I have a hero.. her name is Monday and she lives in Arua, Uganda. She is 37 years old and has been in a wheelchair for the past 7 years due to a spinal cord injury she suffered in a car accident. Her mother died of HIV/AIDS and she became responsible very young for raising her siblings. Before the accident she was tall and vivacious and the envy of many young women.. but after the accident she became a true beauty.
Monday runs a school called Ma Ecora (May Echora) which means “I Can” or “I am Able” .. and boy can she, and is she ever! In the past she worked for several expats as a cook and learned to make delectable dishes and all the ways of working with foreign food and people. After her accident, once the physical and psychological horror had passed, she decided to share her skills and talents with those who truly needed her, those in pain; those she well understood from her own sorrowful journey.
Ma Ecora is a row block of crumbling and dilapidated buildings where Monday teaches her many students to cook and to sew and to do hair and environmental hygiene and prepares the most vulnerable in society to enter into mainstream jobs in the hotel and catering industry. Don’t get me wrong, she’s no angel, she’s very human and employs some tactics that would move a storm trooper into action, but she gets the intended results and it all comes from the very best place within her. Many students have gone on to bigger and better things all due to Monday and Ma Ecora. The office wall is covered in photos of graduates, some of whom have found success in this country of so few prosperous opportunities.
Also housed in this school is a woodworking shop where her brother Ben leads young men into the trade of carpentry. Here they make tables and chairs and benches and an assortment of furniture. As well, they have a French teacher, a driving instructor and have laid out a strict and comprehensive curriculum all on their own. They take care and house those without means, and though they charge a fee for classes, many are taken in just for the fact that they are in need, and somehow, Lord only knows how, they make room for all who come.
Ma Ecora has no money. None. This school takes in single mothers, HIV orphaned, those who lost family in the conflict and war and turn down few. Somehow, somehow (again that word) they come up with the money to pay the rent, buy the food and the wood and the hairdressing materials and make that school run. And people show up, they come to learn and they take it seriously and they leave with the skills imparted to them by a group of dedicated, unpaid, giving, loving servants to their own.
And at the flagship is Monday; always cheerful, laughing, solving problems, hugging children, directing the students and making sure that all is done right and properly. Oh yeah, and when she’s not running the school she’s baking wedding cakes, plaiting and dreading and braiding and weaving somebody’s hair or she’s doing make-up for a bride or 3. or she’s cooking for me. Monday cooks meals twice a day for me and if not for her loving touch and wonderful food, I would have been sicker than I was for a long time. She and Ben and Bosco, who lives with them, have nursed me back to psychological and physical health on more than one occasion, and I am their sister, and they are my family here, and I love them as much as you could love anyone. I came here, it seems, to rediscover love. Agape love. Real. True. Love.
When I leave here I am going to champion this school and work to bring them the funding and recognition that they so very much deserve. I have to admit that the NGO I’ve been working with has been more than a challenge and a drain on my well-being. Sometimes things just don’t work and I won’t go into the details, but to say I am rescued by Ma Ecora in my quest to do good humanitarian work. I am going to love this self assigned assignment and I am going to tell you from the outset to look out for me because I’m bringing them your way and we’re gonna take that school from running on fumes to clean and shiny floors and windows and walls. I didn’t even know I was looking for them until they found me, and for the first time in my life I love Monday!
