27th October - 2nd November

Hey everyone :)



Another week has gone past - tomorrow it's SEVEN weeks since we left the UK. It's very surreal to have been gone that long... It just shows how the time will fly past till February when I can see you all again! I promise I'll try to be quicker with the updates this week....



Tuesday 27th - No water to wash with. Bad times! Although the team and I figured that none of us had washed so technically none of us would realise the difference on each other :) Visited a school called Edusabo in Kasawo in the morning. It was opened 4 years ago and had 80 pupils when it started. It now has 470 students from nursery to P7. The school is on land that was bought by a local village church; they raised all the money themselves without any external help, which is a real achievement here and very unusual. It was an amazing project to see :D As always the kids were lovely, and we did the usual games, songs and story with them. The headteacher has architectural plans drawn up for some building of houses for teachers, classrooms, offices and a big school that they want to do ASAP and they've sent a proposal to the Japanese Embassy in Kampala. It's so good to see what people can do here for themselves, without relying at all on mzungus. It gives us hope as a team for V.W.G (vulnerable women's group) and what they can do for themselves in starting the candle making business etc. The teachers served us this amazing fruit juice and pineapple afterwards, which was a blessing cos we're definitely not eating enough fruit, and there's nothing we can do about it :( Its mango season soon though (WOOP!)

Visited the tailoring school as usual in the afternoon. I took my half-finished paper dress from last week and a girl called Heifah (not sure how you spell it?!) helped me sew sleeves on and do the hemming. It's now complete and is going on my wall when I get home! :D I put it on Junior when we got home, he didn't appreciate my sewing skills though, being a 6 (or 7?) year old boy! I'm reading "The God Delusion" at the moment, to prepare myself for the inevitable onslaught of my Cambridge interview (my personal statement is very faith based...) and am struggling through it but persevering and actually enjoying it!



Wednesday 28th - Again, no water in the morning. VERY BAD TIMES! Apparently the pump for Kampala and the whole surrounding region has been breaking intermittently for the last week. At time of writing (the 2nd) the longest stretch we've had without water is 3 days, which means greasy hair and washing in about an inch of water. Eeeew.



Lilo in the morning as always :) We did the story of the wise man and the foolish man but did it a little differently with the older ones; we gave them loads of craft materials, like plastic bottles, loo rolls and card etc and told them to build a house. We did it as a competition to see whose was strongest, best looking, best teamwork... They loved it! :D Doing things like that with them definitely works better. While they were doing that I went outside and sat with some of the mute and more severely disabled children cos sometimes they're a bit left out and I don't like that. Natalie is a mute girl, who can only say "Mama" and we were making boda boda noises everytime a motorbike went past (she found that very funny!) Nico (Nicholas) is another mute boy who is also quite seriously physically disabled. I was just sitting with him and got a gorgeous smile out of him at one point :) He liked my pink plastic shoes, so we were playing with them for a while, till he ended up wearing one of them! It was SO lovely. Genuinely, some of my best moments of the last 6 weeks. It's an incredible privilege to be able to sit with children in the dust like that, just talking to them, playing and spending time with them without having to worry about doing anything else. Just poking our fingers through the holes in my shoes was enough. I LOVE that. Such small things, especially with children, can overcome things like language or culture barriers. I'm getting to know more of their names and we're slowly building closer relationships with them. Ah I love that school!



Did the washing outside in the beautiful sunshine as usual for a Wednesday afternoon... Then Sarah (from P7 at Gilgal) and another girl called Princess came to visit us completely randomly! Luckily we had just tidied up and swept, and Bex had some biscuits we could give them (the importance of hospitality etc) so it was all good. They gave us a letter to invite us to their P7 pre-exam party on the 31st which was really kind of them, but also asked us for money (anything upto 80,000sh) That was awkward cos we can't give out money (it reinforces the stereotype of rich mzungus giving out cash to anyone who asks) so we had to say that we couldn't go to the party even though we would have wanted to. Luckily we can blame it on our busy programme! Bible study in the evening went well... Classic moment was sister Esther borrowing Tata's (my new name for Pastor Ben; it's Luganda for Dad, cos I just can't seriously call him Dad or Daddy like the other kids do :S I love my own Dad too much, it's just weird!) glasses. They we're obviously waaaay too big for her face and it just made for some classic slapstick comedy :D



Thursday 29th - Gilgal in the morning went well. Annoyingly still started 20mins late... Nursery screamed and squealed as we walked in, as always, and had great fun playing the Name Game. It was raining, which made playing games a bit difficult. One boy always sits at the front grinning; I don't know his name but he's lovely and is definitely my favourite! :) Did the J-O-Y song (hilarious) ... all the other groups went well, pretty much the same. I told the story for P5+6 and 7 - I love doing that :) Cos they're older it's easier to talk to them as friends. It's a different way of doing the same thing... We went into the main hall after all the teaching for their singing/praying thing for half an hour like normal. It's always a bit weird being at the front and viewed as different - Ellie and Lucy particularly hate it - but it's their way of honouring us and making the most of us being there. It can be uncomfortable and even a bit intimidating, but we just have to get used to it. We led a few songs and luckily didn't have to do a talk cos another lady spoke for ages! *sigh of relief*

Jocelyn (the person taking over Maree's role of coordinator in December) came to visit Mama and Tata while we were at Gilgal and then had lunch with us and we "showed her round" our little house. Basically that meant looking at our brightly coloured/glittered prayer wall! We took the washing line down before she came in and chucked all the mess in one corner so it looked a lot better than it actually is! (Yes, I know, we're still typical teenagers!) Seriously though, it's really hard to keep it tidy cos of all the stuff in such a small space, but we're doing well. We tidy every day, even though I know Mum and Dad will find that hard to believe! :) While Jocelyn was round she said everyone in the community is really happy with us and feels that we're doing lots of good stuff. Apparently we're the best group they've had, WOOP! :D

V.W.G didn't have so many ladies this week cos we didn't announce it over the loudspeakers, totally forgot :S Next week we're going to use the World Vision centre in case we have more and we'll announce in 2 days before the meeting so that they all come. They gave some suggestions for business ideas that they can lead, so this week they're researching growing flowers for bouquets, making sweatshirts and tie-dying while we research candle making stuff. Please pray that we have wisdom about how to run it, that they have motivation to fundwaise and work themselves and that the whole thing would go smoothly. It seems quite daunting when we think about trying to set it up!



Friday 30th - Up at 6, left for Kampala at 7. Not a good morning! 4 hours of theological training with Pastor Michael in the morning, then we planned for stuff this week over lunch, then had staff meeting from 3 till 4:45 :( Too long! Looking through the staff handbook was NOT the most joyous part of my week, especially considering I'm not an Oasis staff member and therefore served NO purpose being at the meeting where they discussed amendments to the handbook and financial policy on fraud. Yes, that's right, FRAUD. Not happy times!

We all got home late and stressed to samosas and the whole family was moody cos Mama Rachael wasn't back from Kampala yet (it rained so she couldn't leave). Oh and to top the whole day off, when I was in the taxi park walking down the steps, I slipped in some mud and fell flat on my bum in front of MANY men who all proceeded to laugh hysterically. To be fair, it was quite funny! :D


Saturday 31st - Granddad's birthday; would've been his 80th :( We had a very relaxed, chilled out morning. Did some washing and tidying as usual... We've sorted out having some drums made by a guy in the village so we need to go and see him soon. Mama Rachael was out doing a talk at a school and didn't get back till half 4 so we had no translator for Kids Club. Joshua did the best he could but it didn't go that smoothly. Ah well! The kids had fun :) I just find it a bit frustrating when we don't do things as well as I know we could. I'm a perfectionist at the best of times and it's a pain here when we can't get things right and it feels like something isn't as good as it should be for the kids. But we have time to work on that :) It rained really heavily after kids club so we didn't do boys and girls groups, also cos the P7 kids have their big exams this week so they wouldn't have been able to come. Please pray that all of them feel peaceful about their exams and the outcome.

Sunday 1st - It's November!!! Where did the time go?! :S It'll hardly be any time till I'm home and can see all of you now; February will come round soooo fast! :) We went to an African wedding: It was amazing! We had 3 hours of church in the morning then had to go and get changed into traiditional Ugandan dresses called gomezes that people wear for weddings. They're floor length with pointy shoulders and are tied around the waist with thick, heavy sashes. Very hot to wear!! We managed though :) I had to do the bride's makeup (she liked my glitter!) and we danced in front of her when she came into the church cos we were spcially invited guests. Was a totally bizarre but awesome experience! The reception was weird and to be honest completely awful compared to English ones! Really made me miss English organisation and stuff...

Right, no time left! Got to go. I'll do more detailed prayer requests next week... Sending loads and loads of love back home. Missing you as always.
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