Rain, Slaughter and Phonics...

I have been round this city of Jinja twice over to find some internet that works. It has involved a bumpy ride on a Boda (one of the many words used on this vast earth to describe a bloke on a two-wheeled motorized vehicle who, for a moderate fee, will take you where you desire to go), lots of wandering in some sweltering heat and a second ride (three abreast) provided by a rather nice chap working for a company based out of Northampton. On that final ride a bug dropped from a tree, went inside his shirt and proceeded to bite him. As the one sat behind him I was requested to squash said bug, which I attempted to do. My efforts were not enough, however, and he ended up stopping the bike, hopping off and removing his shirt by the side of the road in a somewhat comedic fashion.
So, that's the how I came to be at the backpacker's hostel on the outskirts of Jinja. Now, let me tell you about my week...
Monday showed me exactly why this green country on the equator is so very green. To say that it rained would be like saying that America quite enjoys playing with big guns in other countries; a rather large understatement. The pictures don't do it justice; they never do, but trust me when I tell you that it was biblical. I couldn't sleep for most of the night as it beat on the corrugated tin roof. This problem isn't just limited to a wee whitey in purpose built accommodation, it also applies to the school. When it rains, there is no school. It's just too loud. And too dark (no electricity after all). So, Monday was uneventfully spent reading, napping and scraping mud off my shoes every two minutes.
Tuesday cleared up quite nicely and teaching resumed. Along with the two other volunteers (lovely older couple from Rochdale) I have been teaching some extra classes outside of the students normal timetable. This is where my pedagogical efforts have been mainly focused up to now. To simplify what we have been doing I would probably say that we've been taking them out of class in groups of ten to fifteen and teaching them how to pronounce "the". I'm a big fan of the way people speak in this here country, as I mentioned in my last blog, but there are certain words that a lot of them, students and teachers alike, just cannot say. So, for the last few days I have been saying "the, the, the. Listen: Ugh, ugh, the" and the response I often got was "dey, dey, dey. Ay, hey, ho, yay!". Obviously I exaggerate, but you get the point. There are other words that have a very unique sound to them, such as "said"; usually it ends up sounding like say-ed. So, a typical sentence in Uganda could end up sounding something like this: “I say-ed to im dat dey shay-uh wass broke an’ ee should-ah put ‘is choose on”. Translate that and you get twenty points.
All in all, though, I have been really impressed with all the students, young and old. The children at the compound where I’m staying are especially good; probably due to the exposure to English they’ve had in that last year or so. Earlier in the week it was my sisters birthday (hope you had a good one Ferny!) so I gave her a call to wish her a happy one. In the middle of the call one of the boys, David, came into my room and started listening to the conversation. Just from this he managed to gather who I was talking to and what I was talking about. So, I gave him the phone and he wished Fern a happy birthday and had a short conversation with her. Not much, you may think, but I can tell you now very few of my students in Korea would have been able to do that. Another one of my protégés is young Daniel. When I first came he would walk up to me and say “I want a bis-kweet” or “Give me a sweetie”. After less than two weeks he now says, in an especially cute way, “Mr. Dan. I would like a biscuit” or “Please, may I have a sweetie”. Legen....wait for it...dary. Legendary.
I have also been sitting in on quite a few classes, and not just English lessons. Their comprehension of science and maths taught in English (which, obviously, is no their first language) is quite impressive. I forgot just how much I hated science at school though. Learning about teeth, plants and digestive systems just isn’t for me. I am quite excited about next week’s science lesson, though, because Gillian (the female part of the Rochdale ensemble) went out and bought wires, bulbs and batteries. So, we’re going to do circuits. Yay! I will have to remind myself that I’m an adult and a role-model and shouldn’t lick batteries....
I feel that I have gone on for a while now. If you’ve made it this far then congratulations! I didn’t really like those people who stopped reading earlier up the page anyway. On to the last part of this particular blog then...
Those of you who know me know that I can be a tad squeamish and don’t enjoy getting my hands dirty; I have very nice hands, hands which have been compared to that of a lady’s on occasion. But, this week I have been planting, sawing, drilling and killing. I am really rather getting into this rural life. You don’t really need to know details of my other exploits, but the killing I feel I should tell you about: I slaughtered a hen. Two of the children, yes children, held it down, plucked its neck feathers and handed me a knife. With only a second or two of hesitation I took the knife and did what had to be done....I’m still having flashbacks. I think I have PTSD. In spite of my girlish feelings of guilt (it was twitching for God’s sake!) it was darn tasty and I later heard stories of Moses’ first kill: he ran away crying. Made me feel a little bit better.
Apologies to all the veggies out there (long term or recently gone over to the dark side – you know who you are) for that story, but I wanted to share.
Enjoy the pictures. Hopefully I’ll be back next week, providing the “internet” companies decide to actually provide the product they claim to. =)

A couple of blokes I met in a bar and discussed the current state of Ugandan politics.




Rain.





Monkeys!


The "shower". Very refreshing, especially when it's raining.



Kyabirwa Primary School at break time.



Phonics class! Yeah!






It was, perhaps, 15 degrees today. Daniel was cold.



School.

The mighty Jack fruit.

The toilet.


Neigbours.



More neighbours.


Another bad pic, but what are they? There's loads of them in this tree near my room.

More pics next week...It's taken me more than an hour just to upload these ones. Until next time.

Mzungu!

I found a computer! With the internet! It may slower than a slow thing that's not in a great hurry to get anywhere, but at least it's internet.
The last few days have been a ginormous blur of names and faces, and desperately trying to get used to pooing in a hole in the ground (apologies to the older, more refined reader). I am enjoying every minute of it so far.
Because this is the first chance I've had to get to a computer and my days here so far have been so hectic I'm just going to give some initial impressions I've had, followed by some pictures...

1. I am living in the most rural place I have ever known in all my days. There are cows, chickens and pigs just wandering around our "compound" as they call it. I have been woken up at 6 o'clock sharp every morning by a cockerel, followed by some mooing and then the kids shouting (I know kids aren't technically farm animals, but they add to the general din in the morning).
2. Ugandans, and Moses the project leader in particular, are stupendously friendly. Walking along through the fields (yeah, told you it was rural) and past the houses will bring cries of "Helloo! How ar'you?" or the local word for hello, "Jambo!". On top of that, the kids at the compound (there are a good number of them) will always (and I mean always) say "Mr. Daniel...welcome back" when you arrive back from an outing. They'll do this even if you've only been away for ten minutes.
3. Moses' family is awesome. His son, my namesake, is as big a legend as ever I knew. Five years old and you can have nigh on full blown conversations with him. Plus his wife, Florence, is an amazing cook, especially when you look at the picture of her "kitchen".
4. Class sizes are enormous. At the start of term one class had 120 students in it before they realized that this was just ridiculous and split it. Still, I've been in classes pushing 90 students. It gets a bit warm, I can tell you.
5. "Okay, please" and "Thank you, please" should be used more in the England.
6. As should a standard handshake consisting of three separate parts. Shake, then the thumb thing, then back around for that bit and...finish! I messed it up again didn't I?
7.A "shower" is, in fact, standing in an open-air cubicle with a bowl of cold water and a jug. And, you know what? It ain't half bad. Quite refreshing.
8. It can rain. A lot. Yesterday morning was spent by everyone in bed, because going outside would have meant never being dry again. Ever. I swear that at one stage a drop of rain so large and travelling at such velocity actually managed to pierce the corrugated iron roof in my room. Scary stuff.
9. I could now point out to you a tobacco plant, the difference between a sweet potato crop and a cassava crop, and tell you why bananas and oranges are both green here.
10. I can't really think of a final one, but it's always better to have ten isn't it...Erm....Oh, yeah, I have one: there are too many Arsenal fans here!! Man UTD or Chelsea, fine. But, to be surrounded by little Gooners is not good. I told Moses that when I get back (and recover from bankruptcy) I'm going to send a few Spurs shirts to try to turn the tide.

Oh, and, by the way, the name of this post means "whitey" in the local tongue. I've heard a quite a bit surprisingly.



One of the other volunteers, Martin, talking to a couple of kids about farms n' stuff.



Some cows on a football pitch. I'm going back to watch a game today and apparently they have to be continuously shooed off the pitch.



The kitchen.



I started doing my laundry and the kidlings took over. Poor things, having to wash my grundies.



My main man Dan.



The School.

Fetching water.



Carrying it home.



David. He's a nice boy, for an Arsenal fan.



Daniel and Florence having lunch.



Erm...what?



I love me sunsets.



Scary, scary bird. Any ideas what it is?





A boat on the Nile.




The source of the Nile looking towards lake Victoria.

Me on the Nile!

The Search Begins....

Some of you might be wondering why this blog is titled as it is. "Who is this Speke you speak of?", I hear you cry. "Are you being very witty and using the title of a rather famous sci-fi movie, but just changing the name?", is something else I can perhaps hear you say at a less audible volume. I will begin by answering the second question first: Yes, that is exactly what I have done.
To answer the first question I must first take you back to that wonderful century: the nineteenth. It was a time of unending joy and prosperity, at least for a couple of people living in Cornwall. It was also a time filled with a group of people calling themselves "explorers" who wandered around trying to find areas of the globe as yet undiscovered. One of these gentlemen was John Hanning Speke. In short, the life of Mr. Speke consisted of travelling around Africa, getting stabbed, going deaf and catching more than a couple of infectious tropical diseases. After all this hardship one would have thought that the universe owed him a nice quiet retirement, perhaps in Cornwall. But, alas, the universe had other plans: John Hanning Speke shot himself, whether on purpose or by accident, while hunting in Wiltshire. He died not knowing that one thing in his life he got right was that the river Nile did in fact start near the town of Jinja in Uganda; something he had postulated for many years before.
Obviously, I do not wish to emulate Mr. Speke's adventures in any way. However, some of the paths he tread, back in the days of tea, scones and imperialism, will be the very same ones I will walk in the coming months. So, I thought it only right that the poor sod get an honourable mention in this here blog.
Over the next two months I will endeavour to provide a continual, and hopefully borderline interesting, blog of my time in Uganda. But, as was proven in my previous blog about Korea, I cannot always promise prompt or coherent pieces of writing. My apologies in advance.