Thursday, May 27, 2010

A new summer in Lugazi...

Welcome to the continuation of HELP International in Lugazi, Uganda. This year HELP has expanded and now has two team's in Uganda; one in Lugazi, and one in Mukono. We are so excited to be strengthening our presence in this beautiful country and hopefully increasing the impact we can make on these people!

So far our stay here has been busy: full of adventure and hard work! The volunteers arrived in early May and we have been working to meet new partners, catch up with old ones and get rolling on all of the projects that are needed in this community. We have already worked on three adobe stoves, visited beneficiaries of last year's work, started proposals for mushroom houses, ox projects, and an education program and have many more projects coming down the pipeline.

We will update more specifics soon, but for now here is a little recap on what we've been up to the past few weeks:

Every day we are followed by a parade of children crying "mzungu, mzungu!" Mzungu means "white person" in Luganda.
 
 One of the first projects we worked on was constructing Adobe Stoves with Kizza in our neighborhood, Nakazadde. The beneficiary of this stove was a single mother of 4 and she was so grateful! We stomped the clay alongside the children...so much fun!
 
While walking to Namengo to visit a women's group Savings & Loans program that was started last year, we passed this railroad track. We live in the most beautiful town!

With a team of 14 girls, we have gotten a kick out of the "water closets" here in Uganda. Everyone has been a champ adjusting to the new facilities. Luckily our home has proper "english" toilets...

sdfs
Our first Ugandan shopping experience in the local village market. Our little pet "encoco (chicken in Uganda)" actually ended up being dinner the next day. Yum.