7/4/21: so wonderful to visit Kampala Christian Orphanage again!

Absolutely delighted to be able to visit Kampala Christian Orphanage yesterday.  Having had part 1 of the Astra Zeneca COVID 19 vaccine last week, Mr Katende Emmanuel, the village chairman, kindly gave his permission for my visit.  So, a ride on the back of a motorbike (thank you, Michael!) to reach the starting point for the ‘taxi’ (ie. 14 seater inter-city bus), then to Wobulenzi to be met by Alex, whole journey about 2 hours.

So fantastic to see the children again for the first time since August 2019, here are a few of the pictures:

Of course, need to lead some children’s songs with actions, keen students of the same will recognise, “Who’s the King of the jungle?”:

One of the big sadnesses of my visit was the lack of school.  Since lockdown has started a year ago, Ugandan schools have not been operating normally, which some exceptions now for international schools and for examination classes.  It can readily be seen that, for day schools and boarding schools where children have families to return to, this helps reduce the spread of the virus.  However, at KCO the school and orphanage are integrated, with some local children also coming to the school.  As far as I can see, closing KCO’s school makes no difference to social distancing but comes, as for all children, at a huge educational cost.  Meanwhile, great to see children enjoying the books I brought with me:

Let’s pray that schools will be allowed to operate normally again soon.

As well as talking with the children it was great to be able to see some of the building work going on recently.  Many thanks for all the contributions to installing electricity into the orphanage, the connection box is all ready:

With earthing, switches and light sockets installed.  The last remaining stage is connecting up with the central supply, work was going on to facilitate this yesterday:

So watch this space!  Connection due to be made in the next few days, really excited to see this happening, thanks once again for all the kind donations to make this possible!

Another project over the last few months has been the building of the kitchen.  Very pleased to say that the kitchen is now operational with perhaps the scariest oven I’ve ever seen:

So this is a wood burning stove with two huge cauldrons, typically used for either rice or ‘posho’ and then beans.  This is much appreciated by the children:

Whilst the building is operational it is not yet complete:

As Alex and I set out in the video below, would really value your help in the closing stages of this important project:

So that was my day yesterday!  Really glad to make contact again, thank you to Alex, the staff and the children for having me, looking forward to visiting again soon.  Thank you!