Briefs: Volunteer News

Congratulations to Wangwe Rogers, "the healer", who has been offered a position as a nursing assistant by the district government. He will be overseeing immunisations at the rural health center at Buteza. This is exciting news for all of us, knowing so well that getting a salaried position in Uganda is almost akin to winning the lottery. We are, however, losing someone who has overseen the operations on the ground so capably. Rogers will spend weekends in Buhugu and continue to volunteer at the center. Transition plans are underway.

Sam is returning for the last semester of his degree and will be fully supported by I Buhugu till graduation in December.

Briefs

• The nursery school reopened today, the start of the 2009 academic year!

• The computer centre and the library are also back in operation.
  

• However, the Internet saga continues. MTN has slapped us with the responsibility of tracing past records of payment which they are yet to reflect on our account. We have located some, but the search for the rest continues.
  
  It never occurred to us that the trickiest part of setting up Internet in the village would be the payment process. To quote Charles, in one of our emails to MTN: "An internet connection in village should be given priority just like any other or if you only attend to customers in your proximity you have to let us know."

It's a New Year

After a bit of a break, we are trying to reboot and swing back in to action.

Sam and Rogers are putting things in order at the library and computer center and opening the doors again.

Internet is down. We are wondering why it has to be so hard for MTN to account for money deposited in their account. Anyway, Getting this fixed is the biggest priority at the moment.

Otherwise, 2009 is promising to be an exciting year. More soon.

Briefs

• It's been a little busy over the last weeks, hence the silence. On the up side, we are looking good financially for 2009, thanks to some interesting IT projects undertaken in the last couple of months.

• Oliver visited Buhugu briefly to say good bye. He has now relocated to England after an extended stay in Uganda. We all benefited greatly from having him around, and we wish him all the best. Hopefully it won't be too long before we all reconnect in Buhugu!
  

• New chicks! Alex has reported that the poultry project has produced a batch of new chicks. He will share a detailed update in the near future.

• The nursery school is planning for a "graduation ceremony" and in the meantime Geoffrey has been invited to attend a meeting next week at the district regarding nursery and private primary schools.

Briefs

• Volunteer news: Charles and Susan became new parents, to a baby boy! Sharon is back in school and will soon sit for the national exam. Sam reported back to university to start the final year of his degree in Development Studies. Geoffrey and Rogers are holding down the fort in Buhugu.
  

• Holidays are over. The nursery school is back in operation this week.

• Internet is back, and has been for a couple of weeks now. It sort of resolved itself, so we are still not sure of the reasons for the hiccup.

The To-Do List

Here are some of the items on our list at the moment, besides the usual stuff:

• Sort out Internet: Internet's been off for about a week now. MTN, our provider, claims that the Eastern region is experiencing difficulties in general. But, we are not convinced. While we love their product (for the most part), the service is quite something else. Our guess is that they failed to process our payment on time (which has happened before) and ended up cutting us off. But, who knows. Losing the Internet, even for a short while, makes one realise just how essential it is.

• Get cocks from Kampala: the poultry pilot is being delayed a bit due to unexpected difficulties in obtaining the exotic cocks from nearby breeding centers (of which there are not many). So, Alex is planning a trip to Kampala to procure them from the larger breeding centers near the capital city.

• Organise furniture and uniforms: the kids at the nursery school are on a break after the three weeks of launch and orientation. In the meantime, Geoffrey is organising some furniture for the kids that can replace the makeshift ones and also uniforms.

Some Updates

Some of the latest happenings, in brief:

• The nursery school has begun!

• The poultry pilot has also begun! Structures to house the chickens are nearing completion. Immunisations scheduled for this Saturday. More details to follow soon.

• The library has been the venue for a workshop on Organisational Management, by UNDP, for the last couple of days. Though the workshop was targeting another project based in Buhugu, some of the I Buhugu volunteers also took part.