Yet again its been ages – and I can't even blame Richard, our cameraman friend, as he's already been and gone! I think his time here was fruitful; he got lots of great footage (despite the numerous cows that wondered into shot) to make a bit of a promo DVD, which will help KISS massively. It'll hopefully give everyone a much clearer idea of what KISS actually does out here (provided he leaves out the chunk of footage of me trying to explain things – cos that'll probably do the complete reverse!)
We turned Richard's trip to the airport into a bit of an exciting day out! We hired a car and, together with Julius and Mary (our two employees in Kasambya), took 6 kids on an excursion to Kampala and Entebbe. The kids came dressed in their very best clothes – some of the dresses were quite spectacular (I feel that they might be similar to the dresses that put me off going to Birthday parties when I was 5 – but my Mum will probably deny it). None of the kids had ever been that far before (most of them had never even been in a car before) and we all had an incredible amount of very simple fun! The first moment of complete wonder and awe came as we stopped at traffic lights in Kampala... TRAFFIC LIGHTS! How completely exciting! We've recently acquired a wooden train set at the office, complete with its own set of wooden traffic lights, which are exciting enough in themselves – but to see them in real life? Amazing! The wonder continued as we drove through the busy centre of Kampala – high rise buildings, so many people, so many cars, so much noise! As we continued up the busy road between Kampala and Entebbe, the new sights and sounds kept the kids totally transfixed. It seems the most exciting noise was the swooshing of cars as they drove past at speed – before long every mouth in the car made a “swoooosh” sound every time a car passed (I'm not gonna lie, it did get a tiny bit annoying after an hour or so...)
By far the biggest excitement of the day came when we passed Lake Victoria – water as far as the eye can see! When the biggest expanse of water you have ever seen is the garden pond-sized damn that fills with water when it rains, that's pretty incredible! We stopped for lunch at a hotel by the lake and got the chance to see the water close up – and, for the brave few, to remove all clothing and jump right in! Lunch itself was a journey of great discovery – sausages?! Too bizarre for most to stomach, unfortunately – but the chips went down a treat! More excitement ensued after lunch with the discovery of swings and slides and then the trip to the airport itself. Once we'd said goodbye to Richard and waited to see a plane take off, we headed for one final burst of over excitement and found ourselves at the zoo! I won't go into too much detail – needless to say it was all rather exciting – but a personal highlight was catching the kids poke a massive plastic chimp with a stick, trying to discover whether or not it was real...
We eventually returned 6 very tired, but very happy kids to Kasambya. Only one hour of the four hour journey home was taken up with the “swoooooooshing” game – they slept the rest of the way (I won't pretend that I wasn't grateful for that). It was a top notch day – and aside from being a lot of fun, it did have its wider purposes. Two of the kids we took are carers to their disabled siblings and we wanted to give them a bit of respite and a bit of attention. We're also trying hard to strengthen our pastoral outreach to the wider community; none of the kids we took are directly supported by KISS financially, and we wanted to give a treat to some of the many many kids who have been turning up to weekend activities and send a wider message that despite the fact that they don't receive school fees from us, they are still very much a part of our community. I think the message got there! Hope to do a re-run next time someone is coming from the airport.... It could be you!
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