It's begun!!

Thank you again to everyone who has supported me and my project in Bududa. I am very happy to say that we have begun our work this past week and we are making amazing progress. Monday we went out and bought supplies. We priced things and decided to buy most of our things in the village because the price was the same and we felt it was better to bring the business to the village rather than spend it in town where business isn't as scarce. Then on Tuesday some parents and members of the PTA arrived to do the measuring of the ground and to mark where the poles for the fence would be place. We agreed that I would come back to the school Wednesday morning for more work.

I arrived Wednesday morning at 9a as agreed...and i sat. I waited for someone to come to help start the work and noone arrived. Then it was 10a...and then 10.30a...I got tired of waiting, so I turned to the head teacher and voiced my frustration. I asked why we were willing to waste a perfectly good day of work and asked if there was anything we could do...She said that we could start by calling some of the children out of class to start digging holes. So that day we called out P6 and P7 to work. Now, if you were to tell an American child that they had to dig some holes, after they were done complaining, they would ask for a shovel...well these kids didn't complain and they had no tools. It was an amazing and humbling sight to watch them work. They took tree branches and cut them to a point with a panga (machette) and then just started pounding the ground. Then when the dirt was loose, they would scoop it up with their hands and throw it out of the whole. They followed this same procedure until our holes were about 2 feet deep. They were greatful for the work being done at their school and it brought a smile to my face everytime one of them said, "Thank you." The parents that I was working with also thanked all of you for your help with improving their school. We finished digging the holes Thursday morning and today, Friday, I hope that they started putting the poles in the ground. I am unsure of what progress was made today since I was at the college today and have not been back to Bududa yet to check the progress. I am very happy with how its going.

I also made a friend while at the school. Her name is Patience and she's about 3 or 4 years old. Her father is a teacher at the school and on Tuesday she came, not knowing I was there and she never left my side for the whole day. She helped me supervise the project. Then her father told me on Wednesday that she wouldn't stop talking about me when they got home and that she had to come back to see me on Wednesday, and she did. When she saw me she smiled, ran towards me, and gave me a huge hug. Then she went to work on supervision of digging the holes with me. Now, if only I could gain patiences as a virtue I would be set...

Other than that things are going well. Thank you all for your support. Miss you all. See you soon.