if we each do nothing to make a difference, the world will never change: So far being 28 is off to a fantastic start!

Today I had some fresh veggies and added a can of chicken Adam and Kalyn sent… though I’m not going to lie, canned chicken takes some getting used in my opinion.

Last week at Frickadelly I bumped into a girl who asked if I had met Bridget and Bruce yet, a Canadian couple who started a project out in the village, totally away from other development or Muzungu projects. I had not, so she passed their website information on to me.

Yesterday, Bruce pulled up to the bakery in his tattered ivory truck, rolled down the window and yelled “Hey Muzungu”… I smiled and climbed in. The truck slid around the road a bit thanks to the slippery mud from the rain and Bruce proceeded to tell me the basics about The Tekera Resource Center http://www.ugandavillage.org/community%20work%20programme.htm (their webpage is really underdeveloped but the project is amazing!...maybe I can find someone willing to donate time to make them a new web page that would accurately represent the stellar program going on in Tekera...)

In short, there is a plantation and people from the village have an opportunity to come and work the ground to earn Pecos (their local project currency) and then the Pecos can be used to pay for clinic visits or school fees. The produce which the community harvested is then sold here in Masaka to the “nice” hotels and restaurants, the proceeds sustain the clinic.

Another income generating venture is charge the batteries of cell phones for members of the community at a cost of 500 shillings. Having 6 solar panels, the compound is never without electricity, unlike much of the village.

Another revenue generating project is the selling of pine tree seedlings. They plant the seeds and sell the trees when they are only a few inches big and are now teaching people the income potential growing pine trees can have. The challenge with this is that pine trees have a long maturation process (10-15 years I’m told) but have a very high yield of profit as pine is what the furniture is made out of…so the ends justify the wait if people can just focus on the pay day.

They also have a school (first in the village) and the kids are WAY behind! So... the teachers teach in the morning then hold study sessions in the evening and classes on Saturday trying to catch the kids up. The founders don't believe in child sponsorship because they think it's too selective and doesn't promote equality or have an element of sustainability, whereas teacher sponsorship has a far greater lasting impact on the community.

Anyhow, on Monday I am going to inquire if TASO goes to Tekera to offer services. If not, I'm going to see if there is a need/desire for services in Tekera. TASO used to have a healthy eating community group which encouraged positive patients to make adjustments to their diet as a way to increase their overall health condition.

After following Bridget around for the day on a tour of the village and doing home visits, my biggest interest at the moment is to start a women's cooperative group. There are a number of women I met who have a good amount of land that is totally going unused, and they are hard pressed to make a living. The problem is they are single women with a lot of kids (4-8) and simply don't have the time or resources to prepare, plant and maintain the land in order for it to produce for them. I want to do a bit of research about co-ops and see if the women would be interested in pooling their land together, using one plot for say pigs, one for chickens, one for a bakery, one for produce and so on... then the 5 (or however many) of them could work the ground together, sharing equally in the work, profits and losses... and within that there would be a component of a savings account so that a certain amount of proceeds each week go to this account so that when things happen (like this woman whose house collapsed with the rain the other night and now she's homeless with 8 kids) would have access to an emergency reserve of money to build her a new house.

Of course I’m staying realistic, realizing I only have 2 months left here and the full scope of the project may be too great, however, the beauty of sustainability is that I should simply be able to start it and have it take off on its own... we'll see what I can start - maybe even something super small and not as large scale as this but hey - dreams are good right :~)

As far as my birthday…
The day was WONDERFUL! Adam stayed up to call me first thing in the morning, my host sister Esther, gave me a beautiful necklace and wrap. Another host sister Annette, made me a lovely card.

I went to work early the morning to catch everyone before they headed out to the field. I spoke with the head counselor and told him I'm interested in reproductive health issues - perhaps more specifically now, educating positive women on the risks of pregnancy and family planning methods available to avoid pregnancy should she choose that is what's best for her. Perhaps, I could create an awareness group where positive mothers go speak to young girls in schools or in the community about the importance of using condoms and other family planning methods such as abstinence and birth control. Maybe the women can talk about living a positive life and all the choices and precautions to take not only if you're positive, but if you're negative too. Or maybe I could start a peer support group where the mothers (or expectant mothers) can get together and find support in their shared experience and circumstance. Many of the women have been saying they are alone and lacking emotional support to face the situation they now find themselves in. Who knows, at least I have a few ideas now.

After I finished running around Moses, took me to his office. Standing on a chair he pulled a medium sized keyboard down from the top shelf and proceeded to play and sing happy birthday to me. It was so sweet. He then played a few of his favorite church songs (taking advantage of the captive audience as a way to showcase his talent) - it was very sweet.

I then went to Frickadelly, had a pizza and a fruit salad – YUM.

Then went to the post office and the two packages Kalyn and Adam packed arrived (splendid!)… and then the bank that had previously told me they wouldn’t convert my money because it was printed in 2004 decided they would exchange it.

Then we had dinner at 10 Tables… we showed up and the restaurant had sprinkled flower petals on the floor all around the table and on the table and Adam had contacted Megan (a fellow intern) and had her buy me some flowers and a sappy card…awe…

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