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.