Saturday, August 1st- Recovery Day

Reflecting back on our time here in Gulu over the past week, it is really crazy to see all that we have accomplished. When we arrived last Friday, many of us had no idea all the work that needed to be done before actually delivering the bicycles to the villages. We became a Community Based Organization (CBO) by meeting with various Local Chairpersons, writing a constitution and various other documents. We opened a bank account, found a building that is our BAP office in the village of Nwoya, and created an organizational structure for our BAP as a whole. At one point we were concerned that we would not even be able to deliver all the bicycles this week while here. All of us really came together to get everything done that needed to be done, and now the people of Nwoya and Lulyango are reaping the benefits of our hard work. Thank you to everyone for their support of our project to help us achieve our goals. Thank you from all 15 of us and thank you from the hundreds of people from both communities.

An update for today, Saturday, we are doing various tasks that need to be completed before we deliver the next batch of 50 bicycles to Lulyango tomorrow. We certainly learned a lot yesterday while we handed out the bikes. We are preparing the bikes with our painted logo and number on them today, so that we don’t have to do so tomorrow. We are also preparing all the paperwork today, so that we don’t have to take time to do so while the people are waiting tomorrow.

Over the past few days, Janice and I have delivered 5 suitcases of donations (school supplies, books, sneakers and craft supplies) to various Watoto schools (see watoto.org for more info about Watoto) and to a local church that we have connected with . Everyone is incredibly grateful for the donations; thank you to everyone who contributed from back home.

-Kylie