Awee bit of life in Kiwangala

Life in Kiwangala is so much more lively and exciting than I ever imagined it could have been. I really feel like this little village is my new home, and the people I’ve come to know feel as though they’ve been friends for years.The school is more or less the same, although we have remade the timetable, so I am now teaching 6 art lessons a week, and 6 English lessons. As well as a joint debating session for all of the seniors and a weekly trip to the school farm with primary 3-6, which includes a 3 mile walk in both directions. It’s a tiring 3 miles as well, as I found out last time, the children all want to run, and, not wanting to disappoint their smiling little faces, I was pushed to the limit! On the way back, after an hour or so of picking maize and piling it up under the jackfruit tree we walked back. To try and distract them from their burning desire to run all the way, I decided to teach them a song, chanting “Where we go, people always ask us, where we come from, so we tell them, we’re from SURE HOUSE!” They loved it, chanting each line after me, and ending on a huge jump for Sure House. This turned out to be quite tiring as well, as whenever I stopped, they would say sing sing! and we’d start again. But it’s empowering, being around all these incredibly tough children, who manage to make fun from the simplest of things.

I found it difficult to begin with, after almost 6 months of having no routine whatsoever. Being thrown in to, not only going to school, but being in charge of a class, even if there were only 4 students! The responsibility was suddenly on me, it was up to no one else, to plan and give these children the lessons they so need and deserve. I now feel like I’m getting into the swing of things, although the heat of the day still makes teaching tricky!

Living here is about so much more than just being in a classroom though, I feel as though I’ve really landed on my feet, it’s great being in a group of 4, every day there’s something going on! Today, at the school farm/garden Calum found an abandoned puppy, so proceeded to borrow a boda to drive it home. So we now have a little puppy living with us!! We’ve named him Nomad, and Calum, Holly and I are trying desperately not to get too attached to it. Later today we’re going to visit a boy’s house, to make sure it is suitable, then, tomorrow we will take Nomad over to his new home.

I’m finishing this today (today being the day after I wrote everything that’s here so far) Calum and I did walk to this little boy’s house, to check that they were ok to take little Nomad. His mum was lovely, and with Derek ( the 12 year old boy who lives next door) as our guide and translator we agreed we would come back tomorrow (today) to give them the dog. As we were about to leave, the mother whispered something to her son, who then ran off, 5 minutes later he reappeared, bearing a chicken, which we were to take, in thanks for the dog! We hesitantly accepted it, and she is now comfortable in our chicken coop at home! Eggs! Derek then took us to his grandmother’s farm which he wanted to show us. He gave us a tour, pointing out the cassava, matoke, bogoya (yellow bananas), passion fruit, mangoes, avocadoes, sweet pototo, Irish potato, jackfruit, and maize. Every inch of available land here is used to grow something, there’s such an abundance of food. On the way back the sun was setting, and I had the strongest feeling since being in Uganda, of how very lucky I am to be here.

Thank you again to everyone who helped me get here, everyday I feel something inside me expands a little, (and I’m not just talking of the weight gain that comes from a diet of matoke!) so thank you.

Bits of my holidays .. Boda ride Kabale to Kisoro

Rather than trying to write out everything I did whilst travelling I thought I might write out little bits of my diary, as it all seems quite a long ago now and it won't be so fresh if I try to write about it now.

But, here's the schedule, so you can see where the little bits of diary are coming from...

14th, set off from London
15th, landed in Kampala, stayed for 2 nights in my big fancy house
17th, post bus to Kabale
18th- 21st Lake Bunyonyi for 3 nights
21st-23rd, Kabale, tried to leave on the 22nd, but had to go back as our motorbike broke
23rd, Lake Mutanda
24th, Kisoro
25th, Kabale again
26th, set off EARLY for the Ssese Islands
26th-30th, Hornbill campsite on Bugale Island
30th-2nd, Kampala
2nd, traveled to Kiwangala, my new home!

.. The next morning in Kabale we all got up to find motorbikes to ride to Kisoro. It took A LOT longer than we had anticipated. My first real taste of Afrcian time! But it did mean I got the chance to learn how to ride a bike, which was fab. It didn't help that Sam was set on getting a dirt bike, we waited for a loong time for a guy to come with a bike. Turned out the bike needed some maintenance  so followed a couple of trips to different garages. One of which trips resulted in my jacket ending up entwined in the chain of the bike. he arrived back, holding my jacket, covered in motor oil, with a line of holes down the back in the perfect pattern of the chain. A man called Vian, who made Sam and I pairs of trousers (I will post a picture) hapenned to be there, he said he knew someone who could clean it for me, so I left it with him. Finally, 3pm (5 hours later than anticipated) we set off on our dirt bike, Stuart on his, with John on the back, Calum on his boda bike and Al and Kelty (a Canadian couple we met at Bunyonyi) on another boda. We were a real Muzungu convoy! Really beautiful road.. we made it  30km, (out of 70) before our bike spluttered and cut out, I realised when we stopped that the burn I had got from a boda exhaust the other day had stuck to my legging, by which time, we'd gathered an eager crowd of children, who gathered round me to watch the Muzugu apply a dressing, with my first aid kit open, they were enthralled  it was really quite funny! By the end, the brave ones were literally peering over my shoulder! Al then rolled our bike down to the next village which was conveniently positioned at the bottom of the hill, where we gathered another crowd. The drunk chairman tried to join our convoy, asking for a ride to Kisoro, very persistently. Sam and I waited at the health centre for the boda owner to turn up to collect his broken bike. A man called Herbert stood and chatted to us, whilst it gradually went dark. Eventually he showed up, on the back of another boda! By which time we'd had enough of the bike, so handed over the keys, and managed to hitch a lift back to Kabale in a 4x4, a posh one. Not quite sure how the boda man managed to make it back with his broken bike. The next morning we were up at 7am, hopped on a bike and were off again, take 2. It was a cold morning, the wind on the bike was bitter, but we were happy to be off on a good bike! Everything was even more beautiful with the morning sun shining on it. Mist still in the valley. We stopped to say hi to Herbert on our way through his village. BEAUTIFUL ride. Over a mountain, we passed through the edge of a national park, and made it Kisoro by 11, as everyone was getting up. There are huge volcanoes that tower over the town here, the tallest is Volcan Muhavara which is 4127m, and well into the clouds.

That turned out to be a lot longer than I was expecting... Sorry if I'm going into too much detail! I have so much to write about, but I feel like I have to do everything I write about justice. I'll write again before I leave this place with internet!
Love to everyone

My new home in Kiwangala

This was written yesterday evening… and now I have internet I can post it on here J

Feels like a long time ago now, that I was on the little islands on Lake Victoria. I’m sat on my bed in my new home in Kiwangala, and it really does feel like home, it’s strange, I never thought it would be this easy to settle into a place. Calum is sat at the end of the bed playing his guitar. He’s feeling far too smug as he just scared the life out of me by jumping out behind my wall in the dark. We have no electricity in our little section of the house. I tried to attach some photos to this blog.. but my camera is being akward, Louis, if you were here, you'd know what to do! but I will post some photos so you can see what the setup is like here. We have 2 houses, which is basically 1 house with 4 rooms and 2 front doors, so we all have our own room, the front room in both houses leads through to the back room, which then goes out to our garden. The garden is fab, it’s walled in which means we can lounge around in shorts, to our hearts content, showing your legs in public is a big no no here. We have a groovy little lean-to with a big picnic table under it, and another little building which is our kitchen, Jenny and Holly painted it yellow and blue and we have a hob in there. At the end of the garden are our long drops, we have 6! For 4 of us. Then we have our fire pile, where we put all our rubbish to burn, and next to that is a pen for chickens.. which we’re going to get! When Calum and I were playing pool this evening along at the pool place in Kiwangala I was speaking to a guy who told me where we could get some. Then we have a little walled in bit which is for washing. Having no water is pretty hard, it’s like camping constantly, but when it rains we collect the water off the roof, and a few days ago James, an ex-pupil showed us where the bore holes were in the village, Jenny and Holly had never been before! I think they must never have washed for 5 months! But, turns out they’re not that far away, about 1km, so yesterday Jenny and I walked along and she helped me wash a load of clothes. Then I washed my hair under the pump, it felt so good to have unlimited relatively clean water.

So that’s our home, thank you for all your comments on my last blog, it means a lot to hear from everyone! Hope you all got my replies, not promising I’ll do that every time though!

I have so much more to say! Another blog to follow..