Late again

We seem to have been very busy this week. Being busy does not mean you actually achieve anything. Simple things can take a long time here even paying the electricity bill!. Pam our fellow VSO volunteer offered to pay our bill with hers this week. Monday afternoon she was all set when there was a major rainstorm so all travel was abandonned. Tuesday morning she was there at 9.00 am along with several other people. The office staff aplogised but said they did not have the key to open the office. They sent for the key and every one was allowed into the office. Then they realised they did not have the key to open the safe to get to the books.Another boda was sent to fetch another key.After an hour and a half the bill was paid. You have to pay bills on time here or the electric company just come and cut you off. Sometimes literally they just cut the wires.Power has been really bad recently with long power cuts over the last few days. I think this has been due to the bad weather as well as load shifting to spread the demand.
At the week end we had a trip round the local sugar factory. Kinyara is a huge sugar cane plantation and factory, one of three in Uganda. It produces thousands of tons of sugar for the Ugandan market.It is a fascinating process turning sugar cane in to crystal sugar.The factory is basicaly a huge crusher and pressure cooker.The power and you need a lot of power to make sugar comes from burning the residue of the cane.
On Monday we went out to a village to see Sarah a paraplegic patient from the ward.It was great to see someone who had looked so lost on the ward surrounded by her family and obviously the centre of things. She has a struggle ahead of her but is determined to survive.It was a difficult journey for us to get to see her down lanes and mud tracks right in the bush.We were amazed when we realised she had travelled to hospital, paralysed from the waist down, on the back of a motor bike!
It is wednesday morning and Pam and I are due to start some training of village volunteers. Hopefullly transport will arrive on time and we can get out to Bigando Primary school to start three days of training on preventative health. This will be an experience for us and all the volunteers and none of us know what to expect.