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Published: June 17th 2011
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I am fast approaching the end of my time in the village, which feels very sad. It is funny to think how terrified I was when I arrived, and the time has flown by! I have met some lovely people and have been so welcomed into the village. They are throwing a farewell party for me - and also Esther and Samuel, who are leaving in a few weeks - on Monday, which should be fun. They will be providing lunch for the whole school, which is fantastic because many of the children go all day without a meal. Something they want to do in the near future is to provide the children with food - a cup of porridge - at school every day, and my parents have been amazing and are helping Pastor John buy a plot of land to grow maize so that they can achieve this (and also sell some to raise money for teachers' salaries). Esther and I are also hoping to raise money for a well at the school, as cooking for 400 children involves a lot of water! At the moment the children have to fetch water from a pump which is about 10
minutes walk away - although coming back takes longer with 20L of water on your head! I go to the well to get water for washing myself and my clothes, and it is not fun. The actual pump is down a steep slope, so coming back up loaded with water and with wet sandals is really difficult! I carry two 5L jerry cans and I feel like my arms are going to drop off before I get back to the school. I must look like such a wimp as quite young children carry twice that much. There is often a queue so it can take quite a long time and the classes at school take it in turns to go fetch water. There is already a borehole at the school but they haven't reached the water yet so Esther and I will set up a JustGiving page to raise the money to finish the digging and buy a pump.
My last post ended when I was about to go on safari, and it was amazing! We went to Murchison Falls National Park, and the actual waterfall blew me away. It is the most powerful waterfall in the world apparently,
so although it wasn't huge, it was pretty impressive, with the entire Victoria Nile squeezing through a tiny gap in the rock. We had a lovely boat trip up the Nile and saw so, so many hippos! We also saw a few crocodiles, lots of different birds and some elephants on the river bank, which we were able to get really close to. There was a mother and baby nuzzling together, and some crazy elephants clambering around a steep cliff, it was incredible. On our safari drive we saw a lioness hunting for her cubs, but we didn't see the cubs. We saw lots of giraffes, more elephants, buffalo, wildebeest, waterbuck and even a hyena, which was much bigger than I thought it would be. There were warthogs wandering around the camp, and I was woken up in the night to loud grunting, munching noises, only to realise it was the sound of a hippo grazing right outside my tent!! I was too terrified to go to the toilet block the next night!
It was strange doing all these exciting things and knowing that a lot of people in the village have barely been out of Kyamukama. And although
safari is supposed to be the quintessential African experience, we were surrounded by muzungus, and the average African probably hasn't seen an elephant. It was really nice to get back to the village and everyone seemed pleased to see me! I have been getting back to painting and a bit of teaching, and also helping teachers Mary and Samuel with their English homework, as they go to evening classes in Kiwangala (which is an hour's walk away) twice a week. Their textbook, however, was written in 1961 and a lot of the words are so antiquated they are never going to encounter them! And I barely know the difference between the words 'practical' and 'practicable', let alone how to explain it.
It has been hitting home this week just how hard thing are for a lot of people in the village. Living Hope is a project helping the more deprived members of the community, so this is obviously who I am meeting the most, but these people have become my friends and it is difficult to accept how little they have when I have so much. The teachers get paid 70,000 per month, which is less that 20 pounds,
and this if they actually get the full amount, or are paid on time. I think this also only includes the months in the school term, so they don't get paid for the holidays. This is just crazy, and the cost of living here has gone up a lot lately with the price of fuel (a litre of petrol is almost as much as in the UK) but the wages don't go up. I have made a friend in the P7 class called Ritah, who is 14 years old and worried about what she will do after primary school as she can't afford the fees for secondary school. Her mother left when she was a baby and her father is a drunk who spends all their money on alcohol. I really want her to continue her education as she is clever and speaks very good English. My friend Emily has written an interesting blog about girls' education in developing countries, and it is so important: http://teachamantofish.org.uk/drupal/tamtf-blog/uganda-impact-cultural-attitudes-girls-education
Emily is working for a UK charity called Teach A Man to Fish, helping a nearby secondary school become self-sufficient through business and farming. At the moment the school relies on funding from three Western charities, who want to pull out and move on to another school. Hopefully through the self-sufficiency plan they could also stop charging fees, or at least reduce the fees. Hopefully Living Hope will also be self-sufficient one day by increasing the farm output, as at the moment is is barely surviving on ad-hoc donations and no regular funding. They even have to rent a football for sports on a Wednesday afternoon - so I will buy them one before I leave! Although the boys have a lot more than the girls, as there is at least a big field in the village with goal posts. The girls play netball with a football, no net, no bibs, no court, no umpire... The children here show remarkable initiative, however, and make balls out of plastic bags and all sorts, and can turn the most mundane item into something to play with.
There is so much more I could write about the people of Kyamukama, and I'm sure my last weekend at the school will be interesting! I will head off to see a bit more of Uganda before I travel to Kenya for my flight to Thailand. How strange that this is just the end of the beginning!
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