UK Team arrive in Uganda
Education Conference Begins
Dear Friends,
Our second night in Lake Victoria Granada Hotel in Entebbe was rather short, as we had to be packed & ready for 6 a.m. The hotel had generously provided a huge cooked picnic breakfast which was rather more than most could cope with, on top of minimal sleep for some! Patrick, the lovely driver well known to CRESS & his son, Christopher (now part of his father’s business) squeezed in our vast array of luggage - much of which is gifts for the people we support - & off we went, still in the dark for the Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) airport at Kajjinski about 30 mins away.We met Dr Nicholas Kalyebara , the Chairman of the CRESS Africa, at the airport who joined us on the trip to the CRESS Education Conference being held at the WYAM facility in Arua.
The new main road from Entebbe to Kampala is excellent - very different to the dirt, potholed road we then bumped along towards the airport. The small building was crammed by us & another flight juggling luggage & trying not to get it muddled! Every piece of luggage is opened for security as there is no scanner. Both it & we were weighed. The process was lengthy - patience is learned at the airport! Although we were in a basic building, there is a large MAF office building alongside and as we walked out to our aircraft we heard familiar godly songs. Wim, from the Netherlands was our pilot & efficiently organised people’s seating to balance the aircraft. It was misty as we took off & climbed to about 10,000 feet, so visibility was variable. However, our pilot was happily confident with our progress & after a bit, took out his picnic breakfast!
Having landed from the red dirt runway at Arua, we were greeted by the CRESS office staff dressed in their smart green polo shirts. It was wonderful to have big hugs with those I knew & delightful to meet the other office staff, including Isaac Soro the new, very efficient Director.
We were whisked off first to see the new offices of CRESS in Arua. The building is spacious and the CRESS team has done an amazing amount of work to create a potentially very productive garden with vegetables including tomatoes, cucumbers and kale. We were also served a delicious breakfast and sat on their new dining room chairs. We then stopped at our hotel, the Tsuba, for a short break before heading to meet with the Uganda minister responsible for managing over 450,000 South Sudanese refugees who are living in refugee camps in the immediate facility ( There are a total of 1.7 million South Sudanese refugees living in N Uganda). He spoke to us at some length about the facilities for the refugees, the efforts to accommodate and encourage them and he seemed genuinely appreciative of the work CRESS has done to support the refugees.
We ended the day being welcomed by the exuberant attendees at the CRESS Conference. We were impressed at the good attendance of students and parents as well as CRESS staff. We had the opportunity for a brief catch-up with some folks we had not seen in some cases for several years. Testimonies from CRESS graduates were most encouraging.
More stories of students tomorrow
Pippa, Chris and Stephen
