Day 3 - A Rainy Day

Today, we headed to St Dennis Primary School in Munkasi - about a two hour drive from Phoebe’s home in Wakiso. We drove into  raindrops that got bigger and bigger. Of course none of us remembered our carefully packed rain coats but this cool day felt so good that we didn’t miss them.

Ellie and Fr. Frances

I’ve visited St Dennis School on nearly every trip I’ve taken to Uganda. It’s a sweet little primary (elementary) school with a vocational school behind it. Our friend, Father Francis, has helped to make this school a vibrant learning environment and he’s a big fan of vocational education, so he supports this part of the campus as well. He told me that jobs are waiting for these students to finish their training. What a great way to raise people out of poverty.

St Dennis is one of the schools benefitting from the Rotary International Grant we received a few years ago. This grant will provide 10,000 girls in Uganda with MoonCatcher Kits and reproductive health education. The grant was the outcome of several years of work involving collaboration between MCP, our local Rotary Club (Scotia) and the Namugongo Rotary Club in Uganda. Our friends Lon and Helen Penna spearheaded this effort and today we are seeing the results. Before we left the US, we had signs made to publicize this collaboration - and one of the signs was for the St. Dennis Primary School. With this accomplished we hurried onto St Lukes Primary school.

Zak and St. Dennis staff getting our sign posted.

St Luke’s School is also a beneficiary of our Rotary International grant. We spent the afternoon working with the students in grades 3-6, presenting our curriculum and having fun as well.

Phoebe got all the girls to dance and name their body parts to help them become comfortable saying the names of every part in an effort to break down the taboo around menstruation. Everyone got giggling and the rest of the time was way more open and fun.

Brynn was our pad model and also helped to teach about plotting one’s cycle. The girls loved watching her climb onto a chair, put on the pad and “Shake It So”. One of the students got brave enough to model the pad as well and after that and her friends applauded her long and loud.

We handed out “Shake It So” stickers to each student from our friend Jonathan whose non-profit organization hosts an online Zoom dance every Wednesday and Friday morning. We collaborate with them to raise money for The MoonCatcher Project and have a lot of fun in the process.

This year on May 29, in honor of International Menstrual Hygiene Day, we’ll partner live in Albany to have a dance party. (keep an eye out for more details about this). While here in Africa we’ll give out stickers and encourage students and tailors to dance. Video from this will be part of our celebration in May.

One of my favorite parts of the day was watching boys peek through the windows and around doors, with quizzical expressions wondering “What is going on?” We took some pictures of them and wondered  what they were hearing and understanding. We hope they will be able to learn about their bodies and menstruation through our boys’ curriculum soon.

Next, we stopped at Father Francis’s seminary to pick up sound equipment and get a quick tour of the campus. What a beautiful serene place with mammoth trees and a view of Lake Victoria. Brynn saw her first monkeys in the wild. Then we headed home in an effort to miss the traffic and have time for a nice dinner.

It was a fabulous day. The girls were wonderful. Their faces told the whole story of the impact of this project. Little did I think 15 years ago that The MoonCatcher Project would grow into this. Those smiles make me smile.