Thursday, June 18, 2009

Monday, June 15, 2009

Monday, June 15, 2009

Kampala, Uganda

Three MTI staff members, Anthony and Allan and Peter meet us at the airport. Allan will be the volunteer coordinator. Peter and Anthony will be our drivers for the next two weeks. Both are full of smiles and warm greetings, especially for Meagan and Joe who they have known from previous visits (this is Meagan’s fourth visit to Uganda). The members of our team….
1. Joe DiCarlo is MTI’s Director of International Programs and is the team leader. He is a warm and gracious man who makes you feel instantly that he is your friend. Joe is highly respected in the world of international relief work. His life would fill a book with incredible stories of the places he has been and the people he has helped. We all hope to learn more about his work during these two weeks together.
2. Debra Hirsh is MTI’s Auction Director. This November 7th will be her fourth year running this incredibly successful and life saving event. Deb has traveled to Oaxaca with MTI but this will be her first trip to Uganda. She brings a “can do” attitude and top people skills.
3. Frank Nichols, our professional photographer, is from Woodland, Washington. Frank’s work is in several galleries and his talents will benefit MTI by visually showing the extent of MTI’s work here. Frank and his wife, Valerie, own an electronics manufacturing company (Silicon Forest) in Vancouver. They have been involved with MTI for 15 years and each year have seen their commitment and passion for MTI’s work deepen.
4. Megan McAninich is returning to Uganda for her 4th time. Meagan is 20
years old and she is committed to this work. She attends USC and is studying International Relations and Health Promotion and Disease Prevention so that she can continue in an even more meaningful way to save lives. Megan’s first mission was to New Orleans after Katrina with her parents Mal and Janeen McAnnich when she was only 17! She returned to New Orleans two more times leading groups of students from Jesuit High School. She is full of energy and passion for working with MTI.
5. Scott and Dana Cress are only 3 years into their MTI experience and I think I
can speak for the two of us in saying that we feel our lives are so much richer for having made this connection. Dana and Scott were to be members of a partner team of Trinity Episcopal Cathedral and MTI going to Honduras to work in rural mountains whose projects were to help build a school or work with the Honduran’s to install latrines in a village. An unexpected knee surgery prevented Scott from making the trip and Sue Preece immediately steeped in to fill the spot. Scott is President of W.H. Cress Company, Inc. in Portland – a 4-generation family business. Dana is co-chair of this year’s Great Adventure auction with Kathi McCoy.
6. Sue Gaden Preece is another “first timer” to Uganda. Once she had gone to Honduras with Dana she knew she was compelled to help SAVE LIVES. Sue came to Portland from New Orleans where she began her painting career. Sues enthusiasm and love of children will be great assets as the team works with children creating art in the Ogur Youth Center and again at the Congolese relief camp near Mbarara. Sue will be painting a picture from this experience to donate to the Art Gallery of this year’s Great Adventure Auction. Sue is Procurement committee co-chair with Ruth Tarr of the 2009 Great Adventure auction.

This team is connecting in a very special way on our first day in Uganda. Our eyes are all open wide as we drive from the Entebbe Airport to Kampala, the capital city of Uganda. Uganda is approximately the same land area as Oregon with a population of over 30 million (Oregon has approx. 4 million people) and this is immediately apparent. The road is teaming with people, bikes, motorcycles, cars, and buses all managing to miss colliding as they weave in and out in a manner that seems almost like an exotic dance. 3-4 people can be on a bike or motorcycle –sometimes little children gripping their Mother or Father’s backs. The highway is lined with small businesses advertising everything from wedding dresses to motor repair shops. There are children playing between the shops and the highway. Questions are being asked of Allan, Peter and Anthony who speak English, the official language beautifully. Luganda or Ganda and Swahili and other Niger-Congo languages, along with Arabic are also spoken here. This Eastern African county is west of Kenya, south of Sudan, east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo – also north of Rwanda and Tanzania. The highway gives us views of Lake Victoria which is the largest lake in Africa and only one of Uganda’s several lakes and rivers. The tropical climate, abundant rainfall and fertile soils make Uganda a rich farming country accounting for 80 percent There are farmer’s markets amid the myriad of shops selling their vegetables and fruits. Bikers pass us with huge bags of vegetables balanced on the backs. The smell of burning wood and cooking fires also bombards our senses – the humidity makes the smell feel thick as it surrounds us.
We noticed that each of us closes our eyes every few minutes so we don’t see the accident in the making but somehow miraculously avoided.

Suddenly we turned into some gates and entered a driveway paved with big chunks of granite. We parked in front of a long brick building which had no apparent signs of being a hotel. The manager met us and greeted Joe with open arms. Our rooms are very basic but clean and we each have our own bathrooms. Scott and I even rated a king size bed! We showered and met in the lawn courtyard between the building at the entry and the building with 20 rooms – loaded into our two MTI cars and off we went to change our currency to Ugandan shillings. When we passed a golf course our car load turned to see Scott’s reaction – certainly none of us expected to see a golf course in Uganda! Loaded with large bills that are embossed in gold and worth only 50 cents each (2,130 Ugandan shillings = $1). I quickly made conversion charts for the shoppers since we were off to buy Ugandan crafts for our Silent auction. Most (as in 5) of our group were zombies and sat on the ground in front of the booths while Debra & Dana shopped with a frenzy! The silent auction is sure to be a success with the wonderful things we bought!

A delicious dinner was served!

Bedtime couldn’t come soon enough! We walked to our rooms to the sound of a congregation singing joyously in the Church next door. A wonderful way to end our first Ugandan day!

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