We love our
projects and we love telling you about them! Here are the updates on
Seya Construction and Musana Jewelry. Both projects are coming along
great! :)
Seya
Construction:
For the
last six weeks, HELP International has been working on getting the Seya School
Project approved. We were finally able to achieve that goal, and we commenced
the building of the Seya School!
We started by digging the trenches needed for
the foundation, and that took about two full days. Once the trenches were
complete, we filled them in with crushed rocks ranging in size from a baseball
to a football. The purpose of this was to create a somewhat flat surface to lay
the bricks for the foundation. We then mixed concrete, sand, and little rocks
about the size of golf balls and started pouring it on top of the flat surface
of rocks we had laid previously; this took us about two full days as well.
About five volunteers from HELP were able to come each day, and we got some
much needed help from the community as well! The construction workers that we
were working with were also very hard working, and we are so grateful to have
them on this project with us.
We had
to wait five days for the concrete to dry, so we started to go around the
community, gathering the bricks that were being donated. The day before the
concrete was supposed to be dry we had a total of about 3,000 bricks on site,
ready to be laid down. The next day, we officially started the foundation of
the Seya School. It has been about one week since the foundation was started,
and everything is going as planned. The HELP volunteers are learning how to lay
bricks and fill in with cement, but we are mostly there to move bricks into the
right places so that the construction workers can build as fast as possible. We
love working with the kids of the school and the community! They are all so
willing to help, and they make the hard work actually enjoyable. :)
Musana
Jewelry:
Football in no joke in America. Football is even less of a joke in Uganda. Of course, I'm speaking of what we call "soccer" in America - only the rest of the world calls it "football". From nearly the moment the sun rises, Kampala is ringing with the sound of vuvuzelas being blown by people wandering the streets, riding boda-bodas, sitting in taxis, leaning out of their apartment windows, and selling Uganda Cranes paraphemalia. You can't avoid it: today is game day.
Two weeks ago we decided that it was time for us to insert ourselves into the madnes and live this cultural experience. We were prepared for large crowds, deafening noise, and long lines, but we did not anticipate the incredibly warm welcome we received.
That Saturday morning was devoted to
shopping for materials for some Musana projects with the plan of heading to the
football stadium in the early afternoon. We quickly discovered the wisdom in
wearing our recently purchased Uganda Cranes jerseys; we felt like celebrities
wherever we went. We were filmed by a local TV station (and ended up on the
evening news!), we were asked to pose for photos with fellow fans, we received
a standing ovation with high fives and bongas (fist bumps) as we walked through
the wholesale district… we even danced through the taxi park with taxi drivers
cheering “We go, we go - Uganda Cranes we go!”.
What was probably most surprising during the course of the morning was how grateful many Ugandans were for our support of their team. Over and over we were thanked for supporting Uganda. As if we would consider supporting anyone else! The warmth and gratefulness we received was touching and made us love the country even more. I'm pretty sure that the big takeaway from this experience is that if you are a mzungu heading to Uganda, just wear a Uganda Cranes jersey the whole time. You will be loved everywhere you go.
The game itself was a blast with Uganda winning 4-0 over Congo Brazzaville, but the boda-boda ride to the stadium ranks pretty high on the biggest adrenaline rushes of my life. Besides being mildly dangerous (don't tell my mom!) between all of the weaving in and out of city traffic and sometimes driving into oncoming traffic, the trip from the center of Kampala to the stadium was like being part of a motorcycle gang of insane, cheering fans. The three mzungus led the way waving the Uganda flag and high-fiving neighboring boda-boda and taxi passengers. I think we all felt a little like Uganda really was our team as we melded with the throng of supporters streaming towards Nelson Mandela Stadium, leaving clogged Kampala traffic in our wake.
Here is the link to Musana's Blog: http://musanajewelry.blogspot.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment