Construction

In case you were worried, I am aware that while the subtitle of my blog is “stories of starting a school in Uganda,” I haven’t actually told any stories of starting a school. I think the only explanation I have for that is that most of what I’m doing to start the school at the moment does not rate very high on the Good Story Potential Scale. I spend my days on the computer coming up with policies, manuals, and solutions for hypothetical problems. Believe it or not I enjoy that activity. Someday it will all be useful, but the school doesn’t open until next February!

Recently, however, the school has been really starting to take physical shape. Paul and his 60 plus workers have made some real progress on one of the dormitory blocks and, what is of most interest to me, this week they poured the foundation and floor on the administration building—the future home of my office. The hill in the background will be the view I’ll be looking at from my office window in a few months when we start holding staff and student interviews, filing all this paper I’m creating at the moment and meeting with local officials and dignitaries as we try to get the school registered with the Ministry of Education. Seeing this building well on its way makes this whole project seem very real!

(Just before taking this photo, one of our guard dogs woke up from his nap right in the middle of the wet cement. I was sorry not to have gotten the shot sooner!)

So there is a brief look at a school coming together—it’s a huge task! But I continue to grit my teeth and repeat “Is no problem!”