The journey of 7 years ago in a flash.

Home study completed;

House bought;

Paperwork filed;

Fly to Uganda;

Meet my girly every day but each day she returns ‘home’ and not to me;

Court room drama - judge says no;

Judge offers a lifeline, we grab it;

So. Much. Waiting.

We wait. 

Days seem endless. 

And then, the call comes through...

Judge says yes!

Scared little girl leaves friends and carers and moves in with me. 

I get to put her to bed and know she’s safe for the very first time in her little 9 years. 

And there’ll be bedtime stories, and singing, and fun, and laughter, and days out, and lifelong friends made along the way. 

Finally a family......a forever family! 

7 years ago today we became a family. 

Happy Gotcha day precious girl. 

I love you just as you are. 

Swansea City Football Fans Fundraiser

Firstly I have to start by saying a massive thank you to Kate Rees and the whole of Swansea City Football Club for kindly donating this wonderful prize that we have to raffle!

A signed football from all the team!

It has been kindly donated to help us raise funds for our activities while we're in Uganda.  Football is such a big thing in Uganda too, with many of the young people supporting premier league teams.  Seems quite fitting that we get to raffle off this premier league team football and support the young people in Uganda who are massive football fans.

So how do you get to be in with a chance of winning this ball?  Simply buy a raffle ticket strip.  It's £1 a strip.  Every penny will go towards our work in Uganda.  Any excess money will be donated to Cornerstone Uganda, the charity that is close to our heart as they work with the young people post 18, when most charities turn their backs on young people.

Lutaaya is looking at all the signatures on the ball.  I have a funny feeling she'll be buying some tickets herself.  If you live local to me, just ask me for tickets when you see me, or drop me an email at natashas.africa@gmail.com or on facebook.  If you live further afield, let me know via email or facebook and I'll send you my paypal details and give you a photo of your tickets so you know what numbers to look out for on the draw night.  The draw will take place on Friday 23rd June 2017 around 19:00 BST and will be live on facebook with an update on here shortly afterwards.  So you have a few weeks to get your tickets.  The more the buy, the more chances you get!

Africa.....We'll be seeing you soon!

Yes you read that right!  We'll be flying back to Uganda this July and we can't wait!

The blog has been a bit of a forgotten thing as there's not been much happening in regards to us going back to Uganda after our dreams being trampled on in 2015 and 2016 when flight prices were just too high for us to get back.  I promise there'll be more action on the blog this year as we'll be fundraising and raising awareness of different things in relation to our trip as they happen.  If you're new to our blog, then have a look through our older posts that will take you right back to the start of my trip in 2010 to bring my daughter home.

WiFi access permitting, we also hope to keep the blog up to date, during our time in Uganda.

Already there are lots of things I want to share but this is a brief outline of our trip so you get a flavour of it. We'll be going for two weeks in July.  Flights have been booked in advance so we got good deals and our accommodation is all sorted too.  We have covered the cost of our flights and accommodation ourselves, through lots of saving over the past year.  There are five of us heading to Uganda: me, Lutaaya, my parents and our friend, Sarah.  It'll be my Dad and Sarah's first time to experience Uganda and we're so excited to share in this first time with them.

Sarah has been part of almost every fundraising activity I have organised since 2005 when I first ventured to Uganda.  She feels that now is the right time to join us on this African adventure and we agree.

She loves a microphone and musicals, so you can just imagine how much she'll enjoy hearing all that Ugandan music and voices.  (Yes, she'll probably shout at me for the photo!)

We'll arrive at Kampala for a few days and then travel to Mbale, via Jinja.  After a few nights there, we will be heading back to Kampala for the last stretch of our time.  There are lots of things planned for the time we are there and as always happens, things keep cropping up, showing us where we are needed most and giving us opportunities to do more.

One big part of our trip will be to deliver all the shoe cuttings we made in 2015.  They have been kept safely in my garage until now.  So the final part of their journey will be to pack them and take them with us.  Sole Hope have already received our donation for the shoes, we just have to deliver them.  We'll do this on our way to Mbale.  Due to your time and effort, we will be putting shoes on the feet of over 100 children who wouldn't have them otherwise.

I'll add some more details over the next few days and weeks leading up to our trip.  We will be fundraising and we hope you'll support us in events and digging deep.  There'll be plenty of fun along the way.

Refugees Welcome

We’ve all seen the images of the people the media are calling the migrants, walking from their homeland of Syria to try and find a better life.  Men; women; children; some babes in arms.  

My heart breaks for them.  So many of us turned away from the image of the lifeless 3 year old boy’s body, washed up on the shore because it hurt so much.  

It was a picture that for many would change their heads and hearts.  This child could be anyone’s: mine, yours.  Would you turn away if he was your son?  Would you want the world to turn away if he was your son?  

There are so many comments flying about in social media about the great migration.  We are seeing history made in our lifetimes.  And yet so many comments are negative and hurtful.  These people are people, just like the rest of us.  They are not trying to win over a quick entry pass to enter another country.  Given the chance they would opt to stay in their homeland, but they are fleeing for their own safety and the safety of their families.  Their worlds have been turned upside down over recent years, with war, terrorism, death on their doorsteps.  They don’t just hear stories of terror; they have lived and witnessed terror first-hand.  

Would you stay or would you run?

If you watched your husband beheaded in front of you, would you stay or would you run?

If you knew staying meant your wife and daughter will be raped at knifepoint, would you stay or would you run?

If your son was being coerced into an extremist terror group, would you stay or would you run?

If your children couldn’t go out to play for fear of them being gunned down, would you stay or would you run?

Could you live a life overshadowed by fear?  

These people know the risks of getting on an inflatable dingy trying to cross the Mediterranean sea.  They know they play roulette with their lives and the lives of their children as soon as the money passes into the hand of a trafficker offering to help them escape.  They know the dangers ahead but staying offers just as much danger if not more.  How would you prioritise the risks? Could you even begin to imagine how desperate a situation you would have to be in to even contemplate making the decision of walking away from everything you know?

These people don’t need our judgement over what’s wrong or right.  They don’t need discussions over whose fault it is their country is under the hand of ISIS.  It doesn’t come down to politics, religion or culture; it comes down to us being human and the fact that this is NEVER acceptable.

My faith is nothing if it isn’t love in action.  So there will be no head turning in my house.  We jumped to action as soon as we heard there was something practical we could do.  We searched our house for clothes, shopped for toiletries and food and got packing.  You wouldn’t believe how many coats were tucked in our coat stand that no longer fitted and needed a new home.  A new home in a refugee camp for someone in desperate need.  

The whole situation reminded me of stories my Nan told of the evacuee children coming to Wales from London in World War II.

I remember thinking how scary it must have been for these children to be placed with strangers while the war was happening and how exciting it must have felt for the families welcoming them into their homes.  

Then Sunday Pope Francis calls people of every faith to open their doors and host a migrant family.  It’s time for us to stand up and practice what we preach.  The message #RefugeesWelcome has started to be scattered across social media.  Our doors are beginning to open and our country is saying ‘Yes’. 

Our Prime Minister is making plans to welcome some of the orphaned and vulnerable children from the refugee camps and we say, ‘Our home is their home, we open our doors to them.’ We each need to do our part.  We laughed this morning when I asked my daughter how we'd manage sharing our bathroom if we took in 5 refugee children. I don't know where the number came from but filled with love, she replied, 'I think 5 may be too many to fit in this house.  How about 1 or 2 or 3?' Our hearts and homes are open already. 

The Assembly Member in my area has organised a donation collection point and stepped up to show we as a county care. 

A local pub has offered their back room as a collection point so people can drop off their donations at a local point.  Already people have started filling the space to show their support. 

Our church has started a collection for Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders)who are on the ground offering medical expertise to some of the most vulnerable refugees.  

Together we stand UNITED.  

UNITED Kingdom - #RefugeesWelcome #WeWelcomeRefugees  

There will always be some who question it all and claim it not to be right, but my question to them is, ‘if terror took hold in this country, would you stay, or would you run?’

Our Arabian Adventure

This summer saw us travel to Dubai.  Our hopes of Uganda were quashed by the high flight prices, then we missed out on all the package holidays because we left it so late to book (in the hope the prices to Uganda would reduce) and so we ended up on the first part of the flight we hoped to be on, Birmingham to Dubai.  It would have been lovely to get off that plane and head straight for the Entebbe bound plane but this year, it just wasn’t meant to be.

 

Dubai is a crazy place: rich in so many ways as well as financially.  The thing is though, that I kind of love the whole way the country is set up.  We booked on the city sightseeing tour so that we would see the whole of the sights and hear the commentary.  I’d very much recommend this trip.  It opened my eyes.

I love how Dubai is a proud country.  They declare themselves as a Muslim country and the mosques; stand extravagant and proud amidst the landscapes.  They root themselves in their faith and beliefs.  They know what they stand for and expect every visitor to respect that.  The government even subsidise the building costs of Mosques so that people have a place of worship nearby.  I love that.  I love the saying, ‘if you stand for nothing, you’ll fall for anything’, and I think Dubai gets that!  I think of my church struggling to raise the funds to make repairs on the tower and make the building more accessible for all the community to use.  We seem a country who is almost ashamed to say what faith, morals and beliefs we stand for in fear of discriminating against others.  There are churches in Dubai, there aren’t many but they are there, but overall they are a Muslim country and are proud to spread this faith so publicly across the nation.

The Emirate people walk proudly around the most expensive and elaborate shopping malls in the world in their traditional Arab costumes.  Men wear white, women black.  Women are covered by their hijabs and whether I agree with this or not, it doesn’t matter because this is their country, their ways, their beliefs, not mine.  I am a visitor here.  This country benefits from the tourism industry greatly.  Visitors pay tax direct to the government for every night they stay in the country.  Couldn’t we learn something from this, Britain?

No one pays tax in Dubai.  It means that people flock from around the world to work here and reap the benefits.  They don’t feel this is their home; they are simply here to serve a purpose, fulfil a job role and then return to their homelands with their wages and savings.  Dubai is a country filled with workers from different nations.  They are all welcome here as long as they abide by the laws of the land.  In light of recent news features here, they could possibly be called migrants and yet they are viewed very differently to the people trying to leave Syria to escape war.  Makes you wonder hey?

Then the best part is that they are led by an optimist.  The leader of Dubai believes that the sky is certainly not the limit.  Take a look at Dubai’s skyline and you’ll know he believes this.  

He wants Dubai to have the biggest and the best.  7* hotel – no problem.  

World’s tallest building – no problem. 

New metro transport system – built and continually being developed and extended.  

You want to ski in the desert – job done!  

The inspirational leadership of this country just wants the best and won’t stop until he gets it.  

I love the air of optimism, hope and inspiration in this country.  They are held in deep traditions and beliefs and yet move with the times at a rate no other country can compare.  Wouldn’t it be wonderful to hear our own country’s leaders speaking words of hope, optimism and inspiration?  Wouldn’t it be amazing to hear of greater plans and ways forward for the future that develop our tomorrow rather than listening to messages of doom and gloom of today?  Let’s hear of job creations not losses; of money invested in our grassroots communities not cut backs; of schools being extended and developed, not closed; of healthcare systems the best in the world, not a loss of medical professions in our hospitals.  Maybe a little injection of optimism, hope and inspiration is what we need right now.  Don’t you think?

Just not meant to be....

We hoped to take our shoe cuttings out to Uganda ourselves at the beginning of August.  

Unfortunately we seem to have missed the best price on flight options and even though there are flights available for the dates we needed, it would mean paying more than double what they usually are.  I don’t know about you, but I’d rather my money go on the children or into the villages while we are in Uganda than some hugely wealthy airline company.  

We've tried every possible avenue to make this trip happen but it just doesn't seem to be working out unless we pay out a ridiculous amount of money. We even looked at the possibility of flying from Dublin!!!!  Yes you heard right.  Strangely enough it is cheaper for us to get a flight from Dublin to Heathrow and then a direct flight from Heathrow to Uganda than it is to simply book the second leg of that journey!!  We even asked the airline if we could book this option and board in Heathrow but sadly this isn't possible. We then thought about sticking with the saving of £300 by flying from Dublin and getting a flight from our local airport to Dublin but we hadn't figured that those little hour long flights were so cheap because they don't offer any baggage allowance. So we'd get to the airport but our suitcases with all our stuff and more importantly the shoe cuttings would still remain in Wales. Its just not happening any way we try to work it even if it means us going out of our way to get to our final destination. 

So, sadly, our visit is likely to be postponed until next year. 

 

Don’t worry though.  All our shoes are packed away nicely in my garage and are being kept safely for another year.  The donations made on the night will all be sent directly to Sole Hope to be used in the shoe making process and offering the shoe maker a fair wage. 

 

On a positive light, this means we have another year to hold some more shoe cutting parties and fundraise even more for some brilliant activities next year for the children.

 

We also fundraised through the Christmas bags and that money is sitting in a bank account all ready to go when we go.  We cover all the costs of our flights and accommodation ourselves and every penny we fundraise, goes towards the children, young people and families we meet along the way, wherever the need is most.  Now we get a little longer to do another fundraising push and raise even more for the wonderful people of Uganda. Plus we get to plan ahead and book those flights super early when the best discounts are available. 

Unless we get a lottery win or some miracle happens tomorrow and flights get discounted, our visit this year is going to be a no go. If there are any changes I will keep you posted. 

Party with a purpose

A few months ago we set up a party with a purpose!  

It was a whole new concept in partnership with Sole Hope.  Sole Hope are a charity working on the ground in Uganda.  They help fight the problem of jiggers by giving children closed toe shoes. 

 

Jiggers are nasty little creatures, a bit like a sand flea, that burrow into the skin on children’s feet and sometimes hands.  

They use the skin as a place to lay their eggs and the effects can be debilitating.  Often children with jigger infections can be seen as being cursed and are often ostracised from society.  Many fail to attend school due to the impact it has on their mobility. 

 

Many children in Uganda don’t own a pair of closed toe shoes and that is all they need to prevent jiggers from entering their skin.  It’s a simple solution to a horrible problem.

 

In July 2010 I had my own experience of jiggers.  Myself and my friend stayed at a guest house in the outskirts of Kampala.  It had gone a little downhill from the last time we stayed there.  We knew nothing of jiggers at the time.  Then my friend spotted something on her big toe.  She thought it was a verucca. The next day, the verucca had multiplied.  We spent our final day at the guest house before moving on to the nice hotel at our next stop.  Unbelievably, when we arrived, I had an itch in my toe and was astounded to find that I had now caught a ‘verucca’. Little did we know! 

 

When we got home, with these verucca like things on our toes, my friend booked a GP appointment and was sent straight to the hospital.  She rang me to say her GP thought it was jiggers.  I immediately rang my GP and booked an appointment.  I had two in my one toe.  My GP said he had heard about jiggers but never seen them before.  I was intrigued as he pulled them out of my toe and told me to use a disinfectant wash every day for the next week to make sure all the eggs were killed. 

 

Our experience wasn’t anything too horrific other than a sore toe for a few days but for many children, jiggers can be life changing!

 

Sole Hope encourage people to hold shoe cutting parties.  This was our party with a purpose.  We invited all our friends, family and community members along for a night of shoe cutting.  Each person had to being along any old denim they had and a scissors.  Young and old were able to take part.  Over the evening we cut 55 pairs of shoes and one lady took the pattern away and continued to cut out our pattern so many more shoes can be made. 

 

Everyone enjoyed the evening and it was lovely to do something different that also is a huge practical help to children in Uganda.  Sole Hope employ shoe makers in Uganda who sew together all the patterns we cut and add a sole made of recycled tyres.  It really is a wonderful project.  For more information visit their website at www.solehope.org