Muzungu: Beneficiary Updates

For those of reading who have been here and met some of these people, I thought you might like an update on some of our (or at least my) favourite women. Overall most are doing really well, of course some have still refused to build pens, deworm, or zero graze but those who were excelling continue to excel.

Safina
Safina has recently been elected as Lady Councillor for the new sub-county near Kaberebere. She has a total of 6 milk goats which is why her skin is so nice she says. She has even started selling some of the females to the Kyera stock farm near Mbarara for a good price. She has a really nice chicken coop/barn as well and all in all is very happy although a little busy with all her duties.

Janet
Janet continues to be an impressive farmer and business woman. She has opened a used clothing store in Kishuro and continues to doctor up those dairy bucks who seem to become neglected. She also has started an impressive nursery bed for vegetables which I am sure she will excel at. Unfortunately she isn’t having much luck with dairy females as they keep dying on her. She has purchased furniture for her house and pretty fancy iron doors and windows. She was unable to pay for Mika to go to school this year but we’ve got him back in school (Thanks Olive and Larry).

She told me she wanted you all to know that she is tired, and was trying to look it here.

Katarina
Katarina is now the Chairperson of Kahenda and is really doing well. She has some really nice big goats and one of the best cabbage patches I have seen yet. She is growing beetroot in full force and is trying to improve Kahenda’s group. She had loads of questions for me regarding what to do with certain issues that she is working through. She also unfortunately lost her milk goat but has started milking one of her local goats and getting a little bit each day. She definitely made me smile.

Posing with a cabbage and her new Canada visor.

Clemencia
Clemencia has quite the impressive operation going on. The pen which she has built is easily the biggest in the project and it is absolutely full of goats. If my memory serves me right she has 22 goats now? The most impressive part is that she actually zero grazes them all. Unfortunately I didn’t see her when I was here. She was in the hospital for what could be best translated as stomach tumors. She was scheduled for surgery so I went to see her in the hospital. However, finding a patient in a Ugandan hospital is WORSE than finding a needle in a haystack. No one from the group seemed to know how she was doing so I am praying for the best.

Clemencia and I in 2008 in her sugar cane garden.

The very big and impressive pen.

Esther
Esther has given up pig farming for that of fruit farming, the drought was bad last year and she just couldn’t feed them all. She did very well with the sale of her pigs and bought a second plot of land near Kaberebere for added income and a retirement house. When I was here last I castrated a pig for her. I removed one testicle, she did the other. I figured that would be the end of it. Apparently people from all over the village call her to castrate their piglets! Who would have believed that hearing about someone castrating piglets could make me so happy? She now has started a little apple orchard and is doing quite well. She also has oranges and passion fruits. My visit with her was very inspiring.