‘Poverty makes you have what you don’t want’

This is Monica’s definition of poverty. She’s twenty nine and has a fifteen year old daughter. The eldest of seven children, she was brought up by her grandparents as her mother was still at school when she had Monica. When her mother and her new husband had six more children, her mother thought Monica would have a better life if she married. So at the age of thirteen Monica was married to a man she had never met and had her daughter when she was just fourteen and a half.

When the relationship ended, Monica, who had been living in Lira in N Uganda moved to Kampala to begin a new life. Her daughter attends school and Monica funds this with a variety of part-time jobs. She never attended primary school herself but has recently started adult literacy classes and in a few weeks has exams. She attends for two and a half hours on four evenings a week and would like to do a dress-making or computer course so she can get a better job.

Although she often refers to God’s role in her life she realises that she has to make her own way and that everything that has happened to her is a stepping stone to a better life.

To return to her definition of poverty: She and her daughter live in one room and have to share a pit latrine with fifteen other people including children who shall we say are not always fastidious when it comes to squatting and hitting the hole and who don’t clean up after themselves – so she doesn’t want a dirty latrine but she has no choice. As well as getting wages where she works she sometimes also gets money to buy some bread for breakfast. Without this she would have to eat greens which are really animal foodstuff but which are eaten by people when there is nothing else.

Although she told me she didn’t have much money and she will struggle with her daughter’s senior school fees, I feel she is very proud of her achievements and gets great satisfaction from them. I have the greatest respect for her.

Now you know why I eat my posho!

Both boys and girls at St Barnabas school have to have their heads shaved regularly unless they belong to a tribe that plaits and beads the hair or are Asian. Children whose hair is considered to be too long are sent home from school until they get it shaved. This means they probably won’t get any food all day and will just hang around the slum as their parents are away working. A visit to the salon costs just 500/- for a small child and 1,000/- for an older one, but an increasing number of families are unable to afford this amount. 500/- is the cost of my matatu ride to school; it will buy an avocado, but a loaf of bread costs 1,500/- ,2kg of rice is 6,600/-, a pineapple is 2,000/-, a banana costs 200/- and a band aid costs 100/-. A large jerry can of water costs 200/-. The women who are making beads are getting 500/- an hour and most people in Africa exist on just $1.25 a day, which is 2,500/-. Most households are headed by lone women and seem to have at least three children, so there is not a lot of money to spare.

After a discussion with Labson and having seen a couple of children who had been sent home and the surroundings they were in, I have decided to spend the last of Carl and Beccy’s money on buying a shaver for the school so that children need never be sent home again!

Another important purchase will be a long-armed stapler so that Margaret can mend the library books when the middle pages come loose and a box of drawing pins for Teacher Eddie who hasn’t got any! We put a ‘flu poster up the other day and within two minutes, three of the drawing pins had been removed!

As well as arranging the setting up the bead-making project I have been buying necklaces and bracelets to bring back with me to sell. The women are very creative and all make different designs so I have bought from four different women. Joyce told me the other day that one of the women bought a basket to carry on her head and some bananas to sell with the money I had paid her!! That is wonderful and what it’s all about! – I just wish I could bump into her and buy a couple of bananas!

I was teaching P1 last week as their teacher was off sick. They were doing exams but I also did maths and literacy with them. The latter involved their copying a poem from the board (luckily I brought some with me) and drawing a picture. There are NO resources in the classroom but I brought crayons with me and the children get soooooooo excited but they can’t share! They hold them in their hands, put them on their laps and even hide them in their socks. This is where they keep their pencils (some just an inch long!) and I had to check their socks and any other peculiar bumps in their clothing before they left the room at lunchtime and home time. This together with constant calls of ‘Teacher!’, ‘Teacher!’ and a never-ending number of pencils needing sharpening, especially as they chew the leads, made for a challenging week!! I was correcting maths on Thursday afternoon and explaining to a child how to do the sum when I looked up and half the class was missing! I went and told T. Justine who just laughed! It seems that the other classes were having some post-exam down-time and were out playing and my class had joined them! Luckily their teacher was back the next day!

So I spent Friday entering exam results onto individual report cards on the computer – a nice change and it helped the teachers some of whom are not very quick on computers. Not surprisingly my ‘special’ readers were at the bottom of the class! If you can’t read the exam paper you can’t answer the questions! As a result I have suggested to Joyce that they do some extra reading during the holiday programme.

Another funny from the paper for you: A 54 year-old accountant leaves a note for his wife. ‘Dear Wife. I am 54 years old and need a change. By the time you read this I will be in the Sunny Bay hotel with my 18 year-old secretary.’ When he got there, he found a note from his wife. ‘Dear Husband. I am also 54 and by the time you read this I will be in Pleasure Motel with my 18 year-old toy boy. As you are an accountant you don’t need me to tell you that 18 goes into 54 more times than 54 goes into 18’!!

Had a relaxing weekend and went for a swim! Ready now for my last full week!

Take care.