Easter

We began Easter Sunday with a sacrifice. Me and Emily (another international volunteer) had left our respective villages on Friday and travelled to visit Megan who lives in the grounds of a primary school in Nawansaso, about two hours from Jinja. When we arrived Megs, in her wonderful way, began filling us in on all the plans she had for the children over Easter. The school has some borders (which isn't posh here, it means mattress on the floor) and eighteen of them weren't able to go home for the holidays. Megs had decided that it would be cool to do an Easter egg hunt and some games with small prizes for them. On top of this we were invited for Easter lunch with the Headmaster and the children which we really wanted to contribute to....which brings me on to the sacrifice!

The cockerel, affectionately named Dinner, had been bought a few days before and had spent the last few mornings waking everyone up at 6am, not endearing itself to those who controlled its fate! At about eight in the morning Emily, who had chickened out (sorry) of this once before, tied up its wings and feet with the help of Sarah who is Ugandan and is very used to this ritual. It was taken outside to a bed of banana leaves for its final journey. Slaughtering a chicken by hand isn't easy but is pretty quick and humane. You lay it down and stand quite firmly on the feet to keep it from struggling, hold the head up and pluck some of the feathers from the neck so you can see where to cut. If this hurt Dinner he didn't show it and was quite silent. You then take a knife and, as fast as possible, cut off the head. It twitches for a long time afterward! I have some wonderfully gruesome pictures of all of this but have unfortunately lost my camera lead somewhere - which to be honest makes you all quite lucky, it was pretty gory! I have a memory card reader though (another of dad's wonderful additions to my packing) and so I will get some horrid photos up when I remember to bring it to town.

A Cockerel that looks like Dinner....but isn't. Damn camera lead.

We spent the rest of the morning painting our blown out eggs and putting them on top of little cones filled with sweets for the kids' Easter hunt later. We then proceeded to church which was long, hot, dull and in a different language! This was all more than made up for by the fantastic lunch we then attended. Rice, Mattoke (plantain) potatoes both normal and sweet, beef, two chicken dishes (one ours), chapatis (which we also made!) and soda were served for us, the few remaining teachers and the eighteen children who looked as if they had never seen so much food before in their lives (possibly true). We piled our plates as high as humanly possible sat on school benches under the shade of a tree to eat. Dinner was delicious.

Suitably full me and the girls hid the paper cones around the field and let the children loose to find them. While very happy with the sweets they simply could not fathem the hollow decorated eggs. You cant eat them, play with them; they have no use. Many of them broke them because they were convinced there must be something inside as the adults whispered to us under their breath "how did you get out the yolk". Once we explained they were an English tradition they were given a few more skeptical looks and abandoned in favour of the candy. Games followed with skipping and hula-hoop races cut short by a rain storm which caused us to flee inside and be entertained by songs from the teachers and children. When the rain had stopped some of the grown ups decided they hadn't had enough fun and, in their best Easter church clothes, began initiating more skipping, dancing and commandeered the SPW push bike for solo speed races around the field. Wiping the tears of laughter from our eyes we gave out prizes such as tennis balls for the winners of the games and more sweets for everyone, including the teachers, cooks and secretary for their truly terrifying cycling.

As everything was winding down, us three exhausted girls jumped on a mini bus to visit Cathal, another international volunteer who lives about an hour away. We sat with a few beers and played scrabble till past midnight.

Cathal (see the "Caddy in Africa blog" ---->) and some of the
cutest kids in the world at Nawanyago placement

Me and Megs top and tailed in their tiny spare bed and crashed out for the night. I can honestly and without corniness say that I don't think I have ever had a more entertaining and fulfilling Easter in my entire life; and I didn't even have an Easter egg.

No words.

Something happened in my friend's placement community which I want to share with you. Her placement partner, who is Ugandan and comes from the community they work in, was abandoned by his mother at the age of two and brought up by his Aunt. Last week she had a miscarriage. She lay in a bed at the local, poorly stocked, under-staffed clinic and bled to death because there was no one to take her to a hospital. In a final injustice her husband and nephew had to carry her blood soaked body back to their house on the back of a motorbike. She leaves behind five children, nephews, nieces and a devastated husband on suicide watch. She was 36.

When things like that happen , aside from the awful loss and sense of hopelessness, its a real slap in the face for what we do here. What right do you have to stand in front of a class of students and tell them to go for STD testing at a clinic which they associate with that kind of treatment? How can you possibly tell people that you understand their problems?

Sorry but I can't be cheerful all the time.

Just keep swimming...

March has flown by and I can't believe it is already the 21st. I am over a third of the way through my time on placement already! After thinking seven months would be a very long time to spend on placement the reality couldn't be more different. Next months school lessons stop in early April due to exams and don't begin again until late May when I will only have two months before we begin pulling out of the communities! Because I am always thinking ahead it sometimes feels like my time here is already over, I have to keep reminding myself that I still have four months to go.

Life in Busede is mostly good. Some things which seemed like a fun challenge at the beginning have now become just everyday life. Living without water and electricity takes its toll on your mind and body after a while and the total absence of things to do outside of teaching is a little grueling. Those who are talking of sending me packages I would kill for a copy of The Economist, should keep me busy for a couple of days at least! Not that I don't have a lot to do. I teach about eleven school lessons a week on average, work with the out of school youth groups, connect people with the health center, organise events (pictures next week I promise) do paperwork and I spent most of Friday walking around dust roads with a backpack full of a thousand condoms and a wooden penis! The problem is, when all that is over for the day, there is literally nothing to do but read or play cards. Our radio only picks up stations in the local language so my iPod use has doubled since its purchase! I have read all four twilight books (I'm sorry I finally caved), Captain Coralie's Mandolin, about five random books as well as listening to two Harry Potter's and Guards Guards on my iPod. (On that note a HUGE thank you to my brother for downloading those for me, they have been a god send!)

On the work side of it though everything is moving along swimmingly. Some of our efforts to get the out of school youth groups registered, which allows them to access a load of government resources, is starting to bare fruit and every primary school child I teach in Busede now knows how HIV kills through the innovative use of a game similar to British bull dogs. Happily condoms are now rolling into the county after months of prophylactic drought and I'm actually managing to get them out to the people who need them. I'm going to keep trying to make the most of my time here so that I can really enjoy my traveling when it's all over: a (hopefully) well earned reward :)

Love to everyone and I should be on here next week for a chat.
Anna
xxxx

Joan

So today is a national holiday in Uganda: "woman's day". It seems to me to mean a lot of shouting on the radio and no lessons in school; if it has any other purpose I remain oblivious! So I thought I would use it to tell you all about Joan who lives next door to me (don't worry the narcissism will return and I will do another post to let you all know what I've been doing).

Joan is the oldest daughter of the family which live next door to us in the grounds of the Sub County at Busede. She gets up at about half six most mornings and helps her mum wash and dress her two younger siblings. At around half seven she sets off to walk for 45 minutes, barefoot, to school where she stays until the afternoon. Sometimes we walk together. We don't speak each others language so other than some point and click phrases we walk in silence. Neither of us seem to mind though, its nice to have the company.When she is not at school I have seen Joan sweeping the house, walking her crying younger brother round the compound to calm him down, weeding the garden with a huge hoe, carrying water on her head back from the bore hole, cooking and running to the shops to buy milk for the family's breakfast.The other day we were walking to school together and Joan started to cry. I don't know why, maybe she stepped on a stone or somebody said something hurtful to her. I crouched down in the dust, wiped the tears from her eyes and took her tiny hand in mine.
Joan is six. She is the little girl in blue on the picture below.

Life for children here is full of contrasts. They are allowed more freedom than their European counterparts can imagine, but in return they are expected to work damn hard. Joan has a relatively good life. A house which keeps her dry, a dad with a decent job, a mother who loves her and the chance to go to school. Many children here don't even have that. Apart from anything else, it really puts things in perspective.

I'm fine....

Walking through my local area in Busede at least fifty children will shout greetings to me every few hundred yards. I assumed that this would become less frequent as they got used to my presence but current evidence suggests this is untrue. As the English in Busede is pretty limited the only greeting they know is "Muzungu how are you?" Unfortunately any response other than "I'm fine" including I'm happy, sad, good, bad, hungry, tired, wistful or ecstatic, meets with blank stares. So I am fine. Perpetually! Though it is a terrible word to describe how I feel being here I do spend most of my time with an odd feeling of contentment. There is something about pumping your own water from the bore hole, cooking a meal for five on a tiny charcoal stove (which I am quite bad at but improving steadily) and hand washing your own clothes that makes you feel satisfied with life! As if, somehow, you've earned it.

My house

The first day I arrived me and the boys decided to go for a walk to the trading center, a 40 minute stroll through the fields. However, 10 minutes in, the rain began. It was like a wall of water which totally drenched us to the point that we looked as if we had jumped in a swimming pool fully clothed. We managed to shelter on someone's front porch; they bought us chairs and a tiny baby wrapped in cloth to coo over. When the rain stopped we continued, dripping, towards our destination. Past a school. At home time. I felt like the bloody Pied Piper. Over two hundred children in bright blue uniforms followed us, staring at me as if they had seen an alien.

The neighbors

I'm settling in well in the village. Our house has two rooms with bed frames - rather a luxury. The only issue is that there is no real place to wash. We have taken to washing out on the back porch by moonlight so the people from the road can't see us! The scenery is beautiful, rolling hills covered in tropical vegetation and sugar cane which dominates the agricultural industry here. My target schools are a good 45 minute walk away and I have lessons from eight in the morning. Those of you who know me will appreciate that I am not a morning person so I will just have to grin and bare it! Though when this is your morning commute it is not quite so bad...

My lessons begin on Monday morning in the primary school where we are going to attempt a session on puberty then on to the secondary where STIs are the order of the day. Most of the events mentioned in the last post are on the verge of being organised but the proof will be in the pudding! Reports and photos when I get back on here in late March.

Thank you to all of you who read and comment on what I am doing. Though I love living here it has really made me appreciate little things about home, especially how important a good group of friends are to your survival. Love to you all,

Anna

p.s. Dad you were right, the little torch you forced me to bring has been the single most useful item since I arrived! I bow to your obviously vastly superior wisdom.

The end of training.

Today marks the last day of training in Kasenge where we have been staying for the last month. On Tuesday - a month after I arrived in Uganda - I'm off to Busede where I will be living until August. I will be really sad to leave all the people at training. I have become close to both national and international volunteers who I will now see very rarely and some never again. Parts of training have been very frustrating an enormously challenging but overall it has been very positive experience.

The Road

Yesterday we had a film evening and, after living like veritable hermit nuns and monks for the last month, we decided to go down to the trading center and buy a crate of beer to share over the next couple of days. One of the male staff members went down to negotiate for us as muzungus (white people) are always charged double as a matter of course. It then took three of us working in shifts twenty minutes to walk up the above hill. This wouldn't have been so bad except the sight of three red faced, wheezing white girls carrying a 25 beers in a country where women don't drink in public was too much for the residence of this trading center. Squeals of laughter followed us the whole way with men, women and children coming out of their houses to fall about giggling at us. We ourselves were in fits which made the whole situation some kind of vicious, cross cultural laughter spiral which only ended when two of the boys we train with came to our rescue and carried it the last 300 yards.

Training

Tonight we have a "culture" night where all the volunteers are supposed to do a small presentation on their country or show something traditional from their home land. After going through all of the sensible options and drawing a blank we have decided to dress up as the spice girls and sing Wannabe. To make this more interesting one of our number is a guy called max for whom I have just finished preparing a ginger wig made out of red wool tied to a hair band. He is currently busy making his own Union Jack dress. I am playing Mel B.....hummmm. Pictures soon I promise.

Sharron and Nora making friendship bracelets after asking me to teach them.

Wherever we go here we are celebrities. Big crowds of children follow us shouting "bye muzungu bye muzungu" wherever we go and many of the children now know me by name because I sit down to talk to them. Its all very strange and is only going to get more so as I will be the only muzugu in a thirty mile radius in Busede! I may have to invest in huge sunglasses.

That's about it for now and I'm not sure when I will get the chance to get on here again. Stay tuned for an account of how me and my team are going to organise, run, monitor, fund and evaluate a sports tournament, an exposure visit to a farm, a trigger video workshop, over fifty sexual reproductive health and livelihood sessions, a parent concern session, meetings with local leaders and a VCT (voluntary testing and counciling for HIV and AIDS) event, which last year drew 600 people, ALL before 25th March! I'm going to need all the luck you can wish me.

All my love as always,
Anna xxx

20 days in

Hi all! Sorry for the lack of contact but Ive not been near a computer for a good couple of weeks now.

Before I came away I was convinced that I would have no trouble at all writing a blog; after all I would have so much to say! But it seems that is the problem. Imagine that you had been picked up and put down on another planet and then 20 days later sat down in front of a screen and tried to describe it to those still at home. What would you begin with? The smell? The food? The faces? (Tropical, monotonous and smiley respectively by the way.)

The view outside my window

I am still in the training center and getting a little bored of Sexual Reproductive Health training (SRH) now. There is only so may times you can talk about the most serious of things before they begin to lose all meaning. In fact - as a purely educative tool of course - we have invented HIV Cluedo. Its mostly the same except instead of the revolver the rope and the lead piping we have methods of HIV transmission such as breast milk, genital sores and blood transfusions. In case you're interested it was Mrs White in the ballroom with rough sex.

Last Sunday we all took a trip to the source of the Nile just outside Jinja with all of the volunteers. It is a bay where the water flows out of Lake Victoria and begins a journey which will take 3 months to reach the delta in Egypt. It was a beautiful sight, all the more so for the beer we had in the little bar next to the water as the sun sank down. This was soon followed by bad dancing to bad Ugandan hip hop on the little wooden dance floor. Our Ugandan counterparts found our attempts at rhythm truly hilarious but joined in to show us how its done.

Me and the girls at the source of the Nile

Health wise, other than the odd dizzy spell probably due to dehydration, I have been unaffected by the drama around me. Four out of seven international vols are down with malaria, two have had it twice and one had that as well as a bacterial chest infection and suspected dysentery! Considering all this the mood is pretty cheerful, though those of us who have remained healthy and malaria free are beginning to feel left out.

I have found out where my placement will be for the next six months. It is a village called Busede about fifty minutes north of Jinja. Other than that I know very little except that it has a reputation for sugar cane and the phone signal is sporadic. My placement partner is a community volunteer called Joyce who is lovely and I will be living with 2 boys called Joseph and Myco in what is supposedly a two room house (though being the only girl I'm guaranteed my own room). The boys have promised to teach me how to cook Ugandan food and I have assured them that they will grow to love sausage and mash, mainly as that's all I think I will be confident enough to cook on a charcoal stove!

That's all I have time for at the moment but I will try and update again before I head off to the village for a good few weeks out of contact. As promised my Ugandan mobile number is +256785899470 feel free to send me a text any time. Also if you are feeling especially generous my postal address is Anna Corbett, SPW, Plot 6, Acacia Rd, Jinja Municipality. Books are my major craving as I have already devoured three since iv been here, though two were twilight so they don't really count (yes I have finally succumbed). Packages and letters take a month to get through the postal system here so to all those whose letters I will be writing in the coming months please be patient.

Speak to you all as soon as I can and hope you all had a wonderful January.
Anna xxx

The Netherlands is famous....

My God where do I even begin! It feels like I've been here forever already not 7 days, yet at the same time I am so lost in most situations!

We got here at 10am on Sunday, totally exhausted after not sleeping at all on the 10 hour flight. We were met at the airport by Emma (a man's name in Uganda) who took us to a shopping center where we were told we should buy things like wellies and mosquito nets. Dreamily we bought whatever we were told with no idea whether the prices were good or bad or what the notes in our hands represented in "real" money - we now know it was damn expensive! Setting out on the road every building seemed to double up as a beauty parlor, furniture shop, hairdressers, bar, clothes store, restaurant and anything else under the sun. The bright pinks and yellows of the buildings painted the colors of mobile phone companies contrasted sharply with the green mountains and red roads. After falling asleep in the van dispite the views we arrived at our training center.

The center is located about 45 minutes from Kampala just off the main road to Jinga. After expecting to be in a city it was a lovely surprise to be in beautiful hills surrounded by green tropical vegetation and dusty tracks (pictures to come when i remember to bring my camera next time!). To be honest, after being introduced to 30 smiling people, shown our dorm rooms with about 9 beds hung with mosquito nets as well as the outside loo, I had a small "what the hell am I doing here" moment. Looking back now it was probably just the tiredness. The longer I stay here the happier I am getting.

The training is quite intense: 9 to 5 every weekday with a half day on Saturday. The most interesting day so far has been the "cultural awareness" session. Pieces of flip chart paper were put up on the wall with the names of all the countries that were represented among the volunteers. We were then invited to go round and write a rumor or an assumption that we had about that place so that the people from that place could correct it. Poor Joyce. She is from the Netherlands and on that paper was written things like "they practice female circumcision" and "there is segregation of whites and blacks". She stood there, totally aghast, explaining that this was totally untrue! On the UK page was written "you are all watched by one big camera which records everything you do". We explained the only thing wrong with that was that there were actually lots of cameras.

Towards the end of the week we have been getting into the sexual and reproductive health lessons we will be teaching in schools. At first it was all a bit embarrassing but Uganda solved that by sending us a tropical downpour. It echoed so loudly on the tin roof that we were forced to shout explanations for erections, ejaculation and wet dreams at the top of our lungs which certainly broke the ice.

I'm running out of time here so let me just say I'm having a fantastic if challenging time and missing many of you. Next time I promise a phone number and some pictures.

Packing

Give or take a couple of things: my life for the next year!

Books

This is a post culled from my other blog that seems to make more sense here. My reaction to the unknown is always to read about it! Must be the historian in me: study breeds familiarity. Here is a list of some wonderful books on Africa and/or the AIDS crisis.

Blood River: A Journey to Africa's Broken Heart by Tim Butcher - excited but upsetting. Granddads remember when cars were on the road and the kids have never seen them because of the total collapse of central Africa's infrastructure and tourist industry.

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver - fiction but beautiful. It changed the whole way I thought about the challenges facing Africa and the African people. Highly recommended.

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe - Stunning, experienced a bit of post colonel guilt to be honest. It's a very difficult issue because in some way there is almost no point in regretting it, its done, but it was awful to read of the traditional African beliefs from the point of view of them being ripped to shreds.

The Shadow of the Sun: My African Life by Ryszard Kapuscinski - Beautiful love letter to Africa by a journalist who covered 40 years of strife there. You are permitted little glimpses into these jewels of stories, sometimes never knowing how they began and sometimes not seeing how they ended. Seems to be a metaphor for the fragmented nature of being on the road.

HIV/AIDS A Very Short Introduction Does what it says on the tin, short and clinical but informative.

The Wisdom of Whores by Elizabeth Pisani - a very challenging read about the "business" of AIDS prevention and treatment in Asia. Her account of the fight for funding and ridiculous protectionist policies that cost lives and billions of dollars made my blood boil.

Have these books helped prepare me? I suppose that's a question I can't answer until I get there! What they have done is make me ask more questions of myself and my purpose in going away. I took my first malaria tablet today! One week to go.