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I'm obviously not very good at writing this because it's been nearly a month since I last wrote in this but oh well I'll write everything I can remember in here. Yesterday we taught our lesson, (I had English with secondary two), from 12-1, and then we went to Masaka for the afternoon. Last time we went to that lovely café so we went there again and got there for about 3 after a crazily squashed car journey, Chloe lost the feeling in her legs again; she always seems to end up in the worst place. So yes we had a lovely mzungu meal which was soooo nice I had a cheese and ham and pineapple toasties with chips, a banana and chocolate milkshake and hot chocolate with ice cream in it, was soooo nice. Anyway if you buy food from that café you get unlimited free internet apparently, so that's why I set up skyping everyone. In the end though the internet wasn't working when we got there so unfortunately you were all a bit disappointed. And when it did eventually work my laptop wouldn't Skype properly and kept crashing! But oh well I got to talk to mum and James for a bit and I in boxed Tasha but I think maybe I was too late and her and Proc were already doing something. But anyway the food was lovely and then we went to the post office and I got a parcel off mum which was the anthropology book about Uganda. So I'm going to read that soon; still don't know what I'm going to do about uni. Was all set to apply to Durham to do anthropology and sociology but they raised the entry requirements to AAB so seen as I got ABB not really sure what to do. Anyway after the post office we went and got some money from the Atm. We tried to do this earlier but often when we went it was broken or something so we couldn't get any money. But most the most exciting part of our trip was our buying material. Here they have shops and shops full of lovely silky fabric to make clothes so we bought some to try and make a dress/skirt/top. I don't think mine will turn out very good but it's worth a try and it's all very pretty. Also we are going to a Halloween party in two weeks so we needed to find an outfit and here they don't celebrate Halloween so seemed a bit hard. However me and Chloe have decided to be genies seen as we have millions of funky trousers we can wear to be genies J So we bought some black fabric to make crop top things like a genie so going to have to work out how to make a top from it, it's kind of like a long black scarf, I need Lucy's help! Anyway today we are going to the higher part of the secondary school which is in a different village to meet the students and apparently do a speech :/ they are just about to do their exams so I guess it's supposed to be an inspirational speech to help them do well. And then we are going to church, joy to do some kind of ceremony with them. But at the moment it's like 11 and were not going till half one so I'm just writing this for a bit after reading my book "WE need to talk about Kevin". You should read it its good; it's about the mum of a guy that killed loads of people in this high school in America. Anyway what else have we done? Done a lot of teaching which has made us really busy. I do 8 hours of computers a week, which to be honest I'm starting to find a bit boring. Because there are only 4 computers they do a two hour session in like 5 groups of 4 so they are pretty monotonous. But I guess I can't complain seen as they aren't hard to teach or anything. I also do 8 hours of English which I really enjoy because the classes are just so cute and funny, you should look at the pictures of them they are hilarious, lots of them pose in the photos! But on top of that I'm also teaching one of the teachers, Sylivia , computers on a Monday because she wants to start up her own stationary business. But she doesn't have a clue how to use computers so she kind of has to learn that first before she thinks she can start a business selling envelopes and stuff. Also I've been doing a lot of group work in my classes recently and the names they choose for their groups are hilarious; it's like they've been brainwashed or something, they are so unimaginative. My personal favourite was God's Grace and the wise men. But I guess they are just simply obsessed with religion. I also have started teaching adult English classes on Monday and Thursday nights which is rather tiring but it is also really fun because the adults are so lovely and SO thankful. Last week I got given a cabbage by one of the men as a thank you gift for teaching him. SO yeh I'm pretty busy here; just like at home. But we have also had time to do other non-teaching/religious related stuff. We have stopped going to church now because all we did was sit there and be shouted at in Luganda so decided we are not going back there. We've been to Kampala twice since we've been in Kiwangala. We went a while ago for a girl called Elspeth's birthday and stayed in a hostel which was fun because it was just like a little holiday with 9 girls. We went to the cinema, out for an Indian meal and clubbing. We went to a place called fat boys which was fun but we knew like none of the songs as they were all Ugandan but yeh it was more of a bar/club but was really fun. We also went to Owino market which is like the biggest outside market you will ever see - and the cheapest. I bought 4 skirts, ( one which is plain blue and I really like), for a pound each, it's crazy! And I bought a stripy white and blue top from H&M for 25p! (Second hand of course), which is amazing. The second we went was for like official project trust stuff and stayed in a guest house which was amazing. Because there were 18 of us we basically had rented out the entire guest house so was like having our own little house for the weekend. We got there on the Friday and had the nicest food ever made for us by Lucy and Finn, the project trust people who live here, and then the doctor came and saw us and we got all our malaria tablets and stuff and he told us what not to do. Like get on a boda ( motorbike taxi) at night on your own because you'll probably get raped. But he said in Uganda no white people have been murdered just for being murdered but have been assassinated for doing something which offended someone or the government; which was good because we don't have enough power to annoy the government. Though he said that every year since project trust has been to Uganda someone has been raped; which was rather worrying. Though apparently only because they have done something stupid but yeh still worrying! Anyway we went clubbing on Friday night to a place called iguanas which is supposed to be the best nightclub in Uganda and it was actually so fun. We didn't do anything stupid so no-one got raped, ha-ha. But yeh it was lots of fun and then on Saturday we had a talk to help us with teaching; like more stuff we can do which was helpful. Because before then I'd kind of got into being a bit of a boring teacher, writing stuff on the board and making them copy it down then do an exercise. Now in the last week I've been doing lots of more fun stuff like group work and making posters and playing games etc. But yeh then on Saturday we went to the American club which has an outdoor swimming pool so we went there and had lots of fun swimming and watching a football match. It was Uganda against Kenya and if Uganda won they would have got through to the next stage of the African cup of nations for the first time in like 32 years and this was the closest they had been. But it was a terrible football match and ended up 0-0 so Angola got through instead because they were top of the group or something. SO we weren't allowed out that night because apparently everyone would be very upset and there would be riots and terrorism and stuff but I don't think that there was. Anyway on Sunday we went shopping for food in the big Kampala supermarket and then went for lunch and I had a double cheeseburger and a brownie :D Then we went home. I know I talk about food a lot but honestly compared to home here the food is so repetitive and boring. Everyday all we eat is mashed plantain9banana that tastes of potato and beans; literally every day. And then for dinner we have friend veg. Anyway that's enough for today.
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Alison Nowry That's better. Now I'm getting a picture of your life in Uganda! x Don't get on those bodas, night or day - there is a huge accident rate - heard it on radio 4 yesterday!!!