The plane departing Newark was a couple hours late, but it was the best overseas flight I’ve had in my life. I used miles to upgrade to business, and the seats converted to flat beds, so I slept 7.5 hours straight and felt great when Sue and their driver, Hope, collected me. It’s been wet in Uganda, so while the temp is cool (around 80), it is also muggy.
Met Sue and Phil Mandy on my last trip in 2010 when I stayed with Peter and Grace French, formally at USF. They are wonderful hosts, and I felt at home. We had dinner of shrimp and rice at the Guest House restaurant, then went back to their university home. It’s an interesting place – built in a square around a lovely open-to-air enclosure; all the rooms are behind the hallways that enclose the garden.
Before Phil returned from work, Sue and I chatted about what had been going on since I last met them. Sue told me about trying to volunteer at the Basic Primary School on the university and her huge dismay when she saw children practicing their writing with their left hand tied behind their back if they were left-inclined (even at the university, it was not tolerated), lack of provisions for special needs, and her witnessing of a young child being severely beaten by an older student who was told to take over the classroom for an absent teacher. She said there is high absenteeism among teachers, and though the university is aware of the conditions, it turns a blind eye to it, and the professors send their children to expensive private schools, leaving the university school to children of staff. I told her this procedure sounds similar to that in poor districts in the US (without the extreme child treatment).
She told me of an abandoned child who she and Phil have been trying to help. Joseph started showing up near their home when they first arrived in Ghana. She discovered he had been given to a divorced 60-year old woman through her church, and she used him as a servant. He rarely went to school and would show up to Sue with bleeding hands from the canings he received. She has done some battle with social services and finally was able to have him placed in a good orphanage in Accra with a good school supporting it.
Tomorrow I set out for Buduburam. It feels good to be here again!
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