Back at camp!

Today marks the 101^st Anniversary of International Women’s Day, a public holiday for Ugandans. It’s meant to recognize women’s contributions to their communities, and to encourage gender equality. However, when Nancy asked one Ugandan his community does anything special for the wives on that day, he shook his head. So it seems as if, in the rural communities at least, this holiday is mainly a day off from work. From what I’ve seen, gender equality does not exist in Uganda. For example, it is not uncommon for a Ugandan man to take a second (and often younger) wife to start a new family. When he does, he usually abandons his first wife and her children. Sadly, several children are now being sponsored precisely because they are the children of the first (and abandoned) wife. In most cases, the fathers do not have to provide for these children. And since divorce does not really occur here much, abandoned wives have little opportunity to better themselves. Also, even though eighteen is the legal age for marriage in Uganda, many girls, particularly in rural areas (where we are now), are married off much earlier. Still, I think more girls are going to school nowadays, and ACTS and Urban Systems (the company that Nancy volunteers with – it sponsors children to go to school) try to send an equal number of girls and boys to school, which is good. David also wants to train and employ Ugandan women to work on the pipe system, and I’m pretty excited about that.

Aside from gender-related stuff, life at camp has been going well. It has been raining off-and-on this week, which has been nice. I am really appreciating the cooler weather. David arrived back in camp on Monday evening, and has spent most of his time getting updates from everyone about what we’ve been up to, and how the pipeline project is progressing. I’ve gone along with the young engineers a couple days this week to do some surveying at another site. They’re basically measuring the elevation of the roads to see where they should put the next pipeline. It’s a fiddly and time-consuming process, but I think they’re making progress, especially with Matt leading the charge (he’s an energizer-bunny type – very keen, loads of energy). They’ve also been scoping out areas to do future projects, once the CIDA funding comes in (which David says should come in June).

Aside from the engineering stuff, I’ve also gone on outings with Nancy. On Tuesday, we went to deliver textbooks to two different schools in Nyakyera. I had fun taking photographs of the kids receiving the books – they were very pleased. In many schools around here, only the teachers have textbooks with which to teach the class, and this makes learning difficult for the kids. Nancy says that she has noticed a dramatic improvement at the schools that Urban Systems has given books too – more kids are going on to senior levels and, eventually, to university. It’s cool that a simple solution makes such a big difference here. Also, yesterday Nancy and I went to visit one of the kids in the sponsorship program who was sent home from school because of illness. He has been in and out of the hospital several times this year because of Hepatosplenomegaly (an enlarged spleen and liver). We're all hoping that he will recover soon.

Well, that’s about it for now – until next week!