Dear friends and family (and whoever else might be reading), After two years Erin has gone back to America. I tried to post this while she was still in the air but computers (need I say more?). She left Tuesday, March 18th at almost midnight (Ugandan time) and landed around 4:00pm EST the next day. With the time change it was a full 24 hours of traveling. She says it went without a single snag and luckily this picture isn't the last we've seen of her luggage. The two women in the picture with Erin are her counterpart, "Olive," and her daughter. They insisted on seeing Erin off and were not deterred in the slightest by the distance and the lateness of Erin's departure. Olive has been like a mother to us in our time here and she was very sad to see Erin go. Erin will also surely miss Olive and her family as well as many other Ugandans and fellow Peace Corps volunteers. The up side is that Erin went home for a good reason. During a routine Close of Service medical check-up, Erin was tested and found pregnant. Now this is still very early on in the process, so we can't get our hopes too high. Erin is about nine weeks in now. She tells me the embryo should be about the size of a grape. Pretty cool, and we are very excited about the prospect of becoming parents. This has come at a very good time for us as we have been waiting to start having children, for the past seven years, until we had completed our service. Erin had completed her work early so there wasn't much else to do but pack a few bags and say her good-byes to dear friends. As for me, I have not finished my work, so I need to stay here for a couple more months. As my project recently completed raising funds to construct a new borehole well, I will stay until that is completed. The contractor insists that they will be able to do the work the second week of May. This pushes my departure back a bit, but I don't believe that I will need to stay beyond the end of May (at least that's what I'm hoping and praying for) to wrap up everything. So while it is hard being apart, I have no doubt that we'll manage. It may take a few phone calls though). Erin is staying with her brother now and will be flying up to stay with her parents in the coming week. We are still planning our cross-country roadtrip so if you want us to stop by, please let us know. So, TTFN. Love, Steve

Greetings from Kampala, Uganda! Well, here we are in the new year. Happy New Year to you all. The borehole fundraising is moving forward. We’ve raised about a third of the total cost. Thanks to all those who have already contributed! We really appreciate it and we cannot convey how much the people of the villages appreciate your consideration. We will be sure to post pictures of the completed wells but in the meantime, we’ll work on getting picture of the community or water development committee or some of the water development committee members. OK, so the best I could find right now is a swamp near the community. Sorry, we'll work on it.

Erin’s been busy trying to find organizations to help the AIDS support organization that she’s assigned to and Steve’s been tearing his hair out trying to complete applications for seminary by the end of the month. Being half a world away DOES make a difference, even in this day and age of information. Politely reminding people to submit letters of recommendation is not so easy when the primary mode of communication is email. Personal statement essays have been a bit difficult for Steve as he hasn’t had much experience writing out long-hand. It may sound weird to some, but it is very different and poses some problems when dealing with “typed, double-spaced,” length requirements. God’s will be done. J We spend many hours planning our return to the States and dreaming of the year to come with seminary and a lift on the baby-ban we’ve had ever since planning on entering the Peace Corps. We talk about what kind of job Erin might be able to get and what kind of car we might get when we get back. We haven’t heard from many people that they want us to visit during our cross-country road-trip yet. I know it’s a bit difficult to say if you want us to visit without at least a vague idea of when we might be coming your way, but we also can’t tell when we might be in a region without knowing how long we will be spending in a region. Kind of a Catch 22 but we’ll try to get out of it by working from general to specific. We expect to leave Florida by the end of June which means we’ll be hanging out with friends and family there and going to the beach while we wait for the rest of our readjustment allowance to come in so that we can buy our car. From there we expect to head towards Kentucky to visit Lexington Theological Seminary, North Carolina to visit Duke, and Tennessee to visit Erin’s parents. We expect all that to take a few weeks and then we expect to be moving across the southern states (through Texas and Arizona, maybe) to reach California, to visit Starr King and Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley. Then we’ll move across the north (through the pacific-northwest, Montana and South Dakota). Our end game for the last part of our trip is a bit open. The only place we are sure that we don’t want to miss is our friend’s lake-house in Quebec. So that’s what got so far. We’ll keep you all informed. Take care.

Yeah! We just found out recently that one of Steve's borehole well projects has been put up on the Peace Corps Partnership website so that we may solicit funds to help the people reach their goal. The site is https://www.peacecorps.gov/resources/donors/contribute/regioncontrib.cfm?region=africa& Just scroll down to "Uganda" and you'll see our two borehole projects. This is very good news as we need to raise the money quickly so that we can complete the project in the coming months before we return home. We'll need to have the project finished three months before going home so that we can complete all the reporting for the funding received. We expect to be returning to Florida around the end of May, 2008. We won't know the exact date until Feb. when we expect to be getting the ticket. We should be closing our service here in Uganda around the middle of May and we want to stop for a few days in Europe on our way home, to break up the trip into manageable lengths of time.

Here we are again in a strangely hot holiday season. Talk about Christmas has started coming in on the radio and we are still here sweating like crazy. But, I have to say that with the completion of our service (only 6 more months to go) looming in our near future we are feeling quite excited. The holidays have been some of the hardest times for me here as far as homesickness goes. I miss almost everything. Of course, anyone who knows me knows I really do not like shopping very much but I miss a lot of other things. I miss the transformation that always takes place in the houses and along the streets. Everyone gets all geared up. I miss my mother's giddiness she gets when she starts putting out the Christmas tree and decorations, which should be pretty much as soon as Thanksgiving is over. I miss the movies. I would say that I missed snow and the changing of leaves too but, having lived in Florida for so long, I think I have become more numb to that emotion. It does get much colder in Florida than it does here, though. I don't know. Americans have a certain way of really making you feel the season. Here things come and go with very little change. I actually forgot about the Fourth of July this year. I only remembered after having talked to one of our friends who started telling me what she would be doing for the holiday. It was very odd to forget about something that I have been doing every year of my life. At least I will be celebrating my birthday when we get back. I'll be 29 years old. I've come to that mystical age that women seem to be determined to remain for the rest of their lives. Will it really be that great I wonder? I sure hope so but I sure can't complain too much about the years I've had already. I live a pretty blessed life. I don't think I could have dreamed of spending my 20's with as much adventure as I have had. It's been great. It will be hard to imagine me settling down but I think I might finally be ready for that when we get back... We'll see what happens. Speaking of birthdays, Steve just had his yesterday. He is now 33 years old and still claims that he has always been content with whatever age he is. He is doing well. We are on our way back to site now after visiting some friends in the southwest. The transport there and back has been quite tedious, as usual, but we had a really nice visit. I am more and more amazed at how many incredible Americans I have met here. It does really take a certain kind of person to serve like this. I have never felt near as good as any of them but I have managed to get some things done. I sent some crafts home to Florida to sell at a market at our church there and I found out yesterday that just about everything sold! I am so happy for that! Maybe people will be getting some really neat Christmas presents this year. I know that money will help the ladies here. They are all widows and can use all the help they can get.

We are starting to get ready for the leaving process. We have so many things that we have to decide what to do with. Some things we'll be giving away, some things we might try to sell, some things we'll ship back and some things we'll carry. It is not easy to think of how to get rid of everything. We have so many things we really want to bring back. We've bought souvenirs and still plan on buying more. I'm sure we'll manage somehow but I think this will be the first move we've made where we will start going through our things more than a couple weeks in advance. There is a certain anticipation that is present in our moods now. I feel like many of the things that really get to me here I can just deal with now. I've been dealing with it for this long, I think I can handle the little time that is left. We've been talking a lot about things we miss again but in a different way. There are many things I don't even remember missing. There is excitement about the trip back and there is also a nervousness. Adjusting back is one of the most difficult parts about service, they say. A friend of ours gave us the advice to start thinking about all the differences now to prepare and we are trying. I think there will be a time when it will be difficult, though. I have heard many people freak out in the grocery store because they are so overwhelmed with all the selection. That may sound silly but I can see it. I'm sure we'll be fine. It'll just be more of the adventure and then it will be ROAD TRIP! Can't wait to get back and see all your wonderful faces again...

Within tribes, there are many clans. My kiganda (from Buganda tribe) name is, "Nsubuga." When a Muganda (a person from the Buganda tribe) hears my name, he usually automatically knows that I am a member of the "Mamba" (lungfish) clan. Likewise, Erin's kiganda name, "Nayiga" is from the "Engabi" (Ugandan Kob) clan. No one is permitted to eat the totem animal of their clan or to marry someone of the same clan. People of your clan are therefore considered family. Therefore, the Local Counsel (L.C.) chairman, for the sub county in which we live, calls me "brother" because he is also from the Mamba clan. He also insisted on giving my father the name "Mubiru" so that my father would have the proper name from our clan.

It is not just about names though. These extended families can be very large so that a person may become obligated to a person they have never met. Many people that have promise move to the city and do not go back to the village because they are afraid that they will become bogged down in responsibilities for extended family members. The above picture is of Erin's counterpart, Olive, and many of her children and grandchildren and even some of her co-wife's children. However, the old sense of community has not completely eroded away even though people are called upon to care for more and more children, due to deaths to disease and people running off to Kampala.

Name: Mrs. Clemence Kobusingye Matovu

Age: 53

Religion: Catholic Personal statement: I have been married since 1977 and have two daughters. I would like some kind people or organization to help me to visit Rome. I have always dreamed of visiting Rome since 1969, when Pope Paul VI visited Uganda. I was in primary grade six and I still dream of visiting Rome and other Holy places. Steve's view: I met Mrs. Matovu in a village not far from our site. She owns and operates a shop that sells miscellaneous things to the people of her community. She is very kind and optimistic. She came to the banquet we held for our parents when they visited our site. We have worked together to help her community to develop their water resources. While I am not currently working with her or her community, every encounter I have had with her has been enjoyable. She is sincere in her request and I don't see any way that she could realize this dream without outside help.

Name: Ssegawa Emmanuel

Nationality: Ugandan

Religion: Catholic

Hobbies: Reading and sharing info on personal finance

Ambition: Expand my personal Finance Library to cover a bigger number of people. JEMMY Personal Finance Library (JEPEL) Our Motto: Only you can make you rich. Our vision: Uganda with Financially independent people Our Mission Statement: To improve people's financial literacy by promoting access to personal finance information. Our Core Values: Honesty, Integrity, creativity, transparency, and valuing customer's needs. Resources Available: Rich Dad Poor Dad, Rich Dad's Cash Flow Quadrant, Rich Dad's Guide to Investing, Rich Dad's -- The Business School, Think and Grow Rich, What Rich People Know and Desperately Want to Keep Secret, and many other personal finance articles and products. Steve's view: We met "Emma" through the organization Peace Corps assigned Erin to work with. He is smart, friendly, very open to new ideas and progressive in his thinking. He works with an organization that has (until very recently) been funding Erin's host organization. He was recently promoted and as a result we haven't seen him as much as we had, due to the move. His idea for the library is proof of his fantastic determination to not only improve his own situation but that of those around him. He is an excellent example of the creative potential and drive to succeed exhibited in some Ugandans. We are very much encouraged in our work, to help the people of Uganda to develop their nation, when we meet people like Emma. We thought that there might be someone reading this blog with related books or articles that might want to send something to Emma. We would be most happy to help get those materials to him.

Name: Kasule Vincent

Age: 16

Tribe: Muganda

Nationality: Uganda

Religion: Catholic

Hobbies: Football(soccer), basketball, Drama

Ambition: To become a priest My names Kasule Vincent

I am a boy aged 16, who studies at Sacred Heart Seminary, Mubende. I am in Senior three. My vocation is to become a priest.

My hobbies are => playing football, volleyball, cycling, basketball, music, and drama.

I was born in Uganda and I am a Ugandan.

My interests are to visit friends out of Uganda like in Europe and America.

I was born on 8th of October 1990.

I completed my primary level in 2005. Steve's view: This boy approached us asking for help to continue his education. I believe that he is currently going to the Catholic secondary school in our town. He has returned several times I believe that he is sincere in his desire to become a priest. I would be happy to get details, from the parish Priest, regarding this boy and the obstacles he may face in the future if anyone shows interest. Just let us know via email.

Name: Mugenyi Hosea

Age: 20

Occupation: Student

Marital Status: Single

Tribe: Muganda

Nationality: Uganda

Religion: Christian

Favorite Food: Rice

Hobbies: Gospel Music

Ambition: To become a lawyer I am an orphan but what I want to help is to pay for me my school fees because I really want to study but my parents died so please help me. God bless you. Steve's View: I only see this young man during holidays, which leads me to believe that he is attending school somewhere else. His English is fair as you can see from the unedited statement above. It may be of interest that a child is considered an orphan when at least one of their parents dies. I was under the impression that this young man was the son of Kamya Ssanyu (presented in another profile) although it is completely possible that he is a nephew (or even less closely related) to her(see posting on clans and extended families).

Name: Kamya Ssanyu Tezira I am a widow with many children yet they are lacking school fees. Can anyone help my by sponsoring my children as I am a widow. I do not have anything to do for work and I am having a health problem of the liver and I do not even have the money for medicine. So, if anyone could please help me with that problem, I would really appreciate it. God bless you. Steve's view: This is the mother(?) of Martin Ssebuma and Mugenyi Hosea. I've helped to clarify the above statement. Her eldest son translated for her. Her English is not better than my Luganda. I really don't know how true any of her claims are. She is wearing a "gomez," the traditional dress of the Baganda.