise programs, playing with them, changing them, feeding them, but above all just loving them.

Back at Suubi House the Team relaxed satisfied of a job well done. – Charles..