Day Seven Saturday

We had such an interesting day today.  We had a bit of a lie in (woke at six but didn’t have to be anywhere until later) which was nice. We headed down the hill towards the men who do all the local carving. We had already arranged through Akimu that we would commission a carver to create the school badges for Head of Muir and Dunblane High School.  We had copies of the school badges and gave them to the artist.  When we picked them up this morning....they were amazing!  We were so pleased.  The carver, Wells, asked for 10, 000 MKW for both (about £20) but we insisted on that price for each of them.  A lot of work went into them  and we were delighted with the results.

We ventured farther down the hill towards the market and Mr. Kalipinde’s tailor shop.  Our Committees have been trying to start up a project where by locals are trained by Mr. Kalipinde to learn how to use the sewing machine.  From there it is hoped that they will then begin a sustainable business creating items to sell and putting the profits back in to buy more cloth etc.  We saw the ‘first term’ efforts, then the second term (a little better) and finally the third term school uniforms they have made. Excellent!!  Our partnership had purchased a Singer machine which was electric but in discussion, Mr. Kalipinde and his students were wondering whether or not a mechanical one might be better. We will need to take this back to our  committees to discuss.

We headed back up the hill to meet with our bursars. In total 11 of our bursars came and we hosted a lovely lunch to meet them and celebrate in their achievements.  What a lovely bunch of young people they were. We enjoyed chicken and rice with some vegetables and a couple of bottles of pop.  One boy, Gifte, made the most heart warming speech of thanks to us which he had written out in precise handwriting.  We have his copy which he signed and will share it with the Dunblane Committee when we return.