Something I have wanted to do...

Today I have uploaded a video to YouTube. It is something I was looking forward to doing since the day that we made the video. It is the footage of my first drive in Uganda. It was particulalry exciting because it was a drive through the bush from New Hope Childrens Centre to the Clays house 3km away, where the 5 girls were staying. What made this drive fun was the road the context and the fact that it had just rained VERY hard!! Watch and enjoy!

Also I have uploaded a selection of photos to Flickr. You can see the album here:

Uganda 2007

Facebook folk can see them here Uganda 2007, and Anna's photos can be seen here New Hope Uganda part 1 and here New Hope Uganda part 2, and Emily's Photos can be see here: Uganda and here Uganda 2

UPDATE:
You will be pleased to hear than Leanne is due to be discharged from hospital after lunch today. Everyone is looking forard to having her home!

Oh, and I liked these giraffes too!

We're Home! eesh!

Ok, so we made it home!
i thought i'd just give a quick update of what went on after Mark's blog on the wednesday :)
Well, wednesday was so lovely for us girls - going to see Leanne was fantastic, because the 5 of us together had bonded so much, and we felt completely wrong with just 4 of us, even if it made the vocal harmonies easier...
Leanne seemed in really good spirits, despite the constant jibes at how long it took her to walk to the toilet, especially when we were desperate to get there! then spending the evening together just laughing about everything we'd missed out on together (on her part and ours) was fantastic, and although tearful at the end, was a fbrilliant way to leave her :)
On the thursday, Judith was great and took us to the Port Bell textile market, which was like a little heaven on earth for me! i love all the material and stuff, and was revelling in how cheap it was (like 3000 shillings a metre - that's like £1!!!) for such lovely stuff! so i spent myself happy there, and we hadn't even gotten to the craft market yet!
After lunch, and a lovely splash about in the pool with the kids (i only have pics of them in the pool though...didn't want to risk taking the camera in, and wasn't smart enough to get anyone to take a pic for me while i was in there...duh!) we went to a market in Kampala, which was GORGEOUS! i adored it, and really appreciated the chance for some retail therapy...especially as i was buying on leanne's behalf as well as mine (yep, spending someone else's money really is as fun as it sounds ;) hehe leanne, i hope i did a good job for you :p). The bartering (sp?!) was something which i didn't quite grasp until about half way through, but after some serious example setting by miss white, who would only buy for like half price, i managed to get the hang of it :D great times.
The final evening together as a team was spent at the Pavement Sizzles and Flames restaurant, which was lovely, even though the chicken was rank :) And yes, Mark isn't smiling in the picture...but this is the best of 2, in the other one his eyes are closed. never mind *sighs*

The final morning, although slightly interrupted by a quick trip to the doctor with asher, who just needed calpol and a bit of mum love, was great, and spent sunning it up by the "pool" (which was tiddly, but great fun!) and then we left during the afternoon, trekking our way through the jam packed city centre to Entebbe, where we queued for what seemed like an eternity to get the plane.

and the rest, as they say, is History. The journey's were as smooth as, and ran without a hitch. The boys behaved like GOLD in Dubai, and we all got some sleep, pretty much, and it was all very God-controlled, which is what we like to see.

Reflecting at church was good for me today, cos it kinda got it all rooted in my head, and i'm so happy that iw as a part of the team and got to experience what i did.

Mark and Maddy - thankyou for adapting your ways for an all-girl team, and taking us and leading us, we all appreciate it :)
Steve and Kathryn - you are the lovliest people alive, and you had a crazy household for the time we were there! thanks for putting up with us, and always being gracious and hilarious, in equal measure, and making us feel so at home.
Mica - hope you remember your 18th, it was weird for sure! it was awesome to spend all that time with you this hol...and thankyou for being such an angel when i was sick, i appreciate it big-style.
Anna - it was ace to get to know you more while we were away, it's going to be weird not being around you at all for such a long time now!
Leanny - we missed you so much when you were ill and away! i can't wait to come see you (and give you your PJ's back! hehe!) i'm so glad you're getting better, you had us a bit worried there for a while.
Catherine - you really are too hilarious for words, and i love you so much!

Right, it's awesome to be home, i'm kinda in that torn stage where i miss everything but am so glad to have warm water and my family at the same time! :)
I hope you have all enjoyed the blogging, and thanks for the comments and stuff, it's been great that you've all taken an interest :)

but for now, i'm b-logging off,
Em
xxx

Together Again

It is great to be able to see the blog again as I have not seen it since last weekend. Thank you so much for all your prayers it is fair to say that they were holding us all the way home.

Leanne is now safely reunited with her family albeit in a hospital in London. She is still awaiting a diagnosis but is feeling a little stronger each day. She is hoping to be back in Northampton as soon as possible and is persistently reminding the staff of this fact!!

Thanks to all the girls for ensuring the safe return of the boys. It feels like we have been apart for ages and seeing you all round the corner at the airport was incredibly heartwarming. Reflecting on our trip is a little different than I might have expected. Although I think we have all grown through the experience and found God in ways we didn't know we needed too.

For those of you who have followed the blog and would like to hear more the team will be giving a more full account of the trip at the parklands gathering tomorrow @ 10:30am you are all welcome if you can make it.

Thanks again all for bringing the boys back safely and don't forget to keep taking your malaria tablets. Have you drunk tap water yet and enjoyed a bath????

Steve and Kathryn if you read then this know yourselves dearly loved and sorely missed by me, thank you for everything. I think a long phonecall may be in order soon Kathryn just to catch up on the rest of all that happened together if you are up to it. Thanks for your pressie and especially the note (right back at you babe).

love Maddy xXx

Kampala

Yesterday we all came to Kampala. We stopped off at Red Chilli, where we will be staying, to drop of bags then came to see Maddy and Leanne. They have been staying with a wonderful lady called Judith. Looking at her visitors book she is a common stop-off point for many a British visitor. In fact my parents have stayed with her a number of times. Her help has been invaluable. Not only in offering the use of her fantastic house, but also because she seems to always know someone who can sort what needs sorting.

Last night Maddy and I went shopping for some souvenirs and for a take away for the team altogether at Judith's house. Other than some terrible traffic delaying the food, it was a great evening and it was so great to have the team back together. Clearly the girls had missed each other, and it brought a smile to my face to see everyone excitedly bring Leanne up to speed so she didn't feel like she had missed out too much.

There was a tearful goodbye when it was time for them to return to Red Chilli. The Norridges stayed and Judith's house and I am now sitting at her computer.

Maddy has just called from the BA business lounge at the airport - we finally got confirmation last night that they were booked on the BA flight home this morning. They get a nice business class seat home and a chauffeur-driven car back to the house. [boy are we glad we took out good insurance!!].

Once Judith gets back from the airport, we'll [the remaining Norridges] head over to Red Chilli ourselves. Judith flys a fair bit and so knows the BA staff. She is planning stay with Maddy and Leanne as long as she can.

Today we will shop and bit and relax a bit, and generally get ready for our flight with leaves Friday afternoon. Maddy and Leanne fly at 8 this morning and get in around 4 this afternoon. We leave around 4 on Friday afternoon and get in around midday on Saturday!!

There are loads of other really great stuff to blog and tell about. But there has been so much going on on both fronts that there hasn't been chance!! Sorry! I will try to encourage more blogging and some post trip reflections, so there is life in the old blog yet!

Prayers would be appreciated

The last couple of days have been a little challenging. Leanne has had some health problems. The hospital down the road from here were great, but sent her on to a specialist in Kampala [he's Japanese!]. Maddy, Katherine Brown and her are there now, and have stayed there over night [the journey is only 60 miles but there are so many potholes it is not a pleasant journey and can take over 2 hours]. The medical support has been brilliant, a good number of tests have been done, which have all come back negative. Ugandans first reaction to any illness is that it is Malaria [you have a cut on your toe? better test for malaria!] - so you will be pleased to know she doesn't she definitely doesn't have that! Still she is not fully fit and we all would appreciate prayers. We are not sure how it will affect the end of the trip, as we may have to adjust plans for returning Leanne. Not quite the end of the trip we had planned!

Leanne spoke to her parents last night, and that cheered her up a fair bit :o).

Sorry this is really vague, but i am not really the medical one! As you can imagine Maddy has come into her element and she has been impressed with the care they have received [Leanne think its beats the General!].

UPDATE:

Rather than transport Leanne back up here in order to go back down again the next day or so, we have decided to leave Maddy and Leanne in Kampala for another night, and for the team to leave New Hope a day early to be with them. Katherine is not back yet because her and Maddy have been working hard to communicate with the insurance company to ensure all costs are covered. For some reason emails and faxes have not been working!? Part of the insurance company enquiry is to consider the doctors suggestion that our laborious journey home with 8 hours at Dubai airport would not be the best for Leanne. There is a direct BA flight on certain days of the week. The policy says it covers her flight back plus a companion. Will update more later. Mark.

A quickie from Reuben

Hi everybody!

Hey! It's Reuben!

Hope you are all having a great time. we've just been to devotions and Emily did a game ["challenge Emily"] where you have to move around the room blindfolded and get to the end pick up a pen out of flour [and then go outside and wash your mouth!]. Then the girls taught a song to them, and that was really fun [i was up there with them]. Then daddy did a talk. The team are doing 3 of these devotions, and this was the second one.

We're all having a good time!

Bye!

Back by popular demand...

I have heard that people appreciated the techie blog on the internet provision, so I thought I would add to the series by describing the water provision.

In our understanding of the word I guess there is not really running water here. There are two places where water is supplied from. The first is for the the site as a whole. Water is pumped from a bore hole down into the valley to the highest point on the site. Here it is stored in a water house where it is processed and treated. There is a constant flow of kids to and from this water house with the ubiquitous Ugandan yellow containers [many which leak!] taking the clean water back to their family groups. This water is also used by the Browns [although they feed into the local economy by getting someone to collect it for them!]. They use it for drinking and cooking with - although not as it is. They poor it into a chalk based filter system before they drink it. This is a little annoying as the tape on the filter keeps breaking and the replacement have to come from Kampala - a challenging drive away. I think 3 have broken since I have been here.

The second source of water is what Steve likes to call 'harvesting rainwater'. The water that comes down the drainpipes is directed into a cistern under the veranda. The cistern is around 25,000 litres [we think]. All the family groups have one of these, but only a small proportion of them work. This is what Community Church Northampton gave money to fix when the Browns first moved out here. Those family groups with a working cistern access the water by dropping a bucket down through an access hatch. The Browns are have it a little more sophisticated. They have an electric pump that pumps the water to a tank on a tower by the side of the house. The taps, shower and toilet in the house are fed by this tank. Hence the water is only 'hot' if the sun has been particularly strong that day!! The other complication here however is that electric power is intermittent. Hence we have had a number of times in our stay the situation where the tank on the tower is empty and there is no power for the electric pump to refill it. Hence then no shower, no toilet flushing, nothing in the taps. Added to this [and this one is for Mark Hill to sort] when this happens the shower refuses to work for a while because of an airlock in the system somewhere!!

So there you are, does that class as 'running water'?

A day with Jack

[this is me and a Jack Fruit! I am holding about a half of a third (a sixth, dad says)]

Hi everybody

It’s me jack

This morning when we woke up we had toast with jam and butter – it didn’t come out of a toaster, but it came out of the frying pan! This is because there was no electricity at the time, and the grill runs on electricity, so we have to run on gas.

Then I went on my bike with Joel, that was fun, and then we stopped at the church and did some jumps off the ramp, where you come in with pushchairs. Then we dodged the benches, then came home!

When we came back, we played with the chameleon, and the colours were black, orange and yellow.

After having rice and beans for lunch (which was made by Gertrude, who works for Steve and Kathryn), we went outside and watched the chameleon climb, and Jeremiah came to play and we played on the Tarzan swings! Then we played a ‘cops and robbers’ sort of game – I was the robber! (And I nicked Jeremiah’s bike!!!) Ibra, Stuart, another Jeremiah, Mugabe and Kisa (pronounced cheesah) played volleyball, and played on the bikes.

For dinner, we had sausage casserole (“which was awesome” – Steve), cooked by Steve... it was Absolutely Excellenté! We just listened to Percy the Park-keeper, and people have been having baths which are in washing up tubs. But I am going to have a shower.

That’s all from me! Goodbye!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Roar, Prrump, Munch.

Alriiiight. Safari was brill-yant. And we even saw a lion! Hunington (our driver) was craaazy and drove OFF-ROAD so that I (sat on the back roof grill thing) was literally no more than 10 feet away!!! It was mad good. She was only resting though, and didn't seem to be 'bovered' by our shrill shrieks of wonder and excitement when we saw her, or by the roar of our van's tired engine!

One of the most beautiful, gentle looking creatures we saw were the elephants, the sheer size of them was quite overwhelming, though they looked so peaceful we weren't scared! Bit disappointed we didn't get to hear them trumpet (and i mean with their trunks, not the other end...) though!

Funniest animals were, without doubt the knobbly-kneed giraffes! We saw quite a lot, but one time we drove past a herd (is that the right word when referring to giraffes?) right near the road, and one of the younger ones ran right in front of the van (most of us were still dangling from the roof) and almost fell over itself in a desperate attempt to get to the rest of the group before we passed. Smashing!

A few illnesses occurred during the few days - Em suffered the most (undoubtedly, poor thing), with sickness starting the first night, though Mica also suffered considering she stayed up all night with her. I think she still managed to see most of the animals though, only from the front seat in between drifts of sleep! Reuben also woke up the second night with sickness, though we're pretty sure it was just sun-stroke, because, thankfully, it didn't last long.

We arrived home on Saturday, late afternoon, to the joyful choruses of the Ugandan church choir practicing for church this morning, but I got the impression that I was really the only one in the mood for dancing after the 6-and-a-bit-hour journey! But you know me... always in the mood for dancing :)

I'll let Meesh tell you about today....
Auf Wiedersehen mon amie... 6 days mum.. I bet you're WELL excited (underberstandably).

We're back!

Hi everybody

We have just come back from our safari. We saw an amazing elephant that walked right in front of our car! It was REALLY cool! We also saw a really cool giraffe that was running. It looked funny! The best bit was when we saw a lion. We got really close, it was lying down in the shade.

I stayed in a Banda with Catherine and Anna. Jack and Leanne stayed in a tent. On the last night I was sick and so I moved to mum and dad’s tent.

Uganda is a really fun place to stay. Amazing things happen, like Robert found a Chameleon for me today for when I got back and now it is sitting on my top turning orange.

Bye!

Reuben

Uganda makes my lips dry...

We're off on Safari!!!

Right now, there's a little bit of questioning over where we're actually going to stay! unfortunately there was a bit of a booking mix-up, so instead of all staying in cottages, there are 2 of them, and 3 tents booked! ARGH! BUT, we have been praying, and Steve is on the phone, and we're hoping for an upgrade. We've all prayed really hard, and have complete faith that God is going to intervene to make this the nicest experience possible.

But anyways, we will be off shortly, our driver is on the way, so the blog will be quiet until about saturday. We will let you all know what happens with the accommodation, and tell you all the animals we've seen and how much fun we are bound to have had! I'm still very excited, even though it might end up being a camping holiday instead of a hotel break ;)

This week has been great so far - there have been emotional moments, and it's all quite hard to take in, but meeting all these people and actually making friends with them and building relationally with them has been fantastic. We dug for kasava (sp?!), which is like a root staple food, yesterday, which was really good fun, even though Reuben hoe'd his toe! oops! he is all good though :)

Right, we will be off now. i'm missing family and friends quite a lot, even though i'm having a great time here, so know that i'm thinking about you all while i'm here, and can't wait to have a chat with you all when i get back.

Much love, Em xxx

PS. we have had an update - there is no change with the accommodation, so as far as we know, most of us will be camping :s
pray that we will be ok, and that we'll be protected from the bugs!
PPS - oh, and Uganda makes my lips dry. dunno why. it just does. Praise God for vaseline...

And They Call it Kiddy Love

Today was a wonderful experience, Catherine and I went to the baby house and the others were gardening…worked out to be the perfect combo as both me and Catherine go attacked by biting ants the morning before whilst helping the Jonathon family do some spreading and slashing.

Whilst at the baby house we helped bathe the children and dry and clothe them. It sounds boring but believe me its not – the children are so funny and have wonderful personalities. Going to the baby house today meant that we had an extra special experience we took seven children to have their HIV tests. The trip to Kiwoko hospital took around 2 hours and with seven children and immense heat it was a very difficult (but enjoyable ) experience. Whilst at the hospital we were given a leaflet which talked about HIV in Uganda and it alos said that 60-70% of people passing through Kiwoko hospital are HIV positive.

The weather today is amazing…it’s mega hot and sunny but it is still thundering! At around 5 o’clock we have devotions with our family groups…luckily we’re not eating with them today as their food is very different and my (and everyone elses) taste buds do not agree with it!

Tonight is our last night with the lovely Clay’s. It’s a bit disappointing but they are going to Kenya so we wish them the very best! I will miss the Clay family but not their resident frog! It has given me nightmares since we first arrived but the fears have lessened as Raych prayed for both me and Mica.

Tomorrow we are setting off for a six hour drive to Murchisson Falls to go on safari.

Just to let everyone know that I am fine, had a bit of a bad day yesterday, but today has been fabulous and I have loved every minute of it.

Love to you all

Leanne xXx

P.S. Late addition news is that all 7 children tested today for HIV were found to be clear. Great, amazing, news!

P.P.S. Sorry this is on Mark's name, it really is from Leanne!