sisters are doin' it for themselves!

At Christmas time my wonderful sister Tracy decided to sponsor one of our women to transition from the beading group into the textile training. Every Christmas Tracy makes a donation to charity in lieu of sending out Christmas cards. She's donated to various charities, one year it was basics for babies, another year she sponsored a woman in Romania and this year she decided to donate to Shanti, which meant I was able to choose the woman that I thought would be the best fit for Tracy. We were setting up 4 new women in the textiles training and Natalies parents had chosen to sponsor Lydia because they had made the donation in the name of Nats grandma (whose name also happened to be Lydia). So that left 3 other women to choose from: Teopista (who was 31 yrs old and a widow and mother to 3 children) Jesca and Rose.

I decided to choose Rose.

Rose always had a mischievous look in her eye and she showed up for everything (have you heard 80% of life is simply showing up?) and she was always dressed to the nines in her gomez (big colorful dress with poofy sleeves and a big tie around the waist). Tracys generous donation was for $250 which covers the cost of the machine and a few supplies to get started. The machines are foot pedal machines so they don't need power but they only go in one direction. We have to lock up the machines at night so they don't get stolen so we had some hooks built into the concrete to chain them down so we can keep them in the round hut.

The highlight of this whole process was telling Rose that it was my sister who had made it possible for her to start the training, she let up a big whoop and started dancing - I wish Tracy had been there to witness the joy she created simply by not sending Christmas cards.

love to you all,

wendy

Lost!

"If I'm not there when you get there, send out a search party!" I said with a laugh just before I left the house.
I was quite nervous about the workshop not really sure how it would go ever, if the women would even understand what I was talking about and if I would be able to facilitate it well without getting off topic or having the women getting discouraged. I decided to ride the bike to the site by myself, Nic got me started and then pointed me in the right direction, things were going well until I thought maybe I had missed the turn off, I thought I would keep riding for a bit and turn around if I didn't see it - I knew I was fairly close. Then I saw 2 women walking and thought great these women are probably on their way to the savings training. I tried to talk to them, asked them if they knew Shanti Uganda and they said "yes, we go there now." Perfect I thought I will just follow them, the older lady looked familiar and I asked the younger one what her name was and she said Prosy, wonderful! I knew one of the women was named Prosy. As we kept walking it was very clear that we were getting farther away from the birth house so I started asking more questions:
Are you going to Shanti Uganda for 4 o'clock? Yes
Do you know Natalie? Not yet
So do you make beads or textiles? Not yet
Do you know Robina? Not yet
Where are you going then? We are going home
She also asked me a couple questions:
What is wrong madam? I'm lost
Can I help you madam, you like tired? I'm not tired I'm just worried (I say with sweat dripping down my face huffing and puffing pushing my bike)

I knew I had to keep following them because I would never be able to find my way back through the bush so I kept following them, I knew I was totally late for the training but I could also tell that we were going in a different direction than the way we came. I asked the ladies if they were going to Kasana, they said yes so I hoped I would be able to find my way back home and just wait for Nat, or get a boda boda back to the birth house. We walked for over an hour, I realized I didn't have Nats cell phone number, didn't speak the language and was basically a stupid muzungo!
Finally we stumbled upon our house, I thanked Prosy profusely and gave her 1000 shillings - Nat said this was a bit dumb and unnecessary but I think they went out of their way to take me back to to town and they were actually headed in a different direction and I was just so grateful that I had found my way home.
I hung out at our place and then Nic cam back to drop off his bike and find me on a boda boda. I got to the site and started teaching the workshop covered in sweat, dirty feet and a bit stressy.
Although I had gotten off to a rough start, the training was awesome, way better than I could have predicted.
love to you all,
wendy