We awoke in the early hours this morning to the roar of the Nile, this was breathtaking! We then enjoyed freshly made chapatis with banana & nutella from a street stall in Jinja.
We arrivd at Lugogo Baptist church at 10am in order to begin the task of clearing out the local slum. We were joined by many helpers as we put on our wellies, heavy duty gloves etc all ready for the day ahead.
It was our first visit to the slums and was a real eye-opener for us all! We witnessed extreme poverty. The sheer volume of small shacks packed tightly together, separated by streams of sewage running into the river below. Children ran around and played in the rubbish infested alleyways. They walked barefoot wearing only rags…however they still smiled as they shouted ‘mzungu!’ (meaning white person).
We were astonished to witness the whole slum descending into a mud bath as the rain poured down. We cleared many of the sewage drains to allow water to flow into the river. We also filled many large bags of litter and helped to sweep up mess outside their homes. Many of the men from church helped to replace an existing rickety, extremely narrow bridge (around 0.5metres) that was the main walkway into & out of the slum. This was over a fast flowing river which posed a real danger to the residents, in particular the children.
We felt this whole experience of helping to inprove the living conditions of the slums enabled us to demonstrate love in action through Jesus.
At 3pm we returned to Lugogo for a lovely African lunch…using our fingers! (Don’t worry…we washed our hands!) Cheriths plate was full of runny beans so this posed an amusing challenge for us to behold!
As usual, we returned to our hideaway for a relaxing evening to ponder the day.
Love Uganda 2010
Quote of the day: …”Oh no we’re nearly half way through the trip” (Kim)…”but wait, we have the rest of our lives!”… (Bekah)