Goodbye Ruth

Another sad farewell this week – but more food!!!

Ruth has been working as a volunteer at Potters Village Home for Vulnerable Children for the past 4 months. Unfortunately she had to return to the UK this week with one of her priorities to find a job that will make use of her qualifications in nutrition.

What a good excuse for a meal!!

And as Jenny is away, what a good excuse to use her house (and staff) to cook it!

On the menu:
Ugandan Chinese – Eve cooked stir fry vegetable and chicken with rice
English Ugandan – Malcolm made a banana crumble with custard
Simply British – Ellie baked a cake

Now – what is there next to commiserate - or celebrate – with a meal?

We continue to stay at Jenny’s house to look after her children Hannah and Jojo while she is in the UK – with the help of 4 or 5 other friends and staff. We think they are surviving OK, though they (and we) are looking forward to their mother coming home next week.

We finished the week with a meal as well. The Diocese is part way through building a 20+ room hotel (Faith House) overlooking Kisoro and this weekend are holding a Fund raising event to complete and furnish the ground floor. On Friday tents were erected to protect people at the event from the sun (or despite the dry season, the rain and thunder). Malcolm took the opportunity to take a couple of pictures. Unfortunately one of the contractors thought this was a good time to ask for money for his picture. Following some friendly banter (well, we think it was friendly – its difficult to tell when one person speaks no English and the other almost no local language). Malcolm printed a copy of the photo for him – to his great delight.

To kick off the fund raising a special dinner was held on Friday night. This was a special Ugandan meal.

Ugandans are always careful about hygiene before a meal and the custom is that everyone is helped to have their hands washed before being served.

One of the main reasons for this is that traditionally people eat with their hands. To be honest, we usually try and find a fork from somewhere but on this occasion it was not possible. At least it saves on the washing up. We were pleased to sit next to Amos, the manager of the Vocational Training Centre, and he was able to translate the speeches.

The highlight of the evening was the specially made cake. At first people were invited to come up to pay the Bishop for a piece of the cake. Trust Malcolm to wait until the remaining pieces were brought round for no payment!!!!! Over £300 was raised from the sale of the cake – which is more than a year’s salary for many people.