T.I.A.

Home away from home

2010-06-07T02:25:00.000-07:00

After a month-long jaunt around East Africa with Libs, Livy & Ollie, I'm back in Jinja for a few more weeks before I get "expelled" from Lords Meade and have to jet back home to the UK... so what have I been up to? A fair amount, probably too much if I'm honest, but it's all been fantastic & I'd like to tell you about a few highlights. I'll try and follow with some photos next time, but until now, you'll just have to rely on my colourful & vivid imagery...

We set off on the 25th April and headed straight for the Kenyan border at Malaba (eastern uganda)... after a minor hiccup in which we discovered ourselves trying to re-enter Uganda (without having actually left yet) we found the exit point, emigrated, immigrated, and there we were, being assaulted from all angles by a barrage of pushy "walking forexes", boda-bodas, piki-pikis and vendors of other various fruity produce. We had arrived in Kenya.

The highlight for me in Kenya was mountain biking in the Hell's Gate National Park - a vast expanse of government-protected land that serves as a home to countless zebra, buffalo, impala and giraffes... we were lucky enough to have the ENTIRE park to ourselves, and wasted no time in making a (rather rash) decision to cycle the "buffalo circuit", a 14km loop taking us through some of the most spectacular regions of the park. I cannot even express the feeling of ultimate awe as we rounded the first corner and were confronted by gigantic majestic cliffs, totally clear blue sky and herds of zebra grazing freely among the rolling plains. It was incredible. We did manage to get ourselves hopelessly lost, however, but this didn't come to our knowledge until we found a sign directing us towards the buffalo circuit and telling us that it was another 12km back to the main gate... The following day, we all felt like we had been beaten mercilessly by our bicycles, except for Ollie, who felt remarkably sprightly... that may have had something to do with him being the only one to back a bike with working suspension. But as always, pain fades from the memory leaving only the good parts, and those good parts were bloody amazing!

I've got to dash now, but I'll try and continue this tomorrow with our journey from Nairobi to Mombasa in an original colonial-era sleeper train...

Love to the masses

Miles

A Photo Reel…

2010-04-19T04:40:00.001-07:00

G’day my trusty followers…. as they always say, a photo says a thousand words, so I’m going to give a bit of a montage so that you can all get the experience of the amazing safari my mom and I took out to southwestern Uganda to see the mountain gorillas…

View from our hotel in Kampala

Namirembe Cathedral

Sandy, our legend driver who barely went without these 3D glasses we gave him throughout the entire safari

Driving through the rolling hills of southwestern Uganda we met dozens of kids who loved to say hi and have photos taken with us.

Could it look any more like an African safari??? This was our accommodation at the Buhoma community, just inside the main entrance to Bwindi Impenetrable National Park.

Comparisons with Arnold Schwarzenegger have been drawn…

Our porter, Romina. The porters all live in the local villages and are optional to hire – we were all encouraged to use them because it helps the local community and encourages the indigenous people to look after the forest rather than cutting it down. I couldn’t quite work out whether we were being blackmailed or not…

Intrepid adventourists.

Big grandad silverback

And here’s the dude chilling, the “player” as was described by our guide. He’s definitely too cool for school.

This gorilla could’ve charged me if he was feeling wild – we were told that in that event we had to eat the surrounding foliage to show them that we aren’t a threat. Luckily it didn’t happen.

We got as close as 6m to the gorillas - the tracking was the most amazing experience ever!

And we couldn’t resist a bit of clowning around.

We saw baby gorillas tussling, then rolling down a hill to their mother who began to groom them.

Wouldn’t want to meet him on a dark night…

Overall, the experience was awesome and totally worth the money.

Our next stop was the Lake Bunyonyi to R&R for a few days and experience some culture…

The lake was really beautiful, and we really got to see it from all angles after spending one night on an island out in the middle of it and one night on a shoreside resort. Bushara island (where we stayed) was just like something out of Swallows & Amazons or Swiss Family Robinson, with lush vegetation, towering trees and canoes to hire out and paddle yourself (we spent a good half hour just spinning around in circles before getting the hang of it.)

This was the local market down at Rutinda jetty.

And these kids were jet set to watch a 3D movie (although I don’t think they quite realised that).

Having spent time in their midst, I felt at one with the gorillas, as you can see from my accurate facial expression and typical body language often seen in these majestic giants.

Does what it says on the tin.

This shows the town centre of Kabale.

And we were glad to see that progress is being made on the Ugandan roads after spending 4 days being jolted around and having our brains bashed out by the innumerable potholes that plague the road network.

When we stopped at Lake Mburo National Park we saw Impala, monkeys, and a multitude of birds.

Wild cattle (???) at Lake Mburo NP

Then on our way back to Jinja we crossed the equatorial line, and had to stop for a few snaps.

So although it got off to a rocky start (what with mom’s flights being delayed by 28 hours and her journey spanning 3 days) our safari was exciting, intriguing, and relaxing in all the right places, and I couldn’t have hoped for a better experience seeing the gorillas. Thoroughly recommend doing it if you’re thinking of coming out to Uganda, Rwanda or the DRC – the forest that borders these three countries serves as a habitat for around 273 mountain gorillas – over half the worldwide population of these powerful and mysterious creatures. We booked through “Advanced Tours” – more details can be found on their website at www.advancedtours.ug

Who’s the king of the jungle???

2010-04-09T02:49:00.001-07:00

What’s been going on???? I’ve not been doing such a great job keeping you all updated lately… there have been numerous complaints… on the other hand I’m glad to see that my blog is actually being read by a trusty few. Thanks for reading guys, and I hope that some of what I write may reach out to you and inspire you to think about doing something similar yourself… volunteer work is so rewarding for all parties involved, and it’s a lot easier than you think to get involved. Too often, people look at all the problems in the world and want to help, but it’s all just so overwhelming, so they sit back and do nothing about it. What I say is, every little helps. Buy an African family a goat. Sponsor a primary school student’s fees. Travel to an 3rd world country and simply visit with the locals, talking to them and learning about their culture. Showing an interest alone makes these people feel valued, and in turn could be the most valuable way you can help. Just think about it.

So what have I been up to? Rather a lot, so let me begin with Lords Meade. The term has been barrelling along at full pace, and it’s hard to believe that it is nearly over. All my teaching is complete until after their spring break, which runs between 23rd April – 23rd May, and it’s all flown by so quickly. My Senior 5 Maths class (that’s the equivalent to the first year of 6th form ie AS levels) have been steadily improving, not just in their mathematical abilities but also in confidence. When I began teaching at Lords Meade way back when, I was shocked by how quiet the students were in lessons, and how unwilling they were to speak out in class to answer a question or ask for help. Now, when I ask whether they understand, it’s wonderful to receive either a resounding YES! or to see a few hands shoot up and ask me to recap on some of the new material. The teaching has been a challenge, particularly because I only covered most of the maths last year, and am having to re-learn everything abreast the students, but overall I’m glad that I opted to teach some of the older students as well as the younger, where I’m kind of able to just wing it on the day, because all that material is just second nature after all these years. One of the other classes I’ve been teaching is Senior 1 music – a brand new introduction into the curriculum this year, and still very much in the early stages. It’s actually very fun to teach in that slightly less formal environment, because with the A Level maths we’re on a pretty tight schedule and there isn’t a lot of room for experimentation. In music, I teach theory and staff notation, because out here in Uganda their methods for transcribing music are very different from those we use in western culture. Notes are not the familiar blob on a stick; instead the Africans use “do re mi fa so la si do”, a system that I still haven’t fully come to terms with yet. In my lesson on the musical clefs, I got them to think about the pitches of different sounds and try to decide which clef that sound would go into. It was hilarious to hear them trying to classify different animal sounds, especially when one boy put up his hand and excitedly said “COW – MOOOOOOOOOOOO” in a deep baritone, then when I asked him which clef that sound would sit in he proudly proclaimed, “Treble Clef!!!" I didn’t mind because really, what mattered was that they had broken out of that pattern of dictation and transcription more akin to a university lecture, and much less helpful for a group of bright young 12/13 year olds. They were loving the freedom to get involved and express themselves; something I’ve been trying to encourage the students to do ever since I began working at Lords Meade. The choir is also moving from strength to strength, and as you can see in the picture below, it’s not only the WGS students who want a piece of the action – Jenny, Tom & Joe have all been helping out too, and we’re now planning for an end of term concert to show the rest of the school what we’ve been getting up to over all this time.

In my free time I certainly haven’t been keeping idle – last Friday my mom arrived in Uganda after an epic 2 day journey that involved an unscheduled overnight in Kenya and 2 separate flights which set out for Nairobi and turned back due to technical problems… what a way to be introduced to Africa! T.I.A. indeed!!! When she eventually arrived she was still smiling, and we immediately set off on our safari out to south-western Uganda. Saturday we road-tripped for 13 hours with our driver Sandy, who turned out to be the biggest legend ever. He became very attached to a “spectacular” accessory we gave him at the beginning of the safari, and some very amusing photos ensued – you’ll see what I mean when I put them online.

Saturday night we arrived at Bwindi Impenetrable National Park after our very long drive through endless climbing mountains of lush flora and fauna. Every single kid we passed on the road had another demand for us, ranging from the expected “GIVE ME MONEY!” to the downright strange “I offer you my pen!!!”. Evidently the latter child didn’t have the strongest hold on our British mother tongue. My mom responded by feeding them cookies in a way I found very reminiscent of past experiences at the West Midlands Safari Park… then we realised once again that we were going on the real thing, and were bowled over by the awesomeness of it all. Our accommodation was a real traditional canvas safari tent in the middle of the jungle – made even more magical by the fact that we never saw it in daylight, seeing as we were up and out the following morning at 5am!!! There was a 2 hour drive out to the point where our trekking would begin, because Easter Sunday was the day we were going to see the great giants; the african mountain gorillas! They rule the roost in the park, so we literally have to start our tracking from wherever they decide to sleep that night. The forest & mountains that encompass Bwindi also cross the border into the DRC and Rwanda, and between these 3 countries are located about 273 mountain gorillas – over half of the worldwide mountain gorilla population. I’ll leave this story to be continued next time… did we, or did we not see the gorillas??? You’ll have to wait and see…

Birthday Bunjees to the Links

2010-03-29T05:31:00.001-07:00

Boy, have I got a lot of catching up to do… I haven’t blogged for 2 weeks and so much has happened since then, it seems more like 2 months! I’m going to make this one a recreational post, because we’ve done so much fun stuff in our free time, followed by an entry more related to Lords Meade and the volunteering side of our time in Uganda. Moving way back to Wednesday 17th March, we had another birthday in the Busoga Trust Guest House, this time Joe’s. On his birthday a lot of us were busy in the morning and early afternoon, so we didn’t really kick things off until 3, when we all moved to Adrift to finally do the Nile High Bunjee, a terrific drop of 44m off a scaffold into the foaming Nile. We’d been waiting to do the bunjee for quite some time, and it was the perfect occasion to jump – we kicked off with the birthday boy, who tandem-jumped with Dom. Next out of the hat came Sophie & I, who had also decided to do a tandem jump. After they bind your ankles together it’s very difficult to move, and when they ask you to start shuffling your feet towards the drop it’s fairly petrifying. For the tandem jump, I was on the right hand side; left arm around Sophie, right arm clinging to the scaffold for dear life, so when Jack (the bunjee manager – aka the guy who pushes you off the edge of a 44m drop) said we could give a wave to our friends, I had no idea where he thought that hand was coming from, because I sure as hell wasn’t letting either of mine go!!! After a quick talk telling us not to let go of each other if we didn’t want to end up like the balls in a Newton’s Cradle, we got the call of 3…2…1… Bunjee, and we were over the edge and into the abyss!!! The adrenaline rush as you fly vertically downwards is incredible, and I would thoroughly recommend it to any traveller who passes through Jinja.

The very same weekend, we also did white water rafting down the Nile, and if you thought the bungee was scary, you’ve got another think coming! Grade 5 Rafting was one of the scariest things I’ve ever experienced in my life, and so, so much fun. The best moments were on a rapid called “Chop Suey”, which most of the teams didn’t do, but our instructor obviously thought would be educational. It was the third part of a set of rapids that started with a lot of vicious looking rocks, chucked us down the sheer drop of a waterfall, and then required us to paddle for our lives until our arms were numb, just in order to get us to a place on the river that the current didn’t want us to be in, so that we could go through the most dangerous rapids of the day. Awesome. Almost immediately, half of the boat fell out right in the middle of the most intense part (including me). I instantly regretted not trying a bit harder to cling on, because the river was dragging me straight downwards and pummelling me like Mike Tyson as I fought to get to the surface and breathe. It was so scary, and it felt like I was underwater for ages, even though it was probably only a couple seconds. The day of rafting was soooo enjoyable and exhilarating, and the meals were the best food we’ve eaten on the whole trip, which is really saying something in comparison to the Busoga bistro! Breakfast on Sunday was full english with weetabix, coffee, juice & tea… need I say more??? Rafting the “White Nile” definitely gets a thumbs up from Miles!

Jinja Golf Club…

Yesterday Tom, Ollie & I stopped dithering about an idea that had been brewing for quite a while and hit the Jinja links! What a day it turned out to be! Despite the fact that there was a very obvious storm brewing, Ollie brandished his beanie, Tom tucked in his socks and I buttoned up to the tip top of my polo shirt… we definitely looked the part as we arrived with our set of guest house clubs. Immediately, we were beset by a few guys who wanted to caddy, and typically, they weren’t going to take no for an answer. We did graciously refuse though, until we made it out to the first tee-off and realised that we had no idea on earth where the green was. Cue the caddies running back over to us and offering their services once again, and this time we were obliged to accept if we had any self-respecting desire to complete the course. Our Ugandan caddies, Dan & Phillip, turned out to be really nice guys, and gave us a lot of pointers as we played through the holes… when the torrential rain cleared up it turned out to be a really nice day, and we couldn’t have hoped for a more idyllic setting than right next to Lake Victoria. As we were golfing, we even saw a few monkeys playing around, and had to scare them off when they started trying to nick our balls! Here’s a few photos of us in action…

So, thanks for stopping by, and check back soon for another instalment!

Joining the HYT Family/Kampala

2010-03-16T01:14:00.001-07:00

The Ugandan’s have a very individual (and confusing) way of letting you know that they haven’t seen you recently, and that they have missed you… so I have to apologise for my absence from my blog over the past week, I have indeed been “lost, veeerrryyyy lost”.

On the other hand, I have done so much over the past 7 days, I’ve hardly had time to stop and think – after starting Paul off at Lords Meade last Saturday…

I spend the weekend unwinding after the intense and stressful preparations that had preceded his admission to secondary school. Monday was a national holiday – Women’s Day – so we had an extra day to relax, although it did entail a very painful evening where we were all forced to endure “Twilight, New Moon” the movie… at least my opinion that it would be an awful film is now justified. For dinner Connor and I cooked a mean “G.I. Shepherds Pie”, which was acclaimed as one of the best meals we’ve eaten so far. I was thoroughly astounded once again at my new-found abilities as a chef, although I’m not sure how much of the appreciation was fuelled by the massive hunger brought on during the 3 hours it took to prepare!!!

The rest of the week was incredibly busy, but let me start with Friday morning, when I woke up feeling as stiff as a board, very dirty, and immensely happy about it. It meant that Sophie, Rachel, Marianne, Tom and myself had spent a week living out in a Ugandan village, working for a charity called HYT (Haileybury Youth Trust) on their “One Village At A Time” project, helping in the process of totally re-modelling a secondary school called 3R’s. It was by far the most rewarding week so far, and I feel really lucky that we had the opportunity to go and experience rural Uganda in such an intimate way…

The Journey

…and Arrival

When we arrived we were introduced to the headmaster, John 1, deputy head, John 2, and workman, John 3… I obviously don’t stand a chance of ever being offered a job there!!! All the people were very welcoming, and we instantly felt at home. The students taught us African drumming and we taught them salsa dancing, then I went and played in a massive game of volleyball with the HYT construction workers.

HYT is a charity linked to Haileybury school in the UK, started by Clement Atlee, an alumnus of Haileybury school and British Prime Minister after Winston Churchill. They used to do alot of work in East London, but in recent years have transferred their efforts over to Uganda, and have begun the “One Village at a Time” project that I mentioned earlier. Tom and Marianne are the ambassadors this year for HYT, and together with Helen, the HYT supervisor out here, are doing fantastic work improving 3R’s school, as well as furthering the reputation of the charity (which recently achieved NGO status).

During our stay we learnt to make the ISSB (Interlocking Stabilised Soil Block) bricks, using a Ugandan-designed machine…

As you can see, you have to throw your entire body weight on the lever to compress the brick, and it’s very tiring work, but at the same time fun, especially at the other end when you flip the lever over and the brick pops out on a pedestal, like something out of Indiana Jones. I did get some bad blisters off the machine, and redefined the meaning of pain as I cleaned them with antiseptic hand gel, which I realised was practically pure alcohol. Oh the burn! During our stay we hiked over to a local primary school, where we found a pond with turtles in it…

…crossed over….

…found a massive anthill…

…entered the school having given no reason whatsoever for our visit…

…and were then expected to give speeches in front of all the students!!!

You’ve gotta love Uganda!!!

On Thursday we were taken to a nature reserve with an amazing waterfall and a totally unpronounceable name. The tour guide didn’t really speak much English, so we were quite baffled/intrigued when we found a small ravine with two tents at the bottom, outside which were planted stakes with human hands fashioned out of metal on the end. Rachel was straight in, calling up that it was “hands guys, it’s definitely voodoo.” We were thrilled that we had found witchcraft and black magic, but then I got a translation from the guide and it turned out to be a tourist attraction, which was frankly a bit of a letdown. He did show us a cave where people really did used to practice witchcraft, and there were some human jawbones there, as the Busoga people believed that the human spirit resided within the jaw, so the bones had healing properties… We then asked whether the guide subscribed to such beliefs, and he looked at us aloof and said very matter-of-factly “I am just a tour guide.” I presume the intended answer was “no”. Sadly, my camera battery had run out by this point, so I don’t have any photos to show you, but we are planning on going back to the site to camp in mid-April and I promise I’ll deliver then.

In the meantime, here are a few photos to conclude our stay in Lugazi…

The view from our room…

Which you can see here…

And here we are enjoying the evening with some of the workers

Over the weekend we made a road trip to Kampala, the capital of Uganda. It was so great to start travelling around the country, because we all now really feel like Jinja is our home, and naturally we want to break out of that bubble… so we went to watch some of our friends play rugby against the Kampala Pirates, and it turned out to be a very entertaining match…

Things got off to a great start, with our team (Jinja Nile Rugby Club) scoring a cracking try. They really fought for it, before eventually slipping right through the defence with a couple tricky passes and feints. In the end they managed to land it smack bang in the middle of the goalposts, and Brook was able to make a very smooth conversion – we were going crazy in the stands, as you can see below…

In the end though, things started going downhill and the final score was 40-7 in the pirates’ favour, although the match got called off 10 minutes early after too many players got sent off… it all started when Joe, the coach, got into a scrap with another player, punched him in the face and promptly got shown the red, then in the next tackle instead of going for our player’s legs, the guy simply laid into him with his studs, and the match erupted into a full-scale brawl! No one got injured, but it was hilarious to watch, and all the Ugandans were just cheering for whoever threw the most punches. A woman next to us screamed “Number 1, I’m disappointed in you, we wanted to see blood!!!” Now all our Ugandan players have gone on strike because they aren’t getting paid and our Mzungu players are all rafting with us next weekend, leaving only Nial, an Irish guy, as the remaining player for the match next Saturday. I think it might be the end of an era…

But in any case, none of that was going to stop us from having a great night, so here we all are on the balcony of our Kampala hotel (before going out)…

and I’ll leave the next portion up to the imagination until morning…

when we were all still alive and ready to escape the loggerjam of mayhem that is daytime Kampala traffic and return to Jinja, home sweet home.

This week I’m going to be incredibly busy back at Lords Meade, leading up to the launch publication of the very first school newspaper on Friday 26th March. I’ll keep you posted!

Paul’s Big Start

2010-03-08T05:53:00.001-08:00

Saturday was a proud day for me, my family, and Lords Meade Vocational College. After 2 days of shopping, planning and hard work, Paul was finally able to enter the school gates as a fully-fledged student. I honestly think it was the happiest day of his life so far, and I’d like to thank my family for taking the decision to sponsor him. It’s going to be fantastic to see how he grows into a confident young man and I’m glad that we can all help in paving that road for him. I would like to encourage others, (in particular any people who have a link with WGS, be they parents, teachers or relatives) to think about taking the opportunity to sponsor a young student who has completed primary school. It would make a phenomenal amount of difference to the life of a child from a local village (like Paul) – the government provides state-funded primary education for 7 years, but that is only sufficient enough to get an elementary job, for example as a market vendor, street-stall cook or bus driver. By providing secondary school education, you are opening the door for a whole range of careers, not to mention helping to move them, their families, and Uganda out of poverty and into a brighter future. Overall, the tuition costs are approximately £300 for a full year of boarding and 3 meals a day, so if you are interested, please get in touch with Val Fogarty at Wolverhampton Grammar School, and find out how you can make a difference!

A Prelude to Scholarship…

2010-03-04T06:06:00.001-08:00

G’day to my loyal followers! We have all been so busy lately, and are still having an amazing time out here in Uganda, so let me try and give you some of the highlights…

Yesterday I went and collected Paul from ASCO, because we were about to embark on an epic journey to show him around Lords Meade, and see if he likes it before my family sponsor him. He took me on a tour of the market as we bought him a new set of clothes for his tour – it makes a big difference, because the children feel very uncomfortable in their dirty clothes in any social situation other than with their friends (I guess we all count as their friends, because they have no qualms with jumping all over us, play-fighting and trying to detach our fingers from our hands). The kids all call us uncles and aunts, and I enjoyed being the magnanimous uncle as I took Paul to see Lords Meade. He was so proud as he paraded around the market with a growing pile of brand new clothes in his hands, and was grinning from ear to ear by the time I got him back to the guest house to take a shower and change. When I complimented his flip flops, he thanked me, then wordlessly took me on an adventure into some district of Jinja I’d never seen before to get me a matching pair! They’re made from recycled car tires, and I now feel like a local. For a while we hung out at the guest house and ate cookies, drank cokes, watched TV to make him feel comfortable, as I knew he’d be nervous about going to see a new school. When we eventually reached Lords Meade, he was initially apprehensive, but that soon faded away after we went and got a massive takeaway samosa order from the canteen and embarked on the tour… He was overawed by the football grounds, classrooms, assembly hall, and the sheer size of the place!!! I was able to get Thomas (Paul’s best friend, who Rachel sponsored last week to join Lords Meade) out of his lesson, (major uncle points there) to come on the tour with us, and the boys both chatted away happily as we checked out the rest of the school.

Paul admitted that before he saw the school, he thought it was not very good, but he was totally surprised by the reality of Lords Meade and would absolutely love to go! Hopefully we are going to get him enrolled on Saturday, and he will experience his first lesson next week on Monday. The whole project is proving to be such a success!

On Tuesday we had a majorly awesome choir rehearsal with the fledgling young voices of Lords Meade

The photo there shows about half of the choir members – we were in full flow with a four-part canon at the time, and the students are proving very responsive to our coaching! Many of them play african drums, which we are hoping to incorporate into a performance sometime, as well as some western contemporary & street dance coached by Marianne. Even the students are getting involved – a young man called Zachary had composed an amazing song, sung in Luganda (the local native language). He has begun teaching the song to the choir, and frankly, it put our “Frere Jacque” to shame – we’re going to have to step our game up!

Back at the guest house, we’ve been playing some rather amusing American Football… with a rugby ball, in a garden barely big enough to fit a car into… All part of the GI philosphy! The girls were all very keen to take on the lads, which didn’t end well for them. Although, of course, they did win, according to them. Why? Did they get more points? No. They JUST WON.

Here you can see our improvised goalposts, with Dom doing a traditional African dance in order to protect himself from the unpredictable kicking habits of the ladies.

In other news… The Busoga Trust Bistro is still operating at a premium level, churning out such delicacies as enchiladas, shepherds pie and risotto, as well as the slightly more adventurous/vomitworthy “At Ease” (Apples filled with cheese and topped with a mystery spice) and a “Fish & Chips” dinner which turned out to be the ultimate car crash – we squeezed the lemons Dom provided onto the fish and found out they were oranges, then discovered that the gas had run out halfway through the cooking and half the group woke up the next morning with food poisoning!!! Excellent!

More next time… peace out.

OLUNAKU OL OLUNJI!!!

2010-02-26T04:07:00.000-08:00

Before I even opened my eyes on Monday, I could hear the rain pounding down. For the first time, the climate was comparable to that which we're used to back in England... in the middle of the summer. All the Africans were running around in thick coats and wellies, complaining about how cold it was - apparently the country literally grinds to a halt when it rains. You can use it as an excuse for missing school, work, your first-born daughter's wedding...  I had to laugh, but I saw why this was the case when we drove into school - the  un-paved roads (which is most of them) become absolute quagmires, and it was very comic watching Ema the driver frantically twisting and turning the wheel while the car slid left and right in the thick mud. They found it funny when I told them it was just like driving on ice back home as they've never seen snow or ice in real life.

 Monday was a tough day... I went to ASCO and guess what we did all morning? Watched Ratatouille, which all the the kids loved. Then it was still raining, so we watched Space Jam, which they also loved. Not quite as much as Ratatouille though; you've got to hand it to Pixar, GASTRONOMY + RODENT = CLASSIC WINNING FORMULA. Then it was still raining, so we went home and watched Ratatouille again... we must look like such slackers!!! No, actually the reason we put the movies on for the kids was because in the other room we were on rotation completing the paint job, and we needed them all out of the way. Some of the kids like to help out, but we have to be careful because some of them sneak off and start sniffing the paint. We are slowly forming a plan of action for Asco, and a lot of the credit for this has to go to Liberty, who has been instrumental in motivating everyone to help out, and is also using her own money to fund the project until we can find sponsorship. If anyone reading this is interested in providing funding to help rehabilitate, teach and feed the homeless children of Jinja, drop me a line at miles.lemlawrence@gmail.com. We are actually quite desperate for help at the moment, as we have been notified by the owner of the property we've been using that we are no longer going to be able to run the project back. This is devastating, especially as we have just finished repainting the place, so we need to find another premises to rent as soon as possible. In addition to all this, the children have been sleeping on the street as we cannot provide a place for them to stay overnight. All of this needs to change, so any help  would be much appreciated.

 Tuesday was Sophie's birthday! Rachel had set an alarm at 12am to kick the day off, and most of the crew went and stormed Soph's room to wish her tidings and felicitations and all that. I rolled over and sent her a text. Principles. It read, "Happy Birthday! Ps. I woke up to send this message". I heard the message come through across the quad, followed by Tom's cry of "Classic Miles" across the quad. Satisfied, I rolled over and went back to sleep. Soph woke up and was thrust a card from all of us; I think we were actually more excited about her birthday than she was!!! I'll cut to the evening, when we all got kitted out in traditional African clothing and hit Gately hotel for dinner. The food was totally minted, and we were all starving, so we went all out; many even ordered dessert (myself included). It had to be the "Gately's famous 'never say die' chocolate and banana rocky mountain dream-cake". THE MOST pretentious titled dessert I have ever encountered. Almost. Next on the menu was essentially "vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce", but it was described in over 30 words... Frankly, I was quite impressed. Sarah, Laura, "WEZ" and co. all threw a house party for Soph afterwards, and we danced the night away. The next birthday has a LOT to live up to.

 Back onto ASCO, I've found a bright young boy named Paul who is very enthusiastic about going to secondary school, but his parents cannot afford to send him. Out in Uganda, primary education is free up to the age of 11 (roughly), but after that many children have to drop out of school. Paul wants to be a doctor when he grows up, and although he's quite shy, we are drawing him slowly out of his shell. He loves mathematics and is a Chelsea supporter - you've probably guessed by now that my parents and I are trying to get him a place at Lords Meade! Fingers crossed, as nothing is confirmed at the moment, but I'm hoping that he will soon be able to join his best friend Thomas at LMVC, whom Rachel's family have sponsored. It's all very exciting, and I should have more news about that soon. Thanks again for taking the time to read my blog; please don't hesitate to get in touch via email. From Miles

Ready for (writing about) the Weekend

2010-02-24T05:00:00.000-08:00

Good morning/day/afternoon/evening/night to all you blog followers,

At some stage I'm going to run out of "witty" opening greetings. Maybe one day, just to shake things up a little, I'll open WITHOUT A GREETING. Jump right in. Get involved...

Now, the trouble with a blog is that you need to have loads of really interesting stuff to write in it, and as we all settle into our routines at school, asco, sunrise orphanage, and so on and so forth, the blog becomes a trifle mundane. I think I've left it 5 days since my last post, and I reckon I might, just might, have collected enough crazy, mental and awesome stuff to write about and keep you all entertained. I'm just joking actually, LOADS of stuff is happening, so much that I can't even remember all of it!!!!

Let me move back to Friday, and write sort of chronologically like I did last time, as it worked pretty well...

Friday - This was a big day: the birth of the Lords Meade Choir! All considered, it went very well, with about 40 students attending. They were enthusiastic and tried hard, which bodes well for the future of the choir, even at such an early stage. Sophie and my only downfall was that we showed up and realised we had literally NO IDEA what we were going to teach them! Luckily I though of an easy, but impressive-sounding song that we were able to rehearse. It was an African song. Sophie and I cannot pronounce African words properly, and alot of (good-hearted?) sniggering on the part of the students ensued... At the end of the day, we had a good laugh and everyone seemed to enjoy the rehearsal, so I'll be writing more about that in the future.

Saturday - after a hectic Friday night on the town, Saturday was, shall we say, very chilled out. I basically only moved to go and pick up a steak sandwich and chips from the local Zamo hotel. If ever there was a more perfect hangover remedy, I've yet to discover it! Not alot happened on saturday as it is most peoples' day off, so let me zoom on to the evening ---------> We went to Nile River explorers to celebrate with the rugby team and all the other local "mzungus" - We seem to celebrate more when they lose than when they win, which is quite odd. The party was good there, but inevitably there was an eventual migration to Sombreros... I undertook this pilgrimage with a few others in the back of a Land Rover, and boy were those bumps unforgettable... you've gotta love Ugandan roads!!!

Sunday - again very chilled, but this time spent at the pool at Nile Resort Hotel, which is totally minted. I've probably mentioned it before, although this time we had some unexpected mischevious visitors. Up in the passionfruit trees (probably passionfruit trees, not definitely) was a whole gang of monkeys, eating and chucking fruit around at the poolside revellers! Literally LOADS of monkeys, and then they started running around the pool, drinking poolwater... I even saw one with 2 tails, then realised it was a mother with here baby clinging on underneath. All very cute, all very rabid. Thank heavens we've all had the jab! We watched Last King of Scotland in the evening; it had so much more relevance and meaning this time round having spent a month in Uganda. Never did know that teleportation was on the cards in the film; he steps out of Kampala general hospital, straight into very recognisable footage of Jinja high street! So consistent!

I'm going to have to leave it at that today I'm afraid, but I'll be back to continue the story before you know it!

Miles

MALARIALERT!!!

2010-02-19T03:24:00.000-08:00

Ok, some of you may have already heard... 3 weeks, and I've already had malaria! Despite the fact that I've been taking malarone religiously, the sly mosquitos obviously managed the find my Achilles heel - no, quite literally, I have an incredibly itchy bite on my heel, which probably was the culprit.

So I'm not going to dwell on it - I got diagnosed on Monday, had a 3-day course of Duo-Cotexcin, and now I'm right as rain! Everything is going swimmingly! (Enough of the aquatic figures-of-speech I think). It wasn't too bad because my malarone was actually treating the virus, meaning that I only experienced loss of energy, headaches and flu-like symptoms... In a way it was a bit of a relief when I got diagnosed positive, because it meant I could stop pansying around complaining that "I've got a sniffle". According to Joe, I've braved it out awesomely well, meaning that I've set the bar pretty damn high for the next person to fall foul of those 'lil liver-bursting parasites.

To be fair, a lot has happened since I last wrote my blog, and it's starting to get tedious detailing everything in my diary, blog, facebook, and emails to everyone, so it's going to be a bit of a whistle-stop tour I'm afraid...

Monday - diagnosed with malaria, spent the day feeling strangely proud of myself for being the first to contract the "killer-virus", and enjoying being waited on hand and foot by my contemporaries... It was weird not having Tom & Marianne for dinner, I think they must act like the tent-pegs of the group, because halfway through the meal we launched into a very intense debate about faith and religion. Don't completely know where it came from (although I think I may have been the culprit with some broadly-aimed statement about how to a certain extent I believe staunch religious belief to be a cop-out. That really set the house on fire!!!)

Tuesday - Popping the little blue cotexcin malaria pills seemed to be working a treat. I can't exactly remember what we did in the day, but we had a TOTALLY awesome pancake day dinner. A flipping contest was staged, with points for rotation, landing, footwork, and "panache"... and it was an absolute riot. I managed to perfectly flip a pancake while enacting a very "authentic" barn-dance routine. Ollie took the gold with a stylish drop of the knee, while I think Jen just threw the pancake over her shoulder into the sink, with no real plan of how to retrieve it...

Wednesday - feeling alot better, I went to Sunrise orphanage (or was that tuesday???) and looked after the "babies & tots" with Soph, Jen & Joe. More on that place another time. Soph & I went on a mission into the local market to get ingredients for our "risotto". You have to have ALOT of patience because none of the stall-holders really speak English, so any inquiry about where to find a particular item will either result in a pointed finger in a random direction to try and get rid of you, or repeated assertion of the price of their onions. When I asked for mushrooms, I was met with the melancholic response "Muslims??? No, sorry, no muslims here"
Risotto, which I though would be a total disaster (and did look it, at the point when it was a stagnant-looking soup with bloated courgettes floating around) turned out to be a MASSIVE hit, which means we STILL haven't had a bum-deal-meal yet, and the standard just keeps on going up! The cat is starting to become a real pain though at cooking time, as we literally have to barricade him out of the kitchen and put up with his indignant complaints for the duration of the cheffery.

Thursday - Painted the walls at ASCO (African Street Children Organisation) - it's definitely a work in progress, and the job is not really based on any discernible plan... again, more on that another time. It's fun and rewarding though, and as I always say, you're only having fun if you're making a mess. Believe me, a mess we certainly made! Lunch involved me eating an appetizing-looking calamari dish, which I afterwards found out was bovine intestine. Cow-gut. How disgusting does that sound?

As you can see, I've obviously recovered from the malaria and am feeling very up-beat! I'm going to go and carry on living my life now so I've got more juicy anecdotes for you all next time.

Peace!

Alot of DVDs with my bud Tabby

2010-02-14T05:18:00.000-08:00

So, last time I wrote my blog was wednesday. Wednesday wednesday, what's happened since wednesday? Let's see...

Wednesday night was a bit of a catastrophe, and I'll not spend long outlining why - Chelsea lost 2-1 to Everton and I gave a boda driver 10,000 shillings (instead of 1,000) by accident; it was going to happen at some point, but it's still very frustrating when you only had a 10,000 and a 1,000 to begin with. Guess which I was relying on for the rest of the night... okay you see what I mean. Now I don't think I've mentioned the boda-bodas yet in my blog, but even if I already have, I'm going to do it again... Boda-boda is a term that arose many years ago when travellers needed cheap transport all the way across the country - they would wind up at one side of Uganda and shout "border-to-border?Can anyone take border-to-border?" Which inevitably got sucked into the local lingo and watered down into it's current form, "boda-boda". Needless to say, they also became far more ubiquitous and are useful for almost any journey as a cheap, quick and easy mode of transport. But, you say, what are these boda-bodas? They are motorbikes. Motorbike-taxis, with a driver and a long seat for passengers. I'd never ridden a motorbike before, and it's awesome. Not all of them are great, but if you pick carefully (and there's plenty of choice) then you get a pretty flash new bike and a friendly driver who will take you anywhere for about the equivalent of 30p. It really is quite ingenious. Before we came out to Uganda we were advised against using these bodas, but once you arrive it quickly becomes apparent that they are the only practical form of transport around, and they are really not as bad as the travel websites make out... Kampala, the capital, is another story, but Jinja is a pretty sleepy town in general and we've been recommended by all our headmasters to use bodas. So, my friends around the world, don't worry about me and my other fellow gappies.

Friday, I got ill, and I'm still not feeling great (although I'm definitely on the mend). IT'S NOT MALARIA. I've just got a bad cold. So, I pretty much haven't done alot for the last couple of days except drink tea, eat too much and watch DVD's with my pal Tabby the cat. I made a fantastic discovery that the hotel 100 yards down the lane does there entire restaurant menu as a takeaway. Cue ALOT of steak and chips over the next few months! To counterbalance my apparent laziness, I did venture out yesterday to skype my fam and buy some food to cook for myself - I can proudly say that I cooked a vegetable chicken stew, and that it was pretty good. I'm actually quite impressed with myself! I have also done a bit of sleuthing and found a local piano where I can go and get in some much-needed practice, and Soph and I can rehearse the LMVC music, especially if we want the choir to be up to scratch. The aim is to take the school choir to the national music festivals in Kampala this summer, which is very exciting (and also absurdly scary, seeing as we haven't actually been able to start rehearsals yet.) We're going to need alot of crossed fingers all around the world! Today, I'd like to wish all my readers a happy Valentines Day... I'm just reminiscing back to a time about 5 or 6 years ago when I spent this very day in a packed car with my family, driving across a very cold and snowy french landscape - we were on our way to a ski holiday at Les Deux Alpes... It all seems such a far cry from where I am right now, writing this in an African garden trying not to move too much because it's so incredibly hot... I'm rambling aren't I?

One thing I haven't mentioned is the street kids project I was working at on Thursday - this is run by a combination of Ugandan and English charity workers and is currently trying to find its feet as an NGO or CBO... it provides a shelter and friendly environment for local children who do not have a home to go to, or whose families cannot support them, leaving them to roam the streets. It's very moving, because many of them have skin conditions, malaria and are malnourished, but are still as buoyant and playful as if nothing was at all the matter with them. There are many focuses of the project, for example treating the various ailments and rehabilitating those children who have an addiction to sniffing parafin, and I will be sure to write alot more about the project over the coming weeks. If you want to email me with any further questions about how you can help, or if you have ideas that may be helpful for any of the projects I am involved with, my address is miles.lemlawrence@gmail.com and I would be happy to hear from you.

Until next time... Miles

I'm a douche

2010-02-10T07:06:00.000-08:00

Okay, I've just realised that I entitled the last post "sunshine trekking" because that was at the front of my mind, then totally forgot to write about it.

It's not big. It's not exciting. I've definitely built it up WAY too far.

But basically, I walked to Lords Meade today for the first time - it's over 6km and took an hour, but was stunningly beautiful and much more enjoyable than driving.

And yes, that's it.

Lav ya, miles

Sunshine Trekking

2010-02-10T06:40:00.000-08:00

Greetings to the masses! I'm impressed with myself - it's only been two days since I last wrote my blog, this is more like it!

Monday was a big day at Lords Meade, because for the first time (almost) all the students were there. The government has imposed some law which means that the Senior 1's i.e. the youngest students, do not have to start school until next week, and similarly with the Senior 5's, which is the start of A-Level. That said, the "Rendcomb African Hall" (their equivalent of big school) was packed out with young faces, and I have no idea what they'll do next week when the rest of the school has arrived. I half expected the inevitable event, which was that Sophie, Rachel and myself had to stand up in front of the school... and give a speech. Why oh why do they love their speeches so much? My job's going to seem like a doss when I'm PM... (haha if only) It was quite reassuring as my "Good evening school" was met with a unified chorus of "Good evening suh", and I spoke confidently for about half a minute, before thanking them for the warm welcome we received at the school and passing on the non-existent microphone to Soph. Juma pulled a classic line when talking about "illegal items" at the school; the students are not permitted to own phones or radios, and some of them have been found to be concealing a sim card or headphones in their pockets. But no phone or radio... mysterious... so Juma comes out with "If you are found with a sim card or headphones, we know that you are in possession of an illegal item. You do not plug headphones into your porridge."
The assembly erupted in laughter!!! Sometimes I don't get the Ugandan humour but on this occasion it was pretty funny.

Yesterday Juma had prepared a special stencil so that we could print "Uganda 2010" on the uniform blue t-shirts for the three of us gappies. So, I learned screen printing for the very first time, and went on to print a whole set of 18 t-shirts for the school, which will be worn by the students in their PE lessons! Today I taught maths again, and the class are definitely getting more responsive to the western teaching style. I got a chuckle when I changed the variables from "x and y" to "pig and posho" to illustrate the fact that they were arbitrary symbols, and even had to give them homework! I'm an actual "teacha" now. By the way, posho is a corn-flour-based bread with a squishy consistency, apparently like semolina. I don't know what semolina is, but it certainly sounds plausible. Some time, we're going to learn to prepare the local dishes and help out in the kitchen! By then I should know how to put photos on this blog, so look out for amusing/cultural snaps in the near future...Until next time...

My first lesson

2010-02-08T01:02:00.000-08:00

Greetings and salutations!

Since I last wrote on this blog, so much has happened... last Friday I taught my first maths lesson at Lords Meade which was TERRIFYING!!! Patrick, the official teacher for the class, left immediately, leaving me to quickly decide how on earth I was going to educate and entertain 80 expectant faces for the next hour and 20 minutes! They all call me "teacha" and "suh" which is very strange, seeing as I only just finished my A-Levels last summer, and I still consider myself to be a student. I'm very glad I decided to teach the Senior 2 because I think I would've had a heart attack if I had to teach Integration to the A-Level candidates... I'm actually doing homework myself to try and brush up on all the topics I've completely forgotten! How bad is that? Or good, whichever way you look at it. I'm looking at these things in the long term, so hopefully by the time I get home I'll be pretty tight with my maths again... all in due time so that I can forget it before I go to Oxford in October!

So... after the completely petrifying experience of teaching, I was READY to hit the weekend. Friday evening we were invited to a "dinner party"... at a local primary school. It was hilarious; the Ugandans never pass up a single opportunity to make lengthy speeches, and lo and behold halfway through my posho and beans there was a ringing of a bell and... It was an interesting party, to say the least. We moved on to town afterwards, straight to the "Nile View Casino". Joe immediately lost 30,000 shillings on the roulette table, a wound which Dom rubbed salt into by doubling his winnings in just 2 deft bets. I abstained, but the poker tables were very alluring and I'm sure we'll be back before long! The rest of the night was spent in a nightclub renowned for it's cheesy 80s choices... it's reputation certainly held true, and there were some quite embarrassing moves pulled by many of us to Madonna's "Like A Prayer". What goes in uganda... well, probably has been documented and will soon turn up on facebook!

In other news... Thursday I played rugby for the first time in my life, training with a team who are actually part of the Ugandan Premier League!!! Or "Guiness Super 8" as I think they call it. I scored a try, which was an ACHIEVEMENT, but bottled it when they started playing contact because of my specs. The fact that there was a mexican guy who looked like he could eat me in one bite and have room for dessert did also bear some influence over that decision... On saturday we went and watched our team get slaughtered 33-7, apparently not too bad for the "Jinja Niles" as they call themselves. They were playing the "Kampala Kobs", which I personally found hilarious, as I believe a kob is either a male swan... or a particular type of sandwich. In celebration (???) we went and watched the England Wales match at a local restaurant, where I had the lushest dish on the menu: chicken coconut curry - highly recommended. After gorging ourselves we went out to celebrate an actual victory by our boys back home at Twickenham - somehow we landed up at a party with a live white band, with almost exclusively white guests, all drinking stereotypically white drinks. It was completely uncanny! I'm going to have to wrap this up now as Sophie and I are getting quite hungry, but we basically had a great weekend.

Tomorrow is going to be the first day of LMVC choir, and this afternoon we have to give a speech in front of the entire school! Aaaaaaaarrrrrrrgghghghghghghhhhhh!!!!!!!!!! WISH US LUCK

Yours truly,

Miles

After a week

2010-02-03T04:32:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone and welcome back! Having survived one week, I started to feel like maybe some of you would like to hear what I've been doing out here, so enlightened you shall be!

So much has happened in just under a week, it's quite unbelievable. It's currently 3.30pm Uganda-time, which means that literally 1 week ago I was piling into the car for the journey to the airport, and now I'm actually here and (relatively) settled. The first thing that hit me when we swooped in to land is how incredibly green Uganda is... it's hard to imagine there ever being any rain here because it's so hot and dusty. I am told, however, that it won't be long before we enter the rainy season, and it will be as extremely wet as it has been hot! In fact, I saw my first African cloud today, and felt my first drop of African rain. Just the one though. It was quite uncanny! I've kept a totally clean sheet with the mosquitoes here so far, but I'm not sure how long that will hold out when we hit rainy season...

Jinja is a city that is very much alive, busy and bustling at all times of the day! This is partly due to the fact that it is actually hotter inside the house than out. I cannot emphasise how ridiculously HOT it is here, especially at night when the breeze just seems to disappear. So much for all the "polar fleeces" I was advised to bring by the shop attendants in all the outdoor adventure shops! In Jinja, we have found some great places to eat, and I was surprised to find that most cafe's have wifi. I haven't brought a laptop myself, but would thorougly recommend that any traveler should bring one out, as you'll find it very handy. This is mainly because the computers out here are very slow by our standards back home, and you may come back with a few extra grey hairs after waiting over a minute for the internet browser to even start each time!

We have been welcomed warmly by Lords Meade and the community at large. Mark Malinga has been very helpful to us so far, taking us to exchange money and buy new SIM cards on the first day and being generally very supportive ever since. Everyone at WGS should look out for him as he is planning a visit over to the UK later this month - you'll enjoy meeting him and shouldn't hesitate to ask him any questions about Uganda and LMVC. Another (pleasant) surprise is that calls out here are very cheap (in fact, everything is very cheap) so it costs as little as 3p to send a text and is only about 10p a minute to ring the UK. The ironic thing is that all there money is issued in laughably large denominations, so that you find yourself paying 1000 shillings for a Coke, and then realise that it's only costing you the equivalent of 30p!!! I feel bad because I've even had to become quite stingy, but in the market they all see you as a rich white person and try and rip you off with a "mizungu price". (Mizungu means white man). All you have to do is hit them up with a bit of their local Lugandan lingo and they realise that you're not going to be such an easy nut to crack. Then comes the amusing part when you're bartering over a mango, heatedly challenging the stall-holder and arguing over about a 10p difference in price. Sounds small, but then you have to remember that this is practically a 50% discount! They're all used to it though, and it actually adds a bit of excitement to the grocery shopping.

I realise I haven't gone into too much detail here about what we've been getting up to- it's tough because the 7 days kind of gloss over and it becomes tough to pick out particular things. I'll try and get to a computer more often so that I can tell you all about some of the specific things I and the other 11 at the guest house have been doing, but until then, it's goodbye from me.

Calm before the storm...

2010-01-25T15:22:00.000-08:00

G'day to all my followers! (a figure which currently totals one member, shoutout to my man josh)

I called this "calm before the storm" but to be honest it's more like the other way round; I feel like I could've planned and executed operation neptune 3 times over with the amount of effort I've had to put in prepping this trip.

So for all you out there who don't know what the "trip" is... I'm off on Wednesday 27th January, 2010, to embark on an epic journey to Uganda. I'll be there for 6 months, and during this time I'm going to work at a local school; teaching, beaching and just generally doing whatever an 18-year-old gapyear traveller does best.

This blog is going to document my time at LMVC, and will also serve as an important point of contact for those at WGS, as well as family, friends, and anyone remotely interested in what I'm doing out in the land of the gorilla. So far I'm not too sure what else Uganda is particularly famous for (apart from their political history) but I'll soon be finding out.

Yours truly,

Miles Le Marchant Lawrence