Important meeting I forgot to include

As of 7PM last night, we are all home, safe and in one piece. Our fearless leaders, John and Sue were waiting with their luggage, mostly filled with baskets from the village, in the lobby outside of baggage claim—tired and very ready to be home, as were we all.

They stayed in Amsterdam for a couple days to visit a friend who is battling cancer. He was going in for stem cell replacement therapy the day they started for home. Please include him in your thoughts and prayers.

I’ve taken a couple days off from this blog to rest, attempt to get caught up at work and to down load the hundreds of pictures I will share in some format, soon.

Speaking of baskets from the village, in re-reading the blog I was racing to finish before we got on the bus for the airport, I see I missed a very important event that happened Feb. 11th. Lucy, Generous and yours truly, visited the umbrella woman’s organization known as the National Association of Women’s Organizations of Uganda, or NAWOU, (www.nawou.interconnection.org/). The objective was to get the baskets and bead necklaces from the HIV/AIDS women of the village into their fair trade program for selling throughout the world.

We met with Peace, a woman Lucy had contacted via the internet before we left on the trip. Peace was not the person we would ultimately need to talk to, that person was out for the day, but Peace was very positive about the hand work and thought there would certainly be a possibility for inclusion into their program.

We also learned about the many other programs this organization provides the women of this country. Not only would they be able to help teach the women about better quality and consistency in their hand work but this organization proactively promotes changes to women’s rights law’s in the country a much needed activity from the stories we were hearing during our trip.

We were out of time for a follow up visit to these offices, but Generous was already setting an appointment for further discussions as we were leaving.