How did I end up doing this? Well, it was my first “project” within a career break that I am currently still in the middle of. I had spent over 10 years working for a software development company in London and I definitely felt I wanted a change – to visit new places, develop new skills, meet new people but I wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted to do hence I kept dithering and time disappeared.

Then in March this year, my company announced some voluntary redundancies and I knew this was an opportunity I couldn’t miss. I spent a weekend debating pros & cons with friends & family and only my father looked sceptical and muttered “must be mad…in the middle of a recession…” but even he respected my reasons for wanting the break.

So I applied and then travelled home on the tube, wondering what I was going to do with my new found freedom.  From a serendipitous glance at the adverts on the tube, I found out there was an exhibition at Olympia the following week. Called “One Life”, it was all about taking control of your life and doing what you wanted with it, whether that be travelling, voluntary work, a career-shift, starting your own business etc. This seemed like the perfect way to get some ideas and meet some organisations that could help me.

And that is where I met Amigos and Global English. They had an exhibition stand and were promoting a recently established Volunteer Teaching program. Students that take an online TESOL/TEFL course with Global English can follow it with a teaching placement (co-ordinated by Amigos) in either Kampala or Masindi in Uganda. At the exhibition I was able to speak to both the Amigos Director (Phil Pugsley) and Global English Director of Studies (William Bradridge) and could immediately sense their enthusiasm for Uganda and for the mission of this and other Amigos’ projects.

I had wanted to visit sub-saharan Africa for quite some time and had thought of voluntary work but I felt that my existing skills were not particularly relevant. So it was great to know that I could develop useful skills (the ability to teach English) in a short space of time and then utilise them immediately.

When I finished work at start of May, I started working from home on the TESOL Level 1 course with Young Learner extension. Initially I had thought doing the course would just be the means to the end but as I made progress I found the course was very enjoyable and it was refreshing to challenge my brain on other topics (than those I had spent 10 years dwelling on!)

Meanwhile I was also organising my volunteer placement and I chose to go to Masindi in July 2009. Masindi is a small town of about 15,000 people in northern Uganda and I chose this above Kampala because I wanted to get out of the big city (after all, I live in London) and discover rural Uganda.

1 - Crossing the equator during my tour

I also combined the 2-week volunteer placement with a 1-week organised tour to western Uganda to visit national parks and track the mountain gorillas. The wildlife in Uganda is amazing and I couldn’t miss the chance to see so many animals and birds in their natural habitats.

I arrived in Entebbe and then on to Kampala on 11^th July and initially spent some time finding my feet (and the best coffee shop in Kampala) before meeting up with my organised tour group. Doing the tour first enabled me to acclimatise to Uganda before I did the volunteer placement on my own.

I was fascinated by Ugandan traffic and the way unstable bicycles (sometimes with up to 3 people and/or huge bunches of bananas) and dilapidated motorbikes would weave recklessly between minibuses, overloaded trucks and huge, bullying coaches. I soon worked out that the use of indicator lights is governed by a completely different set of rules than the UK!

Being adrenalin-phobic, I had no intention of driving myself (or on climbing aboard one of the boda-boda motorbikes) and was happy to trust road safety to the excellent drivers that I met with my organised tour and through Amigos.

After a week spent on the trail of the wildlife, it was time to return to Kampala and to get started on my volunteer placement. I was met by Joseph, the Amigos co-ordinator, and escorted to my overnight stop in Kampala (a very comfortable guest house run by Fields of Life charity) and hence to the bus park to get the big green Link Bus to Masindi the next morning.

It took about 3 hours but I soon realised why everybody else sat at the front of the bus as I was flung mercilessly around my seat by the WORST SPEED BUMPS IN THE WORLD.  These huge speed bumps rose like an endless wave for about 5 miles and I dreaded the thought of experiencing them again on my return but luckily they had miraculously disappeared two weeks later!

When I arrived in Masindi, the bus announced its presence by loud horn-honking and the cry “its Link time” from the cheerful stewards. Everyone was keen to help the “mzungu” off the bus and offer her a place to stay or a lift somewhere. My head was still spinning from the speed bumps so I chose to rest at the Link office until Susan, my Masindi volunteer co-ordinator, arrived.

Susan is an English teacher at Asaba Primary School and was my main point of contact all the time I was in Masindi. She ensured my accommodation and travel was all fully booked & paid for and helped me organise my teaching timetable at Asaba.

I was taken to my accommodation and given the rest of Sunday to settle in. My home during the placement was the New Court View Hotel which is a very friendly, well-run, clean and comfortable establishment on the edge of town.

 2 - My home-from-home at New Court View

I had thought I might get a bit bored in the evenings on my own but in fact I was rarely on my own as there were plenty of travellers passing through and also a number of other volunteer workers who were also using it as their Masindi base. In particular my thanks go to the Harrow network of teachers who allowed me to gatecrash their weekend trip to Murchison Falls national park.

 And then my first school day on Monday approached!

I have to admit I was more than a little nervous as I had done the online TESOL course but had not yet stepped foot in front of a class. I spent my first week at Asaba Primary School which is a large, relatively well-resourced school in central Masindi. The students range from nursery age to Primary 7 (P7) year and my assignment was to teach English to four classes of P4 and P5 years, with each class containing up to 60 students each. As I was a guest teacher for a week, I wasn’t asked to teach their usual curriculum but to choose my own lesson content and types of activity.

Before I travelled to Uganda, I did some preparation work to think of some lesson plans and to gather school resources (e.g. pencil, paper, books and pictures) that could be used in my lessons or left to the school for later use. I am very glad that I did this as it gave me a wide range of lesson options and I didn’t need to panic every night about what I would teach the next day!

On my first day, I was given a warm welcome to the whole school during their assembly and then I visited each class in turn to say hello to the students and meet the Ugandan teachers. Teacher Susan was my guide throughout this orientation day and I spent time observing some classes as well as discussing lesson ideas with some of the teachers in the staffroom.

3 - Teachers John-Paul, Susan and Director William at Asaba School

On the second day, I walked into my first class at 8am and started with a simple “Getting to know you” introduction lesson. This was based on my pre-prepared lesson plan but with some adjustments as I quickly judged which types of activities would work best in a large group. This first class went very well and I felt my confidence growing as the students responded, especially when we started talking about football, and told me about their lives and what they like doing.

During the course of the week, I used four more of my prepared plans, including one dedicated to the topic of Arsenal football club. This is my favourite team and I had written to the club’s charity department to ask for some resources. They sent me a lot of brochures on the club and pictures of the players. I used the brochures as a basis for a team quiz and gave the pictures out as prizes for the winning teams. This was certainly the quietest lesson as 60 heads were bent over the brochures trying to work out the answers to my most difficult questions!

4 Learning English with the help of Arsenal at Asaba School

Katie’s story continues in part 2, where you’ll find out more about teaching in Uganda, life in Kampala and the Amigos education project at Kira Farm.