Day 3 Uganda: Not all cups are for tea!

We did so much today that I had to ask Charlotte and Phoebe how the day began. It seems like forever ago.

Again we shared breakfast outside; loud with singing birds and barking dogs. Still no piglets but Alfred promises to tell us the moment any appear.

All the tailors were asked to come early to the sewing guild so that Charlotte could teach them how to use Diva cups and discs. We had a silly time talking about how these things work and miming their insertion. Mostly, I don’t like giving these out in African countries because unless you have easy access to clean water and are able to boil the cups it’s more of a problem than a solution. So, we give them to our tailors and coordinators but definitely not students. It’s another way to manage one's menses.

Once the cup talk was complete we gave everyone a t-shirt and took lots of photos. What an amazing group of people these women are.

Next we headed for St Mary's school. I’ve been to this school three times now and have seen some exciting changes. I was delighted to see the head teacher who has been there since Maureen and I first visited in 2017.

We used today’s visit to hold focus groups and record individual interviews. All the girls we spoke to have been using our kit for a while and we wanted to know how it was working for them. I explained that we wanted to share their stories with our donors so that we could bring real faces of girls to them. We thanked them for their help and one girl quickly said “no it’s you that’s helping us”. I asked if they knew the expression “one hand washes the other” and once they realized what I was talking about they grasped their hands and rubbed them together smiling and saying YES.

Our next visit was to Balibaseka Secondary School. We taught our curriculum and delighted the 140 students with Charlotte standing on the front desk, trying on the MoonCatcher pad and truly dancing on the table. A group of boys lined the perimeter of the building watching and giggling as Charlotte explained how to wear the carrier just right. After lots of questions we finally headed for dinner and what we thought would be an early night.

It’s best not to plan in Uganda. Traffic will disrupt things, or a confused navigator will or perhaps an ambitious waiter. Phoebe found a pretty spot for dinner, surrounded by trees and hills with some water features and various options for seating. She sweetly asked how long it would take to get a meal and we were told ten minutes or fifteen at the most. We settled in and Charlotte started her stopwatch. We had a feeling!!! An hour and a half later we got our food and a while after that we left, getting back around 10:00 pm. None of it mattered. It all makes us laugh and again we remember to Go with the Flow.