Unpacking

The trick to getting water is to be up at 04:30 before everyone else is and get the water that has been pumped overnight. A very slow pump apparently as once 7 comes around the tank is empty. I did get my 3 litres of water pumped and purified and I will have to clean up in a basin again.

We found out that they had power for just over an hour this morning so the wood made it through a planer once and most were cut close to size. We had to get the carpenter in the next shop to hand plane all the edges of the 60 - 5' boards - that cost another 20,000 shillings. Once they were all delivered by bicycle we cut them all to the proper length much to the delight and wonder of many as the battery power saw kept on trucking without power anywhere else and the batteries were charging as fast as required. Putting them together was a challenge as I had one real hammer and a kids one that I was going to let them play with but once again improvise and it was much better than using a brick!  We will get about 8 - 8' high shelves out of this wood which will make a great dent in the piles. The girls have taken interest in arranging the novels by author - so far Danielle Steele wins the most donated book prize.

We have a section on Project Management, Accounting, Geography and Ecology, Canada, French, Arts and Crafts,Religion, kids books and novels. Some of the sections keep getting bigger so we have to move books a few times to keep it organized. Note to anyone contemplating another such event - sort in Canada with people who know the subject matter!

We had a visit from a teacher in another town that heard what was going on and he wants to get his school involved. Another minister came by and he was interested in the religion section and being able to direct his congregation here. The story in Uganda is if you want to hide money put it a book as no one knows what it is for. He agreed that our resource was the start for the people to gain knowledge and begin  the change. A Kampala radio announcer came up and he praised the resource and wanted us to autograph a soccer ball for him to take back to the station. (Not sure how far that contact will go but he did say he wished he had been at customs with us once he heard the computers were missing!)

We have looked at our inventory of books and decided that we have enough to give each school a set of encyclopedias and a dictionary. We don't think we will be able to get the school sets together before I leave so we will present these items when Sue is booking appointments for them to come and see and work out the logistics including our head librarian Ms. Pross. Sue is returning in July so she should be able to get an idea of how it is going and fine tune the process before we expand the service.

We had a visit from the town Councillor, sort of a ward Councillor by job description, so over morning break we spoke about the subject of garbage and environment, Sue and I had talked about some solutions as that is her next endeavor for Uganda which is well on the way. I suggested that since their garbage collectors drive around and pick up stuff with shovels they should give everyone a garbage can which the guys could dump quicker and easier - okay it isn't original back home! We were discussing how everything is blowing around and how a the collection could be turned into energy - I will have to speak to Plastco. The discussion continued to the poor soil and since it dries out so quickly it stays dusty. Plan B, how about a community wide compost pile which could be mixed with the sand to make soil, plant some grass along the road and dust problem solved. We have a meeting with the mayor at 5pm Monday (he wanted 7am but we declined).

Well tomorrow is market day so it will be interesting to see how the basketball net is incorporated into the sales out front of the house. The kids were here all day playing basketball and enjoying the building of shelves, helping by holding up the shelves as we nailed the supports. Even the delivery guy was smiling after his third bike trip in the middle of the day. I think you could say our plan is a hit.

Speaking of garbage we now have one of the kids cutting the bottoms off the water bottles and we will use then for seedlings to sell - our tomato plants are over 2" high now.

Things that I forget to mention:
- when we came back from the Internet on Thursday one of the girls said that a friend of Sue's dropped over some cassava and chicken. I walked into the back and found the chicken tied up to the water container. I am not quite a local yet as I did get a bit of a start. It was a good dinner on Friday night.
- Maximum number of kids on a boda boda (100cc motorcycle) 5 - age 20
- Maximum number on a bicycle - 4 - Mom Dad and 2 kids headed to church Sunday morning