It's time for Africa!

Hurrah to hyenas, helllllo HARAR!

2010-07-25T07:32:00.000-07:00

We're clearly used to doing things on 'African time' now by the the massive joke of our transport plans to start off travelling! It took us right until the night before we’d planned to leave, to decide how to get to Ethiopia… we ended up changing our minds (that’s so unlike me…!) and booking flights from Nairobi right at the last minute. (if we hadn't we would NOT have got to Ethiopia!) So the original plan to get there was to get busses to a town in Kenya just north of Nairobi, then pick up a truck from a petrol station and cram into the back or sit on the roof for a 24 hour journey to the Ethiopian border. I was so excited about doing this.. scenery in N kenya is stunning! and can I point out, we weren't even trying to get there in the most adventurous way possible, there just isn't any public transport in Northern Kenya so this is what our travel guide recommends! Anyhow it turns out the lack of public transport is due the roads ending and also the border area is one of the most unpredictable areas in Africa. People were trying to persuade us that civil war is just about too common for it to be worth the risk but not gonna lie, i was set on the picking up a truck plan.. So after getting looks of pure confusion by every local we explained our plans to, and then slightly intense lectures by the 2 people we knew that had been to the Kenya-Ethiopia border saying ‘never again, I thought I was going to die...'/ 'we were kicked out of the truck at 2am in the middle of nowhere having left roads a day ago’ etc, adventure V safety weighing up to cut a long story short only then did we find out that it turns out the only way you can get a visa into Ethiopia is if you fly there... EH?! if only we knew that in the first place! gutted as i was , not gonna lie - guess it was also a bit of a relief!

ANYWAY, ONTO THE INTERESTING STUFF the night in Nairobi, we were reading Connor’s guide book and discovered a place in the East of Ethiopia near the Somalia border called ‘Harar’. As soon as I saw the photo of a man feeding a hyena raw meat hanging from a stick in his mouth and read that it’s a tribal ritual that happens every night… I desperately wanted us to go there!

We landed in Addis, dropped our stuff at ‘mr martin’s cosy place’ where we had a small sleep before devising an Ethiopia itinerary over a jumbo mug of the apparently renowned Ethiopian coffee. Yum. In less than 30 minutes we were in a funky retro taxi listening to something that Ethiopian’s call music on our way to book 4 tickets TO HARAR PLEASE! We were told the bus journey takes 13 hours and only leaves daily at 5am. So after an afternoon and evening in Addis experiencing ‘Tej Bedt’ aka home brewed honey wine (a common Ethiopian drink that looks like orange juice and comes in the same conical flasks you get from a chemistry cupboard!) which we drank in a pretty garden packed only, other than us, with Ethiopians who had come for a civilized evening drink… We had such an adrenaline rush from being in Ethiopia and GOING TO HARAR TOMORROW. This time we didn’t knock ourselves out with tej bedt (if only we’d carried on beings so careful for the rest of the trip maybe I wouldn’t have tried to eat pot puree…) So, 6am the next morning and we were on our way (even though I lost my bus ticket!) to HARAAAR, the place with the best name ever. (Which the locals disappointingly pronounce Harur.) The landscape out of the window looked magnificent and we arrived in time to get a tuk-tuk to a hotel and arrange a guided tour around the old city (the third most holy city in the world after Jerusalem and Mecca apparently - i really will miss how random everything is here!) for the following day.

Other than trying to book a bus ticket to return to Addis the following day and finding out you’re supposed to book these things in advance, pffff, you don’t do things in advance while you’re travelling… so we had to stay in Harar an extra night – perrrfect. (well except for the fact that that meant we were getting the very last bus back to Addis to get to the airport in time to suprise Joe and Dom with ‘tall dark and handsome’ and ‘small funny and furry’ signs!)

So Harar, was fabulous. The old walled city was especially awesome. All of the locals are Bob Marley wannabe’s, and in all fairness they definitely pull it off as reggae kings with their ridiculously chilled attitude! They sit in the street and chew this local grown stuff called chat all day and eventually get black teeth from it at the age of 30, according to Will our guide, it’s totally worth it. So the elders can’t even look like they’re giving off a good example if they’ve left their ‘chat chewing days’ behind them because as soon as they even speak they completely give it away! And they ALL have black teeth! After our 2 day tour, will invited us to his friends (course he was a reggae king) house, for chats!, coffee and cinnamon tea (both of which come in a glass only a tiny bit bigger than a shot glass but they taste awesome nonetheless) and shish. Harar is also apparently the birth place of shisha, whatever but everyone owns a pipe. So we spent our Sunday afternoon casually chilling in a rasta’s house in HARAAAR with a load of other locals with the attitude ‘lets get together and feel alright…’ I remember Tom commenting on how typical ‘gap yaaar’ we were getting! Sickening, but it was pretty darn cool!

So Harar, really need to try and condense because this is only the first 3 days of a whole month in Ethiopia! The day after we arrived we made getting to the hyena feeding at 8pm our priority. We rocked up to this little village at the end of a dirt track that was practically in complete darkness and seemed pretty deserted, after a few minutes the hyena feeding guy heard us and came out… he started shouting out to behind rubbish tips and just generally into the darkness and gradually these HUGE hyena’s, literally way bigger than I expected started to come out of nowhere. We stood in silence watching him take strips of raw meat from a basket, put a twig from the ground into his mouth and hang the meat over it so the hyena’s lept up and grabbed it in their mouth’s to eat, thinking good god he’s crazy. About 2 minutes later the guy who bought us said you can have a go too you know… perrrrfect!

Anyway, to sum up the rest of Harar, cool clay coffee pots for less that £3, bags of the coffee that starkbuck’s import from THE shop, bags of frankincense (from Ethiopian trees), having discovered and made various trips to ‘the mermaid café’ the place where all the cool Hararians ate breakfast and that served the best custard apple (the nicest fruit) juice AND HAVE I SAID THAT WE ONLY SAW ONE NON ETHIOPIAN PERSON IN THE 3 DAYS WE WERE THERE… where is everyone, this place is AMAZING?!!!, and having chilled with some of the locals, had a tour of the city, seen a few museums… 3 days later we were back on a coach listening to more wacky screechy bible gone popish music for 14 hours on our way back to ‘mr martin’s cozy place’ to make signs to take to the airport where we would be reunited with Lad and mr.smooth, aka Joe and Dom!

Hakuna matata! it means no worries for the rest of your days..

2010-07-05T00:50:00.000-07:00

JAMBO! Got back from traveling on Thursday morning, god that means I've been back in Jinja for 5 days... time goes SO quickly here. Traveling was really incredible, and returning to Jinja feels like being back home! Me and Luce - YES, I've eventually seen a DAVE! God it was amazing - so much to tell you about that, ..later! Anyway when we got off the coach after a straight 29 hour journey and jumped onto a boda back to the guest house i felt SO at home! I'm so happy to be back here, I love it!

So traveling! Where do I start?! I guess Ethiopia would be good place, that's where we went first. The traveling itinerary gradually got more epic and ended up being a month in Ethiopia followed by the Masai Mara, Lake Nukuru and rift valley in Kenya before a month traveling down the swahili coast until it was time to meet Luce back in Uganda.. for us then to decide to travel through Tanzania in an attempt to get to Zanzibar and back before Dave had to be back for her project. And we made it! Feel So lucky, it was ALL Awesome. Quote of the day became 'university's going to be such a chore' but eventually back and couldn't be happier to be here. After months of hakuna matata I feel So ready for some productive work in Jinja (about time to be fair!)! Already started making up for lost time by GingI at ASCO.. sure! Also most of the original busogies have gone home and new comers are arriving at the guest house like there's no tomorrow.. i can't believe this is nearly coming to an end!

it was so good to get back to the valley view yesterday!

eh! (most commonly used Ugandan phrase.. so addictive.) The headteacher from Masese Primary just called to say he's coming to meet me now, he'll probs be on African time but i'd best go wait (such a natural at waiting that i've come equipped with a book!) Luce said that I've really picked up on the whole African timing habit too. Pretty bad considering i hadn't even noticed, oh dear! I'll come and write about Ethiopia soon! But have to tell you now, we fed wild hyena's (that were literally roaming behind bins in the streets) raw meat hanging from a twig in our mouth's! And they were huge, bigger than lions! Definitely wasn't scared..! It'll probs take ages until i fill you in on the whole of traveling if i'm honest, but i guess we'll see! (aka i might not get round to writing it.)

CAN'T BELIEVE IT'S LESS THAN 2 MONTHS UNTIL I SEE YOU ALL! DAAAAVES!

Me, Kate and Helen somewhere in Kenya

Tom, Joe and Dom at the peak of the simien mountains in Ethiopia!

You are lost!

2010-04-23T01:41:00.000-07:00

Helloooo! Sorry it's been so long! Everything's been a bit hectic recently! I thought I should do one final blog entry before we start travelling. (We're leaving tomorrow and still haven't even booked onto our bus let alone started packing our backpacks! ... i need to be quick!) So 8 of us are now traveling around Ethiopia, it's apparently not really travelled around so we should get to see actual culture around the attractions. We should get to the capital of Ethiopia next Thursday and then starting there, Addis Abbaba, we're doing what the guidebook calls 'the Northern circuit'. All we know is what we've read in the lonely planet! The pictures are out of this world, i just wanna get there! We're hopefully like trekking in the Simien Mountains - where you get your own mule to carry some stuff! (Apparently you're meant to get one each but we're also apparently being LADS and carrying our own stuff so we're getting one between the group just for the banter...) Obviously for the banter..! Also instead of camping we're hoping to do home stays in huts with the locals! Joe tells us they let us sleep on top of their goats/ sheep which is probs more like our sort of price... Near the Northern border their's a whole city carved into a cliff, can't wait to see that, again the photo's look amazing Also the women in the main tribes tie horns to each side of their head and get lip plates permenently inserted into their mouths!And thy'ree massive! There's so many areas that sound so different, not sure if there's gonna be time to do it all?! Afterwards we're going back to Nairobi, Kenya, where we'll spend a few days before we all go our seperte ways. Still really undecided about weather to come back to Jinja or carry on travelling with other people?! If i want to see more (which I do really!) so I'll probs carry on travelling (god i've got even more indecisive recently) hopefully I'll be able to get onto the AV safari. It's in the Masai Mara which would be awesome, i remember watching it on a documentary! Then I'll carry on with Helen and one of her friends, I think we said we'd head to the Kenyan coast and travel down it from an island just off it called Lamu to Mombassa. We'll undoubtably change our minds... (Helen's equally as indecisive as me!). Whatever happens i've got to be back in Jinja for the end of June because that's when DAVE arrives! (SO excited!) Anyway I'm leaving the internet cafe right now. And if i don't speak to you that much over the next 3 months, 'Sooooorry' *Ugandan accent is Very essential for that*... oh dear, i'm going! LOVE XXXXXXXXXXX

here's a photo of masesse, where the street kids families are from, really want to start up some out reach teaching here as soon as i'm back from travelling..

Oh and p.s. you are lost is what Ugandan's say to you when they haven't seen you for "a looong time my friend" (that means one week! or even just more than 2 days!) Anyway really should go! lots of love, BYE! xxxxx

Ssese WHAT?! Islands!!

2010-04-09T06:39:00.000-07:00

On Good Friday the pupils at Lords Meade get to go home to spend time with their family. They don’t have to return to LM until Monday evening in time for school which starts again on Tuesday. I took the opportunity to take Thomas and Paul to the new ASCO house. Thomas’ brother Moses is one of the 18 boys who’s going to be living at the house, along with many of their other friends who they were sleeping on the streets with a few months ago. They’ve obviously both been excited, and extremely eager, to see the house ever since they found out about it. After eventually finding them both in a random classroom (typical! God knows why they were there), we all climbed into Emma’s truck to R&R. On the way to the house we drove through main street in Jinja, this is where they used to sleep. It brought back memories of the day that Thomas started at LM, Emma was taking a then extremely nervous Thomas away from his friends and the familiarity of the streets. This time round he was looking comfortable and relaxed. He was sitting with his best friend who’s also been given the same opportunity and they both looked the happiest I’ve ever seen them. Nevertheless I bet the drive was bringing back memories for both of them. As we pulled up at the ASCO house as soon as I said this is it, no hanging about whatsoever! (which is a definite first for them!), they jumped straight out! Everybody there couldn’t have been happier to see them and there were loads of big hugs etc! It had been 2 months and it was clear that people had missed each other.

Later on and for the rest of the day there was a fun rugby tournament going on at the Nile team rugby grounds. Nile’s the regional team in Uganda that our busogee boys play for… (to be continued..oooh!)

photos from the weekend in the sesse islands (islands in lake victoria)

sweat involved - it's GI but when you're sweating!

2010-03-26T04:48:00.000-07:00

I finally finished respiration with my biology A2 class on Tuesday, moment of truth next week when i test them on it..! Oh jeesuus, fingers crossed please!! I've agreed to tutor them now until the holiday's in a few weeks, they're such keen beans, they seemed to love the idea! (which adds the pressure a bit, but yeah also if they do pass this test that will be why!). Oh yeah, David told me earlier he's sorted a lower sixth biology class of about 50 that he wants me to teach until then so i'll let you know how that goes next week!

I checked out Valley View Primary School this morning. After hearing that the school's in serious debt and on the verge of shutting down i decided to rock up and take a look around. See if there was anything to GI in! I ended up having a fab time teaching a few lessons to P3, our equivalent of year 3! Told Hope he can put me down to teach every firday morning. To top it all off me and Connor taught the class to sing 'Old Okello' which is the Ugandan version of 'Old McDonald'. Fun times!

The kids were awesome! They chanted that we were very welcome and to 'be at class!'. They loved it when Connor and i marked their books. Some kids did the whole exercise twice while they were waiting for the other kids in the class to finish just to get it marked again. At one point near the end of the first lesson i had about 20 kids crowded round me chanting out passage after passage in a book after i pointed for them to just recite the first one! 10 minutes in i managed to get them to stop! And after the lesson they all tried to shake our hand to say thank you! Oooh also they have this big assembly after break on fridays and we really went for it with the ugandan style hip dancing to their drumming!! ey ey ey ey eeeeeeeiiiiey!

Flipping fabulous! This is how I wasted paint and Monday morning at LM. And what a school mission 'To provide a comprehensive post primary education to our students'??!! Love. It.
CLASSIC UGANDA.

A bit of casual palpating at the antenatal outreach clinic yesterday..

white water rafting the nile

2010-03-26T04:47:00.000-07:00

White water rafting was epic, the whole weekend was awesome. I must point out that I’m saying this with hindsight and I was literally the most petrified I have been for a long time at some points while the raft was moving uncontrollably down white water! Strangely though my nerves seemed a tad confused beacuse as soon as we would actually reach the grade 5’s all of a sudden my nerves completely vanished and it was the best thing ever! Really fun!

Us busogee’s arranged to raft at the same time as the AV’s so there were about 60 of us satying in the dorms at adrift on Friday night, and rafting over the weekend/ camping by the Nile and bbqing on Saturday!

We’ve planned on visiting Bujagali falls (a water fall about 15 minutes away from where we’re staying) ever since being here.. we rafted down it! To sum the day up we flipped, got thrown out and got stuck under the raft (ok well only I did the last one becuase i forgot one of the vital safety instructions.. as per.) how is it always me?! idiot. anyway, we went down very exciting fierce rapids, swam/ floated along the Nile and sang our hearts out! We stopped on a little island for a suprisingly lush buffet at lunch. Got back to more rafting, I was then scarred right at the end by the sight of a horrificly huge fierce rapid that we got out to pass that has killed all of the known people to try and raft it!

I can’t tell you how appreciative i was to step out of the raft at the end of the day. Firstly I honestly felt lucky to have survived (Ok yes, I admit I had in fact had an irrational fear of getting stuck underneath the raft and drowning or being sucked into a rapid all day after the situation when i wnet under it!). Secondly i was immediately handed a beer, and to top things off the smell of a beastly bbq to accompany all night long free drinks was in the air! After watching the sun set behind the nile with a free drink in each hand, (lads!) we all gathered around a big camp fire, Ollie didn't miss the opportunity to whip out his guitar, we sang along to numerous classics like don’t stop me now and teenage dirt bag etc. Meanwhile huge tubs of ‘pineapple punch’, a concoction consisting of straight pineapple flavoured vodka with chucks of pineapple floating in it were put right in front of our already merry crowd! How ironic that it's a definite weekend to remember!

Ha! To top it off Helen (in her sleep) woke me up, asking me loads of questions about tubiegrips...!

BUNGEE!

2010-03-23T11:00:00.001-07:00

AWESOME.

After i jumped apparently I was subconsciously flapping my arms like i was trying to fly! ..ooops, not so smooth! Bring on a higher one soon pleeease!! I had a feeling this would be addictive!

Because it was Joe’s birthday we gave him a skirt to wear for the jump and told him he had to do it commando! Joe and Dom were doing it tandem too (poor dom!)

The night was yellow themed with hats! Brook got him a goat for his birthday, which we've since found out happens to be pregnant! When we got back to the guest house with Joe, Brook had dressed the goat in the fancy dress outfit he’d brought for Joe to wear for the night and hidden it somewhere! He presented Joe with his first task card of the night and then he had to search for: 'We know you miss your goaty (he recently shaved his beard!), that's why we've got you Billy... and then something along the lines of getting your wardrobe might be a struggle mate! All of the clothes are hideous, at least 20 years old and purchased from Jinja market! Brook wrote tasks for Joe and gave them to him all night. He ate hot chillies, sang uptown girl in a bar after the music was turned off, jumped from the bar straight into a pair of large jeans, loads of stuff not to mention that Brook had a whistle around his neck and every time he blew it we all had to shout 'LAD' and joe had to do 10 press ups! His chunder badge had 11 tally marks on by the end of the night!

To make sure i was as yellow as possible I planned on wearing THE disgusting yellow trousers (i bought them from back home when i thought everyone here would wear stuff like that?!!). Anyway, brook was getting ready at ours and he has these amazing stripey green and yellow harems, we ended up wearing each others with a plan to switch whilst standing on a table in Sombrero's at some point during the night..

So when we got round to it, we were in the process of swapping when the table started to wobble, Brook leapt off, the table fell over while the trousers were around my ankles! I could only jump straight up into the air so landed sitting on the edge of the collapsed table so now have a huge bruise! This meanwhile caught the security guards attention so he ran over and said pull them back up or I throw you out. While he was saying this Brook was stood in his boxers holding out the trousers for me, waiting for me to get off his shouting Rachel quickly.. ahhhh and the guard repeated 'pull them up or your out' .. course i took them off, and we just about managed to swap over, appologise profusely and carry on dancing until it was time to catch a boda to lake victoria to watch the sun rise from a locals little fishing boat while he rowed away. lush

ASCO have a house!

2010-03-23T10:52:00.001-07:00

I spent Monday at the ASCO house! It's amazing, ASCO now have a house! Literally everything was sorted out over the weekend and it's such a huge leap in terms of everything for the boys.

The house was going for a really good price considering how nice it is, so after looking around on Saturday afternoon; Moses, Sarah and Liberty decided to go for it. It couldn't be more perfect, it’s spacious inside so we’ve got a communal room to teach the kids in before they get into schools. Then when they do it can be used at weekends and after school in the week for them to do homework in. There are big dorm rooms for the younger boys and smaller ones for the older ones. What's hit me the most is how lovely it is for them to be somewhere green now. Words can't explain the difference between the small dark room that we were teaching them in last week and where they are now. The house has ground around it, it's in a quiet and peaceful area. Such a difference. The old room was right next to a main road, noisy and polluted. Now the boys step outside to a garden with jack fruit trees that they can climb, and they have space to play too!

The regional power cuts seem to be getting more frequent, we've been having at least 4 a week recently.

On Monday night we celebrated St. Patrik’s day a bit early (so necessary as the actual day is Joe’s birthday) with an Irish band, some Irish jigging, jenga, i spoke to DAVE and introduced her to a davish friend, and we nearly made sun rise!

Us 3 girls completely thrashed the boys at Jenga just after Joe said ‘i’ve never lost at jenga in my life.’ hand over the 3 drinks thank you!

YOU’VE BEEN NILED!

2010-03-23T10:28:00.001-07:00

On Friday night after getting back from the village I had a massive shower(as lush as showering outside in a field in the sun is, I was coming out of the shower still covered in mud so maybe it wasn’t too efficient!) I got a boda to meet Ollie, Joe, Jen, Dom and Connor at adrift where they were having a drink until sun set. I expressed my love by stopping to get biscuits from a random village vendor on the way for them. It was awesome to see them. And they informed me that we were all bungee jumping on Wednesday for Joe’s birthday, very exciting stuff! Back at the guest house i met Izzie and Sam, two new gappies stay at busoga with us. We all went out for a drink after dinner and i ended up staying later with them while everyone else went back to busoga. They’re both so nice! I love it when new people come and stay.

me and Luna at busoga the night we got back from the village

Last weekend we stayed in Kampala, the capital of Uganda, so we could watch the boys playing rugby against the Kampala Pirates before going for a night out! We got on a matatu from Jinja at 12 and arrived in Kampala literally just in time to watch the boys rugby match around 3:30ish. There’s a street in jinja that you CAN NOT walk down without being harassed by 50+ matatu drivers shouting ‘Kampala madame? You come sit yes?’ More or less every day I walk past while I’m doing something in jinja and every time they run after me as i walk away shouting bloody ‘KAMPALA’ so it felt icredible to be able to actually say for once ‘you know what?! YES! TAKE. ME. THERE!’. After getting off the matatu at the wrong rugby pitch and buying a drink and then sitting down, we realised (beings as we were texting Connor and Dom who were also there… but not with us!) we needed to walk in the blazing heat with our backpacks elsewhere…! All was fine and we arrived less than a minute before the Nile rugby team (a premiership Ugandan team that Joe, Ollie, Tom, Brook and Mark have managed to get into) walked onto the pitch. Despite loosing/ THE MATCH BEING CANCELLED DUE TO A HUGE FIGHT BREAKING OUT AMOUNGST THE TEAMS! Nile scored(or whatever it’s called in rugby?!!) first, I got so into the cheering and was kicking this metal thing making up the top of the raised seats behind me, it was so loud it was hilarious! We went WILD! Forget the end it was an excellent start boys!

The girls watching the rugby, the metal thing i was talking about that i was kicking can be seen behind!

The rugby match before the fight broke out!

During the fight a Ugandan woman sitting near by us was shouting out come on Nile I want to see blood! Even though she supported Kampala she thought one of our players looked stronger! Loads of the crowd were chanting ‘Fight!…’ It was crazy!

After the match we brought hot dogs for the boys and took them over to them and then we all sat in the bar at the grounds for a few hours. I ended up getting a combination of tipsy and hyper. Probably even more so hyper, i’ve found out that ‘Mountain Dew’ the mixer that i’ve been drinking out here is banned in the UK because it has too many E numbers! I’ve been drinking it out of the bottle which turns out to be very disguising (I pour the cheap sachet alcohol into the bottle so i’ve never seen the colour of it) during all the talk about it I heard that it’s fluorescent green and almost glowing! I poured it into a glass and seriously, it looks radioactive! Anyhow, during this time the competition was on between me and Brook. The main beer out here is called ‘Nile Special’ it’s sold in glass bottles so it’s easy to peel off the label. We had a competition to see how many people we could ‘Nile’. Brook started off the bending of the rules when he recruited the kids collecting in the bottles to peel off the labels and give them to him before handing them in. Obviously, on finding out i thought of a way to bend them even more! I managed to get behind the bar, ‘collecting labels for charity’, stood behind a HUGE box filled with ice and hundreds of Nile Specials… when Brook came to the bar to get a drink he got a nasty suprise! (The only problem is meanwhile loads of people that know me saw me standing behind the bar peeling stickers off bottles like a nutter!) WAHAY!

Me and Ollie and the best meal i’ve had in 2 MONTHS! Not a piece of posho or a bean in sight!

To summarise Kampala night out it started off with an awesome 5 course meal for 5 pounds! It got more MENTAL as the night went on. In Iguana’s me and Helen got bare loads of free double gin shots from Ugandan’s after introducing ourselves with ridiculous names! And then we went to a club that’s designed like a house party, it was so cool! And then the guy in charge of the bbq took a liking to me and gave me free food for myself and all of my friends that were still out! I got the exact food for Marianne and Dom that they’d paid 3500 for earlier in the night! The last of us got back to the hostel after 5, the poor gun man had waited up literally all night for us, then we slept until we were kicked out of the room the next day.

3R's for Reading, wRiting and aRithmetic

2010-03-23T09:30:00.000-07:00

So on Monday (after the night we watched the sun rise from the top of the wooden scaffolding) Tom, Marianne, Soph, Miles and me travelled to a village called Lugazi. We caught a matatu from Jinja, got off near Lugazi and hopped straight onto the back of boda’s to take us to the school where we’d be staying for the next week. The drive through the village was beautiful. It was such a surprise I didn’t expect it at all. We sat on the back of motor bikes with loads of bulky stuff like sleeping bags, pillows, we had our walking boots tied to our backpacks etc and then all of a sudden we were driving through such lush relaxing sights. We went down mud tracks between hills, some were covered with rainforest and caught a glimpse of the rural village life along the way. All of the villages i’ve seen so far have been completely different from each other so i love being able to see a new one.

After arriving at the ‘3R’s’ school the headmaster gave us a tour and told us that we had the opportunity to take part in or arrange anything we had an interest in during our stay. I love being able to get involved in whatever out here. I asked what the school’s name ‘The 3R’s’ stands for. He replied ‘That is Reading, writing and arithmetic’ it was even funnier because he said it so casually in such a proud tone!

Tom and Marianne go and stay in Lugazee for one in every 3 weeks, their charity motto is ‘one village at a time’. The charity moves to a new village every 4 months to revamp the school there.

We finished off our tour as the school day came to an end and some of the students gather at this time under the shade of a huge mango tree to play the African drums while others dance to the beat and some sit and watch. We joined in and tried YET AGAIN (and I failed yet again!) to learn the classic African dancing move! (It’s all revolved around doing an incredible stomach swirl without moving your hips!) I put it down to genes, African’s clearly have the ability in their genes! While I was amazed by their dancing they found mine hilarious. Any guesses at what i showed them?! THE SPAC DANCE! What else?! So I guess that’s not too surprising considering, and then they were really impressed by the routine Soph and Marianne showed them! So there usual 30 minute session ended up going on for over 2 hours! It ended with a bit of a drum sesh as somebody attempted to teach me to play an African beat. I actually started to get 2 of the rhythm’s before I completely lost my attention and everything was just going way over my head and my usual musical novice ways took over…

After all of that we walked to our house before dinner. It’s completely basic consisting of 2 bunks and 1 single bed – it has no electricity and mother nature calling in the place of a bathroom but it has the most amazing view! The view is best from the steps leading to the front door and this is where we ate breakfast, watched the sun set and ate dinner every day while we were there.

The view at sun set from the steps outside our house.

Our neighbour Freddo would collect dinner from the cook for us and we’d all eat outside with the light from a lantern because it goes completely dark around 7:30-8:00. In the mornings Fred cooked us Rolex’s for breakfast (a chapati rolled up with an omelette inside, basically the staple vendor food on the streets in Uganda) it was so awesome we would wake up to them just made and then go and sit outside to eat them! So the villagers fed me well and found the way to my heart! We spent the days making bricks with a manual machine that converts cement mixed with mud and a bit of muscle power into… BRICKS! We made so many, piles and piles of bricks!, i wish i’d taken a photo of them now. As well we brushed down a building ready to be painted, I managed to get myself stung on the eyelid by a wasp while we were doing this! (Actually for once it was somebody else who had the bright idea of knocking the wasps nest off the wall while my face was right next to it!) And to top that Miles managed to knock two baby birds out of their nest. Me and Marianne adopted one each, mine’s called Luna and she’s adorable!

Luna in my hand!

Initially our aim was to fatten them up and then teach them how to fly! If you’re thinking i can’t fly myself then your just as bad as everybody else staying at the guest house, when there’s a will there’s a way! But if I'm completely honest looking after them requires more than i thought, Marianne has already given Atlee to me so dufus here has ended up looking after both of them! Soph and Jen hate the birds! They tweet to each other all through the night! So i’m possibly giving up and sending them back to the village for Philip to look after next week. Sad times!

I also helped to oil the beams making up the roof of the school hall! We stood on tables with pots of black oil and big sponges; half of the oil went on the roof, the other half dripped straight back over my head! I think my technique was a tad special, but very speedy though! It just meant that by the time i was finished the Ugandan workers told me i was now the same colour as them!

During our stay some of the village workers took us on a walk up some hills behind the school to a lake. The views were so stunning. I was so excited about seeing the ‘turtles’ they promised me we’d find in the lake, and we got there to see tortoise! The ant hills we walked past are like MOUNTAINS! They are HUGE and there are loads of them! Some were taller than me! Another afternoon they took us to the Szeswiba waterfalls, we went on a bit of a trek around the falls and then chilled at a bar right in front of them to make the most the view. We might go back and camp there because it’s so lush.

Basically the village stay was incred.

lots of love xxxx

T.I.A. - This is Africa!

2010-03-23T09:12:00.001-07:00

HELLO! Sorry that i’ve been so disorganised with my blog over last few weeks! I’ve got absolutely loads to tell you about but hardly had any free time to update it! Basically the week before last i stayed in a village called Lugazee, last weekend we went to Kampala, on Wednesday I bungeed over the Nile! and then this weekendwe went white water rafting over GRADE BLOODY 5 rapids on the Nile! All were awesome (and petrifying in the case of the rafting)! I’m writing blog entries right now!

AND IT’S BEEN 2 MONTHS!

SUNRISE 6!

2010-03-13T00:41:00.000-08:00

A few photo's taken from the top of wooden scaffolding as we watched the rise from the top of a Ugandan building site!

We got to backpacker's (a really chilled out bar) at 10:30 for 'a few quiet drinks'. When somebody checked out the time it was 6:30, so we couldn't not stay up to watch the sun rise!
(The time may have flown whilst me and Helen were mooching around after discovering a back door into the restaurant kitchen..) We left backpacker's after i'd cooked samosa's for all 6 of us ... apparently i'm leaving for kampala now now! all of sunset 6 are in kampala tonight too so we'll find somewhere new to watch the sun rise from!! bye!

KYO does NOT stand for know your ovaries! (dude Knock Youself Out!)

2010-03-04T06:14:00.000-08:00

I’ve given an injection! On Wednesday i was let loose immunising babies against diphtheria!

Sooo on Tuesday, despite having food poisoning from eating a few fillet’s of raw fish for dinner on Monday night (thanks to the gas running out while the boys were cooking!) I still braved the village (and it’s long drop toilets) with the most delicate stomach i can imagine…! Bad idea??! No way! I learnt to take blood pressure! Recorded it for 20 odd pregnant women and then did simple follow up checks to see if they had any anaemia or oedema and asked them a few questions (occasionally in Luganda) before deciding whether to give them any pills. Awesome experience! However, by lunch time i was on the verge of fainting so i got an early matatu home after stopping off at a road side vendor to purchase a soda (and a toilet role!).. It seriously took until Friday to get the thought of cutting through the raw fillet of fish, which made me heave!, out of my head. Moral of the story; even if you’re that hungry that you’ll eat anything, be sensible like everyone else and stop eating raw fish because it really isn’t worth it!

Ok to fill you in on Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s I’m working at an antenatal outreach clinic with Fishy and a Ugandan team. The antenatal work that they’re doing actually requires a degree in either nursing, midwifery or medicine by law. The team however consists of locals from the villages in which the outreach has been set up, these locals have gained all of their knowledge through practical training given by the organisation. They’re restricted with the equipment they have in comparison with ours back home. No ultrasound (so we find the position of the baby our my hands), lots of wooden instruments for hearing the babies heart beat, baby weighers hanging from mango tree’s etc! Without machines or degrees they’re still completely efficient, i'm so impressed! The organisation is called YWAM (Youth With A Mission) and the purpose of their outreach clinic is to teach these procedures to some of the locals so that they can be self sufficient at providing their village with a service without YWAM. Fishy visits them for their monthly general antenatal clinic, which can get huge numbers of women turning up. The fact that the villagers have only been practically trained means they have no problem teaching me so i'll be able to start doing everything they’re doing too!

We’re weighing the baby in the photo below, afterwards i gave her a diptheria immunisation!

So a woman called Irene first taught me how to mix and inject the diphtheria immunisation. I was a tad nervous about actually giving the first one, lets face it, injecting bone or doing something complely wrong sounds just like something i'd do. But take a huge sigh of relief because it all went to plan. Thank god! I started off with the baby in the first photo, I wiped the top of her thigh with a piece of damp cotton wool before putting the needle through her skin at a 90 degree angle. Then, with trembling hands!, i pushed the plunger. I pushed it so that just half of the needle went into her skin, as soon as all of the fluid was in I pulled it straight out. It was over and the baby had slept through the whole ordeal! HUGE SIGH OF RELIEF! I got rid of the dirty needle in a disposal box before moving on to baby number two. I was much more relaxed by this point, getting stuck in or should i say INVOLVED, but i’m not gonna lie, baby number two balled… now i need to crack this sticking a needle into a baby technique!

Moving swiftly on, during this huge storm on Wednesday the boda bada below zoomed right up to the door of the clinic with Irene before slamming on the brakes... the ground's so muddy from all of the rain that he fell right over! Irene fell flat on her face in an orange puddle and then the boda driver landed on top of her! Luckily she has a good sense of humour! At least they came out though, most Ugandan's cancel their plans when it rains! And I’m not even joking.

On Thursday I was working at ASCO, the street kids project. I was sitting with some of the kids when 2 guys dropped in and started having a heated argument with Moses. Lots of abuse later and a police car arrives to take Moses, Sarah and Liberty (one of the gapies staying at the guest house), who all have their names on the ASCO paperwork! This left Livy and me with 30 kids, apparently now illegally! Luckily Tom and Jen happened to arrive so we took them all to a close by football pitch while we waited to hear from the criminals! To cut a very long story short (as in they were released after 7 hours of constant interviewing) Mark Malinga, our headmaster, has proved himself to be an absolute hero. Sarah and Libs were released on bail without us having to hand over the 2 million shillings that everyone at the guesthouse had got together. Moses wasn't so lucky, he had to spend the night in a cell. In Uganda a cell means one room that everybody is thrown into, no beds, no toilet and no light. So Moses was slept in a room with murderers. Nash this one Ugandan said to me 'you don't want to go in there they shit on the floor and it's dark so you'll probably tread in it'! When Libs got back home we treated ourselves to a meal out! (I was gutted that I couldn’t order a curry due to the still dodgy stomach, not that i did myself any favours by forcing a whole pizza down just because it was there…! I will never learn!)

On friday night we went to a bbq at Helen’s before the usual; starting off at why not, then rendez vous-ing before hitting babez (yes i do regularly go to somewhere that's called babes but spelt with a 'z' YES I JUDGE MYSELF TOO!) We discovered Viewers sell samosa's behind the bar! (better than shots every time!) If you’ve not picked up by now, Ugandan night clubs are fabulous but few! By few i mean there are literally 2 in Jinja! So we alternate our Friday and Saturday nights between viewers and sombrero's! They're amazingly Ugandan which translates to hilarious so you just can't have enough!

Last night the band that that played at nile river explorers ages ago were playing at adrift (the band playing when i met the crazy fat hippie guy shouting ay ay ay ay ayyyy- the way african women shout it, i've learnt!) They play loads of old school stuff like ACDC, a bit of rolling stones, the killers and jet - are you gonna BE MY GIRL?! YEAH! so we were dancing like maniac's and i helped brook to start off a mosh pit! i was the only girl to get involved in jumping into the middle of it too!! And we saw the white water rafting video, it looks awesome! i'm so excited about that! And I've just finished off my mango, pineapple, papaya, banana smoothie amazingness so i think that calls time to love you and leave you. Hope you're all well. Lots of love xxxxxxxxxx

Knock Yourself Out

2010-02-28T03:10:00.000-08:00

Awesome news! Thomas is already getting settled into LM! Soph and Miles saw him sitting on a wall with 4 other boys, all of them were resting their elbows on each others shoulders while they were laughing together. After teaching my biology lesson on Tuesday i paid him a visit; he was having lunch with his friends and he told me that he’s already happy at LM. He misses Paul quite a bit and asked me to pass on a message to him. I saw Paul yesterday at the street kids project, he’s missing Thomas too. It’s ridiculous that Paul’s having to sit around on the streets when he should be at school. It’s so unfair that secondary school aged children really wanting to learn are being deprived of an education. It really makes me think too; Jinja is not a poor area in comparison with other towns in Uganda, let alone in Africa. This must be happening every year on a huge scale. To end on a positive note, Juma’s been keeping an eye on Thomas and he saw him playing football the other day! He might make the school team!

On Monday me and Ollie went to meet Fishy, an English woman who’s been living in Uganda for 9 years now. Ollie met her and got talking to her when he was on a matatu (they’re the main form of transport for Ugandan’s, they’re similar in size to VW vans but they’re always crammed full –literally!- with people) You rarely see other mzungu’s (white people) on them, so when you do you obviously start talking. Fishy’s office happens to be on the same road (and less than a one minute walk!) from the guest house. She’s a trained nurse and midwife.. She runs an outreach clinic on Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s that I’m going to go along to next week. Also she has 6 gap years staying with her and she’s invited all of us at the guest house for dinner at hers next week so we can rendezvous!

Yesterday I had such an experience. A few weeks ago I talked about Caroline (Hassan is me’s wife). She’s one of the most inspirational people I’ve ever met. I’ve already explained her organisation; basically Caroline and Hassan are teachers, they’re also HIV positive. Caroline feels that she managed to cope when she discovered her HIV status because she was so well supported by others. That’s why she wants to help others, specifically teachers, to come to terms with their HIV status too. Their organisation is a counselling service for HIV positive teachers. Caroline’s a self made counsellor, she’s got personal experience instead of training. Having observed trained counsellor’s out here too, she’s by far the best. Caroline came round to pick me up from the guest house yesterday afternoon. We sat on the porch to catch up on what’s gone on since we last saw each other. Then we walked to her house where she introduced me to her family. On the way we talked about the man, Geoff, who we were going to visit. Before he got ill he taught French at the same school as Caroline. They believe his HIV has had an affect on his nervous system, he’s uncoordinated, he shakes, he can’t keep his balance to walk so has to crawl and he talks with a stammer. Before introducing me to her family Caroline told me that her brother and his wife have died so she and Hassan have taken in their children, she introduced me to the 4 that were in. They’re all so friendly and sociable! All of Caroline’s family are really ambitious, all of them have, or will get degrees. That’s impressive considering she’s brought up about 10 children. Their house is modest; as a family they sum up the impression i’ve got of Ugandan culture. Hassan’s a head teacher and Caroline’s an English teacher so they’re wealthy Ugandan's. They spend their money on education, funding charities and good food and comforts, nothing materialistic. They’re immensely happy and content. After meeting her family and having a drink, we walked to Geoff’s house in muvuve, a village not too far from Caroline’s house. His house is tiny; it's built on mud and the front door leading into the living room where Geoff sits all day consists of a piece of material hanging from the door way. You can see the room in the photo Caroline took while i was talking with Geoff below.

We spent nearly 2 hours talking with Geoff and as I learnt more about him I started to really understand how unfortunate he is with his health. I think he has some sort of degenerative disease as well as his HIV positive status. Mentally he's still functioning perfectly. However he has no coordination anymore; he shakes if he tries to hold anything, he physically can't stand up, he can't read anymore. It was easy to distance myself from him until i started to understand his stammered speech, after all he does live in a completly different world. As he told me about how much he misses teaching and the days when he studied for his degree in French and travelled to France and England I got more empathetic. This man used to be successfull. Now he sits in his hut all day. He can't leave. He has children at boarding school so he hardly sees them and his wife is ashamed of him so spends most of her time away from home. She's also threatened to leave him. I found all of this even sadder because he doesn't understand his illness at all. If it is a degenerative disease, which he's never heard of, i don't know how he's going to cope with the little support he has in a few years time. He's so lonely. The only thing keeping him going is that he has hope. He thinks that one day he'll recover. I sat and listened to his future plans to build a house with his life savings when he can walk again knowing it's never going to happen.

One day last week i went to the Children's ward of Jinja regional hospital, for some reason it's at a different place to the main hospital site. The inpatients ward is horrific. A nurse introduced herself to me as she was injecting a baby and i asked if there was any hands on work i'd be able to help out with. She said i can work on the ward (as in doing injections etc) because all of the staff there have (her words) 'just learnt to improvise'!! She was injecting a child! Surely there comes a time when improvising isn't safe! Anyway I agreed to help out every monday so I start working there tomorrow, i'm a bit scared. The main ward really smelt, it was crammed full with children ranging from babies to 15 year olds on beds. There were so many children in the room that most beds were touching each other. One boy had been sent from St.Frances the HIV clinic that i work at on Thursday's becuase he'd had a turn for the worse. Dorine the nurse showing me around took me to see him. I've never seen anybody so thin. His legs were literally bone covered in skin. You could even see his joints. It looked like he was sleeping as he was lying on his bed but a nurse said that he was dieing. A man was sitting by the side of his bed, I presumed it wouldn't be his father beings as the boy had HIV. I asked Dorine who it was and she said it was the boys dad. She asked me if i wanted to say anything to him. All i could say was how sorry i was to meet him under such sad circumstances.

The photo above is from Soph's birthday! It was African themed fancy dress, hence the crazyness. Tom, who's on the left, and me are the mental duo! When we got back from Soph's birthday we thought it would be a good idea to sit out on the porch drinking vodka tea until sun rise! We eventually decided we might as well just sleep on the porch. Who’s heard of malaria over here?!

So it was Soph's birthday on Tuesday! It was amazing! The boys ran into our room with balloons at 12, then when everyone went to sleep me and Soph went outside for an early birthday celebration of crazy golf using the balloons! We then had a short game of knock the huge jack fruit out of the tree with a golf club. We didn’t manage to knock it out but i think we should be grateful about this! It’s the same size and weight as 3 water melons stuck together! On Tuesday night we went for a gorgeous meal at a restaurant at gately on the Nile. Green Thai curry went down a treat! Considering I’ve been eating bland stodge (posho) for lunch and manly shiz (as in cooked with a whole litre of oil) stuff for dinner, this was a huge deal! It was more flavoursome that all of the African food you can think of put together. And on top of the ‘Never say die’ chocolate banana cake I managed to get another free date treacle dessert for the birthday girl (which she shared with me)! Afterwards we went to a house party held for Soph by the ASCO people. Santos had made her a special birthday cake. It was an awesome night! Oh and when we got back (before the porch brainwave hit us!) Another brainwave hit me and I've come up with a new invention… you’ll have to wait until i’m home to find out!

The photo below is the first dare of last night. Me and brook have to fire a gun before we leave! So daveness has travelled here too!

MENTAL! (the saying has a mental handshake)

2010-02-20T07:33:00.001-08:00

I crowd surfed in a Ugandan club last night! Just me!

Thomas' chance to R&R!

2010-02-19T04:23:00.000-08:00

I can’t even remember how I felt when i walked to meet Thomas at Moses’ this morning. I must have started off way more relaxed than i became as the morning went on…
Thinking about how Thomas looked when i saw him this morning in comparison with how he looks at school at LM now is ridiculously surreal! But i want to tell you about everything as it happened. (I don’t think I’ve ever in the past been such an openly emotional wreck as I was at some points today!) When i walked in Thomas was sitting playing a card game with Paul, who’s his best friend at the project (and generally too- he doesn’t really know any other people). I went over to say hi to him and i could tell by the way he was speaking and even from the look on his face that something was wrong. He was justifiably scared- put yourself in his position; he was about to be taken to boarding school where he’s going to have to stay for over two months. When you were his age did you ever have to go anywhere completely on your own and stay there without knowing exactly how long for? Imagine if you did, then you’d still have been in a less scary position because your parents would have taken you. So that's quite a big deal before even considering that we’d have know about it for longer, for instance before the summer holidays so had ages to prepare ourselves. I took Thomas, he had no other family support. He found out he could go to school instead of being on the street yesterday. He saw the school for the first time yesterday afternoon. As soon as i left he would basically be in a whole new world.
*Woah! need to start to breathe whilst typing! soz can tell this will be intense* After talking with Thomas, showing him his acceptance letter into LM and giving him a copy of the rules to read through, i headed for the market with Moses to get him the stuff on his list. I bartered and bargained for everything that he has! On some (admittedly very few!) occasions i even lowered Moses’ price! This included the basics which are way more than I'd expected (and hence why I’m going to be emailing some of you an article i’ve started writing about him and asking you to use it and do some fundraising for him, which would seriously be greatly appreciated!) of a mattress, mosquito net, pad locked trunk, bed sheets, towel, wash basin & jerry can, soaps, combs, dictionary, bible, scientific calculator… and it goes on all the way to leather school shoes and free time trousers. The trousers were made to fit! We went to a guy and asked him if he could make them within an hour exactly (we had to leave in 2 hours at this point). Naturally for Ugandan time, they weren’t ready when i first went to pick them up. I went back after taking Thomas to the school driver, Emma’s truck (that’s literally as we were ready to leave, or R&R as Tom- different Tom, one of the gap year’s would say!) So minutes before we left i walked into the shop/ warehouse to find the man ironing them! That’s the first instance of me not approving of Ugandan time! I’ve missed a huge chunk of the details of the day out! We spent from around 10 till 2 at the market. The school equipment list seemed never ending and the market stalls are in sections depending on what you want. It was almost impossible to find what you wanted and then as soon as we did it seemed impossible to find any stalls but those! Very hectic crazy stuff! We eventually got back to Thomas. I tried to find out how he was feeling. He definitely feels guilty that he’s going to school and leaving his friends behind on the streets. When i asked him how he was, he didn’t want to talk about himself. He wouldn’t even admit that he was nervous while we were at the street kids project(ASCO). He’s such a selfless person. He asked why i didn’t help one of his friends instead of him. He’s been asking at ASCO to go to school for ages now but i think he always thought of it as a wish that in reality wouldn’t come true.When i explained that he’s going to school because he’s proven himself to me, he was still too humble to actually accept it. He said Thank You a lot.

At one point today we went to go and pick out his shoes. It made me think of when i went to go and pick out shoes for school and how different my life has been to his. He choose a pair without any fuss and we made our way back so he could shower and get his school uniform on! He held my hand as we walked to get his shoes, he looked as if he was about to burst into tears. It made me feel like crying too! I can’t get my head around the fact that he has no one else to care for him. This was the first time he admitted to me that he was scared.
Emma, the school driver, picked us and all of Thomas’ stuff up from Jinja. One of the school teachers, Constance, was in the car with Emma. Turns out she’s going to be Thomas’ English teacher. Being able to speak with her seemed to help him relax. We labelled all of his stuff with permanent marker at the gate at LM before i took him to meet Juma and Constance went and found him a friend from his year. The boys in his year seemed older than him, they were obviously richer too – I'd never thought about there being classes of wealth out here. They took him to collect his stuff and me and Juma walked to meet them in his dorm so i’ll know where to find him. Me and Juma stood talking for a while and i happened to be able to see Thomas getting his stuff to take to his dorm with his new friends. As me and Juma headed for the dorms i felt so happy for Thomas. He’s obviously got a long way to go yet but the fact that he’s merely in the settings of LM is such an improvement. The sun was setting and the area around the buildings at LM is so green! It’s such a peaceful environment, so different from the chaos and pollution of Jinja.

Walking back to the guest house was such a relief. After getting through the gate i saw everybody on the porch and demanded a massive hug! Jen, Connor, Miles, Soph and me were the only ones in for the night. We watched one flew over the cuckoo’s nest and literally just as it finished Ollie and Joe walked in. We chatted, ran around the garden wearing head torches and then just went to sleep.

lala salama

Don't treat a street kid to a buffet - unless you like projectile vomit!

2010-02-17T07:04:00.000-08:00

My parents called me last night and said that they would sponsor Thomas to study and board at LM! I can't even start to comprehend how happy this makes me! I kept waking up thinking about it all night with a huge grin on my face! That proves how huge this is because usually i wake up in the night thinking i can see someone hanging down with their head through the mattress in the bunk above me -thanks to the malaria tablets...crazy!! (The 6 1/2 pancakes i had right before sleeping may also explain the constant waking up!) Jen and Joe made 70 pancakes for us last night, we had savoury ones for dinner and sweet ones for dessert!
So much has happened today!
First thing i went to the meeting at TASO to arrange the independent voluntary work i want to do while i’m here. The woman that somebody had arranged to meet me turned out not to be the right person - typical Ugandan mistake! So I waited around for the guy in charge of organising AIDs education but he was busy all day. I'm going back for a third time on monday morning at 9 (that's purely for me to come and look at when i forget- beings as i'm currently all over the place organisation wise!) So third visit lucky fingers crossed! The whole time at TASO i was completely on edge because i was so excited to go and tell Thomas that he could go to school! The suspense was more or less making me shake like a bit of a maniac!
I got to the street kids project around 9:30 and broke the news to Thomas. I'm not sure that he could actually believe it. We couldn't take him to LM until the other kids had left the project beings as Sarah and Moses were the only other people working. I taught them all for about an hour before we all walked to a football pitch nearby for a bit of a game. After the game one of the most hilarious things happened! Somebody had donated some money, which doesn't usually happen, for the kids to go to an all you can eat ugandan buffet. 18 of the boys went along for it. Peter, who happened to be sitting two down from me, was really making the most of the food. Just before he finished he put his hand over his stomach before being instantaneously sick under the table! Everybody burst into hysterics, he looked really proud with himself. Then he was sick again - twice!
This afternoon Sarah, Moses and me got bodas with Thomas to the village that his family live in. I couldn't believe what the village looked like and it got worse when we walked through the huts around the outside. The further in we got, the worse the living conditions appeared. 70% of the people living in the village are children. He took us to his auntie's house, where he lives if he can get back there from Jinja for the night. His auntie can only speak in Luganda so Moses came along to translate for us. His auntie told us that Tom's mum is an alcoholic and they're not sure where she lives. She didn’t think that Tom would be able to go to senior school and she was very grateful that he’s being given the opportunity. Thomas’ auntie and Thomas are in the photo below with me.

We went from the village, Massesse, straight to LM. His auntie came along too so that she could see the school. I felt so emotional for him as I showed him around. He was still wearing the clothes that he wears on the street so some of the kids were staring at him. I could tell he was embarrassed and felt uncomfortable, i think as a combination of his auntie and his clothes, he walked round with his head down. I cut the grand tour down as much as possible to try and minimise his embarrassment while still giving him a good enough look to feel comfortable going back to live there tomorrow. The whole experience made me want to cry for him! I have to keep reminding myself about the opportunity that he has now, which is amazing!

I wrote you 365 love letters, it's not over yet!

2010-02-16T04:11:00.000-08:00

I just taught biology lesson number 2! Teaching was a lot easier the second time! It went really quickly too. I really do love it.
Last night i was head chief at the guest house! I cooked garliced and herbed Talapia (the fresh fish out here) with Dom for 10 people. We did mediteranian veg, pesto rice, guacamole, garlic potatoes and stuff to go with it and it went down a treat! Huge relief beings as we're yet to have an inedible meal and i was convinced mine would be the first!
On Sunday night we went out for valentines, when we got home all of the boys had left us ridiculously cheesy valentines messages on our beds! I had a mirror with a poem to look at my 'beautiful face'...! The others included 365 love letters, it's not over yet - literally letters AND literally 365! All of the words from 'hero' on separate pieces of paper. Very cheesy stuff! I've got a meeting tomorrow with somebody working at TASO the leading AIDs organization out here. I turned up spontaneously yesterday so the guy i should apparently speak to was already in a meeting himself. I'm hoping to organise voluntary work independently communicating with 16-18 year old school students both encouraging them to get tested for HIV and telling them a bit about precautions to prevent contracting it. Fingers crossed they'll help me out!
At LM earlier i asked Mark, the head teacher, about a place in S1 for Thomas. Thomas is the boy that i was talking about before who goes to the street kids project during the week. He goes because he has nothing else to do beings as nobody in his family can afford to carry on sending him to school. His grandad used to pay his fees but now he's to ill too carry on working, i don't think he has parents. They have a place for him so if he can get funding he'll be able to start straight away. I saw him on my way to the internet cafe and I asked him why somebody should sponsor him. He said he really wants to start learning again. From the way he comes across he's obviously clever. He doesn't even need to prove himself to be fair, his report from primary school is excellent. He's told me before that he wants to be a Doctor too. I want to get him into school, preferably LM so badly!!!
I'm going back to the guesthouse now for pancakes...

Helping out at the HIV field

2010-02-12T04:57:00.000-08:00

Master Olive, Sister Rachel, Madame Olivia, Brother Joe... you are wonderfully welcome!

2010-02-12T02:28:00.000-08:00

On wednesday morning i went to Moses' street kids project. About 15 kids came, I started teaching one of them, Lucer, to write and say the alphabet. The night before we'd been sitting outside a bar in Jinja with Sarah, the girl that's giving living out here a go. She's working voluntarily at the project every day so she obviously knows the kids well. Anyway, all of the kids came over to us and they were all high on paraffin. The youngest was 5 and the oldest about 12. Sarah said they're addicted to it. I could tell by looking at their faces they were completely out of it; their eyes were wide wide open. It makes them manic. It's so sad, they take it every night. Seeing it during my time off was a real reality check but i still can't really believe it. At the project in the morning after, the youngest boy (who i'd seen really spaced out the night before) didn't communicate with anybody. Apparently that's because he was on a downer from the paraffin. Sarah's so good with all of the kids. I've just realized that i've not explained how the project works. Basically a guy called Moses paints and does art work to make money. He uses the extra money he makes to hire out a room (a really small and dark room just off the main street in town). The street kids meet here every week day at 9:30 to get food (they're given one meal at 12 each day), medication and some form of education. If it wasn't for the project they would have no food or medication, and beings as one of them now has malaria both are obviously vital. At the moment i'm planning to work there every friday. Can't wait to get involved!

In the afternoon Hassan took Livy, Ollie, Joe and me to a HIV clinic and a primary school to determine weather we wanted to spend some of our time helping out at either. After speaking with the teachers at the primary school they got the school choir to sing and dance for us! Different kids sang our names to welcome us during the first song! They were awesome! And it was all done outside too in the most beautiful setting making the whole thing even more perfect. They have so little yet they're so willing to give up so much time.

On Thursday i went back to St.Francis HIV clinic. (I only just about made it after a boda driving me for 5 minutes in the wrong direction until i demanded he pulled over, he gave a very sheepish shrug when i asked him if he actually knew the way... i really don't see the sense in them pretending they do?!) On Thursday's Maureen (a nurse working there), Paul (a doctor) and another guy who's name i can't yet pronounce, run a HIV field. They drive to villages off the beaten track to offer drugs, support etc. to villagers that wouldn't otherwise be able to afford treatment. I'm going to go along every week. Yesterday we traveled to the villages in a Ugandan ambulance because somebody (typical Ugandan!) had lost the keys to the truck! It was so cool! We pulled up at the first village and walked to this circular hut made from wooden sticks with a strawish roof. About 35 women were crammed into this hut, Paul told me that it was a grandmother's organization. They were all there in the interest of their grandchildren whose parent's had died of HIV. the women were amazing. They obviously don't see mzungu's too often because as they saw me they all started to jump out of their seats! Every single one of them hugged me and i said 'ollie oh tea ya?!' (how are you) to each of them! At some points i was hugging 3 of them at once! I can't believe how excited they got! They made me feel so welcome. We sat in on their get together then spent the rest of the morning in this village. I sat on a mat on the grass with Paul counting out their tablets while they saw him one by one. Paul's a great doctor and he fills me in and explains everything as he does it. We went to a different village after lunch, the second was more developed, and the welcome was nowhere near as exciting! And a different Paul, who works as a counselor at the clinic, wants me to be their ambassador in the UK! xxxxxxxxxx

we know you don't plug headphone's into your bowl of posho!

2010-02-09T04:52:00.000-08:00

HELLO DAVE'S! I just taught my first lesson! LOVE the class! Triple Ugandan A level biology....! Luckily it's not too daunting at the moment as only 3 people in the school have taken biology to A2 (apparently it's going to go go up when we get properly into the term but 3's mighty fine for now.. far easier then 70 in the other class i'll be teaching!) Besides that, they're really conscientious, one girl in my class (Naomi, she's the head girl at LM) is aiming to go to medical school in Kampala next year if she gets the A levels. The other 2 are ambitious too, so this morning before the lesson i was quite scared if I'm honest! We're doing respiration atm, i did up to the end of glycolysis today. Towards the end of the lesson i set some questions and they handed in as much they'd done so i was flicking through their answers on my way here. Some are great, but some are not.. ha i can'treally comment too much though as i read them on while on the back of a motor bike!) I'll probs arrange revision some classes for outside school, feeling so proactive after this morning! Anyway, they all board so shouldn't be too difficult to get hold of them. I really liked teaching! I started properly getting into it towards the end too. (Oh my god there's a disco van outside pumping out crazily loud R&B rap!)

Yesterday i had to stand up in front of this assembly of 700 people to talk about what i'm planning to do while i'm here! Nervous a i was, turns out it's actually a lot easier to do than i expected! Juma got the atmosphere spot on with this beast of a speech! Love him! He's actually hilarious! at one point he came out with 'we know that you don't plug headphone's into your bowl of posho' when he was lecturing the kids about battery radio's being banned! Ooh i need to go to his office actually, he said yeaterday he's made loads of people girts!! He's the art teacher as well as deputy head and does tie dying classes, whcih i think i'm gonna go to if i have time!

Last night Ollie made fish pie for all 12 of us and requested a mention of it in our blogs! To be fair it was impressive!

GET INVOLVED!

2010-02-08T02:41:00.000-08:00

This morning i called Hassan, more commonly known here as 'Hassan is me'! He started up a HIV center in Jinja not too long ago. Hassan is the headteacher at the school that Ollie, Dom and Joe are teaching at, hence how i found out about it. He sent a woman called Caroline around to the guest house to meet me. I was the only person in when she came round so we sat out on the veranda while she explained the aims of the HIV center to me. She also told me about her family, she has 3 children either at or on their way to university. She actually teaches English Literature at a school in Jinja and then she volunteers at Hassan's center on top of that. I'd presumed that it was a clinic that he was running; it's actually a counseling service aimed at helping teachers that are HIV positive to come to terms with it. Caroline said that as well as counseling people at an office, they also visit people at their homes while they're going through more difficult, depressive times. They also do home visits when people's HIV becomes more of a problem and they start to become ill. They offer some medical necessity's too such as ARV's and they go to school's trying to convince both students and teachers to take HIV tests. Caroline said that a lot of people turn down the tests because of the huge stigma associated with AIDs here. I asked her about where the stigma came from and she said that it's a combination between the attitude of the local community as well as the personal trauma. She told me that she is HIV positive. When she first found out she was devastated. Now she said she feels happy and she copes. She said that at the moment she's healthy and that's why she wants to help other people to get through it too. She thinks that with the support she's had it's made her stronger and she's grateful for that. She wants give others support so that they accept tests and find out earlier too. That way they can start to take meds and live much longer. We exchanged numbers and she's going to call me when she's going on home visits so i can go along too. When she gets her teaching timetable we're going to arrange times that i can work at the center with her. She's so lovely and I can't wait to get involved. (get involved is the saying of the trip so far!) I want to spend most of my time here volunteering with them.

I'm going into LM in a bit to watch Soph's first lesson! She's teaching 70 kids, i can't wait to see it! After that we're standing up in front of 700 in their assembly to tell them about what else we're planning to do here. basically thank god i just met Caroline, at least i have something to talk about now! I'm gonna go swimming later and then carry on planning for my 2 hour biology lesson tomorrow... why did i ask for A level?! Lets just say I'm still at the teaching it to myself stage! I'm also gonna cheat a little bit and go to the market before my lesson and get mango's and fruit juice to give out during the lesson!

As of today we're no loner on holiday! Last week we went out a bit too much, spent a bit too much, you can never dance too much...! The hog roast actually turned out to be a pumpkin roast! A guy called Moses was hosting it, he did have loads of other food too, but i've never seen so many pumpkin's! We met loads of other people that are doing voluntary work in Uganda too. One of the girl's, who's from Brighton is now giving living out here a go. She came here to start working with Moses to try and help out the street children. Moses is incredible at art and by the sounds of things he's been trying to set up a project -completely out of his own pocket- in which he works with a group of street kids. He feeds them lunch, teaches them art Monday to Friday and today for instance he's taking one boy to hospital and paying for him to get an operation. Libs went along yesterday and had a great time helping out. I definitely want to get involved! At some point at this party i was riding around the dance floor (that's Moses' dining room) on a bike! We went to the casino after, i refused to buy chips but one guy gave me one of his and i lost 1000 shillings for him! (that's basically nothing though in English money)! I turned Saturday night's dancing into a bit of a magaluf thing... i wore every Ugandan's hat! And i got everybody else hat's too. I also made friends with somebody that works at campsite (a western place with a band) and got free tequila and drinks all night! After the meal, i didn't buy one drink! There was a big hippie there with a crazy hat and me and jen joined him on the tables to dance! We did lots of crazy spac-ish dancing! Soph has just arrived at the internet cafe, her lesson starts in 25mins... it takes 15 to get there so gotta dash right now! Lots of love! xxxxxxxx

Sun set by the Nile!

2010-02-08T02:34:00.000-08:00

Forget rape alarms- take a golf club!

2010-02-05T03:46:00.000-08:00

We went to a staff meeting at LM, it started on African time (obviously!). It was really intresting (well the first hour or so was...!), it turns out that things affecting us back home have made an impact on Uganda too. Mark was talking about the set backs in school resulting from the swine flu scare and the credit crunch. I found that a bit weird! I always think of it as being like a different world here...
Including Soph, Miles and me, there are about 15 new teachers starting at LM this year. Mark picked on us individually to stand up and talk about ourselves, i was the lucky person to get picked first! After the meeting finished we has a feast of Ugandan food, which i love! The posho's grown on me now, it's my replacement for porridge out here so now i don't feel deprived! (such a relief considering that was my main worry of this whole trip - i've even bought a small bag of oats for if i ever get homesick...!) I spoke with David, the head of science, about teaching biology. He gave me my timetable a few days ago. I'm teaching A level biology to our equivelent of upper sixth. I only have 3 periods a week (in the form of a tripple every Tuesday before lunch) so that leaves time to sort out loads of other placements too. I initially found it a bit daunting beings as my tripple is 3/5's of their whole A level teaching. Then yesterday i went and observed the double that the other teacher takes and (positive thinking!), i've decided that i can at least match it (hopefully). I'm going to have to do a fair bit of preparation though because their syllabus is the same as or even more detailed that our's is. I have my first lesson next Tuesday, exciting!

I went to a HIV clinic yesterday. I called Paul, a guy that i bumped into when he randomly popped into LM to speak with Mark, in the morning and he told me to meet him there at 9:30. When i got there he still hadn't arrived. It's the most overwhelming experience i've had here so far. I walked into the reception and saw around 30 people sitting and waiting on benches, i've never seen this many people together before with such a serious illness. I introduced myself to the receptionist and she let me sit down behind the desk with her. Some of them stared at me, some smiled at me, some looked seriously ill, most looked healthy and shockingly, content. Paul arrived and took me to his room, it turns out he's a HIV counsellor. He got a really friendly nurse called Violet to give me a tour around the whole clinic and the childrens home. There were 3 doctor's rooms, 2 rooms with 10 beds in, counselling rooms, a lab for blood tests. The children's house is a seperate building a short walk away. Outside a really small little girl, in a pretty dress and a denimn jacket was sitting by herself on the wall. The socail worker inside told me she is HIV positive. In the garden at the back of the house i saw her sister, Lillian, playing, she's substantially better built, yet i have a feeling they could be twins. The social worker told me that she is HIV negative. Their mum was sitting in the garden with another girl who's currently living there. I shook hands and spoke with the mum, she's a really warm, friendly person. It wasn't until i thought about it that i realised that she too must be HIV positive. I've never thought through all of the consequences resulting from AIDs before, but if both of her parents and her sister are HIV positive what prospects does that leave for her? It's a really common, tragic issue here. Later, after sitting in with another Paul, who's a doctor at the clinic, for a few hours (and learning that some people can't actually get HIV!), i went out to local villages with 3 people also working at the HIV field. They're all really friendly and we drove in a four by four through the first thunder and lightning storm i've seen here to get lists of the children that the charity funding the clinic sponser. The mood in the car was so different (especially when they all started singing/ jigging to 'go charlie'), i just found it weird to be able to smile right after being in the clinic.
On a more positive note, i've seen some people bungeeing over the nile, it looks incredible. If you do it 3 times in the same day then you get the 3rd free! I'm actually considering it! Their's a really nice swimming pool not far from the guest house, you can see the river nile and sometimes monkey's while you swim!
Back to voluntary work, the other day i went to a medical clinic! I spoke to dixon the doctor when i looked around LM. Then a few mornings ago I was sitting outside at the guest house chilling when my phone rang and dixon kept shouting 'get boda to islam amberstan!' down the line! i obviously didn't have a clue which direction this place was in, or what it was...! anyway i arrived at this clinic, there was a line of people sitting outside quing to get in! A woman inside was shocked to see a mzungu and started asking if i was sick when i walked past the que into this concrete room...! and then dixon appeared! he's so cool! he showed me all around and i've made another doctor friend called hassan! i've told him i'm going to find him a full body radioactive cover when i'm back and post it to him because he does x-rays and stays inside the room with the patient while he does them (which i'm pretty sure is really dangerous). And he's gonna teach me to read all of the blood tests they do at the clinic with a microscope! Ok i could go on but i have a feeling that you won't find all of this medical stuff quite as exciting as i do...!
On a less geeky subject we went to a graduation party and to part of the pre church service (nothing like at home, it was outside and purely entailed gospel singing!) A graduation is celebrated more than a wedding here so it was a huge event! And it was a girl that graduated, big deal here beings as she's the second girl to graduate in Uganda this year. Loads of famous ugandans! Loads of speeches, Ugandan food and a huge dance outside! We were the only mzungu's out of around 200, all of the Africans (the guy sitting next to me during the speeches was from Rwanda) taught us to dance like them! Then we went to a cheesy Ugandan club in the boot of Juma's car. Not all 12 at once though, we went 6 at a time which is overly cautios by Ugandan standards! We've been invited to a Ugandan with dread lock's pig roast tonight! I think it's a 200 people big event again and they're all going to a casino that has a bar and club too after, so that's exciting! Last night when we went out i dared Dom to take this golf club that we found in the guest house out with him. It ended up being a mutual effort, i looked after it fine and then Dom managed to loose it at the end of the night (while we were in the club, they kept it for us behind the bar- what does that say about place?!!) The worrying thing now is that thier's a Ugandan on the loose with a golf club...!
Me and Soph might go and see an orphanage this afternoon. Soph definatly wants to do some orphanage work while we're here, i'm not sure yet, i guess i'll tell you next time! Lots of love from Uganda xxxxxxx

JAMBO!

2010-02-04T04:08:00.000-08:00

Jambo! I'm in Uganda! Survived my first week in Africa! (despite constantly using the boda boda's (the motor bikes that are the main direct transport here), which I know I vowed never to do! As soon as I had the first ride there was no going back! LOVE THEM. (They're so great to just sit back, sun shining, nice breeze and people watch all the Ugandans stroling about their daily routines, you see so much diversity in one ride!) I've realised, like everything really, they're no more dangerous than anything back home.. I guess being here's going to involve a few worth while risks, but i think you can make everhting completely safe for yourself so seriously guys you have nothing to worry about!! The boda's have possibly made me want a motorbike when i get back...! (parent's take that as a joke if you get round to reading my blog..)

Ok anyway, WHY THE HELL am i justifying safety stuff when their's so much to tell you?!! I don't remember not being here now, we were talking about that this morning. It feels as if i've been here for about a year! So, the journey here ran smoothly until changing planes at Nairobi.. the airport was one huge jumble! Was pretty close to missing the flight, thanks to the destination of the que changing depending on the worker that came over to how late everyone was for the flight! I got safely to Uganda, and after getting a visa etc. Mark Malinga (he's so cool!), the headmaster at Lords Meade was stood waiting at arrivals. When i walked out of the airport i couldn't believe how green Uganda is! It's so beautiful and exactly what Africa should be like. I thought my first conversation with a Ugandan was hilarious, but it turns out to be completely standard! Basically as I was sat in the back of Mark's truck, he turned round and said "seat belts before we go, safety first!" So i pulled out the belt, started searching around for the socket thingy... couldn't see it anywhere, searched more presuming it to be in a really obvious place (whilst thinking this too early for a retarded moment), i eventually asked mark where it was. He replied "forget seat belts, i'm a trustworthy driver!" BUT YOU JUST SAID...?! oh dear! The roads and the traffic in Kampala were crazy, i've never seen anything like it! Everyone drives like an actual maniac. And a few pick up trucks had around 12 guys with guns standing in the back of them! (And that's nothing in comparison with the motorbikes crashing into everything bar 1mm).

The drive to the guest house was overwhelming! I was stunned by the heat, lush landscape, the bustle, cows and goats on the roads, the traffic, pollution, 80's music pumping out of everywhere, the bright orange soil/ dust that gets everywhere and baffled by all the Ugandan's strolling along the road side so casually. And so many women were walking along with massive (random!) things balanced on their heads!

After all that 5 hour drive and finally arriving at the guest house i was so excited to explore, get to know people, see the organisations to get involved with and everything else.. basically the last thing i wanted to do was unpack. The first people i saw were Liberty and Livy. They're lovely and we arranged to go out for dinner that evening. After sorting standard stuff out in Jinja we went back to the guest house and sat out on the veranda and started getting to know each other before getting our first boda boda to 2 friends.
The next 3 mzungu's (mzungu means white person and all the Ugandan's in the street shout mzungu how are you when they see you!) to arrive were Dom, Joe and Ollie. We were sitting around the dining room table eating breakfast when Annette announced that 3 newcomers had arrived. Again they're all lovely. We went into lords meade to have a look around and meet some of the teachers. Juma, the deputy, who we'd met in the uk, gave us the grand tour. I really like the school. It's completly different to what i expected. A lot of the teachers have houses there too. Juma showed us his house and introduced us to his 3 children, one's called Rachel! I've always heard that people in Africa have literally nothing yet they're really content. I'm starting to see that. I introduced myself to some of the teachers. They're great, Ugandan's are never in a rush! I can't believe how laid back they are. And I've finally learnt that everything runs on African time here. Basically everything actually happens 2 hours later than arranged. Oh and if we get the school driver to drop us back after school we have to squash into his pick up truck with about 20 other teachers. That means 12 of us sit on the back bit and the roof! The drive back goes through some rural parts of Jinja before we get to the main roads. So we get to see the small wooden and tin huts that some people live in (they're in the same proximity to each other as tents are at festivals), huge birds (can't remember what they're called), and loads of craziness! I actually love it!
Tom and Marianne arrived in the afternoon, no suprises, they're both lovely! We went out for dinner and then to 2 purely ugandan bars/clubs. It's so fun. Even though we stand out so much! We got home to find Jen and Conor, who again (obviously now) are great!, had arrived. We are so lucky with the group of people staying at the guest house!