AWF Board Member Angela Martens with villagers from Mushasha in Ntungamo, Uganda and the hand pump well that Africare installed with funds from AWF.
This is our last day in Ntungamo and already my heart is aching to return.
The Africare staff here have become our friends and it has been so amazing to see how hard they are working to turn the funds raised by AWF into tangible change in people’s lives.
Today we visited a village called Mushashsa and there was much singing and dancing and thanksgiving. Everywhere we go we find such joy and spirit in the people and it fills me with so much emotion to see how much they are thankful for what they do have which by our western standards is not much at all but I think the thing that strikes me the most is their sense of community with each other and how time and time again we have been told of a village which recieved a well from AWF / Africare and then suddenly they are sharing it with the next village or parish. There is a spirit in these people that I am coming to envy. There is a beauty in these people that I’ve not experienced before.
Our filmmaker in tow, Steve, has been working very hard these past few days and says he has over 13 hours of footage to edit. I can assure you that we here at AWF are very anxious to share the footage and photographs with you as soon as we can. I’m sure we’ll put something on the website quite soon. We also plan to update this blog with pictures once we can get back to faster internet connections so keep checking back.
Speaking of working hard, Angela and I were once again asked to carry water cans from a well to a home and it was quite a difficult task. I myself carried 10 gallons of water in two cans and I had to stop a few times as it was painful for my hands. I was then informed that this would be the amount of water that an adult women might carry 2 or 3 times a day and possibly while carry a child in a sash on her back. I’m sure I heard more than a few giggles from the folks who were watching me.
I feel like I could go on and on for many more paragraphs but I’ll close by saying that we have fallen in love with this place and with these people and I cannot thank each of you enough who have made this work possible enough.
The work that AWF and Africare do here is real and it is changing lives!
Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!
So goodbye to Paul, Dennis, Frances and Jacob in Ntungamo. Goodbye to Anthony, Shanna & Dr. Kahiu in Kampala (and thanks for the cake!)
And goodbye beautiful Uganda!
Peace,
rob
