2008!

Happy New Year!

We returned to Uganda on January 10th having enjoyed a very hectic but very enjoyable month in England and then a few days in Cape Town on our way back. It was great to catch up with family and friends but were very pleased to return to the warm, bright sunshine! The first week back we had no power, no internet or telephone so we definitely knew we had returned to this 'developing' country!

Teaching was hectic for the three weeks of the in-service teaching programme but I really enjoyed being back with the huge classes (over 100) of very appreciative teachers. We then had some time before our pre-service students return so I was able to join Rob on a field trip to one of the charity projects.

We went to Queen Elizabeth national park to Ishasha to see the trench they have dug and the fence to keep the elephants from wandering out of the park and eating the villagers crops. It is 20kms long!

We stayed in a town called Kihihi which was very busy and 'African' and had several game drives in the park. We looked in vain for the famous tree-climbing lions but they had killed 2 buffalo and so remained on the ground. We decided they were too full of buffalo to climb! It was brilliant, QE is a lovely green park with many animals. We also went to Rwenshama on Lake Edward to see the rescue boat station. The hippos were just off-shore where the fishermen were bringing their boats out! Hope these photos give some idea of what a great trip we had.....we are so lucky to have this opportunity!

Herds of Buffalo (Queen Elizabeth NP)

Elephants (Queen Elizabeth NP )

These 2 young bulls posed for a few photos and then started to threaten so we left them in peace!

Rwenshama-fishing boats on lake Edward

hippos in the water!

Vultures at a buffalo kill

Ishasha wilderness camp. Congo border just across the river so they have closed the camp for safety. It was an idyllic spot with many birds and hippos in the water - very close!!

Last Post?

I thought that my last post was the last one before we come back.... if you see what I mean?!! But CHOGM (Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting) in Kampala means we have a 2 day public holiday and travel anywhere in the city is almost impossible as they keep closing roads and the place is crawling with security 'police'. As the college is on one of the main roads to the main conference centre we are probably going to stay at home!! Hence I thought you might be interested in the college Music Dance and Drama House Competitions. They took place on Saturday on the theme of 'HIV/AIDS Prevention through Behaviour Change'. Each of the four houses (named after the Uganda martyrs - St. Joseph, St. Lwanga, St. Andrew and St. Kizito) took part in choral singing, traditional dance and folk songs, drama, poetry and a speech. Each item was adjudicated and marks given and St. Kizito house won( the first time ever!). My house, St Andrew sadly, only managed third place overall but I was happy as the poem and the speech, which I had helped to write and coach the performers in, both won their sections! It was very 'Ugandan' in that the students left all rehearsals and writing until the week before and we had to give every afternoon over to practises not lectures! However our play which was written the evening before also managed a second place! It was a very colourful and energetic affair with lots of drumming and bright costumes and much teasing amongst tutors and students as to which house was the best!

Rob was invited to present the prizes with the college Principal and they were mobbed by excited students as the final marks were announced! It was another very different experience for us compared to the somewhat serious and restrained music/ballet festivals we are used to.

Exams and teaching practice

We are looking forward to our trip back to the UK for Christmas and hope to catch up with everyone and all the news!!

I have just finished marking 79 exam scripts for one of our two year one pre-service classes. I thought you might like some of the answers given to a question on the Professional Education Studies paper in the special needs section......

'Briefly explain the causes of physical disability'

Answers included the following:-

'Witchcraft whereby one may be bewitched.'

'That family planning is also another cause.'

'Mistreating, especially by the step-mother.'

'Going to small gods because they can give medicine to a woman who is pregnant to produce a boy or girl according to her choice and end up producing a disabled baby.'

'Natural calamities such as mountain erruptions when the hot magma comes out.'

'Some people get a disability because they were cursed.'

Rather sadly the following are correct answers that show the difference between being born here and the first world........

'Poor nutrition - children end up suffering from Kwashiorkor, Marasmus or Rickets.'

'Diseases like Polio or bad Malaria.'

This is a school near the college where I supervised the students on Teaching Practice. It is run by a church charity for disadvantaged children and orphans and unusually has very few puplis at the moment. I was told it was because it is built on rented land and the owners have given the school notice to vacate the land. It is called 'Rivers of Joy Primary School' and here are a couple of photos.

Jinja

We spent a very lazy weekend staying at a camp 'The Haven' near Jinja - the source of the Nile. The waterfalls and rapids are wonderful to watch as is the daily fun of watching the whitewater rafting boats capsize! The rescue canoes then dash about collectng tourists and paddles from the river before they right the raft and continue to the next run of rapids and falls to do it all again. We chickened out and just took a sunset trip on a small boat - very peaceful! The photos show the view from our banda during a tropical storm and again the following morning!

Floods!

We hear that the news of the floods in Uganda have reached the BBC news!! There have been reports of floods in the districts in the North in the papers here for a couple of weeks and as the photos posted last week show we have had some pretty torrential downpours! One day the newspaper was reporting on the very dry conditions in Karamoja and the problems with the crops and in the same paper two pages later, a report on the rainstorms washing away a bridge and destroying crops in ..yes you guessed it...Karamoja! There has certainly been some extreme weather. The main roundabout in Kampala floods regularly but as these photos show we are lucky to live in one of the 'up-market' and 'up the hill' suburbs. Here is the view of Lake Victoria from the bar at the hotel just up the road where we very occasionally enjoy a cold 'Nile Special' beer!?!! The others show the road leading to the house (you can just see our black gate at the end) and one of me and Alice walking down from the house when she and Ed were here (thanks to Ed for the photos). The wooden structures at the bottom are the little shops where we buy fruit and vegetables and practice our Luganda. Even after being here this long the ladies still burst into fits of laughter at our attempts.

Introduction

An introduction is like paying a 'bride price'. We were invited to be part of the grooms entourage to go to the brides village to persuade her family to let us bring her back. Actually the groom is the Dean of Students at the college and his bride is a tutor and they live down the road from us with their baby! The ceremony is however a big affair with many hours of negotiation between the spokesmen for each family and the handing over of many gifts....fruit, vegetables, tea, bread, soap, a calabash of the local brew,beer, soda, Blueband margarine, a live chicken and a cow!! Quite an experience for us. Here a photo of us in traditional costume of the West of Uganda (Suka for me and a Kanzu for Rob) and me carrying one of the many baskets of gifts.

We are now having a 'wet season' which didn't really come when it should in March but is now happening at the time of the second wet season (Sept. - Nov.). There is flooding in the north of the country and bits of Kampala flood because of terrible drainage and the awful roads. We are at the top of a hill which is good! These photos were taken from the front of the house.

Field Trip 2nd September

Rob's chance to be a biologist/environmentalist . This last weekend I spent in Ishahsha and Mweya, on a proper field trip reviewing the projects and viewing Queen Elizabeth National Park. This is one of the most threatened parks in Uganda, in the south round Ishasha, because the elephants and other large mammals come out of the park and raid the subsistence crops of the local farmers.The picture shows an unusual group of fifteen young bachelor males which we later heard had tried to raid crops in Kihihi parish, fortunately a few loud noises and a lot of running around and no real damage was done and no one and no animals were hurt.

Ishasha is well known for its tree climbing lions (they dont usually climb trees but these guys do) we came across four of them near a kill, one young male got down and chased away the vultures then possibly because we were there in the vehicle, stayed around for a bit to guard it.

Mweya is where the head quarters of the Uganda Wlidlife Authority were until moving to Kampala,they have most of their senior field offices there as well as the rescue boat we funded.

Mweya is at the northern end of Lake Edward on the Kazinga channel. Although it is a national park the whole of it is under threat because local people(including some rather important people) are using the park to graze their cattle about 50,000 of them(cattle that is) and are poisoning the animals in the park, there were 50+hyena in one group and there are now 4, the lion have almost been wiped out, as have the leopard. When we were there the rangers came across a 70kg male leopard which had been snared. The only way to protect them seems to be darting them and then taking them to the zoo in Entebbe. The only people who can do anything about this are fairly high up and dont want to.Cattle mean wealth and keeping on the right side of the pastoralists means votes.

Mweya has however at least at the moment got some herbivores and a very few Topi, animals that are such a lovely colour. They are very nervous however. The only thing we can do is bash on ,if you are interested see it now while its still there!