Soft Power Education Week Two

Day 6 – Painting at Wakitaka Primary School

We all piled into the big truck ready for a day of painting and thinking of the delicious lunch that would be our reward at the end. However it was not to be as the truck broke down after we had been driving for about 15 minutes. Out we all piled onto the side of the road while Aggrey tried to figure out what was wrong. Aggrey called a mechanic and said we would soon be on our way. We settled into the grass for the wait and entertained ourselves with the plants that you touch and then wilt away. The first mechanic didn’t turn up so Aggrey called a second. We love the way how someone not turning up is commonplace and instead of calling them and asking where they are you just call a new person.

We played an epic game of UNO before realising the mechanic was not going to be here anytime soon and decided to just walk back to camp. The walk was pleasant and we saw lots of local farms along the way. It was a beautiful sunny day the first we had had to make the most of. We spent the entire afternoon around the pool reading, drinking and swimming. A bit of guilt did sneak up but we all agreed there was nothing we could do as the truck breaking down meant we couldn’t go anywhere.

Day 7 – White Water Rafting

See our blog post “Rafting the White Nile” for all the exciting details

Day 8 – Wailukaba West and After School Club

This morning we had booked a mutatu to a school with a Special Education Needs unit that was to undergo a physiotherapy session with Sauba, Soft Power’s resident OT.

We pulled up to the school at about 9:00AM and the rain started. We hurried quickly to the office where we announced that we were with Soft Power and were looking for Sauba. After confusion of who we were and why we were there, got to love the communication and organisation here! We were told that Sauba was busy with a class at the moment but if we’d be happy to wait, she’d be over soon.

1 hour later the rain was still pouring and we decided that we didn’t want to wait any longer and ran to Sauba’s classroom. We found all of the SEN kids getting their learning on and we all fell into helping them with their work. It wasn’t long before break time started and we all flooded into the playground to loud calls of “MZUNGU”.

James played with a few kids on the see-saw and everyone slowly gravitated towards the volleyball net where the court was filled to the brim with eager schoolchildren jumping and shouting for the ball.

Kathryn got the camera out and as a result had heaps of kids surrounding her wanting there photo taken. As soon as it’s taken they all grab for the camera to see how funny they look.

James got a few good group shots when so many kids came in that they actually pushed Kathryn into the mud!

The next thing we know, the bell rings and we all move towards the physiotherapy room. All of the kids from the earlier class were in the room and we all sat down. It was very important that everyone sit down with our legs and arms crossed so that all attention was focused on Sauba. James sat next to Allan, a boy with Autism who had an immediate infatuation with James’ backpack and decided that it must be his.

Other than wearing the backpack, Allan was in his own world entirely and would decide halfway through an activity that it was time to get up and do something else. James quickly learned that the magic trick to keeping him calm was to show him that the backpack was only wearable when he was sitting properly. Although he had found an adequate way of keeping him calm, James still found himself trying to get Allan’s attention calling “Allan, Allan!!” several times a minute. Allan reminded Kathryn of a few of the kids back at CV and realised how much she was missing them all.

Other than Allan, the class was mostly made up of kids with ADD, ADHD or Down syndrome although there was one boy named Timothy who has sickle cell anaemia and as a result had suffered a childhood stroke and lost the use of his legs.

We played a few physical games including the ever popular Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes and towards the end of the class, Cindy took over and we played a few games with a small soccer ball including name association games of catch and over-the-head/between-the-knees passing games.

Unfortunately the day wasn’t exactly what we thought it would be and felt maybe we were more of a distraction then a help. James felt more useful as he was one-on-one with Allan but Kathryn thought without our presence the day would have been the same.  This is something that Kathryn had wanted to avoid as she wanted to make a significant difference in her volunteering, preferably doing something that wouldn’t have otherwise been done without her. We are unsure if this was an unrealistic goal or if we just haven’t found the best way to. Kathryn resolved to be proactive and find what she can bring to the table that isn’t already happening, this way she can feel she had been useful and made a difference.

Once class was over we all piled into the mutatu to go back to River Camp to wait for Aggrey to pick us up for after school club.

At after school club, we discovered everyone’s sign names. Kathryn’s sign was a big smile with index fingers on your cheeks and James’ was chin pinched between forefinger and thumb. James played volleyball with some of the kids and Kathryn played with a baby who she affectionately named “Chubby Cheeks”.

At one point, Andrew pulled out a drum and some of the kids wrapped some blankets around their waists and began to dance.

As it tends to do, 5:30PM rolled around and we all piled into the truck to head back to camp.

Day 9 – Amani Baby Cottage

This morning Kathryn, James and Cindy caught a taxi to Amani Baby College. ABC is an orphanage in Jinja that Sauba travels to every Thursday to do Occupational Therapy with two of the children there. After Will telling Kathryn going to ABC was the best day he had volunteering and what we had expected volunteering in SEN would be like, she was excited.

We arrived as Sauba started up her therapy session with Phillip. Phillip Amani is about 2 years old and has Cerebral palsy, rendering him hemiplegic. Even with limited use of his right limbs, Phillip is very mobile. The therapy we helped Sauba with involved encouraging Phillip to pick up a stress ball with his right arm in various situations. Phillip tried to just hug Kathryn and be cute but she knew how important the therapy is so didn’t return the hugs.

The ball was placed on the top of a bunk bed and Phillip had to climb up the ladder to reach the ball, we placed the ball on top of a chair which he had to push to the other side of the room and Phillip even made up his own game involving the velcro pockets of James’ cargo shorts.

Eventually Phillip got tired of these games and only wanted cuddles.

After a few minutes of trying to get him to play his favourite games, Sauba decided that it was time for his morning tea and potty break.

After morning tea, we left Phillip and headed to a different room to find Michael Amani. Michael has global delayed development and is very weak in general. The activities we did with Michael involved getting him to stand upright unassisted for as long as possible followed by crouching for as long as possible. He managed to stand for 50 seconds which Sauba told us was an incredible achievement for him as he was only recently able to stand for about 30 seconds. Next, we got Michael to walk unassisted for about five steps, we were all so impressed. Eventually Michael grew tired and was asking for a banana, luckily it was time for lunch break. As it turns out a few days after our visit Michael worked unassisted properly for the first time, we couldn’t help feeling like we helped this happen!

We went outside to the playground to find Phillip happily pushing a cart around. We seized the opportunity to put Michael in the cart to recover from the mornings activities while continuing Phillip’s therapy. It wasn’t too long before Phillip caught on that this was work and decided that he’d had enough so he and Michael switched places. Kathryn soon found a cute boy who cried whenever she put him down and carried him around for ages until Cindy took over.

Sauba had to leave at 11:30 and one girl had weed on Kathryn so we all took a tour of the nursery where all of the newborns and babies under 1 year live. We were amazed at the entire complex, it was just as good as any preschool that you’d find at home.

Before long, it was 12:30 and we caught our taxi back to River Camp where we had some lunch and waited for after school club but it soon began to rain and it was cancelled because the roads were too muddy to be able to drive to the school. Another afternoon of relaxation while overlooking the Nile, it’s a tough life but someone has to do it!

Day 10 – KCC Pre-School

Today was our second day at KCC and we were determined to not get stuck in the Top Class. When we got there, both Bottom and Middle classes had a helper and so we made our way into Top Class.

We were a little late so the class was halfway through a numbers lesson. It seemed that they were low on sharp pencils so after Kathryn tried and failed James worked the old style desk sharpener for a few minutes while pencil-less children snatched sharpened ones from his hands. After all of the pencils were sharp, James got to marking the finished work.

This proved to be an exercise in futility since although several students got full marks James was unable to communicate with the ones that got some parts of the assignment wrong. On more than one occasion he asked a student to repeat an exercise and they just stared blankly at him in return.

Both Kathryn and James were relieved when it was time for morning tea as it’s much easier to play soccer with these kids than it is to get them to do schoolwork.

After break it was time for a different lesson. Body parts! James led the class through a chart of the human body, asking with mixed results for the students to raise their hands if they knew the English name for the body part he pointed to. He would then select a student and they would say the name. If they could successfully say the name, they would then be allowed to use the pointing stick to locate the body part and the word on the chart. At this point, the whole class would say the word and clap the student.

After a while, the teacher ended the lesson and we moved on to creative time. Everyone filed outside to where Mekenzie was showing everyone how to make finger paint trees. Each student would get a piece of paper and a brown crayon to draw the shape of their hand.

Once this was done, they would be able to dip their fingers in some green paint to make the leaves of the tree. We all set to helping the kids trace their hands as this was a concept they didn’t quite grasp.

It took some of the kids a while to settle into the work but before long we had lots and lots of tree paintings drying on the hedges and their respective children running around the schoolyard.

We loved how different all the trees looked and how happy doing this simple art lesson made them. It was hilarious watching them once they had finished painting but still had paint on their fingers. They were so grossed out by this. We found it funny that they were so worried about paint on their fingers but are not concerned about mud and dust, snot on their lips or later, glitter.

This had been an exhausting morning and we were glad when we found out that after school club had been cancelled again due to rain. We spent the afternoon relaxing in preparation for James’ birthday tomorrow.

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We are still $186 off our fundraising goal for SPE so if you wanted to help us reach our goal click here and donate. Thank you to everyone who has donated so far! Below is a list of what your donations can provide:

$5 will buy 100 bricks

$10 will buy a shovel or 4L of paint

$20 will pay the wage of a tradesman for a week

$40 will buy 6 tonnes of building sand

$80 will buy 8 tonnes of lake sand or building aggregrate

$100 will buy a 1,000L water catchment tank

$200 will pay 3 teachers wages at a preschool

$2000 will refurbish a two classroom primary school block

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