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Published: June 10th 2009
It’s mid-afternoon, I’ve finished work and had a lazy late lunch overlooking the Nile, and now I’m settling in outside my banda for the afternoon in the shade to do some writing/reading/thinking dozing. I’m starting to settle into a nice African pace of life now, and getting to know the area a little better.
Sunday began with a guided walk around the village, led by Muganda and Oko, two 17-year-old local guys who are earning a little extra cash to see them through secondary school. They introduced us to their families and to some of the locals and showed us the various crops being cultivated in this incredibly fertile soil - matoke (green bananas), coffee, avocados, mangos, paw-paws, sugar cane, chillies, maize, jack fruit to name a few. They also taught us to greet people in Lusoga, the local language. I’m trying to follow advice, lose my British reserve/embarrassment and open my mouth more as I speak, but my poorly-pronounced ‘Wasuze otya’ is generally still met with either puzzlement or an English ‘Hi’.
We started work on Monday with a morning of induction from Kibii and Shaz, a visit to one of the Soft Power pre-schools (where we joined
in with songs in Lusoga and English), a tour of the education centre when I’m expecting to work, and then a bumpy ride on the back of a truck a session of painting at a Muslim primary school around 10km away. Around 10-20% of Uganda’s population is Muslim, with the rest being Christian, although as in other African countries many also adhere to traditional animist beliefs as well. It was Idi Amin’s ambition, so I’m told, to convert the whole country to Islam and a programme of forced circumcision for males was planned. However, despite this history of coercion my impression is that most Ugandans, though generally deeply religious, are tolerant of each others’ convictions and there is no animosity between Muslims and Christians.
Our job at the school has involved painting teaching aids, including inspiring slogans, on both internal and external walls. These have included numbers, shapes and the phrases ‘Uganda has plenty of precious natural resources. So why are we poor?’, ‘We need water to live. We must preserve it’ and a list of the country’s exports. The textbooks published my Macmillan Uganda used by the school still report the main exports as coffee and cotton when
in fact these two, though key to British interests in colonial days, have long since been joined by exports such as tourism, flowers, fish, beans, electricity and labour.
I spent this morning typing up some lessons plans written by the pre-school teachers and it’s clear that traditional teaching methods such as chalk and talk, rote learning, chanting, dictation and copying (onto slates or exercise books in immaculate handwriting) are still standard practice here. The Amagezi Education Centre, built by students from Leeds Uni whilst volunteering for SP, gives access to older primary students from 27 schools across the area, often for the first time in their lives, to sessions in art and craft, IT, drama and the library. I’m hoping to get involved with these tomorrow so I can get a feel for the kinds of resources it might be helpful for me to create. Hoping also to help in English lessons run for the local women by another volunteer.
It’s very far from being all work, work, work though! There is a big group of friendly volunteers, rafters and tourists here from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the USA and of course the UK, and far from being
lost and lonely on my own it’s actually been quite a job to grab some time to write and update this! It’s very sociable, and every day a small group of us have gone on some kind of expedition.
Yesterday, believe it or not (and after MUCH persuading) I went out on the river in a raft. That’s not to say this cowardly non-swimmer went white water rafting as such, but a group of us did go on a ‘Family Float’ which took us down four rapids (ranging from a Grade 1 to a Grade 3, for those in the know) and left us soaked, grinning and exhilarated. Being flipped out of the raft is definitely not for me, but I can see myself doing another float at some point for sure. We saw a fish eagle, a monitor lizard and various cormorant-like birds, and it was a great excuse for a beer, of course!
Another joy is the shower here at Eden Rock: the cubicle is lined with stone, it’s open to the sky, and in the afternoons after a hot day you get a wonderful cascade of warm water accompanied by the aroma of the wood-fired
boiler. Quaker Camp friends will be able to picture exactly what I mean and no doubt I will have a familiar smoky smell when I get home! In the later evening it’s the playground for the local wildlife - last night I cleaned my teeth in the company of several geckos, a gigantic cockroach and a millipede the size of my middle finger - but during the day it’s an oasis in an already lush, tropical paradise.
Despite warnings of lack of variety in the food, the presence of the rafting companies around here means there is a good selection, including the chapatis, samosas and fruit available from the stalls, the local restaurants, and the westernised, more expensive (and often white-owned) muzungu bars and restaurants. We’ve mainly eaten locally so far, including a fish supper at Mama Joyce’s, where we were served and then photographed by the children; and steak at the Green Light where an intriguing argument broke out between the owner and an American couple.
Best so far has been the weekly Tuesday night dinner at Harriet’s - a huge African meal for about 12 of us crammed into her main room around a big table. Harriet works at Nile River Explorers, the neighbouring campsite which plays host to the overland trucks and rafters, while her partner Daniel sells artwork from a stall outside to finance his studies at college - in two years he hopes to qualify as a lab technician.
Hard to know whether it’s because I show an interest or whether it’s a Ugandan preoccupation, but most of my conversations with English-speaking locals generally turn to education, and most of the people I’ve met are studying and/or working hard in the hope of betting their opportunities in the future. Of course I’ve generally met business owners, guides and people working for Soft Power so far, so they’re not a representative group. During the village walk the guys told us that many drop out of school, often due to smoking too much weed, but my impression so far has been of an entrepreneurial, industrious and forward-looking group of people.
The locals are also incredibly friendly and interested in us all. A guy who runs the café where I went for lunch today gave me some earnest and useful advice about staying safe and secure in the evenings round here (same as in London, pretty much). Obviously it’s in his interest to get repeat custom, and as a lone female westerner my guard is always up to some extent in case of unwanted attention or requests for money, but I’m reluctant to be too cynical - from passport control to school to the bars to the street stalls I’ve been greeted with ‘Welcome to Africa’ and it’s a refreshing change from avoiding people’s eyes on the tube at home.
Right - time to try and get online, and I’ll update again when there’s some more news. Electricity and web access are extremely erratic, so any regular readers out there will probably find you get long silences from me punctuated by three or four updates at a time. In the meantime - greetings to all from sunny Uganda!
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Chris Najman
non-member comment
Hi from London
Hi Rebekka - I like your posts - keep 'em coming - best Chris