It’s Saturday night at 9.30 and I’m sat in my pjs very glad to be inside and to be nearly going to bed! Strange how at home people are just on their way out, not sure how I ever kept up the pace. So this week has been as busy as ever and I’m glad the next two days are rest days or I don’t think I’d make it much longer. Since last week I preached for the first time which I think went well. Just got an e-mail from my pastor who says I can preach whenever I want as I was relevant and great! I only spoke for about 35 minutes which took longer for translation and I realised that while I may have perfected my Ugandan English voice in day to day conversations, when I’m a bit nervous I revert to British and it’s hard to understand me! My translator Dennis, who knows me really well from work, was struggling to follow me at first until I relaxed, calmed down, slowed down and started speaking African! My speaking was part of our Beersheba Sunday that was aiming to raise our profile among the church. Awesome service that also saw me playing the piano for the first time in 18 months, few wrong notes but was ok in the end. Part of the service was testimonies from beneficiaries. The first was a girl from 2007 who said that she was recruited while working in the industrial area trying to help her family get food. After a year with us she went back to school and is now in Senior 3. She said that since her time with us she has tried to find her friends from work but they’ve all gone, she said she believes that most of them will have died as she would if we hadn’t found her. She also said her family never believed any of them could ever finish Primary School let alone make it to Secondary, ‘Beersheba has given me hope’ was her quote and by the time she finished there wasn’t a dry eye in the place. Her testimony was followed by one of our Adult Literacy students, Aida, who was equally awesome but totally different. She came up to the front cheering and had everyone smiling before she said a word! She then proceeded to tell everyone how great Beersheba was and all the things she’d learnt. When I say she said everything she learnt it really was everything as she basically listed the entire curriculum which was hugely entertaining! Just when we thought she’d finished she’d launch into another subject and would say something like ‘and in agriculture we learn…!’ Dennis the adult literacy teacher was her translator and by the end he was laughing so much no-one had a clue what else Aida was saying they were just in hysterics! All in all a great morning and people seemed very keen to work with us in the future which is fabulous.
After a morning in church I did very little for the rest of the day apart from watch several dvds of Black Books which is a great show that should really be more famous than it is. Monday was another day of the health promoters at Beersheba and included my housemate teaching on first aid. It was also the first chance we had had to look at the results they had been getting from their visits. They were so please to know they were on target to meet 1350 homes this year and also that 55% of the people they visited changed their behaviour in some way. What was also nice was that we know we have 32 health promoters active in the community and remembering to bring back their paperwork. One of my jobs this week is to look at who is not doing anything and give them a call asking if they’re still interested in being a health promoter. Not a nice job but will show people we’re serious about work.
On Tuesday my boss came to visit which is always nice. We chatted a lot and in the evening she stayed at my house and we chatted even more! The outcome of our chat was that I need to take a holiday and some days off as I’m very tired. We also discussed how long I would stay in Uganda, still not sure of a decision except that it shouldn’t be made when this tired.
Wednesday seemed like half a day at work as after lunch I came up to Kampala to help with the orientation of our new Gap year team. Crazily small world as I know one of them from Orpington! So the past few days have been trying to answer questions that 18 year olds have when they first arrive in country. It’s funny being one of the people with the answers, usually I’m the clueless one. It’s also strange seeing how fresh faced and young they are, I remember being like that and believing that I could change the world in my few months overseas! How much I have learnt!!! Today we moved them into their house just outside Kampala which required several hours of scrubbing the kitchen and killing the multiple baby cockroaches that had taken up residence in the cupboards. Thankfully the girls new housegirl turned up and seeing us working immediately joined in and did a far better job!
So tonight my friend is out on the town and I’ve just returned from dinner at my boss’s where I finally met her husband after 18 months in the country. Dinner was HUGE and involved half a pig roasting in the oven, very tasty, very filling. Tomorrow I’m back off to Mbale with lots of extra things that I’ve managed to pick up this week including a new computer for work, books and chocolate from home that the Gap team brought out from Oasis UK – now that’s a supportive NGO! Monday I am planning on sleeping in although I’m not sure how possible it’ll be with our housegirl’s 1 year old who has a good pair of lungs on him. Might have to escape to the pool just to get some peace and quiet.
Right it’s now after 10pm and I’m exhausted so it’s bed time even though that sounds really lame for a Saturday night. Maybe next time I write I’ll have had some sleep and might be more coherent. Here’s hoping…
