Goodbyes and Combyar

Our last few days volunteering in Uganda have been pretty sad. I can’t believe we’ve done here! We have our last HIV workshop tomorrow. I will be especially sad to finish that as I have worked so hard. I just hope The Youth League will carry on with the workshops as they have become very good and popular in the Mukono County. I’m sure they will.

We had our last days at the school this week. We had a sports day which was so much fun. There were sack races, crab races, balancing Frisbees on the head race and all sorts. The kids loved it! I’ve never seen them smile so much. At the end we gave them sweets they were so polite. It was a different story with the teachers though. I offered them one and they grabbed the whole bag. They were practically fighting over then. Then they wanted to chocolate that the winning teams were eating. It was so strange and I had to take them away. I think its because volunteers must bring sweets for the kids but never for them. It was a weird experience. Being here really has been a huge eye opener in every way. I’m getting slightly nervous about India program, as here has been so good. We’ll see!

Last night we went to one of our teachers’ mothers’ house. He’s been asking us to go for ages so last night we went. The house was gorgeous. It was so cosy with the first carpet and TV I’ve seen in Uganda. His mother was a head teacher of another school. She was so lovely. They made us African Tea and bread. It turns out she was hoping we would go and work for her school but unfortunately we have run out of time. She was saying how she is a Girl Guides leader and I slipped in that I used to be a brownie and a guide for a while (big mistake!). Well that was it, she had the flag out, photos, even the guides motto! When it was time for us to go she made us stand in a circle holding hands. Then Sebastian (the teacher at our school) sang ‘combyar’ (excuse spelling if wrong) and we had to join in. It was soo funny and I had to stop myself from laughing. I felt terrible but it was such a random situation I couldn’t help but laugh! They were so lovely though and it was definitely an experience I will not forget in a hurry!

I now have to go as we are still working on last bits and bobs for the organization ands it’s starting to get late. The Queen is visiting Uganda in a few weeks and they are frantically clearing the place up. This means it takes hours to get home from Kampala. Some people here still think I know her personally even though I’ve told them I don’t, one person asked if I could tell her to visit Mukono!

Love Amy xxx

A big catch up post

Hello! Wow it’s been a long time since I wrote. Well the bats came back… lots of them, but we eventually got it sorted, we taped up the hole they were getting through, this meant they had no way of getting out so they all died. I felt a bit sorry for them because all night you’d hear them dropping dead.. It was horrible, even now we hear the odd one drop dead. I just dread to think how it’s going to smell in a few weeks to come. Luckily we’ll be gone by then! We have only 2 weeks left to volunteer before James’ mum comes to visit. We are getting excited actually as the volunteering has been pretty intense and were looking forward to the break. We have 5 weeks off before volunteering again in India.

James and I have both had the flu since I last wrote, it was horrible! It was like at home but twice as bad as were not used to the Ugandan bugs. We are fighting fit again now though (just about!).

We have been teaching quite a lot over the last few weeks and it’s been loads of fun. The kids are awesome. We had another volunteer who was a professional dancer so I got her to come along to the school and teach the kids, they loved it! We have also been continuing with the HIV awareness outreach program in schools. It’s going a lot better than I anticipated. The kids/ young adults are really getting into it. They ask so many interesting questions, questions that I haven’t even thought of. I am learning loads from them, it’s definitely getting me ready for my social work course!

We are now wrapping everything up and making sure all our work is getting passed on to new volunteers and locals who want to keep it running when we leave. The thought of leaving is sad but at the same time I feel there is not a great deal more we can do for the organization as we have no more time left… Oh but we are organizing a sports day for our last day in school. I’m looking forward to that as the kids don’t really do any exercise. They spend the majority of their time repeating what the teachers say to them. Today we were doing ‘Art’ with the really young kids (we don’t normally teach them but they asked us last week if we could do one lesson with them as apparently they keep asking the teachers) James was telling them to write their name on their own drawing. He did an example on the board and wrote his own name. When we took all the pictures in they all had James’ name written on them! Bless them; however it shows they just copy and don’t actually understand what you’re saying!

Last Saturday we went white water rafting on the Nile.. It was ace! I only did to grade 3 as I was on the ‘mild’ boat. James did to level 5 which was the ‘wild’ boat. I thought.. sod that there’s no way your getting me on that. We managed not to flip on a rapid and I was soo pleased as I had almost drowned on the practice flip! There were 11 of us from GVN doing and I was sat on a boat with some of the women from the Guesthouse.. We had just had lunch and were about to go down a grade 3 and another volunteer turned to me and was like, Amy.. Do I have anything in my teeth? I was like WHAT? Were just about to hold on for dear life are you really that concerned! ..It was so funny and such a good day, I would recommend it to anyone passing by Uganda!

Right there is so much more I could go on about but I haven’t had a good working computer with internet in a while so I’m going to leave it here. I hope everyone is well, thanks for the messages you’ve been leaving too. Its nice to get them! Amy xx