Uganda 2018

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Uganda Trip 2018

Our Charity is moving along. I visited Uganda in September. My daughter-in-law wasn’t coming back from the USA until October, and I needed a helper. I asked my son Leonard’s mother-in-law, Coral White who is one of our good supporters, and she quickly said, “yes,” even though she had to pay her own way. She was a natural—putting up with the heat and dirt, hugging widows along with me, knowing that some were HIV positive. I am always sure to hug all of them. They are so dear. Food preparation was difficult with a broken refrigerator. Coral helped me gather and sort all the food items and supplies we gave to the widows. She was right there, carrying them into the meeting building, and passing them to me while I was giving them out. She was my official photographer. She held onto me when walking the rough ground with my brand new out-of-focus glasses. And just like my grandchildren, she was waving to all the people when we got on the dusty country roads. Knowing the impact we were making on these people’s lives, she kept saying it was “the trip of a lifetime.”

Dr. Sam and our Interpreter Pastor Joel did a great job of selecting and verifying the poorest of the poor widows. We gave goats to 60 widows with three groups of 20 each at three different sites. When we arrived at our first site, the widows were waiting outside the rural Church singing, “We welcome our visitors in the name of Jesus Christ”. I’m sure our Interpreter, Pastor Joel, taught them that. It really brought tears to my eyes. It brings our total widow families to 304. We also gave six papa goats, one for every group of 10 widows. Their group leaders will share the papa with other widows and keep the good blood lines for their herds. And it won’t be long until they each have their own papa goats in their herds. Three of the pictures on the front of this sheet show us with Dr. Sam and Pastor Joel. It is humorous that Dr. Sam has such a strong accent, I can’t understand his English, and Pastor Joel then re-interprets it for me! They are such a vital part of our charity. Then we are with Miss Linda, a US Missionary from Soroti who helped us. She visits and helps each year when I am there. She is very touched by the plight of the women. She knows that it is a tradition that when the husband dies, his brothers come and take all the property as they don’ believe women own property. The government is trying to make that tradition illegal, but these widows are from very isolated villages. Another picture is of the free Sickle Cell Anemia Clinic that my son established and supports. They have hundreds of patients from the area who come for the medicines that will alleviate their suffering. It costs so little to help so much.

This was my tenth trip to Uganda, and I had never really cared to go on a Safari. However, I decided to surprise Coral with one, my treat. She absolutely loved it! We got to see some of the wild animals up really close – elephants, graceful giraffes, fierce water buffalos, lions (with a half-eaten deer nearby), etc. She didn’t even complain about the big, odd insect bites we got while sleeping overnight in the cabin at the Preserve. We hired a Park Ranger to ride with us, and at one point, he whispered for Lawrence to stop. He quietly slid the door open and took off running and yelling with his AK-47. I thought, “I don’t think he is supposed to shoot the animals!” To our surprise, he chased 5 poachers out of the bushes and they ran away. I couldn’t get at my camera and kept telling Lawrence and Coral to “take a picture, take a picture”. I’ll never forget seeing them sitting there, stunned. We didn’t get any pictures of the event, but we will never forget it! Mr. Ranger came back with a big smile and the confiscated spears. In the afternoon, we took a speed boat ride up the Nile and got awfully close to the huge hippos that would quietly sink out of sight. I didn’t trust them as they were as big as our boat. The huge Nile Alligators were sunning on the shore with their mouths wide open which seemed odd. As we tried to leave the Preserve, a huge elephant blocked the road. We politely waited until it decided to walk away, since it was twice as big as our vehicle. Again, Coral said it was the “trip of a lifetime”. I had been teasing Coral that she would fly back from Soroti to the International Airport in Entebbe with a handsome bush pilot. As we waited at the little Soroti Airport, we were surprised to see a handsome bush pilot land a single engine plane and come “looking for Coral White”. She whispered, “You sure know how to pick ‘em!” See her big smile! I missed her terribly during the last week while I was there.

We are replacing new widows for the several widows who have died during these 10 years. Those new widows will receive a female goat to establish their own herds. And a few of our widows have lost all their female goats, and we will keep re-establishing their herds IF they had taken good care of them. Some have had to sell all of them for medical help because their hospitals charge in advance. Some goats died of illness. They were just getting out of a bad drought, and the rains were starting to come. We helped feed 145 of our families with big bags of ground corn. Dr. Sam would identify them when he went out every three months to doctor goats. He didn’t just ask that we feed them, he insisted. Bless his heart! And so with my out-of focus glasses and limited hearing, I was able to continue our work with Coral’s help. And my son, as usual, was a great help taking us everywhere we needed to go. We thank everyone for their support. Karen, Bonnie and Carol.

Alabo Stella Rose