Thursday 28th October – Mukono to Soroti and meeting old friends

Thursday 28th October – Mukono to Soroti and meeting old friends

Breakfast at 7am and the new bus is already waiting for us when we gather at 8am complete with luggage. Not only is the new bus waiting for us but also the lady with the huge smile…Gertrude has travelled from Kampala to see us off, what a woman! She has with her, her backpack full of baby clothes as her next stop is the women’s prison.

We load the bus up, by now about one third of the luggage load has been dropped off, either in Rukingiri or Kampala, so there are less bags, but they have got very much heavier as people have consolidated luggage so that cases could be left behind.



We set off on the journey and it is uneventful. People are tired and the bus is quiet as we try to catch up on some sleep. We only stop once and make good time getting to the outskirts of Soroti in about 6 hours.

Once we see the Soroti rock the mood in the bus changes, spirits lift, the chatter gets more and more excited and some of us start to recognise landscape and buildings. The feeling of excitement and anticipation rises.

We stop very briefly at the Guest House and back on the bus to go to the Global Care Centre, excitement is now very very high. As we enter the gates of the centre we can see that the staff there are as excited as we are, we see faces we recognise: “look there’s Sam”,” Gertrude is there”, we are waving frantically out of the bus windows, shouting greetings.

We get off the bus and we get huge hugs off our old friends. Emotions run high. What a wonderful time. Ann, David, Christine, Gertrude, Michael, Sam, Selina and Edith are all there to meet us with huge smiles and hugs.




What is a huge surprise is that sponsored children and their guardians are there to meet us as well – a great experience all round.



Cath and I walk across the grass to the training centre to see what has changed since last year, as we are about to enter the building Cath shouts “Grace”, and there standing in the shade of the building was Grace and little Odeki Sam our own sponsored child. What a huge huge surprise. Then we found out that little Sam had been in the clinic the night before on an i/v drip because of a recurring malaria problem. Grace knew we were coming and when they got out of the clinic they had walked the half mile to the centre to meet us, they were tired but had huge smiles to greet us with. I carried Sam back to the office and Grace followed with Cath and we got them some water as we sat and chatted. Ann told us that as Sam was just out of the clinic, rather than the long journey back to Atira, Global Care would put Grace and Sam up in a small room overnight so they could rest and we would take them back home tomorrow.




As we walked back to the office with Grace and Sam we heard a little voice from the other side of the chain link fence; “Aunty Cath, Aunty Cath”, it was little Janet, a small girl that had befriended Cath last year, she is not sponsored. She was standing, wearing rags, face pressed against the fence shouting for Aunty Cath. Cath was delighted, in the past year she had often spoken about Janet, wondering how she was doing, was she still alive – this is a harsh environment for children. Cath went to greet Janet, whose next word to her Aunty was “sweets” - you could only laugh.

Later we went back to the training centre and were delighted to see that the rooms we had created over the past two years were being used for training and sewing. The whole building had been swept out and the rooms yet to be completed tidied up. Graham, our friend who led the building work the last two years, yet sadly died in February, would have been delighted to see this, as I remember him last year, on the last evening, warning Ann that if the rooms weren’t in use the next time he came there would be trouble.

In Rukingiri the Building Team have finished painting all the inside of the building, internal doors are staring to be installed in the accommodation end, the offices will be done tomorrow. Water tank base has been made and the tank will be installed and commissioned tomorrow.






Cath and I had brought beekeeping equipment with us as we are helping to set up a training apiary here and also help Rev Moses with his Bee House at Rukingiri. The apiary here in Soroti was set up last year and I was keen to see what was happening. So I persuaded Michael and Sam it would be good to go and look inside the hives. They told me that one hive was bad and the “bees bit” them a lot. Not to be dissuaded we got bee suits, smoker and other gear and headed off on the short walk to the other field.

Four of the hives are occupied, one as recently as last Saturday. We opened one of the hives and it was great, we quickly found it was full of honey and ready to be harvested. The ‘bad’ hive we then opened and at first things went well. Inside was a bit untidy and when I asked Michael said “last time the bees were biting us too much and we had to run away.” Again ignoring the warning I started looking inside and found this hive also was full of honey and ready to harvest.









As I was putting it back together the ‘biting started’ around my ankles, ok at first but gradually got worse. We made a strategic withdrawal, but not before I had broken off some of the comb containing honey, I had not waited this long and come this far to leave without tasting Global Care Soroti honey. The bees followed us in large numbers and therefore we could not go back to the centre along the road as that would have put the local people at risk. We rested (hid) under a tree trying to smoke the bees away. As it got dark the number of bees had reduced to a point where it was safe to go back to the centre, where we were met with a big cheer. I got to taste the honey, beautifully smooth and very sweet. Michael, Sam, Ann and Odeki Sam all tasted it too, their smiles said it all.

The bees had preferred our ankles, Michael and Sam said they were OK, my left ankle had been ‘bitten’ about 15 or so times but I knew a bit of cream would sort that out.

We returned to the Guest House, an evening meal, tomorrow would be a visit to a school for deaf children, then to Angoram where the Ron Newby Memorial school is being built to replace mud and straw huts.

I go to bed very very happy, I have met good friends again, I have met my sponsored child, I have seen the apiary we are creating, it feels like home.