When we were in Tanzania we noticed how cheap the quality of imported goods are. Its the same here. For example, the electricity sockets look like normal English type sockets. However, they are grossly inferior to any bought in England. We had some new sockets fitted in our new kitchen, but within a week one of the switches has broken. Unfortunately it seems that developing countries are taken advantage of and persuaded to accept poor quality goods which would be rejected by western countries, even though they are marked British Standard ‘BS 1363’.
We mentioned a couple of weeks ago that our brand new toilet seat broke the first time it was ‘sat upon’. (No names to avoid embarrassment). You can see from the picture it has completely given up within 2 weeks. Unfortunately when we were fitting a replacement the screw connectors broke as soon as they were tightened up. Therefore, our shopping list for when we return to England for 2 weeks in January so far consists of:
1 used Tesco’s egg box (or similar) – see last weeks blog
1 loo seat
The highlight of the last week has been the Convention. This 3 day event is held every 10 years and attracted about 4,000 (a guess) delegates to the Sunday Service with about 1,000 to 1,500 on the other days. There were a range of speakers including 2 visitors from England (the Revs David Hughes (ex Didsbury) and Jolyon Tricky (Nailsea)) and the Archbishop of Uganda.
We mentioned a couple of weeks ago that our brand new toilet seat broke the first time it was ‘sat upon’. (No names to avoid embarrassment). You can see from the picture it has completely given up within 2 weeks. Unfortunately when we were fitting a replacement the screw connectors broke as soon as they were tightened up. Therefore, our shopping list for when we return to England for 2 weeks in January so far consists of:
1 used Tesco’s egg box (or similar) – see last weeks blog
1 loo seat
The highlight of the last week has been the Convention. This 3 day event is held every 10 years and attracted about 4,000 (a guess) delegates to the Sunday Service with about 1,000 to 1,500 on the other days. There were a range of speakers including 2 visitors from England (the Revs David Hughes (ex Didsbury) and Jolyon Tricky (Nailsea)) and the Archbishop of Uganda.
Fortunately, because delegates came from different parts of Uganda and did not all speak the local language, as a matter of course the talks were in English, or there was an English interpretation, which made our lives easy.
Normal parts of such an event seemed to be:
- communal singing and dancing, the African way (with Mzungu participation by some!)
- calls for people to come forward to commit or recommit there lives to Christ, which many responded to.
This week we met with the Bishop to discuss what we might do. Irene is going to talk to the manager of the Vocational Training Centre to see if she can help with any business training. Malcolm has met with the Diocese accountant to start finding out about the Financial procedures of the Diocese and next week he will view the Diocese’s property to start to plan how best to use it.
The good news is that following £30 of phone calls we are able to withdraw funds at the ATM from our Halifax account, but not from our Nationwide account (for which the Nationwide does not understand why we can’t withdraw funds and has therefore been unable to sort the problem out – other than to send a new card to our UK address, which is not much help). It was well worth the 1 ½ queue at the bank last Friday to get the money out. The bad news is that we are having problems getting our Ugandan Orange modem to work so we can access the Internet – oh well, This Is Africa.
Babies continue to be brought to the ‘Potter’s Village’. Recently 4 week old Peter was brought by his grandparents. His mother died at birth and her parents have been trying to feed him but his weight has dropped from 3.1kg at birth to about 2.5kg through under nourishment. As a result Jenny is caring for him, feeding every 2 hours.
- communal singing and dancing, the African way (with Mzungu participation by some!)
- calls for people to come forward to commit or recommit there lives to Christ, which many responded to.
This week we met with the Bishop to discuss what we might do. Irene is going to talk to the manager of the Vocational Training Centre to see if she can help with any business training. Malcolm has met with the Diocese accountant to start finding out about the Financial procedures of the Diocese and next week he will view the Diocese’s property to start to plan how best to use it.
The good news is that following £30 of phone calls we are able to withdraw funds at the ATM from our Halifax account, but not from our Nationwide account (for which the Nationwide does not understand why we can’t withdraw funds and has therefore been unable to sort the problem out – other than to send a new card to our UK address, which is not much help). It was well worth the 1 ½ queue at the bank last Friday to get the money out. The bad news is that we are having problems getting our Ugandan Orange modem to work so we can access the Internet – oh well, This Is Africa.
Babies continue to be brought to the ‘Potter’s Village’. Recently 4 week old Peter was brought by his grandparents. His mother died at birth and her parents have been trying to feed him but his weight has dropped from 3.1kg at birth to about 2.5kg through under nourishment. As a result Jenny is caring for him, feeding every 2 hours.
Next week the Social Life starts up:
- on Saturday we should be going to the ‘giving away’ (engagement) party of the daughter of a Canon of the Diocese (he's one of the 'Big Guns' here)
- on Sunday we have been invited to the Birthday party’s of Heidi (an American Peace Camp volunteer just completing 2 years at Potter’s Village) and Judith, a long term English worker in Uganda.
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