Today (Friday) we were supposed to meet with officials at the UCA for our final debriefing at 10am however we received a last minute call to say we had been bumped by a delegation of funders from Sweden and Norway who were in town and our meeting got moved to 2:30pm. Which was fine. Instead we spent the moring doing a little souvenier shopping in the local arts and craft spots. We also hit a supermarket here in downtown Kamapala where the group bought 2 shopping carts full of baby stuff for an orpahange we are planning to visit Saturday afternoon. There are 80 orphans at this place from infants to 4 or 5 years old. My dentist (Dr. Morgan Nickou) who by the way is the best dentist in the city of Hamilton - gave me 100 toothbrushes before i left that I stuffed into my suitcases. I had been told that this was a luxury item for many people in this country.
The meeting went ok. I have come to realize (not surprisingly) that effecting change, real system wide change , that can only be done by the top levels is a slow and painstaking process - they were very blunt to say that many if not all of the recommendations we delievered at the meeting have been recommended before. In other words not alot of what we said was new to them, Which begs the question - so if you’ve heard all this over and over why is everything still the same? - why have these issues not been addressed? I chose not to get into that discussion - for now. However on the other hand all of us were able to effect alot of positive change down at street level (or should I say dusty road level) in the villages we visited. Thats what has, as it turns out, been the most satisfying part of all this. We were able to work and talk to the Managers and people on the front lines where it really matters and leave them with a significant amount of ideas and possible solutions to their day to day issues. I was a little sceptical at first about wheather or not I (we) could make a difference here at these 4 SACCO’s my partner and I visited and now that we’re done I’m very confident we made a difference (and in many cases a difference that will be lasting). It may be hard to understand but just being here and being seen in the village communitys with the local SACCO leaders was a huge boost to them. Theres a real sense of mistrust among many villagers about “banks” as they have been burned before so anytime you can do anything to raise awareness and as a result raise the banking confidence level of these people (especially as a place to save their megre savings) in thier village bank its a help.
So its Saturday morning as a write this.
As I said earlier the only thing we have on today is the orphange visit - so lots of hanging around the hotel and possibly another souvenier excursion but thats it. We need to be packed and ready to head to Entebbe airport at about 6:30am Sunday as we begin the journey home. We will all (6) travel to London together (9 hrs) then 5 of us have a 24 hour layover (our BC coach has a connection right away). The rest of us travel to Montreal (2) and Toronto (3) thats another 8 hrs or so. I’m scheduled to land at Pearson at 4pm Monday.
It appears this will be the last post - its been an adventure I’ll never forget.
Thanks to my Board for thier strong support and to the staff back at HMECU especially Doug Colleen Marg and Deanna who have all pulled up the slack while I was away.
And finally thanks to my wife Mariann and my kids Steven, Danielle and Jim who thought this was a fantastic opportuntity for me to take advatage of right from the start even though my being a zillion miles away (in AFRICA of all places) was hardest on them - especially my wife. Love you all very much - see you soon.
Thanks for reading this all you that have checked in daily - writing the blog and reading your comments has really helped me get through the extended time away from home - sharing my daily experiences and posting just a few the images I’ve captured has been like therapy. Theres a strange sense of satifaction and comfort knowing that everyone back home is feeling what I’m feeling almost in real time.
Take care - see you (some of you anyway) when I get back.
The 2 pictures below - me and a few of the other coaches in the lobby of the Metropole Hotel here in Kampala - we treated ourselves to a little western style luxury for the final couple days. Nice place. Running water and electricity. And the other picture is the gang loading up the jeep with the stuff for the orpahange. Bye for now.
Charlie
No comments:
Post a Comment