Celebrating Sabrina’s birthday

Into the life of every VSO volunteer must occasionally drop a little luxury – and we had ours last weekend at the Ndali Lodge. We went there, one of Uganda’s ‘most stunning retreats’, to celebrate Sabrina’s 40th birthday. Well that’s what the owner kept saying and he should know! The history of the lodge is fascinating. It was originally bought by the present owner’s grandfather, who was kicked out of Uganda by Amin. When the present government said that such owners could get their land back if they produced title deeds, the current owner’s father came back with his title deeds and reclaimed it.

We arrived just in time for a lunch of macaroni cheese bake with home grown salad from their garden. Then round the pool to cool down, take in the wonderful view and generally relax until dinner. There were 10 guests staying and we were an eclectic bunch. A gay couple who had just seen the gorillas and worked in finance in Canary Wharf, a couple on their honeymoon, which had lasted for 6 months and was about to end with a trip to see the gorillas, 2 New York singleton women who were in fashion and the law and lived up to stereotype by never stopping, a young couple who managed an upmarket lodge in the south of Uganda and a Dutch/American couple who worked for NGOs in Kampala and had diplomatic immunity as the female partner was attached to the US embassy on bed net distribution. Oh and us! The owner and his fiancée were also at dinner which was great fun with brilliant and wide-ranging conversation as well as the first alcohol since the plane. The 4 course meal was very tasty with some great conversation.

In the morning we got up late, had breakfast and then went down a very steep hill to take out the boat. By the jetty there were 3 local teenagers who were fishing from reed canoes that they had made themselves and which looked exceedingly hard to balance on, yet they were able to catch fish and paddle around without looking unstable at any time. One even spread his hands wide apart to indicate how the big the fish he caught were, but we only saw him catch tiddlers – fishermen are the same the world over. We just paddled around and let the wind push us about, then moored and slowly walked back up the steep sides of the crater lake.

We lunched overlooking the lake, were presented with a date cake for Sabrina’s birthday, then set off back to Kamwenge. The weather was lovely and the roads were full of Ugandans in their Sunday best strolling along in family groups or sitting in groups just chatting. It was lovely to watch and see their happy, smiling faces. In Kibale Forest we saw 3 family groups of baboons enjoying the evening sun and stopped right next to them. There was also a blockage caused by a road grader improving the road through the forest which necessitated some delicate vehicle manoeuvring across a pile of loose earth at a 45º angle with 4 wheel drive engaged.

Overall a wonderful weekend and a great way to celebrate Sabrina’s birthday.

Sabrina wanted to let you know that she does the washing too!

Next week Justine is doing the washing and cleaning for us. She works at the hotel next door and is glad to earn some extra money.

2 weeks gone and the highlights of this week are:

• Sabrina went out with district health team to clinics in the north of the district to deliver bikes to village health workers, as well as condoms and drugs. She visited 6 clinics, leaving the office at 11 in the morning and getting home at 7.30 in the evening! The vehicle had seen better days and had a cracked windscreen where the bonnet had come open and smashed against it. It overheated twice during the day and lunch was matooke and groundnut sauce at a small café deep in the bush.
• Kees and Freddy, two Dutch VSOers from Fort Portal, a large town about 1 ½ hours drive away, came to visit us and brought some luxuries that we cannot get in Kamwenge. These were weetabix, ribena, processed cheese and long-life milk. It was good to meet people in the same situation as us and compare notes. They have bought a little RAV-4, which is a first-time sold Japanese import. It is 4 wheel drive and very useful but apparently the paperwork took twice as long as expected – bureaucracy is the same everywhere!
• Sabrina attended a meeting between the district health team and two UNICEF officials who closely questioned the staff about how they done against their targets and how well they had spent UN money. Good to know that there is close follow up of donor funds.
• Sorting out health questionnaires for when we go into school. We had a late meeting until about 9.30 one evening as we had to get the draft sent to Kampala for approval by 9 the following morning.
• We attended a workshop for local councillors on water run by the Department for Water Development. Many interesting facts came out as well of lots of background information that will help us to be more focused on our health promotion work. We learnt about deep boreholes, hand dug wells, ordinary and improved springs.
  
• Each borehole and well is expected to serve 300 people, and each spring 150 people;
• At least 30% of households have no adequate sanitation;
• Only 70% of water sources are functional at any one time;
• The community that benefits is expected to contribute about £66 towards the total cost of a £4500 deep borehole and similar proportions for the cheaper types of sources;

There are many challenges to increasing the number of sources, including:-

• Low understanding of the relationship between water, sanitation, health and hygiene;
• Sanitation not seen as a priority by decision makers;
• Cost of initial investment seen as too high by low-income families;
• Lack of locally available materials;
• Lack of adequate and regular water supplies in the right places;
• Competing demands for limited family resources.
  

We really feel that we have made good progress this week in terms of our understanding of the culture and background issues which will help us when we are out working with schools. We are also being recognized and greeted by colleagues that we see around town as well as learning some local language – well ‘hello’, ‘good afternoon’, ‘thank you’ and ‘goodbye’!!

After opening a Ugandan bank account in Fort Portal the other day, we stopped off on the way home for a soda at a crater lake. It is steep-sided with a jetty and is really quiet and beautiful. We will be staying in a lodge near there for Sabrina's birthday at the end of May.

Washing in Kamwenge

.

Yes!! done it at last!!

The Englishman abroad!!

Just note that the panama is fairtrade

Can I publish photos on this blog?

Hoping this text will accompany some photos of us doing the washing - if not the internet connection is too slow to do photos properly - it is a voyage of discovery!!

!st week at Kamwenge

We have now been for one week in Kamwenge and have started to settle in. Most of this week seems to have been about meeting all the important people in the district and building up relationships. The workshops on Tuesday and Wednesday were very useful in giving us an insight into the issues faced in schools. One interesting possibility for the health part of our work is a link up between the agricultural advisory group and schools to promote the growing of fruit and veg in school grounds. This allows pupils to learn how to grow in a better way, gives the opportunity to teach about nutrition and enables surplus food to be given to the poorest children.

On Friday we went to a wedding introduction, which is a traditional African ceremony where the boy is introduced to the bride's-to-be family in a long ceremony. We got there at 2 and it was still going when we left at 7.30pm. The funniest bit is where lots of different aged children, then teenage girls then older girls are paraded in front of the boy and he has to pick out his wife-to-be. All of the rest of the girls are given a small gift.

We also ate with our hands - the local way - for the first time. Halfway through there was a massive thunderstorm, but we were in the tent for honoured guests so managed to keep quite dry.

Today we did our washing by hand. Sabrina washed and I rinsed - it was really hard work. It was not helped by putting too much washing powder in the water so we had to rinse twice as much as is usual. Value your washing machine!

The weather is generally around 25-27 degrees every day so were pleased to see that it was 16 deg in Chelmsford!

1st day at work

We went into the district offices today to meet with our new colleagues. We were introduced to all the education and health officials together with the local politicians who are responsible for health and education. We then had a meeting with our colleagues from Link Community Development to discuss their action plan. There is lots to do in terms of school improvement and we need to be very focussed. Resources are very scarce and we need to ensure that we make the most effective use of the little money that we have. Tomorrow we will be attending a workshop for all the non-governmental organisations working in the district where we will be able to see if any of them can help us with our work.

Our accomodation is basic but comfortable. There is electricity through a generator which is on from approximately 7 in the evening until about 11, so we can use the laptop then. We have also been given a mobile modem which plugs into the laptop and allows us to access the internet at any time we have a charged laptop - which is how I am typing this update. For a person of my technical expertise, it is amazing to just access the internet sitting on the verandah of our house. The generator is also used by the hotel next door and so during premiership games it is on until the games finish - 12 midnight for mid week games. We are looking forward to lots of power during the Euro semi-finals on Tuesday and Wednesday!

We have tried to make our accomodation as homely as possible and have got lots of family pictures on the wall. It is lovely to see all the wonderful times we have had, but also sometimes makes us a little homesick. We are looking forward to getting on with the job of improving children's learning and getting into schools, when the new term starts at the end of this month.