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!