Day 3 - Monday 13th August

Eggs and baby bananas for breakfast followed by a quick goodbye at the roadside to young Sam who left today.

We spent the morning in the school, I started with a science lesson with the headmaster Kenneth before one of the students stormed into the classroom and announced she was doing some craft activities with the children, so Kenneth and I left her to it and I took some of the girls out to play netball which was fine until they started arguing about who was one whose team!

So I got the elastic out again and we had about 10 girls learning the various instructions, IN, ON, OUT, LEFT, RIGHT, TURN. They soon got the hang of it and before long break was over and Jamil (another teacher) called them back in to lessons. I joined Kenneth’s class again since he had moved to the next room where Caroline had been marking work earlier. Nakatu, a young girl who had been playing netball with me, was also in there and so pleased to see me. It was an English lesson.

Following lunch Caroline and I went into town again on a boda boda to get new sandals (my flip flop blisters made netball agony with all the dirt and grit on the floor!)

We put more photos in to be printed at Imani’s this time of the family on the southern hillside, and attempted to kill time at an internet café (which must be the only café that doesn’t serve any kind of food or drink!), Caroline managed to successfully log on, and just as she started to type, the power went out – so we abandoned the idea and returned to collect our photos and another boda boda home – they are excellent fun and a nice way to dry the armpits in the heat.

After dinner (rice and beans), Ollie arranged a poker game for everyone, 5,000 UGS to play and the game started with a 500 UGS minimum bet, which quickly turned into 5,000 as the night worn on. I lasted quite well, considering 11 people started, but Caroline managed to come second only to Neil in the end, a tense and impressive finish for a beginner. Neil walked away with the 55,000 pot and Caroline got her stake back.

Day 2 - Sunday 12th August

Five people left the lodge today - Michelle and Ruth, Laura, Joy and Kat (Irish), and to be brutally honest I wouldn’t mind a few more moving on too – specifically the spoilt gap year kids who are not only lazy, but rude and spiteful – ok so I don’t really fit the mould, I don’t like litter louts, I don’t wear the latest fashion and I don’t have a problem wearing socks with sandals (mosquito protection), but there’s no need for people to be so openly bitchy. Tears and minor paddy over, we had breakfast and went off exploring. This time we chose the southern hillside and climbed to the top of the “mountain”, escorted by Joshua (a 14 year old lad from one of the houses at the start of the hill) – it took us almost an hour to reach the top, but the view and the peace was incredible. We could hear the gospel singers at the funeral already in full swing, and food preparations were well underway as we could see Joshua’s sister set off carrying plantain on her head to contribute. Joshua went back down the hill to water his animals leaving Caroline and I to spend a peaceful time sitting alone admiring the view and the voices.

On the way back down the mountain, we stopped at Norway’s house and taught the children to play elastic and airplanes. Norway was sick and lying on the grass outside the house, so she said she was not going to the funeral, but it seemed most of the villagers in and around Ruhanga would be attending – so we would at least know a few people.

We left Norways and as we passed by Evez and Joshuas house again on the way back to the lodge they invited us for food and drink on Tuesday afternoon. Evez was very excited and said she was looking forward to preparing something special for us to try.

In the afternoon we walked with Denis to the local funeral held at a house in the hills. The old lady who died was an ex councilor and so the event was bigger (and longer) than usual, but interesting nonetheless. The body is placed in a coffin the same as British funerals and flowers are placed on top, but the coffin sat in the garden of the son’s house where a PA system and marquee were set up. Hundreds of people turn up and food is provided by all the villagers donations. The house being on a hill meant that the hillside was covered in yet more attendees who listened to proceedings (mainly singing and speeches) from various members of the family and other villagers who knew the lady. Once all speeches were finished, the coffin was carried down the hill to a hole that had been dug in amongst the banana plants – the crowd follows, clambering over the ploughed ground between the trees and surrounds the hole. Most can’t see what’s happening, but Denis explained all to us whilst his friend took Caroline’s camera in closer for us – the coffin is lowered in and flowers placed on top whilst prayers are said and another song sung. Then the male villagers pick up about 15 spades and each of them shovel for a few seconds before passing the spade to the next male. The hole is filled and a mound created within no more than 5 minutes it was incredible to watch. More flowers are placed on top of the mound and the crowd climbs back up towards the house for drinks, food and chat. At this point we were greeted by all sorts of people wanting to shake our hands, say thank you for attending and ask questions about our work here.  We didn’t stay too long, but walked back down the hill where Denis’ friend was wiaitng to give us a lift back to the lodge.

Dinner of chips, liver and coleslaw, was followed by an evening of writing journals, drinking wine stashed from the plane and nibbles. Another awesome day.

check me out - 3 posts in 1 day!

Caroline and I got up about 730am after our very poor first nights rest.

Breakfast was made after a very hung-over Nita staggered down from her banda demanding eggs on toast from a member of staff - I was mortified, Nevian (Lodge staff lady) was on her hands and knees clearing cigarette buts from the lawn at the time. I started to help her by picking up the empty beer bottles that littered the place and Nita went back to bed to wait for breakfast – the behavior of some of these volunteers is appalling. The staff are not here to clear up after us and it made me quite angry and embarrassed. So after breakfast of eggs, tea and bananas we decided to leave camp and go walking. No school on Saturdays.

So we loaded our rucksacks with camera gear, water and miniature soaps collected from hotels and set off up the hill over the road from the Lodge. In amongst banana trees we followed a trail leading up through the villagers plots and very soon were surrounded by children all wanting to hold our hands and say hello.

“Agandi” is a greeting of the Ankole tribe which is similar to our “hello, how are you?” and is usually met with big smiles and “I’m fine” in perfect English even from the tiny ones.

At the first house, we met a guy making bricks. He is building a new house and needs 10,000 in total. He makes every brick by hand! We spent some time with his family blowing bubbles, taking photos and catching avocados that he threw down from the tree in his garden for us.

The children from the first house (Tracy, Juliette and others with names I can’t pronounce) followed us for the next of hours as we visited house after house on our climb to the top of the hill.  Also at the top, we met Patrick - Ex Ruhanga Lodge English teacher and now working in another school down the road. We took pictures of him and his family and promised to return with prints for him as soon as we could. He was not impressed with Mzungus coming and taking pictures and not giving them any - they think we take them home and sell them!

Came back to the lodge for lunch at 1pm - basic but nice.

In the afternoon we both got on the back of a Boda Boda taxi (motorbike) into town (Ntungamo) which cost 4,000UGS (about 75p), to get some of the photos printed for Patrick. A few interactions with the locals and we found “Imanis” a photoshop where the lady printed our images from SD cards for 500 shillings each print (about 15p) a small price to pay for the look on their faces as we went back up into the banana hills and gave out the prints. The only problem was that when we had taken the photos earlier, all the subjects were in the same house, socializing, but when we returned, they were all back in their own house dotted all over the hillside, so a young girl called Arrin helped us locate them all by looking at the photos – exhausting work!

We had a lovely peaceful dinner on our own as everyone else went to a restaurant for a last night meal for the 5 volunteers who were leaving the next day. Beans and rice with hot cabbage and stashed red wine from the plane.

Wrote our journals all evening until the power went at 915 just as some of the others returned (apparently their meal was awful!), so we ended up going to bed at 930pm which is no bad thing as far as I'm concerned! What an incredible first day – met the locals, learnt some new Ankole words, hitched a ride on a motorbike and got invited to a local funeral tomorrow!

ps

the internet access is slow diabolically slow that there is no way photos can be uploaded - the cursor cannot keep up with the keyboard, let alone redraw the screen in any sensible amount of time.

Arrival and the first night

The place is absolutely nothing like we imagined. When we first walked in, there was a “banda” (An African Roundhouse) on the left with two girls sunbathing on the grass outside; Sarah, a young traveler from Cardiff and Nita a half-caste (can you say that these days?) from London. They had traveled separately, but met on the bus from Kampala a little over a week ago. They seemed friendly enough and to our amazement invited us clubbing in the evening – the last thing we imagined we’d find in this remote village of Ruhanga was a nightclub!

Further into the compound we reached a central area where more girls were sunbathing, reading and chatting and I have to say it was more intimidating than the bus ride had been – but we were shown to our dormitory and decided we’d wash, change and unpack before introducing ourselves to the group.

Our room has 4 beds (2 singles in an L shape and a set of bunks). There is a shower on the wall in one corner above a cold water tap and 2 buckets. A hole in the bottom of the concrete wall allows the water to drain out. There is no toilet, no sink and bars where the windows would normally be. The metal door has a huge hole in it in place of a handle and a sufficient bolt to be able to padlock it shut. There is a kettle, a light and an electric 4 way, but intermittent power.

Caroline got straight to bed exhausted, whilst I had a cold shower and headed out to meet the others and have some tea and chapatis with jam.

The group are ok, very young and all female except for Sam and Ollie. A mixed bag of independent confident travelers from all over the UK, Ireland, and one from America. There is also a 9year old called Fraser who is the son of Erica and Neil who are English but currently living in Dubai. Both are in their mid 30s, making Caroline and I the oldest volunteers in the group. We weren’t expecting to be amongst so many volunteers, we think there are between 15 and 20 here at the moment, we also weren’t expecting school to have finished over a week ago. We were told that our first week would be school term time and our second would be summer camp – so instead of feeding porridge to 400 children, we have only 50-60 to deal with. However there is still plenty of work to do.

The group spent most of the evening by the campfire playing a drinking game whilst Caroline and I pretty much crashed out after a dinner of chips and something similar to coleslaw. The group arranged lifts into town (Ntungamo) for 1030pm to go clubbing – but we were both dead to the world by then.

They managed to wake us up when they returned at 3am though and continued partying on the grass right outside our room until 530am which wasn’t welcome at all. We’ll get them back in the morning.