Greetings to you all,

Happy New Month once again. March has already blessed us with many showers, so that is a good thing. The temperatures have significantly reduced and farmers are happy too. I saw some of them prepare their gardens hoping that the rains will continue. A number of them lost so many crops due to that January heat that affected the maize and beans in the gardens hence high prices in the market right now.

This week was good, I managed to visit a few Mamas and several were happy and doing well;

Hadijah is back fully on the mend even though she is expecting at the moment. She is a few months in but yet strong enough to work at the moment so I encouraged her to keep going until she is ready to stop. She decided to open up another chips stall at the next local bar and see if she can make some money from there too. She has employed one of the girls to attend to it as she also attends to the other stall. She decided to rest her little girl from school saying that it was better to start in the middle of the year but she has sent the rest of the bigger children to school, one in secondary school and the other still in primary.

Immaculate the social worker and drug shop owner is doing great. She decided to employ another girl finally having experienced an overwhelming struggle running the shop while serving at the hospital too. She said it was too demanding and she needed someone to help. She wants to employ her daughter but she has still not yet received her qualification from nursing school, otherwise, for her daughter, this would be a good opportunity to start her career. I found her administering some blood work for a patient so it was nice to finally see her in action.

Pulakiseeda is doing well as usual. I passed by to get my supplies and she was doing well. A few increases in prices in most of the items like sugar, posho (Maize flour), and beans so they are not moving as they have been in the past few months. Otherwise, she is okay and she has managed to send her daughter to school already and most importantly been able to make the school pay.

Rashida is doing well although having a few challenges with the supply of some vegetables in her stall. The sun has affected things like tomatoes, onions and other forms of vegetables. One of her daughters is back in school but another one of them refused to change because she is used to her old school and does not want to distort her motion. 

Florence the salonist finally gave birth to a bouncing baby boy who was 3kgs heavy. He was healthy and she was discharged on the same day because everything went so well as she did not require stitches at the end of the day. The boy looks very healthy and lively so she is excited and will take a week off before she can return to her grind. I went and visited her at her home and she was super excited.

Semmy the teacher is doing well. She is teaching more and has two extra hours of tutorials every day and she is paid 5,000/- per hour. This is not much really but for now, this is good for the start for her, she said. She is looking for more opportunities to add some hours on the weekend so that she can make some more money. She is still making her liquid soap at the moment but desired to finish this batch and turn to bar soap instead of liquid soap. She says the competition has become a lot on liquid soap, so she is planning to take a refresher class in making this soap and also looking for money to buy the ingredients. She has taken all her kids to school, two in boarding and one in a day school because she wants to be able to save and also ensure the candidate does not lose much time in missing preps and also the journeys to school. 

Christine had a hard time last week with her chickens and she has lost a few more after administering a vaccine recently. The doctor said that it was probably late when they administered the treatment because the birds had already caught the disease. This led to a few losses but has since come back on track. Her broiler chickens have improved greatly and looking forward to selling them off soon so she can book more birds and have some kind of rotation.

Rovence is doing okay. The restaurant is very slow at the moment and it will continue to get worse because Christians have started fasting and soon the Muslim fraternity will join in. So business will only get slower. Last week, she delayed her contribution because she needed to help a family member out so it affected her budget. This week, she continued her payments.

Justine is doing good. The shelter is looking good and is looking to improve it more but says she will have to wait for the rain to settle so she can pull out sand and lift the floor a bit from the actual ground. Same as Rashida, Justine is also low on vegetable supplies at the moment. She has improved her toilet situation and is now looking for a door to put on her two stalls.

Finally, I went to see Jane after she returned from the village and she is okay. The living situation has not improved at the moment. She has not received her final pay from the developers but for that matter, I can’t do much. They have piled heaps of sand around her house and the rains are surely going to ruin whatever is left on that property. Otherwise, she has sent most of her grandkids to school as she waits to deal with this whole issue. The tank issue is frustrating me at the moment but there is nothing I can do until she is ready to move the tank.

Otherwise, the week went well and I managed to achieve some mileage with the Mamas, I can’t wait to continue next week. Thank you for your endless efforts to support our community. The Mamas send you their regards every single time I visit. They always say a prayer for you to be healthy and that whatever you do, it may succeed. 

Yours,

Andrew echel 

Director of Programs, Uganda

ISEE Solutions Society