Warm greetings to all of our friends at Kafuro who are just starting Term 3. Our new academic year started at Liss a fortnight ago, but this morning was the first chance for Mr Stanley to hold an assembly about his visit to Uganda in July and August. He told the school about what a great trip he’d had, the warmth of the welcome from the community of Kafuro, the chess, cooking and tag rugby, Gloria and Gloria’s visit to Mweya, but most importantly how much the community of Kafuro appreciates the links with Liss Junior School. I can assure everyone at Kafuro that the feeling is mutual.
This afternoon letters from Kafuro were handed out to the children in Liss classrooms and they took great pleasure in reading them. Many of the children had questions that I will save for another blog post, but they realised that they have much in common with their friends in Kafuro. One particular area of interest was in the Kafuro school trip which several pupils mentioned in their letters. Our children are particularly interested in why salt is so popular in Uganda. We can’t wait to read your trip report.
We hope to hear from our friends in Kafuro soon.
Liss children enjoying reading letters from Kafuro
Congratulations to Hamish who is the winner of this year’s Uganda question competition. Hamish asked a question about the rates of asthma in Uganda and it took Mr Stanley ages to find out. The answer is that rates of asthma are quite high due to the dusty environment, but you don’t see children with inhalers like the UK. Asthma is treated with steroids or histamines in Uganda.
Hamish won a Ugandan t-shirt which he is seen modeling in this photo.
I’ve now been home for 48 hours and had a little bit of time to reflect on this year’s trip. In many ways, it has been highly successful. The Twinning Project organised a very successful celebration of World Ranger Day, Mrs Lodge did some brilliant work with female pupils and reusable sanitary pads and the project have supported the wives and children of rangers. Despite my absence (or some might say because of it), the Conservation Cup was a success again with Kafuro winning for the first time.
I was really pleased with how our work in Kafuro panned out. The children enjoyed Queen of Katwe and wrote good reviews; they loved playing chess; they adored the opportunity to bake; and we discovered a star in Gloria from P6. The fact that we were able to give her the opportunity to come and work at Tembo was brilliant and I’m very grateful to the staff for giving her the opportunity.
One thing was made very clear to me and that is how much the community at Kafuro value the relationship with Liss Junior School. I was constantly being thanked by parents and governors for the support that our children give to their peers. They are well aware that it is Liss children who raise money to support projects and are very grateful for the opportunities it gives their children.
I was able to see some new sights on this trip. The walk around Rwenzori Mountains National Park was exhausting but brilliant; the opportunity to get so close to chimps thanks to the work of Robert was exhilarating and getting to finally see Uganda play a rugby international was a personal highlight.
All in all it was a successful trip, but all the way through I’ve been left with a nagging feeling. Why is there so much plastic waste? Everywhere I went there was plastic bottles on the ground. As far as I can see in western Uganda, there is no infrastructure for any sort of waste management, things just get incinerated which – in the case of plastic – releases toxins into the atmosphere. Every time I’ve been involved in a clean up operation, I’ve been left with a feeling that as soon as we leave a village the rubbish will just pile up again. There have been some innovative solutions such as Ramathan’s recycled elephant at Katunguru, and I would love to see that extended to other schools and villages.
All my reading about Africa has told me that Rwanda is a shining light when it comes to recycling, so next year I intend to cross the border and have a look there. I’m sure there are many things Uganda can learn from them.
Finally, congratulations to Clare Prior and Hamish Henderson, who are the winners of my question competition. Your prizes will be with you soon.
Thanks to everyone who has read the blog this year and I hope you’ve enjoyed reading it.
Crossing the equator on the way home
Lugogo Mall in Kampala is very westernised
Mrs Green meeting with Dr Janice of Kampala International University
For those of you that don’t know, cold cold change is a song by one of my favourite bands, Midnight Oil. And for the first time in five years in Uganda, I felt cold. Just like the last few days, the morning was overcast with a bit of a chill in the air. When you were moving around it was ok, but when you sat still you got goosebumps on your arms. We all had rolex at Tembo before driving to Kasese. Calum needed to get some money out while Mrs Green and I needed to fill up the car with fuel as tomorrow we start the long journey home by driving to Entebbe. With this completed, we headed to Rwenzori Mountain Park which is about 12km outside of Kasese.
We arrived at the HQ where we were met by George, one of the rangers that Calum has been in touch with. George took us to see James, the chief warden, who was delightful and told us that George would accompany us on a walk. You could spend several weeks in the Rwenzoris if you wanted to scale one of the huge peaks. We were heading for a resting place on one of the nature circuits, which was around an hour and a half away. It was a half hour drive (all uphill) to the park gate and the beginning of our walk. George pointed out to us that we were at an altitude of 1760m above sea level. To put this into perspective, the highest point in the UK is Ben Nevis at 1345m above sea level.
The walk followed the course of a river and was just about all uphill. For the first 15 minutes, my lungs were screaming and I was sweating buckets, then it appeared to get a bit easier. However, the last 20 minutes before we reached the resting place saw me really struggle again, so I was very relieved when George told us to stop. Mrs Green and Calum both looked in better shape than I did while George bounded around like a mountain goat. He pointed out that we were now over 2000m above sea level.
Mrs Green gave us all breakfast bars to eat, which perked me up for a little while. Then my sweat-soaked clothes began to cling to me in the cold mountain air and I began to feel properly cold. We started the return journey with me leading and I soon established a good pace. Before too long, I began to feel warmer again and the descent was pleasant with lots of spectacular scenery that no camera will properly do justice to. Apart from climbing one set of steps, which nearly turned my legs to jelly, we reached the end of the walk without any problems.
We thanked George and dropped him off at the UWA HQ before heading home via the Katunguru Craft Collective (present shopping). Tonight is our last night on Mweya before we have to change our thoughts to the return home. So there is packing to be done and airport check-ins to carry out. Mrs Green has a meeting in Kampala late tomorrow afternoon and I have photos to take for my year group’s geography topic before we catch our plane in the early hours of Monday morning.
There will be one last blog post next week and I will add photos to my previous posts so more of the words will gain context.
Today was supposed to have been an early start, but thankfully Yowasi contacted me to let me know that he had an urgent appointment and could we meet him at 10.00am at Kyambura as opposed to 8.30am. This meant that Mrs Green , Calum and I all got a bit of a lie in and we were able to have a more leisurely breakfast at Tembo. Today, the weather was overcast and there was a bit of a chill in the air – it could’ve been the UK in April or May.
We left for Kyambura at 9.10am. Passage out of the park was smooth and the fact that I was driving on the Katunguru – Kyambura road for the last time on this trip made the bumps and potholes a bit more bearable. We didn’t have to drive all the way to Kyambura in the end as Yowasi met us two –thirds of the way there. He had letters for the children at Liss from Kafuro pupils and letters for the children at Sheet from Kyambura pupils. However, he was full of cold, could barely speak and was wearing a thick jumper and a coat. We told him to go home and go to bed, but he insisted that he had things to do at school.
We said our goodbyes to Yowasi and headed home stopping off at the visitor centre to say ‘hello’ to a few rangers that we knew. Once home, I began to read my book but soon fell asleep. The others did exactly the same – I think the busy week caught up with us.
By the time we had all woken up, it was late afternoon. We decided to go for a walk around peninsula and headed up the airstrip towards the Kazinga Channel. I was trying to take photos of birds to impress my brother (who’s an avid twitcher), but they would never stand still for long enough for me to get a decent shot. We looked at the new dormitories for the education centre and said ‘hello’ to Solomon from the Banded Mongoose Project before heading home and getting ready for dinner.
When we got to Tembo, the World Athletics Championships were on TV, so we got to watch some of that for the first time. However, at half past nine, the TV channel was switched over to the beginning of the Premier League football and the game between Arsenal & Leicester City. As readers of this blog will know, I’ve mentioned in the past how big the Premier League is in Uganda. Just about all the Ugandans in Tembo were supporting Arsenal while Calum is a Leicester City fan. It made for a lot of great banter. SuperSport’s (the South African TV station broadcasting the game) coverage was interesting to watch: they had the BBC’s Alan Shearer and Phil Neville as analysts and the ITV commentary team calling the game. The Ugandans are very informed on each team and love talking about football. They all went home happy – unfortunately the same can’t be said for Calum after Arsenal won 4 – 3!
Tomorrow, we’re off to Rwenzori Mountain Park for a walk.
Finally, answers to Mrs Prior’s questions courtesy of Yowasi. Ugandans don’t have a tooth fairy, but children are encouraged to put teeth that have fallen out in a hole in the wall of the house – the rat’s hole. If they check later, they will find a small sum of money. There is no sandman, but Ugandans are encouraged to go to bed in a good mood because then they will have good dreams, a bad mood means bad dreams.
The premise for today was very simple. Yowasi would arrange for Gloria from P6 in Kafuro to travel down to Katunguru from where Mrs Green and I would pick her up and drive into Mweya. We would go to Tembo where Joshua, the head chef, would take her under his wing. Gloria would show Joshua the pizza and bread roll recipes that we had used at Kafuro last week and everything would be wonderful.
The complications began last night. Yowasi messaged me to let me know that Gloria’s parents weren’t happy that she travel without a friend. This was fair enough! I told Yowasi that this was fine and he replied that Gloria would be bringing her friend…..Gloria! Well, at least there wouldn’t be any problem remembering names.
The next problem started at 7.30am this morning. Joshua rang me to tell me that he wouldn’t be at work today so to bring the girls tomorrow. I told him that I was unable to do this and it would have to be today. I would go down to Tembo and speak to Kim, Joshua’s assistant and Bibian, the restaurant manager. Joshua was happy with this, so Mrs Green and I left a message for Calum and went for breakfast at Tembo. Kim and Bibian could not have been any more accommodating. Everything was fine and the girls would be made more than welcome.
With this sorted out and having had a couple of slices of marmite on toast (the last of Mrs Green’s marmite supply) we went to see Ronald the tourism manager to see if we could get the girls on the Kazinga Channel cruise as a treat/reward. Ronald ummed and aaahed but agreed and said that Mrs Green could join them as their chaperone..Result!
We drove down to Katunguru anxious to be on time to pick up the girls at 9.30am. Just before we got to the park gate we ran into a herd of 40 elephants. It was spectacular to view them so closely and Mrs Green was snapping away with my camera, but it did constitute a ten minute delay. When we eventually got to Katunguru, we needn’t have worried because it was another ten minutes until the girls arrived. This gave us time to buy a couple of bags of flour.
Gloria and Gloria looked pleased to see us although they didn’t say very much. Gloria 2 was wearing her Conservation Cup winners medal even though it had been awarded nearly two weeks ago. It just goes to show how much Ugandans value things. I can’t help but think that in the UK where we get medals for doing just about anything, they become disposable.
We reached Tembo and the girls were straight into action cutting and chopping. We made the pizza dough and then the tomato sauce while Kim and his team watched. While the tomato sauce cooked down and Gloria 2 stirred, Mrs Green and Gloria made the dough for the bread rolls.
Both the pizza and the bread rolls took ages to cook in the Tembo oven, but they both tasted delicious. Yowasi had given the girls some Kafuro honey to put on the bread and it was amazing. Everyone in the Tembo kitchen loved it.
From there, we drove to the Kazinga Channel jetty. There are now three boats available as UWA took delivery of a new boat earlier this year. Mrs Green and the Glorias got on the first boat while Calum and I waited to say goodbye. We were then told that there was room on the third boat if we’d like to enjoy the cruise. Within a blink of an eye Calum and I were in our seats. It wasn’t all good news. We were sharing the boat with six American families all with young children who were determined to run around and make as much noise as possible while their parents sat and did nothing. In effect we’d become a mobile crèche. The good news (for Calum at least as Mrs Green had my camera and binoculars) was that we had unobstructed views of all of the animals and it was easy to take photos. We didn’t see any elephants (you can’t be too lucky) but there were plenty of hippos and water buffalo as well as variety of birds. Calum and I amused ourselves by picking out African fish eagles, who mate for life and control territory of about 1km. We had quite a scare at the end of the cruise when we hit some sleeping hippos who ran out of the water very quickly and the resulting swell rocked the boat.
When we reached land, we drove the two Glorias back to Katunguru where they were picked up by the boda – boda driver. They thanked all of us and said that they had a really nice day. We were back home at about 6.15pm.
The next two days are a bit up in the air at the moment, but it looks as if I will be picking up letters to take back to the UK tomorrow with a trip to Rwenzori Mountain park on Saturday.
Adding Kafuro honey to freshly baked rolls
Elephants
Gloria and Gloria working with Kim
Gloria
Gloria
Mr Stanley enjoying his trip with a boat full of noisy Americans
After a tiring day yesterday, it was hard to drag ourselves out of bed, but we had promised Ramathan that we would visit the children at Katunguru Primary School. We stopped off at Tembo for breakfast. Most of this trip, I have just had toast for breakfast, but today I was really hungry so I had a rolex. The journey down to Katunguru was fine and we arrived at 9.30am to be greeted by Ramathan and Levi, the headteacher.
Our first task was to have a question and answer session with the older children. Mrs Green had P5, Calum had P6 and I had P7. I was fully expecting to be asked about Manchester United or the weather in England, but here is a selection of the questions I had to answer:
What is the European Union and how does it work?
Why did the UK treat Nelson Mandela like a terrorist?
Why was Osama Bin-Laden killed?
Why did the USA invade Iraq?
Why do other counties not like Russia?
I like to think that I’m up to date with current affairs and history, but I had to work very hard to explain my answers thoroughly and I made full use of the chalkboard. I’m currently reading a book called The Rift by a man called Alex Perry, which is all about sub – Saharan Africa. What the book makes clear is how ignorant we are of Africa’s history and how we have imposed our views and ideas upon Africans whether they want them or not. It was therefore really interesting to talk to some very intelligent children whose views were not necessarily the same as my own.
After breaktime, during which Mrs Green and I played netball with some of the girls, we went to visit Katunguru’s new library, which was donated by a US Peace Corps worker called Robert who worked at the school for a year. The building was fabulous and it was well stocked with books. Some of the titles may be a little strange to English audiences – my personal favourite was Akiira and the cannibals.
Finally, we moved on to classes P4 – P1 to say hello to all the children. In each class we were given a very warm welcome, but my absolute favourite was P1. They are taught by Robyna, who has been at Katunguru for as long as I have been visiting Uganda. Robyna always has her class immaculately drilled. When we reached the class Robyna was conducting tests with individual children outside the classroom and some of the children had already been sent home, but those who remained in class were brilliant. They sung us a welcome song, so we replied in kind with Row, row, row the boat. The children hit back with Heads, shoulders, knees and toes. They then totally floored us with a local song which involved a lot of jumping around. We felt that we had no choice but to join in.
We left Katunguru at 1.00pm and headed up to Kyambura Gorge where we were going chimp trekking with a ranger we know as English Robert. I had seen Robert at World Ranger Day and he had made me promise to come and visit him at the gorge, not that I needed any encouragement as he is such a nice man.
We had a bit of a wait when we got to the gorge as Robert had been shopping. We talked to a German couple from Aachen while we waited. When Robert arrived he was very pleased to see us and got ready immediately. The six of us had a short drive before we arrived at our entry point into the gorge. In two previous visits to the gorge, the closest I had got to the chimps was seeing them about half a mile away in distant trees with a pair of binoculars. However, Robert had been out with a group that morning and was confident that a) he knew where they were currently feeding and b) that we could get close to them. Within one minute, Robert had spotted a leopard in a tree, who disappeared so quickly that none of the rest of us saw it. However, Robert could show us its tracks as well as that of a hyena. Ten minutes later we heard the screeching of the chimps and another immediately after we got our first sighting.
There was a group of about 24 chimpanzees crossing the river. We got some photos, but none of them were really clear. However, Robert told us he had a good idea of their route and he would take us to a place where we could get a clear photo. This involved retracing our steps and then twenty minutes of lung-bursting climbs up some slippy slopes. At one point, we heard the chimps screeching and I thought that they were a long way away, but Robert explained that the gorge can make sounds that are near seem a distance away. As usual he was absolutely right. Suddenly, we saw a lone chimp standing guard and then we saw the dominant male up in the canopy. Robert showed us a good route so we could get some clear photos – we snapped away happily. Soon more of the chimps arrived and we got even more shots. Robert told us that he had named one of the chimps, Mweya, and he was so used to humans that you could easily take a selfie with Mweya in the background. On this day he didn’t stop for long enough but he walked within four feet of us as he passed.
We were back at our car fifteen minutes later. It had been an absolute privilege to spend time with Robert, who is a master of his craft, and to get near such magnificent animals. We all thought it had been a very special afternoon.
For the first time in what seemed an eternity, we got back home and it was still light. We all had jobs to do –in my case, blogging – but we were all really hungry so went early for dinner to Tembo. I had their club pizza which was stacked really high and smothered with cheese. It was lovely, but very filling. Mrs Green was delighted with her spaghetti neapolitana.
Tomorrow, we are Mweya based as we are giving Gloria (from P6 in Kafuro) the opportunity to show off her cooking skills at Tembo.
The elephant made of recycled bottles at Katunguru Primary School
In order to allow ourselves a bit more free time later in the week, I had scheduled a number of appointments for today. Subject to confirmation from Yowasi, we were due to meet the District Education Offiver for Rubirizi, Stephen Birru, a man we have got to now well; the District Scout Commissioner; visit Kyambura Primary School; and, finally, drive out to Mahyoro to drop off letters from their twinned school – West Meon.
We had intended to leave at 9.00am, but confirmation of our itinerary didn’t come through until after 10.00am, so we were late in leaving. We were going to pick up Yowasi from New Life Junior School and then get Muhudi (our scouting expert) from his school near to the offices at Rubirizi.
The drive up to New Life was terrible. I was now totally fed up with the useless road surface and the prospect of driving up and down it several times today did not fill me with any joy. An indication of how bad the road surface was duly appeared at Kyambura when we came upon a jack-knifed lorry carrying salt and the drivers and his friends looking dazed at the side of the road. The lorry was still there nearly twelve hours later.
We arrived at New Life to meet Yowasi. When he saw us, he asked us why we hadn’t picked up Muhudi. We discovered that he was at home at Kyambura as he had managed to walk on a nail and had gashed his foot.
After doing some quick filming at New Life, we had to drive back to Kyambura (past the jack – knifed lorry) to pick up Muhudi and then all the way back up to Rubirizi to meet Stephen Birru.
Stephen was in good form and very pleased to see us. He had given Mrs Green the connection with Kyambogo University and was very pleased to hear about her meeting. He was also very interested in the work we had done at Kafuro and was very keen that the school use every means possible to become self-sustainable. He was strongly in favour of introducing a mobile phone chargng service to the school. He even recommended to Yowasi that he install satellite tv at the school and charge local residents to watch Premier League football. Somehow, I can’t see Mrs Myers doing this at Liss!
We had brought a mountain of neckties (neckers) and badges from scout groups all over the UK thanks to the very hard work of Mrs Prior at Liss. The District Scout Commissioner was overwhelmed and could not believe how much equipment she had received. Unfortunately, we had missed a big scout meeting the week before, but the commissioner was going to make sure the equipment was fairly distributed and send photos.
After this really successful meeting, we headed back towards Kyambura to visit the Primary School, which is twinned with Sheet Primary School. On the way, we had to make a couple of stops. The first stop was the Doreen Hotel, which is where Yowasi decided we should have lunch. Mrs Green and I had goar Muchomos. The bill for four of us was £5!
Our next stop was to visit Yowasi’s dad. I have met his mum several times before, but never his dad. Yowasi’s dad is in his 70s (ancient by Ugandan standards) and suffering the aftre effects of a stroke. However, he was very pleased to see us and spoke excellent English. He had heard all about us and wanted to find out about our families.
We got to Kyambura Primary School about 4.00pm where I met briefly with Hope, the headteacher and Moses, the Twinning Project Co-ordinator. This was a very frustrating meeting as both their laptop and their tablet have reached the end of their natural lives, but they didn’t bother to inform Yowasi so we could’ve brought out a replacement. I gave them some money for data and they are going to use Hope’s smartphone to communicate. I felt very sorry for Mrs Newton, the coordinator at Sheet, who has done a brilliant job in communicating regularly. Hope did promise me that she would have letters ready to take back to Sheet.
It was 4.50pm when we left Kyambura and we had an hour’s drive to Mahyoro. This is usually one of my favourite drives because the scenery is stunning, but a) we were running very late and b) it was very cloudy and the light was beginning to close in. We finally made it to Mahyoro at 5.50pm where we were met by the co-ordinator, Julius – the children had gone home an hour ago. I handed over the letters from West Meon while Mrs Green took photos and gave Julius money for internet data. He was very pleased to see us and gave his best wishes to the children and staff of West Meon Primary School.
It was an hour’s drive to Yowasi’s house to drop him off before we finally headed home past the jack-knifed lorry and along the worst road in Uganda. We were so late coming back we had to use the main gate into Mweya (rather than Katunguru) which added 15 minutes to our journey. Add to this rubbish headlamps on our car, clouds of dust, a pitch black night and full beam headlights in my face from other vehicles, and I’m sure that you can understand that I wasn’t very happy by the time we got home at 8.15pm – over two hours later than planned.
The day had a successful conclusion. Joshua, the chef at Tembo, had given us a chicken for visting his school and it was beautifully cooked alongside rice, salad and …wait for it…Irish potatoes. It was a nice end to an exhausting day.
Tomorrow we’re going to visit Katunguru Primary School in the morning and go chimp trekking at Kyambura Gorge in the afternoon.
A little friend at Tembo
I’m sure the terrible road wasresponsible for this accident
Passing on the neckers and badges from UK scouts to the district scouting commissioner
We were up at 7.15am which constitutes a lie in for both of us. Before we checked out of Banana Village we had breakfast, and very nice it was too – sausages, Spanish omelette, toast and passion fruit juice. We checked out and left at 9.00am and headed for Kyambogo University for Mrs Green’s meeting. We had been warned that the 35km drive might take two hours, but the traffic was kind to us at first. I’ve now driven enough in Kampala to feel a bit more confident and we managed to get through the city centre without any problems – I beeped my horn merrily at any vehicle that came close to me.
As we drove through the Katwe area of Kampala I noticed lots of hardware stores selling strimmers. This was the first time I had ever seen them in Uganda. When it comes to cutting grass, most people use slashers (long sharpened metal sticks) which looks like back breaking work.
We arrived at Kyambogo University at 10.30 and, after we had composed ourselves, wnet to meet Dr Stackus. He couldn’t have been nicer and made us very welcome. We went to a conference room where we met three other lecturers from the SEN department. Three of the four of them had at one time or another studied in the UK, so their English was very good and they had some knowledge of English systems. As I don’t work in higher education, some of the conversations went over my head, but Mrs Green presented brilliantly and the Ugandans appeared very keen to work with Chichester University, so the meeting can be considered a success.
After the meeting ended at 12.10pm (obligatory photos included) we began the long drive back to Mweya. I couldn’t help but notice the amount of people who were using strimmers either by the roadside or in their gardens. Proof of the changes in Uganda! Progress was steady and we reached Kasese at 6.00pm. At this point, we were on target to be home at just after seven. However while we were in Kasese getting petrol at the garage the following happened:
There was a car crash right outside the garage and crowds of people gathered around the damaged vehicle (the other vehicle seemed to be fine and drove away) all making a fuss.
We discovered a lead hanging out from under the engine. We couldn’t find an obvious place it had come from.
We discovered that one of the front headlamps on the car wasn’t working so assumed that this might be due to the disconnected lead. Cue a visit to the garage down the road where it was checked out and discovered that a lightbulb was loose. The lead was taped up!
We eventually left Kasese at 6.40pm and got home in an hour. It was nice to see Calum again and we were given a very warm welcome at Tembo with everyone keen to hear about our adventures. After dinner and a couple of beers, we began to make plans for Tuesday, which would involve a lot of visits. More news tomorrow.
Finally some answers to questions posted by Liss children namely Chloe and Jessica East.
Most children live within 5km of the school so journey times vary between a couple of minutes to just over and hour.
Most of the towns have markets selling clothes which are easily available.
Not a great deal to report today. It was the first lie in of our trip, so we didn’t make it to breakfast until 9.00am. There was a selection of cereals, toast, omelettes and pancakes so we were well fed. The highlight of breakfast was Mrs Green pouring syrup all over an omelette thinking it was a pancake and still finding it very tasty. The grounds of the eco village are beautiful with a number of statues dotted around and a huge jackfruit tree in the middle. We spent the morning out on our veranda catching up with emails and blogs before making the most of the swimming pool available to residents.
This evening we had tilapia and chips, the best I have ever tasted. Tomorrow, Mrs Green has a meeting at Kyambogo University in Kampala before we cross the country again to head back to Mweya.
