Howard and Judith Evans visit Uganda
Two of our volunteers ( both retired Head Teachers from the UK) recently returned from our school in Kasala, where they worked with the children. They were also involved with teacher training. We asked them to share a little about their experience, whilst in Uganda. Here’s what they had to say:
‘’The school looked so neat and tidy as we arrived on another hot Ugandan morning. Singing could be heard from the infants’ rooms while the older pupils could be spotted through the windows, bent over their books. Madam Rebecca, the Head Teacher, came out to greet us. It was over a year since we saw her last and she looked very smart and professional, tall and smiling.
We’d arrived at the school, from our accommodation, 12 minutes away, clinging onto the backs of our ‘Boda Bodas’ [Motor Bike Taxis]. The journey to school was an adventure in itself; adults and children alike calling out greetings to us as we bounced and weaved along the red earth track through the bush. "Mzungu, Mzungu, Welcome. Welcome” they shouted (seeing white people in the bush is not a common sight) . After the white knuckle ride we swept into the school grounds in the middle of a small dust cloud.
Lunch time came and the children queued up patiently, cups in hand, for their high protein porridge, which they have twice a day. Without the porridge the children’s diet would be, almost exclusively, Matoke – a tasteless, bland, green, unripe banana - which contains starch, carbohydrate and little else. Two little boys aged about five sat together in the shade. One had a mug and the other did not. The lad with no mug fashioned a spoon out of a leaf and proceeded to scoop up the porridge with his leaf-spoon. His friend then took the leaf spoon off him and rubbed it on his head, covering his tight curls with white porridge. A few minutes later the boy with the leaf spoon daubed porridge on his friend’s nose. Both little lads found the whole experience highly amusing. In other parts of the school, boys played football and girls played netball. Small groups sat and chatted while others chased each other around the grounds which were not as green as usual due to the little rainfall there had been since November. The school’s water supply comes from a very deep borehole pump which continues to gush out lovely, cold, clean water from deep in the earth. This water continues to flow, even in very dry weather. Villagers walk long distances to the school to fill up their containers to take back home; the heavy containers balanced on their heads. It always fascinates us that the water is never spilt.
In the classrooms the children work quietly and with great concentration. The standard of behaviour and level of politeness of the pupils impresses us. They are so keen to learn, to get an education, to help them out of the grinding poverty in which most of them live; to walk four miles to school and then back home is nothing. When we left the school, two weeks later, we couldn’t help but appreciate how much the school had progressed in its five year life. The faces of the children always remain with us. We cant wait to go and see them again.’’
Howard and Judith Evans.
