Ever been to a Ugandan graduation party? Well we can now say that we have! On Sunday, Shakira (one of the local CCUg interns) invited us to attend her graduation celebration. It was a great afternoon and we had a wonderful time spending the momentous occasion with Shakira. It was the best beginning to a great week that started on Monday with a team meeting. Per usual, we discussed the challenges we faced the previous week, goals for this upcoming week, and the activities on our agenda such as conducting baseline surveys in Nakalanga Village on Tuesday and Wednesday. One survey was focused on agriculture/nutrition and the other was concerned with Insecticide Treated Nets which served to gather information on the usage of the mosquito nets distributed by CCUg last year. We checked the understanding about malaria amongst the women and their knowledge about the prevention that ITN’s allow. We are eager to organize and analyze the data next week and determine our next course of action to make this project more sustainable. Challenges of sustainable development in villages such as Nakalanga can be daunting and we cannot predict the consequences of an intervention. We want to take the right precautionary steps to gain a thorough understanding of Nakalanga so we are collecting as much data as we can!

On Thursday, the international interns woke up at 5:00am bright and early to run in the 10K Cancer Run in honor of Abel Dhaira, one of Uganda’s best goalies. Forgetting that the rain makes everything stagnant in Uganda, the race, said to begin at 6:30 did not start until 8:30! But it’s okay. We just had a really good 2 hour warm up. But despite the challenging course, we ran diligently up several hills and did not walk at all! It was amazing running through the villages and hearing the excited cheers as families clapped for us to continue. We each had our own “running buddies” and had the opportunity to watch the community come together for this great cause. This was the first year having this race as Dhaira died only 2 months ago, but the enthusiastic turn out shows the promise of this aspiring annual event. The money raised from the race will be used to build a cancer foundation in Uganda, as well as a football stadium. We send our deepest regards to Abel Dhaira’s family. His memory will live forever.

Also on Thursday, we had a wonderful meeting with Michael and Brenda, the 2 founders of CCUg. This meeting served as an evaluation of what we have noticed as outsiders about the way CCUg operates. We identified some key changes CCUg can make to increase the level sustainability of their projects. We recognize that CCUg has some of the most amazing established relationships with the communities that they are involved with. Yet, some of the key issues discussed was the importance of developing a more strategic approach to selecting the projects CCUg takes on in order to be most effective with their limited resources and sustainable measures. We talked about CCUg setting more concrete goals to make sure projects are as fruitful as possible in the long-haul, the importance of a centralized methodology in addition to a centralized mission to build integrity, and building conviction in their vision and purpose. We are truly blessed to have this opportunity to work with CCUg and we were very encouraged from the positive feedback we received after our constructive discussion. All of the staff at CCUg are very caring and considerate and passionate about what they are doing and the change they are enacting. After 5 years of operations and impact, CCUg has a unique chance to take a step back and reevaluate the past to create a better future. We are excited to see what the future brings!

On Friday, Gabriella and Anbar visited Mbale for the weekend to stay with Gabriella’s family friend, Samson Womani, who is the doctor for the village. Samson invited them to celebrate Shavuot (a Jewish holiday) with him and his family. They were really excited to see the Ugandan Jewish community and visit another district in Uganda. Diana and I (Regine) were not feeling well earlier in the week and decided to stay back to recuperate. We made the most of our recovery and had a relaxing time; Diana made juice with Maama Faith and I cooked fried french beans and fresh beans for the family for lunch! We have both decided to keep those recipes and replicate meals for our families back in the USA.