Pictures above: 1. boys from orphanage making second batch of soap; 2. Rita bottling first batch of soap in my kitchen. 3. Peter, Timo, and Rita stirring and testing Ph in first batch; 4. Rita stirring first batch on my veranda.
While we were in Kampala last week, Peter and I drove to Mukono about 45 minutes away to visit with Pastor Godfrey and his wife Anne. Pastor Godfrey is the Mukono Baptist Association Director and we have been visiting with him since January. Anne kindly sold me her recipe for making liquid soap and gave us instructions on where in Kampala to purchase all of the necessary chemicals, dyes, and perfume. Peter and I picked everything up on our way back through Kampala and on Thursday, Rita, a nineteen-year old orphan, and Peter and Timo and I made our first batch. On Friday, Rita and I bottled 65 bottles of soap and 8 orphans came later to make the second batch. We didn’t get it bottled yet, but expect to get another 65 from that batch. The children loved the adventure of making the soap and they told me today that they had used it for washing the clothes. It is an all-purpose soap for bathing, washing clothes and dishes and mopping the floor. The older students loved the chemistry of the experiment and testing the Ph with the litmus paper. (that test failed to reach the desired color for either batch, but hopefully that won’t cause any major skin irritations!) Who knows, maybe we can start selling it to raise some small amount for the orphanage. Unfortunately, the people here are not accustomed to liquid soap, so we may have a difficult time retraining them!! Making the soap should be more cost-efficient for the many uses at the orphange. We’ll see. It was fun and everyone entered in!! And an extra bonus—I was able to recycle some of my saved water bottles. The American in me cannot bear to throw those away to be burned, so hundreds are stacked in the garage of the main house!!
Loved this story. You have many wonderful projects all moving forward, each bringing blessings to many!