Soft Power Education Week 7

Day 31 – Special Educational Needs at KCC

This week, we were thrilled to be assigned to SEN every day. This was a dream come true and the first time that we’d had the chance since we’d arrived.

When we walked in the door, we were delighted to see Salim doing spelling exercises along with Juma. We hadn’t expected to see him there and we had wondered where he had gotten to after finishing with the builders.

James worked with Salim and Juma,

Kathryn worked with Moses

and Jamie struggled to get Jabel to use the magnet board.

Once everyone had finished with their English exercises, Dan set up Kathryn’s Maths Bowling game. As usual, it was a bit of a struggle to get Jabel to play by the rules but overall it seems like the boys understand the game and can identify all of the skittles and place them in the right order.

We are very excited that they as well as Dan enjoy the game, especially since they seem to be showing signs of improving with numbers and learning from it.

After Bowling we played a few rounds of bingo with the food and school bingo sets that Kathryn had made.

This game is most difficult for Ema since he doesn’t understand the concept of reading out the words before writing them down, he also has trouble determining where to put the words on his bingo sheet. Moses is also challenged by the game but he seems to have a better grasp of it.

Both Salim and Juma are probably too advanced for the game but neither of them seem to have grasped the concept of fair play as they both try to cheat when we play go fish. A game with a definite winner but also a chance to try again is good for them.

After we finished playing Bingo, we had recess. We had a penalty shootout and Ema won, it seems that Ema has a special skill that lets him win even though he often isn’t sure about what is going on.

After the break the boys all had some biscuits before we got into finger painting. The boys were meant to be painting on paper but it wasn’t long before the game descended to face painting. By the end of the day Juma had a monobrow, Salim was in “white face”, Moses had spontaneously developed a full beard and Ema was just plain covered in paint.

Day 32- Special Educational Needs at KCC

Today when we arrived at SEN, the morning maths lesson was in full swing. We partnered up and set to helping the boys with their work. We know how much the boys love their art and music so we thought we’d combine the two and have everyone make a musical instrument. Kathryn found a quick and easy Kazoo recipe on Pinterest for that exact purpose.

We had been saving up empty toilet rolls for at least a week and had collected all of Mekenzie’s left over art supplies when she left so that we could use them to make our Kazoos.

It’s great fun and very easy to make a Kazoo at home, just follow these simple steps.

Materials:

• Cardboard toilet paper roll
• Paper squares
• Rubber band
• Scissors
• Art supplies (optional)

Method:

• First, cut a few holes into the top of the toilet roll.
• Next, secure a square of paper to one end of the toilet roll using a rubber band.
  • This it cuts off any airflow through the roll and directs it through the holes.
• Decorate using art supplies! (Optional)
• Wait for any wet areas to dry.
• Play!

As usual, when we were decorating out kazoos more paint got onto our hands and faces than actually went onto the instrument. Once our Kazoos were dry, we showed the boys how to play them and began to bring out some other instruments for free music time.

Once the jam session was in full swing, everyone picked up something to tie around their waist so that they could dance.

They all love dancing and have such good moves, as soon as the music begins you can tell they are waiting for Dan to let them get up and dance.

Day 33 – Special Educational Needs at KCC

Kathryn being the Pinterest maniac that she is had found yet another fun education game to play. This one is called Make 10.

It’s a card game that is exactly what it sounds like. First, the Jokers and face cards are removed from the deck and the deck is shuffled. Each player is dealt a set of 5 cards. Using the numbers on the cards and any maths that they can think of, each player tries to make an equation whose final sum is equal to ten. Each card may only be used once per equation and the person who finds the most ways to make 10 is the winner of the round.

Juma loved Make 10 while Salim had trouble understanding the concept of each equation has to equal 10.  We’re not sure what Moses or Ema thought of it but we have a feeling that it might have been a bit complex for them.

After Make 10, the boys had a life skills lesson where they took turns in washing various dishes. Juma tried to hide to get out of the work which Dan found hilarious and made him do the washing, Ema was on rinsing and Moses and Salim were on drying.

While they were working Dan told us that the money Salim is earning from his work experience is going into an account and at the end of the year Dan, Salim and his parents will withdraw the money and use it to buy something practical like a cow or a bike. We were very impressed with how Soft Power is helping in this regard.

Next was recess and we had a game of soccer.

Since Juma doesn’t like playing soccer, he decided to go hide in a nearby hole that had been dug by the East African Playground volunteers renovating KCC.

After recess it was art time. I think that Dan had become a bit sick of everyone getting covered in paint since today we were using stamps which we coloured in with texta.

Kathryn and James got a bit carried away with their stamping and produced some wonderful artwork.

Day 34 – James at Police Station

We woke up this morning planning to help Fred again with the tree planting, only to discover that two of the rooms had been broken into overnight and a large amount of property had been stolen from some of the Italians including Bianca’s DSLR camera, Viviana’s and Luigi’s malaria medicine and Jandira’s entire suitcase.

The girls spent the morning making a list of everything that had been taken so they could get a police report. We were amazed at how well they were dealing with the break in. We had a bit of an issue with how our Ugandan friends reacted to the situation but for our own peace of mind we decided to put it down to a cultural difference.

Luckily, everyone had travel insurance so as long as a police report was made they would be able to replace everything except the photos from the camera. Seems simple right? It turns out that a 3 way language barrier makes a police report very difficult to obtain.

Before heading to the police office, it was decided that James would come along with the Italians and Mama Flo. The rationale being that since neither the Italians, nor the Ugandans could speak English perfectly, James would be able to sort out any language barriers that arose.

We piled into a car and headed to the local police precinct which turned out to be little more than a ramshackle hut. When we arrived, there were 5 police in the hut talking in Lugandan. After Flo briefly explained what was going on, we were told to sit down. Once we had sat down, everyone including Flo proceeded to continue talking in Lugandan while all of the non-locals sat in total confusion. After about 5 minutes, James spoke up asking: “What’s going on here?”

It turns out that 3 of the people in the hut were not police officers but were here to see the police about a separate matter. James was amused when the officers told him that they had to wait their turn since there had been no communication about waiting or the identity of anyone else in the room. We had effectively been eavesdropping on a separate case for 5 minutes, it was especially funny since James had assumed that all 5 people were police since they were all dressed in the same uniform (no uniform).

It wasn’t long after that the 3 men left, all looking rather displeased at the outcome of their conversations. James decided not to interpret this as a bad sign of things to come.

The police asked what we were here for and James told them about what had happened and mentioned that each person needed a separate police report including a list of their belongings that had been stolen.

The police immediately asked why we had been staying at Mama Flo’s. James was confused. It wasn’t clear as to how that information would help any kind of investigation into catching the thieves or help in any way to complete the police report. James spoke up again and reminded the police that all anyone wanted was to get a police report for the girls’ insurance and to hopefully even get the items back. The police ignored him and continued to grill Flo about why we were staying there.

After about half an hour, they finally moved on and made up the police reports. The whole process ended up taking about 2.5 hours, about half of which James deemed to be wasted time. We returned to Flo’s with the police who came to inspect the scene of the crime. After they were done they informed the girls that they could pay 100,000UGX (total) for all of the reports which they could then take to the Ugandan Revenue Authority which would give reimburse them for the total estimated value (in shillings) of the stolen goods. Everyone thought that it sounded very fishy so James called Caitlin and asked her opinion. Caitlin asked Aggrey to take the Italians to the police station the next day where they would collect the reports for no charge so that they could give them to their insurance providers instead of the URA.

There was nothing else that we could do to further the investigation so everyone decided that a day off from volunteering was deserved and we headed to River camp where we found Maisie, Jamie and Kathryn.

Day 35 – Special Educational Needs at KCC

After such an exciting day yesterday, SEN seemed like a serious relax effort. True to form, Kathryn had come up with another education fun game for the boys to play. It is kind of word match where half of a word is written on one bit of paper and the other half on another. Each boy is given a suffix letter pair with a list of the words they need to make. They then use the list to find the other part of the word. Once they have finished the list they get another list with a different suffix.

For example: one paper might have the letters “LL”, the boys would then have to locate other letter pairs that when combined with “LL” would make a word. Possible solutions include “BA”, “TA”, “CA”, “FA” and the list goes on.

Kathryn was helping Ema and was thrilled that he could look at the word and most of the time find the corresponding paper from the middle. Ema usually struggles when he is asked to read/spell/write words down and so this was a huge success!

Once we had gone through the lists we decided to see if they had been paying attention and get them to spell words from a set of letters. Juma did brilliantly and understood that the words were grouped by similar sounds the others did not grasp this concept but still did well.

Soon, the boys were mentally exhausted and ready for recess. Once again we played soccer for about 15 minutes before returning to the classroom where the boys got their biscuits.

After the snack we had art. Dan asked if we had any more suggests for art and Kathryn could only think about making “Butterfly paintings”. Where everyone had to paint a picture on half of the page and once they were finished, fold it over to make a mirror image. Needless to say, there were quite a few butterflies.

The funniest part about the creative expression lessons like art is watching the boys discover that there isn’t a “right answer”. They’ll try to copy you for a few minutes but when they make a mistake and no one corrects them, they’ll begin to realise that they’re allowed to do their own thing.

After SEN we headed into Jinja where we took the Italians to the Green Shop, the op shop on Main Street. Jandira in particular were shopping for easy replacements to the things that had been stolen.

We spent the good part of the afternoon going through the Green shop. Jandira basically repopulated her entire wardrobe and Maisie did a good job of trying to beat her. Kathryn, true to form made a couple of good finds and James found a great ladies Hawaiian shirt. The best part was that no item in the shop cost more than 1000UGX (40 cents).

Soft Power Education Week 6

Day 26 – On site at Kasozi Primary School

At the meeting felt compelled to ask Kathryn Michael if he wanted to stay on site during his stay.  Having blocked from our minds the tedium of painting the school we found ourselves heading back to Kasozi on Monday morning. Kathryn assured the boys that we would be happy when we came back once it was all finished but they were not convinced.

We picked up the red paint on the way and had a very bumpy ride in the truck to the school. Once at the school we were greeted by all the teachers and builders who were excited to see us back. After a short freakout when we realised Betty had given away the mozzie nets at the end of our last stay (she found some for us) we started painting. Simon warned us the red paint is oil based and is not easy to get our your skin/clothing so we had to be careful.

Almost straight away our hands were stained red as the ends of the brushes were already covered in paint.  We all had our own music this time which kept our minds occupied while we painted. We had to paint the windows inside and our first and so all took a section each.  We had a break for morning porridge and lunch which gave our hands a break from painting. By the end of the day James had a decent amount of paint on his hands and Kathryn had paint everywhere.

We had a delicious dinner cooked by Betty and taught Michael how to play the card game Asshole which we played until bedtime. Dreading the next day we drifted off to sleep, each saying “We are not coming painting again”

Day 27 – On site at Kasozi Primary School

We woke early and took a longer than usual breakfast to put off getting started on the painting. Eventually we realised we had to get over there and get stuck in. Kathryn and Michael were on the second coat of windows/doors inside and out while James and Jamie were on rollers outside.

Kathryn found a tiny gecko that must have attempted to cross the window during the night and got stuck in the paint. He had obviously been stuck for a long time since he had shat himself everywhere. Kathryn ran out to James and told him to come quick and help! James managed to pry the lizard off the paint and we realised he had red paint in his eye. James removed the red paint using a small amount of turps. He rationalised this to himself saying that the gecko would either be definitely blind in one eye because it is covered in paint or maybe be blind in one eye, depending on how it reacted to the turps. The gecko seemed pretty shaken and James was pretty upset by the whole ordeal but we let him go and he seemed to immediately begin to hunt a fly.

Once we got back to painting, we managed to finish the windows and doors, one coat outside and a coat in one of the rooms before Simon told us we had to have an hour break because the fumes were making us high. We said we would keep going because just wanted to be done with painting but Simon insisted. It was raining by this stage and very cold so we all headed into our room and got comfortable under our sleeping bags. Jamie and Michael quickly feel asleep and we were both reading and completely lost track of time. When Simon eventually came into the room to look for us, it was 5pm and too late to get back to painting.

The reason that Simon had come around was to find a spare mattress for someone to sleep on. Since Kathryn had been sleeping on two mattresses, she said that she would relinquish one of them. She proceeded to throw all of her things onto James’ and rolled herself over as it was too cold to get out of her sleeping bag. She awkwardly passed the spare mattress to Simon who left quietly muttering about people who go to sleep instead of painting. After she had settled herself again, Kathryn couldn’t find her eReader anywhere. She rolled around a bit more and realised that she had been sitting on it! Kathryn went quiet and very calmly showed James the screen, a quarter of which had frozen. James tried to fix the screen but it appeared that it was a hardware problem and that the screen was permanently broken. We resolved that either Kathryn’s bum had gotten inexplicably large or that this was the original fault in the refurbished reader. James was very impressed with Kathryn since she didn’t even cry!

Day 28 – On Site at Kasozi Primary School

We woke early feeling extremely satisfied this was our last day of painting! We decided to get stuck in as soon as we could so we would finish it early and get back to a nice hot shower where we could try and scrub off the red paint that we were now covered in.

We had to finish one of the classrooms and then do a second coat on both, Simon also wanted us to do some details but we were strongly against that as none of us were artists. We all felt that it was better to wait until someone skilled was there and could do a good job rather than us just doing it so it’s done. Simon did not agree with our thinking but we point blank refused to do it.

We all busied ourselves with Kathryn on the paintbrush finishing the doors and details and the boys on the rollers. James had the good idea of wrapping a baby wipe around the brush handles so not as much paint got on us. It worked very well and we (at least, our hands) were significantly less red by the end of the day!

We finished the building before lunch and hid in the classroom so Simon wouldn’t make us do the drawing. We took attractive selfies while we waited.

Simon did come and get us to add our handprint to the school which Kathryn had very mixed feelings about.

After lunch it was time to pack the truck to take us back to River Camp. We took down all the curtains and mozzie nets in our room and carried everything outside where we noticed the builders filling the truck with the leftover stones. We wondered what they were going to do with it as we had to go back in the truck but thought they must have a plan. Next they went over to the pile of sand that was left and shovelled that all into the truck. We asked Simon what was happening to which he responded “Everything has to go back, we can’t leave any trace behind”.  We thought fair enough, but where are we going to sit? Simon just laughed and said “You will see”

Next on the truck went the empty paint containers, the wheelbarrows, the tools, the leftover metal and the workers beds. Then they piled on all our stuff and told us to get in. We decided the most comfortable part would be on top of the mattresses, so we got ourselves comfy laughing and shaking our heads at what was happening, saying “If our mum’s saw us now they would kill us!” Once all the builders were piled in there wasn’t much room for anything else but out of nowhere 4 chickens appeared that would also be making the journey with us!

We started off bumping away down the dirt track waving goodbye to everyone and noticing a sugarcane truck up ahead that had fallen over. The image of truck doing the same came to mind but we pushed it aside trusting Simon. Out of nowhere all the builders have sugarcane in their hands, some of them had nicked some off the top of the truck! Betty shared some with us and it was delish, was weird because you are literally chewing on a stick but very tasty, almost like a watermelon.

We made it home in one piece and felt a little bad we weren’t going to be helping unloaded the truck but they thought of hot showers pushed that aside! We headed down to camp to shower and eat chips and share the stories of the last three days.

Day 29 – Amani Baby Cottage

Today we went to ABC to see how Michael had progressed with his walking and to see the 5 week old baby. We found Sauba in with Phillip who was not wanting to do his physio and trying to get away. Phillip needs the physio to ensure he doesn’t lose function of his left hand but he constantly tries to trick Sauba and only use his right hand.

It seemed like Phillip was not going to cooperate with Sauba or Joel so after the boys had their porridge, we moved on to see Michael.

Unfortunately, Michael was also not very interested in doing his exercises and Sauba found it very hard to get him to even walk a small distance. After about 20 minutes of trying various exercises with Michael and playing with the other boys in his dorm, we decided that we weren’t going to be useful to Sauba so we decided to visit the newborn baby.

When we walked into the room we were hit with the overpowering smell of spaghetti bolognaise. We were confused until we realised that this was what the babies smelled like. Jeremiah was having his nap time when we arrived in the nursery so we played with the other toddlers. James began playing with Rosie, a cheeky 1.5 year old who was not interested in playing with any of the toys.

Kathryn found 1 year old John who was just squirming on the ground. Kathryn let him roll around and bite her glasses.

We did a bit of a rotation through the babies and eventually James ended up back with Rosie and was letting her play with is glasses. Kathryn sternly told him that it was a horrible idea to let her play with his glasses so he took them away. Within moments, she had her hands on Kathryn’s new cheapie sunnies and even though James had only blinked once, she had snapped off one of the arms. James was in big trouble.

Luckily, it was soon feeding time for the kids and Kathryn was allowed to feed baby Jeremiah from the bottle. Once he was finished he proceeded to vomit all over Kathryn’s shirt. Twice. Somehow, Kathryn was delighted by this.

Meanwhile James was having a great time pretending to eat John’s mashed cassava which was a great game that John loved. When he wasn’t faking stealing the food from an African child James was surprised how clean John was with his food there was almost no spillage and he ate it all up.

After lunchtime, the babies went down for a nap and it was time for us to go.

We hopped on Steve Boda and ran quickly to the bank before heading back to Camp.

Day 30 – Gardening at the Amagezi Centre

James had been asked to take some photos of the Soft Power staff for their new website so he spent the morning doing that at the Centre. Kathryn and Jamie decided we would head over to see if Fred needed any help in the garden. As usual Fred was delighted to have people helping him and quickly set us up.

We were planting jackfruit seeds which are given to families in the local community to encourage eco-friendly farming practices.

Fred helped us until around 11am when he turned and asked “I have to go to a meeting now, may I leave?” We laughed at the thought that if we had said no he would have stayed and helped us. We both agreed that Fred is definitely one of our favourite Ugandans!

Meanwhile, James had wandered about the village trying to find the staff for their portraits. His first stop was Fred. Instead of standing upright and smiling, Fred leaned forward into a very awkward position and gave a double thumbs up. James took a few photos of him in this position and gently suggested that it might be better if he stood up straight and smiled at the camera. Fred, like most Africans has a great smile and James had no trouble coaxing it out. The rest of the staff were not so easy. Most of the time, they would stand there with a blank expression looking very grumpy. Luckily they all have wonderful senses of humour so it was very easy to get them to laugh. After he’d taken photos of all of the staff at the centre, he made his way down to KCC to take photos of the SEN staff. Both Dan and Sauba are very photogenic and it was great fun watching them set themselves up in the perfect position for a photo. Joel, the newest member of staff was the only member of staff wearing suit pants and a shirt and was perhaps the least smiley person on staff and it took quite a bit of encouraging Dan and Sauba to make fun of him to get him to smile.

Once James was back from taking the photos and we had planted all the jackfruit seeds we had been given we decided to call it a day and head down to River Camp. It dawned on us that we only have 2 more weeks with Soft Power and Kathryn started to get a bit sad!

Fahad’s Family Part 2

We had organised with Fahad during the week that we would go to his house on Sunday (10th of August) for lunch. We agreed that we would meet at Mama Flo’s at about 1pm but we had been relaxing by the pool all morning and the time had just flown by. When we finally checked the time, it was exactly 1pm so we hurriedly packed our things and got on our way up to Flo’s. We picked up a pineapple to give to Fahad’s grandmother on the way and about halfway between the junction and Flo’s we ran into Fahad and his posse.

We made our way up fairly quickly, with Fahad asking if we remembered the way. We asked if Fahad had helped to prepare the meal and he said yes but we were sceptical. We made it up to Fahad’s house we found Kamida dressed to the nines in her traditional African gomesi. We greeted Kamida with our limited lusoga  and our pineapple “Jumbo! Olyotya” which was met with “Bulungi” and then we needed Fahad to jump in and translate. Kamid was very appreciative of the pineapple and kept saying “Webale Ssebo” “Webale Nyebo” we got a  bit embarrassed and assured her it was no big deal!  We met Fahad’s older sister and her daughter as well as Fahad’s older brother and repeated our greetings.  

We sat down with Kamida, Fahad and Mousa and Fahad’s sister brought out the food. Each person got a bowl with a cooked vegetable that was either spinach or kale mixed with onion. To this we added rice or posho and some beans and sauce; the food was lovely. Kathryn doesn’t like posho so she only ate rice, vegetables and beans while James had figured out that the secret to posho is to mix it up with whatever else you are eating so he had a little bit.

While eating we talked about Fahad’s family a bit but quickly realised that no one was talking because in their culture it is rude to talk to people while they are eating. So we ate the rest in silence exclaiming to Kamida how delicious the food was when we tried each new thing.

James, being the tall boy that he is went back for seconds then thirds once he finished his spinach. He did this without realising that the rest of the food was actually meant for the horde of kids that were waiting outside the door. James, although he had seen them hadn’t realised that they were also waiting for lunch and had assumed that they were just there to check out the mzungu zoo.

Soon enough, everyone had finished their food and to James’ horror the leftover food was taken outside. James was very embarrassed and resolved to not jump so quickly to take seconds in the future. While the table was being cleared we talked to Fahad and Mousa about their school and what grades they had got in their exams. Both had done extremely well and have high aspirations; Fahad wants to be a doctor.

After the leftovers had been delivered outside, we sat in awkward silence for a few minutes before Kamida went into another room for a few minutes. We weren’t sure what to make of it until she came back with a photo of a lady who she said used to sponsor her before she died. We told her that she looked very nice and asked if Kamida had ever met her. Kamida said that she hadn’t. We sat for a few minutes more, making funny faces at Fahad’s neice before Kamida got up and Fahad told us that she had a meeting to go to. We took this as our cue to leave and said our goodbyes.

 

We took some photos outside Fahad’s house first getting group shots then individual shots. After every photo was taken hand appeared on the camera and shrieks of laughter erupted from all the kids. As soon as they had all seen the next kid got ready for their photo.

 

We love how much joy photos bring to kids here and told them we would get some photos printed. Once they’d had enough of photos the whole posse walked us back to Flo’s.

The walk back was quiet and we weren’t sure if Fahad was trying to work up the courage to ask us something. If he was then he didn’t before we got back but we both decided that we would get some school books for him and give some money to Kamida for Fahad’s education. Fahad did ask “Would you like to see my grandmother again?” We said we would but didn’t know when we would be able to so promised to make a time before we left

Soft Power Education Week 5

Day 21 – Gardening at Amagezi Centre & Living on site

Mekenzie was leaving in the morning so we were running out of friends. We decided spend the morning gardening with Fred then run away to site in the afternoon. After we said our farewells and a few tears were shed we headed to the centre. Fred informed us we had to prepare the soil and then fill the bags up halfway with soil in preparation for planting the seedlings.  We were all quite excited at the opportunity to get our hands dirty and use all the funny equipment.

James and Jamie were in charge of digging and breaking up the soil. Kathryn and Liam were the sifters which involved putting pile of dirt on top of a frame which had mesh on it and using our hands breaking up the big bits so the little bits could fall into the wheelbarrow. It was a lot of fun and exfoliated our hands!

Next we dumped the sifted soil on the ground and added water to make it moist. Then we packed the bags half full of soil. Just when we had convinced ourselves that we would be able to finish all of the bags, out of nowhere comes Fred with another boxful of them. Instead of deciding to finish the bags, we settle with going until we use all the soil.

We filled 280 bags and transported them carefully over to the veggie garden where half of the soil fell out! Once all lined up neatly we were done. Fred was very happy we had come to help as he set himself a goal at the start of the year to plant 10,000 trees and was not very close to achieving that goal!

After lunch we headed into town to buy our groceries for the next three days and Caitlin drove us to Kasozi Primary School which would be our home! It is about a 45 minute drive from Jinja mostly through sugarcane plantations and is incredibly green everywhere. We got set up in the P7 classroom before Jamie produced a soccer ball.

The boys played soccer with the builders while Kathryn was laughed at constantly by the locals! After a delicious meal cooked by Betty we played Asshole until exhausted.

Day 22 – Living on Site

We awoke early as sleeping in a classroom without windows and the light and noise woke us. Especially when that noise is local children saying “hello? What is your name?” The builders were already hard at work so we quickly ate breakfast and headed out. Simon let us know we were to be painting two classrooms. We set ourselves the goal of doing two coats inside and out by the end of the day. How optimistic we were! We got started on the walls and quickly realised the roughness of them made painting ten times harder. We told ourselves that it was fine and we would still get a coat done inside and out.

Kathryn was painting the windows and bottom half of the wall while the boys were painting the tops of the walls with rollers attached to ex-trees. We were determined to get our building finished by Thursday as Kathryn kept reminding everyone “We need to beat the girls!” There had been a group of 6 high school students at the school for 11 days who completed two classrooms. We had 3 days surely we could do better?

We painted hard up until lunch, which we were all thankful for the break from painting! The builders all joined us for lunch and we got to know them. We were very happy to see Salim (one of the SEN students) who was doing an apprenticeship with the builders. After everyone’s bellys were full we got stuck back into the painting.

We went across the road to get a cold soda and Salim came with us. We asked him “Can we get a cold soda?” and he responded “Yes” we stared at him waiting to tell us where and he exclaims “What!?” We all lost it and he just smiled not knowing why we were laughing so hard. Eventually we explained and we got our cold sodas.

Not long after lunch it began to bucket down and Simon told us to stop working. We couldn’t stop we had only done half of the white coat outside!! Luckily some builders came over to help and moving as the rain moved got the white coat finished outside.

Shattered by the day and a bit disillusioned at how little we had done today we headed into our room. We played cards and read our books until dinner. Salim loved playing with our ebooks and just turning pages and opening up books! 

Day 23 – Living on Site

We were woken again by the builders and dragged ourselves out of bed to get ready for another day of painting. We decided to set ourselves a more realistic goal of “White coat inside and cream coat outside”, even this would prove to be optimistic! The boys finished off the white outside while Kathryn started peeling all the old posters that had been glued onto the walls off. This proved to be quite challenging as they had been glued on years ago and all the tiny bits got stuck and all we had to get it off was our fingers and a trowel. Once the boys had finished outside they came in to help get the posters off. Once we got as much as we possibly could off we started the white coat.

Kathryn again was on the paintbrush and roller doing the windows, doors and edges while the boys were on the long  rollers. Even though the sticks worked surprisingly well, the ones we had were not long enough to reach the top of the walls without full arm extension so painting these walls ended up being a lot of hard work. We were proud that we had finished the first classroom before lunch rewarded each other with high fives.

We quickly ran across the road and got our cold soda then joined the builders for lunch. Once we were satisfied we headed into the next classroom and got started. Once again Kathryn was on the paintbrush and the boys were on the rollers. We did a coat of white and two coats of cream inside and were satisfied with our efforts. Exhausted from the painting and cold from the rain we all headed into our room and read in silence until dinner.

During dinner, some of the local children got bold and tried to talk to us. James was a bit grumpy from the work during the day and decided that it would be funny to take a leaf out of Aggrey’s book and tell the kids that it wasn’t polite to talk to someone while they were eating. Liam grabbed hold of this concept, scooped up his bowl of food and ran to the window shouting “HEY!! YOU KNOW WHAT THIS IS? THIS IS FOOD!! SHUT UP”

Needless to say, Kathryn was horribly disappointed in both of the boys (even though James didn’t even really do anything wrong) and did not hesitate in telling them so.

Day 24 – Living on Site

We woke to the builders working again and quickly got ourselves ready for the day. After two full days of painting, we were all beginning to develop a powerful loathing of all paint and paint paraphernalia. Despite this, we knew that we had to at least finish the cream on the outside so we got stuck in. With music to help us through the boredom we all found our own pace.

We had forgotten how difficult it was to paint the outside surface and cursed the builders! As per usual, Kathryn was on the roller for the lower walls and the boys were doing the top sections. Kathryn got completely covered in paint while the boys all remained relatively clean. Kathryn used the excuse that she was closer to the wall so got more splashback but really we all knew it was because Kathryn was messier than them!

We finished the cream before lunch and cleaned everything up hoping we could leave straight away and get under a nice hot shower. Simon said we should stay for lunch so we waited with the kids until lunch, Liam entertaining them all with his magic tricks.

Once back at River Camp we raced into the showers and cleaned all the dirt and paint off us and suddenly the painting wasn’t really all that bad. However we weren’t going back!

Day 25 – Amagezi Centre Art Department

We declined the option of one day painting and instead headed to the Amagezi Centre to find out what work they had for us. We were hoping Fred needed us again but knew this was unlikely as the Italians had finished planting the seeds we prepared the soil for earlier in the week. Instead James came up to us and said he needed our help in the Art department.

He pulled out some wood for the boys and told them to saw it into squares and gave some seed pods for Kathryn to shape into earrings. None of us were was terribly excited about either job and we felt as if we weren’t actually needed rather than grabbed to do the first thing James could find! After Kathryn had done a few earrings she was fed up and went to see what the boys were doing. Having only one saw the boys were taking it in turns to saw both looking bored out of their brains.

Being the great volunteers that we are, we decided (after 30 mins of work) that we had earned an early finish and headed into town for lunch. It was Liam’s last day so we felt that this was a pretty good excuse to do so! We went to The Keep for lunch and had one of the most delicious lunches we have had in Jinja. The deliciousness of the lunch made up for the whole hour that we spent waiting for it. We then strolled around town until it was time to head back for the meeting. After a final meal at Flo’s we said our goodbyes to Liam, once again muttering how much we hate goodbyes.               

Soft Power Education Week 4

Day 16 – Medical Clinic

As today was a public holiday due to Eid and school wasn’t on as a result we enjoyed a nice lazy day. Kathryn had been attacked by some form of bug over the weekend, leaving 26 bites on her leg and 25 on her back so we decided to go to the clinic to see if they knew what had attacked her. Mama Flo thought it might be Mango Fly (a fly that lays its eggs in your drying washing which then hatch as maggots in your body) which had Kathryn freaking out at the thought of maggots roaming around under her skin. Mama Flo performed a simple test of putting sugar water on the bites and waiting to see if a maggot came to feast on it. Luckily no maggots appeared!

We waited for a while at the clinic before someone came out and took Kathryn’s details. The trip to the scales was a bit scary because of all of the carb loading but luckily they showed a weight not that different to normal. We then waited to be called into the doctors’ room, we think we got the Mzungu treatment as were called ahead of several people who had been there when we arrived.

Kathryn showed the doctor her bites and he confirmed it was not Mango fly but was at a loss to what had actually bitten Kathryn. He simply said “They are insect bites” but did insist Kathryn have a malaria test. The test was a prick of the finger for some blood, much the same as a diabetes test. They then analyse the blood and then from that can verify if you have malaria or not. While waiting for the results we picked up the medication. The malaria test was negative and with cream to soothe the itchiness we were on our way!

We stopped by to watch Mekenzie paint her incredible mural on the Amagezi Art Shop then headed to River Camp for a whole lot of nothing. There was an incredible sunset which had us all being very snap happy.

That night as we were walking home from River Camp to Mama Flo’s we met a boy named Fahad. He asked all our names and then took Kathryn’s hand and asked “Can we be friends?” Kathryn responded “of course we can!” and Fahad continued walking hand in hand with Kathryn and asking questions for the journey. Once we were at Mama Flo’s he asked when he would see us again and if we would like to see his house. We told him we would love to but weren’t too sure about when we were going to afterschool club but we would let him know.

It was Maggie and Luca’s last night so we enjoyed a fabulous meal courtesy of Mama Flo and a few beers. It was only when we were getting ready for bed that Kathryn realised what the doctor had told her to take and what was in her medication package was entirely different!

Day 17 – Mekenzie’s Art Club, Mixing Colours

Mekenzie’s art club started today and we were all excited to witness her hard work paying off. James, Kathryn, Simone and Allegra wandered up after breakfast to find the lesson already in full swing. We used crayons to stylise our names on big pieces of card and then joined in with the kids starting the colour lesson.

The kids were separated into groups of 4-5 and we each sat with a group. Mekenzie is such an amazing teacher and taught the kids what primary colours are and how to use them to make all the colours of the rainbow. They were all so excited and needed to be constantly reminded to wait until Mekenzie had completed the next step to copy her. Everyone was so impressed with their colour wheels when they were finished and the excitement levels rose when Mekenzie announced that after break they would be “free painting” with the colours they had just created.

After break Mekenzie explained that in free painting you could do anything you wanted, she demonstrated making a rainbow but stressed the fact that you could paint anything. The music went on and everyone started their masterpieces. All of which were rainbows, one by one though they moved away from the rainbow. They got inspired by those not doing rainbows and soon everyone was painting whatever they felt like. The artwork they created was incredible and they were shocked they could do as many as they wanted! Mekenzie says there are no rules in art and it seemed as if the kids weren’t used to that!

12.30 came around way too quickly and we had to pack up, everyone was incredibly excited to return the next day and learn how to draw and paint portraits of themselves. We headed back to River Camp for another lazy afternoon. That evening Fahad met us at the junction on the way to Mama Flo’s and grabbed Kathryn’s hand. We talked about school and what we had done that day. He asked tomorrow can I take you to my house. We agreed that if after school club was on we would have to skip it in favour of taking a tour with Fahad.

Day 18 – Moving SEN Supplies

Today we were moving all the SEN supplies from the office in town and from the storeroom at the Amagezi into the new SEN classroom at KCC. We were eating our chapattis and taking our time to enjoy them while Aggrey was talking to Mama Flo. We finished at 8.45am and asked Aggrey what time we were going to leave. He replied with “Well… We are meant to be in town at 9am” we responded with a chorus of “Why didn’t you tell us?!” to which he responded “I didn’t want to disturb you while you were eating”. We told him to stop being so polite and tell us where and when we had to be so we were on time!

We hopped into Baby Truck and sped away to the office. Once there Caitlin explained that if an Ugandan says 9am they mean anytime between 9 and 10 (the hour of Nine). We went into the garage and it was filled with so much stuff! We located the SEN supplies and formed a line and played pass the parcel. Once everything was packed we headed back to the Amagezi Centre to get the things from there. Along the way Kathryn read a book about East Afraican Princesses that changed the world and Liam and James had a go at Andrew for his beliefs in witchcraft and driving while intoxicated. They had a stern talking to from Kathryn’s inner anthropologist about respecting other cultures when it comes to religion (she agreed with the drink driving issue).

Once we arrived at the Amagezi Centre we realised that half of the group of 16 were waiting there to help unpack the stuff. We decided once we got to KCC that we would let them do the unpacking and come back in the arvo to write up the inventory. We headed to NRE for lunch and Caitlin joined us for an informal meeting. This week was exam week at the pre-schools and it had been crazy there today so we decided to come up with some activities to do with the kids not being tested so the teachers could focus on those being tested.

We went to KCC to explore their storerooms and decided we would have one group playing mathematical bowling, one colouring, one beading and one doing puzzles. Once that was sorted we headed to SEN to start on the inventory. Most of it had been done in the morning so we just had to do what was in the therapy room. Once that was finished we headed to the junction for our date with Fahad to see his house. He was nowhere to be seen so we headed to River Camp for another relaxing arvo.   

On the way back to Mama Flo’s Fahad appeared saying “I beg your forgiveness, I was at school late” we told him it was fine and school is more important than us but he kept apologising. We decided to meet that Saturday at 10am, he was very happy after we had decided this and continued walking hand in hand with Kathryn as usual.

Day 19 – KCC Bowling & Mekenzie’s Art Club: Exhibition

We awoke earlier than usual as one of the teachers had made us promise to be at KCC at 9am. We didn’t quite get there for 9 as breakfast wasn’t ready till 8.30. When we got there they were finishing their PE class so we set up the different stations for the activities.  We decided to have two games of mathematical bowling going at once with one of us supervising each game, Andrew was to help us explain the game to the children. Liam was to supervise all the other activities and make sure there were no fights.

Unfortunately, Andrew was called off to take some volunteers to the clinic so we were left with no one to help us explain. Used to things not going to plan we shrugged our shoulders and got our first eight kids. Things started fairly well with the kids mostly listening and seemed to understand what the game was when we went through the steps. Before too long all hell had broken loose and Kathryn was heard exclaiming “they are all little shits” and refusing to play the game anymore.

At break time Godfrey was being so naughty and kept stealing the skipping rope James and Liam were using. He is such a charismatic little boy that somehow gets away with everything he does! Mekenzie told us the day before she caught him peeing on the ladder to get to the monkey bars. He turned gave a cheeky laugh and then proceeded to step on his wee to get onto the monkey bars.

A teacher came over to assist and James eagerly followed, Kathryn stayed where she was. The teacher turned and said “Have they been too disgusting for you?” to which Kathryn could just shake her head. Once Kathryn had calmed down and reflecting upon the situation she came back to the group and could not believe how well behaved the children were. It just goes to show that there is no point a mzungu trying to teach a classroom when the local teachers already do such a good job. Mzungus to these kids are play things not to be taken seriously! Plus most of the time they have no idea what we’re talking about.

After lunch we headed to the Amagezi Centre to check out Mekenzie’s Art Club exhibition. It was incredible; there was so much artwork on display. We looked around while all the kids sat on the floor bored out of their brains.

Kathryn found two babies to hold, one of which peed on her foot while she was playing with its fingers.

Once everyone had appreciated the artwork we were all seated, a dance competition began. We could not believe how brutal it was! There were several rounds with 5-6 people dancing in each round, once the music stopped we had to choose our top 3. Those 3 went on to the next round while the others were told thanks for trying and given a sticker. We then had to choose a number 1 to receive the bigger sticker. We never could decide saying that everyone was the best!

Afterwards Mekenzie was pressured into dancing but only would with the kids joining in. We all jumped up and had a crazy dance party until it was time for the kids to leave. It was such a joyful experience and the teachers and children were so appreciative of Mekenzie.  

Day 20 – SEN, Kivubuka Presentation & After School Club                     

In the morning we went to SEN and introduced a new game to Dan which he was very appreciative of! We had noticed that they don’t have spelling lists here and just tend to practice reading/writing/spelling whatever words Dan thinks of on the day. So we made several different word packs; numbers, body parts, vegetables, shapes & colours and household objects. The game was word bingo and we had prepared several bingo sheets.

Each pack of words had 10 different words, as a group we read them out loud. Everyone then chose 6 words and wrote them in their bingo sheet. Then all words were turned upside down and mixed around. Taking turns each kid picks up a card and reads the word out, you cross of the word if it is on your sheet. Continue doing this until someone has crossed off all the words on their cards and is the winner.

It was a good game that could be improved by a quick pre-game lesson on the words so that the kids were familiar with them. Moses was very good at this, however Ema is very unsure of himself and tried to guess the word from his memory instead of actually reading it. We think this is because reading isn’t taught using phonics like it is at home and you aren’t actually taught how to break words down. Once this game was over we had to leave to get to the ceremony at Kivubuka.

If you’re a dedicated follower of this blog, you’ll remember that on our first day of volunteering we put the finishing touches on the paint job at Kivubuka primary school. “Say No to Early Sex” may ring a bell. Today was the official handover for Kivubuka primary and since we are the only remaining volunteers that worked on the school, we were invited to be the guests of honour.

We rolled up to the school in the Big Truck with hangers on Jamie, Leanne and Kate. We squeezed into the front row of desks and felt like we were back at speech day in Perth except in much smaller chairs. Kids piled in behind us and the ceremony started.

The head teacher was the MC and started by thanking Soft Power Education for their hard work and for making the school a brighter learning environment. A group of girls then came with a teacher and sang some songs for us which we really enjoyed.

Next up was some more speeches by various teachers and people involved in the school. All of them reflected on how appreciative they are of the work Soft Power does and that they hope the relationship continues. A girl from P6 then read a thankyou speech; Kathryn was impressed that a girl was given this honour. There was some more dancing and singing and speeches from the local councilman and Soft Power representatives.

Stephen (Soft Power staff member in charge of deciding which schools receive refurbishment) explained that we would be planting a tree. The tree was a symbol of the commitment the school had to continue educating its pupils to a high level and to look after the buildings. In 5 months Stephen would return to the school and if the tree was alive and prospering it would indicate that the school wanted to continue the relationship with Soft Power. If the tree had died that would be the end of the relationship. We really liked this idea as it showed that the school had to be committed and demonstrated that you can’t just ask for things but have to earn them.

We moved outside to plant the tree; the head teacher, a girl from P6, a boy from P6 and Kathryn had the honours. Everyone gathered around to watch us plant the two trees. It was a lovely thing to be part of and Kathryn felt a little guilty as we had only come on the last day of painting! The teachers all scolded Kathryn for not washing her hands properly!

We were then taken into the staff room for lunch where they had prepared a feast! There was rice, beef, matoke, beans and g-nut sauce as well as soft drink! The teachers asked us to dance for them which we managed to get out of by explaining compared to them we are terrible dancers! The teachers were all so excited to talk to us about what we have been doing and what life is like back home. Everyone got our email addresses and thanked us several times.

We loved being part of this celebration and seeing how appreciative the school and local communities are of the work Soft Power does. It reassured us that we were making a difference and that while the benefits of us volunteering were not always obvious they were there.

We headed back to Amgazei Centre to pick up Aggrey, Alegra and Simone before heading to the After School Club. As usual we played games with the SEN kids (no netball as the aggressive lady was there again!) and chatted with the girls until it was time to leave.

Haircuts and Ling Lings; Weekend 3

Saturday 26^th of July     

Knowing that we were heading in to Jinja in the afternoon we did nothing in the morning other than lounge around at River Camp soaking up the sun. The only problem was that we had not booked the taxi to town so at about 3pm we decided that it would be a good idea to do so. We asked the bar staff to call someone for us and they told us that it would cost about 60,000UGX (~$24AUD) for a return trip, we agreed that that was reasonable since that was how much we had paid previously.

The driver arrived about 20 minutes after and said that it would cost 150,000UGX (~$60AUD). When we collected our jaws from the floor we told him that we weren’t asking him to drive us the 5 hours to Entebbe, we only wanted a pick up and drop off in Jinja. He refused to budge and we firmly told him that we would not be paying the mzungu price, we wanted the honest price. He told us that we weren’t booking a car, this was a mutatu. For regular readers of this blog, you will realise that this would not be the first mutatu we have travelled in. We may also have mentioned that, in our experience, they have been nothing special and a car is much better than a mutatu. After telling him this in as many words he dropped his price to 100,000UGX (~$40 AUD) we told him that his price was absolutely ridiculous and there was no way we were paying more than 70,000.

The driver promptly told us that we would either pay 100,000UGX for the return trip or we would pay him 30,000UGX for his petrol. Our immediate chorus stated that he was being absolutely outrageous since: A) We had been told to not pay any more than 5,000UGX per person and B) We have driven a car before, 30,000UGX would pay for 10L of fuel and would get him at least 100km which was definitely further than the 6km to Jinja.

We told him he had wasted his own time in trying to extort us and that we would pay him 6,000UGX ($2.40) which would more than pay for his fuel from River Camp to Jinja. At this point he offered us the 70,000UGX for the return journey. Needless to say, we refused and told him that now it was 6,000 or nothing. We did not trust him and we definitely did not want to give him our business. He continued to argue with us but we told him he could take the money or not, we were done with him.

We returned to our seats and decided that the mood had been killed and we didn’t want to go to town anymore. Instead, we continued to hang out in River Camp and get over our frustration. Meanwhile, the driver hung around for about half an hour giving us evil looks and trying to get the bar to pay him for his time. Anton, the manager told him that they had nothing to do with it and that he was taking the piss.

We have noticed during our time here that there seems to be a stereotype of white people that we are all rich and have money to spare. Not a day goes by that we don’t walk or drive past a group of children that hold out their hand and say “Mzungu! Give me my money!” This stereotype is definitely not accurate and if it were, we firmly believe that it would be to the detriment of the whole country if not the continent.

In our case, the driver had taken some volunteers to Jinja the night before and charged them 100,000UGX for the round trip because they either didn’t know or care. He used this as justification for trying to charge us 150,000UGX. If we hadn’t been aware of the usual price, we would have paid the increased rate and then the next group to come along would have been charged even more and the cycle would continue. As we experienced, this can create hostility when the stereotype is proven wrong.

Having said this, the majority of the locals that work for Soft Power or their affiliates have not treated us this way. We wonder if this is because they have been able to form working relationships with volunteers and tourists such that they realise that the stereotype of the rich mzungu is not necessarily correct. To this effect, we have definitely experienced more people who are genuinely interested in having a conversation and welcoming us. Other than the children asking us for money, the incident with the driver has been the only occasion that has made us feel this way. There are far more children that are happy yell “Jambo!”, give us a wave and walk along with us.

Sunday 27^th of July

Since our encounter the day before had prevented us from going to town we were determined to go to town and do it right. We had some coffee before we booked the car at River Camp and overheard Anton telling Mohammed (who had driven us to ABC previously) that, if he wanted, River Camp would send all of their business to him, otherwise the bar would not be making any more taxi reservations.

About 15 minutes later, we asked for the number of a taxi driver who was not the same as we spoke to yesterday. We were given Mohammed’s number. We piled into the car with 5 in the back and got cosy.

We got to town, did the regular bank run, before heading to the market. We walked around looking at all the weird and wonderful food on offer.

The smell of the dried fish and meat got too much for us so we made a quick escape. Kathryn bought some new thongs and sunglasses while Liam refused to buy a fake Uganda Cranes jersey for 25,000.

James’ hair was getting pretty unruly at this point because he had not had a haircut since May. Andrew had told us that “the place near Flavours” was the best place to go for a haircut. So we walked in to Destiny’s Beauty Salon.

James asked if they could cut Mzungu hair to which the leopard print clad stylist replied “trust me” and gestured to the chair. James, being the gullible, unquestioning man that he is jumped into the chair and made no connection between the possible outcome of the haircut and the absence of any form of scissors on the bench. Kathryn meanwhile started to get the camera ready knowing that is was going to be an interesting haircut.

The stylist proceeded to shear the hair from the back and sides of James’ head while leaving the fringe alone. James, with an already existing fear of haircuts was petrified. Kathryn and Michael sat in the couches of the salon smiling and giving him thumbs up while trying not to laugh. After a few minutes that gave James time to reflect on the way that he cuts Beauty’s hair the stylist produced a pair of scissors that conceivably could have been for thinning out thick hair, in reality it was more likely that they were horribly blunt. He proceeded to grab a fistful of James’ hair and cut. After what seemed like an age, the stylist seemingly gave up and proceeded to level out the fringe with the shaver.

The haircut was soon finished and James got out of the chair then turned to pay but the stylist ushered him into a different chair and proceeded to wash his hair. Also included were hair gel and a head massage. We paid for the haircut and walked out of the shop, James could not stop running his hand through his hair for the rest of the night.

As it was Maggie and Luca’s second last night they got to decide where we had dinner. They hadn’t been to Ling Ling’s, the local Chinese, yet so we headed there. We had come here once before and the food was amazing so we were all ready for the meal. The food did not disappoint and we had one of our many conversations about words. The weirdest was the Americans calling bouncy castles “bounce house”! Once we were all stuffed we called Mohammed and headed back to River Camp.

Chapatti Lessons with Mama Flo

Mama Flo makes the best chapatti’s hands down. She prepares them almost every morning for all of us staying with her. We decided we needed to learn how to make them and so woke early one morning to watch and learn.

Chapatti (makes 12)

1 Carrot, grated

1 Small Capsicum, diced

2 Small Onions, diced

1 Cup of Water

1 tbs Salt

1kg of Flour

2 tbsp Olive oil

Mix all vegetables together in a bowl

Add water, salt and flour to bowl and mix with hands

Knead the dough , adding more water if too dry

Add oil and mix to combine

Roll into 12 palm sized balls, make sure they are similar size

Shape into disc with hand

Apply rolling pin

Heat up oil in pan, Place one chapatti in the pan and flip once bubbles form

Place a second chapatti on top just before removing the first. (This reduces the oil load of the chapatti)

Repeat with all chapatti balls.

Serve with peanut butter and Nutella

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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Sipi Falls Weekend

                     

Saturday 12^th of July

We left Bujagali with the rest of the Soft Power family at around 8am to catch a Mutatu for our journey to Sipi Falls. By the time we got to Moses Campsite where we were staying we were starving and looking forward to a nice lunch. Will had taken on the duty of tour manager and asked the staff to bring us some menus. 5 minutes later and he reappears with a piece of paper with “Scrambled Eggs with toast, Spanish Omelette with toast” written on it. We all looked at each other and it was uncanny how many people chose an egg based dish!

We put in our orders and had a look around while we waited for the food. The view from the campsite was incredible. It was basically the same view as from the Sipi River Lodge at a fraction of the cost. Slowly we returned to the table to wait for our meals. By this stage everyone was starving and with food nowhere in sight questions slowly began to surface about the status of our orders. Instead of just sitting around, we dropped our bags into our room which we discovered was actually an authentic hut otherwise known as a Banda complete with straw roof and dirt floor. How authentic!

Roughly 1 hour after placing orders the food was finally being served. As it turns out, no cutlery or sauce are needed to eat eggs at Sipi falls but we were all too hungry to care! We joked about how they had to go the shops to buy and cook all of the produce and that is why it took so long. Little did we know that they actually did that!

Once we had food in our bellies and we no longer wanted to punch each other we decided on an action plan for the weekend. We booked in the coffee tour with Fred for the afternoon and the top of the falls walk for the next morning. Thinking ahead this time we ordered our dinner so it would be ready roughly around the time we expected.

We set off with Fred to a local coffee plantation where we got to assist in every stage of the coffee making. To start we all had a turn taking the bean out of the husk first by hand then by bashing it with a mortar and pestle.

The skins are so hard and difficult to break with your teeth but it turns out that a raw coffee bean taste a bit like green capsicum.

Once the husks are separated from the beans in the mortar, you blow on the beans at the same time as you shake the container to remove the husks. The lady demonstrating made it look so easy!

Next you roast the beans over a fire, stirring constantly so that they don’t burn.

The smell at this stage was incredible! Once the beans were roasted we pulverised them into grounds and heated hot water to make the well-deserved coffee.

 

It was the best coffee Kathryn had ever tasted (James being too much of a coffee snob said that it would be better as espresso). Either way, it the spot as it had started to rain by this stage and was beginning to get a bit cold. Fred decided to take us to try the local brew before heading back to Moses Campsite.

We walked to a hut further down the road where we were all seated and told a bit more about the brew. To make the local brew you combine ground maize with water and leave it to ferment for 1-2 days after which it will become sweet. Once the mixture has sweetened, you add ground millet and leave for another day. By the end of the process, the mixture will have turned sour and will be about 12% alcohol.

The brew was served in a big jerry can through two very long, very communal hard plastic straws (complete with crude filters) that looked like they had been used on more than one previous occasion.

Needless to say, we were a little worried about hygiene but *at least* it was mixed with boiled water before consumption.

Once we had all had tasted the concoction, no one was left wanting more and we moved on. By this stage it had started to rain lightly and
Fred thought we wanted to go to the top of the falls so we headed away from the campsite. No sooner than it became difficult to get back to camp in quickly, it started to rain heavily and we took shelter under the roof of a locals hut. Once it eased off a little we decided to cross our fingers and keep going in the hope that the rain was passing. Kathryn and Lucy were both in thongs and with the state of African mud both ended up barefoot before long. Everyone was slipping and sliding but luckily no one fell over, how impressive! Eventually we ended up at Moses Campsite having skipped the falls, soaked, covered in mud but loving it!

The sky was incredible. We could see distant clouds emptying their contents onto the landscape. We watched in awe for a few minutes until the cold got to us and forced us to retreat into the bar.

Dinner was amazing; goat stew, rice, cabbage, avocado, and potatoes. As with any meal we went a bit crazy and ate more than we needed and all ended up with food babies. It was only after dinner when we would hear the boda start up that we realised every time someone makes an order, the staff literally go to shop down the road to fill it.

Sunday 13^th of July

Despite ordering the day before breakfast was late and there was no (specially requested) avocado for Kathryn’s toast, sad face. After we were full we got ready for the walk to the falls.  Fred was our guide again. We set off through local properties to the bottom of the first falls. The way down was a steep wooden ladder that didn’t look very stable. James treated it like a staircase and Kathryn loved it as she felt like Indiana Jones!

Once everyone had made it down and their legs had stopped shaking we ventured on down the steep mud track to the viewpoint. Several of the local children were walking with us in bare feet while we were all struggling in our shoes!

The view from the bottom was magnificent; we watched some other tourists abseil down the cliff for a while. The walk back up was worse than the walk down and had us all thinking we need to do more exercise.  The ladder was scary going back up and we all took our time getting up it. It was only when James was halfway up that he thought he noticed some spots where the ladder had previously collapsed. He decided to put it out of his mind and continue on his way. Once at the top of the ladder we had to catch our breath and rest our legs which were already hurting. Fred didn’t seem to be hurting in any way and said he does the walk about 4 times a week!

We continued walking up to the main road and then headed further up to the second waterfall. It started off as a pretty steep climb and we had to have a few breaks along the way. Luckily it eased off and the rest of the walk was quite pleasant walking through small farms and properties. The second waterfall was incredibly powerful and we all got soaked from it even though we were about 50m away! A few selfies were taken and group shots to prove that we made the walk.

The walk to the final waterfall and the one you can swim in was easy compared to the rest. We got some very cheap passionfruit on the way and feasted on them while dipping our toes in the freezing water. James and a few others jumped in and were frozen solid.

Unfortunately we ran out of time to walk to the top of the first waterfall but all agreed that the walk had been amazing without it!

We got back to Moses Campsite and hoped straight into the Mutatu asking our driver to stop at the first chapatti stand he sees as we were all starving! Two hours had passed and we were driving through Mbale but it seemed like stopping was out of the question. Even though we asked again and again and each time he said “yes, yes we can”, we still drove past hundreds of chapatti stands. Having previously established that several of us get very grumpy when hungry, we drove in silence until we arrived at River Camp at around 7pm. Not having stopped or eaten anything real since 9am it goes without saying that we headed straight to the bar and stuffed ourselves silly. That night we all crowded around the tv and watched the final of the world cup (well Kathryn slept and woke up when the others yelled).

25 Hours in London

Below lies a timeline detailing our whirlwind, roller-coaster 25 hours in London before we left for Uganda.

Wednesday 18^th of June

8pm – Plane lands, enter border control.

9pm – Finally clear border control, took a while but we had a nice chat to a man along the way. We are officially on holiday!

10pm – Arrive at hostel, laugh at our “deluxe double room”. Think large, clean cupboard in a tropical country with a bed and a bathroom. Technically ticks all of the boxes.

10:30pm – Clean ourselves of 24-hour plane trip grime.

11pm – Fall asleep in a fit of exhaustion from all the travel.

Thursday 19^th of June

7am – Next door neighbour’s alarm goes off. Apparently, thin walls count as deluxe. Remind ourselves there is no rush for us to get up as we are unemployed and on holiday YAY!

9:00am – Set off in search of free WiFi and breakfast.

9.30am – Find a cute French café in Piccadilly Circus. The food was delish and the staff were fantastic. After finishing, realise there was no WiFi.

       

10.30 – Get a coffee at Café Nero so we can utilise the free WiFi. Message TJV to arrange a catch up and let everyone know we arrived safely. Turns out, drink purchase is not necessary to access WiFi password. Remember this for future use.

11:15: Point our noses in the direction of Parliament House. Fingers crossed we can get in to the Houses of Commons or Lords in action. #politicsnerds

12pm – Arrive at Parliament House. As Parliament was sitting we were unable to take a tour of the building but were allowed to watch the debates in the House of Commons. The topic they were debating was “The UK’s relationship to Africa”.  It was bizarre seeing politicians speaking politely instead of yelling and jeering. Conclude that Australian Politicians are animals and that Westminster is an incredible building

1.30pm – Lunch at Pizza Hut. Why do we always think this is a good idea? Promised ourselves that we won’t go here again.

2.20pm – Walk from Piccadilly to Millennium Bridge along the river. Was a really nice walk and were impressed by the amount of joggers.

4.30pm – Reunited with TJV and he takes us to a fantastic café near Brick Lane called Vintage Emporium. TJV gets a chai latte, JM gets a macchiato. There is a major size difference and everyone laughs.

 

6:00pm – Catch the tube back to Hammersmith to get our bags. Realise we meant to visit Primark for K to get some bathers. Success find out there is one near our hostel

6:30 – Quick trip to Primark, J has to find free WiFi so we can transfer some euros into pounds on our card. K does get some nice bathers

7:20pm – JM casually glances at his watch, 7.20pm, check in closes at 7.55pm. Stress levels begin to rise.

7:25pm – Sprint to hostel and get bags, no time to change. K desperate for a pee but there’s no time dammit! Stress levels increasing.

7:30pm – Run (or rather waddle quickly thanks to our bags) to tube. Traffic lights are frustrating.

7.35pm – Get on train, K is a red as a tomato. Stress levels are high but steady, there is light at the end of the tunnel.

7:45pm – That light turns out to be a trap. Train terminates 6 stops before Heathrow. K loses all hope now but JM has faith in airlines.

7:55pm – Check in closes.

8:10pm – Arrive at Heathrow station, check in closed 15 minutes ago. Obstacles include kids playing on travelator, mum tells them to get out of our way or we will miss our flight. Thanks mum! Sprint to Emirates Check in. Blood is pumping, not from the exercise.

8:15pm – 20 minutes after check in closes. Get to Emirates Check in desk, let out a sigh of relief. We are informed that it is actually a Qantas flight and we need to go to the Qantas check in. The Emirates staff member does not know its location. Panic 2: Electric Boogaloo.

8:18pm – 23 minutes after check in closes. Locate Qantas check in, staff member gets us checked in! JM narrows his eyes at how little fuss was made. K is feeling on top of the world as we made it.

8:25pm – K can finally pee! Use the opportunity to get changed into plane clothes

8:30pm – Head to security, our feet are pounding from all the running and can’t wait to settle into our seats. Endorphins are flowing, spirits are high.

8:20pm – Wait. Where is K’s passport? K empties her backpack onto the ground

8:35pm – JM repacks the backpack while K runs to the toilets. K calls herself lots of bad things in her head. Nice Lady has found the passport! Nice Lady scolds K for losing it, K scolds K for losing it.

8:40pm – Get taken to special Fast Track security check. Can’t find the carry on toothpaste, JM empties his bag onto the xray conveyor belt, staff scan each piece. JM repacks his bag. Toothpaste nowhere to be seen.

8:45pm – JM pushes through crowd to the furthest flight information screen, begins to sprint to the gate. Realise that boarding only just started.

8:50pm – Board Plane and breathe a sigh of relief, give ourselves high fives, vow to never do this again.

Moral of the Story: Arrive late to flights and skip all the lines.