My Nonprofit Reviews

Dear Friends,
February 2015 marked my second trip to CAF, the first having been 6 months prior. As 2015 comes to a close, my heart is full, never having expected how these trips would change my life.

Some point of every day finds me thinking of my friends in the village of Jogo very remote from the world I know and my first night time arrival to the Guest House. As the van turned off the rutted road, my view diminished by the blackness of midnight, I could never have imagined the beauty that awaited my awakening the next morning.

I can still see the smiling faces of the children who welcomed me with song and dance that first day. I hear their voices and recall their excitement when they entered the connect Africa library the afternoon that the doors were first opened to them.

The 7 of us who were tasked with organizing the new library books had clear instructions from Lynn on how the books would be introduced to the children. I laugh at the memory of how our plan for a staggered and orderly introduction to the books was tossed aside as all the anxious children could wait no longer, many to hole a book for the first time.

Some days find me remembering my first science lecture, delivered with trepidation to young girls at a remote high school, remembering the bravest among them who would ask the first question and the others followed.

There are days when I cannot stop thinking of my young 16-year-old friend Brendah, and our trip to Kampala in the crazy taxi van to sort out the paperwork necessary to reenroll her in school to become a nursery teacher. I hold dear the memory of the hard working and ever proud jajas and aunties who attend the literacy classes, humbling me as they kneel in the dust at my feet thanking me for loving their children.

Bright and talented children who are committed to their studies, with shiny black shoes and fees paid by CAF, are offered a chance for a new beginning at schools of which they may have only dreamed of attending.

I have been given so much, on so many levels and in so many ways. After my trips, my life feels nothing but extravagant and my financial support of CAF comes from the gratitude and acknowledgment of all that I have and that I share with those who have nothing.
MariAlyce Worden