What I have been doing in Gulu, Northern Uganda

I helped St Jude Orphanage convert their accounting system to Quickbooks.

I cleaned up African Revival's Quickbooks and did some training for them.

I went into the bush numerous times with Aid Africa to build and mud rocket stoves.

I did some training on Quickbooks for Favor of God.

As my time draws to an end in Gulu, I want to review the things that I have been doing here. I arrived at the end of February 2011 and I leave July 16th, 2011. I lived here for 4 ½ wonderful months. That’s not time enough to make the kind of difference I want to make, so I will return again and continue my work.

 In these two pictures, I am volunteering with Aid Africa.  I am mudding a rocket stove in a hut.

I sponsored the school fees of 20 secondary school (high school) boys and girls in Gulu. Most of those 20 students are attending boarding schools because they are orphans with no support network. I did this with the help of my dear friends, family members, and Rotarians around the world who donated to The Well of Hope Foundation. I couldn’t have raised the approx $4400 to pay the school fees for these 20 students without them. I will continue to work on sustainability for them so that their next year school fees will be paid.

African Promise is a charity organization that raises funds to support and pay the school fees of children in Gulu, Uganda. They sell Acholi Beads to raise these funds. African Promise sent me money to sponsor the school fees of 15 additional students. It took me all of March to pay these school fees (WOHF 20 and AP 15). It is a process of taking money out of one bank, and taking it directly to the bank of the named school to pay. That means a lot of standing in bank lines, filling out forms, interviewing students, record keeping, etc. We changed the lives of 35 children this year and gave them the opportunity to progress. Some will succeed, some will not.

Sometimes I visited schools to see what their needs were.

The majority of my time was spent at St Jude Children Home. I was involved in various activities there. The first month I worked closely with the social workers, Ronald and Jackie, to identify students in need of school fees. Some days, I just hung out with the children and the mothers at the orphanage. Most of June and July was spent working closely with Christopher, the accountant, as we changed their accounting system to Quickbooks. It has been a lot of work inputting all of the data since Jan 1st, 2011. I helped bring a couple of groups to St Jude and guided them as to what to bring to us.  They brought much needed supplies, clothes, toys and books with them. I helped them around town and getting to Gulu via the bus.

Sometimes I visited villages to see what their needs were.

I volunteered with other charity organizations helping them with their Quickbooks and giving proper trainingon it. Some of these NGOs are African Revival, Favor of God, Aid Africa, and St Jude. I have also written previous blogs about my experiences out in the bush with Aid Africa making the rocket stoves and mudding them. All of these things were wonderful and fulfilling for me to be involved in. I love using my skills to help others.

I helped bring much needed supplies to the orphanage.

Of course, not every day was hard work. There is one swim pool and sauna at Acholi Inn that I was known to be seen enjoying occasionally. I enjoyed going to a club called BJz for Quiz night and dancing once a week. I spent time reading books, writing my blog, and communicating via Facebook with my family and friends. Life is harder here than in Hawaii. It takes time to wash my clothes by hand, boil my water to drink, and try to keep things semi-clean in a dusty environment. I spent my share of time fixing flat tires on my bike too. Everything takes longer in Africa.

This bike has saved me so much money in transportation costs; regardless of the flat tires!

I learned to have Patience here. Now, instead of getting anxious when we leave two hours after we are told to arrive, I just bring a book, relax and read. When meetings start at 6pm, I don’t get there until 7pm because I know they never start on time! I am not going to change the way things are done here; I have to adapt. Adjust. Smile. Be happy. Be Patient. This is Africa!