So on Saturday I finally fulfilled an ambition and saw a real, live, wild African snake! It was just outside our front door and was only spotted when a friend nearly stepped on it. It turns out that the many black worms we thought have been inhabiting the house for several months are in fact baby snakes and instead of rescuing them we should actually be squashing them! I have saved at least 2 in the past few months completely ignorant that they would grow to 2 foot long poisonous killers – oops! On Saturday we tried calling our night guard to come and kill it but couldn’t wake him up despite very loud shouting in his direction for several minutes. We couldn’t get to him prod him into consciousness because there was a large snake in the way! It finally slithered away and as I drove out the compound to drop people home he’d woken up and I asked him to look for the snake which upon my return he said he couldn’t find, he then added that we should have woken him up so he could kill it – now there’s a thought!
Other small creatures that have taken up my time have been 200 children who came to our holiday programme last week. We also had our Gap team come from Kampala who were great. We had thought we’d aim for 150 children but day 1 was 174, day 2 was more and by day 3 we’d given up counting once we reached 200. It was a great 4 afternoons looking at issues around Education and various Bible characters alongside craft and games. Some truly amazing pieces of art work especially on the day we looked at Daniel where the lions were given stunning manes made out of wool! Our Gap team of 4 girls managed to do several bits of the holiday club in Luganda which is pretty impressive after only 6 weeks in the country, I’m still struggling with the very basics of any language! Sadly the girls managed to pick up food poisoning on the Sunday night they arrived which took out 3 of them for several days. Despite that they got involved most days even if they weren’t up to top energy levels. On the Friday I decided their training day could be from my house instead of trekking all the way to Musoto. Being my house also meant chocolate cake, pringles and lots of tea. Not sure we packed as much into a training day as they normally do but they had fun! On Saturday I convinced them that a day by the pool was a far better way of spending the day than climbing up a mountain especially after several days of sickness. The weather was terrible and was cloudy and rainy for a lot of the day but somehow swimming in the rain was still enjoyable. In the evening the plan had been a movie night with volunteers from Jenga, another NGO. Sadly the power company didn’t agree and so it was a long dinner and chat by candlelight.
I managed to make church for the past two weeks which entitles me to at least the next 2 weeks off! Not entirely sure what the talk was about either week except that they were long! At least I’ve started taking along paper and a pen and writing lesson plans for my adult literacy curriculum so it’s not a complete waste! One thing I definately miss from the UK is church.
Other than those exciting events the rest of life has been attempting to get my head around leaving Uganda in 10 weeks. Can’t believe it’s actually that soon and know it’s going to fly by. I’ve told a few of the staff who weren’t impressed at all, still haven’t told others including my pastor as I don’t want to see their faces. My big task to finish is the curriculum so this week I’m at home everyday ploughing through it and also using it as an opportunity to begin to withdraw from Beersheba and get people used to my absence. So today my lesson plans have included health and safety and the life of Jesus, hoping to get through human trafficking and domestic hygiene before the end of the day leaving savings and family planning for another day! So back to before the thunder that is currently rumbling over the mountain turns to rain and knocks out the power…
