Team 20 Day 8

The day started with tools…again, well not really, it actually started with breakfast: delicious rolexs…again. Breakfast was earlier than most of the team members were expecting, as Andrew’s call of “7:30am breakfast” usually means eating “approximately 10 to 14 minutes” after that (according to Damian’s assessments). However this morning Andrew’s optimism succeeded; we were eating on time and were off to the village before 9am! Now, back to the tools…paintbrushes, shovels, hammers, wheelbarrows, trowels and picks all met us at the worksite. Cement was mixed and laid down at the farmhouse and the more imaginative amongst us could begin to see a family, cooking the famous posho and beans on an open-fire, in their new kitchen. Around Houses One and Two the rest of the team congregated. A woodshed was to be built and fascia boards needed a new lick of white paint. Those tasks should take about half a day right? Wrong. Long story short, we dug the foundations of the woodshed and House One got its’ facelift, but there were plenty of jobs still to do as we left the village at midday. After a hot and exhausting morning, lunch was a well-deserved re-fuel and the coleslaw, fresh-baked rolls and salad were eaten in relative silence. Maybe some the team’s members were already contemplating our afternoon and wondering what would await us at the Jinja Women’s Prison, which was our afternoon activity. After handing in our bags and belongings at the prison entrance, we were ushered into a classroom-like room. The walls were decorated with educational posters; some were comical in their simplicity, whilst others stood as stark reminders of the issues that face these women. About 30 women came in wearing their canary yellow inmate uniforms. The other five (or so) inmates were not in uniform; they were babies and children, all living with their mothers in prison. We introduced ourselves and shared a prayer with the women, they then sang some songs accompanied by drums and clapping. The team then mingled with the ladies to hear and share stories (when the language barrier permitted) and the atmosphere was a positive one. The visit finished with the ladies showing us their crafts and us purchasing many of them! To finish off an exhausting day we had fried chicken and chips with salad for dinner. Delicious…as long as you can ignore the fact that the chickens were clucking in Andrew’s van at 11am today!   

- Erin..      

Time to dig a BIG hole for the septic

Refreshing the facia board paint...... again!

Discussing digging the foundations for the woodshed

Making the brick pile ready to lay

Rendering..  what was in this stuff again? - did you say cow poo??

Yep..... its cow poo!!!

But don't it look good??