On Monday we went to this American club in our district which is gorgeous. It has everything - a pool, volleyball court, tennis court, squash, table tennis etc. It's mostly white people there tho with Ugandans serving them which feels a bit awkward. But a lovely place to go once in a while! Despite lathering up in suncream we all managed to get very very sunburnt, and having children launch themselves at you and cling to your shoulders etc has made this even worse. But I'm sure it'll turn to tan.
We found the most humungous spider I have ever seen in my life in our bedroom the other day. It was hairy and had pincers and its legs spanned about the palm of my hand. The boys caught it but released it still pretty near the house..
Other than that life is good, had a chat with a couple of the teachers today, think we gradually becoming friends.
I don't know if I'll be putting up more photos because it takes so so long but I'll try at the weekend at a different internet cafe.
Love to all, xxx
Thursday, 19 February 2009
Wednesday, 18 February 2009
Photos
The bottom photo is of the school where I'm working at - Children's Corner. That's the playground and all the classrooms are around the top, with nursery and Year 1 kids at the bottom, as well as the two dormitories and staffroom.
The next one is of a typical Ugandan classroom, not at my school but at one of the others. There all bare, with a blackboard and benches. We've made some posters to make it look more lively, and they have some old ones up too.
This next is a street near school, it's what most streets here look like that aren't in the city centre: dirt road with lots of dips and potholes, women washing clothes, bananas everywhere, and those shacks are normal Ugandan shops.
The next one is of a typical Ugandan classroom, not at my school but at one of the others. There all bare, with a blackboard and benches. We've made some posters to make it look more lively, and they have some old ones up too.
This next is a street near school, it's what most streets here look like that aren't in the city centre: dirt road with lots of dips and potholes, women washing clothes, bananas everywhere, and those shacks are normal Ugandan shops.
Thursday, 12 February 2009
Thursday
There are now four of us at Children's Corner (my school) - me, Ash, Phoebe and Mikey because their previous school didn't work out. I've been teaching Year 1, 2, 3 and some nursery kids, sometimes with another teacher, sometimes with another one of the team, and sometimes alone. It's still pretty hard because some of them are so much quicker than others and when they finish their work they're really distracting. One of them threw a ball of paper at Ash the other day which he picked up and a human poo fell out. These kids are wild. One of them today thrust a horrible bug into my face at break which was embarassing because I shrieked when apparently they're actually edible! Well he ate it so at least I think they are... Some of the younger ones are sweet tho - I went for a walk today at lunch and two of them came out onto the street when I came back to try and drag me to their classroom. I felt loved.
There's one teacher at school - Teacher Mark who is such a funny man, some welcome comic releif. Often he wears a 3 peice suit with jacket and waistcoat and everything, once he wore traditional African dress (like a big kind of kaftan with normal trousers), yesterday he even wore a velvet bow tie with his suit. But today he came in wearing jeans and a t-shirt with a massive photo of his face on it, with his number and email address. He claims it's to advertise his computer fixing skills. What a joker.
Another funny thing I saw this morning was at this roundabout on the way to school. The Ugandans aren't great with roundabouts so all the big ones require a traffic warden. This traffic warden was standing in the road doing his job when this bus came by with an open door, the traffic warden announced 'I have to go now' and just hopped on the bus! Then, the man hired to garden the roundabout looked around, dropped his tools and stepped out into the road, wearing welly boots and trousers and nothing else and started trying to direct the traffic instead! Sadly no-one listened to him and he almost got run over so fled back to the safety of the centre. It was probably the most surreal thing I've seen out here so far!
There's one teacher at school - Teacher Mark who is such a funny man, some welcome comic releif. Often he wears a 3 peice suit with jacket and waistcoat and everything, once he wore traditional African dress (like a big kind of kaftan with normal trousers), yesterday he even wore a velvet bow tie with his suit. But today he came in wearing jeans and a t-shirt with a massive photo of his face on it, with his number and email address. He claims it's to advertise his computer fixing skills. What a joker.
Another funny thing I saw this morning was at this roundabout on the way to school. The Ugandans aren't great with roundabouts so all the big ones require a traffic warden. This traffic warden was standing in the road doing his job when this bus came by with an open door, the traffic warden announced 'I have to go now' and just hopped on the bus! Then, the man hired to garden the roundabout looked around, dropped his tools and stepped out into the road, wearing welly boots and trousers and nothing else and started trying to direct the traffic instead! Sadly no-one listened to him and he almost got run over so fled back to the safety of the centre. It was probably the most surreal thing I've seen out here so far!
Monday, 9 February 2009
Weekend
I can't upload photos - this is so frustrating. I'll have to do my best with words.
Today is Monday - we don't teach on a Monday but use it as day to prep our upcoming lessons. We don't have any lessons to prep because school's only just begun and is still pretty unorganised, so this morning we instead had an introduction to the work with street children we'll be doing. The team that heads it up are all from our church - Calvary Chapel. There's a young American woman called Jessica, two Ugandan women called Ruth and Rita, and two Ugandan men called Andrew and Derek. They go into this slum every Monday, Wednesday and Friday and offer medical help, cook a hot meal, and just get to know the kids. They also offer reading, writing, maths classes at the church on Saturdays. These children suffer so much. Most of them ran away from home because they were abused, some were abandoned, some are refugees from the Congo and Sudan. They beg and steal and scravenge from bins to find food. Most of them are addicted to drugs (lots of glue and petrol sniffing) and alcohol because it numbs the lonliness, cold and hunger. These kids are 6 to 14 years old and they are dying on the street because they can't afford to better their lives. But the outreach programme has successfully placed some children back with their families, and Jessica, Andrew and Derek live together and have opened up their home to 11 boys who live with them as a family.
I have to go but will describe more about the amazing and tireless work they are doing out here soon.
Love to all, xxxxx
Today is Monday - we don't teach on a Monday but use it as day to prep our upcoming lessons. We don't have any lessons to prep because school's only just begun and is still pretty unorganised, so this morning we instead had an introduction to the work with street children we'll be doing. The team that heads it up are all from our church - Calvary Chapel. There's a young American woman called Jessica, two Ugandan women called Ruth and Rita, and two Ugandan men called Andrew and Derek. They go into this slum every Monday, Wednesday and Friday and offer medical help, cook a hot meal, and just get to know the kids. They also offer reading, writing, maths classes at the church on Saturdays. These children suffer so much. Most of them ran away from home because they were abused, some were abandoned, some are refugees from the Congo and Sudan. They beg and steal and scravenge from bins to find food. Most of them are addicted to drugs (lots of glue and petrol sniffing) and alcohol because it numbs the lonliness, cold and hunger. These kids are 6 to 14 years old and they are dying on the street because they can't afford to better their lives. But the outreach programme has successfully placed some children back with their families, and Jessica, Andrew and Derek live together and have opened up their home to 11 boys who live with them as a family.
I have to go but will describe more about the amazing and tireless work they are doing out here soon.
Love to all, xxxxx
Thursday, 5 February 2009
Starting school
On Wednesday we all had our first day at our respective schools. I've been paired up with a guy from Oxfordshire called Ash who is really nice. Our school is called Children's Corner and is the poorest out of all the schools we've been placed in. When we arrived at 9 o'clock we had a chat with the guvenor because the headmistress wasn't there and she told a teacher to take us to any class. So Ash was taken to Year 4 and I was put in Year 3. The teacher wasn't expecting me so didn't have anything planned so I just sat in the corner and watched. The children were being taugh science and were just reciting off the blackboard by rote about living things and germination etc. (They can barely speak English so they weren't understanding, they were just repeating what the teacher said and copying what was written on the board into their books.) After quite a while another teacher came in and told me to come with her. So I went with her into her class - Year 2 and she asked if I wanted to be involved with the Christian side of school life. I said yes so she asked if I would do chapel that day - basically an entire school assembly. She told me to pick a bible story, preach on it, and teach the kids to learn a verse off by heart, starting at 11 o'clock. There are no clocks in school so I didn't know how long I had to prepare or anything. I spotted a book that had a series on Moses so picked that as my story and started to write a talk. At break I went and found Ash and he helped me finish it off and together we managed to do a reading, give a talk, teach the 150 children (aged between 3 to 13) a verse and do a quiz. Not sure how much they understood, but we did have a translator which was good. During our talk a random man was dragged through the yard (where the meeting is) by two armed policemen, struggling all the way. The kids all turned around to look and some of them started beating on the drums.. it was ever so slightly distracting.
After that assembly I went back to Year 2, the teacher asked me to 'teach them English' and then left alone with about 20 5-7 year olds who didn't speak any English. I didn't know what they'd already covered or anything soI tried teaching them some basic greetings - Hello, how are you, my name is etc but I didn't know the format and they didn't have text or exercise books and it kind of broke down. The teacher would wander in every now and again and tell them all to be quiet but when she left they would go in and out of the classroom, shout, talk to each other, noe of them hit me a few times but I think that was just banter. At least I hope so...
Finally the teacher came back and told me it was lunch time so I fled. For lunch we were given posho (maize) and beans. The posho had the exact consistency or play-doh, and tasted not great and some of the beans were off. They gave us massive portions but none of the teachers ate with us, they all made excuses and left the staffroom (a tiny room with no door that has some plastic chairs stacked in a corner and which the kids come and go from) so we gave our half full plates to these children to get rid of.
After lunch I was with Year 3 who are tamer but they just don't understand my accent and I don't really understand their's. I watched lessons for 2 hours and finally the bus came to pick us up so we could go home.
Today I was with Year 3 all day again. I was told to teach them reading, given a sheet with some sounsd and again left alone with 18 children. I tried teaching them letters and sounds and stuff and thought it was going ok, but then I set them an exercise which wasn't only copying off the board and they were baffled, but didn't ask me what I meant. When I took in their books 4 of them had understod that I wanted them to make up their own sentences, and 14 of them hadn't. It was a disaster. The teacher came back and when I explained she said 'Don't worry, you are teaching them right but the children are weak,' whatever that means and then told the class that Teacher Charlotte was very angry and cross with them all which was so unnecessary! Then she made up some sentences, wrote them on the board and they copied it down - which means that agani they weren't really taking any information in. She also slapped some of the children in the head when they talked or got an answer wrong, not very hard but it still wasn't something I agreed with.
It was so hard teaching them and I came close to tears like 6 times throughout the day but managed to keep it together. At lunch Ash and I went for a walk in the area to try and avoid the posho which was a change of scene although not an altogether pleasant one and the school is in a slum so we were stared at the whole time. In the afternoon I helped Teacher Susan (the Year 3 teacher) do some marking which was good coz it's something I can actually do and just watched her teach.
I'm finding it really really hard but hopefully it will get better because I know they loved last year's team who went there - they keep mentioning them and asknig if we know them and showing us where they did a wall painting etc, so if they did it so can we! Having said that I have to teach Year 2 again tomorrow ... argh.
After that assembly I went back to Year 2, the teacher asked me to 'teach them English' and then left alone with about 20 5-7 year olds who didn't speak any English. I didn't know what they'd already covered or anything soI tried teaching them some basic greetings - Hello, how are you, my name is etc but I didn't know the format and they didn't have text or exercise books and it kind of broke down. The teacher would wander in every now and again and tell them all to be quiet but when she left they would go in and out of the classroom, shout, talk to each other, noe of them hit me a few times but I think that was just banter. At least I hope so...
Finally the teacher came back and told me it was lunch time so I fled. For lunch we were given posho (maize) and beans. The posho had the exact consistency or play-doh, and tasted not great and some of the beans were off. They gave us massive portions but none of the teachers ate with us, they all made excuses and left the staffroom (a tiny room with no door that has some plastic chairs stacked in a corner and which the kids come and go from) so we gave our half full plates to these children to get rid of.
After lunch I was with Year 3 who are tamer but they just don't understand my accent and I don't really understand their's. I watched lessons for 2 hours and finally the bus came to pick us up so we could go home.
Today I was with Year 3 all day again. I was told to teach them reading, given a sheet with some sounsd and again left alone with 18 children. I tried teaching them letters and sounds and stuff and thought it was going ok, but then I set them an exercise which wasn't only copying off the board and they were baffled, but didn't ask me what I meant. When I took in their books 4 of them had understod that I wanted them to make up their own sentences, and 14 of them hadn't. It was a disaster. The teacher came back and when I explained she said 'Don't worry, you are teaching them right but the children are weak,' whatever that means and then told the class that Teacher Charlotte was very angry and cross with them all which was so unnecessary! Then she made up some sentences, wrote them on the board and they copied it down - which means that agani they weren't really taking any information in. She also slapped some of the children in the head when they talked or got an answer wrong, not very hard but it still wasn't something I agreed with.
It was so hard teaching them and I came close to tears like 6 times throughout the day but managed to keep it together. At lunch Ash and I went for a walk in the area to try and avoid the posho which was a change of scene although not an altogether pleasant one and the school is in a slum so we were stared at the whole time. In the afternoon I helped Teacher Susan (the Year 3 teacher) do some marking which was good coz it's something I can actually do and just watched her teach.
I'm finding it really really hard but hopefully it will get better because I know they loved last year's team who went there - they keep mentioning them and asknig if we know them and showing us where they did a wall painting etc, so if they did it so can we! Having said that I have to teach Year 2 again tomorrow ... argh.
Monday, 2 February 2009
First post
Hello all! Sorry it's taken a while to write on this - today (Monday) was the first day I've been able to get to our local internet cafe and it is so slow! Taken me 18 minutes so far to get onto this.. But fortunately it's very cheap - 40p per hour.
We arrived in Uganda last Tuesday and since then have been getting to know the place as we don't start teaching until Wednesday. Our house is in a suburb of Kampala called Makindye (pronounced Mach-in-day) and is quite nice. We have a very tropical looking garden with a banana and mango trees and also some monkeys apparently, tho we have yet to see these. Inside it is quite sparsley furninshed with just beds, tables and chairs but we've spread all our stuff around so it looks quite homely. We sleep under big mosquito nets which feels especially fun! We have a lady called Prossie who cooks supper for us on weekdays and so through her have got to know some Ugandan foods such as gnut sauce - a purple paste that is served hot and tastes of peanut butter - mashed savoury banana, and 'wacky cake' which we are trying today which includes coke and chocolate as two of its ingredients.. Meat is very expensive here so we only get it twice a week - never thought that would have bothered me but I do actually miss it! On the plus side, fruit is cheap, so we have pineapple and passionfruit and mango every day (although for the first two days it did make me throw up.)
We went into Kampala on Wednesday, split into two groups with a list of things to buy/find with no guidance at all. It was quite an experience - finding a bus to take us there and finding our way round and home again after but through asking a lot of help from people on the street we managed to do OK. It's actually a really great city, hectic and busy and hot and dirty but friendly as well and has some awesome clothes and fruit on sale in the markets. Crossing the road can be a bit of a challenge as cars and buses don't seem to mind hitting people gently. Also bicycles are loaded up with stuff so they are hard to steer and people carry such large goods on their heads (ie. poles or even a TV I saw!) that you have to duck and dodge all over the place.
The people are so friendly in this beautiful country - the other day a couple of us were walking through the village next to ours and a lady started talking to us and invited us to her house where she gave us drinks, introduced us to her family and was just really welcoming. After church on Sunday I also found everyone there to be so warm and chatty with us, although there were a couple of awkward moments when people would come up and ask us for money. People here assume that being white makes you automatically rich. Everywhere we go the kids cry out 'Mzungu! Mzungu!' which means 'white person!' I've been trying to learn some Lugandan while I'm out here - the two most spoken languages are English and Lugandan, tho there are another 52 'commonly used' ones! - and the big smiles you get when you greet people in their native tongue is amzing. They always laugh tho for some reason .. I'm probably getting it wrong. And I can never understand the response. Conversations between locals are great - they shake each others hansd for a really long time and say 'how are you?', 'how are the children?' 'hiow is the house?' how ae the chickens?" 'how is your wife?' etc etc for ages.
My time has almost run uot but I will be back soon, hopefully later today to add some photos and to keep writing - there is so much more to tell!
Love to all, xxx
We arrived in Uganda last Tuesday and since then have been getting to know the place as we don't start teaching until Wednesday. Our house is in a suburb of Kampala called Makindye (pronounced Mach-in-day) and is quite nice. We have a very tropical looking garden with a banana and mango trees and also some monkeys apparently, tho we have yet to see these. Inside it is quite sparsley furninshed with just beds, tables and chairs but we've spread all our stuff around so it looks quite homely. We sleep under big mosquito nets which feels especially fun! We have a lady called Prossie who cooks supper for us on weekdays and so through her have got to know some Ugandan foods such as gnut sauce - a purple paste that is served hot and tastes of peanut butter - mashed savoury banana, and 'wacky cake' which we are trying today which includes coke and chocolate as two of its ingredients.. Meat is very expensive here so we only get it twice a week - never thought that would have bothered me but I do actually miss it! On the plus side, fruit is cheap, so we have pineapple and passionfruit and mango every day (although for the first two days it did make me throw up.)
We went into Kampala on Wednesday, split into two groups with a list of things to buy/find with no guidance at all. It was quite an experience - finding a bus to take us there and finding our way round and home again after but through asking a lot of help from people on the street we managed to do OK. It's actually a really great city, hectic and busy and hot and dirty but friendly as well and has some awesome clothes and fruit on sale in the markets. Crossing the road can be a bit of a challenge as cars and buses don't seem to mind hitting people gently. Also bicycles are loaded up with stuff so they are hard to steer and people carry such large goods on their heads (ie. poles or even a TV I saw!) that you have to duck and dodge all over the place.
The people are so friendly in this beautiful country - the other day a couple of us were walking through the village next to ours and a lady started talking to us and invited us to her house where she gave us drinks, introduced us to her family and was just really welcoming. After church on Sunday I also found everyone there to be so warm and chatty with us, although there were a couple of awkward moments when people would come up and ask us for money. People here assume that being white makes you automatically rich. Everywhere we go the kids cry out 'Mzungu! Mzungu!' which means 'white person!' I've been trying to learn some Lugandan while I'm out here - the two most spoken languages are English and Lugandan, tho there are another 52 'commonly used' ones! - and the big smiles you get when you greet people in their native tongue is amzing. They always laugh tho for some reason .. I'm probably getting it wrong. And I can never understand the response. Conversations between locals are great - they shake each others hansd for a really long time and say 'how are you?', 'how are the children?' 'hiow is the house?' how ae the chickens?" 'how is your wife?' etc etc for ages.
My time has almost run uot but I will be back soon, hopefully later today to add some photos and to keep writing - there is so much more to tell!
Love to all, xxx
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