BLOG: THOUGHTS AND MOMENTS
Les Watts will be attempting a Table Tennis Marathon here at the Ogilvy offices...... more 
A day off today got us to the Nile for a boat ride...... more 
Last night's sleep was certainly fun-packed....... more 
Upon arrival we were greeted by a wonderful... more 
So, we all arrived in one piece at T5N checked in and successfully boarded a somewhat...... more 
It didn't really seem like we were out there for a week. From landing in Entebbe, to the dirt tracks and highly uncomforting driving skills of Kampala, to the first sight of Buikwe, to building the second school to then becoming a part of the community - the stories and experiences we crammed into one week were unforgettable. I'd like to let pictures do the talking so I've listed my personal top five experiences:... more 
After 2 months of fundraising the time has finally come. When I first started fundraising I never thought I'd be able to get to a £1,000 - it's such a massive total to get to. It had to happen, but I couldn't work out how. Did I even know a 1000 people to give me £1? A 100 people to give me £10? I had no idea what event we were going to do or how we could raise all this money. More importantly I had no idea how much fun Yellow Fever was going to be for my immune system and I started to get nervous over how much power my travel nurse had over my life, and my new role as 'pin cushion'.... more 
I wish I could say that there was some sort of rational decision-making process behind the moment when I first signed up to the Many Ogilvy Hands November trip to Uganda; that I weighed up the pros and cons carefully, worked out a strategy for reaching the fundraising target and began writing up a cross-referenced and indexed list of the inoculations and medicines I would need to take prior to going. But it wasn’t like that. I had decided I was going before I even allowed myself to begin delving into those sorts of questions. I think most of the other people who went on the November trip went through a similar process too. Truth is, none of us really knew what to expect or how we would feel when we got out there. You can read as much as you like about Uganda but nothing will prepare you for...... more 
Forgive me if this is a little foggy in places. We had a bit of a BBQ party last night at the local Ogilvy office and although we were all perfectly well behaved, the introduction of alcoholic drinks after a week of healthy living has left me a little worse for wear, thankfully its not punishingly hot this morning in Kampala, as i sit on our tiny balcony overlooking the city.
Yesterday morning we left Buikwei, to head back to the city. Over the course of the 5 days that we had spent at the school, we had met a host of kind and generous people who we had bonded with very quickly. We all became very fond of the area and had quickly settled into a Ugandan-style routine, of hard work and simple pleasures. So it was inevitable that leaving was going to be a sad moment.
We said our goodbyes...... more 
It was to be our final day on site, which seems to have come around far too soon., and we were split into 2 teams for morning/afternoon shift work.
We had been invited by the IN team Paul & Tom to visit some of the other families around the area, some of which are less than fortunate and live far below the nominal Ugandan bread line. Many families are without mothers/fathers due to approximately 15% of the population being HIV positive. Other husbands are polygamists, allowing them to have more than 1 wife (some have 3 or 4) which not only means they are absent from their homes a lot, but the multiple partners plays right into the hands of the virulent HIV virus.
I wasn’t visiting until the afternoon, so i made my way up to the site with the others. The sun was beating down but thankfully, we had made...... more 
Forgive me if this is a little foggy in places. We had a bit of a BBQ party last night at the local…
Firstly, apologies to any readers of this blog (hello? anyone?) but Day 3’s blog is being written on the morning of Day 4 due to some excellent entertaining last night of some local folk and International Needs workers, but more of that later.
Initially though, Day 3 was all about working on the site. The weather was hot and as we made our way from our hostel up the path to the building site, you could sense that whatever we did today was going to be hard work, because of the heat. We set to work straight away to help clear the huge amount of broken bricks that gather around the site as builders either dispose of the oddly shaped cast-outs that don’t fit in with the rest of...... more 
Some people might say that a rest day, directly after the initial work day, is a little, lightweight, and frankly, i would have agreed with you before we actually came out here and did anything. However, we were all blessed that today is Sunday, and we couldn’t work today, even if our already calloused hands would let us.
This allowed us to spend the day exploring the surrounding area, which started with a 1 hour rally/bus drive to the nearest town of Jinja. Jinja is home to the source of the River Nile as well as the burial site of Ghandi (though no one could quite explain why, answers on a postcard/email/twitter, much appreciated).
A brief boat trip took us up river, where we able to clamber up onto a small island and from there see the water ripple and bubble as it rose quickly out of the ground beneath. Before the...... more 
Our first full day on the site, has rendered the vast majority of us, utterly shattered. The 9 of us started work at 9am sharp, with mild trepidation that we were simply going to get under foot and generally be the useless ‘mzunga; or whiteman.
This theory was quickly despatched as were split into 2 groups and set to work clearing up bricks, organising materials and generally getting stuck in. A few of us were lucky enough to learn some rudimentary brick laying skills. The heat made things particularly tough, especially when i was asked to help collect some more cement, which lived a 10 minute walk away, and required a climb back, up to site, which was exhausting, made worse by the fact that the 15 year old did two turns on the wheelbarrow to my one – i could not hide my envy or mild embarrassment.
We all gradually found...... more 
Its been a long, long day, but ultimately hugely agreeable. The flight from Heathrow left on time and fortunately it wasn’t fully booked, meaning more room for people to relax, myself included. Thanks to a combination of the new Star Trek movie and 3 free seats, the flight went very quickly and we were soon landing in Entebbe.
Our group was swiftly guided to our mini-vans for the hour long journey to Kampala, where we changed some of the Queens sterling into Ugandan Shillings. We congratulated ourselves for navigating the Ugandan bank system with a strong coffee at the supermarket, where we also collected some vital provisions, including numerous bottles of Cola and M&M’s.
We arrived at the village of Buikwe, where we are staying at the local school and were immediately blown away by the surroundings. The countryside is beautiful and not even the 10 minute thunderstorm could dampen our high,...... more
About
Many Ogilvy Hands is a chance for anyone and everyone in Ogilvy to help make a real difference to a small community in Uganda.
Writers
- Dale Sattler
- Hannah Smith
- Justin Cairns
- Lee Maddox
- Nick Bennett
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Whether you’d like to go to Uganda or want to help out with fundraising over here, we’d love to hear from you.
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