First Lady of Uganda visits Save the Mothers

March 1st, 2008 was the big day for Save the Mothers. The First Lady of Uganda agreed to come out to the Uganda Christian University for the Women's Day Celebration put on by Save the Mothers. Here in Uganda, Women's Day is a similar celebration to our Mother's Day. So, we wanted to celebrate mothers with the Save the Mothers program, so we invited the First Lady of Uganda to come out.
There was a lot of preparing that went into this. We held a press conference to notify the media, so we were on television yesterday and in the major newspapers today. We had to make all the security aware and when I woke up on Saturday, the big day, and walked out of my house, I saw 2 army men right outside my house and then every couple feet there were some more army men. They were all over the campus and they had to look through everything you owned and wave the metal detector over you.
On the day, the First Lady was to arrive at 10 am. Well, 10 am came and went without a trace of the First Lady, by 11 am I said to someone, even the First Lady arrives late to things. But they corrected me, the First Lady is never late, no one in parliament is late, they are only delayed. For entertainment to keep the guests occupied, we had children singing and doing skits. The one song had words that went, "What have you really done in this world here today, What have you really done for us to recall, remember today cause tomorrow, you may not be seen again..." I just thought it strange to be talking so bluntly about dying but because people die here at all ages and so commenting on dying is normal.
While we were waiting, I was getting concerned, I figured that the First Lady would show up sooner or later, probably later than sooner, but the problem is that the hall was not full. At home, if we had a function where someone in high standing was coming at 10am, people would be filling the hall between 8-9am but there weren't that many people in the hall. But when I told the Ugandans my worries, they said, No, no, people know that she will show up late so they will all show up when they hear that she has arrived. A little while later when she showed up the place was packed with people, they are all living on international time.
The First Lady set the cornerstone of our new Save the Mothers building (getting the construction site to look half decent for anyone to walk on was a job but to get it looking good enough for the First Lady was another job!)
We listened to speeches, we had booths for our students and other NGO's, we watched the children dance some more, and we ate lunch. It was a good time, there were some good people who had something to say about the program. The First Lady, although we had written parts of her speech seemed quite sincere about what she was talking about and sounded genuinely interested in the program, and she should be, it's a good program.

My time here is coming to an end, but this put an exciting touch on my last weeks here. I will see you all soon when we can share exciting stories with each other.