Back in our lovely little internet shack in Lutette :) wasn't planning on doing this blog thing again, but again there is too much to say to everyone individually, even though we've only been here just over a week. Feels like we never left and we're just back in our second home.

It's very strange not having to endure the initial culture shock/horror/hatred of humankind that completely dominated me for a long time last time - although that probably wasn't helped by having everything stolen. Nothing has been stolen as of yet :) excellent start.

The Ugandans are just as good at welcoming back as they are at welcoming. Amazing to see everyone again, we were pretty much bombarded by kids (somehow I know all their names this time) and teachers at school, everyone hugging us and telling us again and again how happy they were to see us. They had a proper 'welcoming ceremony' for us (2 f***in hours, they love making speeches which paraphrase the last, but it was lovely) and the kids all sang for us - "our dear teacher Josh, our dear teacher Philippa, you are most welcome back here, we thank the lord who has brought you back to Jolly Mercy Learning Centre". The CALM team, in our initial meeting, welcomed us back "not as volunteers, but as development partners and friends of CALM Africa", which was awesome.

We've gone straight back into work, which will be the same as last time - teaching and renovation work at school, and outreach projects which again we want to focus on. This week we went to visit our family in Kira - the one who motivated our Toilet Campaign to start with. They were so happy to see us, which was lovely. Their latrine is working well and they are using all the things we were able to procure for them - so they are living much more comfortably. However, it was very naive of me to think that the work we did for them before would make their lives easy and happy - obviously their sanitation and comfort has been improved massively, but they are still very much trapped in the poverty cycle. After talking a lot with the mother (translated by one of the CALM team, she is very uneducated and therefore cannot speak English), we learnt a lot more about how poor she really is. It is malaria season here now, and her youngest son in particular has been very ill - yet she could not afford 6,000 shillings to pay for his medicine (just over a quid). He is also extremely malnourished, and is lacking in appetite. None of the children go to school - something which we are determind to change. The local government school charges 45,000 a year for lunch (12 quid, so one pound a month), which Nabaweiss (the mother) cannot afford, so the children don't go to school (the only reason she would want them to go is because they are fed there; obtaining food is much more important than education). 60 quid a year to send 5 of her children to school for a year. With CALM's help we want to set up a sponsership with the school, to ensure the children are educated, and also provide the youngest with the medicine his mother cannot afford.

We also visited the second latrine which has been built in our absense, which is functioning well and has really helped Annette and her children. The construction of the third latrine will start next week, for the family of 18 we located before we left last time. Once that has been built, we will use up the rest of our fundraising money buying necessary items for the family, and any others that we locate on outreach.

This time I'm absolutely determined to achieve everything we have set out to do; I know how fast the weeks go here and don't want to waste any time. Can't express how happy I am to be back in Uganda :)

Big love

x