The Village!

Hello all!

Well where to begin... I am struggling to believe it is November already! The first month has gone quickly, although it does feel like we have been here for much longer in a strange way as well!  Also finding it particularly bizarre that I can wear shorts and t-shirt everyday, and have the best tan I've had in years (possibly ever!!), but it's November??!

This post will probably be pretty long, so you may want to make a pot of tea and get some biscuits!! Oh and feel free to send me some too... :)

Anyway... I do have a legitimate excuse for not having updated the blog over the past two weeks.  On Saturday the 18th of October we headed out as a team (Me, Ruth, Kathryn, and Innocent) to a village called Kalanamu.  This village was quite remote (basically the middle of nowhere it seemed!), about 2 hours drive from Kampala.  So we had no internet access.

On the Saturday we left the Smile house just after lunch, and after a long, warm and sticky, drive to the village we arrived about 4pm.  I think the first thing to hit me was how quiet it was compared to being in Nansana and Kampala!  It was quite nice to be out in the countryside and not have the constant busyness and chaos of the traffic or people going on around.  After a quick look around the grounds we spent the rest of the day chilling out.  

The house we stayed in was very nice.  It is owned by a friend of Alex,  Leonard, a business man who owns some farm land near the village.  The aim of the house is to be a retreat for people to get experience of village life.  So anyone looking to spend sometime in a Ugandan village, I will more than happily put you in touch with Leonard!  The house was very beautiful, we did just sleep on a mattress on the floor and the showers were VERY cold but very grateful we were not camping and had electricity!   As the house is still a work in progress, we cooked on small charcoal stoves, which was fun, though perhaps a little more time consuming. I think I have learned just to get on with things here in Uganda!  Even though it may seem a little disorganised or impractical compared to home. A couple of the volunteers here say that Uganda is the land where anything is possible!  And after seeing a lady and 3 big bunches of bananas on the back of a boda boda (aswell as the driver), I am beginning to believe the may just be right! 
We shared the house with the caretaker Sam, he was was very friendly and asked a lot about where we were from and other things.  He also helped us a lot with cooking and showing us things round the house, which we were very grateful for.  He asked about Kilts and Scotland, so I showed him a couple of pics of me from my sisters wedding last year, which he liked.  he also showed me the traditional Ugandan dress which was quite cool! It was nice getting to know him, and a little sad leaving him on his own again.

The surrounding area was largely farm land, where they grow a lot of different crops.  The farm had quite a large Banana plantation immediately next to the house which was cool to see, but there was also various other crops such as maize in the other fields. As well as lots of cows, sheep, chickens and goats!  

View from near the house

Some Nursery plants nearby

On the first Sunday we attended the church that is linked to the school that we would be working at during out time there (the pastor is the principle I think or something like that..) We received a very warm welcome from everybody there. It was quite a different experience from church back at home and Kampala.  The service ran from 9:30am - 1pm,  however we went at about 1030/11ish, that seems to be when most people begin to arrive.  There were no instruments other than the african drums to accompany the singing and most of the songs were in Lugandan, so we mostly just clapped along.  It was very joyful and quite upbeat, and loud considering there was only about 30 people at most!  We did sing a couple of simple english songs (probably for our benefit!) but it was nice, and very interesting to see how people in different cultures worship. Another thing was, for that week, instead of the pastor sharing a sermon, everybody in the congregation had to share a short, 5 minute encouraging word or mini sermon about a verse.  So it was a case of some quick thinking and praying to come up with something to share!  I guess it is all about being prepared for the unexpected! As the service was in Lunganda Innocent very kindly acted as the "Interpreacher" which was great!  So we could understand at least most of what was going on.

Prayer Palace church

On the Monday we went to the school for the first time. It is called "Centre of Hope Juniour School."  It was a quite a small school with classes going from Baby (nursery level) upto p4.  The first day we were introduced to the staff and children in the morning assembly, and then we spent the day observing the lessons to see how things were done, as well as get an idea of where we could possibly help.  I was observing the p1/2 class. The kids were very friendly but spent a lot of the time looking at me rather than doing there work! 

Centre of Hope Juniour school

The first week we were teaching PE to the p1,2,3&4s and also english to the p3s and p4s.  As the english classes happened at the same time as the PE for p1/2 Kathryn and I mostly led the PE, and Ruth and Innocent took the reading. 
It was great fun doing the PE lessons.   We had taken some hoola-hoops with us from the smile house so we did a lot of various relay races with the kids as well as teaching them games such as duck, duck, goose, which proved very popular. We also taught them the Hokey Cokey. Which was a little manic but very good fun!  One day we even tried to teach the kids how to play rounders... However as there was no teachers to interpret for us, the kids ended up creating their own game. in which the fielding team would start at the opposite base to the batting team and race them around in a circle. So the first person back to their home base won. It was interesting to see them make up what they were supposed to do, quite imaginative I thought!  We mostly did games like this for the two weeks, mixing it up a bit each day. Sometimes playing games like piggy in the middle, anything to get them running about.  

Jump!

Relay races

    My favourite days were when we took the  tunnels along for PE and used them in the relay races!  This was just absolute chaos!! hahaha.  The kids really really enjoyed using these, but it was a little tricky to keep track of everything that was going on. With hoops and balls flying across the place!!  It is quite amazing to see how much joy even some simple equipment brings to them.  I have been really struck by how little people have over here and how much need there is.  Some children didn't even have a pen or pencil to do their work, or some only had one set of slightly smarter clothes they would wear every single day to school.  This has really started to make me think about how I can use my life to hopefully help people like this even after my time here will come to an end.  
  It was great that we could bless the school with some gifts of Geometry sets, and pens, pencils etc. We also gave them some footballs which were very highly appreciated!  But it really got me thinking, that this was just one school in one village in one country, and how many more there must be scattered across the world, that would have very little in terms of equipment, that we take for granted in the west.  How many of us have several footballs or other sports things lying about the house that never get used? Sorry went off on a tangent....

Tunnels!!

Back to the school....  The second week we had a slight change to the time table which meant we were also teaching the p1s and 2s English.  
I mostly took the responsibility of teaching the p1 class, though Ruth did take a couple of lessons with them.  We mostly focused on teaching the phonetics, "Th" "Bl and Bk" "R" and "ck"  so it was quite advanced for their age, but it was what the teacher gave us to teach.
It was good, though the children did struggle a couple of the sounds. Particularly the Bl and Br sounds.  The letters R and L quite often get switched round. So a word such as "black" sounds more like "brack." So it was quite a challenge trying to get them to make a distinction in how the words "blanket" and "bracket" sounded, but by the end of it they were at least pronouncing the simpler words much clearer I thought.  This was the same with "th" which often is pronounced "s/sy"  so my name would often be Kennesy, or Kaseryn and Ruth became Lusy.  Hopefully it helped them a bit, it did feel like a bit of a shame leaving after only two weeks, as by week 2 we had started to get into the swing of things and it felt we were actually starting to make a difference. 
  
 We all taught the p4s and 3s reading the second week.  With the p4s we each got a small group of kids and went through their reading books with them.  This was good, though sometimes it was a challenge trying to explain the meaning of the words to them with their limited English and our very limited Luganda. The story books were qimed at raising awareness about how to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS, though I wondered how well they actually understood what was happening as sometimes they seemed a bit oblivious to what it was about.  I also kindof questioned how appropriate it was for the age group...  Trying to explain what "rape" is to a 8 year old didn't seem quite right. Obviously I do understand the importance of raising awareness of HIV/AIDS, though maybe there is a better way to explain it, and also in a language that they would fully understand it too.  

Some kids at the school

Other interesting things that happened at the school included trying maize porridge, it was quite nice when you added sugar!  And some various fruits, they didnt have English names, and tasted quite sour all part of the experience though.  As a gift for helping at the school we were given a big bunch of bananas which are really tasty and sweet!  And 2 "oranges" but even  the other volunteers from here had never seen them before.  They are quite big and green.  They didnt really taste like Oranges  either, kind of a cross between an orange or lemon and a grapefruit or those sour watermelon sweeties you get.. I am not sure they really were Oranges.....  It was interesting to say the least... 

In our spare time we spent a lot of time reading or playing cards and sleeping! We also went for a cycle around the area which was really cool, though if not slightly terrifying going down the big hill at the end..... One Saturday the student teachers that were on placement at the school came and visited us.  They were Esther, Liz and Ethor, and Javan Esther's 2 year old son came too. We spent the day chatting and playing games, we even ended up playing musical statues at one point.... All good fun though!   It was nice of them to come and visit, it really did help us feel accepted and welcomed in to the community.  

All in all we really enjoyed our time in the village and were quite sad to leave everyone after such a short time.  It was quite a humbling experience, seeing people who have very little, but are so willing to share all they have.  It has made me realise just how rich we really are in the west.  Especially when explaining to Sam what an iPod was, who had never seen one before.  I really hope that we were a blessing to the community in Kalanamu, they certainly had a profound effect on my life.  

We left the village on Monday just past, and arrived back in the chaos of the city early evening.  Though there were things I missed about the village, it was good to be back home and see everyone again.  Also very thankful that the ants are a lot smaller here!! and that there is a lot less wildlife in the house.....! 

This week we begin the outreach work in the slum areas, meeting families that Smile supports, spending time getting to know the people.  I am looking forward to it, but again I expect to be challenged by seeing the way the people live.  
We also start kids clubs this Friday which is exciting!  This week we will be just having an introductory time, and play some games and sing songs with the kids, but next week we will start on the teaching material.  We are going to be teaching the parables, so please pray that is received well and that we can really touch the kids lives.  
Next week we start teaching at Ruth Mother Care, where we had previously done building work. I am excited to see the new structure, and also to get more involved helping to teach and get to know the kids there. 
 Thanks to everybody who is praying and who has sent messages of encouragement over the past month. It is highly appreciated and I miss you all dearly.  We are all in good health and quite happy, so that is good.  I will keep you updated soon with the work that is set to begin this week.
I hope this has given you an incite into what we have been up to... i will hopefully add more photos to facebook if not here...
Remember to check out the girls blogs for a different perspective... Ruth and Kathryn

Hope you are all well,

Kenneth

P.S.  A special shout out to Anna Ruth Harris who starts exams this week! Good luck!! You will do great! We wish you were here! You are great! :)

byee...