There is a sense of coming home, arriving back in Uganda. Village life continues much as it has for many, many years. The women are still harvesting corn, coffee, sorgum and ground nuts, while the men haul huge bunches of green bananas up onto their bicycles and transport them to market. The smells are so familiar - dust coupled with exhaust fumes; while the songbirds fill the air with sound. We are back in Mbarara, after a week in Kampala, and the same "firm" mattresses await us, and we stock up on bottled water to combat the mid-day heat.
It's good to be here, and we look forward to the coming week, when Alice will arrive so we can plan the workshop together (and assemble the new sewing machines). Then on Sunday, all the Bitengye Designers come to Mbarara, and the workshop proper starts on Monday morning. We are feeling a little older than we were at the beginning of this project, but the women (who thought we might never come back), are just as determined as ever to get to work and get sewing. Truly amazing!
