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.
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
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