Birthday in the village

Just a short post about some fun times.

Thursday was Cathal's birthday and a great excuse for a village visit. Cathal's placement of Nawanyago is the most easily accessible of all; only 45 minutes from Jinja. He also has the biggest house which is a ramshackle conversion of an old police headquarters, totally infested with bats and the occasional rat. After a day of teaching in our own villages, me Emily and Megan arrived after dark. We were met by the entire child population of Nawanyago, two local guys with guitars, the Ugandan volunteers from two placements, two British "Africa venture" friends, all the internationals, a lot of pasta and a wide eyed Cathal wearing a Barack Obama t-shirt and holding a spoon.

Cathal in his birthday present

Me among the revelers

A night of music and dancing followed, interrupted by dinner which was shared by most of Nawanyago. We eventually bedded down with eight of us on four mattresses on the floor like some kind of wolf pack.

With the wonderful musical birthday cake at the haven by the Nile later in the week

Lesson plans and the evil blood parasite of doom

Last week began well enough. I've begun teaching both my primary and secondary kids again and, just as in England, the beginning of term means increased attention spans and less general all round mocking. I expect this situation to decline markedly as the months progress!

We began by teaching about drug use and abuse in the primary classes, specifically about cigarettes and alcohol as they are by far the most common substances used by adults and young people alike. Other than a case of demonic possession (one of the girls in our P6 class began making wheezing noises and crying and had to be carried out to the field where she proceeded to fit surrounded by about a hundred children. This is so common here that the deputy head merely looked at her and said "oh has she gone demonic again?") the lessons were going quite well with lots of interesting questions such as "if drinking is so bad why did Jesus do it?"

In the secondary school we have started some lessons on HIV which we hope will help counter the HIV fatigue we experience most days. Basically Uganda was one of the first African countries to begin a coordinated response to the AIDS crisis in the late 80's and early 90's. Unfortunately this means most of the young people have been hearing the same messages every week for their entire life and are bored sick of it. Couple this with an AIDS campaign mainly funded by the US, meaning a focus on abstinence only education, and what do you get? Rising HIV rates. To try and make a dent in this I drew a huge world map on two sheets of flip chart. Most of the kids have never seen a world map and most of the end of the lesson gets taken up with them asking where their own personal world cup team is based (most are supporting Holland for some unfathomable reason). We then proceed to stick up the statistics of people living with HIV and AIDS all over the world: 1.5 million in North America, 850000 in Europe, 3.8 million in South East Asia and so on. Then we ask them to guess the figure for Sub-Saharan Africa. They know it will be a big one. 5 million, 6 million, 10 million are all shouted out. I pull out the piece of paper. 22.4 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa are living with HIV and AIDS. There is normally a couple of minutes of chatter and stunned looks from the class before we settle down to talk about the reasons why: lack of access and knowledge about condoms, sexual networks etc. It's shock tactics I know but hopefully some of the message gets through.

I got a cold at the beginning of last week and spent the mornings dragging myself out of bed and staggering along dirt roads for 45 minutes to teach the above lessons. By Thursday (a public holiday so no lessons) I felt ill enough to make my way into town for a malaria test. I was told by the lovely lab attendant that my blood was totally clear. I chastised myself for being such a baby and had lunch with a couple of other volunteers before heading back to one of their placements for an overnight visit. I woke up the next morning feeling more ill than I believe I have ever felt in my life. My head hurt more than I thought was possible and every time I moved fireworks went off behind my eyes. Added to this I felt sick as a dog and weak as a puppy (nice mixed metaphor there). I spent the whole day in bed as Cathal looked at me as if I was about to die and tried to make me drink water and eat food which I admit are good ideas in principle. By the evening I was forced to return to Jinja where a doctor informed me that the doxycycline I take as an (obviously highly effective) anti-malaria medication can affect the tests, meaning the malaria had not shown up. This time the diagnosis was certain and I was sent away with medication to rest and drink lots of milk.

Since then I have been getting steadily better while experiencing some strange side effects from the meds. They seem to effect my ears quite a lot which resulted in all music seeming out of tune for about a day and a half. I nearly killed myself when Coldplay came on the radio. Other than that and general weakness I'm on the mend and teaching again this week. Though I have to say I'm beginning to feel a little restless now, ready to get on the road again in early August.

Love to all, especially my bro who turns 20 today.
Anna
xxxx