So it's been over a month since my last entry, so I shall fill you in on the little funny details that have occurred in Naomi and my daily lives.

After finishing Term 1 I wasn't satisfied with the amount that I had taught and felt that I could do a lot more. So, this term I have been adding more lessons here and there and I now have a nice mixed timetable, which keeps me busy with lesson preparations and marking. I go to prep every week night, as it's a good time to help the students with revision and I enjoy having agood natter with the students during this time.

So interesting things that have happened in the past few weeks-well, on the 28th of Februaury I decided I would ride Archiless' (a S3 boy) bike home in my full length skirt. Surprisingly the skirt wasn't the issue-the main issue was the fact that the bikes brakes were virtually non-existent and I couldn't reach the floor with my feet-which also surprised me greatly as I am nearly a foot taller than Archiless!! Anyway, at one point I nearly ended up in the foundations of some new houses that are being conveniently built in the middle of the path! The students also found me on a bike hilarious and were insistent that I wouldn't be able to do it! Also on the 28th I was happily sat in the S1 classroom at the end of school talking to some of the students when they point behind me and shout 'fight'! I turned around to see Claire and Sharon properly fighting! I kind of ran in and separated them-with great effort! Claire is about my size and considerably bigger than Sharon who is the average size of a S1 girl (very small). I sternly told Claire that she can't go around fighting the girls when she is nearly twice as big as them all! Also, the fight was over the fact that Sharon was sitting in Claires place-honestly!

On the 4th there was an interesting incident when I was sat in the office quietly marking my work when I heard the CRE teacher, teaching S4 about 'lesibians'-yes that's right 'les-ib-ians' she even spelt it for them!

I have recently started running-not quite sure why, takes up a bit of time and it got to be helping with all those carbohydrates I consume daily.

On the 7th of March I was just happily sat on a wall with the S3 students, when a private vehicle rocked up containing 6 American men-I am not sure who was more shocked to see another white person, me or them! Anyway they were at St zoes to do a bit of filming. Naomi and I struggled to understand there accent, one of the men gave me a handful of candy! So that was nice.

On the 15th Naomi and I had a horrible experience in Mubende; we were walking through Mubende when 2 old drunk men approached us and as we tried to walk away they like ran after us and grabbed my bum and breast!! I eventually managed to push them away but still it was a horrible experience! Dirty drunken old men!

The morning of the 18th was an extremely exciting day although I don't think Naomi was quite as impressed, I woke up to the noise of I didn't know what.(At this point Naomi was still in bed) Anyway so I could hear this humming noise coming from down by the lake (big pond) so I decided to go and take a look with my morning cup of tea. To my shock there were hundreds and hundreds of frogs croaking very loudly! I found it all very exciting-Naomi just didn't share my enthusiasm at all; however we did later go down to the lake and make a short documentary of the froggy phenomenon!

On the 19th of March we went to visit Rosie and Keziahs project which was nice, because Blair and Molly were also there. We had a lovely day and they made us pumpkin curry which was very tasty.

On the 24th there was an incident with one of the builders tripping over a very obvious wall and cutting his toe open because he was too busy looking at me! He was very angry and told me he was going to beat me seriously!!! Which to be honest scared me slightly-everything was fine however, and he has left now due to his alcoholic tendencies!

I have had some very weird dreams lately and several times in the night have woke up sweating and feeling rather scared-Naomi also says I have started talking in my sleep more frequently, the other day I told her that there was a mattress on top of me, when she said 'are you awake?' I was like 'of course I am awake, and there is a mattress on top of me!' I continued to be very insistent about the fact I was awake and of course in the morning I didn't remember a thing! There is also this big toad that lives outside the house in a hole and the children keep blocking his hole with a rock, so I keep unblocking it and I had a dream the children were filling in the soil when I was the toad in the hole-I woke up sweating from that one as well!

On the 26th and 27th a man from Gombe Secondary School called Thomas came to St Zoe; he is an English Literature teacher and gave a talk to our S3 and S4 students. He was a very nice man and wrote me an interesting poem before his departure entitled 'The Face'. Then on the 31st of March we visited Gombe SS. We took a track for 2 hours through the Ugandan wilderness and then arrived at this amazing school in the middle of a rural area. Gombe SS is the 3rd in academic excellency in Uganda. It is a secondary school with 2300 pupils, all of which are boarding students. The compound is huge and well organised, they have a huge dining hall with stage and extensive sports facilities as well as an immense amount of trophies in the headmasters office! They also have a very tall student called 'Adong' who no joke must have been 7ft-he was huge! The trip was really good for al the teachers ad students who were able to attend, I feel that they definitely learnt some good lessons from the school and Bruno and Michael (Most intelligent students in S2 and S3) now realise that they are only small fish in a very big pond!

So on the 1st of April it was my Birthday! I spent the morning trying to get to Mubende to check the post to discover that no Birthday post had managed to reach Uganda in time. I did however get some trousers and a top, Ugandan style from Margret the secretary at school which was so lovely as Ugandans don't celebrate Birthdays. I also got a free chocolate bar from my Indian friend at the supermarket, which was lovely. Naomi and I then headed to Kampala for the weekend. The weekend was really good and nearly all the volunteers were there, which was really lovely as I hadn't seen loads of them in ages. I also treated myself to the luxury dorm in Backpackers for my birthday, which was an excellent choice.

5th of April was time for S1 and S2's Mid-Term Maths exam, they all did pretty well and Happy managed to beat all the lads in S2, which she was very happy about! Also I got Wendy's Birthday parcel on the 5th, which was very exciting! So, thank you very much Wendy!

On the 7th of April we went to visit Sarah at her Project, as her partner Ashley, went home on the 4th of April. We had a good tour around her village, ate lots of tasty food and had a good gossip. Next day Naomi and I traveled to Fort Portal and went to Mountains of the Moon University where we went with peter Mount and the other Trustees when they came. I had the amazing sizzling beef fajitas again and Naomi had chicken and mash, and we had hot chocolates because it absolutely chucked it down with rain!

On the 9th Susie arrived from Project Trust, for our Project Visit, with a lovely big parcel fro Janice-thank you very much Janice! Whilst we were showing Susie around the school, Claire in S1 had another attack type thing and was passed out on the floor ranting away in Luganda about how her step mum was trying to kill her; apparently she was just praying and then fell to the floor and started ranting! Susie was a little shocked!

So we are in the last week of term now, all the secondary students have finished their exams and have got sports and the talent show before the end of term on the 20th. The Primary children still have lessons this week so I am still teaching them at the moment. Then by the 26th we need to be out of the country to renew the visas, so we are planning to go to Kenya and then I don't know where else.

I forgot to talk about Alphonse, Alphonse is one of our new students in Senior 1, at 19 he is quite a bit larger than the rest of the kids. The other day whilst I was teaching Senior 2, when we all heard screaming coming from Senior 1 where Naomi was teaching, my class runs out of the class and I get out just in time to see Alphonse decapitate a snake with a metal pole! It was actually hilarious because then whilst the rest of the class were still huddled around looking at this snake-Alphonse had gone straight back to his seat and continued with copying his notes!

That's all for now, we've only got 4 months left!!!

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