Speeches...speeches...and more speeches.....!

On Saturday last I attended a function in a small parish about an hours drive from Mbarara. The reason for the function was to award the prize for the 'Healthy Home' competition which was organised by the parish CORPs. It started out as quite a small affair with just a few parish councillors and a representative from the local government at parish level, but in Uganda such events often turn into rather big and important affairs. In the end representatives from all levels of local government throughout the district were invited, as well as the local Mbarara MP. Needless to say her attendance drew a very big crowd.  The competition is for all homesteads in the parish, they are judged on the cleanliness of their compound, the sanitation facilities, energy effiecent cooking and overall general hygiene. The winning house was on quite a big plot, it was a simple house but the place was immaculate! The function took place at the house. The prizes included plastic jerry cans, crockery and glasses. The MP also donated 2 boxes of laundry soap that was shared out amongst the winners and the CORPs. 

Now, I'd been warned that in typical Ugandan style there would be lots of speeches, and I certainly wasn't dispappointed and what I had expected to be about 4 hours long turned into 7 hours! It was due to start at 1.00, with the MP arriving at 2.00, but unfortunately it poured with rain (its the rainy season) for over an hour so proceedings were delayed. When eventually the event got started it, the winning couple appeared in their best clothes, everyone was seated on wooden benches and the CORPs entertained us all with songs, puppet shows and a short play about the benefits of attending health centres. This parish also has a group of Young CORPs - village kids who use songs and drama to put across health messages.

On reflection it was a good day, but at the time it seemed like it was never going to end. The Ugandans 'LOVE' speeches and they're a really import part of any function or meeting, in total there were about 5 speeches and although I didn't understand a word of any of them, I was told later that they basically all said the same thing! I was the only 'muzungu' at the function, so to most of the people there I was an object to be stared at and for the kids to touch - they like to grab out and touch white skin!

 Welcome song - CORPs and Young CORPs 

Items for auction, raising funds for the CORPs. Local crafts and fruits, there are also 2 live chicken in the photo, beside the basket with the pineapple

Speech No.1 District speaker - he was also the auction master

The MP's appearance drew a big crowd

The winners of the Healthy Home competition - good to see I wasn't the only one losing the will to live whilst enduring all the speeches. Apparently there was no particular reason why the husband and wife chose to wear white. Quite bizzarely no one had any idea why the husband chose to wear protective glasses the whole time! Apparently he was 'posing'!!

The Young CORPs in action

Speech No. 2 - the MP (in red dress)

Speech No. 3 - District Village Volunteer Co-ordinator

Puppet show - these are used to teach health messages,  it's not only the childrn who enjoy them, the adults love them too. This little girl was entralled by the puppets, she kept walking back and forth in front of the audience trying to work out what was going on - it was obviously the first time she'd seen such a thing, she kept trying to peek behind the curtain!

Tour of the compound  - showing off the latrine and tippy tap

Speech No. 4 - thank you from the CORPs

Speech No. 5 - local government representative

More flowers....!

More photos of flowers! This was the 2nd training session for the flower making project, but it was very different from the first one. For starters the group was quite small, only 19 in total and they were all women. This group of CORPs are quite well known - they have set up a women only goat rearing business, they have over 100 goats! They are a force to be reckoned with, believe me. They'd expected about 30 people for the training so were quite disappointed when just over half of them turned up, as it meant they still had to pay the trainer for 30 participants. On the first day, once they realised they were so few, they had a meeting under the tree to decide what they should do, but they finally agreed that they really wanted to do it so agreed to pay the difference from their joint goat rearing account.

The training 'venue' was a scrap of dry land on top of a hill - there was a tiny little hut (the parish headquarters) but it was incredible dark, so we fortunately only had to retreat there when it rained one day. The woman sat on the ground for hours without complaint - it got quite windy at times, so the maize husks were blown around a bit. The conditions were far from ideal, but they did really well amd produced some really good flowers. Most of the woman had walked quite long distances, mostly up hill, to get there - there were very houses within sight and definitely no where to buy food, so they all brought a packed lunch and shared with each other. Now matoke, kaloo (cooked millet flour - resembles a lump of raw brown bread dough!) and maize porridge are pretty hard to stomach when they're hot, but when it's cold it's revolting! I made some banana drop scones to share with them, they went down very well, so much so I had to try to explain in Runyankole how to make them (not easy!), though I think they got the gest of it.

Above: Working under a tree

Above: Hard at work

Above: Singing the CORP song - each parish has it's own version of the song, this one was fantastic. I recorded it but because it was so windy the sound quality is pretty poor. All CORPs wear a blue  HCU t-shirt but this group decided to distinguish themselves even further and made matching skirts.

The flowers have been selling really well, I thought I'd have a hard time selling them but because they are such a unique product, the response to them has been really positive. I approached a number of 'gift'-type' shops in town with limited sucess, but then I visited the biggest hotel in Mbarara, The Lake View - they have a gift shop  (it turned out to be a pretty poor shop) which I thought might be interested in buying them, and by chance I met the General Manager, who happens to love flowers. So far they've bought over 150 flowers and have put them in 5 of their suites (presidental suite included) and the GM even bought some for this office and the housekeeper for her house. When I went back today I suggested he should buy some for his house and he did! It's really odd, because they keep thanking me for selling the flowers and supporting the local communities, whereas I'm thanking them for giving me the business.

Above: Flowers in the presidental suite at The Lake View Hotel - I've put a little card beside them with a bit of project info and contact details on it.... so I'm expecting a phone call from the man himself or the first lady any day now!

Above: These flowers were bought by a small papercraft shop on the Equator - needless to say the equator (about 1 hour outside Kampala on the way to Mbarara) is a great tourist attraction and there's a huge number of traditional craft and gift shops. There was lots of interest but I'll have to visit again as I didn't have enough flowers with me.

There was supposed to be another training session this week but unfortunately the group didn't manage to get all their money together in time - although 10,000/= (about £3) doesn't seem a lot of money, for many village people it's a lot, especially as children go back to school soon and there'll be school fees to pay. We had decided not to use the trainer from Kampala again, as she didn't quite hit it off with the local people, so Patricia and myself were promoted to the role of 'master flower trainers'! I feel a whole new career coming on.......do you think UCB would be interested in starting a new course..... how about 'Hospitality & Flower Management  (think of the table decorations they could have!!)

Up date on Lucy, Jimmy and Jeremy! - They're doing really well, seven weeks old today and now weighing 3.9kg each. Lucy is exhausted, it's hard breast feeding twins but it's the cheapest, healthiest and safest option for her and the twins. It's recommended that she should breastfeed exclusively till they are at least 6 months but she doesn't think she'll manage it - the other options are formula or cow's milk. Unfortunately, formula is expensive and with two to feed is not really an option for her, also many mothers are unsure now to use it and often made it up incorrectly. So cow's milk, which is plentiful in the region, seems to be the best option - she'll have to dilute it with water and make sure both the water and milk (it's raw milk) are boiled well. Mothers are told to feed using a cup rather than a bottle as there they will rarely have any means of keeping bottles and teets sterile. More Lucy hasn't left her two rooms in 7 weeks other than to go to the hospital last week for immunisations - she had a young village girl (she said she was 15yrs, but I think she was younger) helping her with the babies, washing and cooking etc, but unfortunately the girl hadn't told her parents where she was and once they found out she had to go back home. Lucy will go back to work in November and wants to have a someone trained to look after the twins by then. She told me yesterday that she'll be working 7 days a week from 8.00 - 5.00 for the mighty sum of 250,000 Ugandan shillings, which is about £75 a month! But even though she has it tough, she's always smiling when I go to see her and she's a really good mother.

Jimmy and Jeremy

Jimmy and Jeremy are one month old twin boys - don't be fooled by the pink hats. Babies are dressed in all sorts of clothes here and they're definitely not fussy when it comes to colour. Their Mum Lucy, lives just around the corner from my house. Before she had the boys she worked as a security guard at Mbarara University so we'd often meet on our walk to work in the mornings. Lucy is 31 yrs. old and Jimmy and Jeremy are her 'first borns' - the Ugandan term for the first child - and as Ugandan mothers go, 31 is quite old to have a first child or children in Lucy's case. She herself is a twin, as is her mother and her grandmother. There seems to be lots of twins in Uganda, it can be quite common for a mother to have 2 sets. Yesterday I met a lady called Doreen, she has just moved into my compound, she too has twins, a girl called Melanie and a boy called Melvyn who are 3 mths old - Melvyn was dressed in a little green frilly dress, so I'm glad she told me he was a boy!

Lucy lives with Sam, the father of her babies in what are called 'boys quarters' - usually one or two rooms behind a main house. She has two tiny rooms - a living room and a bedroom, she does her cooking outside on either a charcoal or paraffin stove and she shares a latrine which is behind her rooms, with about 4 or 5 other people. The bedroom just about fits a small double bed and a wicker shelving unit, the living room is also a tight squeeze with a small wooden sofa, another shelving unit with all her kitchen bits and a tv on it. During the day, Jimmy and Jeremy sleep on a single foam mattress on the floor in the living room. I recently gave Lucy a spare bed net that I had, so they're covered and protected from mosquitoes. At night they sleep in bed with her - babies tend not to sleep in cots, even when they are born mothers will prefer to have them in their bed or on a mattress on the floor.
Unfortunately Lucy doesn't have a lot, so I've been trying to help her out. Sam is not working and I think Lucy probably earns very little money. She had the babies when I was in Kampala doing my motorbike training, so I saw them for the first time when I got back. I'd bought her some baby clothes and also got her two baby sacks, at that stage she had no blankets and very few clothes for them. Her family have been helping her out a bit, but money is tight for them too. It's quite normal for babies not to wear nappies here (disposables are available but expensive for most parents and when there's two even more so), they tend to be wrapped up in bits of bed sheets, just left bare, or they just wee and poop in their clothes, which means Lucy is constantly washing baby clothes, by hand. So when they're picked up you never know what surprise you're going to get. Last Friday Jeremy kindly 'shu shued' (had a wee) on me and yesterday Melanie, from the other set of twins obliged by weeing on me as well - I was told by Lucy that this is good as it means I'm going to have a baby!!

Mothers are encouraged to breastfeed exclusively for 6 months if they can, poor Lucy is dreading this, it's not easy with two, but she's doing really well, though she hasn't left her 2 rooms in the last month. I asked Angella, one of the HCU health care trainers, who knows Lucy, to come with me to check she and the boys were doing ok, Lucy was delighted and was also able to ask Angella lots of questions. Hopefully as long as Lucy continues to eat well and produces enough breast milk, Jimmy and Jeremy should be fine.

Now, I have a small favour to ask...... if anyone reading this blog has any baby clothes that they no longer need or knows of anyone who has, and you are willing to post them to me, I can find a really good home for them. Lucy and Sam would appreciate them and it would really help them out. My postal address is P.O. Box 897, Mbarara, Uganda.

I'll keep you posted on their progress......

Flowers Galore!

I mentioned in my last post that I was organising income generating training for local communities, well below are lots of photos of the first HCU flower-making training. It was held in Rugazi, a parish in Bushenyi district, about 1 1/2 hours drive from Mbarara. The training took place in a room at the local health centre. It was well attending, 38 participants in total, all of whom were really motivated so much so that they didn't want to leave at the end of the day and many of them carried on making flowers at home or sitting on the grass at the health centre.

There are 2 small visitor's houses at the centre and I stayed there for the 5 days training - I'd been a bit worried what the accomodation would be like but it turned out to be fine, there was even an electric cooker so I could boil water for a hot bucket bath each morning. Patricia, the admin assistant at HCU took a week's holiday just so she could come on the training, she also said she was missing me not being at the office (I'd spent the previous week in Kampala doing motorbike training...now that's another story!) It was great to have her for company and to have someone to converse with in English, we got on well and she enjoyed having lots of DVD's to watch on my laptop in the evenings. Where the training was is pretty remote, and the only 'restaurants' were small little dining rooms, which served matoke, matoke, matoke or matoke! So not a huge deal of choice and as I'm not a huge fan of it my food choices were pretty limited, though the really nice owner of one place did cook potatoes and an omlette for me one day. Avocados are plentyful in the area, they're gorgeous, but by the last day I'd had my fill of them.

The training went really throughout the week, though I did have a few concerns about the trainer as she kept changing her mind about things, such as payment for equipment and buying the finished flowers. Myself and Teddy, the project manager had agreed with her that she would purchase the finished flowers at the end of the training, which would allow the participants to recoup some of their costs. But unfortunately, on the last she had a change of heart, I don't think she'd found a market for them and was a bit spooked by the volume of flowers that had been produced and didn't want to be out of pocket. Some of the participants were annoyed by this, as was I, it put a real damper on what had been a really good week. In the end, after sitting down at a table and putting her head in her arms and crying (!), causing a bit of a scene it was agreed that she would take the flowers back to Kampala and would pay the participants once theywere sold. It was a really weird situation, I fretted over it all weekend as I didn't know if i'd done something wrong and wondering if it was some kind of cultural issue.But when I was back in the office on Monday morning I found out that everyone, like me (though I'd kept it quiet) thought she was mad and totally unprofessional! I was relieved, it had been a long week and being surrounded by people who only spoke Runyankole for 5 days had left me a bit jaded. The next training is during the first week of August and needless to say, I've made a number of changes to the way we work with the trainer.

Some of the finished flowers on the last day

Very pleased participants

More happy flower-makers

Patricia and I hard at work!

Many of the women sat on the grass like this for hours on end

This 'mzee' or old man is 74, he was the oldest participant. He really struggled to grasp making the flowers on the first morning (look at the concentration on his face!), so he didn't go to lunch but kept trying instead and by the afternoon he was on a roll. In fact he was the first to produce a complete stem.

Patricia, modelling a corsage or head piece that I made from the maize husks.....orders for Ascot or weddings kindly accepted!!

Production table! The maize husks are dipped in water to soften them, as well as making them more pliable



















This is Gertrude, she's 61 and a real character. She arrived every day with a sack full of banana fibres balanced on her head. She's also been a CORP for over 5 years.

Lydia, the lady in the head scarf, was really good, so I asked her to be a trainee trainer at the next training session at the beginning of August.

This is Apuuli, he's a really hard working HCU employee - he's a field assistant and was responsible for mobilising all the participants as well as sorting out the logistics of the training














What a smile!

The CORP's in each parish have their own anthem, which is all about the work they do. We started each day with a rendition of it, t's a lovely song but they were always so serious when they sang it.

'Welcome Our Dear Visitors'

Last Saturday I met up with other VSO volunteers from Mbarara and the neighbouring district of Bushenyi for a cluster group meeting. There are 4 VSO cluster groups in Uganda, the idea is for volunteers to meet regularly to support each other and it's a good excuse to have a few beers together. The clusters are given a budget from the VSO programme office to undertake some kind of community-based project activity.

The Mbarara/Bushenyi cluster are supporting a youth group, called the Kyabugimbi based Twerunguure Group, for disadvantaged young people. It's run by a guy called Amos, a colleague of 2 of the volunteers who work at a teacher training college in Bushenyi. The kids get involved in music, drama, craft making and horticulture. Many of them don't go to school because their families or guardians haven't got the money to pay for uniforms, books, pencils etc. Amos wants to raise funds to allow these kids access to school, so our cluster group decided to donate money (650,000 Ug Shillings, about £220) so they can build a chicken house, buy chickens and sell the eggs.

Above: Amos (centre) with some of the other VSOers

So on Saturday we went to visit the group, to tell them we would be supporting their efforts and to discuss plans for the chicken house. The kids put on a some entertainment for us to show off their singing and musical skills! I recorded one of their songs - 'Welcome our dear visitors' a well known song throughout Uganda.

Below: Danny presenting a dummie cheque to Amos

Below: Kids playing the adongo, it has a lovely sound, a bit like a harp.

Below: the youth group meet on a Saturday at a local school











Below: recording of 'Welcome our dear visitor' - the little girl in the blue dress was a real sweetie, I love her dancing!

Last week I was given my HCU work contract and my official work title - Community Development Co-ordinator (!), though to VSO I'm a Nutrition Advisor. It's not unusual for volunteers to find themselves doing something completely different to what VSO had intended, though I am responsible for putting together a nutritional education programme. I can't say I knew a lot about community development when I started but so far so good. My first community-based training event takes place on the 20th July - the handcraft flower-making project that I've been working on, which is part of HCU's income generating initiatives. I'm going to be doing the 5 days training myself, along with the community members. Well, I figure if when I return to the UK I can't find a job I can always fall back on my flower making skills......though I might have a problem sourcing banana fibres and maize husks in Birmingham! When I've told some people about the project, they ask about ' plain and wholemeal flour' - there are usually a few giggles when I tell them it actually making 'flowers'!

Above and below: the banana fibre and maize husk flowers

The project office is based on the edge of the university campus in Mbarara and it's quite common to see all sorts of drills and parades on the sports fields, but yesterday's was the funniest I've seen so far. I spotted the university groundsmen and gardeners, dressed in their uniform of navy tunic and trousers doing very serious drill exercises, while one of the local policemen shouted out commands, banging a stick on a plastic jerry can as he went along. But the most amusing thing was the gardeners were parading round with hoes on their shoulders!! When I asked what this was all about, I was told it was good for discipline! Do you think the Birmingham City Council gardeners would be up for a bit of Ugandan discipline before they start work every morning??!

I'm off to Kampala this weekend to meet up with some volunteer friends from Masindi..... looking forward to pizza and ice cream!! Then next week I'm doing motorbike training through VSO, it's not something I've ever considered doing before, but I was asked if I'd give it a go as it means I can get out into the community more if I have my own transport. I've been assured that I'll be given a light bike, a scooter-type I think, I was a bit concerned about having anything too heavy because of my wonky knee. Watch this space..............

Anyone for a cup of tea?

Until last week I'd only ever seen images of tea plantations on TV or the side of a box of Tetley tea bags. I was visiting a group of HCU CORP's in Mugyera, a very remote parish in Bunyaruguru County in Bushenyi district, one of Mbarara's neighbouring districts. This is the only county that the HCU project operates in outside of Mbarara district, it has high rates of childhood malnutrition and is also quite densely populated. On the way there we drove through numerous tea plantations, ranging from small locally farmed plantations to massive ones stretching for miles, owned mostly by large tea producers. I met up with Apuuli, a HCU trainer who was doing some income generating training with the CORP's. The training was held outside the village church, beside the local primary school. The village was really remote, we drove up an incredibly steep dirt track -I thought Nasser was taking me to the end of the earth, I was convinced there couldn't possibly be a village at the end of the track - but there was!

I got a really enthusiastic welcome from the group, they were very happy to hear me speak the few limted phrases that I have now learned in Runyankole (the local regional language)! Though it's bit off putting that whenever I say anthing in Runyankole people just laugh, so I'm always left guessing as to whether I've said something inappropriate or misprounced a word!! But I'm assured by Nasser that people are just surprised to hear a 'muzungu' speaking the langauage and they really appreciate the effort. On my way to and from work I always try (! it's a difficult language) to say hello, good morning, how are you, in Runyankole to the people I meet along the way. Yesterday evening I said 'agandi' (how are you?) to a guy I recognised - he burst out laughing, actually he laughed like a girl, so much so that we were both laughing in the end - when I asked why he was laughing, he said he was just so shocked and hadn't expected me to greet him like that!

The CORP's are really keen to get involved in the flower-making project that I'm organised - I'm hoping the training will start mid-July. They have an endless supply of banana fibres and maize husks, which is a good start, it just remains to be seen if they can find the money for the training, it's 10,000 UgSh (about £3.50) for a total of 5 days. But they also have to fund their own transport and meals, which is often more difficult.
School children at the local school - they get very excited when they see a 'muzungu', even more excited when the muzungu has a camera!

Picking tea on a plantation in Bushenyi district

Tea plantation

Lake Rutoto, known as Lake Africa by locals as it is shaped like the continent of Africa - I tried to get a photo of the lake from Google Earth, but it was taking 4 hours to down load so I gave up in the end.....!

A crater lake in Bunyaruguru county

Pretty in pink!

Left: Bernard and me - the 2 yr. old son of one of the village CORP's. He took a shine to me once he realised I had homemade cookies in my bag!




Below: Schoolboys carrying handfuls of fresh cow dung (you read correctly!), it's mixed with water and spread by hand on the dirt floor in each classroom at the end of the day - it dries and seals, keeping the dust down.









Left: The last hour (5-6 pm) of each school day is spent cleaning the classroom - the kids take out all the desks and benchs, sweep the floor, then spread it with the cow dung.

Below: Angela, one of the HCU health workers administering de-worming tablets.

Below: Teenage girls (14 yrs.) in the final year of primary school - they were great fun!

Below: Sharing a packed lunch - cold matoke and beans wrapped in banana leaves and boiled cassava - they offered to share it with me, I'm not a big fan of matoke so had some cassava instead.

Below: Classroom and staff room

Below: Two more classrooms, there are 4 in total - the school has 370 pupils.

Below: Raising the Ugandan flag. The kids sitting under the tree were doing a mid-term RE exam.

The photos were taken at Nyakatugunda Primary School, where HCU staff were giving out de-worming treatment to school kids and mothers with young children who came by on the day. The teenage girls were getting tetanus jabs - they were only given to the girls not the boys, apparently the girls are more likely to get injured than the boys (?!) as they have to fetch water and wood, dig in the fields, prepare food etc. Ugandan girls and women have a very hard life.

I had a really good day there, the kids were great fun and they looked wonderful in their bright pink uniforms - school uniforms come in various bright colours, orange, yellow, purple, turquoise blue, lime green. The kid's ages varied from about 4 - 14 yrs. - the class they are in depends on their level of ability, so kids of 8/9 can be in a class full of 5/6 yr. old. There were girls of 14 yrs. in the final year, they probably hadn't been able to attend school because of lack of money or illness, and so had fallen behind or started late. Some kids (4/5 yrs.) from the nearby nursery school also came for de-worming - they all stood in line in perfect silence waiting to get their tablet, I've never seen 30 or so 4 yr. olds behave so well, though I think fear probably had something to do with it, their teacher had also given them a good talking to before they arrived!

The school was on top of a hill and miles away from the nearest village, so the majority of the kids had to walk 1-2 hours just to get there. The day starts at 8.30 and finishes at 6.00, the little ones finish at 1.00. The children who lived within walking of the school went home for lunch (they get 1 hr.), the others bought a cold packed lunch with them. Ugandans are not lovers of cold food, but these kids don't have a choice. I was really interested to see what they were eating, as part of my role at HCU is to develop and implement a food education package for young children and mothers. The children sat on the grass in small groups to eat - some had brought food, others hadn't, but it didn't seem to be a problem as they all shared whatever they had. I was quite impressed by the range of food, I thought it would be just matoke (it's quite hard to stomach when it's hot, let alone when it's cold!), but there was boiled cassava and sweet potatoes, pumpkin, beans, some aubergine and dodo (bitter leafy green veg, bit like spinach). It was all packed in little plastic buckets with lids, some of the matoke was wrapped in banana leaves - the kids placed the food in the centre, helped themselves with their hands and once one lot was finished they started on the other. Some of them were drinking water from jerry cans (unfortunately it hadn't been boiled, even though they knew it should be), while others were drinking 'porridge' (not as we know it) - it's a thickish drink made by boiling water and mixing in millet flour - it looks revolting to me, but it's highly nutritious so I'm told, but hen I've never been a fan of porridge in any form! The food was prepared at home the night before either by the older girls or the mother.

I forgot to say that the day had an interesting start - I had a proposal of marriage form one of the school teachers!!! When I declined his offer and said that his current wife might take issue with him taking a second wife, he said 'oh it's allowed here'. He said he wanted a muzungu wife, but in fact he really wanted the money he thought a muzungu wife would bring, though he did offer 2 cows for me (not a lot really!). After joking with him for a while, he told me I was 'too lively', I asked if that was a bad thing, he said 'no it was good'!

Some of the lessons finished at about 4.15, the children played games for a while and then had to fetch water in jerry cans from down the hill for the school and to tidy the classrooms and the compound, finsihing around 6.00. Once they arrived home an hour or two later, I was told they would be expected to get fetch wood and water for the family,look after the younger children, help prepare supper which they probably wouldn't have till about 9.30/10.00, do their homework and then finally sleep! Nasser (HCU driver) told me that children growing up in a rural community in Uganda have a very hard life, he said life gets easy when you become an adult.

Unfortunately while I was at the school I witnessed one of the teachers beating some of the school children with a tree branch. Uganda has a child protection policy but it's not enforced and even though it's illegal for teachers to hit children, they usually get away with it unpunished. I asked some of the Ugandans if it was their child what would they do, but they didn't think there was a lot they could do. It was a difficult situation to be in, but I wasn't in a position to intervene, as much as I would have liked to.

Even though the school children seem to have so little and their life is hard they continue to smile and laugh, they love having their photo taken and squeal with delight when they see them!