Saturday, July 25th

While our goal over the next week is to dispense 100 bikes, we also have an overarching mission to become an NGO. In order to be an NGO we first have to become a community based organization (CBO). The latter half of our day was devoted to BAP work, including a majority of work to become a CBO. This included writing a constitution, mission statement, vision, member list, etc. We also worked more on the survey that we will hand out; the application for the bicycles applicants; and the terms of agreement. Overall, we’re very excited to be forming the steps to become an organization and putting out skills to work by writing and organizing “real-world” documents. We feel productive and proud to be forming our own organization. By become an NGO, the process will become more efficient and our work will make a greater impact. This motivates us and gives us a push to do more work and further expand the project for the future.

Doing the document work didn’t start until mid-day (and went into early morning!) because before we worked, we went to a Ugandan wedding! We woke up bright and early to go to Lucy’s wedding. Lucy is a member of the church that we are going to work with (Pastor from last night) and one of the women that Muyambi was in contact with during the year. We learned the true definition of African time, for the schedule of events was delayed a few hours. Ugandan weddings differ from American weddings in that they last all day- from 8am to 6pm on. We arrived around 10 am and immediately set off to be helpful in any way necessary. A few of us decorated the cars that were used to pick up the bride and groom, while others did vegetable prep work- peeling 100+ potatoes, chopping onions, etc. But none of us felt inclined to assist with the cleaning of the cow stomach lining! :) It was a great way for us to connect one-on-one with the women and men. During and after the prep work, many wedding guests sung and danced in the church. The enthusiasm with dancing and singing was amazing to say the least. The joy and happiness gave us energy to strut our “muzungu” dance moves. All the clapping, singing, and dancing (while certainly exhausting) kept a lasting smile. After a few hours, we left got lunch and returned to see that the bride still hadn’t arrived. After the bride arrived in her decorated car and the ceremony kicked off. Two hours later, we left to do our BAP work and the wedding continued.

- Molly