Thursday...

Thursday 16^th July

Julius our wonderful new driver was waiting to take us to school again this morning. It’s made such a difference having the car changed and is significantly more peaceful not to have Phil Collins blaring at us!

Today day began with an assembly around the flagpole. We heard the Ugandan national anthem being sung followed by the children’s national prayer. The HT then proceeded to lecture the children about looking after their school environment as there had been some vandalism to the new school fence and they are keen to encourage a sense of pride and respect in the school.

Kate and I spent the morning working with James the HT on the remaining parts of the School Development Plan. He really seemed to appreciate the guidance we were offering him and became quite excited at some of the ideas we suggested for improving discipline, the learning environment and involving parents. We managed to set quite a number of targets under the remaining priorities so they are going to be a busy staff!

We observed a few more classes and arranged to work with a couple of teachers the next day.

The afternoon was given over to a farewell ceremony in which all the classes had a hand in organising. We were first treated to a meal of goat stew and chapattis with coca cola, after just being given a bowl of chips to keep us going half an hour previously, I feel they are succeeding in making me put on weight! Africans generally like their women to be fatter and see it as a sign of good health, quite the opposite to our culture!

The afternoon was wonderful! We heard some of the items which we had seen previously in rehearsal for the music festival including traditional folk songs and dances. The energy and enthusiasm of the children who participated was amazing. We had the obligatory speeches from the chairperson of the PTA and the chairperson of the SMC as well as the HT and ourselves and then we were gifted with beautiful wooden love heart shaped plaques with the name of the school and a picture of a chimp. We were very touched by the gesture. We took photos of us with the Scottish and Ugandan flags surrounded by the teachers and pupils of Nyabeya and Kate left them with the message that their children are the future of Uganda. (She almost had me in tears!) We were waved off in the taxi by hordes of children. It seemed a bit odd to be saying farewells when we still had another school day to go but James was due to be adjudicating at the music festival again on the Friday and he didn’t want to miss the entertainment.

In the evening there was internet access at last – the first all week! As you can tell I’ve been trying to catch up with the blogging ever since. The days are so full here and there is so much to talk about together that in some ways it was just as well there was no power or internet access for a few days!

This evening a few of us went back to the Court View for dinner. It is pleasantly warm here but today saw a horrendous hail storm just as we started our journey back from school. The road quickly turned speckled white and Julius had to drive slowly to avoid any more cracks in his wind screen. We could see the children running along the road trying to find shelter. There were claps of rolling thunder and flashes of lightening as we arrived at Kabango to pick up Elaine and Patrick and then the heavens opened. The dusty red road soon turned muddy with rivulets of water running off to the sides. We had seen a trench digger clearing the ditches at the sides of the roads and now realised how important it was to keep these ditches clear for drainage to avoid flooding. When we arrived back at the hotel it was lovely to sit and watch the rain pouring down. The temperature cooled slightly so it was on with a light jumper and then off to sit outside on the veranda area at the Court View for dinner. Mr Jim stopped by later to meet up with a friend of his who is a District Inspector of Schools so we had an interesting discussion with James who seems to know everyone who is anyone in education in the Masindi District and could name teachers at all of our schools. Very impressive!