Articles by Megan Yarberry

We’ve now finished our 2nd training, which took place at Mama Kevina Comprehensive Secondary School. The school was established 2 years ago by a couple of (Ugandan) Franciscan nuns, Sister Clare and Sister Margaret. The primary 3 populations among the students: children affected by the war in the north (including “invisible children” and child soldiers), those affected by the flooding that affected ½ the country last year, and AIDS orphans. The remaining are just plain poverty stricken, or have other, more personal disasters.

The school is secondary, meaning for high school aged kids (although because of interrupted studies, the students range in age from 12 to the early 20s). Because most of the kids will never get a chance at college, the sisters focus on vocational programming. Some Dutch philanthropists organized the building of a bakery, including lots of industrial machines, although the power to run these machines is unlikely, so some enormous wood stoves have been constructed in the back, which will probably see a lot more use. The sisters also hope to offer tailoring, basic computer skills, and some other things, and as a matter of course the students do agriculture (had just planted sweet potatoes, beans & corn) to supplement school food (most students are boarders), and are making the bricks to make the new dorms and school rooms.

The students are full of personality, although some seemed a bit disconnected, and some – as the sisters say – are “a bit cheeky”. They have a reputation for being very good at music (which we later had opportunity to see), and were extremely well-disciplined when they needed to be.

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I’ve wanted to write sooner, but electricity is sporadic and our days are long and full, so here I am on a Sunday afternoon, ready to write.

It’s been almost 2 weeks since we left Hawaii. Took us 5 days to get to Tororo, Uganda, where the first trainings are taking place.

Judah & I flew from Hilo to Honolulu to L.A. to New York to London (where we took the tube to visit the National Museum of History during our 12 hour layover) to Nairobi.

In Nairobi we stopped over at the Abha Light offices, where I met up with my Real Medicine Foundation colleague Beth, and where Didi (who I worked with in December) got us organized, gave us a bit of a crash pad & repacking centre & refueling site before catching the late night bus to Uganda.

Beth had brought most of the training supplies, so had huge and many bags, which we wrestled onto the big, greyhound style bus that would take us on the 12+ hr ride across the border. We set off only 1 hr late, out of Nairobi and into the black African night. Judah and I entertained ourselves with i-pod stories and the occasional flash of village firelight.

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