Hello From Hoima

I'm in Hoima at the minute – I stay in a guest house rather than rent my own room here which is a bit of a mixed blessing. The food is good, there is a real life flushing toilet and, when there is not a power cut, there is power! On the flip side, the guest house shares a compound with a tailoring school (the students of which spend ALL of their time singing – badly) and, unlike Kasambya, I'm not allowed to paint smiley things in vulgar colours all over my bedroom walls. The students of the tailoring school had a retreat last week. This meant that they needed not only to sing, but to sing through a microphone and very distorted speaker – and that they had to begin doing so at 6am. I've still not quite composed myself after the trauma of 300 verses of “Good morning Jesus” in the early hours of Saturday morning.

There's a great bunch of kids here who turn up for activities after school every single day (they're only supposed to come Wednesday to Friday but they decided to start coming on Monday and Tuesday as well and there was not a lot any one could do about it!!) I enjoyed/suffered a rather fast paced, violent, lawless game of netball with a group of the primary school girls last week – I still have the excessively swollen finger to prove it (and a slightly wounded soul after they told me that I had no power)! As well as the netballing girls, there is a group of footballing boys (with rebellious footballing girl who always ends up in goal) plus a group of budding musicians – some of whom are being taught guitar and keyboard and the rest of whom compose songs and dances to the demo buttons on the keyboards. It's such a genius set up. They also come on Saturdays for a prayer meeting (plus football, netball, music and demo-button-related-fun) and on Sundays for a Xaverian Square Formation (the Xaverians are like a Catholic scouting movement) - last weekend they were learning to march – a very amusing experienced for all concerned!

I went to the post office yesterday in the hope that the parcels that I knew had been sent around three weeks ago might have arrived. I asked the lady whether there was anything there for me. She picked around inside her ear for a bit before looking under a pile of papers on her desk and then returning to the apparently infinitely more satisfying job of searching for ear wax. “No,” she replied in a silent, disinterested voice. “Do you think you could check box 34 for me?” I patiently asked. Five minutes later she returned from box 34, scuffing her feet painfully slowly along the tiled floor, still attending to her ear drums. “It's not there” she moaned in a half hearted attempt at sympathy. “But do you have a special place for parcels” I asked, hoping to remind her of the large parcel cupboard directly behind her. “No,” she declared, “if we have your parcel we will send you a sheet to inform you.” Hoping that I would now go away, she sat back down and continued her aural excavation. “Erm.... do you think you might be able to have a look in the parcel cupboard for me?” I persisted. Moving more slowly than anyone has ever moved in the history of the universe ,she got back up, finger still in ear, and moved towards the wardrobe/parcel cupboard. In the universe's attempt to propel life and energy into the situation, two parcels cascaded out of the wardrobe onto the post office attendant. Unphased, she picked the parcels up, examined them, brought them over to the counter and began to prepare herself for the immensely important task of filling out the duplicating receipt book. Once my name had been carefully spelled out in blue biro and the receipt duly stamped, three times, with the Post Office Uganda rubber ink stamp of approval, I was eventually set free. Thanking her earnestly for her assistance and wishing her a wonderful, joy-filled day, I left, goodies from home in hand. God bless Uganda!

The kindgom of far far away...

Well, Kampala cooled down at last and we eventually set off to Sorotti. It's a seven hour bus journey up to Sorotti town and then a further hour and a half on the back of a boda-boda to get to Acumet. I hadn't originally bargained to do that final hour and a half on the back of a bike and so hadn't thought to bring a sun hat with me. I did my best to fashion one out of my bath towel... No one thought this a strange thing to be wearing; someone even commented that I looked 'smart' - but my efforts were to little avail - i still ended up with a head full of dust and a rather rosy face.

Acumet is an incredible place. The area has been witness to years of civil war and tribal conflict and as a result people have left their homes and their land for safety in numbers in an IDP camp. Thanks to an albeit fragile peace process, there have been no confirmed rebel attacks in Uganda since 2006, but this particular area of the north east is still subject to regular tribal clashes. The Karamajong tribe, who are also currently participating in a disarmament process, make regular raids on camps and villages, taking food, property and cattle. I simply cannot imagine how it must be to live your life under constant threat. To know that anything you build up and work for could be lost at any minute. I've reflected on it a lot lately - of course the same is true for all of us - but the imminence of the threat in this particular area must bring a whole new perspective. The fact that NOTHING is certain and that everything is so transitory stares you bare in the face. From a faith perspective St. Teresa's prayer captures the challenge beautifully -

"Let nothing disturb you,

Let nothing frighten you

Everything passes:

God never changes.

Patience obtains all."

What a monumental challenge! A painfully difficult prayer to have the faith to say in a troubled world. Difficult though it is, i constantly feel the sentiment of it laid bare out here.

Our host in Acumet was an eccentric Ugandan priest. His name is Fr. Wazi-Wazi Gonzaga and he has a massive fluffy moustache. That says pretty much everything you need to know. One evening after dinner he whacked a jug of something out onto the table.

"It's medicine!" he declared,

"Oh! Medicine for what, exactly?" I cautiously enquired.

"It is to help digestion. It is made from fermented passion fruits. In fact, it is recommended to us in the bible by St. Paul in his letter to Timothy" he replied.

I'm yet to find the biblical reference to fermented passion fruits, but I duly took a glass in a good faith! It tasted a bit like port... not sure what it did for my digestion, but it didn't kill and i remain grateful for that.

The people in Acumet have lived incredible, often painful, lives. One of the lads we support told me about his experience of one particular rebel attack on the camp a few years ago. He had been away when the rebels attacked. He came back to his home to find food still cooking on the fire, but no one to be seen for miles. He began to cry, thinking that his mum and brothers and sisters had been killed or abducted. He spent days searching for them, deep in the bush. Eventually he came across someone who directed him to his brother and sister. Despite the danger of travelling anywhere he took his brother on the back of his bike, his sister on the front and cycled the whole way up to Sorotti. If it took me an hour and a half on a motorbike, you can imagine how long it took him with two children on a pedal bike. They stopped and hid along the way, waiting for rebels to pass them before continuing their journey. When he delivered his brother and sister to relative safety in the town, he got back on his bike a cycled right back into the camp to search for his mother, still not knowing whether or not she was alive. After another day, he found her too, hungry and crying deep in the bush. Again, he put his mum on the back of the bike and did the same journey to safety in town. Not content that he had done all he could, he again went back to the camp to look for food for the family. When he arrived, he came across a priest who was driving to the next village. The priest offered to take the lad with him but, for reasons he didn't understand at the time, he didn't want to go. He ran and hid in the toilet, hoping that the priest would leave without him. Sure enough, the priest got bored of waiting and left without him. Hours later, news reached the lad that the vehicle had come under attack and the priest was shot dead. The lad collected together as much food as he could and, for the final time, cycled to safety in Sorotti.

I've known this lad for a while, but had never known this story. And there are countless, countless others with similar tales, often all the more tragic. I'm endlessly blown away by how selfless and determined people can be...and feel unbelievably blessed just to know such incredible individuals.

Unfortunately I had to leave Fr Wazi Wazi behind me and make my way back to Kampala. I'm on my way to Hoima to spend a few weeks there, but am temporarily subject to a doctors order to rest up and swallow lots of pills. The pills are gross and make me burp, but I trust that they'll do the trick. Else I might have to call Fr Wazi Wazi to bring me some more 'medicine'...

The King and I

As part of our begininng of term madness Julius and I are in Kampala en route to Sorotti district. We've paid all the school fees for those studying in higher education in Kampala (quite a frightening sum of money!) and we're just waiting to get up to Acumet in the north east of Uganda to pay some more school fees there. We were supposed to travel today, but some serious riots broke out in Kampala yesterday afternoon and we're a bit marooned!

There has been ongoing tension between the Baganda people (the largest ethnic group in Uganda) and the central government. The King and people of Buganda believe that Kampala should be part of their territory and that they should be the ones collecting revenue from the land in Kampala. The areas surrounding Kampala are all part of the Buganda kingdom, but the government claims Kampala for itself.

The King had made plans to visit an area of his kingdom where there is a bit of unrest - and the government have prevented him from doing so 'for fear that there may be violence'. SOOOO... Baganda people are currently protesting in Kampala and surrounding towns and the army and police have been deployed by the government to beat them down. The whole thing kicked off yesterday afternoon and is likely to continue until Saturday when the King is supposed to travel - but it's possible that it'll go on for longer. The police and army are out in FORCE - tanks and all.

We're staying in a hostel right outside of town and there's no sign of anything up this end - the protests are focused in the town centre and then out towards the area where the king wants to go (which, luckily for me, is in the oposite direction to where I am!) I'm porning information from the American Peace Corps security officer who is here caring for his flocks and we're in touch with people in town who are giving us updates - so we're just gonna have to stay put here until it all dies down! Frustrating to say the least, but am grateful to be in a safe place - a safe place that serves burger and chips.

Using the time to catch up on some rest and find out what has been happening in the rest of the world for the last couple of months. Have also been down to the shops and bought some useful gadgets to help me through the troubles - a particular favourite is a bright orange plastic key ring/comb/bottle opener emblazoned with an elongated picture of David Beckham.

Right, i'd best go and entertain Julius - he's feeling particularly miffed and has so far refused to get out of bed!

(Interestingly, the BBC seem to think that it is all over already!)http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8250357.stm

I have come here to dance, and I shall dance!

We're back to school in Uganda this week and its go, go, go! The beginning of term is always by far the busiest time for KISS. The largest percentage of our expenditure goes on school fees and requirements - children have to come to school with all sorts of bits and pieces - exercise books of various shapes and sizes, pens, pencils, toilet rolls, brooms, reams of paper, uniforms; and in the case of the many who we have in boarding school they also need casual uniforms, bed sheets, mattresses, Vaseline, belts, pocket money, basins, soap - the list goes on. All of our children go to various local schools and institutions in Kasambya, Hoima, Kampala and Sorotti - we deal with over 30 separate institutions, all of which have different requirements and all of which require school fees to be paid in person. Our team do a lot of travelling and a lot of shopping during this time and the needs always seem endless - but somehow, thanks to a lot of hard work in both England and Uganda, 150 happy children and young people always make it back to school... and its great to see it!

I'll be sorry to see the end of the holidays - I enjoy having an excess of kids around! We've had a good few weeks in Kasambya and we ended on a real high this weekend with the kids preparing the music and readings for the main Mass on Sunday. I felt ridiculously proud of them - they really lit the place up. We had a hundred strong choir which sounded AWESOME and a host of young dancers who brought the Gospel and offertory forward in a VERY joyful and prayerful way. There was one kid who was not a particularly gifted dancer, to say the least... but when she saw one of the leaders looking at her in rehearsal she declared, "I see you looking at me, but i shall not give up my place... I have come here to dance, and I shall dance!" I just thought that was the most brilliant attitude!

We got the very sad news yesterday of the death of one of our community. Rose was supported by KISS a number of years ago and we supported her to train as a hairdresser. She had been running a successful business here in Kasambya and was an incredibly popular member of the local community. She had not been sick, but died very suddenly yesterday morning while getting her children ready for school. Needless to say its really shaken the community and everyone feels particularly desperate for her three young children, who have clearly not yet grasped what has happened. We have had the burial here today, and the family home is typically very busy after a death - family and friends will spend the next few nights sleeping outside the house, mourning together, before returning to their homes. When the house quietens down, I imagine the kids will begin to get more of a sense of what all this means - please keep them in your prayers.

Otherwise, life goes on as it inevitably must. I'm feeling much more settled lately; having my own room has really helped that along. Talking of which, the door problem is worsening - it has progressed from a showering of concrete dust to a cascade of small rocks which greets anyone who dares enter. Rocks. Not cool. I told someone today and they advised me to "brush" my door. I'm not sure what that might do, but i'm willing to try anything. Can't help but feel that it might create excess mess, but i'll give it a go. I'm still waiting on the arrival of electricity to my room. I have all the wiring in place now (behind the door, obviously) and we're just waiting for a wire to arrive in Mubende (the nearest big town) and for the wire to then somehow find its way here and up the pole and into my room - could be a long wait, but i remain optimistic! On the plus side I have found some gas at last which means that I am now able to cook and heat water for bathing. MASSIVE bonus. I've been relying on the good will of people around me for food - and it has resulted in a LOT of rice, potato and spaghetti (typically all at once on the same plate) and there's only so much more that I can take. I breathed a very temporary sigh of relief the other day when my neighbour offered me some cassava in what looked like a very appetising sauce - but upon tasting it i found it to be a dried fish and peanut sauce - not wishing to sound ungrateful but....

I'm likely to be doing a fair bit of travelling over the next couple of weeks. Want to head up to Sorotti (its faaaaaaaar) to see the girls who we are supporting there and will then be heading to Hoima to spend a good few weeks there. I have recently found myself feeling actual guilt about the fact that I can't be in three places at once, which i realise is not particularly healthy - so this is my attempt to combat it!

In other news I now have my own Internet access through a USB modem wotsit and am enjoying the light relief that access to the internet brings. I spent a particularly special half hour yesterday reading about Terry Wogan. But don't tell anybody.

I've just realised that I've put a picture at the top of this and it has become completely irrelevant as i've forgotten to mention the thing that it was actually of - but enjoy it anyway! Over and out.

Another New Room, Another New Door

Wow, two entries in two days – I'm spoiling you.

It's been quite a long couple of weeks. For reasons that I won't bore you with I had to leave my first room (the one with the door that didn't open) and temporarily move back to the parish while I looked for another room. As hospitable as the priests were, it was difficult to settle there. I'm not very good at being a guest (probably a control thing!) and on top of that I was back to square one with the rats-weeing-from-ceiling scenario. I cannot describe my relief when I finally moved into my new room this week. The new room is just behind the KISS office and right next to the KISS site – location, location, location. It took a little while to get it ready – it came complete with a number of squatters... More cockroaches than I dare to mention and a very sizeable family of rats. When I picked up the straw mat that the rats were hiding under, no less than seven of them ran underneath the interlocking door into my neighbours house. Whoops. I do admit to laughing quite a lot . My conscience eventually got the better of me and I had to go and inform my neighbour that she had visitors. But when I told her that there were seven rats in her room she looked at me, laughed and said, “oh, you only saw seven? There are usually twenty.” Pleased that I had hit the jackpot with chilled out, animal loving neighbours, I returned to my cleaning. Knowing that my neighbour was so well acquainted with the rats, I called a carpenter to come and nail a massive plank of wood to the bottom of the interlocking door – I thought it was best that the rats stayed the other side of it, where they were clearly quite welcome!

The group of students that were with me at the beginning of the trip did a lot of painting while they were here, and left a bit of paint behind them. Unfortunately there wasn't quite enough of any one colour to paint a whole room, so I went with the “anything goes” approach. My new room is a pleasant mixture of white, blue and green with a hint of black, red and yellow. It boasts a large sunshine (complete with smiley face and sunglasses) and a giant red flower (also with smiley face and glasses). The floor is covered with a stylish 'granite effect' lino and, to cover the bit where I ran out of lino, a pink and purple straw mat. Nothing beats making a place your own!
As with the last room, I had to put a new door on this one too. Again I went with the hefty metal variety. The problem with this one isn't so much that it takes ten minutes to open (it only takes five), but when you open it, without fail, a large amount of concrete cascades onto your head. I've developed a knack of opening it from arms length, but it's a little embarrassing when visitors get an unexpected covering. I've been practising my “gosh, that's never happened before” face.

The building hasn't got any electricity in it yet, but we're working on it. There is an electricity pole nearby, so it's simply a case of getting an electrician to put a wire from the post into the building. He came to wire up all the light switches and sockets yesterday (we're doing the KISS office at the same time as my room). When he came to the socket in my room he told me that he would have to move the socket from where it was (next to my bed) to a new location behind the door. When I enquired as to why that would be necessary, he replied “so that you can do your ironing.” I can only assume that that one was lost in translation. Either that, or everyone in Uganda does their ironing behind the door.

I'm sat typing this up in town. I'm at the house of the local chairman (who is responsible for resolving local disputes) and there are two ladies sat outside the door arguing because one of them went into the other's house and smashed up all her cups and mugs because the other lady's husband bought a goat kebab for another woman... It's never dull here! (And it rarely makes sense!)

Will leave it there. I don't have immediate access to internet at the moment as the access I had was via a priest's laptop – and he lent his laptop to a crazy German guy who has gone to meet the king... Hoping to get myself a mobile internet connection, but until then you'll have to forgive my slightly sporadic communication!

I PROMISE to start updating this more regularly...

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!

Sorry for the slight delay...

Well, its been a little longer than I'd hoped it would be between blogging sessions! I've had a group of 13 students and teachers from back home with me for the past 2 weeks and time has just disappeared. I've had a great time with them though. It's really refreshing to be reminded of what it is like to experience KISS for the first time; the highs of the incredible welcomes and endless smiling children, the hilarity of the way things work (or, more often than not don't work) in Uganda, and the lows of witnessing situations that leave you feeling utterly hopeless. Obviously those things never go away, however long you stay here – but, out of necessity, they become a part of daily life. It's nice to be reminded of the things that first awoke my own love for KISS; I hope the group has gone home similarly smitten!

Sylvia has been turning up for all of our KISS activities in Kasambya and she's quite a hit! She plays what I believe to be a truly fantastic game which involves asking for coins, going away, buying cakes, bringing them back and feeding me! Think I might ask her to move in! She's recently devised a new (slightly less useful) game which involves trying to lick my face – I'm doing what I can to encourage her to revert to the previous game! Word travels very fast in Kasambya and within days of us visiting Sylvia's family two other families turned up at the office with children with similar difficulties and they've also started coming to the activities. We escorted one of them home one evening and she told everyone she came across on the way, in an exceptionally loud and excited voice, what a wonderful time she had had playing with a ball – I've not witnessed such pure joy in a long time – beautiful!

Coincidentally we've just employed someone to work with us in Kasambya who has a lot of experience working with kids with disability. Her main remit is to help strengthen the pastoral provision that KISS offers – and hopefully with her experience we will be able to offer something extra for children like Sylvia who aren't able to attend school – the future is looking quite exciting!

We've been on a bit of a renovation drive with the visitors these past two weeks, and amongst many other paint related endeavours we've relocated and painted the KISS office. It started off very simply with blue sky, white fluffy clouds and a big rainbow.... but as the fumes increased and slight delirium crept in, we decided to paint some child friendly bugs on the walls as well... I was eventually banished after attempts a painting a grasshopper were misinterpreted as being a giant walking aubergine. Art was never my forte.

Right, best leave it there. Hoping to be able to update much more regularly from now on. One of the students has stayed behind and will be with me for another 9 days, so if I don't update you can blame him! He's a broadcast journalism student shooting some promotional footage for KISS – watch this space for the results!