Everybodys goin' surfin!

I’m typing this entry from Ssanje village inside the library and I will post it within minutes because we now have internet access. Yes folks, internet in the village. Because COU is an international organization we are in constant communication with the head office in Kampala as well as the COU headquarters in the states. This means we were having to go to Kyotera (25km crowded car ride away) to try to find internet. I say try because after you cram your self into a tiny car with approximately 10 other people you most often times arrive when the power is off or the internet is not working. If it does work, you have to pay so much money to use the very slow internet. This resulted in much money, time and energy being spent in traveling back and forth all the time. The solution was to bring the net here! Currently it is just for COU employees but further along we will be able to offer it at a rate to community members along with the potential for computer classes. For now it is saving us so much time and even money! This new development is so exciting for all involved, especially the kids who love to look up information through good search or on wikipedia. The world wide web has just become even wider. All the way to the village.

The library with solar power and a very long antenna for recieving internet!

Mikwano gyaffe

tarzan, swining on a rubber band!

Becca E. and me at the nile...at least we are not in de-nile!

Becca Evans came to visit what seems like just days ago, but as I am writing this blog I am now realising that she has actually been gone for a long time. She was able to come visit for 3 weeks at the begining of August and we had so much fun enjoying spending time with the amazing Children of Uganda students, running around Uganda seeing warthogs, swinging on vines, climbing trees, sleeping next to hippos....the list could go on for 5 pages! Her time here was so much fun and really reminded me yet again how incredibly blessed I have been to have so many wonderful family and friends, or friends and family or just family as my friends are my family and my family are my friends. :-) To have my family and two Beccas come visit has meant more than I can possibly even begin to describe. All my other "support staff" sending letters and packages have been equally brilliant and absolutely wonderful. I know maybe I have said it before, but I love you all so much! Thanks for everything!

Painting

We have been so busy these days at COU with all the new projects. One of the most exciting things for me is that we are very close to being ready to open the Library, or the Ssanje Community Resource Center which is the official name. The solar system is running beautifully and the children are studying every night in the space. The shipment of books arrived in Ssanje last week and we have been sorting, catologuing and shelving all of the books. The books were donated by a wonderful church in Washington DC. Most books were novels, but they also sent so many valuable reference books. With the money we have left over from the budget of building the library we are going to buy books printed in Luganda and Swahili so the children can read in their original languages.

I have been painting the walls with educational and fun murals with the help of some older students.

A semi-to-scale map of the solar system behind the massive amount of books we now have:

A giant map of the world:

"The giving tree" the leaves are names of people and organizations that gave to the library, zoon in and try to find your name!

Sash, another PCV's creation inspired by one of my favorite books:

When we were finished, we had a lot of paint left so we decided to redo some very old dirty paintings on the walls of Sabina and make fresh new paintings which represented COUs missions

AIDS awarness and care, a design colaboration between staff and visitors: This one is designed by Mugalula, a COU seconday student, and is his representation of the importance of protecting our environment: We also put up a few fun pictures. The one below depicting the Ugandan Crane was done by visitors to COU. The gates to the home:
Thats all I have time for today. Love you all!

Enjoy the day!