Quickie

This is only a quick update to tell you all that I am actually alive! I still have no electricity at home therefore we have been longer without that with it, proud. I will try and get internet soon so that I can update you about the Kampala weekend, which was an adventure, the King coming, not that exciting right? School, the kids, Justine, home sickness and Jinja (that's where we are now!)

Last night we went to the source of the Nile which wasn't overly exciting but still a good laugh. We are visiting Phoebe and Sigrid at their project just now and took a trip up to Jinja which is a great place, in my opinion better than Kampala, however very touristy, never far from a white person! The source was really fun though, we went and had a cold beer while watching the sun set over the river before going into town and having an Indian! So good! Chicken Tikka Masala every time, right? 

Today I'm not sure what the plan is, but I am sure we will find some sort of adventure! We always do. Sigrid seems to think I am going to do some work out with her this morning, but actually I am going to eat a stack of pancakes with bananas and maple syrup, the healthy option since there is banana! Hopefully the sun will appear as it is quite cloudy and we can go swimming in the Nile, Bilharzia here we come! 

Hope everyone is well, everyone here is great! Our hosts are more our family than ever before taking us places, having dinner together and just generally always being together. It has really helped my home sickness as I swear Justine and Moses are just like Michelle and Kieth (sis and her hubby if anyone doesn't know) which although makes me miss them, also makes me feel like I have family here to look after me! Better dash, Holly keeps looking at the computer longingly, although I do like to think it is me she is looking at! 

Watch out!

So I thought after all this time I could maybe let you see my beautiful face again! I must prepare you though it is hard to wash properly out of a bucket so prepare to be scared of what you will see. Uganda is not the easiest place to look funky fresh lemme assure you!

Hello baby Elinah!

Our night of sugar cane!

Dan likes the camera!

Justine fixed the lamps and helped us make tea, what a lovely evening we had! Later Holly and I sat outside writing our journals with out new lamps!

James and Herbert our great buddies!!

Craft market in Kampala

Who said Africa is hard work? Cocktails in Kampala!

Snuggle time at the pub with Rach! James was jealous of his inability to spoon and later took a major huff about the situation! 

6th October...last entry!

I told you I had a lot to catch you up on, don’t think we do nothing here in Uganda, we are crazy busy laughing and having silly adventures, work you ask? Sorry, not sure what you’re talking about! I seriously feel at a loss never having to use my brain, so thankfully now that Josie has left us I am going to be getting to replace Art with English! I shall actually have to think about lessons and even prepare an exam, the excitement is unreal! I shall no longer be moaning about shading or toning or whatever else I can think of!

Remember I told you about all of the bites we had? Well turned out our lovely friends the rats and bats had shared their friends the flees with us who had thought it would be fun to share our mattresses with us, of course they were so wrong and we quickly poisoned the hungry fellas to ensure they don’t try to bother us again, feels good knowing they were poisoned and that they died a horrid painful death after making us so itchy, sore and miserable! Not only have we had some house guests, but the other night when I went for my late night wee I noticed a cockroach chilling on the wall of my drop loo along with a friendly little lizard, I gave the grass my pee that night!

We have also had some great laughs with Moses and Justine! I cannot get over how welcoming they have been and how much they make me feel like I am part of the family! Justine comes over whenever she passes the house just to say hi or pass us the baby for a bit. She even came over the other night for us to chat and she helped us make dinner, and damn it was tasty! She is really practical too as she fixed our paraffin lamps which looked super grubby which gave us some lovely African light! She has been so welcoming and even gave me a slight hug when I said I missed my sister loads, I swear she is trying to be like a big sister to me which is really helping and making me feel a lot happier at times.

Moses is also hilarious! He came over on the morning we left to go to Masaka and climbed up into our attic to poison our rats which turned out to be bats and started chatting to them shouting “Hello can you hear me?” and “It’s only me, Moses, stop being so loud! Are you scared? You should be!” Now I know it may not sound too funny, but imagine you are standing downstairs and a black man has disappeared into your ceiling and is shouting these things, so damn funny! He has also come to make sure we feel ok and even let us charge our phones during church as they had a generator. Moses the legend and Justine my Ugandan big sister!

We are now in Masaka, however when I finally get round to posting this I will probably be in Kamapala as we are going there to meet up with the other volunteers and meet our doc for the year. I am also planning on taking full advantage of having a tap and washing some clothes while I am there! However while we have been in Masaka we have done anything but be quiet and reserved as we probably should be, not us though! Instead we have ridden a boda boda (a motorbike taxi) up to somewhere which was closed and then we wandered along the road ignoring all the “hey Muzungu” calls and laughing at some things which were probably not that funny. We then ended up dancing and singing our hearts out towards our hotel when a truck went past with a DJ on the roof blasting ‘Where is the Love?’ by Black Eyed Peas. Well I don’t know what came over us, but Holly and I ended up going crazy and dancing like mad. Seriously so much fun.

Anyway I must dash as I have been sitting here for about an hour typing up our adventures for the past week, mum will be happy now as in every call she has mentioned that I need to update my blog, I reckon her old age has kicked in and she has forgotten what no electricity means, and finally I have done it. I hope you are happy Mother because I am now bursting on a pee and going to have to persuade Holly that we should go down for a drink from the bar although it is way past our usual bedtime as it is fast approaching 9pm! Damn I am becoming a real party animal eh? 

6th October...I wasn't lying!

I thought it was time to start another post seen as what I am about to type is super exciting…I have been here for one whole month…and I have survived! Woo! It is incredible to think that I have been away from my family for a whole month now, well it is in fact more than a month but still! It is a bloody long time!

To celebrate our managing to stay for at least one month we had a party! Okay this is a lie, but we did go to a party! We were invited up to the Good Samaratan school to witness the passing over between sixth formers and eat lots of yummy food and dance, which was super good fun! We were also going up because some of our pupils were singing which was cool. Actually it was really cool because after they had performed they were told they had to do something, which I didn’t quite understand but hey, and they performed a song I had taught them in choir! Literally almost cried with pride. Was one of the greatest moments I have had here in Uganda for a song, granted a pretty simple “repeat-after-me” song, that I had taught to be sang by my pupils and the audience enjoyed it! It turned me into a happy puppy and I was that odd Muzungu that stood up and clapped like a seal at the end of the performance!

As well as the great performance we also had some fab dancing. After a meal that would put anything Dad tries to serve up to shame, we went back to the hall where the kids were dancing and we got to join in! It was hilarious and honestly felt great busting a move again! Not quite loft standard with those shape cuttings and VK’s, but our mountain dew and random butt shaking was up to quite a good standard! We were actually asked to get up with our kids and dance for the audience which was hilarious, I followed Sylvia since she can actually dance, don’t panic I didn’t embarrass myself too much! The guys are hilarious when they dance, they do not hold anything back when getting their groove on they just go for it. However Holly and I must have been the best because we were given sweets for doing so well! Apparently it is something that people do here which I seriously think we should introduce back home. Imagine dancing in a club at home and instead of a creep trying to get in your face with his awful dancing he just hands you a sweet?! We’d probably not accept it, y’know “never accept sweets from strangers” but it would be so much nicer.

I have noticed that about Uganda though. Back home I am so suspecting of everyone you forget that not everyone wants to kill you, in fact quite the opposite here! Everyone just wants to marry you or make sure that you eat loads of food, I am telling you Uganda really is so unbelievably friendly. We even found really friendly Americans! We met them up at the party and once we had got talking they gave us food! I am telling you, everyone wants to feed us, I really do think I am going to come home super fat if life continues in this way! But they were lovely and so happy to just chat to us and of course we had our good old buddy James there for them to chat to as well, was such a lovely evening!

Sadly, Josie did not enjoy being fed by strangers, the dusty roads and our beautiful shack as she left Uganda this week. It was a shame to lose one of the three but it is her decision and although I think we will always be of different opinions on leaving I hope she doesn’t live to regret it. I suppose in a way I am jealous of her be able to just give up, but then I remember why I am here and am no longer jealous as I am going to have a fantastic year and although I might fear not having Greg or Rachel or any other friends that might move on when I am away, I will always have my family and Holly when I return home.

As Josie has left us, I have now moved into her bed so that Holly and I are now not only house mates, but roommates. Am I excited? Damn straight I am! If we ever get into an argument I will be able to lunge myself over and make it a proper fight…only issue is the net which could prove the whole thing a little difficult and end with us in hysterics! Don’t panic though Holly and I are yet to come across anything which causes us to argue or fall out which I am hoping we just don’t ever discover! However the only issue with moving beds is that I no longer have the princess bed! How will I ever survive? I think I might just make a crown and put it onto my new bed so that it feels like a princess bed although it is nothing like the real deal, at least if we have any visitors they can stay in the princess bed and feel like a princess for a few nights!

Although Uganda does feel super safe and friendly all the time, I mean only the other day I was asked, “Why are you so beautiful?” clearly this guy was blind as I hadn’t washed my hair in about a week and I am pretty sure I had a mud streak on my face (trying to fit in with the black folk so just going to rub myself in mud to become black!) but it was lovely to hear. However apart from all the laughs we have been having, sadly somebody broke into our kitchen and stole, not the pots, pans, cutlery or even loads of food, but a handful of our nuts which were a gift from the Americans! I was raging! It was so good and some ratty little kid thought that they could have some, I probably would have even given them some if they had asked but they had to be super cool and steal it! Trust me when I find whoever committed such a dangerous crime of stealing food from Madam Jenny, I shall have my evil and painful revenge…cue evil laugh!

Oh well, “no point crying over spilt milkshake” as the lady from Grease would say! We have had some fantastic laughs! Although I have not felt great and slept way more than I could have imagined possible, we have had some hilarious times! On Saturday we had James and Herbert over for a chat and Holly actually played shop with them pretending to sell sunglasses, I think Herbert and I were about to wet ourselves while Holly and James were deadly serious and even bartering with one another! Oh the fun, but honestly you forget how fun the games you played when you were little were! If I have any advice for all you grown ups, play some childish games and enjoy reminiscing your childhood with your friends. I found all of this hilarity too much and had to take a nap but because our mattresses were outside I put two chairs together and curled up like a foetus and fell sound asleep. Bloody uncomfy nap though but I must have been a bit sleepy as I slept like baby Elinah! 

6th October, this is a long one!

Well, well, well, I have so much to tell you all! I have been making notes about all of my adventures and there is a page covered in abbreviations to ensure everything actually fitted…it still didn’t though! I think I shall have to break this blog down into about 3 or 4 entries though otherwise it will just be too much, and I am well aware how much us Brits enjoy a cuppa while reading, and you will definitely need more than one!

I suppose I better explain why I have taken so long to blog! First of all I wasn’t feeling to funky fresh due to the bites and was sleeping an awful lot as well as having to deal with babies being thrust into my arms at every opportunity. And then disaster struck when our power line was cut! That’s right, it was snipped in half!! Apparently our host Moses (who I will talk about a lot more later, he is seriously a legend!) hadn’t paid his electricity bill and the top dog was not pleased so cut us off. But never fear as we handled the situation pretty well! It actually made me realise how pathetic I am without a phone and how much I would normally depend on electricity, but when we were cut off from the power we actually managed well! Of course we are not privileged enough to have electricity to cook from or to have a tv powered in our little shack, but we do have laptops, camera’s, phones, ipods and kindles. As you all know these very much depend on electricity so when the power is down, eventually so are they! But we have coped and I am now reading Anne Frank’s diary, something I have wanted to do for a long time, however I am slightly disappointed in it; bummer!

Anyway, without the electricity we have done lots of mad things, like talk! Can you actually believe it? Teenagers without a phone in their hand, talking to one another…to each others faces! Don’t worry I am just as shocked as you, but it is really good! I think the grown-ups might be right in that we really don’t need to have our phones glued to our hands. Not only have we spoken to one another a lot but we have also spoken to our neighbours an awful lot! One neighbour in particular who wants to speak to us nearly every day is James. Not only is he rather chatty but he doesn’t half know how clever and fit he is! He tries to make everything a competition, but never fear I will beat him in the eating competition he has challenged me to…the fool!!

Something which is super cool and you should all appreciate is that in our little shack, in a dusty village that I am pretty sure even Ugandan’s have never heard of, I feel like Carrie Bradshaw! Eep! It is so cool! We have a desk in our house which faces out the window onto the street, which is just like Miss B! It is very exciting and to all of those who should receive letters fairly soon prepare for me to compare myself to my idol an awful lot. Due to this fantastic new realisation I have actually written an awful lot of letters! When I say a lot I mean about 5 in a day…and with the amount I write I swear Advanced higher Drama essays seem like a breeze to the hand now. Good luck to all that are going to receive those letters because I think I was also going a little mad, can you really blame me though?

We had a very scary experience for the first time in our lovely little village one night though. It may sound like nothing, but honestly I think we were all a little close to tears and even the memory makes me shiver…we went to the cinema! Oh it was horrid! It was honestly like we were being taken to get killed. I even whispered to Paul, who had kindly offered to take us to this hell hole, “I’m scared!” and he just laughed…HE LAUGHED!? When we later told Justine and Moses that we had gone to the cinema at night they were shocked and gave us a row…your never really far from your parents are you? The cinema is literally a dirty room with a tv that has a film on with a translator on the entire time speaking really loudly! For all we knew he was making the entire film up or making fun of us, but bleeding nora the guy would not shut up! Not only that, but we were also squished into a room, which would usually have only 20 people in it in Britain due to health regulations, but no we had about 60 people in there, all snuggled up tightly...in roasty toasty Uganda!

Something I have realised while I have been over here is how proud I am of my family. I sat and thought about the achievements they all have and it made me a little teary to think I can now add something of my own to our list of achievements. I also realised that I am pretty sure my Dad is my hero. Yes, I know, I have lost it, I am calling my father my hero, but I swear he really is! Everything he has achieved in his life is amazing and he is now in a job which he loves! I mean he is just back from Chicago watching the Ryder Cup which I am sure any golf fanatic would love, so imagine my Dad’s cheery little face to this situation! I am super proud of him and can’t help think that I am one of the luckiest girls in the world to have such a fabulous and supportive family!

Before it all went dark!

Yesterday, Sunday 23^rd September,  was such a strange but fantastic day! I had woken up not feeling great from whatever these bite things are, plus I hadn’t exactly slept well…or at all! But I got myself up and sat with Holly discussing our dreams. Then I headed out and bought some eggs for Holly and I to have French toast, which was amazing!! I don’t know if I said, but we got ketchup (Heinz no less) and it was the best thing in the world. We shall definitely be eating more of that in the future!

After breakfast we were sitting chatting and chilling before thinking about getting ready for church. It was one of those mornings where we are a little emotional so we all had a hug and a little cry in the kitchen before heading to do some things. After our cry mum called, it was possibly one of the greatest things that could have happened! I was super emotional and missing my mum like mad and then she called, I swear that woman has super powers! So we spoke, and cried, and spoke and probably blubbered a load of nonsense. I asked all about her birthday and what she had done, it must have been an odd one because she didn’t have me or dad, which probably upset me more than it should have. But after talking to mum I sat in the house alone and had a little cry. I wasn’t feeling great, I was shattered and hearing mums voice had made me realise how much I am missing her, but Holly and I have worked out that we only have 10 and a half months to go.

After my over-flow of emotions I wiped my face and ran down to church, I was late for bible study and I am actually getting quite into learning about Christianity. Once there I had a laugh and talked to Herbert a little, he is such a sweet guy and reminds me of Daniel, only black! I have actually had to refrain from just giving Herbert a hug, as that would be insanely inappropriate but I feel like he is just like my ‘baby cuzz’!

At church they always have a big song and dance at the start, literally! It is great fun and everyone, even the old birds, are throwing themselves everywhere. It is an experience I don’t think I will ever forget and one that makes me feel at home, but of course tired old Jenny was upset by this and let out a few tears. A little girl noticed this and handed me her baby then hugged me round the waist, I couldn’t help but smile and think about how lucky I was. One of my students was at the front crying, her Uncle had died and she had already lost her father some months ago. I felt stupid for crying so quickly wiped my eyes and made all of the younger children join in with my ridiculous dancing. While we were sitting listening to Moses giving his sermon, which is very repetitive but quite funny to watch, Justine passed us a note inviting us to Caca’s birthday. We gleefully accepted, however soon realised we had no idea which kid was Caca or how old they were going to be…slight issue!

We got back from church and since I was still knackered I decided a nap was the perfect way to prepare for the party of the mystery child. The nap helped loads and although I was still itchy all over from millions of bites, I was ready to par-tay! We wandered down the road and were immediately invited in to the living room (a first!) where we were served so much food including chicken and beef!!!! It was all too much, so I ate and ate and ate and ate and ate, I think I probably had about 4 helpings! It was fantastic. We then chilled out with the family while other children arrived ready to party. When the party started there was music, popcorn, fizzy juice and some pork (more meat, result!) so of course we were all in out element. We spent the evening dancing, laughing, singing, eating and having a really great time and it was only towards the end that we realised which kids birthday it actually was, although we covered it pretty damn well!

Once we had returned home we had a quick wash and then headed to our own beds, however two hours later at around 11, Holly whispered something to me and ended up in my bed chatting. Then we ended up out on a walk on a hunt for chapatti’s before we discovered the place was closed seen as it was almost midnight. Giggling like drunk teenagers, although we were completely sober, we wandered home and had a laugh about how silly the idea had been. Holly then announced she was going to go through to her own bed and left me.

It was a long night though, because sadly I couldn’t sleep, however I must have dozed off at some point because at 10 to 7 my alarm woke me up to a feeling of queeziness and itching. I had more bites or spots on my body and had lost all my energy, there was no way I could go to school. I stumbled back down from the loo desperate not to throw up and told Holly how I was feeling. She wrapped me up in her blanket as well as my sleeping bag and told me not to worry she would handle my classes, I have been given an angel!

However my day off has been anything but relaxing. I slept for the first two hours until the girls returned home at break to eat, they made me have some rice so that I could take my doxy and then left for school, I lay back in bed with every intention to sleep but then there was a knock at the door. Justine had sent a girl up with Elanah and Dan (4 years old) and asked me to look after them. So I was stuck with the kids. I had Elanah until lunch time and then she had to get home and I still have Dan here, squirming on my bed in his sleep and it fast approaching half past 3. I am so tired and weak that I can’t actually be bothered to take him home and I feel as if I am going to fall back down every time I stand up.

I have called Ian and asked what the bites might be and he said look for bed bugs and if there aren’t any and I don’t get better in a few days I have to go to Kampala to see a doctor in the clinic. I won’t lie I am petrified because I really don’t want to be ill but I just feel awful. I have eaten today but now I feel sick and really don’t want to be here when I feel like this. I want to be in my mum or my dads arms getting cuddles and told everything will be alright, or in Greg’s arms getting a kiss on the head and hearing I love you. I am feeling rubbish and Dan is being so sweet but just reminds me of Jamie and Ellen which makes me sad. He is now just sitting next to me watching me cry saying “Muzungu” so I better go and play a game, or something!

So after a fantastic weekend of meat and games I am now lying on my bed feeling ill and covered in bites, or something that looks like bites, looking after a cute little black kid who can’t speak English and missing home. How I hate Mondays.