The visitors continued with Nathan’s Mum travelling back with him from his trip to UK. She bravely went White Water Rafting down the Nile (an unusual Mothers Day present but it’s what she wanted!). Nathan went with her, his second time, and loved it.

We also travelled, with Nathan’s Mum, down to South West Uganda. We stayed with friends in Kisiizi, where Nathan has done a few Christ Church summer missions. It was one of the potential places we looked at to move to in Uganda. We took a scenic route back through Queen Elizabeth National Park where we saw more lions including some that climb trees.

Life working at the Tigers Club is never dull. This month has seen lots of exciting events…

The Tudabujja boys went on a day trip and of course we went with them. They began by visiting the international airport followed by the zoo, both at Entebbe. Just when they thought the day was over we took them for a swim at a new hotel on the way home. They loved it- especially swimming!

RETRAK put on a 3 City Concert tour in Addis Ababa, Nairobi and Kampala. The audience raved about the quality of the pianist (from UK) and choir (from Nairobi) and the concerts raised lots of money and awareness for the work of RETRAK. An International School also donated 1,000,000 Ugandan Shillings to the project so lots of thanks to God for his provision.

Another high light was watching the boys’ faces light up as they opened the shoe boxes of gifts that are sent over by Samaritan’s Purse (Operation Christmas Child). If you’ve ever sent one be encouraged that it is a hugely worthwhile thing to do.

Nathan has spent the football season organising a fantasy football league with the hostel boys. They loved it and the top 4 went with us to see the Uganda Cranes play in a world cup qualifier against Niger. It was a great atmosphere, especially after winning 1-0. He’s hoping they qualify!

Nathan’s favourite moment was being greeted by one our new farm apprentices just as one of the cows (that the apprentice had been put in charge of) wandered past our house having escaped. His look of surprise when Nathan pointed at the cow said it all!

A Day in The Life

I’m sat on our veranda looking out over Lake Victoria. About 30 meters to my left is an eagle perched on our goal posts its 2 friends are soaring around the eucalyptus trees which act as a wind break from the occasional storm that comes in off the lake. This morning though is peaceful and beautiful, it is 8.30am and the mist over the lake is lifting from the night’s rain and the temperature is about 22⁰c. The air is filled with the singing of birds, there must be at least 20 different species out there but I’ve given up counting and just enjoy them as they glide between our mango, papaya and avocado trees, smaller birds are darting in and out of the long elephant grass just below our veranda which we use to feed the cows on the farm. From behind me I can hear the boys practicing their African drumming as they wait for the teacher to call them to class, the drumming pauses as in the distance there is the gentle engine noise from the Mission Aviation Fellowship small propeller plane as it takes off from the run way just across the swamp as it flies over head and boys watch with excitement as it flies by, most of the boys dream of being a pilot one day, as it disappears the drums continue.

In this amazing moment of awe and wonder of God’s amazing creation I am interrupted by several knocks on the door. First by one of our boys, Kawesa, who has been sent by Jen to get some more paper. Jen is teaching catch up education for those boys who need an extra boost; she is doing phonics so I know that soon I’ll hear the sound of “mmmmmm” or “t-t-t-t-t-t” coming from the classroom. I give the paper to Kawesa who is about 10 years old and give him an encouraging smile, he is had a rough ride recently. He was desperate to go home to his family who we had managed to trace but on returning home he discovered his family had become deeply involved with witchcraft and they wanted to put him through an ‘initiation ceremony’ not surprisingly this scared him so he ran away. Thankfully this time he knew that RETRAK would help him so he came back to us rather than going straight to the streets. The social workers attempted to trace other family members for him to live with, Aunts, Uncles, Grandparents but it has not been possible so he is now back at Tudabujja with us preparing to be placed into a new foster family. After two years I can still only imagine what he is feeling inside, I will never know. That makes me incredibly grateful for the life and childhood I had but also makes me sad that a 10 year old has to go through what he has had too.

As I return back to my laptop another plane takes off and I notice the fishermen are coming in off the lake in their dugout canoes with the mornings catch. Just as I settle there is another knock at the door, it is the pastor of the local church where most of the boys like to go on Sundays. This time he is here to see my mum, she has been here for the last two weeks and is flying home tomorrow so he has come to say goodbye and pray for her as she travels. As he is not here to see me this time, I greet him with the usual greetings and excuse myself and get back to ‘work’ as they chat inside but there is the third knock at the door! It’s Nsimbi who is the gateman and helps on the farm, he has given me some of the farm workers mobile phones for charging. We often have a collection of phones that need charging from the workers or local neighbours. Nsimbi also wanted some money so he could buy some soap to clean out the pigs feeding basins.

While I’m already up I wander over to one of the cottages who have been having some trouble with their solar electricity. I put a new fuse in this morning and needed to check that the batteries were charging properly now there had been a few hours of sunlight otherwise they would have another night in darkness. On the way over I greet some of the locals who have come onto the compound to use our bore hole to collect water.

Some how the time is now 10.30am and I’ve only managed to write a couple of paragraphs, typically a 20 min task will probably take a whole morning but I’ve done a few smaller jobs in between which are a bit too dull to go into details. It is now far too warm to be sitting on the veranda and working so I prepare to move inside but I spot my favourite bird that I’ve not seen for some weeks. It is a brilliant blue kingfisher who I have named Mr Bojangles, to be honest I have no idea why I gave him that name but his presence makes me bear with the heat and stay outside. He often comes and sits on the railings around our veranda, he even flew inside our house once.

In the afternoon we are going to do some games with the boys so I have to tear myself away and prepare for them, then we are going to visit one of the boys who was here and now is in a vocational training school learning metal work skills. Before I do that and while Jen is teaching I might just go a sneak some chocolate, we’ve got a bit of a supply at the moment as we have had a few visitors from the UK so she’ll never know!

Enjoying the African sun!

We hope you all had a good Easter. Our Easter was very different this year. While news reports came in of snow in the UK over the Easter weekend we were enjoying the beautiful African climate on the Island of Zanzibar, just off the coast of Tanzania! Well with just a few months until we return back to the UK we thought it’d be such a shame to be so close to this beautiful paradise and not go!

We have confirmed our leaving date as 2^nd July and the realisation has hit us that this isn’t all that far away. It hardly seems a few months ago since we arrived wondering what we were doing leaving UK to live in a village in Uganda. We have made some amazing friends, been inspired by an incredible team and loads of fun with the boys, so we have mixed feelings about returning back, sad to be leaving all these people who’s lives we have shared but at the same time we can’t wait to be amongst family and friends back home again.

When we get back we will be nomads for a few weeks as the Gregory tour gets into full swing. Our tour will take us to Winchester, Walsall, Derby, Yorkshire with other locations to be announced! In the mean time we have plenty to be getting on with and much we want to achieve to ensure we use our remaining time well.

So we are in a bit of a funny place at the moment with so much still to do here but having one eye on our return. My place at Wycliffe is all sorted and Jen has been looking for work in Oxford. She will be doing 2 days a week working for RETRAK on fundraising and support, this will be based in Warwick just 40mins away from where we will be living, she needs to raise her own salary. We have got a house sorted but are trying to organise furniture to use, so if you know anyone who is getting rid of any old stuff then we’d love to hear from you.

The boys continue to make us giggle and laugh, a high number have moved on recently back to their families or placed in foster families which is really exciting as that is why the project exists, to help street boys have the opportunity to belong to a family again. The job still continues to be very rewarding as it doesn’t take much to put a smile on the face of a child who has so little. In reality they have so much to give and we continue to be humbled by their attitudes to life when life hasn’t given them the best start, when they have been treated so badly in the past they turn round and treat you with the greatest respect, sometimes it can really blow you away!

Thanks for all the support you give to us which enables us to support them.

N&J

Home Street Home

February has been one of the most hectic months we’ve had out in Uganda. And unfortunately Nathan had malaria for part of it. He’s now fully recovered but not nice at the time. We knew something wasn’t right when he started wrapping himself in as many clothes as he could get his hands on; he was freezing despite the temperature being close to 30°C. Thanks to everyone who called, left messages or sent out chocolate for him- always the best medicine, I don’t care what the doctors say!

Last weekend was a big celebration of The Tigers Club Project being a registered charity in Uganda for 10 years. The boys at Tudabujja worked with a cultural organisation to create a play. They began by telling their individual stories to the team who then created one story which was creatively told by the boys using drama, dance and music. The result, Home Street Home, was amazing. The current boys are an incredibly talented bunch and were able to portray funny moments and dreadful times in a really moving but entertaining way. We were so proud! The boys absolutely loved doing it and the response was excellent. Two international schools have asked us to take it to them next week and many more people have renewed or begun supporting Retrak in Uganda. Another memory for the boys was the excitement of being able to drink as many fizzy drinks as they liked for the days of the show as Coca Cola had sponsored the event! Not so healthy but lots of fun! To top it all off, the show received a dazzling review in the local rag, The New Vision.

This last week has been really interesting. 3 candidates for the post of Retrak CEO visited the Tigers Club. Nathan and I were part of the assessment activities lined up for them. Everyone will really miss Andy, our current CEO who was key in the development of Tigers then Retrak, but the candidates were great so we know there’ll be a great new person to lead Retrak into the next exciting stage.

We also had 2 visitors staying with us who are interested in taking over from us when we leave. It really made me realise just how little time we have left here. Only 4 months to go!! How time flies. It’s going to be incredibly hard to leave, especially for me as I don’t have anything lined up job-wise yet. Nathan is really excited about starting his course though, and we have a house sorted out in Oxford. It’ll be great to see all our friends and family again, especially our nephew Ben.

Lots of people have suddenly realised that this means there’s not much time left for free accommodation in Uganda (!) so between now and the time we leave we’re almost fully booked. It means the rest of our time in Uganda is busy and fun, so not much time for getting depressed about leaving behind the fab people and glorious sunshine of Uganda.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year! Hope you had a great Christmas.

We’ve done loads of different things this month (December) with a good work/rest balance.

The panto went really well with the exception of one awful night full of power cuts (pretty normal in Kampala but still very frustrating) and the CHOGM theme went down a treat with a very sympathetic audience. In the same week, Nathan stood in for the director of Tigers who was attending training in Nairobi. This proved to be a great training time for Nathan who faced some huge challenges inc. lack of money at the end of the year, many staff on leave or training and a few cases of Meningitis to top it all off. He handled every situation brilliantly in his usual calm way.

A perfectly timed break followed this hectic time and we headed to Rwanda for 4 nights. This is an impressive country, both in terms of its natural beauty, the smooth roads (amazing what you appreciate) and the gentle strength of the people. We visited the Kigali Genocide Memorial Centre which depicted the terrible events of 1994, the catalysts and the effects. It is impossible to fully understand the devastating effect on the people of Rwanda but it’s undoubtedly important to learn from the simple mistakes which lead to such atrocities. The way that the country has recovered is incredible and the Rwandan people are a shining example of how it is possible to re-build a country after disaster without falling into the trap of corruption. We had a great time of relaxation on the beautiful shores of Lake Kivu followed by a dip at the pool at Hotel Des Milles Colline (AKA Hotel Rwanda).

We spent Christmas at Tudabujja with the boys and 5 of our friends who came to stay. We had a BBQ and played water games, not very traditional but a lot of fun. We then took some time off, house sitting at a place with internet and a washing machine- our idea of heaven these days!

We celebrated New Year with a big group of friends at the stunning location on Sipi Falls, near the Kenyan border. There are 5 water falls in the area, we visited 2 and swam at the bottom of one. We have a new respect for the girl in the Timotei adverts- it was freezing!

There’s always something going on around here. After surviving CHOGM, Ebola hit the headlines. Now, as you’ve no doubt heard, the disputed validity of the elections in Kenya has been an excuse for tribal violence and pointless killings with parts of the country living in terror. In Eldoret, where we have a RETRAK project, hundreds of people sought safety in a church, only for it to be burned down killing over 30 people. Our colleagues, friends and the street children we work with in Eldoret, Nairobi and the rest of Kenya desperately need our prayers of protection. Please pray for the 2 leaders battling over power to look beyond themselves and do what is best for the people.

The rest of East Africa depends on goods such as fuel coming through Kenya but this isn’t possible right now. Of course, this is a minor disruption compared to what’s happening there but it makes life and work tricky when you can’t travel. With scarce resources come high prices; the cost of transport has doubled and food prices will rise too. This can have a crippling effect on families, especially after the expensive festive season and just before school fees are due. So please also pray for Uganda, Rwanda and DRC.

Finally, thank you to everyone who sent cards, texts and gifts for us and the boys. We really appreciate your thoughtfulness and it’s so lovely to know that out of sight doesn’t mean out of mind.

Nice outfit!

It might be pretty chilly back home but it makes me appreciate even more our life here in gorgeously sunny Uganda (and no, I’m not missing scraping the ice of my car window one bit!). It’s been really hot and dry recently, though when it rains it POURS, so you might hear the odd bit of news about flooding still. However, we’re fortunate enough not to be affected out at Tudabujja.

You’ll be pleased to hear that we survived CHOGM- Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. Actually, to avoid the frustrations of our route into town being closed on and off (it’s the road from the airport into Kampala) Nathan and I relocated to the city for a few days, making the most of the 2 extra public holidays generously awarded to keep us commoners out of the way. We didn’t go and see the Queen as we were having far too much fun with our friends at siege parties!

As predicted the event did affect the street boys who were not only rounded up and sent to a detention centre (which is ‘normal’ practice) but were thrown into adult prison cells to ensure that they didn’t escape and make the streets look bad. Not a pleasant experience as you can imagine. So, Tigers put on lots of extra things at our clubhouse so the boys didn’t need to go onto the streets even in the day which seemed to have a great impact.

Down on the farm we’ve had lots of piglets born recently. We’ve also started side lining in school trips. Some classes from various international schools in Kampala have been/booked to spend time on the farm. It’s been great fun for them; collecting eggs, holding chicks, feeding the pigs, watching the cows being milked and planting crops. It’s also been great for me to get back into practice teaching the age I love and a great fundraiser for the project.

In other news a new building is under construction at Tudabujja with 2 school rooms, an office and a medical room. At the moment the boys are being taught under a thatched roof with open sides so you can imagine how problematic teaching can be when a tropical storm heads our way off Lake Victoria!

The community around us continue to be incredibly welcoming and like to make sure we’re fully immersed in the culture. Our LC1 (local chairman) invited us to his daughters introduction ceremony. The Baganda tribe have a tradition that a man hoping to get engaged must go to the bride’s family with his own family and friends and persuade them (through many hours of rituals) that he is a suitable husband…oh, and it helps that he brings them all masses of food, gifts and a couple of cows! We tried to look the part (as you can see in the photo – sexy!) but it mostly made people laugh (as you can tell by the reaction of the security guards behind us). The whole ordeal made Nathan’s nerve wracking phone call to my Dad look like a piece of cake!

I’m performing in the panto next week which must mean that Christmas is just around the corner…oh yes it is!... so hope you’ve checked out RETRAK Wrapped Up. Discover great gifts that make a huge difference in the lives of some of the worlds most vulnerable children. Go on, you know it makes sense, it’s far too cold to go out to shops...just follow the link above.

P.S. Are you proud of me for not mentioning chocolate in this entry?...Doh, just did!! Oh well, now I’ve done it I might as well reopen the competition for sending the most chocolate to PO Box 7737, Kampala, Uganda ;-)

RETRAK Wrapped Up

One of the greatest frustrations about life in Uganda is that everything is all very last minute. Christmas is very different here, instead of fighting your way through crowded shopping centres listening to Slade’s ‘I wish could be Christmas Every Day’ for the 5^th time that hour you can be much more relaxed and casual. Christmas only really starts on Christmas Eve when out of no where the streets are filled with people selling decorations and gifts that you can buy for your loved ones.

Sadly, if you are like me you don’t have the option of being casual and waiting to see what is available on Christmas Eve. I’m not sure Jen would be too impressed with a bottle of perfume bought from a street vendor which is probably 99% water and 1% perfume or a model of baby Jesus with a flashing halo! If you think Christmas would be so much better if you didn’t have to go hunting in shops for the unique gift for the person who has everything they need, then stay right where you are and follow the link to RETRAK Wrapped Up and in a few clicks you could have found that gift for the person who has everything by getting them something for a person who has nothing without having to fight for a parking space and you don’t have to listen to Slade, unless you want to!

We also have a range of RETRAK branded clothing if you want to show your support towards the work amongst street children in Uganda, Kenya and Ethiopia.

If you missed our October Newsletter and would like to hear more about our work and what we’ve been up to then you can get one from Christ Church, Winchester, either of our parents in Walsall and Derby or you can e-mail us at n.j.gregory@talk21.com and we will send one to you.

Thank you all for your support, interest and prays,

Nathan.