Home - but where is home?

‘Home is where the heart is.’ I’m not sure who said this but I swear they did consider me! Of course I am excited about coming back to Scotland and starting the next chapter and at times I find myself thinking, ‘is it time yet?’ but I don’t really think I can call it home now. But then I can’t call my wonderful little house in Kiwangala home either, so where is it?

I have been here for a whopping 10 months now which is wonderful, incredible and scary! I have experienced so many crazy adventures which have honestly changed my life and forced me to mature in ways I didn’t want to until I was at least 30. I have held a child as they cry because their father has died, cried with a boy, a brother, because he is in unbelievable pain and there is nothing I can do and consoled a grown man as he fears for his daughters life. I now understand why my dad would say “I want to take your pain, I do.” because I have felt that. I have wanted to take away the pain and sickness from so many children, adults and friends, but like I always told my dad, “You can’t do that.”

Today I haven’t been feeling too great, in fact I was sent home by my Ugandan Mother because of my flu and the fact that I was almost asleep while walking. I had woken up this morning with an aching body and a drum in my head so loud I thought there was going to be a little rock concert and at any moment Led zeppelin would be playing, loud! Therefore after walking to school slower than any Ugandan, sending a child home because she was ill, giving my class too much work and collapsing into Justine’s arms, I returned to the house where I lay in Kate’s bed, snuggling up to both Calum and Kate while watching the end of One Day. At the end of the movie, they both realised they had classes so shot out the door while I slept for a good 2 hours.

Having slept and still feeling down but not tired I have sat thinking about home and I am still stuck and confused about where exactly it is. Abernethy, Kiwangala or am I just going to become a gypsy like my Grandad always said? As well as trying to work out this puzzle I have been very excited about the idea of yet another adventure next year! It looks like I might be moving to Glasgow folks, as the lovely people from Cardonald College have decided I fit the bill to study Journalism for 2 years! Life just keeps throwing wonderful surprises my way, which I am gladly accepting!

I am aware I still have another 2 months left but it has really hit me about how little time I have left in my haven, but hey! I am sure I will have plenty new adventures to go on in my life because like Grandad once told me, “You’re just like a little gypsy, aren’t you Jennifer?”

Vanacular, Truck and Swimming in the Lake

I have said this before but I must reiterate the fact; there is never a quiet day in Uganda. Although I may sometimes think I have had a dull day and done very little I will look back on my day and realise, ‘Woah, I was actually really busy!’ That is what I like about my life here the most. Although I may think I have had a quiet day and not really done anything, it is rarely the truth!

This weekend we went for a trip down to Kabale. However before the trip we had a pretty dramatic week with beating in the school. As a lot of you know I am very against beating in every possible way, therefore when I found out that someone (supposedly our honest friend) had beaten some of the children in the school for speaking “Vanacular” (i.e Lugandan!) I was outraged. After hearing about it I decided to not get too angry but instead do some research because nobody wants to be falsely accused of beating a child! So research I did, only to hear what I didn’t want; the children claimed they had been beaten, I was not happy. To the point I left the house and sat outside the church just letting the emotion pour out of me in tears.

After quite some time of crying and feeling confused, lost and clueless, Justine walked out of the church and held me in a big cuddle until my tears subsided. It took a little longer than probably necessary but that might have also been because I miss my Mum and Michelle giving me cuddles when I am upset therefore welcomed the cuddle with open arms (literally!). After a long talk with Justine I felt much better and walked home with a plan. I was going to carry out more research, talk to the others and then head to a “meeting” on Friday to discuss the matter with everyone. I hear you ask why is it a “meeting”? That is because it was a bit of a joke! Firstly one of the teachers took a tantrum, then another teachers phone kept ringing (I’ll let her off though because her child is in hospital with malaria) and then the teacher who I wanted to question was SUDDENLY very busy as soon as the matter was brought up, well I felt like walking out. I was furious and to make matters worse, NOTHING WAS RESOLVED!! However a P7 boy did come round and say the teacher in question had said to him, “You are not to talk to those Bazungus about anything.” To conclude, I still have no idea what is going on, but it is bloody frustrating I can tell you that!!

On a brighter note, I had another wonderful weekend! After the meeting had finished Kate and I walked home to make ourselves some yummy African Chi (Milk tea with mixed spices!) which, with a mix of some good tunes, made me pretty cheery! After a quick dance around my room, pack and getting Calum ready we managed to get to the taxi end of the village. This was a little stressful but instead of boring you with another unsettling story I will skip to the exciting part, we managed to get a truck to Masaka! It was unbelievably exciting! I felt so free and independent, I felt like nobody could tell me what to do and that I was really living the dream. I may have arrived in Masaka with a few scratches (hit by a tree) and a very dirty face but none of that mattered, because life is good!

Saturday morning we were up early to get a bus down to Kabale to meet Holly and Emma who had gone down on the Friday. It took a while and although it cost a little more than it should have we had comfy seats and good laughs (plus a little snooze!) Eventually we made it to Kabale where we bought fabric to make into trousers, ate some food and then headed over to a little island via dug-out canoe. It was another wonderful journey as we watched the sun set, played guitar and occasionally put our cameras down long enough to row, it was another trip that reminded me of how much I love Uganda.

Eventually we made it to the island to meet the other two who were making themselves some fruit salad and drinking Amurula, for any of those who don’t know, it is a cheaper Bailies, so good though!! We didn’t have to late a night because for some reason we were all pretty knackered and ready to get into what was about to be the comfiest beds I had ever experienced in Uganda, I slept like a log that night!!

Sunday was spent swimming in Lake Bunyonni, trying and failing to get groupie jumping photos and canoeing around the place, although we did very little canoeing as the water was so good to swim in! I really enjoyed my day and hated when it was over because although we were going to get a yummy Crayfish stew, it meant it was time to leave the island and head back to Kabale. After a quick change (I couldn’t be bothered showering) we headed back to the mainland for our crayfish stew and a lovely boda ride back to Kabale.

Once we reached Kabale Kate and I found a spectactular market where as per usual we managed to buy some new clothes. I am telling you this, if Scotland had markets like the ones here I would have more clothes than Victoria Beckham, I think right now I am on a par with her! I keep giving things away but somehow the pile is still has big, if not bigger! Therefore after successfully spending 50p on two pillow cases, a new jumper, a new dress and a cool bit of fabric we headed to the hostel we were staying in. I amn’t sure what was wrong with us this weekend but we were all very tired very early so headed to bed about 10ish, the party animals that we are!

Monday! Kate, Calum and I were up at half 6 and heading along for our bus which was due to leave at 7 while Emma and Holly stayed back happy to get matatus. I was more than happy to get up early because I am honestly petrified on matatus and would rather sleep on a bus than risk sleeping forever! Kate and I stopped off in Mbarara where we bought some bread, cucumber, salamis and yummy cheese (my blue cheese is currently stinking out my room!) for our picnic which we ate in a really lovely park. It was nice to have a sandwich again and to be in a park, if it was stifling hot I would have felt like I was home, oh the fact that it hasn’t rained in over a month also made it clear I wasn’t home! Sadly we knew we had to leave therefore after some organic juices we headed for a bus where we had to wait 2 hours to leave!! Ugh, it was horrible but we made it back to the lovely little village we call home in one piece to eat some more cheese and to watch Phantom of the Opera, an all round splendid weekend!

All my love

Your Ugandan Girl. X

Not long left now, am I happy?

As I sit in the garden of my lovely little home in Uganda watching Kate make a fire under our home-made oven and listen to Holly and Emma (our buddy from up the road) discuss what kind of cake they want to make I start to reflect on my life here. It seems to have hit all of us how little time we have left in this haven we have created, which I think is quite clear in my back statement, oops!

Since arriving back from my wonderful two weeks in Europe I arrived back straight into work and if I had thought last term was challenging I was underestimating what Moses thought I could manage. I arrived back to find out that I was not only teaching the classes I had been teaching the year previously but also Primary 3 English (THEY CAN’T SPEAK ENGLISH!), Primary 4 Omega (I’ll get to that) and Primary 5 Omega drama, a lot of work resulting in me being exhausted at the end of each day and not wanting to talk to anyone. Therefore after only 1 week of working on the new timetable I stormed down to Moses with numerous complaints about my workload, for example I was working more than twice as much as Kate, is that really fair?!

So the Omega business: basically Moses has split the class up into two groups; Alphas and Omegas, or as the children now know it, the Clever kids and the Stupid kids. Personally I don’t really like the split as the children in Omega are feeling pretty down due to their new labels. I teach the Omega’s drama and sometimes English as their English is so unbelievably shocking, while the Alphas are sat in the classroom learning a new language such as Spanish (by Kate) or French (by Holly) which is pretty pointless, again in my opinion. However other than the few obvious problems, the new timetable is working really well. We have some great things to try and kick the childrens imagination into action and also teach them new things such as bakery which Holly is doing with Primary 6. The children all seem to be a little happier at school and they are given more of a chance to get away from the dull classroom environment.

As I am sitting here writing my blog Calum has just returned with 3 of our neighbours boys Derick, Eric and Enock to teach them time, it is very sweet! However because Enock is only 9 years old and speaks very limited English the little rascal took the axe away from me and chopped the wood that I was failing to chop, bested by a nine year old! Our little home has been buzzing with life recently with Emma here at least once a week, the 4 boys from next door (they have another brother called Kagezi) are over all the time as they borrow our bike to collect water and often take our jerry can as well as their own, strong and wonderful boys. As well as children over a lot of every day we also have our Ugandan friends over every day, which is honestly becoming a bit of a nuisance! We have made a big decision tonight that we are going to have a word with some of them because it is getting to the point that we get no time to ourselves to just be ourselves!

Although I am spending a lot of money outside the project on various exciting trips such as going to Kabale which we have planned for this weekend seen as Emma hasn’t been yet and she leaves in 3 weeks. I have also planned a trip to Murchison Falls with Kate while her family are here, basically I am being a little tag along. Last weekend we decided to go out in Masaka to the club which I was so excited for, God knows why, but it was amazing! Met some hilarious people and had some great dances, the people here are AMAZING dancers! Anyhoo, as well as the exciting adventures I am going on in Uganda I am also spending a fair bit on various things on my project. I have just bought two of the children in my school, Kalisa (the child I seriously want to adopt) and Nabagasera (HIV positive child who has been severely abused) new school uniforms, even though I have stormed home from the original seamstress because she was trying to over charge me and had taken a week so I demanded my money back to which she took a tantrum, I am really glad I am doing it. I am also planning to buy new uniforms for the boys I was talking about earlier, Derick, Eric, Enock and Kagezi as their mother is a single mother with HIV who struggles to make ends meet.

I am really excited about the fact I will be coming home in a only 2 months but at the same time I am beginning to dread having to leave this wonderful life. I love the way everything works here and the way people stay happy even when they have nearly nothing to their names. I will miss how welcoming people are here, even when I was home I struggled with not being able to say hello to random people whenever I pleased or just picking up a beautiful child and telling the mother and father that they have a beautiful child. I am nervous about seeing everyone but at the same time I am very excited to start a new chapter in my life because I have no doubt in my mind that I will be back here as soon as I possibly can. Life is like no other here.

All my love

Your Ugandan Girl. X