Visiting the parish

I helped our college Chaplain, Father Jude to successfully bid to a UK charity called Signpost for money to set up a poultry unit to support disadvantaged families in the parish. Last week I went with him to visit some of these people who live near the college.

This house is lived in by a very old lady. Her daughter told us that she was 70 and although they did not know how old her Mother is she must be around 90! The house is typical, made of mud bricks, rendered with mud and a corrugated tin roof. The view of the 'kitchen' through the window amazed me.

A friend had sent me some lovely little girls dresses which we took to the families we visited. They were so grateful although the children seemed a bit confused as Father dressed them for a photo!

Father Jude dressed this little one. I am not sure she quite knw what to make of it all!

Here are three generations, Grandmother, daughter and grandaughter

This girl in yellow, who was a bit older put her dress on quickly and posed for me! Many of the families are affected by HIV/Aids and it was sad to see how many children were not at school. Even though the government schools offer free education to the first four children, families have to provide uniforms, books, pencils and money for food at school. With families having six or more children it is not possible to send all of them to school. There are in fact nowhere near enough schools so many try to raise the fees for 'private' schools of which there are many. Class numbers are still often approaching 100!

It was an interesting and eye-opening experience. This girl looks after her grandfather who explained the loss of feeling in his feet due to his illness as 'his toes not being in the right order any more'.

New Special Needs Classroom

The school next to the college has a Special Needs class with around seven children with a range of disabilities. Their classroom was very dark and cramped so it was great news that a container company (Maersk Uganda) was donating two containers for new classrooms! I was very unsure about classes in containers but the conversions were great with a roof and windows and some paint they are a great improvement on the previous room. On Saturday we sat around for a couple of hours waiting for the guest of honour who had got lost to arrive so the containers could be officially opened! The choir sang and some trees were planted and after many speeches, a bottle of soda and samosas it was finished!

Rugby!

We have spent many weekends at either Kyadondo or Kampala Rugby Club watching all sorts of matches. Internationals between Uganda and Namibia and also Kenya both won by Uganda so great atmosphere, sevens and womens rugby! These photos were taken this weekend at the semi-finals between the Heathens and Kobs (top division teams) for the Uganda Cup. It was great fun with Kobs winning convincingly 20-16, not the expected result! All the yellow advertising shirts, horns and balloons are supporting the Heathens sponsored by the mobile phone company MTN! As you can see from the photos there was a band, acrobats and cheerleaders not to mention the scantily clad disco dancers with male dancers looking 'cool' in hoodies! Not really what we are used to at Saltash!! Our treat is pork 'muchumo' barbequed pork on a stick and Nile Special beer. It still seems odd to be watching rugby in hot sun in a t-shirt. Rob has joined the referee society and now has a Ugandan IRB qualification for training referees, so he observes them at matches and writes reports. They at least now use the decent metal 'Acme Thunderer' whistles we brought back for them in the new year rather than the awful plastic ones they were using! The support is always very enthusiastic and good humoured with the girls from the Uganda womens team the loudest, often with rude comments to their male counterparts but very knowledgable! They do a 'knockout' countdown whenever anyone is injured!

It is something I did not think we would be doing here!