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some of Rob’s images from Uganda... |
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Rob Harper, one of our young friends, spent 4 months of his gap year (2006) as a voluntary teacher in Uganda. Here are the email reports he sent during his stay there. |
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Tuesday 27 June next entry down, top So, back in England. My last few days in Uganda were marked by gut-wrenching sadness at having to leave, but also excitement at the thought of going home; what would it be like when I got back? (the same, of course) What would my world view be like having visited such a different place? (maybe changed a bit). It seems that true life-changing experiences are rare beasts, and I've not managed to catch one yet, though the change might be in the future, of course, not the present. I spent some time visiting various friends, trying to brush off opportunistic requests for help, and sorting out in my mind what I could realistically do for all these people wanting solutions to their problems. One of the last days I went deep into the villages (1.5 hour bike ride in a hot climate is deep enough for me anyway) with a friend to visit his family. We arrived at 10, were given large snacks immediately, then went to prayers for a short while (unlike the 4 hour marathon churches they have in the towns, or the overnight sessions for the seriously holy/deranged). After that we went back, for another snack (tea/roasted maize/peanuts/pancakes/mangoes etc). Then we spent a good while visiting his extended family (and believe me, it is extended - as in Uganda takes an extended period of time to walk to from England, not extended in our mild fashion). With all these stops, of course, we were offered food, which we found it hard to turn down. Then we returned to his home for lunch; vast quantities of chicken, avocado, vegetables, starchy stuff. The cycle ride back was certainly more difficult than the ride out. The other side to the story is that this guy had gone to town to seek his fortune, and coming back with this white guy in his best suit, his family would have thought he was doing really well. Unfortunately, it was something of a deception, but at least they were happy. I had asked some different people to obtain a large quantity of mangoes (as mentioned in earlier instalments) for immediate consumption and for export to the UK, so on Wednesday I found myself boarding the plane with a faint whiff of fruit which I only could detect, but which I thought must send sniffer dogs into a mad fit of lust and desire to attack my legs as soon as possible. I got through those hurdles, but found, to my great embarrassment, that I had left my pocket knife in my hand luggage, so when it was x-rayed I was stopped and they picked this (fortunately almost worthless) knife out. Goodness knows what they would have done if I spoke arabic only, but as it was I got away with red ears and a feeling that I was being watched as I sat waiting for the plane. The journey was over very fast, apart from a 'welcome home' sit shivering at Heathrow central bus station for 2 hours, and suddenly I'm back to normal again, feeling like my time spent washing out of a bowl and jumping over potholes in the centre of a town was something of a dream. Rob |
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Thursday 15 June next entry up, next entry down, top Dear all, I have just completed two very interesting trips, to tour Uganda a bit before coming home. I should have said East Africa, really, as last week I was in Nairobi the capital of Kenya, buying natty crafts to bring home. I also saw some of the city, a large, half westernised place, which is made African by the public transport being small minibuses incredibly brightly painted and with very loud reggae and other such music blaring out of the straining speakers. Some areas are fantastically wealthy, luxury hotels spilling over with Europeans, but others are really very poor; truly first and third world represented in one city. This week, though, was even better, as on Monday I left to visit Murchison Falls National park. It gets its name from the very impressive waterfall, the whole of the river Nile is compressed into an opening 7 metres wide, resulting in a hugely powerful torrent of water. I saw the standard safari animals, elephants, lions etc, as well as crocs, hippos and a shoebill, to the uninitiated a very very rare bird, rather ugly but with fantastic box-ticking qualities. I had a very good trip and can tell more when I get back, which unfortunately, is very soon, next Wednesday. I will see most of you then, but please let me know what you are all up to, as I will finally have time to start answering some emails. Best wishes to all, whatever you are doing now. Sunday 28 May next entry up, next entry down, top As I write this, it is not stretching the literal truth too much (only a few days) to say that I am in mild agony in the stomach region. The cause, not binge drinking as other less enlightened gappers may find, but binge mango eating. I went to visit my friend who lives out in the villages of Uganda. (development minimal, education reasonable, poverty worrying, depending of course if you live in one of the president's favoured areas or not). There, we climbed a local mango tree (to the surprise of the locals; a 'muzungu' climbing trees, what next?) and gorged on muyembe (slipping in some lusoga, the local language, here) to our hearts' (but not stomachs' as previously mentioned) content. Sorry about these brackets, I must have got out of bed the wrong side this morning (only joking (aarrgh - can't stop)). Other than that, I'm still having an amazing time, Uganda never ceases to please, and as I know my neighbours quite well now, as everyone's impressively friendly (from the guy who assured me, coming out of a pub, that he was a 'clean beggar', and wasn't mixing his drinks, to the young kids who showed me a dead rat and expected me to run screaming to the sanity of London), I have lots of people to talk to. Talking is indeed one of the national sports, followed by Ludo and uno using playing cards. Where I was staying, the neighbours had just lost a young baby, and as is the custom, all their friends and family had come to stay with them for a good few days to help them through the hard time. Thus there were about 10 ladies crammed into the sitting room of my host. They talked up until sleeping time at 9 o'clock, and blow me if they weren't at it again at 6 the next morning, much to my disgust as my night had already been shortened by the twin discomforts of mosquitos biting when I took the blanket off, and excessive sweating and heat when I put the blanket on again. I was actually quite glad that I can't speak lusoga, let alone their local dialect. Best wishes to all, Rob Wednesday 10 May next entry up, next entry down, top Dear all, I have just returned from 4 days of travelling, 2 in Kampala, where I visited the beach at Entebbe and tasted the delights of the Kampala night life (lots of thumping beats, naturally for such a country). I slept in student lodgings of a friend at Makerere University; impressively dingy with a lovely smell of urine. But the rest of the university was quite impressive, and the people there certainly know how to enjoy themselves, those on government sponsorships doing their best to waste the precious tax payers' money as fast as possible! Hope you are all very well. Monday 24 April next entry up, next entry down, top I hope you are well, etc, etc and I'd like to say 'oli otya', to which you would reply 'buluunji', then i would say 'jabaalay', and you'd say 'kali', then we'd both make high pitched humming noises at each other, until we had bonded sufficiently to be able to talk about anything else. These last few weeks I've been not so busy, the last week of term was pretty much cancelled due to teachers marking exams and making reports (yes that's right mum, they do it in normal school time, lessons can wait). This does make the system seem ridiculously relaxed, but when you walk around at 6.00 in the evening, even in supposedly holiday time, and there are primary school kids droning out 'my name is ....', 'the lynx sat on the papyrus mat', or whatever, you do feel sorry for the students, especially as they might have only eaten once, and something small at that, the whole day. Indeed they might not have eaten at all. The money from Lady Hawkins school at home has come through, and we're putting the roof on some unfinished buildings. They may well be used as classrooms, because the promised new system of free secondary education (it's only 10 quid a term at the moment, for god's sake, and so many people can't afford even that) will bring its problems when you consider that a senior one class of 100+ is not going to get smaller when parents can send their children to school for free. When they don't have to be in the fields that is. Sorry about the slightly depressing tone, but it's impossible not to feel fairly powerless to help, especially when the government here is so obviously creaming off funds into its own pockets. Corruption - even the Tories don't run the current Ugandan government close. By the way, the pearl of Africa is what this country calls itself, and even the queen is going to visit next year; wildly exciting of course, and an excuse to build lots of lovely hotels for her entourage, leaving the rest of the population stuck in mud huts. There are truly two countries here, the startlingly rich in Kampala, with their beautiful houses and fashionable gossip, and the startlingly poor, churning out kids and surviving on one meal a day at the moment as we wait for the new harvests to kick in. On a more upbeat note, I'm going to visit a town in eastern Uganda next week to see a national park and Mount Elgon. Maybe I'll even get to see some elephants etc, though they're a bit far off. By the way, it is slightly surreal to read of a rampaging hippo causing damage to crops and property in the national newspaper of the country where you're living, even though there were a bunch of naughty elephants in a week ago, mixed up with stories about how some government is sending some money to dig some wells, death announcements, opinions on the political scene here, and 5 lines on how the French government has been soundly beaten up in the streets, as well as the price of gold on the world market. With that I'll say 'ba-yeeeee' (really stress the yeee if you're under 5) and wish you a good spring and cricket season - is it nearly there yet, I'm getting severe withdrawal symptoms? Sunday 2 April next entry up, next entry down, top I have had a good week. Teaching at school is going quite well, though there are definitely two tiers of pupils: those who are interested, and those who are not. I am learning what it is to be a teacher, but without much power to punish, so I have to keep the shocking facts about England (or indeed the world outside Iganga district) coming to keep interest up. At school, I have also started to play large amounts of scrabble! When some of the teachers are not working, they turn to scrabble to pass the time, and indeed I have even had a few games of chess with one man. This scrabble has become slightly an obsession though. Even as I write this word, I'm thinking 'Hmmm, ‘word’ = 8 points, and I need to put the ‘w’ on an extra points position to increase my score, and I can use an 's' to make sword or words with it.” Apologies to those who don't play much, but as I say, I'm now an addict, and mum and dad you better beware when I get back. Prepare to be embarrassed! Yesterday I went to visit the school of the son of the man with whom I'm staying (bit of a mouthful that). We were supposed to have a short meeting with the rest of the parents and teachers, and then walk around. This meeting went on for a good 3 hours, however. Points and complaints were made by the parents; the teachers made excuses for the school's failings, and asserted that any problems were due to the students' upbringings, and thus the parents, rather than themselves. Even students bravely stood up and sounded off at the teachers about the poor food, the water rationing, etc etc. It was an interesting exercise, but unfortunately not for me, who wanted to see the beautiful setting of the school, by Lake Victoria and with lovely grounds, rather than the inside of an assembly hall with an asbestos cement roof in need of some repair, so dropping its dust all over us. In the end, we saw the son, who I get on well with, for about 10 minutes, and then braved the choking and blinding dust for our return journey in the minibus (we've already gone into these in enough detail, I feel, but this one was extra special in that the door frame was partly broken, thus some of the side panelling was flapping and you could see the road at times, and also that the driver had decided to play 'chicken' with the oncoming lorries to alleviate boredom). One more thing, last night, it rained really hard, so much so that water forced itself through the nail holes in the iron roof and fell in a misty way on a patch of my bed. With this, and the amazing sound of the rain falling on the iron sheets, it was almost as if the water was forcing itself through the roof itself. It was slightly scary. I hope you are all well, and I hope to start doing some more exciting stuff when we get to our FOUR week long Easter holiday. Best wishes to all Thursday 23 March next entry up, next entry down, top Hello everyone thanks to those who replied to my christmas-chain-letter-esqe effort of last time. I have started teaching some English here, or at least, teaching the kids about English culture, and enjoying the sound of my own voice and hoping they are taking something in. They are also trying to teach me Lusoga, the local language. The problem is that although a 50-1 pupil teacher ratio would be considered poor in England, I can attest that a 1-50 pupil teacher ratio is far, far, worse. Different kids are shouting different things at me, and everyone is laughing at my pronunciation, and it’s fairly chaotic, but like most things here, it’s very enjoyable. This week, we had a schools’ football and netball tournament. The netball was fairly sane - we lost, as we were supposed to do, and the big schools with colleges did well, so everything was OK. However, the football matches attracted large crowds of the school skivers and local idle youths, who attached themselves to the cause of one of the large number of schools taking part. There are so many schools here it’s unbelievable, every street has a primary or secondary, or academy, or something educational - the reason is that a family is not a family unless it has a good 4 or 5 children. We drew with this particular school, doing very well, but the police had to keep the crowds away from our goal-keeper, who had had stones thrown at him (and you thought it was only the English who do football hooliganism!). The same louts then went on to break the window of another school's bus, and so are banned from the tournament, giving us an outside chance of progressing in the tournament, despite Tuesday's 3-0 and 7-0 losses. I'm sorry my emailing is not too regular, but there is a phenomenon here called “load shedding”, where we only get power half of the time (in theory), because there’s not enough water going through the hydroelectric dam in the Nile, because of low water levels. This is a scheme that is obviously bad for the economy etc, etc, but does at least provide conversational material to everyone in the whole country, who has his own theory on why there is a problem, what to do to solve it, and how he doesn't receive a fair amount of electricity. Sunday 5 March next entry up, next entry down, top Dear all, just an update on my movements. Last week I started at Nakigo (pron. Nachigo) secondary school. I have quite a friendly timetable of some chemistry and a small amount of English teaching, and plenty of time to relax. It was quite fun, and I managed to get the whole class joining in with a game of 'Chemical Hangman', chemistry-related words only. However, there are some comprehension problems relating to their English skills (or even mine, I now realise how much slang we use and how we blur our words, they just don't understand unless I'm careful), and my strange accent. Things will improve, no doubt, and they seem to like me, or is that like laughing at me. In any case, I had the class embarrassingly close watching me botch an experiment the other day. The other problem is that I don't like teaching the boring stuff, having only recently been in their situation myself, but i have to force myself to inflict it on them. I went to Kampala, the capital, the day before yesterday, and stayed the night in a surprisingly nice guest house. It was quite an adventure seeing the huge differences between the affluent areas and the slums. I went by taxi, one of the thousands of minibuses plying the roads of Uganda, which charge you on account of how stupid you look and how much like their preferred presidential candidate you look. They are cramped, uncomfortable, dirty, smelly, loud and generally fairly foul. Also, they are driven by lunatics who must make up lost time on the good stretches of road (few and far between), so drive at excessive speeds wherever possible. In theory they drive on the left, but this is interpreted as anything left of the right hand edge of the road being fair game. It was not uncommon to see a taxi overtaking a taxi overtaking one of the enormous trundling lorries heading straight towards us, flashing its lights as if to say 'this is my side of the road just as much as yours, so get out of the way', before veering off at the last minute, cutting up other vehicles mercilessly. It was fairly exciting to watch, and I was able to relive much of my life as it flashed before my eyes, so quite fun really. This occurs on the good bits of road, though. Because of a contractual muck up (I am informed) much of the Main Kampala - Nairobi road is a track, with clouds of dust being generated by every passing car choking the poor cyclists carrying their huge bundles of wood or charcoal to sell at a small profit somewhere else further down the road. Most Ugandans seem to be middle men - buying, moving and selling goods, by the way. But where there is still tarmac, as opposed to dust, there are so many potholes that I felt a new word should be coined to describe the rare patches where the road was still its original height, rather than worn down to chasm-like pits. On one such stretch, it’s like driving over constant rumble strips (at high speed of course), for several miles. The taxis are constantly plying for trade, as soon as a passenger gets off they sounded the horn and waved madly at any pedestrians to try to get them to climb aboard. When we stopped at more recognised places, tens of guys selling drinks and meat on stick would cluster round, opening the windows and thrusting their wares in your face to ensure that it had sufficient germs on it to be saleable quality. Then when we take off again, the driver tries to run over as many of them as possible so it's easier next time. I mentioned the cramped conditions. There are rows of benches in these things that have no padding at all due to years of use in Europe and Asia, all before they were sold to Africans because they could no longer pass their MOTs over here, and weren't worth the price of a new pair of tyres. The old tyres are still on of course, as bare as the Sahara is bare of trees, and under-inflated to such a degree that you are sure you can feel the rims hitting the ground in the deepest potholes. There are as many people as possible fitted on the benches, so you have very intimate experience, but when the driver is warned of a impending highway patrol check up, we stop and drop off a few people to make sure we have only the legal amount of people sat down, before carrying on. As I said, it's great fun, but don't worry mum and dad, I’m still here, alive and kicking, and everyone from businessmen to peasants takes them. Best wishes to all Thursday 23 Feb next entry up, next entry down, top Hi everyone. It's election day here in Uganda. Quite a lot of the shops and schools are shut as it's a national holiday. I'm out in the sticks in a small town here, so I haven't seen any rallies but there have been trucks driving around with huge speakers shouting out the virtues of candidates, or more likely, carrying out character assassination on other ones. I really can't see through the fog of lies and spin that come through the papers and the radio. The Ugandans themselves often don't really know what to think either. Politics, the world-wide religion. I haven't started teaching yet, because the school I'm going to be at is mostly on holiday, even though very few of the kids are of voting age. I did visit it though, and it's a group of about three buildings, needing injections of work and money. I'm looking forward to doing something now, I'm over the jet lag now and the heat doesn't seem so stifling anymore, and although wandering around town and reading and talking is fun, I want to be useful. When the election period is over i hope to visit Jinja and Kampala, and then later on I plan to see the national parks, but at the moment, Iganga is the centre of my universe. As for life here, the food is fairly plain, lots of starch in the form of potatoes, sweet potatoes, matoke (savoury bananas), rice, and even maize flour cooked with water to form a tasteless white cake affair. Then nutty stew or meat. I am fed very well, the only sad thing is i don't have much of an appetite due to inactivity and the heat. That will change, I'm sure, though the food is unlikely to. I have a room to myself in their compound, which has a light, plug, etc. These only work if the electricity is going, though. The hydroelectric dam on the Victoria Nile that supplies most of the power is not running at full capacity because of the drought in the region. There is not a serious water shortage here, but it is noticeable how little we use, compared to at home. Sorry if I didn't reply to everyone's emails, the Internet here is not the quickest, I do very much enjoy reading them though, and will try harder next time. Best wishes Monday 20 Feb next entry up, top Dear all I have arrived in Iganga, Uganda, a bustling town surrounded by sugar cane fields etc. There are lots of vans going around with loudspeakers shouting the virtues of one or other of the candidates for this Thursday's general election - that will be interesting to watch. The people I am staying with are very nice, and easy to talk to, though I will have to improve my Luganda if I want to know what the kids are laughing about every time they look at me. It's very exciting to be here, and although I feel pretty terrible with the oppressive heat (pretty much on the equator) and the jet lag, I have a huge grin on my face all the time. I am going to visit the school tomorrow, but teaching can wait ‘til the election is over. Love to all, and I will keep you posted. Rob Please contact the to submit information or report broken links. |
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