Fundraising

Whenever I am faced with fundraising thoughts of how to do it differently, how much do I need to raise, who can I ask again to come and part with some money… and the list goes on. I procrastinate about setting a date, I worry about the weather, the venue, the drink, the food … the list goes on. But then a decision is made, action is taken and the wheels are set in motion and before long, hey presto, I am actually looking forward to the event. I decided to put on a fund raising lunch for menstrual kits for the women in Uganda. I made lasagne and a chicken casserole, some salads and bread and cheese were donated by a friend. I sent out some invites and others asked if they could invite people. I got twenty customers on the day. The sun shone but the wind was too cold to sit outside. I charged £5 a head, some people I knew and some people I met for the first time and the enthusiasm to help give women the comfort of sanitary towels every month was reward enough. I received £70 in donations before the day from people who couldn’t come and altogether on the day I raised £185. With money I had raised from With Women In Mind workshops I was able to send £250 to the project. This means that another 50 women in rural south west Uganda will be more comfortable next month. Last month we sent £100 and so we now have 90 women in this area using sanitary protection that we take for granted. When I started I was thinking of contacting the big sanitary companies and asking for their help but it was complicated and then I thought, Just Do It. If you only get enough money for a few women it is better than none. When I was training to be a life coach we were told a story about a woman who was picking up starfish that had been washed up along the seashore. A man came along and as she was about to throw another starfish into the sea he said, ‘it’s useless there are far too many I wouldn’t bother, you won’t make any difference.’ She hurled her starfish into the sea, and said, ‘it’s made a difference to that one.’

 

Afripads

When this photograph was taken I didn’t realise that this woman had to use old rags or newspaper, to stem her menstrual flow each month. Millions of girls living in developing countries like Uganda skip up to 20% of the school year simply because they cannot afford to buy mainstream sanitary products when they menstruate. This deliberate absenteeism has enormous consequences on girls’ education and academic potential. An educated mother means educated children. I have started fund raising to send re-useable sanitary towels to the school where I was volunteering in November 2010 (see blog). The first 20 sets should arrive any day now and will be given first to the teachers and the women who work for the school. Each month I want to match this with a supply going out to Uganda Lodge for the use of our girls in the school and who knows may be it will be so successful that we can supply other women in the area. Can you imagine what it must be like to be so disadvantaged and let’s face it, uncomfortable, once a month every month. My main source of income is coming from what I charge for With Women In Mind workshops as this seemed appropriate but you too can make a difference if you want to send me £5.00 in order that one woman can have comfortable sanitary protection for one year. Or look at http://www.ugandalodge.com or http://www.afripads.com

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The Sun is Shining

The garden is studded with primroses and the daffodils are a picture. The sun has come out and bright lime green shoots stud the trees. Is it happening? Are we going to have that longed for Spring? Yesterday we sat in a cloud; I felt deflated and morose.The only antidote was to don wet weather clothes and get out. I walked down to the beach and watched the rolling waves before walking back up to my house on the cliff. Once there I walked down to the edge and picking my way carefully along the footpath was shocked to see how much nature has had her way and completely changed the face of our bit of cliff. The summer house is gone, the trees are gone, the pampas grass has gone and the primroses and daffodils that are left cling to clumps of ground teetering on the edge of the mud slides. Time waits for no man and it is a rude awakening when I look at the photographs on my website of me standing by the cliff summerhouse and realise what has happened in the past year. 

Travels With Granny

The grandchildren as they are today. So many of you have wondered what the children look like – here they are. Read all about them in Travels With Granny when I took them away one at a time around the age of eleven, to a destination of their choice.

Travels With Granny

Travels With Granny, the book, is now in print. The prototype had a few errors and has been reviewed and is now in the process of being printing. I have found myself a publisher; this is a joint operation and one that I have found to be supportive instead of me having to do all the work myself. It is also a learning curve as I have to explain every detail and then leave it in the hands of another. Nonetheless I have found this joint arrangement quite comforting. Now comes the hard bit – marketing the book. The first run I sent pro gratis to lots of people I know to get some feedback and test the water as it were. The response has ben good and so after a final polish hopefully we are ready to sail.

The children love it. They find it strange to read about themselves in a book and I was aware that I was exposing them and left some of the detail out but on the whole it is a good reflection and they have enjoyed the book. Callum wanted to know why I didn’t mention the time that I took him on his own to Scotland when he was only six. He has a point; that was an extraordinary time we spent together walking in the Scottish hills and sifting through jelly fish on the sea loch where we were staying. I think that I have done as much as I can but, of course, to quote a teacher I sometimes feel that,I could have done better.

I would like a famous granny to endorse my book and as soon as I have the corrected copy will be approaching such a person. A group photograph with the kids and a lot of hiking it around the book shops and newspapers will follow. I heard that we spend as much time promoting our work as we do engineering it; much as I enjoy the razzmatazz I have my fingers crossed that someone is going to pick up this book and fly with it. To get your copy visit http://www.wendyknee.com or it will be on sale via Amazon from the beginning of April.

The Barbados Walk

As part of Holetown’s week long festival you could take part in a walk (or run) from Speightstown to Holetown, a distance of 7 kilometres or 4.3 miles. Mirren and I decided that we would do it and at 3.15 on sunday afternoon. I wore my new Barbados T shirt dress, hoping that I had chosen the coolest item of clothing in my wardrobe. Mirren looked cool in her light lemon cotton top and natty little black shorts, she wore a sensible canvas hat and carried a rucksack containing all that we might need. I had borrowed Brendas rather floppy knitted straw hat and was carrying a leather back bag containing a bottle of water, an orange and my swimming costume. As we approached the meeting point there didn’t seem to be many entrants. A group of men were limbering up and I asked them if they were the runners. ‘No, we are walkers,’ they called back. They looked very fit and why do all those exercises for a seven kilometre walk, along a flat road to Holetown? Was there something that I didn’t know.

As we approached the registration vehicle, I began to worry some more. Where were the townspeople, the fun runners and the strollers? A rather large lady standing next to me had the name of a gym emblazoned across the shoulders of her tee shirt.

‘Are you a regular at this sort of event?’ I asked her.

‘No I’ve only ever done 3 kilometres before,’ she said, ‘I mostly go to the gym.’She had her teenage son and a very youg daughter with her.

‘I’m a bit nervous,’ I said, ‘when I look around at all these serious contender.’

‘Look at me,’ she said, ‘I’m carrying my handbag,’ and over one should she had an overlarge, zebra striped handbag.

‘Name, age?’ asked the official. What! I scanned the list looking at the other ages, 24, 40, 30 something – did I see 74, or was I hoping. In the end the oldest man was 64, I never did find out who the oldest oman was but felt sure I was up there with her.

‘Walkers, over here please,’ called out the man on the other side of the road. There were about thirty of us and as the gun blasted out above our heads at least twenty of them set off at a great pace. I was certain then that I was in the wrong race. With elbows punching out either side and their hips jutting this way and that they rounded the roundabout before I had time to think what I was doing. A few whities were walking in front of us in a smart but not an athletic way and so I thought that we were going to be alright. They soon widened the gap between Mirren and I and the lady from the gym was about twenty yards behind us with a police car following.

‘I could do with a drink,’ said Mirren just as I spotted the fish stall where we had been told that water would be given out. The hot sun beat down on us and stood still to enjoy the bottle of water offered to us whilst watching the others round the bend far in the distance. They gap was growing larger and looking back I couldn’t see the lady from the gym.

We carried on, criss crossing the road to catch whatever shade we could find, a few people stood outside their houses and either stared at us or shouted, ‘you’ve got to run.’ ‘We’re walkers,’ we yelled back and smiled a lot. Our numbers were emblazoned across our chests symbolising our determination to win the race but we walked and talked. A group of women at the bus stop clapped as we went by. Finally we reached St James church and we felt great that we were still going strong, nearly there and then a runner past us, and then another. Fit young men their black bodies slick with sweat, their faces serious with the desire to win.

‘We should go faster,’ said Mirren. If only I could, I seemed to have had once pace the whole way. We looked for Patrick, Mirren’s husband, who had chosen to do the run. The heat was relentless and stepping out as much as I could we rounded the corner to the finish that was lined with people cheering and clapping as the runners sped past us. The finishing line officials brushed us to one side as they checked the runners, no longer interested in the two last walkers.

Annette greeted us with a huge grin and warm hug. She was proud of us and we were proud of us. We had left at 3.35 and arrived at the finish at 5pm. Not bad, I had reckoned that it would take me about that long. Mirren stood by the roadside waiting to capture Patrick with her camera as he rounded the corner wearing his bright red baseball cap and a white tee shirt, the sweat pouring of him. ‘Well done,’ it was a fabulous achievement. I went looking for the gym lady, and then I saw her.

‘How did you get on?’

‘I did it, my kids helped me and we finished.’

We shook hands but it was too formal and I gave her a hug.

‘What is you name?’ I asked her.

‘Julie.’

‘I am Wendy and my daughter is called Julie and so I will never forget you,’ I said.

We were brave to enter and victorous on our completion and Patrick got a prize for being the oldest man to enter the men’s race!

 

Walking In The Canyon

We decided to take the shuttle bus all the way to the top of the canyon, it is 4 miles. The sun beat down and we started to walk back down the road from whence we came grabbing what little shade there was. When we got to the river it was too tempting not to go on down to the waters edge and walk in the cold clear stream. It is also hard to believe that this time last week we were all wrapped up against the cold, today it was 70 degrees fahrenheit and rising – tomorrow they say it is going to be in the 80s.

I love walking in the canyon, we were lucky enough to see a bright red Cardinal. When we visited Phoenix at the weekend, we wandered in the foothills of the mountains there but it was barren and dusty and nothing compared with Catalina Mountains of Southern Arizona.
I recently walked up to the seven falls with my friends and sitting up there high in the hills with water falling down between the crevices to form a small lake was blissful. As we sat by a stream rushing between the rocks we could hear what sounded like breaking glass, in fact it was ice breaking off from the frozen crevices and plants. The trail clung to the hillside and it was easy to imagine western films being made in this area years before. Indeed the Indians inhabitated this area before the white man took it over. On the shuttle bus the driver gives us the low down on the history of the area, the mountain lions that may lay in wait and the rattle snakes that we should not disturb. We are told about the granite rocks and the tree that sends it’s roots down 150 feet in order to find water. The tall seguaro cactus, commonly known as organ pipe cactus, that live for two hundred years and the need to preserve this beautiful place for posterity. It is my favourite place when I visit Tucson and I never tire of it.

Walking in the canyon

Wendy and Ginny on the trail in Sabeno Canyon.

Tucson Arizona

When I entered the departure gate at Heathrow airport I was asked to wait on one side. My name was called and I was offered a seat in Business Class. ‘Are you satisfied?’ asked the man behind the counter as he pointed out my seat on the ticket. I was over the moon. Ten hours on a flight and I got to sit in comfort. I couldn’t believe my luck. Hnaging around Dallas airport for three hours is no fun but I was soon on my way to Tucson where I was met by my friend Gi nny.
It is so nice to be here. The clear blue skies and the mountains stark and grey, the hillside is covered in cactus, the tallest being the organ pipes that reach for the sky. I brushed against a cactus and the thorn went straight through my jeans and stuck into my leg. On the first day we went hiking in the Sabino Canyon, a place I love. The walking is easy. The air is very dry and it was quite warm, I walked just wearing a tee shirt with my cardigan tied around my waist. Afterwards we stopped at the De Grazia gallery where we met Jane Stern, http://www.healingangelsinc.com – who was exhibiting her artwork based on healing angels. They were very unusual and Jane took us around explaining some of the stories behind her work. I love coming to the De Grazia, out here in the desert, it has a great feel to it.
A little light lunch at Bakery Beyond (well, not so light), and then a visit to the huge second hand book shop before returning to feed the birds in Ginny’s lovely back yard. Ginny gives the birds names and her favourite is a woodpecker called Misty, who swoops in and clings to one of the upright posts before alighting on one of the worms that Ginny throws for her. A flash of irridesant blue, green, shocking pink and you know the humming bird has come to feed on sugar and water. They are like little jewels as the sun catches the sheen of their feathers and gives us a flash of colour.

The next night I went with Ginny to an open church, on the outskirts of town, to listen to Lono talk about his Near Death Experience. I didn’t quite know what to expect. Lono came onto to the stage wearing a large black cowboy hat and sporting a bushy grey moustache. He told us how he had suffered a severe electrical shock and described being pulled into another life, one that was truly heavenly. He had moments when he didn’t want to go to this other place but the desire to be so peaceful and in such a beautiful place was almost too strong. It was not his time and eventually he recovered but went on to to change the way he lived. They have these talks once a fortnight on the same subject. As much as anything I enjoyed going out of town and looking back over the mountains and plains as the sun set.

The next day we went over to Saguaro National Park and met up with Mary Francis and hiked a little in the foothills of the mountains only now the weather had turned very cold and you needed to wear a jacket, scarf and gloves. Weather warnings were given out about the extreme freezing conditions and people are talking about little else. When I think of the frost and ice at home I wonder what all the fuss is about. It is deceptive here here because it is so dry and the clear blue skies and the daytime sun belies the cold that you feel especially in the shade. But soon it will change the forecast is for warmer weather on wednesday and so it will only be five days of really cold weather.
On saturday night we went to Laffs, a local comedy club. The first act was a Mexican who told a very funny story about what if the president had been a Mexican instead of a black man. There are lots of Mexicans in this area. Indeed I read that California, Arizona, Texas were all part of Mexico once upon a time so it is no wonder that there is a big Mexican influence and I’m offered Mexican food all the time. The second comedian was a Kenny Rogers look alike with a thick head of white hair and white moustach and cowboy boots. He was introduced to us a war vet. (Vietnam). He was quite good but relied too heavily on ‘pussy’ jokes. The final comedian and main attraction, was brilliant. He was energetic and used Hollywood for his material. He had us in fits of laughter as he changed into makeshift costumes to take off Tom Cruise in Top Gun, Robbie Williams, Stallone and many others. It lasted for one and a half hours; it was certainly different. I hope we go again.

Part of Sunday was spent in the shopping mall; you cannot help but be seduced by the cut price offers. Not only are the prices slashed by 30%, 40% even 75% there is another 30% off just because my friend has a ‘store card.’ Come on Wednesday and just because you are over fifty five- you get another 10% off! The basket filled with clothes and we went into the large changing rooms to try on an array of garments. At the check out you could see the sums appearing on the screen, the original price followed by the discounted price and just when you were begining to think what retail heaven you were in they deducted the 30% at the end. No wonder everyone has so much. It is the same in the foodstore. You go armed with coupons that are delivered by an advertising paper and then it’s prudent to choose your day carefully because the store manager may have a special offer on the very item that you want.
I have to be careful. My luggage allowance is still the same when I leave this country as when I entered, and so I will either have to wear a lot of layers or dispose of some of that old stuff that I’ve brought out from England.