Report: The Uganda Trip 2008
28.9.08 to 18.10 08
The Team: Rhianne Brown, Hayley Cuthill, Ashley Dwyer, Amy Isles, Alister MacDonald, Sara Sinclair, Jillian Smith, Genny Treays, Mrs Hynie, Mrs McCafferty, Miss Scott.
As the team arrived back in Dundee 19 hours after leaving Kampala, discussion amongst the pupils turned to how they would talk about the last three weeks: “We can say ‘amazing’, ‘life-changing’, we can show all our photos, but it won’t begin to describe how it was!”
Handing over medical equipment at Ggaba medical centre
After over a year of planning and fundraising (£19,647), and after saying our thanks to the many teachers and pupils and companies who helped the project, we travelled out to Ggaba on the northern shore of Lake Victoria on 28 September, with Hugh Henderson of Mission International, Dundee as our guide. Also travelling with us was 240kg of educational and medical equipment.
The welcome we received in Ggaba, and in the other 5 schools we visited, was amazing! Many classes sang us impromptu songs, sometimes with drum and dance. The younger children loved the company of the pupils, who were always ready to play with them, and in spare moments some of the older children tried to teach them African drum and dance rhythms! They learned some expressions in Luganda, which delighted everyone, especially the younger children whose English was not yet fluent.
Hosannah Primary school, Nsambiya, Kampala
The two teachers, Mrs Hynie and Mrs McCafferty quickly developed the greatest respect for Ugandan colleagues: classes are normally 70 to 100 to one teacher; many pupils cannot afford jotter and pencil, and memorise what the teacher summarises from the one available text book; blackboards are sometimes sections of wall painted black, but frequently there is no wall to paint, where classrooms are made from strips of packing case wood; reeds on the roof keep out some but not all of the sun, wind and rain; as there is often no “window space”, the rooms are usually dark and it can take the eye a few moments to make out the dark faces inside; teachers’ babies are brought to school and lie on blankets on the floor while their mothers teach.
Genny at Katwe Primary school
For pupils who can afford it, lunch is ‘posho’ (maize and water) and the ubiquitous home-grown beans – standard daily fare eaten with the fingers. The others wait till evening to eat. And of course there is the very important water collection rota hanging in every school “office”. Water is sometimes pumped, or it is carried on young heads from the lake, or away from the lake it is got from rain puddles shared with animals. All over the country it is the children’s job, from the age of 4, to collect the water in yellow plastic half-hundredweight containers, but the state of the water is a daily source of anxiety. In the rainy season water is plentiful, even if it sometimes involves a three kilometre walk, but cleaning water to make it safe is very expensive – everyone knows it should be boiled, but you need to be able to afford the charcoal to do that. Where water is pumped, there is the daily problem of fixing faults; the lake water is green and slimy with bands of bilharzia-carrying snails just where the children wade in; and puddle water has its own distinctive squat of unwanted guests.
Maranatha Primary, Ggaba
Most schools in Uganda are church schools (officially education is free up to S4 but government schools have very poor resources, teachers go months without pay and standards are very low). Pupils go to school when they can pay the fees, and the resulting gaps in education can mean that older children can be in very young classes, while P7 classes are smaller. For most pupils secondary education is only possible with sponsorship, but the standard is high and pupils who make it through the minefield of fees, accidents and illnesses are presented for GCSEs. All of the schools we visited were full of bright-eyed, ambitious, intelligent young people with a fierce love of learning that astonished our pupils. One of the schools where we spent a few days was in Namutamba, an isolated area high on a plateau, but where the school has grown very fast to 400. The school is a series of huts made from pieces of wood that are enough to provide a rudimentary shelter. But the staff have a clear vision for the future and 17 acres to make it happen. The pupils taught ours how to use African hoes and together they made the first steps towards the vision becoming a reality. However the most urgent need is a borehole to provide clean water.
We saw many children in boarding accommodation, and stayed a few days at Bethany Village, a community orphanage of 11 “family” homes, a school and clinic. The pupils painted a home, worked in the clinic and built a large playing field for the school. The children’s rooms are tiny and the bunks are usually three or four high, but it is often a haven from the lives they had been leading. We met three bright and sociable brothers (12, 7 and 4) who had arrived 6 months ago from Sudan. They had seen their parents killed, had walked to Uganda, and been picked up by a white woman who had heard of the orphanage at Bethany. The pupils quickly came to love this place and were reluctant to leave. They grew very fond of the children, such as one bright young 9 year old from Congo whose whole family had been murdered and who had been kidnapped by the LRA, becoming a boy soldier for some time before escaping. Almost all of these young people had had very difficult lives, which made their educational progress all the more remarkable.
Katwe shanty town, Kampala
Many children live on the streets and don’t go to school. They are sometimes part-time – going home to families at night, but many are full time – sleeping in bin bags or sewers. One project which works with the children, and with the families, is Dwelling Places. T he staff get to know the children, and the most desperate, often from Karamoja in the north, are given a temporary home with help to become socialised and eventually to start education. We visited some of the families of the street children – most live in Katwe, the biggest shanty town in east Africa. The pupils found the conditions very difficult, but we were all in awe of the mothers, who try so hard with so little to keep their dignity and self respect. One of the pupils said “I never knew how little nothing really is.”
Overcoming enormous hurdles was a part of life for most young people. In a country with the highest incidence of Aids in Africa, no help is available for ill people in hospital without payment, not even a drink of water. The road accident statistics almost equal that of Aids, plunging many families into life-long debt to pay for treatment. We heard from the young volunteers who looked after us of some of the other problems in trying to complete their degrees, and one of the pupils announced, overwhelmed, “It seems as if the whole of Africa is a mess!” But with a hand to help them get on their feet, these young people do have the confidence, strength and courage to make change happen, and to build a better future in this richly fertile land.