Event media
You are here
Ik Students Visit Their Homes in the Mountains for the Holidays
We just returned from taking most of the Ik students who are attending the Family Care Uganda School--primary and secondary, home to the mountains for the term holidays. People were so happy to see how much they'd grown. After working so hard the last 2 terms and getting good grades in both elementary and secondary, it was fantastic for our Ik young people to be back up the mountains!
Roads in this region are GNARLY! This area is extremely difficult to access by road. The last time the children returned for a visit, the parents and students walked for more than 2 days, all day, to meet me at the pick-up point. This time, we decided to attempt driving as far as the vehicles could handle. I've driven on just about every kind of road or non-road imagineable, but the roads to the more remote Ik villages were some of the roughest roads I've ever driven. Steep downhill with large, loose rocks, great cavernous ditch all through the middle of the "road". And even though we got 2 punctures in 2 days, we were able to make it most of the way. From now on we want to drive as far as our vehicles can manage to get these wonderful kids as close to home as possible!
In the pictures you see the beautiful place at the very top of the mountain. Behind the camera, only 20m away, is Kenya, and down this side of the ridge is Uganda. The very distant mountains on the right is the most hard-to-reach place we had to take students to.
Ik children--barely eat a meal a day, and many are bullied if they go to school with the neighbouring tribe. That's why getting to attend the FCU school is Uganda is such a godsend for these beautiful children.
When we arrived, one of the elders spoke to all when the students from Timu forest who returned home. He was commending them on how well they had been working. Many of the other Ik children and mothers gather around to look on and listen.
