A nice little Sunday in Katakwi

We currently have a volunteer photographer and videographer in residence capturing business success stories. As mentioned in the last post, one of the success stories is a former grant recipient by the name of Hellen.  On Sunday, we hit the road at around 8 a.m. to make the drive to Katakwi, to Hellen's home village to see where she grew up, meet her family and some of the people she has helped, and to see the church she is building in her community. 

The road to Katakwi isn't exactly a "Sunday drive." The landscape is beautiful, but it's about 1.5 to 2 hours of rough, dusty roads, with yours truly behind the wheel. Our first destination was Hellen's church. It was really neat to see, and we received a very warm welcome of signing and dancing when we arrived. Similar to my last church visit in Kenya, it was quite a lengthy experience -- 3 hours to be exact. And now that we're in the midst of dry season in Uganda, it was sweltering!  I think it was actually a good thing that the walls had not been built yet, as it allowed for a bit more of a breeze than we might have received otherwise. 

Entering the unfinished church in Katakwi

The choir in action

There was lots of singing and dancing, which was fun, and then testimonials about how parishioners were born again. And even though we were in a remote village, there was the requisite speaker/amplifier system running off a generator. 

Hellen giving her testimony (wearing a dress she made)

Speaker system

They also had reading of testimony, a sermon and an offering. For the occasion, I wore one of my African dresses, and was told at one point during the day that I had a body like a true African!

Church in session

The offering

With Hellen and my colleague in African dress

Next we were invited to lunch at Hellen's parents' compound. It was an amazing feast!!  As I mentioned in the last post, Hellen has a restaurant and a catering company, so she was well-prepared to put on an amazing spread!

Entering Hellen's parents' compound for lunch with the parishioners 

Feast of posho, rice, chicken, beans, cabbage, dodo (greens) and sweet bananas 

Game board made in the dirt with seeds 

Afterwards we went to a local trading center in Katakwi to interview one of the women than Hellen had trained through her tailoring school.

Tailoring shop in Katakwi's main trading center 

Afterwards, since we were in the area, we went ahead and visited some current business owners, including some that owned goats, and one that had a grinder business. 

Business owner with his business mentor and his children

Business group with their goats 

Woman preparing millet grain for the grinder

Hand crank grinder

Business owner grinding millet 

We also got to see the business savings group's cash box. Some of the groups in the area had the idea to get these savings boxes to safeguard their money as it began to accumulate.  Since there are 3 people in a business group, the boxes have 3 locks with 3 different keys--one for each business owner.  They also decorated their boxes. 

Business group's cash box 

It was good excursion to the field, though quite tiring. After a white-knuckled drive home, we got back around 7:30 p.m.  Quite a big day!  I think I went to bed by 9 that night.