Day 10 - Thursday 6 August 2009

Another typical start to the day for our intrepid Aussie building team - 6.00 am rise, 6.30 am breakfast and 7.00 am departure for our building site. The knowledge that the end was in sight after a couple of solid days' work allowed even the softest of our team (no names!) to suffer the stiffness and soreness in silence.

We had finished all external walls the previous day and were left with the second level of internal walls and a site clean up to complete our part of the build. For the first hour or so all was on track for a lunch time finish, until disaster struck - a brick drought. Not to be denied we improvised to overcome this final hurdle. The short term lack of bricks was quickly overcome. Whilst our Norwegian friends on the next site were distracted (some adjusting their underpants to be precisely four inches above the top of their trousers and others flexing their muscles to each other) our site foreman Joseph stole a loader of their bricks. Whilst this provided enough bricks to keep some of our team working it was not enough. So we took things into our own hands. The group of six granite-like Africans on the manual brick making machine were muscled over to make room for a bare chested group led by Tony 'the Gattling Gun' Vroulis. Within 15 short minutes the team had manufactured four defective bricks. At this rate we could manufacture 128 defective bricks in one day. When Joseph pointed out to us that the brick makers actually made 900 non-defective bricks in one day, we suddenly became very aware of how very white and flabby we were and how very dark and muscled the brick makers were. So we quickly put our defective bricks in the area from which the Hong Kong team drew their bricks (there was no way they were going into our house!) and looked for another solution - and soon it came, in the form of Pat 'Chain Snore' Hodby car jacking the front end loader to deliver enough bricks to see us through to completion.

Our job was completed by lunch time, which left us free to host our building team of 12, together with our guide Fred 'the Prince of Uganda' Erisata, site foreman Joseph, our 12 builders and a somewhat bemused team of six brick makers to lunch. Lunch was catered for by the Watoto Senior School Hospitality Vocational Training Group. The fact that Jonty wore half of his traditional Ugandan meal on his lap was no reflection on the quality of his meal. We were assured by the Prince of Uganda that no other building team had previously done this and that this small gesture meant an extraordinary amount to our fellow builders.But that was enough of the pleasantries. Immediately following lunch, we were challenged to an international soccer friendly against our Ugandan building team. Our team of nine were keen to reperesent our country, even if none of us (other than the Gattling Gun) had played soccer. Undaunted Australia A took to the dry and dusty pitch wearing a mixture of bare feet, RM Williams boots and assorted building shoes completely inapprorpriate to the World Game. The Gattling Gun provided great drive in the centre and Jecka a suprising target in the forwards - the home team were caught off guard. At half time, the home team's one goal had been disallowed due to an off side infringement, and Australia A had scorched one through to the back of the net (or the back of where the net would have been if there had been a net). Australia A began the second half full of confidence and running and was able to extend its lead to two nil by the final siren. It was a compehensive win to Australia A. In a very solid all round performance the selectors struggled to name the best players. However, special mention must go to the Prince of Uganda (an import and clearly best player on the ground), four Ugandan brick makers (drafted as imports, despite some very public protests from several of their number), two Watoto school children (also drafted as imports), and the entire Australia A bench of five (at all times entirely filled with somewhat conspicuous white faces) which rotated effectively though the midfield.

The day concluded with a dedication ceremony for the house at which our team's inability to sing was only surpassed by the inabilty of our Ugandan building team to comprehend Jonty's address, somewhat curiously laced with four syllable words!

Finally to round out the day, one of our local guides Remmy, took us to one of Kampala's finest Italian restaurants. There (in recognition of the birthday of his new found friend 'the Gattling Gun'), our driver Sylvester took a rare break from reclining in the front seat of his van or speaking on his mobile phone to order the world's largest mixed grill, before the Gattling Gun's birthday was suitably acknowledged with a bowl of ice cream, a commemorative Australian pen and koala and a rousing rendition of 'Happy Birthday to You', 'Congratulations and Celebrations' and '21 Today' over the restaurant's loud speaker system.

Our day concluded in the gratifying knowledge that, many years after we are gone and our memories of our amazing experiences have faded, there will still be eight young Ugandan orphans who will have been saved from some of the horrors which we have seen, and instead given a safe, secure and loving home, where they will receive some of the educational and other opportunities which we so very lightly take for granted.

Jonty and Jecka