This morning Adam and I were each supposed to work on different projects. Adam to manage the work in the garden and me to head to a market about 10k away and then return to finish off the morning in the garden. Only one of us had the morning go as planned.
I let the village at about 7:15 to meet up with pastor Sam for the 10k journey to oblong. Round trip should have taken about an hour, but they have to been working on that section of road and an hour into our journey we had only made it about half way. First off this road has a serious crown in it. Meaning on a good day it slopes severely to either side, this is not uncommon at all, it helps to keep the massive amounts of rain from washing out the road. Add to that the fact that the road had about 3 inches of mud on it, the type of mud that when you take a step you loose half a step from slipping. The boda boda has tires that about 2 inches wide with very little traction. I know for a fact that there was a kilometer in there where we were off the bike more then we were on it. About 2/3's of the way there, a large truck was perpendicular in the middle of the road, he had tried to turn around because the road was so bad, but the crown in the road was such that he was resting on the frame and his wheels were almost off the ground, I would have loved to stay and see how he got unstuck but we didn't have time. It took some careful maneuvering but we managed to get around him and to the market, that was only 10k away, about 845am. Almost an hour later then we were planning on.
Things went well in the market, and after 20 minutes we had 70 kilograms of seeds that we were loading onto our boda boda along with both of us for the ride back. We were informed of a route where the roads were a lot better but was a "little" longer. Ha, try about 20k longer. The boda boda is a little uncomfortable with 2 people on it, but add a large bag of seeds and I am almost sitting on the gas tank. We drove about 50k an hour, had good roads/ goat paths for the most part and arrived back in oditel around 10:30. The weather was hot today so they had already finished the days work in the garden, which considering the drive I had just gone on, didn't hurt my feelings at all.
After about 30 minutes I could feel my rear end again, so we had breakfast and got some rest while we wait for the weather to cool down so we can do some more work, have some meetings and maybe squeeze in a futbol game.
Things are progressing well, considering the set backs we had when we first arrived. Planting will start on Thursday, and should be finished up by Tuesday next week.
Tomorrow we do not have any help in the fields because most of the help needs a day to care for their own gardens, so we will probably work on finding some of the kids we have been looking for and try and finalize the micro loan program, maybe a futbol match or two.
The more that we are here the more impressed that I am by the Teso culture. They work hard, play the cards they have been given and smile almost all of the time.
I hope and pray that we can assist them in breaking the cycle of complete poverty and move them towards stability and sustainabilty.
Thanks,
Lk
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
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