It was Ron’s last day and he was anxious to spend a little more time with the books, so we planned to get him to the office as soon as we could. The trouble was that we needed Grace to help us find the kids! So we all started the day together.
More spread out kids and some that would have been major problems if Michael hadn’t gone out to get two kids. The mother of two of our kids lost her husband about a year ago and she had remarried a man in a far away village. Michael began the day with a two hour ride out to the village where he found the kids in school, then an equal ride back with a kid on his lap because the taxi was too full. After all that, the kids were too afraid to talk with us. Older sister finally woke up a bit, but the young boy just stared at us and shook!
Today, we saw the true difference between the educational opportunities for the haves and have nots. We visited Rebecca, sponsored by Bruce and Nancy, at St. Mary’s Secondary School. We had visited this school before when one of the Mubiru children attended there. This is a spectacular school, all brick and new and very beautifully landscaped in African flowers and shrubs. It was a problem getting access to the girl. We had to present a letter from the mother telling the school she could see us. We went through a fortified gate with an armed guard keeping watch then into the head master’s office for a long interview. After all that, the head master sent someone to get the girl.
Rebecca was unbelievable. She had changed from a terribly shy, backward young girl into a self confident young woman with nearly perfect English. She was so anxious to see us. David and I could remember when she had hidden from us.
This is one of the best schools in Uganda. In fact, the highest score on the high school exit exam was earned by a girl at this school last year. She is in this school because she is very, very bright. She receives financial help to go, but without our sponsorship, her mother would be unable to afford the amount demanded over the school’s assistance.
We also visited Francis and Alan, Charles’ and Martha’s sponsored boys, at their school west of town. These are two more of our longest sponsored kids and they are now together in a 3,000 student facility that we have visited almost every trip. We learned that the head master had retired, and that the new head master had sent Francis home because his fees were late. We waited a long time to find that Alan wasn’t in class because he was sick. Since this is a boarding school, we found him at his dorm. He came down and tried to talk with his, but he was felling pretty badly and only stayed for a minute.
This is another great school with an excellent reputation. It is a bit far from the city and that keeps its price low. We’d never had any trouble with the school at all, and as we road up to Alan’s room, I had a chance to explain very firmly that they had chased home a boy that had been with them for more than six years without a single interruption in his pay. I also pointed out that there were a number of other schools in Kampala, and that it was pretty easy to move a couple of bright brothers if we needed to. The man, an assistant head master, said he understood.
And then we went to the other extreme. We returned to Kampala and drove to the east side of town, a Muslim area that is very, very poor. The roads in this area would be barely wide enough for a couple of goats, but Vincent wound his way through. The roads were muddy even though it had been some time since our last rain. The houses were tiny hovels usually made of wood and whatever else might be found. The school was at the very end of the neighborhood. It’s construction was the same as the houses we’d been seeing. Our girl came out and we had a nice talk with her, then Vincent pulled to the end of the road to turn around. He ended up making a five point turn in a space hardly longer than the van. The space had a block wall on one side and a sheer drop of at lest 15 feet on the other!
We talked and agreed that we must find a better school for this girl. That will be a priority for the team very soon.
It was getting late and we wanted to have a quick lunch so that Ron would still want dinner. We pulled back into The Chef, the tiny grill we had visited before David arrived. We all knew the drill: we ordered whatever and chips from a menu behind the counter.
Ray and I ordered chops, the strange mystery meat combination Ray had eaten earlier that happens to be delicious. David ordered kabob, and I know he was thinking nice chunks of beef or lamb on a stick. Kabobs here, as I explained earlier, are different. They are made of chopped up meat like chops. They are a bit more spicy, and there is some sort of breading-like material on the outside that can only be described as hair! I got David’s picture when he saw what he had ordered. He was just a tad surprised!!
Ron wanted to spend a little more time working on the books, so we took him back to the office after lunch and Grace stayed with him. Jimmy was waiting for us at the church. His story is a sad one. When he was preparing to taking his exam at the end of the 11th grade (the S4 Exam) Jimmy admitted to his school that he had never taken the P7 exam that is required when one leaves elementary school. Instead, his father had bought him a set of results in a completely different name. Jimmy admitted he had never taken the test, and was immediately dismissed from his S4 class.
Gary and Terry, his sponsors, agreed to give Jimmy a chance to take his P7 test. The school agreed if he did well on P7 he could take S4 the following year. So he would only lose one year this way. But Jimmy was stubborn and Pastor John Mubiru kept telling Jimmy he could be a preacher without education. So Jimmy didn’t show up to return to school the following year.
The next term, he came back and asked to enter technical school for computers. His sponsors were ready to help, but again, Jimmy listened to John and didn’t show up. Last Christmas, he came back again and asked for the same course. Vincent tried to tell us that he couldn’t enter this course without a valid S4 certificate, but Jimmy wouldn’t listen. Then, when registration time came, he didn’t show up again.
So here was Jimmy at the church and I had to tell him that he had used his last chance. I told him I would put him back on the waiting list if he came in with an education plan showing what he needed to take, when, and how much it would cost, but that he had blown it for now. It was a very hard thing to see this strong young man in his early 20’s crying because he had walked away from an opportunity he really wanted.
Lisa, Ray, and I returned to the road. We had to meet Michael and the two kids I introduced earlier. We met them on the streets of Kampala and we all climbed in the van to keep from arousing too much interest. While we were there, we got a call from a man who is the guardian for one of our children. The boy is an orphan and he was sick. He had come to meet us directly from the hospital. He was still running a fever and obviously felt terrible. The man wanted us to increase our payments for the boy. Vincent will need to look into this.
Back at the church, Ron was wishing he had more time with Grace, but we were worried about the drive to the airport. David was scheduled to preach at 5:00, but when 5:00 came, there wasn’t a single person at the church. There was a huge crusade underway that night with Dr. Creffalo Dollar from Dallas speaking! David was disappointed, but Joseph said everyone had gone there.
So we left the church a little after 5:00. Ron was flying on a space available ticket so we wanted to make sure he had a lot of time to get his ticket set. We met a group of people from the church standing on a street downtown. They were on their way to the church to hear David. In fact, it turned out that more than 20 showed up, though they were all quite late. It was a bigger crowd than the evening before. Dr. Dollar, eat your heart out!
Lydia, Joseph’s wife, was with the group. She opened the van door and handed Baby Lisa to Lisa. She told us we could keep her for the night and slammed the van door. Baby Lisa was still not sure about us white people. She kept looking at us and would have nothing to do with us, but by the time we reached the airport, we were all great friends.
There was a lot of traffic downtown, but it soon thinned out. We had Ron at the airport by 6:15 for a 10:15 flight. I wanted Ron to come with us to dinner, but he insisted that he needed the time at the airport. His last Ugandan meal was a really bad fried chicken and chips meal at The Chef.
We left Ron with telephone numbers, said our goodbyes, and returned to the van. I know Ron wanted to do more with our bookkeeping system, and perhaps next time, it will work out that way. But Ron’s role was different this time. He was a special encourager to every child we met. So even though he didn’t get to refurbish the record keeping system, he gave personal encouragement to 240 kids, many of whom receive no encouragement elsewhere. That’s not a bad way to spend two weeks!
We faced the same strange traffic issues as we were leaving as we had faced earlier: we had to merge into oncoming traffic! Vincent, of course, handled it masterfully. We only had to go a block or so before the turn to the Windsor Lake Victoria Hotel. We were pretty late once again so there was no trouble finding a parking spot. Baby Lisa was in rare form by then, comfortable with everyone and entertaining all. Lisa and I had shared our pizza. Ray had one, too. David had fish, and everyone else had chicken!
We didn’t hear from Ron, so we figured he got on his first flight. We climbed into the van and hurried back to the city. It was another 13 hour day!
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