Well March has been a month in Uganda spent fully teaching. Although at the start of this term we were teaching PE to all the classes "MAKE A CIRCLE!" they reply "A BIG CIRCLE!!" After a parents afternoon it was decided that it would be better for us to be more focused on the younger classes to improve their english from the start. Jess and I were happy to help in any way we could so agreed to it, its also nice to have a change every now and again, we have now taught all classes in the school at some point in our time here!
As the kids in baby class' english is not very good at all we have to use our luganda phrases in the classroom like "Tulla wansi"- sit down and "silika!"- keep quiet and "Webake" which means go to sleep, you would be suprised on how helpful that phrase is when they are running riot! Usually however we have the class teacher in with us to help and we act as class room assistants. The baby classes are split into two because there were so many of them, baby blue and baby green. Baby blue is definitly a lot younger and arent as good at the work as baby green. Vivian teaches baby green so i usually help Edith with baby blue as they are the ones that need it the most. I either fill in work into all the kids books the day before as before edith would do it during class time which would take away time from her teaching them and all the kids would just get really restless. So now classes tend to run more smoother as the work is allready filled in ready to be completed. I spent my afternoons drawing a billion cows, mud huts, old people, razor blades, etc for them to match, colour in, or comlete. I will defintily be a pro at drawing dangerous objects by the end of this year! Last week i was drawing insects like cockroaches, mosquitoes etc for them to colour in!
I also help dish out the books and pencils to the kids and then help the ones struggling with the work. Most of the kids understand what to do when i do an example for them and go over it with them but there are some that just seem too young to even be at school! There is one girl called nabakooza who is way too young to be in school let alone matching insects to one another!
Some days edith or vivian either need to go to the hospital or do some errands so Jess and I are left to teach the class on our own. This is the most hectic thing I've ever had to do! Obviously because we dont beat and verbal warnings dont exactly work with babies who dont know much english they have the tendancy to go absaloutly crazy! I find myself thinking back to nanny 901 and think what did she do with all those mental spoilt kids?! We have kids like Wasswa climbing up the walls (weve realized now that when we peel them off the wall they treat it like some game so we have to ignore them) we have a sea of kids sticking to you when you ask one person to come and draw something on the board. We have 2 girls called Peace in our class and you find yourself shouting "PEACE STOP!" when shes clambering all over everything and everyone (it feels quite wrong shouting the word peace angrily) We also have Lubega who is soo cheeky, the other day he was biting other kids and going mental in general but jess luckily managed to put him to sleep by stroking his forehead (works a treat that one) we also have tamale who is constantly running out of the classroom, as the classroom doesnt actually have a door its pretty hard to control who comes in or out!
Once we have finnished the days work we have "webake time" where the majority of them fall asleep due to exhaustion of running riot, im not going to lie a couple of times i have joined them in this sleep time as your usually shattered by the end of it!
There was one time when Edith and Vivian had gone to do something so jess and i took one classroom each. Usually when there is two of us one of us can be at the front while the other is at the back stopping them from beating each other up but when your on your own it can be extremly difficult to do both things! While i was in one classroom i heard jess shout "WHO PUT THE SEED IN CONGO'S MOUTH?!" i had to ask her about this afterwards, the story goes that one kid had shoved a huge mangoe seed into congo's mouth, to which it got trapped and he started panicking and jess had to fish it out and comfort him! That is just some of the eventful things that happen in baby class!
In baby class when edith is teaching she does beat the kids when they get something wrong several times or arent listening or fighting. It can be quite hard to sit there while she does it and i find myself going up to comfort them afterwards. Teachers here know we think its wrong and that they shouldnt do it, we do make it plainly obvious but because theyve grown up with it and its such a common thing they dont see it as a big deal. It breaks my heart though when she beats a kid for getting something wrong as i think thats not going to make them understand! Like a girl called sanyu the other day was crying so much after getting beat that she couldnt even hold her pencil, after calming her down she was still shaking so she couldnt draw a straight line so i helped guide her pencil and finnish the work so she could go outside for break. Jess and I have told other teachers and the head teachers our opinions and that there are other ways of punishment but because everyone does it here and its just a fact of education here its hard to get them to change their ways sadly.
This month we have stayed mostly in our village, one of the main bits of news from our village was that there was a guy going round stealing peoples boda bodas by killing the drivers then taking the bikes. So a bunch of boda boda drivers found him and hunted him down it was so close to our house that they killed the guy and jess and I were on a boda boda and asked ashlav what is that they're burning? as we drove through the smoke he replied thats the man they killed... we couldnt beleive we had just driven past a burning body and he seemed so casual about it!!
I also mentioned in my last blog about how we have a new head master called Fred who is our neighbour. We chill with him most nights the other night i was outside waiting for the kettle to boil under the stars and he came over to sit beside me and sang me christian songs until it was boiled! It was very relaxing! Its very strange thinking that Jess and I helped him a Ugandan settle in, showed him round, told him about things here and what to do , where to get stuff etc. I think that there shows just how long weve been here! It feels good though to not be the new ones were seen as the regulars which i love! Fred and Charles another teacher say whenever they go to myanzi its like were famous as everyone knows us! a couple of weeks ago the water ran out of the tank so i went to the bore hole. It was the time of kids going back home from school so I walked there with kids that lived on route to the bore hole or further. Tonny one of the kids gave me his books to carry and in return he bought me a banana pancake which i shared with everyone else. I love walking to the bore hole, its so nice when the kids shout "HEllo madame abiiii!" and parents recognise you and greet you, you feel really at home!
This month we also went to go and visit our friend Kabiito Robert who goes to a boarding school in Fort Portal. We know him from the home again orphanage that we visit in the holidays. We told him we were coming to see him but i dont think he actually knew that we would be coming so it was a bit of a suprise!
The boarding school is situated in such a beautiful place, right beside the crater lakes! The best bit of it all though is that the school was founded by a scottish man so all the boys have to wear kilts! (although theyre not tartan they still have a sporan!) it was amazing!
We arrived there and all the pupils were like whhaaat who are the mzunugus coming for?! we then managed to find robert and the smile on his face was priceless when he saw us! It was sooo nice to see him and just chill with him for the afternoon on the grass. We brought sodas and chocolate for him and his friends as well which they loved. Unfortunatly the time went by soo quickly and we soon had to leave to get back home. It was so sad saying goodbye, although we promised we would visit him in the holidays at home again. It was so sad walking away as he looked close to tears! It hit me then how unbearably sad its going to be to say bye for real to everyone here. Im dreading the day...
As I've said in previous blogs that weve been helping out at the medical centre in Myanzi. Beforehand we had been talking to Deo about whether he knew if many of the kids were HIV positive. He had no idea and was saying how it would be so good to get them tested but its things like funds, organising it, who to ask etc that never made it come about. Jess and I then decided to take it into our own hands as we now have good friends at the health center. We asked phiona there and she said no problem it would cost 80,000 for the whole school to be tested , 267 kids! that is only 20 pounds!! so 10 pounds each jess and i were happy to spend. On the 27th of March Phiona and matovu came to the school and set up a little desk in the office. Beforehand jess and i had wrote down all the kids names so that we could just call them out of class to be tested. The test was a simple prick of the finger which was then dabbed onto a testing paper to indicate whether they were positive or not. If they were, they then did another test and if that 2nd test counteracted the first one then a 3rd one would take place to be the tiebreaker.
We started off in baby class. Of course there was a lot of crying and freak outs but soon enough they were finnished we then moved onto Top and then p1, 2, 3,4, and 5. As the classes got older it got easier as we knew everyones names and they were more cooperative! It took the whole day and all the teachers were very suprised and happy we had gotten everyone tested in one day. We even had time for some of the teachers to be tested. There were even people from the village wandering over and asking if they could be tested (we had to draw the line at that one)
Overall the results turned out to be extremly good with only one child being positive from baby class, The health centre knew of her all ready and she is getting treatment for it and her parents are also aware of it.
However this was still such good news with only 1 out of 267 kids being positive. We were thrilled with the results as everyone thought it was going to be alot higher.
Over the next couple of days phiona brought soap for Jess and I to hand out to each child that got tested. As part of the package. Each child got half a bar of soap. You would be quite suprisied on how excited the kids got over a half bar of soap!
More news of the village was that there was a graduation for our neighbour Gita's son and daughter. RIght outside our house was transformed into a venue for it with marques, chairs, an alter(?) and more! We had 3 volunteers from masaka over for the weekend so we thought we would join the celebrations! of course because we are white we got front row seats (im going to find it odd not getting special treatment like that when i get back home!) We also had to dance up infront of everyone to the graduates to congratualte them (kids from our school that were there found this hillarious) and stand in the baking heat while Gita gave a speach about each graduate i was like come onnnn gita rap it up! After we dashed back into the shade and it was time for food! Function food is the best with meat, rice, matoke, soda etc
That night the music was soo loud that parts of our wall crumbled off!
In mityana where we go for nice vegetables etc there is an indian run supermarket that we go to which is so good. We have made friends with Palel who runs it, she made us these really tasty spicy prawn crackers and said she wants to cook us a dinner which we are looking forward too!
Also fred and charles after school were sitting to us chatting and we found out that charles has 2 wives!! Hes only 21 as well! We were gobsmacked, we didnt even know he had one let alone two! We were telling him how he would be called a "ladies man" back in the uk. Fred then told us how his wife in myanzi was very dangerous and if she saw us walking with him she would get very angry and chase after us... so ive declined every offer charles gives to come and meet his wife! I asked him do they not get jealous? he was like no because i love them equally! allright then charlie..
There is also this woman called Patricia who i randomly met outside our house. She asked for my number so i gave it to her, i now get daily phonecalls from her telling me to have a good lunch,dinner etc. She is very sweet though as when we were walking back from the health centre she came running out her house to meet me and asked "abi do you like fruit?" "yeah i do! why?" she runs off and comes back out of her house with a jackfruit for me! so kind of her. We were walking back with edith that day as she was at the health centre getting treatment for malaria so i gave it to her to take back to alice and her family along with my water so she could take her pills, she was very happy and told me she has a present for me in return, who knows what it will be!
So thats been my march here in Uganda. I usually leave this place realizing ive forgotten to put something in!
A few weeks ago we got an email confirming our flights home for the 9th of August...... this means we only have 4 months left!!! its crazy! i keep on having nightmares about saying bye to people here , im trying not to think about it too much though and just enjoy the time i have left here and make the most of everything that comes my way.
So i guess ill see you all in 4 months time!
Nansamba Abi.
Thursday 10 April 2014
Saturday 5 April 2014
pictures!
Juliet, Joseph and tony under the salvation community family tree
Benedee
he is very excited about the fact all my family and friends
in scotland will see a picture of him so fred says hi!
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