Mid Point

We have almost reached the midpoint of our time here in Uganda. It has been going so fast and yet, so slow at the same time. We have been spending Saturday mornings with the kids in the area school/feeding programs. We have assembled solar panel systems, a solar water heater and a water tower. We have installed solar panels to several buildings and installed plumbing. We have helped plant cassava in the gardens. We have started a pharmacy for the clinic and made weekly trips into the near by town to mingle with the locals. We have eaten lots of African food and enjoyed it!

Today we went with a team, that is here this week, into the closest village to the ranch and had a celebration meal consisting of all the traditional African foods that they serve for special occasions. There was rice with ground nut (peanut) sauce, beans, cooked bananas (tasted alot like potatoes), cassava (very dry and starchy African sweet potato), beef stew, dodo (which is a lot like cooked spinach or cooked greens) and soda. The ladies who prepared it were so amazing and they sang and danced afterwords! I took video to share when we return.

This week I have been talking to Sam, the owner of the convenience store here at the ranch. He was saying how he wants to organize his store better. What better person to talk about this with, I am thinking! This girl who started college for interior design and merchandising because she wanted to set up stores for a living!!!!! I have to say that I was giddy at the opportunity to help him out and decided to come up with some ideas for him. I went by yesterday with some thoughts that he agreed would be great, so I am going on Tuesday (Monday morning before you all are even out of bed) and helping him implement some of the ideas. I did take some before pictures and will most defiantly take some after pictures. I am really really really excited about this (from the super expressionless lass)!

Arley has been busy working on lots of things. He has the new water tower/water pump/solar pole up and running. He has installed at least two sets of solar panels on buildings here at the ranch. He as work lined up for however long he is able to do it too. I assembled most of a solar water heater yesterday that he will be building a 5 foot base for to get it off the ground soon. When that is built we can install that as well.

The kids have had the most wonderful two days with the team that is here from Texas. It is two men and their sons, which are around 12 or 13 years old. Abraham and Solomon have attached like glue to them and are having so much fun whenever they get a chance to hang around them. And then they talk about them and how cool and how fun they are when they are not hanging out around them. I heard that they have lots of candy and I am hoping that they might be able to part with some since I totally forgot that we will be here for Easter and want to set up a couple Easter baskets for the boys.

Our neighbor comes back tomorrow, the same day the team leaves, so the students are busy cleaning her house. She is the founder of African Hospitality Institute here on the ranch. They basically learn how to run a hotel. They are in charge of the guest houses and keeping them clean, they cook the meals for the teams and guests that stay at the guest house, they keep the grounds and they also learn other business skills. They are an amazing group of students with a great lady instructor.

We are heading to another school tomorrow morning for activity day. Arley is in charge of the bible story and the “word of wisdom” and we will also be teaching the Jesus’ ABC’s song and maybe try a game or two. The games we have tried before haven’t gone over well but we are going to try red light, green light tomorrow if we get a chance.