Photo: Our Project
Char says: Arrival camp finished on Friday with a party in the field. The loud music attracted half of the village to come and join in! Unfortunately I have been suffering with a bad cold (the Ugandan’s call it the flu but really it was just a cold!) and so couldn’t fully enjoy this crazy party!
On Saturday (11th) we left for our projects. I felt a little sad to be saying goodbye to our fellow ICYE volunteers but at the same time it was exciting to think that we would finally see the project, start work and unpack! We arrived late on Saturday in Kyamukama, a village about 20km from Masaka – the fifth largest city in Uganda. We had been told in advance that we would not actually be able to live at the project straight away due to construction work but what we didn’t realize was that we would be living with Stuart’s family. Stuart is the ICYE/ Ugandan Volunteers for Peace (UVP) Country Co-ordinator and he lives and works in Kampala during the week, returning to his family in the village for the weekends. So we are currently living in one of the rooms of a building detached from the main house and living and eating with the family. We were surprised to find that we are sharing a room (a good surprise obv!) but the bathroom was less of a pleasant surprise! It consists of a hole in the ground and an over-sized washing up bowl. These are our shower and toilet – I’ll let you use your imagination…!!! But we just have to get on with using this typical African set-up. I try not to think too much about the home comforts I am quietly missing!
Photo: A typical house on the hillside of our village
Our project – Kiyumbakimu Children’s Village is set in a gorgeous location but it is remarkably less built than we had imagined. In fact, we will be the first people to live there when we finally move in. I am in two minds about this: Firstly, it gives us a lot of flexibility to run the project our own way and we will see a major change in the project over the months we are here. But on the other hand, it is not what we were expecting and as Ugandan time is considerably slower than UK time (eg. If someone says we will leave at 9am, don’t expect to go before 10:15am at the earliest!) when they say we will move in in ten days, my cynical side says we will be lucky to move in within a month.
The biggest hold-up with the project is because of money. And therefore, if anyone reading this would like to help the project to develop faster then please feel free to donate money. PLEASE!!!!
The internet is very slow so that’s all for now but we will try to keep this as up-to-date as possible xx
2 comments:
hi guys, glad to see you have arrived safely. It looks beautiful and fingers and toes all crossed that someone richer than me will help get things off the ground. So i guess it'll be lots of hard building labour to start with. keep well, lots of love. A.
Hi there, It's really good to hear you are having a good time even if it is rather strange and there is not much to do. The scenery looks stunning. I hope you are not feeling too home sick at the minute and that you are finding things to keep you busy. Loads and loads of love and hugs, Hxxxxxx p.s do you have a postal address /p.o. box?
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