Day 2 Uganda: Heart Catching

It’s been a long and fabulous day. We woke to the sounds of birds cooing and clucking. Morning at Phoebe’s house means breakfast on the outside table. We had pale pink omelets, coffee and bread and butter. I don’t know why the omelet was pink but it was delicious and pretty all at once.

After breakfast, Alfred, Phoebe’s amazing caretaker took us on a tour of the pigs. Charlotte and I are keeping our fingers crossed hoping that one of the pregnant moms will grace us with her piglets while we are here. One is due this week and the other next week so there’s good chance our wishes will come true. Phoebe has a drift of pigs. They are so cute we happily scratched and fussed over them.

Three tailors were in the sewing center working on MoonCatcher kits. We unpacked all of our luggage and sorted Tyvek, waterproof fabric and labels for all three countries. Our MoonBees for the last two months have been all about cutting as much Tyvek as possible. In all we  brought 6,825 pieces for our guilds. Thank you to all those who contributed to this effort.

We’ll see the tailors again tomorrow but today we loaded up the car and headed to a school near Alice’s guild in Kimenyedde.

Our good friend Alice (far right) with the tailors from Kimenyedde.

We got lost over and over trying to follow the directions of a teacher at the school but he was a bit confused and had us backing up and turning around several times. It was a glorious sunny day so seeing that bit of countryside a few times really wasn't a hardship as we made our way to Namanoga Secondary School.  The school is set back off a long dirt road with lots of trees and farms along the way.

We spoke to a class of 102 girls and they were terrific. These students were so happy to participate and to receive our kit. Charlotte got them roaring with laughter and jumping up on the furniture to better see her as she tried on the pad. She made them repeat body parts to encourage them to see that talking about menstruation and using the correct vocabulary is “no big deal.” They loved her and participated loudly!

One of the teachers stood up to say thank you and told us this was truly overwhelming. The girls knew they could stay in school and not miss out because of their menses. She told us this was Heart Catching. I loved that. So many smiles on everyone's face. It reminded me why we do this. Getting caught up in the details of paperwork and fundraising sometimes makes me forget the true work that we do. These trips bring me back to that.

We visited Alice, Grace and Fiona at our Kimenyedde guild and gave them MoonCatcher t-shirts. Alice prepared a pan filled with my favorite roasted ground nuts. She hadn’t forgotten that I love this treat. Charlotte agrees that they are yummy and addicting. I don’t speak their language and they don’t speak very much English but it didn’t matter. Somehow we found ourselves laughing and smiling and communicating just fine.

The rest of the evening was a long trip back through Kampala where we got stuck in traffic for literally hours and ended up having dinner at 11:00pm. Luckily for us, we are still on New York time so here I am writing at 12:50 at night and feeling very awake.

It was a great day. The school experience was one of the best I’ve ever been part of. We got great photos and spoke to lots of girls and loved seeing old friends. I guess I’ll try for some sleep. Good night everyone!