Saturday Decorating is a weekend job.

Last night had the whole team sharing there experiences almost universally about people facing adversity with a strength and pride that is humbling. Today we are visiting two areas where the support of WaterAid has had a big impact on the villages and their people.

We are getting a lot of coverage in the Ugandan press and have been on National TV a few times now. Here in the much more Rural areas communication is not so good. We visited a rural village (not got notes) where we split in small groups to help villagers. The lady I helped, Grace, was decorating her house. We first smeared black soil based mud over all the wall and floor and then smoothed it as best we could. Then the children brought some red earth which we used for a design around the base of the hut. I am very proud of my handy work and will hopefully get photo tomorrow to show you. We also helped collect water from a clean source, but it was down a really really steep and muddy path. Women and children were carrying 20 litre jerrycans on their heads up this slope. I had to scramble, and those jerry cans are heavy.

We then were welcomed by the full village under the big tree in the centre, watched from afar by Collobus monkeys. The leader was very independant and spoke strongly about the success the villagers had achieved about for themselves. Quite rightly too, the aid offered by WaterAid enables people to help themselves and given the opportunity they do.

The afternoon was filled with a visit to another village. I don't have the exact stats with me but they have moved from 6% to nearly 90% of the village with Pit Latrines and access to safe, clean water in under a year. It was really humbling to be praised so by the people of the village, but very rewarding to see that when the initial support is offered, if backed by a good Local Authority and an good village leader real change can occur. The tidiness of the village and the health of the children was noticable in comparison to others visited.

This village had mainly "model homesteads" which have separate latrines, separate kitchen/cooking area and drying racks for cleaned pots and pans and are near to a clean borehole. As his becomes the norm in a village, I have seen it demonstrated that this frees up time and keeps people from illness allowing for the establishment of solid communities and ancillary businesses.

I want to emphasise that all these improvements would still be seen as abject poverty by the majority of you reading this.