Weekend Update

We’ve been working intensely this past week on following two issues here in Mbarara and neighboring Rakai District. Continuing our focus on Minh’s water purification project, Gordon and Noah spent last Saturday and Monday with a local family affected by the current lack of clean water. They filmed the daily routine of Henry and Kate Kabagambe, the parents, and their five children. Henry is a farmer who peddles Matoke to Mbarara three times a week, maintains a herd of cattle, and is building a new structure intended for market stalls to be rented to locals. He and his family have suffered through much sickness as a result of bacteria-infested water. The construction of the new water treatment tank (see previous post for a picture) will directly impact their quality of life.

On Sunday, while Noah and Billy drove to Rakai to meet child-headed households (children who have lost their parents to AIDS and now support their siblings and other relatives) for one of our other focuses in this film, Nicki, Gordon and Stephanie filmed a local funeral for George, a father who had died of AIDS, leaving behind his wife, Grace, and eight children. They captured a moving interview with Grace and her kids as they began for the first time to contemplate their future without a husband and father. AIDS has had a devastating impact in this region since its beginnings in the early 1980s in nearby Rakai District. Another Peace Project we are focusing on is that of Libby Mooers, a Columbia University graduate who has been working with AIDS orphans to set up personal bank accounts and furnish textbooks, trying to determine what gives these kids the strongest sense of agency in their own futures and desire to pursue their own educations.

Noah, Gordon and Billy traveled to Rakai District on Tuesday night to pursue an example of a child-headed household for our focus on the AIDS issue. They spent Wednesday and Thursday with Tefulo Nyangabo, a 14 year-old boy who lost both of his parents to AIDS seven years ago. He has been supporting his 11 year-old brother and his disabled uncle who suffered a spinal chord injury when their hut collapsed during a rainstorm.  Gordon and Noah followed Tefulo as he gathered and prepared food, did the laundry and dishes, and went to school for a half-day only to leave early to earn some money by digging in a neighbor’s garden. Tefulo lives in an isolated hut on the side of a steep mountain, surrounded by rolling hills and farmland. When compared to Tefulo’s daily routine, the exhaustion they felt upon returning to Mbarara after two full days of filming seemed somehow manageable.

This weekend we are taking some time to review and edit footage. Noah and Gordon will film Henry peddling his Matoke to Mbarara tomorrow morning, and Stephanie and Nicki will return to Rakai on Sunday to film a follow up interview with Tefulo. Then it’s back to Kampala next week in time for Todd Sandler’s arrival on August 2^nd.