Movements

We are leaving Uganda on July 17th.

There it is, the big news. We have known about this for sometime, but for various reasons have had to keep it quiet on cyberspace. We are departing a bit sooner than planned, and though we have got used to the idea of leaving, we are a bit heavy-hearted at the same time.

So why the early exit? Well, here is the good reason. There is peace now in Northern Uganda, after 18 years of civil war. After years of living in displacement camps, people are beginning to return to their villages and become self-sufficient again. Medair - who for years provided emergency humanitarian assistance in the Northern states - are shrinking their programmes accordingly, so that the private investors and development people can take over. This is entirely a good thing - if the emergency NGO's outstay their usefulness, they create problems (e.g. dependency culture), rather than solve them.

This, plus the less good reason (global financial crisis), means that there is a lot less money in the pot. One of the toughest periods for R at work was making Ugandan staff redundant - 5 people in Kampala, 30 in the field. It was a time of serious soul-searching for us too. We realised that our family (R's salary, our house etc) is expensive to the programme. So Rob basically sacked himself. There is a lovely, extremely competent single man who is taking over - and he will rough it in the team house like everyone else. (We did suggest moving into the team house, but they said no! Maybe I shouldn't have mentioned Gloria's 5.30 waking habit.)

Yet through all the uncertainty, we've seen God's incredible faithfulness. Most of the staff have got new jobs. We don't have anything lined up work-wise yet, but we feel at peace about this. We're considering going overseas again, some further study for R...I might even go back to nursing (arggh! arggh!)

But we're not in the departure lounge just yet. There is still plenty to do, like handover Sweetshop to the right people (details to follow in another post), find my wedding ring, and of course, catch the rat. Would it be creepy to then stuff him and take him back to England?