Day 5 - Wednesday 15th August

Some of the girls got up early this morning to go visit the refugee camp a few hours drive from here, so instead of waiting for round two of breakfast we ate a papaya we had been given and tried to get some photos off our cameras onto USB sticks for later.

One of the girls had said yesterday that she wanted to take the class this morning with an English lesson, so we decided to go paint one of the baby classrooms that isn’t being used. James got some paint and rollers for us and we were shown to a small, filthy and very old classroom on the far side of the playground.  There was bat poo all over the teachers desk, and only matting for the children. The book case was overflowing with paper, mud, wood and old books some only the hardback covers with no actual stories inside.

We gave the walls a first coat and then as it was drying we removed everything from the shelves and sorted through tidying as we went and swept the room (with hand brushes made from Ugandan reed grasses!). It looked million times better, but the paint was so thin we couldn’t really tell where we had painted. We put a second coat on and sat on the matting revamping the posters and artwork that we had removed from the walls. It was clear that they didn’t really have too many colours when they made them as most pictures were simple black outlines. Thankfully Mum had donated a big pack of jumbo felt pens so Caroline and I got to work making good use of them.

Lunch was gorgeous; rice, beans, slaw and squash.

After lunch, we tried again to blog and sort some photos, without much success. So returned to the classroom to finish. The second coat didn’t look as bad, but still pretty disappointing, so we finished the posters and left around 4pm gasping for a brew. Unfortunately afternoon tea is not delivered until 5pm, so I went to lie down for a bit and wait – but fell asleep - not good. Thankfully when I woke at 545 there was enough left for a cuppa, but the milk, which has to be heated for us as its not pasteurized, was running very low. Still a good brew, although I do miss my Early Grey.

Dinner was chips, tomatoes, slaw, plantain and gouda cheese (a treat from Denis).

Then we retired to the campfire to watch Rolex’s being made. First they make a chapatti (flour and water pancake) with carrots and onions in, then they make an omelette with cabbage and carrot in, then they lay the two on top of each other and roll up into a sausage.

You were supposed to order a Rolex earlier if you wanted one (and pay an extra 5,000 UGS), which Caroline and I didn’t – but I’m now hoping we get another chance – they looked quite good.