January 2011
22 posts
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Change of plans: let's aim higher
Since our arrival, the contours of what we would try to make happen here in Uganda have started to visualize. The orphanage has land that they were donated, and they want to grow food on that land to feed the children. That idea makes a lot of sense because food takes out 16% of the yearly budget of the orphanage. And that is not for a well-balanced diet, but rather for the food they can afford....
Uganda uploads on the road - a set on Flickr →
By popular demand, here are some more pictures :)
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An afternoon break
Ever since we moved out of our initial guesthouse on Sunday and found a new home in the guest room of Gosia, our girl with the local connections, we’ve been effectively cut off from the internet. As today is a national holiday, we’ve only worked this morning, and now we have found ourselves a nice little spot in the sun with WiFi access ;) I’ve put the two blurbs online that I...
Meeting the board at the board meeting
The board meeting is at 10AM, so we made sure to be at the orphanage somewhere around 9:45. We stood around waiting for the board members to arrive, but at 10:20 we got a little bored of that and decided to walk to the village because we had our bags filled with notebooks, pens and pencils that we brought from home where people had generously donated them to us to pass on to the children here. We...
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Shopping for shovels
After we had the chance to talk with the different people working at/for the orphanage, we came up with the plan to do some sort of a pilot gardening project. We would cultivate a bit of land on the school ground so that they could learn valuable lessons from that initial experience before embarking on a larger scale farming project starting from august. Furthermore, as a source of water, we plan...
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Water tanks anyone?
Today, we got a chance to talk to John, the Ugandan doctor who is running the ASOD orphanage. We went over the challenges they are facing together, and had a very positive and constructive meeting. This time, we didn’t only go over our ideas for the long-term, but we also talked about what we could do here and now to improve their situation.One of their mid-term plans is to use the land...
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Discovering orphanages in Kampala
Today is the first day we woke up in Kampala, our final destination, so we set out to go to the ASOD orphanage. However, before doing so, we wanted to pass by the Sanyu Babies Home, the oldest baby home of Uganda where they take care of about 50 babies (sometimes only a day old) and toddlers up to four years.In many ways, it’s an example orphanage, it’s very well organized, has good...
Touchdown in Entebe, next stop: Kampala
We arrived at 4 in the morning at Entebe Backpackers and check out time is 10. So today I’m sleep deprived, but that banana bender (the local lassi reincarnation) sure hits the spot.
By tonight, we should get to Kampala, one long bumpy ride from here with plenty of time to enjoy the scenery and the outright splendid weather :)
When Colruyt is hell
So I dash off to Colruyt near closing time as I need more ingredients for them 315 brownies I have to bake. Turns out they are closing this branch for renovation starting on Monday, thus this is the last hour they are open. The upside: 50% sale on anything fresh. The downside: the place is packed with a zillion people, the queues at the register rival those at an Apple store on free iPad day and...
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Save the children, eat chocolate!
As you may or may not know, I am leaving for Uganda on the 18th of January to volunteer for ASOD Uganda. The orphanage I will be working at has 72 children and it’s a constant struggle to keep the place running on their shoestring budget.
Apart from my own labor, I’ll be trying to help them out financially, and for that every contribution is obviously welcome :) Rather then just ask...
Meat producers should replace cattle with insects,... →
I’ll have a grasshopper burger please.
The European Parliament needs more îles flottantes →
Title says it all :)
The Next Net →
Coolest plan of 2011 so far