Beth's Year in Uganda: March 2014

We're seven months in and this month, for the first time, I missed home a lot. Not too bad I think... lasting this long I mean. It was bad for a while but completley vanished the moment that on Friday I opened my E-ticket to see I'd be flying home on the 9th August. That 4 months and a bit and I'm gone and it makes me feel like I've absolutley wasted a month thinking about home because am going to be there any day and I'll be missing Uganda like nothing else.
But for sure you just need something personal like that to wake you up. There's nothing like just 'getting over it'. You just have to work and not make rash decisions and it gets better and I love Uganda again. Seriously one bad month out of twelve I'm ok with.

The main problem came from not having enough work to keep my mind occupied. Instead of dedicating myself to one school I'm thinly spread over two. I think I can excuse it after a very stressful couple of moving months as well.

In the process of overcoming it all I went to Masaka to stay with some over volunteers and just re-focus my mind on the mission I'm here for. I took them a live chicken to say thank you for having my and it pooed itself in the bus which wasn't as funny as I'd planned the whole thing to be.
I spent the week watching them teach and discovering what I needed to make myself happy again; one of the main things being just remember who I am. I'm Bethany Bloody Crook. Hoima can't get me down. Secondly was the kind of work I need to be doing which kind of got blurred in the move from Mpigi.

I've got an action plan anyway - I'm confident everything's going to be ok and like I said it literally disappeared when I saw how soon we'll be home. It's such a double-edged sword; I'm so excited to see everyone again but 4 months is tooo soooon. On my 19th birthday I'll be able to say "Yesterday I was in Africa, today I'm 19." My life is too surreal.

The week since getting back has been really really good as well. Am seriously re-focused. Next term I'm moving into full time teaching at Green Valley Primary School; I serisouly need to upload pictures of it soon because I think you'd be amazed at what I'm teaching in. The floors are just dust and grass so it's basicly just a tin roof supported by timber planks that the children like to climb up. On Wednesday after getting back I took and extra evening class and when the 'classroom' got too hot I went outside where I found P2's and played some nursery games. The evening passed fast and it's the kind of thing we had in Mpigi - kids around us all the time. It was so nice.
On Thursday I spent the day at one of the nice local hotels stealing wi-fi and coincidentally bumped into one of the friends we'd met the week before! We went for lunch and he invited me and Clara for supper that night. He picked us up at about 8 so we expected to be walking into ready meals... we were a little bit shocked therefore when he followed us into the house with two live chickens. 3 hours later we were eating the freshest chicken we'd ever eaten. I was slaughter 'oversee-er'.
On Friday we spring cleaned and had a serious movie night.
And tonight the manager at the biggest and nicest hotel in Hoima has given us a free room to come and relax our minds for a night. WHICH MEANS WARM SHOWER INSTEAD OF BUCKET-BATH!
Also tomorrow I'm taking my boarders at Green Valley a movie for us to watch together after church. I petitioned to the headteacher that they need a little bit of brain relaxation before end of term exams begin.

These are the kind of weeks I need.

I'm going to make the most of these next 4 months I'm telling you. Some of our PT vols have done such incredible things for their projects and I'm so proud to be part of that team. Abi and Jess have organised free HIV testing for the whole school and Shannon and Verity have not only refurbished a whole school library but also organised a shoe collection in there home schools for the children here with no shoes. Kieren and Luke have set up chicken farms and passion fruit farms which will generate millions of shillings income for thier schools.
Am proud of the group seriously. I wouldn't want to be part of anything else.

The holidays are coming and MY BESTFRIEND IS COMING and I'm so excited. Am most excited to start out last term though and make the last bit of difference that we can make. Going to work seriously I promise.
Watch out Ugandaaaaa.

In other news; PICTURES (just a few - and all credit for them goes to Clara because they're all hers - and they're mostly from holiday because project pictures are on my camera which is currently not in my hands! Project pictures coming sooon I PROMISE):

I've made you a lot of promises this post.