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Published: October 13th 2013
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The rainy season has really started: I keep leaving the house without my raincoat and getting caught in a thunderstorm. Unless you want to wait a couple of hours for it to pass, you get very wet! I was in Kampala last week and but Ness said one day the rain was so heavy in Jinja it was like a river flowing down our street.
Yes, I left Ness in Jinja and I went to the bright lights of the city. I decided to save money and take a Coaster. There are three types of long distance travel:
Matatu
Coaster
Private hire
A private hire is for exactly what it says, a car, a driver and a big price attached. Like most things a private hire comes with two prices, Ugandan and Muzungu. We have a good driver, Gerard, who charges about £40 to go to Kampala from Jinja A matatu or coaster costs about £1.25! A matatu is a big no, no!! They look very unsafe as they are clapped out old mini vans and the aim is pack as many people inside as possible. A matatu will stop every time someone wants to get
on or off so the journey can be very slow.
A coaster, however, is a little bigger, more like a mini van, but will not take more people than the number of seats and will only depart when it is full. Depending on when you turn up, you could have a wait. When I arrived there were 4 people already on my coaster so I counted the next 16 people on and thought we were off…it turned out my lovely arm rest was a fold down seat, so another 7 people were required to fill the aisle. A coaster will allow people to alight at anytime, so to me, it is common sense not to sit at the back of the bus if you plan to alight before the final destination…the fold-down seat users were up and down like yoyos! Whilst I’m in an observation mood… why do big people always sit next to me and encroach on my allotted space?!? On the return journey I actually checked my person to see whether I have a notice on me that said “Sit next to me… I’m happy to share my seat that is too small for me in the
first place!!!!!”
Pat and I had a very productive working week and I also visited one of Kampala’s slums with a charity called ‘Hands for Hope’. This brilliant organisation arranges an education and 2 meals a day for children there. It was a real eye-opener and an amazing experience. The slum is the second biggest in Kampala and holds around 15,000 people most of whom are children, living off about $1.50 each per day. Many of the buildings are made of out bamboo and mud. The interesting fact that surprised me was that most pay rent, roughly between £10 to £30 per month. The slum is closed in by a railway line and a canal that takes the sewage out to Lake Victoria. You pay more to live near the train tracks. The women cook all day and take the food up to the railway line to sell in the evening. Roughly 90% of their income is spent on rent. Due to the canal, the slum is prone to flooding and can turn into a river with heavy rain. There are no toilets so people use a bag and throw it on their roof. When it rains… you guessed
it, it all comes down.
Hands for Hope have a rigorous selection process – a child must be spotted by their social worker more than once in a destitute state. This could be searching through rubbish for food, begging, lack of clothes or footwear, etc. On the second sighting the social worker will ask the child to take them to their home. A formal meeting is arranged for an assessment to take place. These can be interesting as some families pull children in off the street and/or invite neighbours round to make the living conditions look more crowded/worse than they actually are. The charity then waits a month or so and conducts another assessment with a different social worker. If the child meets criteria, they are sponsored and receive free education, 2 meals a day when they attend school, free medical care, shoes/clothes if needed.
Ugandan law states children cannot attend school out of term time, so ‘Hands for Hope’ creates social clubs to be able to feed the children in the school holidays. However, during the two week Christmas break, some children become malnourished again.
Last Saturday, Ness and I had a good night out and
went to a jam session in a popular Muzungu café called Flavours. We had a lovely dinner - I had steak and mash for £5!! The music was brilliant with people just getting up and playing/singing along. The best part was a chap with a huge afro trying to make the French Horn look cool!
Wednesday was Independence Day and people expected marching bands, a carnival-type atmosphere and outdoor show. We found a prime spot on Main Street for breakfast and observation but after 2 hours, began to lose hope. We thought we’d walk home along Main Street to see if anything was happening and it was on Ugandan time. We found nothing taking place, there were groups of people huddled round TV’s watching the parade in Kampala, but diddly squat took place in Jinja to mark 51 years of independence from the British. Sorry I tell a lie, there were a few Ugandan flags put up around the place. We have been told that many locals have been complaining on the local radio station about nothing happening in Jinja, evidently last year there was the whole parade and hoopla!
Yesterday I was asked if I could take
some photos for a lady as an Australian magazine would like to write an article on the work she does here. When we asked Susan what she did, she replied with… “Well I don’t really know, I’m like a community developer.” Susan has set up nearly 20 different classes in different villages where Ugandans teach other Ugandans English, Maths, tailoring, gardening and netball. The classes are mostly for women, but men have started to join in.
This was a brilliant afternoon, when we arrived there was cheering, then African-style dancing started and lots of yelping as they do. We were introduced and told about the different classes. Ness was asked to give an impromptu talk about nutrition.
We moved onto the next community just up the road and were greeted in the same manner – the ladies have so much energy. After the introductions and Ness’s talk the ladies showed us their netball skills, it was brilliant. They have no net, it is just a free- for-all game of catch basically. After Susan had given out the fruit and nuts she brought for the groups, I was asked to say a few words. Ness whispered to me… “Just
talk about getting married and what you’re doing over here.” There was a huge cheer when I said we had just got married in April, then there was raucous cheering when I said I’m a house husband and I do the washing, cleaning, shopping and cooking. As I’ve said before this is unheard of here and it was funny watching Richard translate as he couldn’t stop laughing as he knew the reaction that was coming. Susan also does work in a local school and she is arranging a day for me to go and talk to the kids which I’m looking forward to.
I have a treat (???!) for you all next week - Ness is going to write the blog talking about her work and experiences in the hospital. Bye for now... toodle pip!!
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Liz
non-member comment
Thanks
Thank you Dai, for the interesting stories and photos. What an amazing and enriching experience for you both. As you can tell John and I are home after 5 week caravan trip around half of Queensland, this also was very interesting for us as the Western towns have done lots of historical research and then present it in ways to appeal to the tourist as the towns were dying and had to find ways to keep afloat. Of course looking at your photos brings home the contrast in the areas we went to. Regards to you both