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We called Cathy this morning about getting to Wanyange for the staff meeting but she told us to meet her at her place. Unfortunately our Bodaboda man told us he knew where he was going but spoke no English and got us completely lost so we had to call Cathy out to rescue us! When we arrived at school for the 10am staff meeting, it was clear that it was not going to be on time! Lib and I sat down and all the teachers came over and chatted to us. We were offered tea; bread and a boiled egg, which Lib was worried, would be forced upon her. I was thankful for the tea but not so much when I took a sip and realised it was practically warm full fat milk with lots of sugar. The staff meeting eventually started at around 11.30 with no recognition whatsoever that it was at all late and Proscovia - the Chair of the meeting casually turned up an hour after that. The meeting went on forever and I'm going to be honest -I didn't really see any constructive outcome from it! They seemed to just repeat what was discussed at the last staff meeting and repeat each others comments! Lib and I were shocked to see that lesbianism was one of the points of discussion and apparently quite a prevalent problem amongst the S3s! Although some teachers voted to ignore the issue, proscovia - who seems very forward-looking said that it was wrong to hide away from taboo issues. However, there was very strong feeling that it was evil and must be fought against, as homosexuality is illegal and punishable by hanging here! Really petty things gained a lot of discussion time such as when showers would take place after P.E and how to go about unbuttoning the girls' shirts to check that they weren't wearing a non-uniform t-shirt.
Friday Day 11 - on Friday we had a pretty lazy morning but we had an invite to a man called Moses' place for dinner in the evening as he had met Miles and said he would paint Ollie's guitar. When we arrived and it looked a bit weird and it wasn't really the raving house party that I expected if I'm honest. We all round tables in a classroom with drawings on the wall saying 'I am special because I am good at everything' which made me giggle. One by one people started to come in including a guy called George with dreadlocks and a Napoleon Dynamite look alike both of whom were German and really friendly. Loads of food was laid out before us and it looked and tasted really really good but we had to get to it with our hands which became difficult where stew was involved. Before we ate Benji stood up and gave a little speech about all the good work that Moses' and his Programme ASCO(African Street Children Organization) does and introduced us to some of the volunteers out there - Sarah, Laura, Cathy etc. We chatted to everyone after the meal and found out that most of the volunteers had been out several times and this time had no intention of returning to the U.K. Moses took us to his bedroom to show us all of his artwork which he sells for funds to run his street children Programme and he is obviously really talented. After a big of a dance, Benji called us bodabodas one of which was simply called - 'The Chairman' - legend. We all went to Nile View Casino where Dom cashed in on 20,000 shillings - that's about £6.00. We then headed to the nightclub next-door and danced with Moses' and Co. and also watched them bust some pretty amazing moves. When Ollie and I went outside for some fresh air (not gonna lie, you get prettttty sweaty in African Clubs) we were nearly arrested by a policeman as we were sat on a chair with one arm and he accused us of defacing public property. Luckily a man we found out to be called Ronnie saved us from spending the night in a Ugandan prison cell!
Saturday - Day 12We got up pretty late and read and chilled on the patio whilst the guys (Ollie, Joe and Tom) nervously awaited their debut Rugby match for Jinja. Lib fed the boys pasta to give them much-needed energy and they went off at about 2pm. A little later Lib, Miles, Marianne, Dom and I went along to watch and cheer them on. Cannot even explain how funny it was to see the line up of the Jinja team against the line up of the semi- professional massively built men who were their competitors from Kampala! Let's just say the outcome did not look promising! Tom got quite badly injured, was bleeding from several places and started seeing double so basically he probably had concussion from being tackled to the floor. The score was something like 33-7, which was actually quite impressive (apparently Jinja usually loose something like 100-0). We came home and then went out to 2friends to watch yet more Rugby as England were playing Wales. After dinner we went to Bujigali Falls to watch a Muzungu band. The drive there was far from comfy as Joe, Lib, Marianne Ollie and I all had to squish into the back of a very small car and drive down very bumpy roads. We stayed there for a while before heading back to Jinja for some classic Sombreros times.
Sunday - Day 13
Somehow Lib managed to rise at 8.00am to meet Moses' and Sarah and see the Street Kids project. Everybody else got up a little later ad then Dom and Tom cooked us a fry up, which was delightful. We all headed into Jinja to use the Internet and I skyped mum and Dad for the first time and introduced them to some of the others and showed them around the surrounding area. Then I went to meet Lib and Sarah and we bought some bread and oranges for the kids to eat. We were all really tied from the weekend so stayed in and had some pasta and then Tom Sophie and I ventured into town to flavours for the legendary chocolate brownie.
Monday - Day 14Lib and I woke early and Sarah and Laura picked us up on Bodas with Santos. We had a bit of a scary ride to Nakabanga and our first experience of Bodaboda in the rain into Nakabanga to see Valley View Primary School. A man called Hob showed us round and was really friendly, he told us that the school inspectors had been round and said that the school would be shut down unless all the classrooms were rebuilt with stone within the next year. All the children were really sweet and stood up to say "Hello Visitors" whenever we entered the room. We met the boy - Anthony who Sarah sponsors to go t school because his parents died in a car crash and no one could fund his education. We then went over to a school called 'Guardian' which was more developed but still I a lot of need doe help. For the first time we drove through really rural areas on the bodaboda and all the children chased after us screaming "Muzungu Muzungu!" and they literally looked like their life depended on catching up with us! We then went for some local food at a traditional restaurant that was really nice and cheaper than the Western Restaurants we had been going to previously. We then met Moses and some of the Kids and Lib went off with them to Massese which is where some of them are from whilst I went to the market with Santos to buy all the contents for the Fish Pie that I was helping to make that evening. There was nearly a crisis when I forgot the masher but Santos came back into Jinja and took me to his place to borrow his so all was well. Ollie and I started cooking the Fish pie at about 5.00pm and it was finally ready at about 9.00pm! I was a bit dubious about the fish pie that Ollie had been bigging up since his arrival but in fairness it was actually really good (some said the beast meal so far) so I was very impressed. After dinner we met Sarah, Laura, Santos and Moses at a bar called "Why not?" where there was a pool table and some English Music.
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