Africa: The well is in at Nakateete School in Uganda!

One of the unique aspects of education is many times teachers plant "seeds of learning" in our students, yet it may be years before those seeds sprout. In other words, sometimes we get to see the fruits of our labor with our students in real, tangible ways. Other times it may be years down the road or even when they are adults when they use that prized seed that was planted many years prior...and, of course, ....usually the teacher doesn't get to see that! This spring my students who have heard about my experience in Uganda for the last three years surprised me in several ways. One of them won an international art contest with her painting of people in Kenya getting a water well. I also went to Kenya and told the students about my experiences there and showed them hundreds of photos. My students have heard these stories for three years...stories of how many blessings they have....how students in the school I worked in had no water source, had no school supplies of any kind, had never seen a crayon...and so on. But this year I got to see those seeds sprout in the most unexpected way. I have literally been haunted the last three years by an experience I had in Uganda when several men elders of the village invited me to their house, along with two other women, and told us of their great need for a water source. Their youngest children walked miles a day to get water, a dangerous daily trip for these four, five, and six year olds with their big yellow jugs. I always knew that somehow, someway I'd get a plan together to help them get a well. But...the plan began without me! And this is very exciting to me!! My students who were in this year's Recycling Club under the direction of wonderful Aimee Williams decided they wanted to put a water well in Uganda and Aimee knew of an organization, the Holden Uganda Foundation, that could do it. Aimee told me about the project and I was so excited. It took me literally about one-millionth of a second to ask Aimee if we could designate it for Nakateete! That began an investigation to trying to find the Nakateete School, a bit more difficult than you would think. It took a couple of weeks, but the school was located and some pictures sent to me to confirm officially let us designate that as the school I worked in. I saw Pastor Paul in the pics and recognized a couple of the children. Fast forward about two months. I received some photos this past week of the well being installed. It was such a gut wrenching moment for me. I recognized, I thought, quite a few of the children...even though it was three years later...and there was Pastor Paul in all the pics smiling. Pastor Paul works seven days a week as the head of the school without even one day off a year. He is amazing! The children, most are orphans, come from families who have been devastated by HIV/AIDS. In most tiny little mud brick houses, about the size of my bathroom, there is an adult or two of a wide variety of ages (several generations) and maybe 7-15 or more children. In Uganda families take in the HIV/AIDS orphans. It is frowned upon to only have your own family living with you. Upon close investigation....I looked at my photos closely from three years ago and many of the children in the new photos are very obviously children that I taught while I was there! Breathe! Heart stopped a beat! This is the BEST PART OF EDUCATION!!! It's not what "I" do. It's what I "teach." It will go down in history as one of the most awesome things that has happened while I have been teaching to see my students take what they have learned and decide to do something about it. It was one of the biggest joys of my life to get to join the effort! Now...next year we may try to help the village of 7,500 people with no water source get a well, too. (I'm going to go ahead and post this and edit it a bit later! Have an appointment!) This is a slide show of the bore hole for the well being finished, Pastor Paul and the children with their new well: This is a picture of me at Nakateete School in 2010 with students. Quite a few of the children in this picture with me in 2010 are in the picture of the new well! So exciting! They are three years older, but you can still tell it's many of the same students: