A couple of quick little stories, before we shut down due to power being off.
Last week a student, hard working and serious came in very upset wondering about her future. In order to pay for the first semester she had sold most of her herd of goats and some chickens and now had no means of paying for semester two, or indeed anything else. The sum involved? a bit under $400 a semester. I find this very hard to take, people here try so hard with the little the have and in the West we wonder what to give the children for Christmas because they have everything and will, perhaps unhappily spend, yet again, $100 on a pair of trainers. Or as I know of $400 on a hand bag fro teenagers. Think again.
The boy who was sleeping on the floor with the goats and chickens now has a mattress, one of our friends in the business of looking after orphans read the riot act and the uncle who was trying to blackmail us into building an extra room onto his house, has been scared enough to behave himself, for the moment at least.
here is a picture of Anette our 'daughter' who is now in her second year of the full nursing course and doing very well.

Poverty and education, mostly

We have been back a week now and it seems like a month so much to do. Just a week between finishing exams and the start of the new semester, not a good arrangement but this is the first year and really forced on us by circumstances. We brought out about 15kg of wool from the Old Folks club in Shankill to the Elders club here where it will be used for hand crafts of all sorts, caps and hats, un-needed at present as it is very hot, even the locals are complaining, not that it seems to reduce the enthusiasm for loud music and megaphone canvassing for the elections. There is a lot of uncertainty over the result, diferent sources have wildly different assessments. The present incumbents have been blatant in their efforts to buy votes with unsustainable promises, especially given the present and future of the electricity supply. The cuts are already doing significant damage to small businesses which rely on power. I hear that in Rwanda they have a strong and creative Government which has banned the use of charcoal to save the forests, whereas here it is getting worse. BUT the effect is that people are only able to cook once a day due to the fuel shortage. We need the same here.-----Not in the run up to an election.!!
This country continues to surprise. One of our students who is working on the gardens to earn his fees, sleeping on a staff member's floor as he cannot afford accommodation, took on night security for our building for a night to let the regular man home for the weekend [no charge], is coming out with some of the best marks for the last semester that I have ever seen.
The fourteen year old primary school boy came a few days ago and said would I build an annex to the house we helped with a while ago because his uncle was using his room for the goats and chickens at night, you might possibly be able to imagine the sanitary conditions. This was too much for us to deal with so we have called in help and I hope he and his brothers will be moved to a foster home. The young lad has been used to get things for the uncle and this was an obvious effort to blackmail us into extending the house. No explanation as to why he could not build a pen for the animals.
Be careful to whom you commit money. There are NGOs and even churches set up in order to obtain money to "support", "educate" AIDS orphans, which are entirely spurious, with forged documents, names, photographs etc of the supposed beneficiaries. It is so important to check out thoroughly. This sort of thing has become a significant industry unfortunately, so brutal when there is a huge and genuine need. The younger brother of one of the orphans we are helping, has just finished primary school and done extremely well and although he has a place at the best school in the District he cannot go because he cannot find the fees of $300 per term, Boarding. Good education is the most important thing in trying to raise the quality of life long term. It is terrible to see it denied to talented individuals. Anyone interested in helping some of these young people can leave a message and I will get back to them. But do remember, secondary school is six years and University is three. Any one like to help [$500 a year] a student, mature, who has 27 orphans he has 'inherited' from family members. Such is the effect of AIDS that this in not considered worthy of special consideration here. And this in the only country which has significantly reduced the AIDS infection rate. Imagine what it must be like in South Africa etc.

Fort Portal return

Here we are back home again in Fort Portal. Such a warm welcome from all our friends and colleagues almost makes us feel guilty that we left, no not really as we were catching up again with all our family and lifetime friends in Ireland and UK.
We are now in the middle of marking exams, I have not yet started, it will be interesting to see how much I was able to get accross to a very keen and hard working group of students but whose knowledge bases varied considerably.
Besides the election due shortly which of course fills the newspapers, though it is hard to discern policy differences since everyone is going to remove corruption, develop the economy etc. is the power situation. We arrived back to find we had to unpack by torchlight and wash after a hot sticky journey, in cold water, good for you I hear the odd voice, as the power was off. The power situation has got very bad recently because against advice at the time two power stations were installed side by side both taking water from Lake Victoria. The water is now so low that outpout is 170 instead of 265 Mw. This is unlikely to change for at least five years unless the rainfall increases radically, unlikely with global warming. Sadly this will seriously stunt the development of the country. When I have had time to check what the papers were saying in January I will fill in the details of what appears to be a singularly unpleasant story of the rich stealing from the venal poor.
Here all is dust and haze as the dry reason draws towards its close. Unfortunately, The garden which Kathie had so carefully planted to be ready for our return is dryed up and dead because the young man we left in charge did no watering although shown what we needed Bright being not so bright. The tank still has 3000l in it, what a waste, and a great disapointment. Growing things here is such fun but we really only have one more season to try.