Uganda Lodge, May 24th

View from the School

So we've been at Uganda Lodge now for 3 weeks and have been working at small jobs like getting teacher resources ready, however, Rich has taken on a challenge of building a playground for the children.  This weeks task, A swing:

Rich, Ed and Will lifting up their creation.
 Next job, digging holes and cementing into the ground.

At the moment, this see-saw is two planks of wood which are not nailed or anything, they play on this with pure balance! OHS would have a field day here!!

 I busied myself with finishing off the Mural, although I can only take credit for the Title and the green at the bottom.  A previous volunteer did the rest, based on pupils drawings.

During this week, we had a lodglypics - which involved various fun games in 3 teams, in fancy dress.  For once, this was NOT inspired by Petch and I, but some other volunteers.  Needless to say - we were in our element! We played musical chairs, relay races and protect the egg to drop off a high water tank!!

The Big 5 - winning team

 
Afternoon teas have been interesting.  The other day we ate grasshoppers:

 

They actually tasted a bit like fried shrimp!

We also took an outing to a students grandparents place.  They run a pork joint.  Eating out is always very interesting.  We ordered 4 kg of pork on arrival which was served deep fried and with some Matoke - a form of Banana that is served at every meal! It is not too bad and tastes like mashed potato - with butter and salt added!! Otherwise, it's a little bland!

chopping up the pork with his machete

deep frying the pork

kitchen area for preparing the sauce

The School has now been back a week, and I haven't yet done any teaching, although, the whole purpose of Uganda Lodge is to let the Ugandan Teachers be the ones that run the show.  There is a new Headmaster this term and he has asked me to sit in on the interview panel for some new teachers which will be interesting.  There are about 250 children that have enrolled this term, and they are hoping for more, but a lot of it comes down to money of course!

The day is quite long for the children.  They start at 7.30, have porridge at 10.30 and wash their cups

Then at lunch time, they get Posho, (or Ugali as it is known in other parts of africa) with beans.  They finish their school day at 5.30pm.  

The school kitchen.  Very similar to our lodge kitchen too

Posho cooking for lunch

Beans cooking for lunch

We have taken a weekend away to a lake nearby for 2 nights with other volunteers and so far swimming and eating nice food and having 3G has been a blessing!

Ruhanga Development Centre, Uganda

It has taken an hour long trip in the back of a pick-up truck next to freshly slaughtered pigs to get to an internet cafe! We really are in rural Uganda at our new project... there was a power cut in town so I couldn't access an internet cafe! To get 3G we have to walk up a hill - and it's sooo slow! Anyway...

After a long and tiresome trip from Zanzibar, and a 7 hour bus journey from Kampala, we arrived at Ruhanga Development Centre, situated between Mbarara and Ntungamo, the main to Rwanda.

The centre was opened approximately 5 years ago by an English woman and a Uganda man, Denis, and they started by placing 20 taps around Denis’s home village.  They then surveyed the village to find out what else was needed, and a school was decided.

We live in a beautiful valley and regularly take a walk up the hills. I feel like we are surrounded by the Malvern Hills covered in banana plantations.  It is very green, lush and the people are very friendly with a reasonable command of English.  We do, however, want to keep speaking Swahili out of habit as we’d got so used to speaking bits each day.  We will slowly learn Runyankole, but teaching is all instructed in English, so it may not be needed

The school currently has classes from nursery to P6, although the ages in class vary and can be as high as 16 years.  The school has been very well resourced by donations and fundraising continues.  A medical clinic has just been finished, and volunteer doctors have been giving family planning advice and nutrition advice.  New classrooms and a library have been built and the next project in construction is a boarding section and a sports field, as well as more volunteer accommodation.

On our first day, we took the hour trip to the larger town to get sorted with phone and stock up on extra food (as meals here are very basic and mostly vegetarian, much to Rich’s disappointment!)  The Matutu ride home, however, took over 2 hours!

Our first day of work involved moving desks to new classrooms, removing irrelevant posters, washing down desks.  Rich busied himself mending broken shelves, and I worked on the sports equipment inventory (much like my normal job of cleaning out the sports storeroom!!).   We have also whittled signs out of wood for each classroom.

             

                                 

At the start of the second week, we had 3 days of teacher training.  This was fantastic and run by two primary school teachers from the UK.  They taught the teachers here how to make their classes more interactive, rather than the traditional way of teaching that they are used.  This has lead to us being very busy and we have spent the rest of the week making learning charts and interactive games and activities from old sacks, cardboard, water bottles, beans, bottle tops.

 

Most evenings we sit in an open room with a fire and a pool table.  There is a small bar available for all types of drink purchases, which turns into a dance floor on Friday nights! When you sip 100ml of gin or vodka from plastic sachets, these nights can get messy!

School begins again on Monday 19^th May and then we will become very busy after our Gorilla Trek!