Monday, Nov 17th

Main agenda item on Monday was to visit the Mitooma School – a primary school for the underprivledged. 380 children, 120 of whom board there, The poor children often have no parents and are living with relatives. This school is where they get a sense of belonging. All children who don’t board there walk to school. Some as far as 5 miles. School begins at 7:30, so those that come from far must get up very early to get there.
the school day ends at 4:00 PM. They greeted us with song and a band (drum, trumpets, cymbals!)
The school buildings are painted with lessons (diagrams, letters, numbers, pictures) that are used in place of books.




The school is an amazing story- a man donated the land and John and Joyce Kateeba rounded up the funds and built the school. It started as a nursery school and was then later certified as a full fledged boarding school.

The kitchen is very rudimentary:


Dorms are rows and rows of bunk beds.
The children also learn farming and much of their food is grown on the school grounds.
They served us lunch (including goat meat, goat intestines, tiny sour eggplants, chichek, matooki and the works).
They ran through a welcome program (printed on an old crank mimeograph machine).

The children put on quite a performance of singing both welcome songs and traditional dance and were very happy we came. They do this very cool clapping thing we plan to bring to the St. Andrew's spirit choir.




We felt very welcomed!

The water source is a series of pipes that collect rainwater into a huge 200,000 liter cistern. A well is needed.

We are continually impressed by the importance put on education by the community and the children.

We saw books and clothing that have been donated from Call to Care efforts.

Later in the day we drove to a hot springs - water was up to 90 degrees centigrade ( that’s really crazy hot on Fahrenheit). 20 km each way on a bumpy road. This is a bathing spot, so no pictures allowed. Not an experience we’ll have every day.


A note about Joyce and John Kateeba – two people that are incredibly thankful to God for all they have and have dedicated their lives to serving the needs of others. They are continually in motion. Even after Joyce was confined to a wheelchair, she made the best use of her time by writing books on farming and family to help others, and was the “call center” for many of the efforts she and John started. She recognizes that without her accident, much would not have been accomplished. They are truly blessed and an inspiration.