Reporting from placement.

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Hello.

Seems a long time since I updated you all - a lot has happened again!

Arrived on placement a week last Tuesday. Were actually located an hours walk outside of Kayunga town in 'centenary college' which is basically a boarding school. Were living in staff quarters so have 3 rooms between the 4 of us (there's a family of 4 sharing the room next door tho!). They have 2 little boys next door, Opeo who is 2 and big bro Freddie who is 9! We can't understand a word each other is saying but they are so cute it doesn't matter! We have electricty 1/2 the time (yey!), the bore hole is right next door (which trust me is pretty good going) and the pit latrines are clean at least so we've not done badly.

Work is going pretty slow at the moment. Roy has gone home with Malaria and he's the only one that speaks fluent Luganda, and our local volunteer wasn't appointed when we got there so were still doing a lot of groundwork. We have however done 4 lessons in the local secondary school, have another 2 schools timetabled for next week and were starting to get to meet the local farmers. Hope to have have made lots of progress next time I blog!

The week has been pretty rocky - we've all had a lot to adjust to! Can you imagine living with 3 other people, working with them and sharing your food and living expenses with them??! That would intense enough in England but with 3 different cultures going on theres a lot of comprimising to be done. I've learnt that tolerence is key! I've taken my usual role as the mediator!!

Anyway all is well and I'm really enjoying myself - just can't believe how much work we have to do. There are so many people to reach out to and trying to prioritise people is really hard. It's impossible to reach everyone, we have 6 parishes each with approx 6 villages and 1 bike between 4 so we have our work cut out!! We can only try our best so hope thats enough.

Bye for now xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

P.S. Thank you for the birthday cards - we went out for a lovely family dinner at the sub-county chiefs bar/restaurant. Rolex and beer - yummy!

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Photos

Sunset
Just one of the many beautiful sunsets

My Room
Mine and Doreen's room.

My Birthday
Me and Doreen at Geofrey's place for dinner. Note the Nile beer - become something of a favourite!

My Birthday
The rest of the team - Roy and Kate.

The water run
A common sght of kids going to fetch water with their jerry cans - luckily I live next to a bore hole so dont have to do this!

The most common mode of transport!
Just one of the seemingly endless roads and no chance of a lift!

Girl power!
Seen this girl a couple times and she never fails to impress me - shes actually running!

Pink Chicks!
Yes they really are pink chicks!! Asked if they were natrually like that to be told they are dyed - kinda ruined it for me!

Not my home!
Thought I should throw in a typical Ugandan dwelling for you! Most of the villagers live in mud huts.

Comments

[Phil Peatling]

: - )
Hi Hannah Glad to see your getting on well. The sites look breath taking. I'm still workin hard at Uni but it looks like your doin more than me (wake up around 10.30 go to odd lesson and goin out). I'm happy that you have found lots of new friends and look forward to readin your next blog Phil and Anna x x x x