The visitors were delighted to see that the Toyota van the Friends provided is still running strong. While there, they ordered a custom luggage rack to be built and installed on top. 

A pleasant lab has been built for the eight laptops the Friends donated and students were quietly at work. The catering classes are in full swing in the kitchen FOCAGIFO furnished, complete with tile counters, wood cabinets, stove and refrigerator, but not yet with running water.

The catering students served them at tea time and lunch with enthusiasm and style, with tablecloths and intricately folded napkins and flowers on the tables, and the very best food they had in Uganda. At present the students have to carry 5-gallon jerry cans of rain water to the sinks to wash up, but this year’s donation, a new rain water collection tank and delivery system, will soon correct that deficit. FOCAGIFO also provided funds this year to develop the miserable gutted meandering track called a “road” to the campus, and while they were there, work began to straighten, widen, stabilize, and compact a standard dirt road. Paving it will necessitate future funds.

In addition to this obvious physical progress, the students seem more confident in general and especially about speaking English. The Sewanee visitors had several opportunities to engage with them about such topics as relative value of vocational-technical education versus college; about leadership, and in student-lead worship. The elected student leaders show calm dedication in welcoming destitute new students to campus and making sure the staff is informed of their needs. Presently there are 107 students, 14- to 20-years old, HIV orphans or other vulnerable youth. Half of these board at the school; there are 15 girls in one tidy room with two-or-three-level bunk beds, tidy because they have no belongings except a change of clothes. After two years of study they graduate with tools for their chosen trade, such as a pedal sewing machine or a mechanics tool box.

While Marilyn and Sally assisted in painting two classrooms, Tom laid brick for an outdoor stage with offices above. They distributed 150 new T-shirts garnered from surplus supplies of the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, the Sewanee Young Writers’ Conference, and the Sewanee Summer Music Festival.

In retrospect, the peak moment was the dedication of the new rain water tank, which has a colorful ceramic sign embedded in concrete saying “This water project was dearly funded by Sewanee Friends and Commissioned by Ms. Sally Hubbard, Volunteer Executive Director of FOCAGIFO-USA on 8 June 2017. Together Achieving Much More.” That people in Sewanee provide clean water to students in Africa is a modern-day miracle, as joyful for the donors as for the recipients.

The rector and vestry of Otey Church have agreed to assist the Friends with annual fundraising events. To get involved or to donate, please contact Sally at sally@hubbard.net. To donate online, make all your Amazon purchases at smile.amazon.co/ch/32-0455862. The next fundraiser will be a Jambalaya dinner 5–8 p.m., Saturday, Nov. 18, at Otey.