On Friday Baguma began rendering the outside of the main Suubi building with a very clever Ugandan contraption. He loaded it with cement and by winding the handle on the side, the brushes inside spun around and spat the cement out onto the wall. Ingenious!
Baguma and his rendering machine.
The kids eyes were glued to the projected DVD!
On Saturday Javiira was hard at work preparing shelving for the computer room. It was so interesting to watch as he worked with a hand plain, very few other tools and a young boy, who assisted him to produce beautiful work. I am so impressed with the pride that all the local tradesman are showing. They are all really keen to produce their best work to have on show at Suubi, where they know that many people will come in the future.
Javiira expertly joining the timber for the shelving.
We collected some of the materials we would need for the coming week from Masaka on Sunday. On the way home we dropped off the tank and man power needed to install a water tank at Regional College the following day. Later in the day David collected timber for the banda's from somewhere close by in the village. We had a fabulous team of kids to help us unload it all at Suubi!
How could we get anything done without Ruby???
There are always a few kids around to lend a hand!
Monday morning we set off for Regional College which is the school we have organized to connect to McKillop College in Bathurst. (where Annette teaches) We had visited there a couple of weeks ago to make initial contact and had been very impressed with Joseph, the head teacher, and his vision for the school. As the people of Bathurst had helped to raise so much money before Annette left Australia we felt it would be a great way to kick off their connection by providing Regional College with a water tank. We held a meeting with students, teachers and parents and they were all absolutely thrilled when Joseph explained to them the many positive effects the tank would have on the school. Although being highly motivated, he really is quite a comedian and kept everyone laughing, which is a terrific way to communicate and get the message through secondary students. By the time we had left we had 103 letters for Annette to take back to Mac Killop! Looks like another great HUG partnership is underway!
Community meetings like this one are held before any project kicks off. This is so that everyone understands what is happening. Parents, grandparents, teachers and anyone else who wants to know more can come along and ask questions and offer their assistance to the project.
David, Annette and Joseph.
A stop off in Masaka to pay for the tank certainly created some interest. Kakinda and his team usually make all the water tanks we install at various schools, but we had a challenge for him! We had bought the toilet seats to see if he could construct a link between the seat and the hole in the pit latrine floor at Suubi. Of course he could!!! He put his amazing metal engineering skills to work and we soon had the finished product!! Hopefully some of you out there will get to try it out at Suubi in the future and maybe Kakinda will even have a new side line to his business in Uganda!!
Building the toilet.
Kakinda shows off his invention.
Everyone was very impressed!
Yesterday we spent the whole day at Suubi cleaning up and painting. I even ventured up onto the scaffolding to paint the white edging on the outside of the building - Browny you would have been very proud of me! I promise I won't complain next time you ask me to help you install a sign up a proper ladder!!!!
The Ugandan Scaffold.
In the afternoon the widows (affectionately know to many of you as the chicken ladies) came to the centre to receive their letters and gifts from the aboriginal women back home. They were absolutely thrilled with the bags that Kaye, Kitty and May had made for them. The connection of the red, yellow and black on the Ugandan and Aboriginal flags has certainly proved to be a hit between the two cultures.
The widows with their new bags from the HUG Partners in Oz.
And while all of these exciting things have been happening the construction of the banda has been going up..............
and up...
and up...
and up!
Things sure do move quickly at Suubi!!!
Thank you to all the HUGgers out there that have helped to make all this happen. Maybe by the next blog post you will be able to see the roof going on!
Until then
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