Season’s greetings from the equator and the warmest holiday wishes (the bureaucrats behind this operation won‘t let me say “Merry Christmas,” but you know what I mean) from the entire MAPLE Uganda family!!!!
I sincerely hope that this letter finds you all well and winding down your 2009 in great élan! I must admit the MAPLE Uganda team (Caitlin, Rachel, Luke, Nasser, Dennis, Brad, and Joel) is missing the champagne, but, in consolation, has found an excellent alternative in millet beer. Not quite as smooth or carbonated as the stuff you will be enjoying, but it can certainly do the trick if one just remembers to strain out the bigger chunks!
The past several months have been filled with taxing but absorbing NGO work, and I have much to talk about! Nobody has gotten married yet, though I think you’ll recall hearing about how we had to restrain Luke from eloping to Mombasa with that Kenyan, and the only growing this family has done is closer! Luke, or, “Lucky Luke” as we sometimes like to call him after the type of diaper rash, has done quite well. Our field director, when he is not coordinating training sessions, planning tree farms, writing business plans or visiting rural villages, has donned the apron and hairnet and enjoys fine tuning his domestic skills. (Sometimes I think the Kenyan girl was terribly unlucky, as Luke is a wizard in the kitchen, but there are occasions, chilli nights to be specific, when I think that she, and her olfactory gland, escaped in the nick of time!)
Caitlin and Rachel have done equally well, and this family is gosh darn proud of ’em! Aside from their daily MAPLE duties, the girls have found time to start up a women’s empowerment group with local high school girls. For some reason they don’t let this handsome bachelor attend any of the meetings, but I hear they are a blast! These two lovely young ladies are really taking Mbale by storm; indeed, the men of this house have already had to reject several offers from local men asking for their hands in marriage. I guess we are waiting for the right offer (as of now we’re thinking four cows for each girl, or the two-set for the excellent deal of only six cows and a goat). Having these two great leaders on the team makes MAPLE’s goal of educating Uganda’s burgeoning female class fun and promising.
We love you Caitlin and Rachel!!!!!
Let me not forget Dennis and Nasser, our two strapping young Makarere University Business School graduates who have opted to forgo their customary party-collegiate-style-while-living-in-your-parents’-basement year and actually gain some good employment experience. And that is why we couldn’t be happier to have them! Quick to give us great ideas about how to work together as a team and produce results, they have been most helpful in making this one, big, cohesive family! So industrious are they, in fact, that the two have even managed to find a way to get work done while surfing the Facebook website!
Brad, ironically the only male here with a significant other back home, seems to be getting most of the attention from the Ugandan females. (I think that I, too, will try growing a handlebar mustache!) But he has not time for girls anyway. Whether he is directing a city-wide trash cleanup, or just elbows deep in household waste making fuel briquettes, our Brad always comes to the dinner table on time with only a light amount of expletives! We are so very proud of what he has accomplished, now if he’d only share some of those phone numbers with your’s truly!!!!
The MAPLE family here in Uganda is doing quite well, and, pending Luke’s arraignment, will continue to try its best to do so. Furthermore, it is so very thankful for all of the support it has received from friends, family, colleagues and hangers-on over the past year. It therefore offers you again, the heartiest of holiday greetings!
Best wishes,
Joel and the rest of the MAPLE Uganda family!
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