For the past three days we’ve been running a holiday camp for children at ‘Treasured Kids’, a school some members of the team have been working at these past few months. We’d turn up at 8ish, have a meeting with the teachers who were helping us there about what the day would involve, then start setting up. We served porridge at 9am for the kids breakfast, tho Ugandan porridge is nothing like English porridge, it’s completely liquid with granules instead of oats. Then we’d have 2 meetings a day with the kids with singing, games and a short talk, with an hour of sports and activities inbetween. Then at the end of the day we’d serve them rice and squash. We had about 300 children at the camp, divided into age groups that we were in charge of in pairs. JC and I had the oldest – Year 7, who were almost fluent in English which was great. Way more than 300 would turn up for the food at the end tho and we always ran out of drinking water. The water at this school is so disgusting, I drank some on our first day and it tasted rough. I asked a teacher why it tasted so weird and he told me it was because it was filtered through a graveyard, and not many families can afford coffins… The school is desperately saving to build a well but it doesn’t even have enough funds to pay its teachers so clean water seems a long way off. The rice on the other hand was delicious tho and I’ve become very adept at eating with my hands!
Other things this week have included seeing Chrissie, a friend of mine from school. She came out to Kampala for 10 days so I got to see her quite a bit and stock up on some English chocolate and shampoo and conditioner for Westerner’s hair! It’s been really fun showing her round the city and bringing her to my school. School was very boring towards the end tho, just marking and doing reports, spent an entire day hole-punching and putting things on folders. On the last Friday the kids all came back tho and we had a brief assembly where the teachers gave us some presents – big straw hats and African shirts for the boys, and massive African dresses and straw bags for me and Phoebs. We’ve another visitor as well, Pete Alston, a friend who knows most people in the team, turned up out of the blue last Friday night. He’s been living in South Africa for 8 months and decided to visit us before heading home. He’s been living with us which has been fun but is heading off tonight.
That’s all for now, hope everyone’s well at home. Looking forwards to seeing people in 3 weeks time!
Thursday, 30 April 2009
Tuesday, 21 April 2009
End of school!
Time has been speeding away and I've come to the last week of school! Last week I spent all day supervising their end of term exams, and this week I am marking paper and writing reports with the teachers and the children have gone home. They're coming back on Friday for a final assembly then i'll never see them again which is quite sad because there are some really cute ones! It's been quite dull recently tho with no teaching so will be quite nice to break up. All the teachers are coming over for supper tomorrow night, should be interesting as they are all a bit insane! Talking of suppers.. last Friday the street children team from church came over (12 of them) and cooked us a massive Ugandan supper as a thank you. It was such a lovely evening, playing volleyball then having the most delicious food ever which we ate with our hands. It was a bit messy trying to eat rice and matoke and posho etc with a couple of different sauces but was OK once you get the hang of it. On Sunday we had another fun supper which was this time traditionally English - steak and mushroom pie followed by apple pie, cooked by Jim and Katie. We had a dress theme of pairs picked from a hat - including Mikey having to dress as Tinkerbell, and Barney as Maid Marian!
Other than that life had been quite uneventful. Katie and my wounds are healing up well, tho I think they will scar a bit :-( The chickens are proving not such a good buy as they don't lay that many eggs, they keep coming into the house, they peck our toes, poop everywhere and are very noisy early in the morning. Still quite fun to have around tho.
Also, Chrissie (a friend of mine from school) has just come out to Kampala so I'm gonna get to see one of my best friends which is v v exciting indeed!
Hope all's well in England,
xx
Other than that life had been quite uneventful. Katie and my wounds are healing up well, tho I think they will scar a bit :-( The chickens are proving not such a good buy as they don't lay that many eggs, they keep coming into the house, they peck our toes, poop everywhere and are very noisy early in the morning. Still quite fun to have around tho.
Also, Chrissie (a friend of mine from school) has just come out to Kampala so I'm gonna get to see one of my best friends which is v v exciting indeed!
Hope all's well in England,
xx
Saturday, 11 April 2009
Ssesse Island trip
Last weekend we had a girls’ weekend away to the Ssesse Islands in Lake Victoria. We arrived on Friday two hours early for our ferry from Entebbe and sheltered in a little shop from the heavy rain and thunder. Throughout the 3 hour boat ride the weather improved and we arrived on Bulago (?) – the main island – in sunshine. Our little hotel was right by the beach so we had an evening swim in the gorgeously warm water of Lake Victoria. (Unfortunately didn’t really realise at the time that this water can give you Bilharzia: a tiny bug thing that works its way through your bloodstream and eventually infects your liver. Have to take pills for that when we get back to the U.K.) So worth it tho!
The next day we decided to try to find a beach we’d read about by walking to the main town (took about an hour) then getting a boda-boda (motorbike taxi, the island’s only public transport) to this beach. We’ve all taken bodas around Kampala before so having 3 to each bike, including the driver, with no helmets or protection seems completely normal to us now. The journey was over 15 miles they claimed so we got on and set off, enjoying the experience. Katie and I were on one bike and our driver was always at the lead, going very fast over the bumpy tracks. At one point he swerved to avoid a big dip in the road and fell off, dragging us along the ground. When we stopped Katie and I climbed out and lifted the bike off the driver, while the others got off their bikes to come and help. Both Katie and the driver passed out on the road and I was in a lot of pain so we were pretty unsure of what to do. The others cleaned our wounds with water the other drivers put their friend on a boda when he came around and took him o ff. Suddenly up came a massive open-back truck who offered to drive us to the nearest health clinic when they saw what had happened. Katie and I sat in the cabin and the rest stood in back. They took us to a clinic that didn’t have running water or electricity but it was clean and the nurse there cleaned our grazes. Katie had grazes on her arm, hip and a big one on her chest, as well as some cuts on her face. I have them on my arm, a big one across by back and shoulder and lots of skin missing from my feet and toes. We were so incredibly lucky not to have hit our heads or been trapped under the boiling hot exhaust pipe – tho it was only inches away! We got interrupted at the clinic by a horrible drunk man who we’d met on the ferry who came barging into the room and started being rude and aggressive but fortunately the others got rid of him.
We needed to go to a hospital to get the wounds looked at properly but there’s only ferry to the mainland per day which had already left so the lorry driver said he’s take us back to our hotel instead. However, they needed to make a stop-first to transport sand to a building site. 15 minutes later we reached a quarry to find that the ‘sand’ turned out to be pretty moist soil. They loaded it into the back amazingly fast, it only took maybe 10 minutes to fill an enormous truck using only 3 spades! We squeezed 3 people in the cabin behind our seats, crushed against the back, but the other two had to get in the back again. This proved hard because the dirt was piled up higher than the edges. They eventually managed to dig little holes for themselves to try and ensure they didn’t fall out and off we set. After another stopover and dirt exchange, we got to the hotel all in one piece.
After a completely sleepless night, Katie, Heidi and I caught the 8am fery back to the mainland, leaving the others behind to enjoy the rest of the weekend. We got a private taxi from Entebbe to the hospital, eventually arriving there at about 1pm. Once there our wounds were cleaned and dressed, and we were given tetanus shots and antibiotics to take. It’s now the following Monday (9 days later) and we’re both healing up OK. It’s quite hard to leave the house, firstly because we have to find something decent to wear that still doesn’t cover our grazes, and secondly for me because I can’t wear a shoe on one foot. We’re definitely getting better tho and the team is looking after us so well – the boys even put flowers in our rooms when we first came home!
Other news is that we now have 7 chickens - 5 we bought as a team and 2 were given to the twins as birthday presents. Fresh eggs and fresh meat hoorah!
Hope all is well at home and you’ve had a nice Easter.
Love, Charlotte xx
The next day we decided to try to find a beach we’d read about by walking to the main town (took about an hour) then getting a boda-boda (motorbike taxi, the island’s only public transport) to this beach. We’ve all taken bodas around Kampala before so having 3 to each bike, including the driver, with no helmets or protection seems completely normal to us now. The journey was over 15 miles they claimed so we got on and set off, enjoying the experience. Katie and I were on one bike and our driver was always at the lead, going very fast over the bumpy tracks. At one point he swerved to avoid a big dip in the road and fell off, dragging us along the ground. When we stopped Katie and I climbed out and lifted the bike off the driver, while the others got off their bikes to come and help. Both Katie and the driver passed out on the road and I was in a lot of pain so we were pretty unsure of what to do. The others cleaned our wounds with water the other drivers put their friend on a boda when he came around and took him o ff. Suddenly up came a massive open-back truck who offered to drive us to the nearest health clinic when they saw what had happened. Katie and I sat in the cabin and the rest stood in back. They took us to a clinic that didn’t have running water or electricity but it was clean and the nurse there cleaned our grazes. Katie had grazes on her arm, hip and a big one on her chest, as well as some cuts on her face. I have them on my arm, a big one across by back and shoulder and lots of skin missing from my feet and toes. We were so incredibly lucky not to have hit our heads or been trapped under the boiling hot exhaust pipe – tho it was only inches away! We got interrupted at the clinic by a horrible drunk man who we’d met on the ferry who came barging into the room and started being rude and aggressive but fortunately the others got rid of him.
We needed to go to a hospital to get the wounds looked at properly but there’s only ferry to the mainland per day which had already left so the lorry driver said he’s take us back to our hotel instead. However, they needed to make a stop-first to transport sand to a building site. 15 minutes later we reached a quarry to find that the ‘sand’ turned out to be pretty moist soil. They loaded it into the back amazingly fast, it only took maybe 10 minutes to fill an enormous truck using only 3 spades! We squeezed 3 people in the cabin behind our seats, crushed against the back, but the other two had to get in the back again. This proved hard because the dirt was piled up higher than the edges. They eventually managed to dig little holes for themselves to try and ensure they didn’t fall out and off we set. After another stopover and dirt exchange, we got to the hotel all in one piece.
After a completely sleepless night, Katie, Heidi and I caught the 8am fery back to the mainland, leaving the others behind to enjoy the rest of the weekend. We got a private taxi from Entebbe to the hospital, eventually arriving there at about 1pm. Once there our wounds were cleaned and dressed, and we were given tetanus shots and antibiotics to take. It’s now the following Monday (9 days later) and we’re both healing up OK. It’s quite hard to leave the house, firstly because we have to find something decent to wear that still doesn’t cover our grazes, and secondly for me because I can’t wear a shoe on one foot. We’re definitely getting better tho and the team is looking after us so well – the boys even put flowers in our rooms when we first came home!
Other news is that we now have 7 chickens - 5 we bought as a team and 2 were given to the twins as birthday presents. Fresh eggs and fresh meat hoorah!
Hope all is well at home and you’ve had a nice Easter.
Love, Charlotte xx
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
