Wow, 3 weeks has passed and it feels like only a few days. Since I last wrote another Brit has arrived at Beersheba to work for a few years, I am getting ready to go, I bought enough souvenirs to kit out several craft shops and I nearly died to a snake! But back to the beginning…
Two weeks ago saw the arrival of Dave who began Beersheba, has been studying for a couple of years and has returned in the position on Regional Manager. He will be taking over my staff and looking at new and bigger things that can be done. Although he’s officially not working yet, he’s been here everyday so far and has several adventures and activities planned. I think football may be quite central to those adventures as the words ‘sports academy’ and ’3 acre field’ keep being mentioned a lot! The staff are delighted that he has returned and even people in the community that didn’t know him last time are very happy that he’s around. He keeps saying I should stay but when it’s time to go, you know. Shame though as I think I’d learn a lot from him but at least with things moving forward there’ll be lots of reasons to visit in the future. So our celebrations for Dave’s arrival also coincided with goodbyes for Gill our country director. She came to Uganda 10 years ago when Oasis was only a few months old and was due to stay here for 5 months. She’s now married to a Ugandan and is leaving because they are expecting their first child. Every mother’s nightmare for their Gap year child! Our hello/goodbye ceremonies were quite chilled out as they were organised by me and I still haven’t understood the formality that usually goes with these things. Apparently there was supposed to be a programme and speeches etc but any programme was just in my head and sort of made up over devotions that morning when staff asked me what was planned! Great time though singing, saying nice things to Dave and Gill and eating lots of cake and pineapple.
The rest of the week was full with the training of new Esteem volunteers and attempting to work out the Local Service Tax for the previous year. Total headache even though at first it looked quite simple; I never thought 2 pages of numbers could finish me off but they gave it their best shot! I don’t think I left the house for anywhere exciting over the weekend and skipped church after the previous week’s sermon had been a minute by minute description of the end of the world – doesn’t sound too much fun!
By Monday I was really in need of a holiday which was good because that was the plan for Tuesday onwards! I began the day taking Dave around town and introducing him to our friendly police officer and reuniting him with folks from Jenga. We then sat and talked for a couple of hours about all things Beersheba and what he should know about people and projects. I then ran for the bus to spend some quiet and relaxing time in Jinja!
I should really have learnt by now that any attempt by me to find quiet and solitude in Africa is sort of asking for trouble. It began as I reached Jinja and the rain began. Thought it wouldn’t be too bad so took shelter, along with about 40 other people, under a bus shelter. Sadly it didn’t have sides and I was at the edge so within a few minutes I was soaked through. The pikkie driver’s promise that the rain was ending soon didn’t seem too based in reality as it got harder and the skies got blacker. In the end I called a taxi guy I knew who came and rescued me although due to the Nile bridge flooding it took him 40 minutes for a normally 5 minute journey. Never been so relieved in my life to get into a warm car and also very glad to lose the guy under the shelter who wanted me to be his wife because I am ‘sooooo beautiful’! Really should have told him to set his sights higher as a Mzungu doing a drowned rat impression really isn’t ‘sooooo beautiful’! Finally made it to where I was staying and a lovely warm dinner and a dvd with my friend were waiting for me. Bliss.
Our next adventure was into Kampala the next day to get ‘Certificates of Good Conduct’ from Interpol so that we can get CRB checks back in the UK. Very crazy system that sees you beginning at Interpol where you collect payment slips, going to the fingerprinting place to get more bank slips then going to the bank to pay. None of these places are near each other so that process took well over an hour. You have to pay in the bank to avoid corruption with government officials who may steal the money. You then return to the fingerprinting place, write a letter requesting finger prints, fill in a comedy form that asked for tribe, father’s name and any deformities you have, before they finally take your prints in an overcrowded and disorganised office! Entertainingly you then have to pay them some money for officer fees which seems to go against the logic of having to go to the bank in the first place! Finally you return to Interpol where your certificate is supposed to be ready in 3 days. We ran into a few problems when the first Interpol lady took our documents which were then required by the fingerprinting people who didn’t believe their boss at Interpol would have taken them! In the end we just hoped for the best, returned to Interpol and explained the issue with fingerprints hoping that there would be some other way they could check for criminal records. We paid more officer fees and were then presented with our completed certificates which she’d printed without checking records because she thought we looked honest!!!!!! If only CRBs were so simple! So I have an official record from the police force of Uganda stating that I have not come to adverse police notice, all without even checking any records! Our trauma of 3 hours attempting to get that done was follwed by a shopping trip to craft shops for my final souvenirs. Super fast trip due to Interpol which was followed by returning to Jinja to a luxury hotel where my friend and I thought we’d treat ourselves for a couple of days.
Very posh place where the ‘tents’ were made of brick on 3 sides, had comfortable beds, a sitting room and were plumbed in with a shower that overlooked the Nile. The only tent like feature was the canvas front door! Beautiful view and very peaceful. Our couple of days there included me going shopping again and then playing chess for the first time in 20 years (I lost) before sitting down for a quiet dinner at the restaurant. There were several monkeys around the place which enjoying jumping around and so when I saw something fall off the roof at first I assumed that was what it was. Then as my brain slowly processed (slower than usual due to the gin and tonic I’d just consumed) I realised that monkeys don’t usually have tails that long and bodies that small and it was then I realised it was a snake and a rat. Jo ran in to tell the waiters and I sat calmly expecting that when she returned it would have slithered away into the forest never dreaming it would instead be heading towards the light, people and my feet! Jo came back out the restaurant just in time to tell me it was under the sofa in front of me about 2-3 feet away! I don’t think I have moved that fast in a long time as I jumped on my sofa and in odd sounding words yelled things like ‘Jo, what do I do!’ Gin and adreneline are not a good combination when attempting to make quick, life and death decisions however I think I was amusing to the people inside the restaurant who couldn’t see the snake but could see me waving my arms around in a panic! My movements seemed to scare it off and it changed course and came past me not at me, it was following the rat that had run past a little while earlier but somehow on concrete they can’t move as fast. It went behind some sun lounger mattresses where it remained until the waiters saw it and 4 of them bashed at it for 10 minutes until they were sure it was dead. It was only the following morning when they’d laid it out across the ground that we were told it was actually a black mamba and if it had got me I would probably be dead! 4 foot snakes are pretty scary even when dead so I didn’t pick it up like Jo did but stayed far far away! After that I think we gave up on any ideas about quietness and prepared to return to Mbale in the afternoon.
Saturday was Jo’s birthday and so I spent the day cooking which was great as I rarely do it these days with so many other cooks in the house. Managed pizza and garlic bread from scratch along with banoffee pie – yummy. I even got to suggest the movie so top night as far as I was concerned!
Today I am back at work and have spent my time preparing things for the team coming in a month. Trying to work out final budgets and timetables is a bit of a challenge when nothing gets planned here that far in advance! Tomorrow is a working from home day where I will be cracking on with the adult literacy curriculum which is so far 66% completed. The day I print it out is going to be great!
Well power has gone off probably thanks to the storm we just had so off to go do something that doesn’t require a computer…
