We have also attended a funeral at the start of the month along with the whole school. I still dont know whos funeral it actually was.. i did ask madrine and others but even they didnt know! There were so many people there, Kisweera was the busiest id ever seen it! However it started to rain half way through the service so everyone ran home!
November has also been the month me and Jess have started up our secondary project! I am so happy we've actually managed to do it and so excited to getting fully into it! Every second Monday (market monday) we are going to be helping out at the local medical centre in Myanzi. All we had to do to start it up was go and visit them and ask if we could help out, as simple as that! So that coming Monday we were plunged straight into work there. Our work that day consisted of filing what immunisations babies had been given that day. We also registered new born babies into the clinic. I have never seen so many babies in one day than i did that day! We also sorted out medication for patients that the doctor Maska dished out straight away! I thought if i get this wrong that is their medication messed up! It was quite a big responisbility but i loved it. We also met soooo many people there which was really good. It was also really interesting as Maska would tell us all about what medication would do what etc. I am really looking forward helping out more at the medical centre and hopefully do more days at it.
This month also meant a visit from our desk officer Jen from Project Trust. It was at lunch time that Jen came while we were outside eating casava and beans with the teachers and suddenly Jen appeared in a car out of nowhere! It was so nice to see her. All the kids swarmed round her so curious on another mzungu! They kept on asking me if she was my sister, i think they think any mzungu they see with me is my sister or brother... So we showed Jen around the project and then she took us off to Mubende for lunch where we had individual interviews with her to ask any questions etc.
We then travelled with Jen to Kihura to the other girls projects where me and Jess got our hair braided at the salon there by Ruth. I've currently got blue, purple, pink fake hair braided through my own all around my head! While we were in Kihura we also went to the music extravaganza that the Kihura Parents school (secondary school) put on. Me and steph went earlier than the rest and met up with Grace a pupil at the school. We were once again ascorted right to the front to sit beside the MP! The kids did so many amazing traditional african dances and plays about witch doctors etc. Robert and Enok who we have met previously were in the dances as well and were so good! My favourite was the one where the boys had shakers attached to their ankles so jamp around constantly to keep a beat while the girls had straw skirts and shaked to the beat, with african drums in the backround it was amazing! We were all very impressed. Then at the end of the music extravaganza it was announced which house in the school did the best dances, turns out it was Roberts house which won! They were all soooo happy! Ive never seen teenagers so happy! So we all celebrated with them by dancing in the moonlight with them all! It was so much fun and we were all on such a high afterwards! It was brilliant.
On the 20th November it was International Childrens Day which we celebrated by a end of school concert put on by the kids at our school. The previous days me and Jess managed to hunt down a piece of material by finding deos sister in the market who made us follow her friend to some small material place! Then we took the material back home and painted 'Welcome to Salvation Community School' with the teachers. So the morning of the concert we hung up the banner and tied balloons, paper chains, and all decorations we had! (thank you so much to maureen, and everyone else who sent us out these decorations!) The kids were amazed by them! The teachers were also so happy with them and told us we had truely made it! It was also so funny as when i first blew up a balloon all the kids ran away from me as they had never seen it before and were so scared! I had to reasure them it was menat to do that and wouldnt hurt them! We had also bought loads and loads of sweets for the kids to give to them once they had finnished preforming which they went mental for! In Uganda if a school puts on an event its a must for there to be piles of food served to everyone. So beside maria and josephs house in the trees there were the biggest pots ive ever seen all set up ready to cook meat, potatoes, matoke, beans etc it was quite a sight! I helped peel potatoes, vivian said i was very slow when i lost a race with her so i got demoted to peeling matoke bananas... their was so much food being cooked for the occasion including pork! We also had 2 american women come to the concert as they help fund things like the building of the water tanks etc so it was really nice to have them there! We also painted all of the kids faces for the concert which they loved! It was pretty funny at the start when they had no idea what we were trying to do as they had never had their faces painted before! But soon we had a huge swarm around us wanting their whole faces painted! Soon parents/guardians began to appear where we guided them to some seats to wait for the concert to start. We also had speakers delivered that were run by a generator and crates and crates of sodas for everyone.
As we are on african time the concert started later than expected but was set of with the Ugandan National anthem and then the Slavation Community song. Then each class preformed their sets of songs they had been preparing for ages! They had worked so hard and you could totally tell. Its a comman thing for people in the crowd to go up and give money to the kids sinnging. I went up to give steven in p3 some money as he may not be the best singer but he tries so hard and is the best dancer! Once all classes had finnished their sets we started to serve out the food. We made sure all the kids had been served first with a soda each which they were ecstatic about! then all the parents were served and then ourselves. It was so tastey! After dinner we had awards where kids were given either cups, plates or pencil sets if they had done particulary well in their exams, behaviour, english speaking etc. It was so so lovely to see the kids that work so hard to get awards for their hard work. Then we cut the cake that the american girls had made especially for the school which was handed out to everyone. All the teachers were also given I Heart NY shirts from them!
Overall it was such a great way to celebrate the efforts that the kids put into their school work and behavior and they were all on such a high afterwards, which made us all so happy as well! I dont think anyone of us wanted the day to end!
On the 22nd of November it was our last day at school. This day was also the first day of exams I was monitoring the p4's english exam. Looking over it i actually think they have improved from the last one thank god! Then once that was finished i monitored the p2's read and write exam which also included them having to say sentences to me in which i had to mark whether they pronounced it correctly or not. P2 is quite a big class so this did take quite a while! Plus i had to pack as well to head to jinja so it was all very rushed! I didnt actually get to say goodbye to alot of the people which i was sad about but I guess i will see them once we go back to school! So soon enough we were heading off to kampala to get to Jinja to meet up with all the project trust volunteers and Eugene and Ian who are our over seas representatives and Jen.
So this month has been so much fun with so many high moments! 3 months in Uganda and im still loving every second of it. I am still so thankful i got picked for this country, its honestly the best country and i would not want to be in any other place right now!
I am now currently on my holidays and next stop is ssese islands! My next blog update will be telling you about the festive period although its getting hotter here and im eating more mangoes than roast dinners!
thanks for reading! Abi
Side note: we have upgraded our washing basin from the black small basin that we washed our dishes in to a baby bath! luxury!
we also seem to still get into deep meaningful conversations with our boda boda drivers.. we ended up giving Ashlav a counseling session and saying how he should make sure he has a stable environment before bringing a baby into the world etc. We also had Freddie where we got into the discussion that money isnt everything and where he told us money could not buy friends like us! I think i may have agreed to getting christened into his church however...
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