The walls were very dusty so we decided to sand them down before painting. We only had small sheets of sand paper to use and the amount of blue paint which crumbled away into blue dust was impressive! Matt looked like a smurf once it was finished!
We then painted the walls yellow as we decided that this is a more practical colour to use on crumbling walls.
Since the boys who are now in boarding school took a mattress each to school with them, we decided to buy 4 extra mattresses so that the boys who remain in the home can have a mattress each. They are under strict instructions to keep these mattresses in the home though!
As I explained in an earlier post, Matt and I decided to go halves on buying Redo a bike. He did some research and managed to find a good bike, which he can use to travel to and from the boy's schools. As you can see, he is over the moon with it!
He is going to change the fuel tank and a couple of the panels and he is also going to add a MYDEL sign to the bike. All of the staff were so happy to hear that we had bought Redo a bike. Pascal said to me, 'Tia, you know, all of these years we have been traveling on foot. Do you know, there are so many organisations which have their own means of transport but because we always put the boys needs first we have been unable to afford transport. Now you have given us this gift which will help us so much, we are so very grateful.'
We had a closing meeting with the Mydel staff to come up with an action plan for the next few months. I explained that I would like all of the boys to be in boarding school by February, as this is their start of a new school year. I will then close down the current boys home and buy the land, with the hope to have a new building up by the end of next year for the boys. I also explained that I would like the staff to improve on their accountability and they confessed that they would like to be trained properly in how to keep accounts well, so I will be looking in to this for the new year. The staff also explained that a few of the boys struggle academically as they have been on the streets for so long. They asked me how they should guide these boys because they feel some of them cannot manage sixth form. I explained that we will set up a new policy which states that we will be checking their school reports regularly and each boy must complete their S4 exams (the equivalent to GCSE's), but if they do not do well enough to continue in education then we will put them on to vocational courses so they can learn practical skills.
As we were tying up the loose ends at the home, I made friends with two of the young boys in the community, Moses aged 4 and Fungoli aged 6.
My heart melted when I saw that they had made a toy car out of plastic bottles, using the caps as wheels.
As I got talking to the locals, they explained that Fungoli is a refugee from Congo. He was born a triplet but both of his brothers died and he is also an orphan. He followed a group of refugees and came to Uganda because of the war in Congo, not knowing the language or having anyone to look after him.
As I spent some time with him, he pointed to a very exposed and deep burn on his foot. The locals explained that the boiling water from their cooking pot spilled on to his foot and burned his foot very badly. I was horrified to see him walking around bare footed with this deep wound getting so dirty, his skin was even starting to turn a grey colour.
I called Matt over and we decided to clean up his wound. Matt carefully put some anti-bacterial gel on to some tissue and cleaned up the area as the poor boy winced in pain, trying not to cry. We put some anti-septic cream on to the area and covered it in plasters, as that is all we had on us. The boy was so grateful and spent the rest of the day with us.
A while later, we heard a tinkering musical sound and then we saw a man on a bike which had a barrel attached to it with rope. He was selling ice-creams for 8p each so we bought enough for everyone in the compound near the home.
Unfortunately, Fungoli's ice-cream fell off it's cone when we passed it to him. The heap of ice landed on the step we were sitting on so he laid down on the step and started licking it up like a cat! I couldn't believe it! A sign of true hunger. No child in England would dream of licking up ice-cream from a dirty step! We tried to tell him to stop and bought him another one but he kept scooping up the puddle of ice with his hands whilst eating his new one!
We really wanted to help Fungoli so Matt and I bought him some socks and shoes the next day, after dressing his foot again. I wish you could have seen his face when saw us carrying the shoes to him. He ran to us with the biggest smile ever seen and he held the shoes with such pride. It was a moment I will never forget.
I am so excited by the future plans and this trip has made it seem very real and very possible :) xzx
Nearly brought me to tears! Xx
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