Ruhanga, Uganda

We volunteered for a week in a small community program started and run by one of the local village members. In six years with the help of other volunteers, Denis has built a community school, a fresh water source and a bunch of other goodies including gardens, a women’s craft group and a computer club. The school is the main attraction and is located in the beautiful Kigezi Highlands west of Mbarara in a place called Ruhanga. It was quite the trip to get out there from Kampala and on our way there our bus was continually boarded by men selling big sticks of what looked like plastic meat, but smelled amazing. A few times these venders didn’t get off the bus in time and were stuck on board for kilometers at a time.

Since we were at the school during their holiday break, there were not many students around, but there were still chores to do. In the mornings we would milk the cows with Frank and then clean and paint the school rooms.

In the afternoons we’d grade the land and save the orange trees! An orange grove was recently started and the trees were young and overgrown with weeds… but even Ugandan weeds weren’t tough enough to survive the Kevin and Robin gardening combo.

We worked with a really fun group of people from the UK who really made the evenings fun. There was something special about playing camp fire games and drinking liquor from plastic bags!