The boys are back in Town!

 Hello dear readers of the ‘Ugandan Adventures of the Giant’,

            Firstly, I would like to say Happy 2012! I hope enjoyed your New Year and Christmas. A lot has been going on at Grace Children’s Village in the wonderful Rubanda East District. Sam and I have been back at the project for a week now after our Christmas holidays. We saw many amazing and breath-taking things, such as, the glorious Banda Island in Lake Victoria that ‘Lord of the Flies’ was based upon and where we spent our Christmas. We spent a time at Jinja for Bungee Jumping and White-water rafting, and then moved on to the beautiful Sipi Falls. There are so many stories to tell, too many to talk about in this edition, so unfortunately you will have to wait till I get back to get the full details.

It feels good to be back to our little village in the South of Uganda and as I said earlier there are tonnes of changes. A new Garden Bar has been constructed in the area that we had been working on. This will be used in two ways: for increasing tourism to the project and the surrounding area and also serve as a comfortable place for the locals to come a kick up and enjoy a room temperature Busira. I believe that we will be helping with completing this part of the project.

At the moment however, Sam and I have been placed in the new P1 and P2 classes. My class consists of the Top Class pupils that were able to pass the end of term exams that took place before Christmas. Because of the system in the Uganda if a child does not pass these exams they do not get to progress the next class, so if you look into a Middle Class (3-4 year olds) you may find children that have been in that class for 2-3 years! Therefore, this makes it harder for me and Sam to teach our classes, as we have to jump the hoops of the exam criteria in order to teach the children how to write in the correct way. This in turn prevents us from teaching the children of this age in a way that is stimulates imagination. So this system creates children that are a lot more intelligent of those of similar age in Britain but that lack imagination and any freedom of thought. I am not saying that this system is wrong; it is just different to how we were taught as children. In spite of this, I have been able to adopt some disciplinary methods in my classes in order to counteract the corporal punishment used in the classrooms. I have simply put up a behaviour chart on the wall. All the names of my children are written on it and every time they behave well they get a green mark in the “GOOD” column and when they behave badly they receive a red mark in the “BAD” column. So instead of beating them all I have to do is whip out the red pen and wave it at them. The results are phenomenal! I hope to move this method around the school and ultimately abolish corporal punishment from Grace Nursery and Primary School. It is a big task, but it is something I will persist with and see if it catches. I know I can’t change the every school in Uganda; however I can try with my project.

Along with new classes we have two new teachers, Teacher Fiona who I work with in P1 and Teacher Penelope   who is teaching the Top Class in the new Top Class classroom! This classroom was born out of the ashes of the old chicken shed. With a lick of paint and some letters on the wall you have a Nursery class for 40 children! This resurrection was aided by the help of the Deggs who came over for 2 weeks to visit Sam. Armed with brushes and an artistic mind they set to work on transforming the chickens crib into a child’s wonderland! Move over Grand Designs!

At around about the same time the Deggs came out my mama and papa arrived to see how I was doing. Damn Mothers can’t stay away can they! It was wonderful to see them and they said they loved Uganda and especially the project, which they will praise to the death! When my rents were around at the project we went to visit some of the community’s piggies. You will be glad to know that they are all looking healthy and fat. Some are even pregnant! This is good news for the project and even better news for the community as it means more families will be able to be introduced to the food to mouth program. 


Healthy Project pigs

  After visiting the project we did a wee bit of touring with Kasinga Tours (the touring company that David works for) to see some of the wonders of Uganda such as the chimps in Kibale, animals in Queen Elizabeth National Park and the big bad Gorillas in Bwindi Impenetrable Forest! I was very lucky to see them and I got some great pics of them. After our tour my parents got to witness one of the special BBQs of Bubaare, with Alex a.k.a the meat man cooking up some tasty meat on a stick! My parents have now gone back to windy, cold, snowy England but have the thought of gorgeous, green, dusty Uganda in their heads and are extremely satisfied with my project so if you want a person to talk about the lovely country of Uganda and the great things Grace Children’s Village is up to they are some people who have experienced first hand so have a natter with them. But I think they will be telling everyone anyway!

In addition, to new classes, new rooms, and new buildings we also have the pleasure of introducing to you a group of 8 new boarders to Grace Nursery and Primary School. In P1 we have 2 of the new children and in P2 we have a lucky 3 who are getting taught by the great Sam and Innocent duo. These little stars have created a new job for me and Sam. After the compulsory school time we move up to baby class to teach these boarders some extra curricular lessons on handwriting, Maths and English.

Lunches have also become extra special! A few months ago David, Patience and Baby Liam went up to Fort Portal to work on the land that is owned my Grace Children’s Village. They planted a Maize crop and after it had grown they collected 900 kg of maize flour which will feed the children lunch (posho) and breakfast (maize porridge) for the whole term! As well as the maize the Irish potato crop that Sam and I helped to plant has also been harvested, so it’s not just posho and beans for lunch now! BONUS!

Funding has also come in for the 3 story school! I am unsure when construction will start but both of us are looking forward to it very much. At the moment we are not doing any manual work and are working full time in the classrooms, so some school construction will serve as a great break from our mental sweat! It will also be amazing to be a part of work that will help progress the project in a massive way.

In January, I celebrated my birthday. I had planned to have my birthday in Kabale since the start of the year as I wanted to see how Ugandan’s celebrated them. Sam and David were very sneaky though! Sam had organised to have some of the volunteers come down to see me on that day. So Sam, me, Rhona, Beth, Will, and Elspeth enjoyed a meat and potato wedge platter at Rendezvous in Kabale. David and Patience also got me a massive cake, a bottle of sweet red wine and Ugandan coffee. WHAT A BIRTHDAY!

Our next celebration is Easter. In terms of Christian celebrations Easter is seen as more important than Christmas or any other holiday for that matter so I am looking forward to how the celebrations will pan out! It’s going to be HUGE! Also in April, Baby Liam is going to be baptised. The baptism is going to take place on the 24^th April.

So, as you can see there is A LOT going on in the coming months and that has already been done! That’s why Sam and I need some TLC time, so we have decided to have a curry/film night at the Café Royal on the last Friday of each month. Our one for Feb took place 2 days ago and I took a Mild Chicken Curry when Sam indulged in Dal curry! Deeeelish! I have now bought some extra spices and lentils in order to make our own curries. Unfortunately, I will have to wait for the end of the months for my chicken curry! As well as these dried herbs and spices I have begun growing my own ‘erbs! Coriander, Rosemary, Thyme, Basil, Sage, Mint, Parsley are growing away in my herb garden!

A final note before I leave I would like to introduce to our newest member to our mouse catching team:

The Rat Killing Machine 2012 (a.k.a Mr Growls!)

Thank you for reading and stay cool won’t you,

Liam and Sam (The Scarf and Egg)

P.S. I'll upload some photos later next week, the internet is slow and my camera hates me!