Thursday Wednesday 19th February, MASINDI TO KAMPALA

A brief stop in Masindi after breakfast to say goodbye to the town. Then a long 5 hour journey back to Kampala, for a relaxing final night at Fields of Life.

Laura and Sarah enjoying a final day of warm weather with Joseph

Tomorrow is our return to Entebbe (another 5.30 am start) and then another coach ride back to England. But this experience has been worth it for all of us.

Wednesday 18th February, RED CHILLI BASE CAMP AND BACK TO MASINDI

Up at 5.30 am to greet the day - they turn off the electricity here from Midnight to 9am, so decided against a late night trip to the toilets for fear of meeting the python.  The Game Drive today promised lots more driving in our bumpy bus with glimpses of distance objects that might or might not be animals. But we saw an elephant crossing the road (some joke there possibly?) and a herd of giraffes, unamused water buffalo and millions of antelope, waiting for a lion. It could be that the lion not only sleeps tonight but in the day also. The antelope like us will have a long wait. Apparently there are 350 lions in the game reserve, but none was available for comment while we were journeying through. As the bumps got bigger and George’s 30 year old (?) rifle bounced around on the floor of the bus, giving Dave up front the odd nervous moment, we resigned ourselves to missing out on the lions.

Fatigued, smelling faintly unpleasant (me at least) we commenced our journey back to Masindi. Sorry if a lot of this seems like journeys, but by the time we finish this 8 day trip we will have spent the best part of 2 days on this bus.

This time Masindi looked like an oasis in the desert. It is worth mentioning what a great place this is. The feeling of a small town (around 4000) with friendly people, familiar signs of an ATM at a Barclays bank, where above ther tellers there are 3 signs, no smoking (predicable) no mobile phones (understandable) and no guns. Hmmmm. The Wild West came to mind as Dave and I were ushered into a seat by a pretty young lady, around 5 foot in boots, brandishing a machine gun. But this aside, and the fact that you take your life in your hands when crossing the road, I really liked Masindi and would welcome a return visit soon. The food is good, the people are friendly, things are relaxed and life moves at a slower pace than in the capital.

Local motorbike taxi rank Masindi

Next came a mix of emotions, as some of us got to meet the children we had agreed to sponsor. Amigos has around 200 children currently awaiting sponsorship - some of their stories are really sad but for all of us who decided to become sponsors it was a special moment. Each of the sponsored youngsters will attend Masindi Progressive Primary school starting in April and some of us will definitely be back to see how they are doing!

Next a complete contrast in emotions, as we visited the home of one of Amigos sponsored children who recently passed away. Ibrahim was a youngster who developed cerebal malaria and was not strong enough to survive. We visited his parents at the request of the family and attended the grave. At the same time, the sky darkened and an amazing tropical thunderstorm broke, making this a truly surreal experience, one which I find impossible to do justice to here.

Tuesday 17th February, Masindi - Murchison Falls

ROAD TRIP part 2 - RED CHILLI BASE CAMP

Another day starts early in a bumpy bus, another set of white clothes discarded in the trash (there is no way we can this amount of mud and the grit out) and another puncture. PATRICK!

We hobble into the Red Chilli Rest Camp and are assigned our bandas - which for us chaps means a nice view of the communal toilets and shower block, which we share with the other travellers, warthogs and a not too friendly python. Meanwhile the girls get to enjoy the pleasures of idyllic, en-suite accommodation (including toilet seats), compact but well-appointed bedrooms overlooking stunning views of the majestic scenery. Huh.

A slight downside to their rooms were the bugs they claimed to have seen. However, there is no documentary evidence of this, as Fiona apparently failed to get the ‘money shot’ of the animal she claimed was a cockroach. She appears to have been too busy running screaming for the door.

Funny, as it is about the only thing she hasn’t photographed all trip.

R&R Red Chilli Style, and look girls, not a bug in sight (might James’s spray can have finished them off?).

RIVER SAFARI AND MURCHISON FALLS

This proved the tourist highlight of the trip so far, with sightings, of crocodiles, hippos and elephants all queueing up for us to take photos as we cruised along the Victoria Nile upstream towards the falls. The Honey Badgers were disappointingly absent and have been all the way through our trip, much to Simon’s chargrin.

After a leisurly 2 hours we disembarked and followed a trail our tour guide Benson had pointed out which would take us to the top of the falls. 30 minutes he said. Perhaps last trip he took Paula Radcliffe. About an hour and a half later we reached the summit, leaving behind several pints of fluid as the temperature steadied in the mid-eighties. But the views and sights were we well worth it. Another bumpy ride back to the base camp and we were ready for dinner under the stars and a cold beer.

Looking down the Victoria Nile from the top of Murchison Falls

Monday 16th February, Kampala - Masindi, Central Uganda

ROAD TRIP part 1 - INTO MASINDI

Road trip commenced today, on our first class although bumpy coach as we travelled North out of the bustling Kampala and onto the highway towards Masindi. A stop at a petrol station to buy cold cokes saw us looking at all kinds of Kampalan life, a woman in high heels and a business suit glided past the tall overalled man sweeping leaves of a lawn. Almost everywhere you go someone seems to be sweeping something with a short-handled broom made of grasses.

Kampala Rush hour. No way through here…

Patrick our genial, unflappable driver took the wheel as we finally broke free of the traffic to hit the open road, a long 5 hour journey ahead.

Patrick and Joseph fix a puncture

We hobbled into Masindi to the Hotel Aribas, which looks like a series of Northern Mexican Haciendas, only to find that my roommate had already managed to break the shower. Cheers James. That’s 2 showers you have broken this week. Our hotel manager wore a worried frown as he showed us into another room with a shower that would stop running cold. So what seemed like an really nice place had a slight downside.

Partially showered, we all trundled off to our first visit, which was to a local school - the

Asaba Primary school which has over 1000 pupils. We met some of the 47 teachers who welcomed us - AMIGOS sponsors 20 children at the school, and then we were invited around the classes. One of the classes had 66 pupils (!) (4 were away that day as well) so I’m trying to get my head round teaching to so many.  One of our number, Simon, started a lesson on animals, and had the whole front row mooing, but I’m still trying to work out why. Asaba looks like a really well run school, despite the frighteningly large numbers, and I think it is a school our volunteers will enjoy.

Next and on to a completely different story, when we reached the Masindi Progressive Primary school, the children (all 194 of them) were lined up on the side of the road, in the boiling afternoon sunshine. We received the best welcome of the week as they cheered and ran after our bus down the dusty dirt track. Watch our welcome here (thanks for getting this Laura!):

http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=54414525381&h=A3UJz&u=7PV4b

Patrick probably felt like Lewis Hamilton.

We parked up to be mobbed like conquering heroes, then welcomed into a hot brick room. Pastor Mike mentioned that they had moved the library out to fit all 13 of us in. An agenda was read out, where we started with prayers of thanks, general introductions, followed by a walk round the classrooms. If you could call them that. The walls were mudbrick and cement, unplastered, with classrooms separated by wicker partitions, so everything from the neighbouring classroom could be heard. Children sat on short benches but with no exercise books or pencils evident. But the joy of their faces, the songs they sang as we entered each classroom melted our hearts. Amid the incredible conditions we were astounded by the happiness they showed. Their teachers are devoted to them and the standards within the school are excellent, with several of the youngsters achieving top grades in the district. A really happy story.

(Above L to R) Fran, James and Laura join the students for one of Simon’s lessons at Masindi Progressive Primary School.

Sunday 15th February, Kampala

Where do you start talking about a day as fantastic as today?

Firstly, I apologise for Fiona and Phil for spelling ‘Mzungu’ incorrectly - it means ‘white person’ and we are hearing it a lot - but it is said with a smile and means no malace. All the children on the streets shout out ‘Hi Mzungu’ as we journey to and from destinations. And next, thanks to Fiona, who has uploaded a load of images to Facebook and allowed me to copy some onto the blog!

OK, back to today.

KAMPALA PENTECOSTAL CHURCH

Today started with a visit to KPC, Kampala Pentecostal Church. We joined around 2000 other congregation members at the second service (they do 4 services each sunday to a total of 8000 worshippers). The singing was great and the message powerfully delivered by a Canadian pastor with extra Energiser batteries - a great spiritual experience which was refreshing and overpowering, like pretty much every aspect of this trip.

KIRA FARM

Next came perhaps the most important aspect of this trip for me. At Kira Farm, about 20 miles outside Kampala, Amigos are building a self-sustaining project, designed to give some of the neediest Ugandans, young and old, an opportunity to learn farming and vocational skills. This is important to us because this is where a portion of the monies given by Global English trainees go. We came to see the project so far and to find out how cclose the school is to taking in the first group of new students.  The good news is that Grace, the headteacher, is developing the curriculum and the dormitories are build for the first 24 youngsters, aged from 14-18, who will begin the education programme in April 2009. The newly built classroom block is in place and awaiting the students:

Dave and Simon learn how to play ‘catch’ with a couple of budding Ugandan rugby players at Kira Farm.

We took a tour of the 22 acre site that will enable students to learn animal and fishing husbandry, farming skills and the more traditional English and Maths, as well as enterprise skills. The aim is to be able to send them back to the villages with these skills in place, so they are able to use and share them with their local communities. it is hoped that this form of self empowerment will enable them to grow and sell their own crops, meaning that they will not have to travel to Kampala to look for work, possibly ending up living in the slums like so many others. It’s a challenging project that is being built by donations from UK businesses and individuals who believe firmly in the Amigos ethos.

We willl look forward to coming back in 18 months and see how the first youngsters are sharing their skills in their own villages.

Tomorrow we head up north to Masindi, where we hope we have internet access. An early start as it is 5 hours on spine-popping roads.

Saturday 14th February, Kampala

Happy Valentine’s Day

An internet blackout over Kampala Saturday meant we were unable to upload but catching up now, and hard to detail the rollercoater of emotions. Experiences are varied - like  waves crashing over you on Fistral Beach in Newquay, they are coming many and fast.

OWINO MARKET

First of all. many thanks to Fiona, one of my colleagues on this adventure around Uganda, for pointing out the spelling mistakes on Thursday’s blog. Nice to know it’s being read! I am sure she won’t mind the award of the first of our number to fall into an open sewer in Owino Market. Peels of laughter rang out from the ladies selling everything you could imagine in the largest street market in Uganda. Closely followed by offers of help to wash off the brown stuff.

Never have I seen a woman buy a new pair of shoes as quickly in my life.

Owino Market - everybody’s here!

Addendum - a week after our visit the Market burned down - news report here -

http://globalvoicesonline.org/2009/02/27/uganda-fire-destroys-owino-market/

AMIGOS CHILD SPONSORSHIP

Standing out among the other experiences are the children we have visited, who are part of the Amigos Sponsor a Child programme.  Joseph Sabiiti, our genial giant, who is working for Amigos in Kampala, has fixed up some visits to youngsters who are on the programme.

So in the baking hot sun we got to visit some of the kids who without the work of Amigos would be still be without hope.

Here is a case study:

Visit 1, Irene

Irene is a nine year old whose story touched my heart. She lives at the bottom end of a street with no name in a poor slum, a dirty, infested, burning area where there is little relief from the hot Ugandan sun. She is shy, clutching a pencil as if it is a prized possession while other children run round, in and out of the sewer that runs outside her house.

But Irene has hope. She’s been sponsored by a generous person in Devon, UK, who donates 14 GBP a month for her education. For this she receives a place in a local primary school, a uniform, a small meal at lunchtime, a pair of shoes and scholastic materials (an exercvise book and the pencil she was clutching). I asked her to fetch her exercise book to show me what she was doing in school. She ran inside her house and when she emerged she showed me the book, which has a cover made of recycled newspaper. Her work is neat and deliberate, spaced on every other line. At the moment she is working on irregular plurals (she brushes the floor etc). Each exercise I looked at had 10/10 from her teacher.

Irene lives in a 2mt x 4 mt concrete and corrigated Iron shack with her mother, brother and sister. They pay rent of 30,000 shillings (around 10GBP). they are lucky as they have electricity which they also pay for. Irene’s mum is the only breadwinner, as her dad is in prison for drug offences. She takes in washing and can earn up to 25,000 shillings a month, which doesn’t even cover the rent. Life for the family is very hard.

It seems like education is the best chance Irene has of escaping the poverty which traps her family and those around her. Her ambition is to become a nurse and because she is bright, and her English and maths are good, she has a chance. if she can make it, perhaps she can realise her dream, and in so doing help her family as well.

She has this chance because of a generous donor who is making a difference in Irene’s life.

You can find out more about the Amigos Sponsorship scheme here: http://www.global-english.com/amigos/MakeaDifference.htm

Bubbles prove a hit with some of the slum children.

DOWNTOWN KAMPALA

Downtown Kampala and the cafe 1000 cups are definite places to check out - a bustling city bursting with with noise and vibrancy, while the cafe offers excellent coffee, juices and a place to chill, relax and meet other expats. Across the road is the African Village, where we found that Laura, another intrepid member of out team, has developed excellent bartering skills. A roof racks was almost considered necessary for the hundred weight of presents purchased, while the prices for various souvenirs were agreed with smiles all round. Dan, Rhiannon and Ben, you’ve got some cool pressies coming your way.

Friday 13th February, Kampala, Uganda

Arrived on the red-eye into Entebbe with a lot of enthusiasm to find out what Uganda and Africa is like. First impressions are a vibrant assault on the senses - vivid coloured clothes and brightly painted houses as we take the bumpy 30 minute ride from Entebbe to Kampala, the smells of woodsmoke and diesel as we neared the city of nearly 4 million inhabitants, of which I will be one for the next few days.

First stop and we were straight in to the harsh realities of life for so many here as we visited a school in a slum suburb. But the sensory jolt of poverty-stricken youngsters all around us was overcome with the amazing smiles and shouts as we moved into the mud playground. We met Pastor Paul, who runs the church and manages the school, along with Harriet, the school headmistress, who told us that the school takes in currently 272 children, in 10 classes, with 13 teachers managing the curriculum.  The dazzling pink uniforms of the youngsters shown nearly as brightly as the smiles!

We visited several classes, which in reality are just concete and wooden structures, where children sit on benches eagerly drinking in the learning which is taking place in spite of the lack of materials and basic facilities.

This was the first and perhaps one of the most important reasons for this visit - to guage whetehr the school would be willing to accept our TEFL volunteers come over and help. The eager answer was YES! YES! YES! - any help in any subject area will be warmly and gratefully received. So the next step is to plan how to make it happen.

We departed with more smiles and songs from the children, past the impoverished housing where they exist when they are not in school. It felt like a real case of the haves (us) meeting the have nots (them) and strengthen my belief that in working with Amigos we are starting to do something really valuable.

If you are a FACEBOOK user, click the following links to these and more of Fiona’s photos of the school:

Fiona with the some of the at Katwe schoolchildren:

Some of the younger ones in their classroom

(thanx 4 the photos Fiona)

Tonight we are staying at Shalom, Fields of Life in Tank Hill, Kampala. The hight is hot and humid - fitting as we are just above the equator. Kampala seems peaceful from here, clear of the day time traffic adventures, not which more tomorrow, no doubt.

Many individuals contribute to the Amigos sponsor a child programme, and tomorrow we have an  early start to visit some of the children in their homes.

Catch up with more tomorrow.

Thursday 12th February

Hi! I am off to Uganda today, flying Heathrow to Entebbe with BA. In Uganda I’ll be staying at the Fields of Life in Tank Hill in Kampala for the first few days, visiting local schools and meeting people in Kampala. Then I’ll be stopping in at the Kira Farm Project, before moving north to stay in Masindi for a couple of nights.

Looking forward to keeping you up to date as I go!

William

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