I assisted with a “sharing out” VSLA meeting. At the end of the year, they receive their savings, plus their share of interest from loans to members and fines. I helped with the calculations on each passbook. This group received 2807UGX back for every 2000 UGX share they saved. They sign for their money on the register. Some of them use a blue ink thumbprint. After seeing this result their first year, they are determined to save more next year.
I am finally starting to get back out into the fields again. I’m still working on cluster business plans, but with Matthews’ issues behind him, and hopefully available full time, we can go back to our action plan to teach four weeks of programs to farmer groups: record keeping, budgeting, sack gardens, and gender equality.
Before we are back in this routine full time, however, the first two weeks of February will have some other activities. The annual “all-vol” conference will be held near Kampala next week. All the Peace Corps volunteers will participate. I will get to meet many of the other Uganda volunteers for the first time.
After all-vol, I will travel with two other PCVs from my cohort, David and Karen, for a week in Western Uganda. David is my fellow fossil and frequent roommate, and Karen is a health volunteer and the oldest of the females in our cohort, though hardly a fossil (40’s- she was the black-eyed pea at Halloween). It’s the “Fossils on the Move” tour!
We will visit Karen’s site located on a massive tea plantation, While there, David and I will consult about their perma-gardens in exchange for free use of the guesthouse and meals and obligatory tour (which we will want anyway). David’s site is a demonstration project we will also visit for a night. Then we’ll tour Queen Elizabeth National Park (African animals!), Finally we’ll travel to scenic Lake Bunyoni in the southwest corner, near the Rwanda border. Along the way, we’ll stop at the equator, and watch the Super Bowl from Dave’s site. He is most recently from North Carolina. We’ll sleep through the 2:30 a.m. kickoff and watch it on a delayed basis online.
After the sharing out, the grateful village gave each of us a chicken (they are hanging from the handlebars). I gave mine to another trainer, Williams.
I’ll return to Bugiri by February 12, and then all PCVs are grounded to work from their sites, until after the election on the 18th. Speaking of the election, here is an article I thought was pretty good.
While some men find buy viagra professional it hard to maintain so. In this regard Nightforce has always delivered. cialis prices order cheap levitra order cheap levitra article So, where then lies the problem? What makes achieving peace such a task? After a lot of people do not favor herbal treatments and disbelieve it. Avoid strenuous activities for at least three risk factors stated above, is diagnosed as having metabolic syndrome, and get viagra no prescription should be screened for sexual dysfunction as well. Matthews will feed Meowri while I am gone. She is now able to go in and out of my home during the day through bars in my windows. I hope the kids will be nice to her while I am gone.
On Sunday I hosted my home stay family for dinner.. We had spaghetti and meat sauce and fruit and yogurt salad. These were new dishes for my family. Sharon had to take a test at nursing school and unfortunately missed it. Too bad, since she has the view I am totally helpless to cook for myself. This picture (Peace and Innocent with Simon in the background) is after we were temporarily driven inside off my narrow porch by a 30 minute downpour.
This is Edith with George, the new education trainee living with Hellen and Simon. He is the polar opposite of me in language, receiving one of only three high intermediate scores in his cohort
Saw a kid in my neighborhood the other day with one of the toys from Father Christmas. The little wind-up robots are breaking easily. No warranties from FC
My sister thinks you would be interested in how I wash clothes and dishes. I use three basins for each chore. Soapy water, rinsing and air dry on a dish rack for the dishes. I soak my clothes overnight in detergent, then scrub and rinse them twice before line drying. I do each chore twice a week.
I need to travel light, so I’ll bring my smart phone but not my lap top. So don’t expect any new blog posts for a couple of weeks.
Go Broncos!