I keep asking myself this question, and the answers are there, but they are multi faceted and probably go back to my early years.
It has been such a serendipitous journey. At first there were the workcamps from 2003-2006. Then I came for a year in 2007. At that time, I found the work situation untenable and I either had to stay and start all over again or I had to go elsewhere. I decided to stay.
The journey seems to divide into chapters. The first chapter would be about an old school friend, Jane Horner Delange. Back in 2003, I stayed with her on my way to Africa for the first time and she seemed inspired by the story and lived the adventure vicariously. She decided to submit my name to our old school in Montreal, Canada for an alumni award. By some strange turn of events, her candidate won and I was given an award of $1,000.00 to take to the school, Bududa Vocational Institute that we had worked so hard to build and to start. For most of my adult life I had been a mother, a housewife, and a second grade teacher - nothing out of the ordinary. So at the age of 60 to be given an award for the work I loved to do in Uganda, seemed an exciting opening to a new chapter in my life. I was given an opportunity to speak to the whole school at an assembly. I showed slides and spoke about my passion. Fourteen of my old classmates came from as far away as California and Vancouver Island. We all spent the weekend together and that was about as good as it gets. I felt supported and in some small way, I felt that I had captivated my old pals with this new twist in my life.
I rented my house, packed it all up and moved to Uganda. Simultaneously, I sent out hundreds of fundraising letters to literally everybody I knew or had ever known and all my many friends and relatives. There were small functions for me at the school that I had been working at and just a flurry of activity as I flew off all by myself to a new life in Uganda.
The next chapter was not quite such a happy one as I arrived in this lovely village to find that the school that we had worked so hard to raise money for was not functioning at all well and all of our money was not going to the school or to the orphans program. It was a lonely and difficult time for me, but as you always read, one learns more from losing than from winning. I grew personally over that time. I had to face my fear and stand up to the person I had trusted. I did and in so doing, learned that I could and nothing bad happened to me, although much was threatened.
From this situation, I had to decide whether to turn tale and go elsewhere, or stay and more or less start all over again by myself. It was not a difficult decision. I wanted to stay in Bududa with my African friends and besides, if I left, there would be no more money going into the project and they would all be out of jobs and the students enrolled in the school would be without a school.
We found another place to operate from; we held a workcamp to prepare it. We opened our doors a month later and we have not looked back since.
Over the last sixteen months that we have been in operation, there have been fifteen volunteers, who have come from Canada and the USA. With each one I have learned new skills and opened doors for the institution. We have been truly blessed with the help we have received: men and women, college students, school students, sixty year olds, bankers, lawyers, successful business men, an actress and a nursery school director. They have each brought their individual skills and their interest to the village. Like me, they have all learned from these villagers about life and another way to live it.
An exciting and serendipitous chapter to this adventure occurred in Jan. of 2008. A Study old girl, Ruth Tait had read about the work I was doing in Uganda in the Study school newsletter and she emailed me, saying that she was younger than me but she remembered me when I was in the sixth form. I knew the name. She was gentle, but inspiring and she stayed in touch and loved to hear about the work and the people I was with. She lives in London and sent a generous donation and then said if I would pass via London on my way to Africa in September, she would host a party for me and see if she could collect donations for the school. Who would pass up an invitation like that? That chapter continues, but as it was happening, the email messages just got better and better. Ruth got the names of all the Study old girls who lived in London or the environs and she sent out invitations. Old school friends came like Desi Dillingham, who has just received an OBE award from the royal family. New friends came and then there was an alum, who graduated in the 40’s and was living in Leeds who came as she had spent ten years of her adult life teaching at a teacher’s college near Bududa.
The gathering was a huge success and such fun for me. In the end, we made from this small gathering, over $5,000.00 and I got to see old friends and relatives and make connections I would never dreamed of making earlier in my life. Besides, I have one friend who was at this function who is coming with her partner for two weeks this summer to teach art and her friend is going to teach math.
Now as far as the blog is concerned, I am going to stop here and post this as there is pressure on me to get something posted.
I will work on the next chapter tonight and see if I can make it all fit together.
Til tomorrow.
Barbara Wybar
Coordinator of Bududa Vocational Institute
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