1 We moved house. A very generous Simon and Nicola made it possible for us to live in their 'old' compound, with a spacious garden for the girls to play in and a great indoor space for relaxing after a busy day's directing.
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| Our compound - great for fun and parties (rolex chap and cassava lady not normally present). |
2 Our family finally got to dress up 'Ugandan' (well, central Ugandan specifically) at a friend's 'Introduction'. That's a kind of engagement party, but lasting about 14 times longer, and a great deal more sitting and a lot less champagne. I managed about four hours.
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| This is our serious Ugandan photo look, 'Blue Posho'. |
3 With the house, came a dog.
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| Sandy in name and colour. |
4 We started forming Community Groups in the slums. We're doing all sorts of training and awareness raising with them to help them change things for their families and communities. Here are the kind of practical things that we're training them in.
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| Murals made out of mud, using x-rays as stencils. This one's about how to prevent typhoid. |
5 John maintained his role as Director. No coup d'etat in this corner of Africa. All is going well and we've just taken on a new Head of Social Development, Rosemary, who worked with Send a Cow for 15 years. She knows her onions, but we have no need of cow-know-how in the slums.
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| John 'directing' some dancing. |
6 Sue came second (again!) in the female staff race at the Acacia School Olympics. She continues to teach at the school until she reaches the number one spot.
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| It's not the winning, it's the taking part that counts. Notice the 'faller' near the back? |
7 Mayah followed in my footsteps of being very safe, whilst being VERY dangerous. In fact she topped any of my feats by running across some grass from one 4x4 to another. Not very impressed? There were lions tearing apart an unfortunate antelope about 25 metres away.
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| This is the very lion. |
8 We are extremely close to setting up our first 'Community Dream Centre' in Kinawataka Slum. Just a bit more negotiating, funding and a lick of paint and it will look something like this.
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| This shipping container never had it so good. |
9 The first families are starting to arrive at our aptly named 'Family Centre'. It's very exciting to see people start to inhabit this project, which has been a long time coming, but will now see families part of our four month programme to set them up for a good future.
10 John took part in his first mountain bike race for nearly 20 years, on the edge of Mt Elgon. The hills were simply too much for his poor legs, but it was worth it for the singletrack, the views and a bit of bloke time.
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| I came 5th. Out of 9. Still, it's the taking part that counts isn't it? |
So, there's our news. Hopefully we'll get better at actually updating the blog with some more meaty info in the coming months, or just hone our BuzzFeed style and get the traffic flowing on in.
