An African Adventure or Successful Wild Goose Chase

On Friday, February 12th, I revisited an area that I had travelled to in 2012 with BuyaNet, Malaria Prevention Group. In 2012, we delivered malaria nets to a small rural village on the Nile River and it was my desire to return to the region and to take school supplies purchased with the proceeds of the "2 Weeks 4 Change" campaign put on by my former students at Truedell Public School.  I am pleased to announce that, with the help of others, my wishes came true, and in the typical African way, it was a true adventure!
The story begins in Kingston.  When I received the itinerary for the CanAssist Group trip, I realized that I was going to be in an area very close to where I wanted to go.  I contacted Gail Fones, former Director of BuyaNet, for contact information.  She contacted Father Emmanuel, a local priest, who promised to take me to the region.  When our group got close to Uganda, John Geddes, Director of CanAssist, kindly used his African phone to make contact and arrange the details.  I was on my way!
On the date in mention, our CanAssist group left Jinja and headed north.  At a juncture along the way, I left the bus and met Father.  We continued in his car to the region, a short distance away.  Our first stop was a local book shop where I bought more school supplies for the schools that we would be visiting.
In total, we visited three schools and each school received much needed supplies purchased with money from the Truedell community.  Each stop involved a tour, a short visit with some of the school community (school was not in session due to holidays) and I even squeezed in a short basketball lesson with a group of boys at the last stop.  It was an amazing journey and there are more elements to be told but I will save them for a personal conversation in the near future.  Suffice it to say, I feel so privileged to be surrounded by such great, helpful and caring people.  Thank you Truedell, thank you Gail, thank you John, and thank you Father Emmanuel for making my dreams come true!  You are all amazing people.  I am so glad that I know you!

Time for a quick refreshment at Father's parish.

The parish living area.

A basketball court at the High School.

One of the buildings are the Nabugamyi Public School.

Great to see that this school is receiving support from agencies and from Truedell Public School.

Bringing Basketball to the Community.

Thank you Kingston Impact for donations of uniforms.

These school supplies are from the Truedell community.

Time for a lesson.

Time to learn shooting.

Happy Day!