lots of people visit Ruhiira

Everyone at the MVP office was immersed last week in preparation for the visit on Saturday of Jeff Sachs, the director of the Earth Institute and Josette Sheeran, the head of the World Food Program. In addition to those two, there were governmental officials, large staffs, armed police, and press people- maybe 50-80 people in long lines of UN white landrovers. There's thick dust kicked up with one vehicle so the line made an impressive cloud. On one particularly steep dirt road, our driver slowed (unusual as they are very confident and skilled drivers) as he couldn't see 3 feet in front of him. The visit was a combination of chaos and celebration. The tour of Ruhiira for the visitors was similar to the one I did last week. However, this time, there were children or community people at every stop lining the entrances, singing and clapping hands. At one stop there were long and many speeches (there's a lot of gratitude for what's been done and a lot of need left; also the WFP director announced ongoing purchasing of beans from the community which the WFP uses to feed people in disaster areas and Jeff Sachs announced ongoing MVP support phase 2 through 2015) so that by the end of the tour the group split in two and we walked/jogged to and from the site. There were so many people to move and it all happened so abruptly that sometimes my ride was there and sometimes not. However, people are generally very congenial about having one more person crammed into an already packed car. I also had the opportunity of meeting Sonia Sachs, who kindly arranged my connection to this project. I am very glad I was able to get here when I did as Kampala is, by their report, jam packed with people and security checks for the African Union summit taking place there. I'm hoping to go back to villages (far from security issues!)to start my assessment in the near future, but I'm waiting for the official green light. In the meantime I'm trying to use my time to learn about the enormous number of things I don't know (OB, Quality of care, Uganda, Runyankole (the local language- although I can count to 10, say how are you/thank you/water it doesn't get me too far). The photo is at the same water site as last time, now with with lots of greeters- no photos of the dust clouds!