The dream has been realised!
Wednesday July 29th 2009
Today for the first time children from Namuwongo slum have visited the library and taken a book home to read! This morning I took P4 class down to the library and this afternoon it was P5’s turn. When I established the library last year we appointed Ritah as librarian, but she soon got a job using her IT degree and a new librarian Margaret was employed. I met her last Saturday for the first time when I went to Saturday reading club. She is great! The library is in good hands! She is very enthusiastic about books and reading and really wants the project to succeed.
She is already working with groups of disadvantaged children from the community who are not enrolled in school and tomorrow begins classes for six women who have got micro0finance grants and need to improve their basic literacy and numeracy skills to improve their businesses.
Next week my aim is to get the slum school where I worked last time into the library! I’m visiting tomorrow and will not leave until we fix a day and time!
The books at St Barnabas are already looking dusty and well-used - which they are. Every lunch time the children come for books and sit in small plastic chairs on the veranda reading – often there isn’t a book left on the shelves!
On Tuesday I went into the community with Joyce to meet some women who make beads out of paper with a view to buying lots and bringing them home to sell. Joyce is keen to expand opportunities for these women who are HIV+ (the correct term being ‘women living with AIDS’) to establish a business with a guaranteed market. We discussed the funding and agreed that 400,000/- was needed to set up the project: 100,000/- to buy varnish, strings, elastic and fasteners etc; 120,000/- for a guillotine to cut the papers and 180,000/- for a month’s wages for each of ten women. This is 1,500/- per day; they will work three days a week for three hours each day. We also discussed paying them even well they are not well enough to work, as they still need nutritious food to enhance the effectiveness of the ARV drugs they take.
I am going to use the money raised and donated by Beccy and Carl who did a sponsored bike ride riding a tandem for 22 miles, coping with a puncture and numb bums!!!! So a big ‘THANK YOU’ to them. I will give Joyce the money and she will buy what is needed so the project can begin at the beginning of September. Prior to that, she is involved in a holiday project for the sponsored children at St Barnabas. Development workers never rest – they are amazing! Hopefully she will send the necklaces, bracelets to me via the BA pilots and I will be able to sell them with your help and send the money directly to Joyce so the project is sustainable and the women have some self-respect and a much-needed income.
The school day at St Barnabas is long but somehow quite relaxed. Classes start at 7.00am with an hour of ‘extra study’ (this is not for P1 and P2). The other ‘extra study’ period is from 4.30-5.30 and children only need to attend one of them. (This is when I do my extra reading support session). The ‘normal’ day is from 8.00-4.00pm and at 4.00-4.30 the children clean the classrooms! There is a half hour break in the morning when sweet ginger tea and a samosa is provided for the teachers (the tea is served in a battered metal kettle!) and there is an hour for lunch which is also provided.
Teachers seem to have quite a few free periods during the day but as they all either walk to school or come by boda-boda they use this time for preparation and marking as there is no way they could take work home with them. The craze in the staffroom at the moment is Scrabble and they often play over lunch-time! Children move freely in and out of the staffroom – remember it is also the library - but generally children are welcomed and tolerated and possibly as a result they are not ‘in your face’ as much as British children seem to be.
Well I’ve been invited to go the Queen Elizabeth National Park this weekend with Immaculate and Joyce and nine other volunteers from UK – so that should be fun! Hopefully will see the Rwenzori mountains, a few crater lakes and possibly tree-climbing lions – I’ll let you know!
Answer to puzzle – only vowel used is ‘a’ and all consonants are followed by an ‘a’. I’m sure you all got it!
In the meanwhile – keep reading – you don’t know how lucky you are! And if you come across any children’s books you don’t need any more or at car boot sales etc – remember there are some very keen children at St Barnabas who would just love them!
Thursday, 30 July 2009
Sunday, 26 July 2009
It’s great to be back in Kampala!
Not withstanding the fact that when I arrived in Entebbe my luggage courtesy of Kenyan Airlines was still in Amsterdam and it seemed to take forever to get my new UK mobile unlocked to take a Ugandan SIM card – it’s great to be back here!
I’m house-sitting for Dawn whom I met when I was here last time. She arrived in October last year to volunteer at Ray of Hope slum school, but decided to stay longer in Uganda. She now has a job for two years teaching music at an International school in Kampala starting at the end of August so she’s gone back to London to spend a month with her family and friends and lent me her house. It’s lovely! One of six in a compound with views of Lake Victoria from one side of the compound. It’s further out along the same road where I was staying before past the quarry. The fact that it hasn’t rained for months and the quarry itself makes everything very, VERY dusty.
I have to admit that Dawn has a cleaner so I don’t need to do my own washing and I seem to get lunch at school, so not much cooking required either! Every day we have my favourite – posho! and rice, matoke, a bit of cabbage and either two one inch cube pieces of beef, g-nut sauce or beans.
I am going to spend all my time here working at St Barnabas school where I only spent one morning last time. Labson the headmaster and I discussed converting half of the staff room into a library/reading room and on Tuesday we achieved the impossible! Some pupils and I cleared out the junk, they swept and mopped the floor while I went to Barclays to change Dollars into Ugandan shillings, then Teacher Doreen and I went shopping! I’d been to Nsambya with Matthew last time I was here to buy library furniture so knew where to go and how to bargain! The only thing was we had to go on a boda-boda (scarey!) but we came back in the pick-up with the bookcase, tables and bench. Once again Rog gave me money for library furniture – so a BIG thank you to him from all the teachers and children!
Well it’s now Friday – the week has flown!! I’ve got a ‘room-mate’ for a couple of weeks! My neighbour, Janet, who’s an engineer from USA has a friend staying and doesn’t have a spare bedroom. As they’re visiting various projects in different parts of Uganda I won’t be seeing much of her.
The reading programme is already well established! I’ve heard over 70 children read this week and in the main the older ones are very good readers; there are only about ten of those I’ve heard who need some individual help. But the younger ones still need a lot of teaching. The number of children who manage to squeeze into the library corner during break and lunchtimes has to be seen to be believed. ‘Madam I want book!’ is the usual plea!
A couple of times whole classes (50+) have been and chosen a book for a ‘reading lesson’ and I’ve gone and listened to some of them read. At other times I’ve had small groups from classes for about half an hour at a time. About twenty of the older ones have taken books home for the weekend, which has involved writing their names in an exercise book as the books aren’t catalogued like the ones I did for the library I set up last time. I’m going to see it next week, so hope all is well with it!
I’m keeping myself amused with a crossword book – very challenging – thanks Beccy and a book of code word puzzles. So here’s one for you! What links Kabalagala and taramasalata? Answer next time!
There’s a small Internet place about 5 mins walk from where I’m staying which is good for sending e-mails – I only hope it will cope with flash drives and blogs! Here’s hoping! If not you won’t be reading this – lets hope you are!! Until next time – take care and have fun.
Not withstanding the fact that when I arrived in Entebbe my luggage courtesy of Kenyan Airlines was still in Amsterdam and it seemed to take forever to get my new UK mobile unlocked to take a Ugandan SIM card – it’s great to be back here!
I’m house-sitting for Dawn whom I met when I was here last time. She arrived in October last year to volunteer at Ray of Hope slum school, but decided to stay longer in Uganda. She now has a job for two years teaching music at an International school in Kampala starting at the end of August so she’s gone back to London to spend a month with her family and friends and lent me her house. It’s lovely! One of six in a compound with views of Lake Victoria from one side of the compound. It’s further out along the same road where I was staying before past the quarry. The fact that it hasn’t rained for months and the quarry itself makes everything very, VERY dusty.
I have to admit that Dawn has a cleaner so I don’t need to do my own washing and I seem to get lunch at school, so not much cooking required either! Every day we have my favourite – posho! and rice, matoke, a bit of cabbage and either two one inch cube pieces of beef, g-nut sauce or beans.
I am going to spend all my time here working at St Barnabas school where I only spent one morning last time. Labson the headmaster and I discussed converting half of the staff room into a library/reading room and on Tuesday we achieved the impossible! Some pupils and I cleared out the junk, they swept and mopped the floor while I went to Barclays to change Dollars into Ugandan shillings, then Teacher Doreen and I went shopping! I’d been to Nsambya with Matthew last time I was here to buy library furniture so knew where to go and how to bargain! The only thing was we had to go on a boda-boda (scarey!) but we came back in the pick-up with the bookcase, tables and bench. Once again Rog gave me money for library furniture – so a BIG thank you to him from all the teachers and children!
Well it’s now Friday – the week has flown!! I’ve got a ‘room-mate’ for a couple of weeks! My neighbour, Janet, who’s an engineer from USA has a friend staying and doesn’t have a spare bedroom. As they’re visiting various projects in different parts of Uganda I won’t be seeing much of her.
The reading programme is already well established! I’ve heard over 70 children read this week and in the main the older ones are very good readers; there are only about ten of those I’ve heard who need some individual help. But the younger ones still need a lot of teaching. The number of children who manage to squeeze into the library corner during break and lunchtimes has to be seen to be believed. ‘Madam I want book!’ is the usual plea!
A couple of times whole classes (50+) have been and chosen a book for a ‘reading lesson’ and I’ve gone and listened to some of them read. At other times I’ve had small groups from classes for about half an hour at a time. About twenty of the older ones have taken books home for the weekend, which has involved writing their names in an exercise book as the books aren’t catalogued like the ones I did for the library I set up last time. I’m going to see it next week, so hope all is well with it!
I’m keeping myself amused with a crossword book – very challenging – thanks Beccy and a book of code word puzzles. So here’s one for you! What links Kabalagala and taramasalata? Answer next time!
There’s a small Internet place about 5 mins walk from where I’m staying which is good for sending e-mails – I only hope it will cope with flash drives and blogs! Here’s hoping! If not you won’t be reading this – lets hope you are!! Until next time – take care and have fun.
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