Travel Blog 1

Happy December! I can't believe its December 16th and in only 9 days I'll be celebrating Ugandan christmas with my new found family and friends.
So far homesickness hasn't hit me at all but I still don't feel it coming for me - I'm so content and so excited for our Ugandan christmas.

It doesn't actually feel like christmas since I've never had to nurse sun burn or wear a sun hat on christmas before.

A lot has happened since I last wrote, including the fact THAT I GOT MY FIRST TICK.

I started travelling on Friday 6th of December with a long relaxing weekend in Kampala. Me and Clara spent one thunderstorm-full night at backpackers hostel where I skyped my family and friends for the first time in a good while and we just relaxed with some street food and mango juice.
The next day me and Clara left eachother as she travelled into Mityana to meet some other volunteers while I stuck around in Kampala with some Ugandan friends for a few days. Ate some street chicken, drank some more mango juice and visited the Watoto Church. (which was SO good!)

After 4 days there I headed to Masaka to rejoin with Clara and the others - we spent 2 nights in Kiwangala where we swam and I got my first Ugandan sunburn, followed by 2 nights in Nakirebe and are now in Fort Portal! So far therefore travel has consisted of dropping into eachothers projects and enjoying one anothers company - but I feel like it's been such a good way to spend the holidays so far. Since me and Clara don't get to do much of the cooking at home I've been keenly helping to cook for all of the other volunteers while we're together and having such a good time of it. In fact just this morning we went to buy tomatoes from the trading center in Kaihura and were faced with the fact that it was the first time we'd ever been to buy veg in Uganda.

After Christmas I've planned to spend my remaining holiday in a childrens home in Hoima for a month before returning home and commiting myself to being the best teacher EVER. Now that I'm settled and know what's expected of me I'm seriously looking forward to getting back into the term and doing a good job.

For now though I'm just enjoying. Spent a day sat in Kaihura girls living room with 4 other volunteers while 6 others went to a wedding in the village.
Spent a night in Fort Portal where I made best friends with a chapati man, made Lilly a rolex and got a lift home with two american volunteers!
Spent an evening at a babies home dressing freshly bathed toddlers in cute little baby grows.
Now preparing to move on to Kabable.

The volunteer community created by the PT program leaves such a platform for an incredible time with incredible friends in incredible places. I'm having so much fun.

Abrupt end based on the fact I have nothing else to say.

Forever loving Uganda.
Merry Christmas.

Speech day and induction!

Currently eating breakfast at the source of the Nile and thought I should take the free wifi as an opportunity to update you on our speech day, Jens visit and our PT induction. 

So on Sunday we celebrated our schools speech day which closed the school year and marked the end of our first term as teachers in Uganda. 

The work started on Saturday with a full day of school decorating! We made cute little flower ribbons that no one believed we made but the hall looked so nice and we were proud of the work done. 

The next day was SOOO tiring. We woke up at 6 to try and get Clara's choir together for a last practice - unsuccessfully. Brother John gave the boarders a final goodbye assembly where the students were given the chance to talk about what they disliked about the year. A boy called Derek raised the fact that the school cook started mixing sugar in the posho when they came late for food, to which Brother John replied that all students should thank him for teaching them time management... It was funny. 

We met the Father who came to conduct speech day mass, he was a muzungu and the look on the children's faces when he started to speak in fluent Luganda was priceless. After mass we had entertainment; Satome put together a Japanese acrobat team, which was INCREDIBLE!  Choirs sang, Brother John gave a beautiful speech and the students put on traditional Chiganda dancing!!

After some typical Ugandan disorganisation Clara unfortunately had to pull her choir. 

After the entertainment we had the mad lunch rush in which I served rice to the parents. I was originally given the role of Matoke server but was too inexperienced to give the parents the huge African helpings that they expected. Hahah. Everyone seemed to get some kind of enjoyment out of being served by Bazungu anyway. 

Re reading over this it doesn't sound like we did much but between keeping the kids quiet in mass, running across the muddy field and serving groups of hungry parents, we were absolutely knackered by the time lunch was over. 

Brother Johns speech marked an official close, he thanked us for our volunteerism and introduced us to the parents. After wards our children came and said goodbye as they headed off for the holidays and one even cried as she said goodbye to Clara. It was a truly beautiful day and such a great close. I miss my kiddies already. 

After speech day we had a day of rest and then had to set off to Jinja for our PT induction. We met for a overview on Jens visit on Thursday (which was highly successful!) and some more brief training. We arrived at the Nile River Camp at about 6:30pm, had an evening to relax and the next morning had talks on travel, health, teaching and immigration. 

Between lectures we were given time to relax and swim! I swam in the Nile!!! It was scary! They say there are no crocodiles but I still screamed for the whole 4 minutes that I was in the water! 

That evening we went for dinner in a nice restaurant courtesy of PT, which was great. And now we're having our breakfast, overlooking the source of the Nile and preparing to go back to project. It's always so much fun when all the cola get together. We are by faaaaar the best country group and it was certainly a nice little celebration of closing the term. 

We're officially on holiday now so I'm sure there will be some fabulous travel posts for you soon! Our PT rep Ian put me in contact with a children's home in Hoima that I'm hoping to spend some of the holiday at and apart from that I'm just going with the flow! 

Speak soooooooooon!

Quick November Notice

Wow wow wa. It's the 18^th of November and I'm in Uganda. Still not over it.

At this point I'm not sure what I've told you and what I haven't... End of term exams are now taking place – my weekend has been filled with MORE paper marking. I think this blog must give the impression that that's all we do. Hahah, we do teach too, I promise.

Since I last wrote we've had our first night out in Kampala, went to a Ugandan graduation ceremony and visited the hospital twice. 

The night in Kampala was INCREDIBLE.

The graduation was INCREDIBLE.

And my doctor is SOOO INCREDIBLE - nothing to worry about, I fell out of a taxi and cut my foot, the week after I fell up the stairs outside my house and I was just covered in horrible wounds! Everyone here thinks that it just means that white people are delicate... sorry for giving you all a bad name! hahahah, but I'm healing nicely now. 

Last night we had a movie night with Tony and Brother Micheal - two of the people we live with. I found myself constantly coming out of being indulged in the film and being like 'uuh I'm watching a film in Uganda'. hahaha, seriously still not over it. 

Holidays are coming and our PT Desk Officer is visiting this Thursday which we're looking forward to. Aswell as that our school is having a 'speech day' this Sunday which is like a huge celebration day for the end of the year. Clara has trained the children to sing a song and  I'm waitressing/serving the parents. The school year is coming to a close and I'm so happy with the way that my first term here has gone - I've told them that next year I want to teach the younger years, which they said is ok now since I know a good amount of Luganda. It's all so exciting. I can't believe that at the end of this month we'll be a quater of our way through our year.

I've got tons more pictures to come up but it's still so difficult to upload so bare with me! It looks like the next blog post may be a christmas one! craaaaazy! Love you all xxxxxxxxxxx

Two Months In!

Mid term exams are upon us at Nakirebe Primary School which means between supervising and marking we have very little time and this blog post may be brief.

Life in Uganda is settleing in to a steady routine. We wake up, go to school, plan lessons and venture around the dormetries.

The work load is huge and anyone who thought I was fundraising for a year of holiday and fun is severely mistaken. I wish I could show you the pile of P5 maths papers on my bed to be marked for tomorrow.

A couple of weeks ago now we had our first Kampala expirience. We had planned on only going to stay for the day and meet with some other volunteers but ended up staying the night for a beautifully spontaneous night out in which we got lost, ate out and explored the city! You have to seriously keep your wits about you in that place though. Three times Clara's backpack was opened by strangers trying to take what they could and we were almost killed after coming out on the wrong side of Owino and running through mud and crowds of people excited to see Muzungu! I feel like I could handle almost any situation in England after some of these things...The people in the restaurant saw that we were group of all whites and added 100,000 to our bill and then the taxi drivers got lost and tried to insist that we payed! I'm seriously proud of us though. 18 year olds navigating Kampala is quite an accomplishment I feel. Being proud is not a good quality but this is my blog and I can't help but be proud of how this year is developing.

In other travel news we just got back from visiting our friends in Kyenje again and the coming weekend we're travelling to Kabale for another volunteers 18^th! Which we are SO excited about! We make regular trips to Mpigi and often branch in Katende to see our friend who boards there – Last week we went for his visitation day, where parents go and prepare food and see how their kids are doing. This boy obviously isnt our kid but he's like our Brother and doesn't have anyone else. We're seeing a fair bit of Uganda in our weekends and it's getting us excited for holidays to really really explore.

That's the independent travel side of things though and on the school side of things it's at times slow. We teach our lessons and spend all day interacting with the children but we're still looking for a way to really do some real good and help in the project. Another volunteer here, Satome, uses her evening lessons to teach the children to make bookmarks, which she then sends to Japan to be sold to raise money for new mosquito nets in the dormetries. We'd love to do something like that we've just got to figure out what. There's a big shortage here of books and maths sets which limit so many kids from being able to sit exams so a couple of weeks I sent out a request for some of them which I hope will really help. If anyone has any ideas we're so happy to hear them, we're seriously keen to know we're making a difference.

On top of the hill that our school is based on there's another project/orphanage/school called Watoto! It's huge in Uganda and was started by a muzungu pastor as just a small orphanage – now it's a chain of huge homes for children, churches, schools, clinics for the needy and so much else that I'm sure I'm not even aware of. One of the people we stay with grew up in Watoto and the things it provides for children here is inspiring. The stories you hear from there are harrowing though... something I was so ignorant to upon coming out here was that I was coming into a society so recently shaken by the Kony war. I watched the youtube videos and read the news but never imagined I'd see the effects. Children who've been forced to kill their parents and one who even carried Kony's baby are all being rehabilitated up at that Watato. It's an incredible things to see, even so far from the outside.

I was toying with the idea of re-applying for university this year with the thought that my Uganda adventures may clarify what I should be doing with me life but I'm still as clueless as ever. No matter how much I am LOVING teaching here I have to remind myself how completley different it is in the UK. There are obviously pro's and con's to each but I don't know if my first teaching expirience being such a free and unrestricted one is going to leave me unabe to adapt to what I'm percieving the UK to be like. I can't really pretend that I have a clue what teaching primary in the UK is like though, because I've never done it. Beside from that though, although the amount of change we do offer here is limited, I fear doing anything less may just not satisfy me now. We've been here only two months but I keep telling everyone that I'm never going to leave. Ahaha. Last weekend actually we had like a 'compete' day in which St. Peters P/School from Kampala came and challenged our school in a quiz, debate and football match. St. Peters is one of the top schools in Uganda and our kids beat them in every single thing which made me SO PROUD. The debate motion was 'The coming of foreigners to Africa has done more harm than good' and ofcourse our kids were opposing while we sat in the audience cheering them on intensly. It was hilarious and so intense though – the whole time I was just like “I have never seen primary school kids debate this way.” Then walking down to 'the Field of Dreams' for football with our kids in a completley unorganised fashion – racing them up and down and cheering on our school until the sun set. Aaaah, it's unexplainable how much I love this school...

Brother John continues to be hilarious, this time stating that if people in England are so concerned with immigration they need to be having more than two children at a time, so not to be outnumbered. Hahah – Brother John's wise words of the week.

At the end of next month the schools break up and we'll have our first holiday period, in which we will be learning to travel on a serious budget and explore Uganda as Ugandan citizens! I'm so excited. At first I was a bit uncertain and thought I wanted to spend a lot of time at home with the project family, but I'm so so keen to get out of Nakirebe and see what's out there now. We've got two months to travel and so far have climbing mt. Elgon and going to Zanzibar on our list of 'must do's'.

ooooooh so this 'breif' blog post turned out to be not so brief but I'm not sure when I'll next get to write and worry I'm not at all giving a clear view of life in Uganda with these sporadic blog posts! Again sorry for the lack of pictures, it's so difficult to get them that it looks like you might just have to have a 'month in pictures' update every now and again.

I'm having an incredible time and learning a serious amount about myself, can't lie and say I'm missing home because I don't get much time to think about it at the minute! I did miss home on my dads birthday last week though so HAPPY BIRTHDAY FOR THEN, DAD!

As always, hope everyone is well! If you've got any great ideas for how we can help the school my email adress is bethcrook11@hotmail.com

Speak soon xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

First Month in Photos!

I LEFT

I ARRIVED

I got acquainted with my new luxury bathroom suite...

WE ATE WHITE ANTS

We were introduced to the chairman of our school and picked fresh sugar cane from his garden!

I got friction burns whilst handwashing clothes...

Being a proud football coach/mummy to Nakirebe PSchoolers

CLARA GOT A WEAVE!

 

WE WENT TO THE EQUATOR

CLARA TURNED 19!

Mid term exams were marked in an all night session

MY P6 CLASS!

WE TOURED GOMBAY

WE TOURED MENGO RAINFOREST

I adopted a baby goat and created the MBOOZE BOY CREW

WE CELEBRATED P7 LEAVING PARTY

MR MASABA DANCED THE NIGHT AWAY

Internet is expensive here and I have so many photos! Now that I've got it all figured out I hope to update with tons of pictures as often as possible! But for now this is a brief photo collection for your enjoyment! Missing you all! Hope to write soon!

One month in Uganda

For a second, but hopefully more structured time, hello from Uganda!! Once again we're in an internet cafe in the town of Mpigi. We've been teaching for more than one week now but today had no lessons so decided to escape the madness and indulge in some much needed internet time.

Teaching is absolutely crazy. In my P6 class I teach 133 students, ages ranging from 11 to 16ish. It's very hard therefore to plan a lesson that everybody enjoys. But I'm having fun trying. The students are very keen to learn and it's so so nice to be a real part of their school. Everywhere we walk we get 'Good morning Madame' 'Safe journey Madame'. It's so much fun. Marking 133 books at a time is less fun. And on Mondays and Fridays I have 3 classes, so that's three lots of 133 to mark!! Clara helps me lots. Classes are unorganised and teachers often run into our time... they also have a habit of hitting the children at the back during our lesson. Which can be very distracting. But it is just their method of behavior management and this early in we are finding it difficult to explain that there are other ways of punishing children!

It feels very good to be here and feel like we're really helping. There's a very high level of poverty and sickness. Many people have been effected by HIV and AIDS. We have students here infected themselves and many many many who have lost or are loosing parents to it. The students are always so shocked to hear that we both have two parents at home and have never lost a sibling. It's very hard to be unable to help them in these situations. Sick parents is one of the main reasons that ages in classes vary so drastically. Many students fall behind whilst truing to care for those at home. We have a friend who now stays with our host who this happened to.

Teaching is just half of our journey and we are also having much fun being part of the community and being independant travelers in Uganda! So far we have visited the equator, the source of the nile and the Mpanga rain forest! Got bit by huge tropical rain forest ants and Annabelle fell of a log but we saw monkeys and had a brilliant time! The weekend just gone we left our project and went to Kyenje to stay with some other volunteers. I had my first ride on a boda boda (which is like a motorbike taxi). People in Uganda are very kind and look after us as guests very well. On one ride back from Mpigi last week the taxi man tried to charge us 2000, in Luganda (the local language) we then informed him that we live here and know how much a taxi should cost - and also that we're just volunteers and do not have much money. At this he was very kind, told us that he's just trying to run a business (which we 100% understand!!) Then after he spoke to us for a little while about volunteering a man came to ask us for money (because we're white they think we have lots), instead of having to fight him off ourselves the taxi man then told him that we were volunteers and he should leave us alone! I don't know if I explained that very well but it was very nice, we feel very immersed in the culture and especially the language, now being able to hold many conversations in Luganda. On our travels already we have seen much of the corruption, especially within the travel police.

Living in brothers house is hilarious and incredible. We both feel very lucky to have this project. It's a very male orientated house but brother does everything possible to make us feel comfortable. One night he came home exclaiming "I have brought some things for women in the bathroom, I don't know if they're for women, I just brought them." Upon inspection we discovered he'd brought a table cloth, some mouthwash, moisturizer and bubble bath (which is hilarious if you know what we have to bathe in). He also brought 'blue loo' toilet blocs which he strategically places in long drop. He's so so funny. The view from the house is incredible and I am so so happy to be here. We also have a dog who is soon to have puppies and I have adopted a baby goat!!

Time is going so so fast and I can not believe that as of this Sunday I will only have 11 months left in Uganda! There is so so much that I have missed out and I wish I knew how to explain properly what I'm experiencing! The stuff about feeling super satisfied under my mosquito net at night goes completely out of the window because I am GONE as soon as my head touches that pillow. I'm having an incredible time and couldn't imagine being anywhere else. I hope everyone is having an incredible time at freshers and elsewhere. I miss you all tons. Still no luck with photos but I will keep trying!

Namudu in Uganda

This blog post is going to brief in comparison to everything that has happened since we have arrived!
We have been in Uganda now for 12 days, we spent our first night in Kampala and soon moved on to our project! Everything is so crazy and I don't even know how to explain in a way that can be understood! Taxis are like little mini buses that sit 14 but cram many more in - and for a 20 minute journey they only cost about 1000 shillings, which is like 25p. Because we are white they sometimes try and charge us more - but we're wise to it! Towns are dusty streets with huts on the side and sell absolutely everything.

There's so much to write about.
I'm having an absolutely incredible time! Brother John, our hosts is hilarious! And despite being in a highly catholic community, which I had initially thought may be very strict, me and Clara are very free to act and do as we please. We have made many friends as everyone wants to know the muzungus!

We have eaten white ants, which we caught and fried ourselves under the insistence of our friends!
On our first night there was a huge thunder storm!
We also had our first go at hand washing our clothes... (very unsuccesful)
We've picked sugar cane and popo and ate at a restaurant with the vice president of Uganda. (he was there, he didn't acknowledge us) hahaha

ooooooooooh none of this blog post is going to have any structure because there's too much to cram in as I watch my internet time ticking down!

Everybody thanks us greatly for coming, the children are very excited to have muzungu in their school and are eager to learn! I think that lessons are going to be a lot harder to plan that I thought because actually the school that we're in is very advanced - I'm going to be teaching P5&6 English and P5 Maths (Don't ask me how that happened). While Clara is going to be teaching P4 English, P5 Art and some P.E! We begin on Monday and are very excited!

We have also been given our Buganda names! I am Namudu of the Enchima Clan! (Monkey), while Clara is Nabosa of the Sheep Clan! Everywhere we go the children sceam Muzungu and I think that by the end of the year the only names I will respond to are Namudu and Muzungu! 

I'm missing everyone and hope that everything is going well! I will try to plan out my next blog post a bit better but please know for now that I am having the most incredible expirience, I am very grateful to be here and even more grateful to those who helped me get here!

I wish I could share some of my photos with you! 
Next time!

Goodbye UK

I'm leaving the UK and I'm feeling deep... after about a month of feeling absolutely panicked, today I feel calm. I know that I'm ready for all of the incredible things coming for me - I am in no way under the illusion that I know what I'm doing, but knowing how much I'm going to learn is exciting!

Absolutely buzzing for the adventure; the happiness, the exhaustion and the missing home but the feeling of complete and utter satisfaction that I know I'm going to feel as I fall asleep every night under my mosquito net in the middle of Uganda (on top of all of those feelings someone also commented that I'm going to feel like a princess under that princessy-mosquito-bed-curtain... so that will be nice too!)

It feels great to have a chance to do something meaningful while travelling Africa, while learning new things, while making new friends and while generally just having the best time of my life.
While I could be beginning a university course that allows me to plod through the next three years and discover nothing more about what I really want to do with my life, I'll be in Uganda, hopefully finding out where to go from here! Project Trust has given me the opportunity to explore and be proud of the life I'm living now. so I'm thankful for that.

Some final-farewell messages for the people reading:-
Friends and family! Thank you for all of your support in getting me to this point! Thanks for just being great and I'll miss you lots! In particular to you; Mum & Dad, Connor, Dylan & Lauren - you my favs, I'll miss you the most! Awesome Foursome - stay together, stay awesome. I count everyone from TDA as my friends and family, you've all been the best.
To my sponsors and supporters, I am very grateful for the support that you've given me that's allowed me to embark on this adventure! I am very much hoping that I will make you all proud of the donations that you've made to really make a difference to this school and these children!

I'LL MISS YOU!

I'm unsure of the next time that I'll be able to write so if I unexpectedly drop off the blogger earth please send me a letter! I would love to get them! My new address is as follows!

Miss Bethany Crook
Rd. Archbishop Kiwanuka Memorial Primary School
Po Box 107
Mpigi
Uganda

I assure you that I'm going to try my very best not to do this... so maybe just send me a letter anyway!

The opening slogan of our training course was that 'a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step', and with that in mind I am ready to take it all a day at a time! Excited, terrified, readyyyyy.

I'm moving to Uganda tomorrow!!!!!!!!!!!!!

One Month Away

It's the first of August and I'm exactly one month away from my Heathrow flight to Uganda.
That means that this is the last month that I will spend in the UK (for a whole year)
That means that this months top up, is the last time that I will put UK credit on my phone (for a whole year)
That means that I have only 4 more Sundays in the UK (for a whole year)
And only 14 more shifts at the Greyhound Stadium (hopefully ever).

As well as being a significant day for surreal-realizations like these, today I also completed my fundraising mission! After nine months of letter writing, presentation making and raffle ticket selling, I don't feel that there are any words to describe how good it feels to be done and able to peacefully prepare myself for the year ahead! There were definite low points where I was unsure if I'd ever hit my total, but pushing through those are how I know this is really what I want to do!

31 days and £0 to go!
See you in a month Uganda! 

Training

I'm home! I'm trained! I'm exhausted!

As many of you know, I've just arrived home from a 5 day training course on the Isle of Coll, where my Project Trust journey began last November! I think that for anyone taking part in the Project Trust experience Coll is always going to represent something special, and it was so so good to get back on the island. (Even worth the nine hours of unseated trains, noisy hostels and 5am ferries!)

The days were long and so so full on! Whereas selection was mentally and physically tiring, this was just absolutely brain-draining; we were in classes 9-6 and spent our evening planning lessons to be presented to our groups the next day, WHILST trying not to fall behind on sleep but also not to be anti-social! 

And while you would think that that would make for the worst week ever, it was hands down one of the greatest experiences of all time. 

An obvious high point of this great experience was meeting my country group; the other 24 volunteers who will be spread across the country! AND the ceilidh dance on the last night!
A less obvious high point of the week was my first ever encounter with a tick! Gained by Abi on one of our evening coll-rock-climbs and removed by ME with a pair of tweezers! (I was feeling very proud and very Uganda-ready.)

TEAM UGANDA 2013-14

I also learnt a lot more about my project! Me and my partner will be staying with Brother John, the headmaster of Dr. Archbishop, he wants us to teach pretty much everything that we feel comfortable teaching! Our accommodation is one of the nicest out of all of the volunteers and we also have breakfast, lunch and dinner provided for us by the school cook! As well as that Kampala is just an hour/two-hourish bus journey away and some other volunteers, Shannon and Verity are only about 45 minutes away! And even after that the next project is only a further 45 minutes - and Abi the tick-girl is there so that will be fun!! 

I don't want to blog-monologue the day away so I won't go into anymore detail but I have had a seriously incredible week and am seriously ready to go to Uganda! 

37 days and aaaabout £700 to go! 

It's really happening! 

Prom

Last night was the night of the Year 13 Prom and my final farewell to the Thomas Deacon Academy! I thought it might be nice to give you a bit of an insight into the other aspects of my life, but also I'd quite like to have a record of what an incredible night it was. And while me telling you about it was kind of aiming at convincing you that I do have a life outside of Project Trust, it just so happens that everything links together and the night was greatly spent thinking about how strange it is that I'm done with school now, off in to the world - and as if that hadn't been scary enough, it just so happens that the world that I'm off in to is Uganda!

I don't know if anything about this post is going to make any sense to anybody!

After a year of, at times, feeling overwhelmed at TDA, being able to sit back and enjoy prom with my friends was so inexplicably good - I feel like it really was a night for appreciating all the phenomenal things that I've gotten out of the academy. Project Trust being just one of them. And also appreciating what an incredible time I have had there. It really does make me so so sad to leave! 

I'm a seriously overly-attached-student! or ex-student! And while for all of us it marked the end of our TDA journey, for me it's marked the beginning of my last few months in the UK! A celebration of everything achieved over the past two years, but a real final goodbye!

My struggle with coming to terms with this is probably caused by a mix between the fact that I am far too emotionally invested in school and that I didn't get much sleep last night! hahaha! 

Either way it really was the perfect evening for a final-fabulous-farewell and with nothing to focus on now but fundraising and training I'm looking forward to the adventures ahead! 

Miss you already TDA!

HEAD BOY & GIRL TEAM 2012-2013

Project Profiles

I've got details!! yay!

It's finally May and we've got placement confirmation! Along with it came a barrage of information on training, money, clothing, vaccinations and lots of other overwhelming things but I am SO excited!
On the 1st of September I'll be flying to Uganda where I'll be teaching English, P.E and Music at the Dr. Archbishop Kiwanuka Memorial Primary School to classes of over 100 students!

I've added my project profile so that you can have a proper look but truthfully I won't know real details until training. And even then I don't think that there's any way that Project Trust can describe everything that we're about to jump into. I'm so insanely excited, there are no words to explain. 

The school that I'm going to do have a website that may be especially interesting for donors to have a look through! The address is: http://www.nakirebeps.educug.com/index.htm . On there, particularly in the 'support us' section you can read about the troubles that the school face, and the relief that Project Trust volunteers can offer. Problems include having only 13 qualified teachers for a population of 820 pupils, recent HIV/AIDS pandemics which have left many students orphans, lack of adequate rooms, seats and water supply and a lack of income to the school. 

It really does make me glad to know that we're going to be able to help, even if only a little, a school in real need. It becomes very real that we're not going on a gap-year of travel or holiday, we're going to work and live in a community!

Genuinely just sit re-reading these posts and laugh to myself... am I really doing this? Is this absolutely crazy? 

Feel like my life is really about to begin. Can. Not. Wait. 

123 days and £1,625 to go!

Bouncing Back and £4000

This month has been tough! Which is going to be hard to understand considering that I've just passed £3000 and £4000 all in one go!

A real serious quiet period left me really doubting my ability to do this for a while, I knew that this was going to be hard but refreshing my Virgin Money Giving thermometer daily and seeing no progress got tiring -
I felt a bit like I was aiming for the impossible and it really made me doubt everything! It's so tough because I feel like if I could sit back and KNOW that I've got all the funds - KNOW that my year is secure, then I could also know that it's what I really want to do. At times I feel like fundraising has clouded it all - like I'm confusing being really really sick of fundraising with being sick of the idea of going to Uganda!

But much like every other problem I woke up the next day and it felt like nothing! Of course Uganda is what I want to be doing! I told Project Trust on Selection that I had bouncebackability and I suppose this was the time to prove it!

So I got on with it and made a plan of action anyway, and soon enough the total was moving again. I organised some raffles at the Greyhound Stadium I work at and after completing my second one this month I made a total of £600! Also I got a couple more trust cheques and on top of that I was invited to present at the meeting of the local Soroptomists. As that moved me past the £3000 mark I was then blown away by a massive contribution from my school!

So I suppose in a way my worst month became one of my most beneficial and so out of no where I now only have about £1400 left to raise.

I'm happy anyway.
You have to take the good weeks with the bad; I'm bouncing back. It's all just part of the journey.

Hello £2000

Only one month ago I was telling you I'd raised £1000 and I'm back to tell you I've raised another!

It is crazy how fast this is happening! 

As well as a couple more trust cheques, including one huge one for £500, this month I was invited to join the members of the Peterborough Ortons Rotary Club as a guest speaker at one of their meetings. I may not be far into my fundraising but am sure that I will remember that night as one of my favorites! 

The Rotary World as I experienced it that night was nothing like what I'm used to; the best part including people being fined for their bad manners! I enjoyed a lovely meal, seated on the VIP table with the club president and gave a short presentation, made much shorter by the fact that I was really nervous and spoke really fast! haha

It went really well though! And I had such a good night! And I feel like I learnt a lot about a lot of things; it was scary going into a rotary meeting alone to socialize and give a presentation to a large group of strangers, but I did it and it was something new and I feel like I'm learning so much from all the new situations I'm being thrown into. 

In other news I've also made some little donation boxes to put around school, AND I have a business card now! If they don't make you want to donate, I don't know what will! 

£3000 by April? woooooooo

http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/bethinuganda

The First £1000

Days of google-ing trusts, writing letters and licking stamps have paid off and I've hit my first £1000!

At the beginning of the month I sent out exactly 100 letters to charitable trusts and about 50 more to local businesses and organisations. That, paired with the publishing of my Virgin Money Giving site on my school alumni page and an embarrassing 'presentation' given to all teachers has somehow made up one-thousand pounds!

Super super grateful to everyone who's helped in reaching this milestone! Feel brilliant to be really doing it! Next on the action plan is local clubs and then to get planning some events!

£2000 by March? I think so!
http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/bethinuganda