Day 2 in Uganda

Today's agenda is breakfast at 9:00am, Watoto orientation at 12:00, lunch and money exchange at Garden City mall and then a craft market.
The day started out early, 5:30am. The time difference has us all messed up. Shannon and I took the opportunity to sit out on the veranda after getting ready for the day. We waited for the other girls to join us and then has a delicious breakfast that the ladies at the guest house prepared for us. We eat our meal and all split up to do some last minute things before heading to the Watoto church for our orientation.
When we arrived at the church, Harry took us for a tour of the building. Its a large concrete building. The building used to be a military detention center. Watoto had approached the military to see if they could use the building when it was no longer used as a detention center and was denied. Two years later they approached them again and said that they would put a new coat of paint on the building so finally the military agreed to let Watoto use it. After the war ended and the government changed, the building was left empty. Watoto purchased the building and Watoto (then KPC) church was established. Each Sunday there are 4 services held at the church with approximately 1800 people attending each individual service.
Brenda welcomed us to our orientation and introduced us to Pastor Humphrey who told us all about what the Watoto church does in Uganda. It not only has the Watoto Childrens villages which gives homes to orphaned and abandoned children but it also has the Bulrushes baby home and Living hope, a ministry that helps woman who are living with HIV or AIDS. These programs teach the children and woman how to be self sustainable. Watoto's motto is "not to give a hand out but to give a hand up".
The church has such a community presence that the rate of HIV has decreased to 6.7% in Uganda. This is down from over 50% of the population being infected.
After Pastor Humphrey spoke to us Jean from sponsorship told us how the sponsorship program worked. Each child, house mother or woman from living hope that is sponsored has 8 different sponsors. To sponsor a child or house mother is $35/month and to sponsor a woman in the living hope program is $40/month. You can also sponsor the Bulrushes baby home as a whole.
We then met John, who is head of the building department for the villages. He explained the building process to us, rules and what to expect and showed us the site plans for Suubi 2, the village where we would be building house 65.
We finished up the orientation by watching a short documentary on Watoto. We then visited the ladies at living hope and saw the products that they make to sell. There were beautiful dolls, jewelery, table runners and place mats. We got to talk to some of the ladies and some volunteers from Australia that were there helping.
After finishing up the church we headed to Garden City mall for lunch. On route Harry warned us about the experience we would have at the food court. When arriving at the food court we got a table to hold all 8 of us. As we were about to sit a person from each vendor in the food court came at us with menus. Each menu is put in front of you and each vendor is putting his/her menu on top of the one already in front of you. If you are not quick they are each pointing out things to eat. This can be very overwhelming. A couple of the girls didn't even know what they had ordered until their dish was placed in front of them. This was quite an experience.
When we finished eating we went to the grocery store in the mall to get some snacks and change our money.
We left the mall and headed to a local craft market. There were so many beautiful pieces. Wood carvings made of ebony, painted soap stone bowls, hand painted stools, jewelry and much, much more. We only had an hour to shop so we had a quick look and by then it was time to head back to the guest house.
We had another wonderful dinner complete with fresh pineapple. I have never tasted pineapple so good!
We experienced our first power outage in the middle of a game of cards. It became an early night to bed.