Adventures in the first week!

Well I can now say that I've safely arrived and am settling into life in Bweyogerere, Kampala.  It’s all very different here but the people are extremely warm and friendly so that is good!  It has been nice to come back to Wellspring after a year, a few changes have taken place but it is lovely to meet again with old and new friendly faces. 

Wellspring Centre
















This week I have been learning what it is like to live without electricity and have had a few, 'What do I do now?' moments.  This has created evenings sat around chatting with others by candle light and moving from room to room with torches.  I am told that these power cuts won't last too long as the electricity companies are changing the systems, we shall see??

I have been enjoying exploring the area around Wellspring. Town is about a 10 minute walk along the dusty, bumpy, Holey, busy roads. The roads are full of people walking, people on bikes, the local boda bodas (motorbike taxis) and huge 4X4s.  Getting into the swing of Ugandan lifestyle has been fun especially when told I needed to drive a humongous 4X4 Matisbushi Pajero across the villages. Imagine going from driving the littlest car in England; Fiat 500 to try and navigate an elongated 4X4. It was defiantly an experience!









Picture of the road Wellspring is situated. 

Getting into the culture has been interesting learning about the local language, trying to greet people with the local ‘oli ottya’, which directly translated means, ‘how do you eat?’ but is used to greet in a ‘how are you? fashion! The local staple food eaten is Matooke (a variety of the banana which is savory rather than sweet.) This can be steamed using banana leaves, boiled and of course fried (because the Ugandans love anything that is fried!)

                                                                                    

                                                                    Cooking Matooke












Working in the secondary school started on Mon, at the moment there are 5 students who are following the Cambridge Curriculum. They are lovely students who are very eager to learn, however as the week has gone by a few challenges have become apparent, these challenges will need to be overcome in order for the school to develop. So really need some wisdom and resource to know what to do with this. 

There is another teacher at the school, it is good to be able to work with him and help to train and develop the learning and teaching taking place. This week I set the new timetables for the students and introduced some enrichment activities to help develop their skills for the future. These activities will include; cooking, gardening, working in the community, art, technology, swimming & drama. We were also able to move classrooms to a new, bigger and cleaner classroom.  All of these changes have helped to build a sense of new beginnings and build expectations of moving forward.

The old classroom  













A much nicer worker environment in the new classroom

A drama lesson. The students performed their work to the upper primary on the same day. 

So all in all although Im shattered and am missing a few home comforts, it has been a very good first week! I’m now looking forward to meeting up with old friends from the UK, Richard & Tinah this afternoon.