The worst day, The best day, and the last day.

October 28th, 2008 by Rachael Patton

Well a lot has happened in the past couple of weeks and now im on my way home. Just had a giant feast with the family and all packed and ready to go. Had a great last day at school, the kids put on a big assembly for me. Our head teacher asked them ‘who wants aunt Rachael to stay?’ and they all put up their hands….then she asked ‘who want to go with aunt Rachael?’ and they got even more excited. One kid said they wanted to come on the bus back home with me later today.

Just before I left school we practiced our whistles….I thought they sounded great but at that same moment my coordinator stopped by and told me it was one hell of a racket….I have video evidence, we’ll see!

So the past couple of weeks have been a series of ups and downs. I went to Kampala one weekend just to do mzungu stuff for a weekend. We jumped on Bodas and I was sandwiched between the driver and another volunteer. We were stuck in a jam so people were walking in and out of the traffic on the road, then one man took a swipe at me and tore my necklace right off. I wasn’t over the moon about that. He also left me with a nasty scratch across my neck. The really crappy thing was watching him slowly skip away swinging my necklace, and not being able to do anything because we were still in city traffic.

We also went to a Ugandan soccer game in the mandella stadium, apparently theres a clip of us on You tube- Uganda v benin. The game was cool, a world cup qualifier, and we won which added to the excitement. The lot of us got Ugandan soccer jerseys with our names on the back and painted our faces the Ugandan colours so everyone at the match thought we were nuts. Several people wanted photos with us and everyone told us we are real Ugandans now. It was funny tho because one lady asked me what the colours on my face ment, and when I said they are the countries colours she said…’oh your country…ok’ We figured out later that The Ugandan colours have to be painted twice….ie 6 strips, not 3, and we had only 3. opps………

Later that week we had an American man come visit us. His organization had been promising PACE some financial aid so it was so fantastic when he came. His organization is called DOMA meaning home in Russian and some east European lanuages. Basically DOMA has groups in the states, like parishes, schools, book clubs etc, and each group is asked to fundraise for various projects, one of which is PACE. So DOMA have now promised PACE regular financial aid, starting next year hopefully, coming monthly or quaterly. This is huge for us as a constant source of income can secure a sense of stability, something which the project hasn’t really had yet. Dan, the guy who visited from the organization, gave me a proposal of what DOMA does. Later I asked Betty if she had read it and she said not yet, so I gave it to her and flicked to the page where PACE was listed as one of DOMA’s projects. Betty hadn’t realized that DOMA had already decided to take us on so there was a few tears at that moment and a real sense of hope. Dan also brought money from some donners and bought us kitchen equipment for the school as well of a sack of beans and a sack of posho. Until now our kids have had to leave school everyday at 1, which is earlier than the normal school time, because we had niehter the money, food, nor the equipment to feed them, but now they can stay in school all day and catch up on their curriculum. This is great as exams are soon approaching and the kids are a bit behind.

The same day Betty and I talked about land and classrooms. since land money has already been promised to her I am just lending the fundraised money to her until the promised money comes. When it comes she will ‘repay’ me and I’ll redonate. The redonated funds are going to pay to build PACE’s new classrooms on its new land.obviously I think this is an excellent cause for the money we have raised.Thank you all who helped.

Since then I have also visited the gorillas at Bwindi, AWESOME. They completely surrounded us, almost attacked us, and just lounged about for almost the full hour we were permitted to stay. Usually they hide in the forest but they were out in an open space just resting while we were there. We were told if they approach you move away slowly, and if u cant then crouch and don’t make eye contact, that sometimes they are just curious and want to see want ur skin is. So one came towards me and I chose to crouch….i think he must have only been a foot or two away when I was told sternly by the ranger to move away………opps.

I did intend to go white water rafting but unfortunately woke up sick that morning. 5 of us went out the night before and 5 of us were sick the next day….we think they served us dodgey water because that’s the only thing we shared. Not6 a huge loss on the rafting anyway, it just means I will have to come back to do it!

Last week we took 22 of our kids for HIV testing. A bit of a mess but results are due tomorrow, hopefully it will be good news. Two new volunteers are coming to replace me next week so I hope they will try to get the rest of the kids tested.

Ive also gotten two new names while being here. some of you will know where ’stupid potatoe’ came from. a spanish guy heard me firends calling me that and just presumed it was me name because im Irish, so he called me Rachael potatoe, he didnt want top be impolite by calling me stupid. Also my kids gave me the local Lugandan name Namukasa yesterday. Mukasa is the God of water….I like water.

Overall my Ugandan and African experience has been incredible. I hope I will be lucky enough to return and meet my friends again. There is absolutely no way I am going home with any regrets. For those of you who are wondering, I bought THREE Uganda t-shirts.

See you all really soon,

Love Rachael Potatoe.