With the first day of construction in the bag, we were ready to kick ass! Out of excitement, Bill and I started out early in the morning with a meeting regarding the construction schedule in bed.

We made some adjustments based on the input from the workers. I am so lucky to have Bill here with me. He literally messaged me in December while I had booked my airfare. During this time, I was scheduled to travel alone to Uganda to take this project on and my mom was super worried that I was traveling by myself. Bill had lost his job and was looking to get involved with volunteer work. He has a background in construction, video making, and was a close friend from high school. It was a perfect fit. We spoke a few more times over video call, discussed travel dates, and agreed to come along. It was the best thing that could have happened.

Here in Uganda, Bill is an on site inspector who watches the construction workers each day, creates reports of progress by filling out daily inspection reports, records how many workers are working each day, coordinates and manages all the needs of the on-site construction and most importantly leads the micro flush toilet construction. If he was not here, I would not have as much free time as I do. He gives me more bandwidth to dive into the school curriculum, operations, community relationships with stakeholders, etc. I have even started to teach a class to the older students in Grade 6 and 7.

My course is called “Community”. My thought here is to first lay out the foundation of what is a “community” then go into what makes a “good community” vs “bad community”. Then, talk about how a community is different from “society” or “family”. Eventually the main objective of the course is to have my students study our Kirindi community, lay out the good and the bad. Afterwards, eventually they will have ideas as to how to make our community better and turn them into action items that the students can actually take. I am very excited to teach this course. I feel like the whole reason I am in Uganda is because this community does have that potential. I have worked in Nepal for over 5 years now and have always struggled to meet a community that is driven with hope, passion, love, and a desire to fight for a better future for the kids. Usually from my past experience, somehow a self-interests creeps into people, and I have yet to see that come in and stay here.

Teacher Steven helped me with combining P6 and P7 together and we met inside the church. First the benches and desks were in a row and I was not able to see all my students. Immediately, I changed the shape of the class to a half circle so that I am able to see all of my students. Secondly, I asked my students to sit with someone new each time I teach. In my head, I wanted them to stay away from their friends they are close to already and find ways to bridge new friendships. This classroom is a community. They can make this class a strong community.

Once the digging of the foundation was completed, we placed an order of big rocks to place them into the foundation with a local hardware store owner, James. James is our main man. We asked him to bring sand, gravel, cement, and any other materials needed. Every trip, he drives with high acceleration, entering the job site with his truck full of materials. It is one of the funniest things. Everyone working will look up and laugh. When he did bring the big rocks later the same day we placed an order, he was unable to place it behind the church so he dropped those materials in front of the church. School is behind the church and moving them to the school foundation would require a lot of effort. David suggested to utilize the older students to carry them. If all of them helped, we would be able to bring the stones into the foundation in less than 10 minutes. Here I was teaching about “Community” in my class, and already the students are contributing to making their community stronger. This also allowed students to contribute towards their new school so when years passed by, they can say I helped build this school. I tossed rock into making this foundation of our new school strong! This action not only helped make the foundation of the school strong from a structural standpoint but also through teamwork.