Thursday 22nd July

After a noisy night due to the other hotel residents not realising being in bed at 9pm is appropiate when you are getting up and 5am, we packed our bags and headed out to the Tororo roads. Today we headed down the busy road that links the Kenyan border to Iganga, Jinja and Kampala. As it is such a busy road we were expecting support from the local police but it was even too early a start for them, but our team in the Red Cross vehicles provided good protection ... however Martin did highlight that the boda boda drivers (motor bike taxis) shouldn't try and join in the run and get in our way!

The community were really good today and greeted us as travelled down the main road but also encouraged us with cheers and smiles. All the children tried to join us on the run even for 100 metres.

As we headed into Bugiri we climbed a steep hill (well it felt steep after a day of running and covering over 56km) and at the top we were joined by Margaret (the RDC for Bugiri and an old friend). As Margaret and other officials joined the Red Cross volunteers, we ran into town with a convoy that grew and grew. As we arrived at our finishing point and venue for the official function we danced with the local community in celebration of the achievements of the project.

At the end event we heard about how the support we had given the branch had allowed them to train trainers and then disseminate this infomation to young people and the local community. It was good to hear that the support to the community was really appreciated and they had already reached over 1000 people with training. We heard that the HIV rate in parts of the community had reached over 14% and that the Red Cross was supporting education in this. The function was quite long and lasted about 2.5 hrs, which was a little long if you had got up at 5am, however it is important to ensure the community are engaged and have ownership of the project.

As we left the event we had a tour of the adminstration offices and the new plot of land given to the Red Cross to build an office on.

After this we arrived at our accommodation for the evening and enjoyed a meal with the Red Cross officials and hosted by Margaret. As it had reached 5pm we had just enough time to wash our clothes, conclude the arrangements for Friday, have a light tea and fall asleep at 8.58pm....