24th October

Wowee, have I been busy! My school week has been of course very boring and not really made much sense. Well apart from the short stories I have had them read and the questions they have to answer, no wonder teachers gave us past papers all the time in English, it is really hard to teach! Another thing I have noticed, a lot (!) is that my senior 1 class is a lot better at almost everything than the senior 2 class. Honestly I taught speech to the senior 2’s and they looked so confused, then I gave the exact same lesson to the senior 1’s and they got it…straight away! What the hell is that all about?

Thursday was a very chilled day, although my senior 2 class only had 3 pupils because everyone else skipped it, how rude! As bad as that is that a lot of my pupils didn’t come to class, the ones that did now 100% understand speech. They are on it like a car bonnet! Friday however is a whole other story! Man oh man what a day.

To start off, I was not in the best of moods. In fact I was horrible to be around. I was even snappy with the damn baby! But never the less we got up and painted the kitchen as planned, if I never actually make a life plan I shall be a painter and decorator, I have decided it is one of the calmest jobs to have! Until your wall paper starts falling down I suppose…But our kitchen received its first coat of sky blue and bright yellow, b-e-a-utiful! Sadly it didn’t change my mood though so I was still on top form of moody-teenager. After painting we decided to go to the school because lunch was in 2 hours and we could easily kill it talking to the other teachers and playing with the kids, so off we set ready to chill. And chill we did, Holly had Dan on her knee who quickly fell asleep and I had Elinah to play with, while Justine, Emma and Joseph all argued about whether or not going to see the King was a good idea. That’s right, the King came to town! But, I got bored waiting because the man thought he was royalty or something and turned up 4 hours late! Holly waited for about 3 and a half hours watching the celebration and missed him by about 30 minutes, I am pretty sure she was raging when she found out! Friday night I apologised to Holly about my mood and told her I just couldn’t explain it, but thinking about it we aren’t going to be happy all the time, we are going to have horrible days where we just want to be alone, and that day was Friday but because we live in one anothers pockets it is pretty tricky!

Oh boy, oh boy was Saturday good! We did the second coat of the kitchen, which now looks fabulous, and then…WENT SWIMMING!!! Who said Uganda was hard? We packed our bags and set off. Then we met Justine and asked if she wanted to join us (trying to get a free ride!) but she was busy so instead we just took Caca (7) and Caleb (5). We had an excellent day together! We were at the pool for hours where we tried to teach the kids to swim but they were scared of the water, enjoyed an ice cold beer each while the kids had coke, and even had some chips, what could be better? I feel a bit like a tour guide right now but if you ever go to Masaka because you think it would be a nice holiday destination, stay at the Tropic Inn Hotel! It is fantastic, and it has toilets!

After our busy day we eventually got home about 6ish with two tired children and dropped them home before heading to the market. We bought ourselves lots of yummy vegetables and some greasy rice balls for dinner then headed home to make tea! Oh and it was delicious! Always good when you got some greasy food? Don’t worry Mum, we got lots of vegetables at the market and made some delicious veg to go along with the rest of our meal! Then I had to wait up until 10PM, far too late for me, because Greg was calling! But I am very glad I did stay up because we had an excellent conversation in him making fun of me and being generally funny. I love phone calls with home! They always make me feel on top of the world!

Sunday was not too great a day for Holly. After church she left and was not in the best mood for the day. I stayed because there was a wedding meeting which I thought would be cool to attend and it was raining so I didn’t want to walk home. However they started an auction and at one point kept pointing at me. During this time Moses was determined to win the auction so I asked Herbert (I like to call him Herbie when he can’t hear me) what it was about and his reply was “They are buying for you.” I freaked out! I was so scared that this other woman was going to win the auction and take me away, but thankfully Moses won, then I was handed some nuts. Strange, I know! It turns out they were auctioning for some nuts and Moses wanted to buy them for me but the woman didn’t want me to have them, if only Herbie had said that, right?!

After the episode I decided home was a good plan, so collected the stuff that was charging and went to back to the house where Holly and I made some lunch which was very yummy! Boiled cabbage with rice and tomatoes, Tasty, tasty! However after lunch Holly was in a bad mood (it was her turn to be moody-teenager) and burst into tears. However she said she wanted to be on her own so I left her. I finished the washing up, wrote my diary and headed down to see Justine who I was supposed to be having a game of Ludo with, but of course no plan ever goes accordingly here. So instead I was asked to go along to a dress fitting for a wedding, which again didn’t happen, and then Justine, Elinah and I watched the football match (which the village won) before heading off the watch netball (which I persuaded Justine to join in with although Moses might not have been too pleased to hear his wife and mother of four was playing.) Ah well though, she had fun! As did I, enjoying the children asking “Is that your baby?” about Elinah who is clearly black, stupid kids, and watching the women getting really into the game, was good fun. Although it made me miss Michelle an awful lot. Justine is very like Michelle and often treats me like a daughter or a little sister, making jokes with me and sorting my hair etc. it is very hard!

Sunday night didn’t disappoint either. Although Elinah did poop on my nice, pretty, pink skirt! Never fear Justine was near, and she is going to wash the skirt for me. Justine gave me a pair of jeans to put on but they weren’t too comfy so I headed back to change into my own jeans and see if Holly was maybe in a better mood and would like to join us. Thankfully she had slept and chilled out a lot so came down where we had dinner, tea and milk! It was so nice, kinda felt like I have my family here now and that I am in fact home.

Monday it was then repeated with us spending the evening down at Moses and Justine’s and having food and tea again. It was genuinely one of the nicest things! I really do like their company and feel a lot better when I am around all of the children, even if it does make me think a lot of Jamie and Ellen. But Justine and Moses really do take care of us and make me feel like a million dolla’s! I even have a running joke with Justine about all of her clothes, she has loads, I mean I think I have competition! That would be if I actually had my wardrobe here because I have hardly anything it feels like!

So as you can see life has been just as busy again, a day in Africa can’t actually be relaxed! Speak soon!