Quick Update

Had the day free so I came to Kamuli to get some messages sent out. The main one was to a guy we met when Dad and Cian were over. Stevo from Dublin. Absolute legend who had a bunch of fotty jerseys his nephew donated and needs somewhere for them to go. We'd long chats and many beers that day in May so although I remembered all about the jerseys which, for some reason are in Kampala, I'd lost his email...good job! Found it yesterday though so all is back on track just a few weeks late...Africa Time!!

Last week was extreeemmmeeellly heavy for many reasons which we best not go into. Let's just say we'd problems coming up in the community, with a friend out in town and a lot of work. Just as Anna reassured me ' Well the week can't get much worse really can it? ' I had a call from Edgar to say that two of our students passed away. They were out at a netball competition the school had gone to and despite not being allowed to go, they went under their own steam. On arrival everybody was warned not to swim. It's a notoriously dangerous spot because of the way the fishermen dug the river bed it get very deep as soon as you step in. Still, they decided to swim..So Nawanyago has been a little under and the school is finding it difficult to cope with their loss. Two great kids, good students and good friends to the school and to SPW Volunteers. It's a real pity. Take care Henri & Magidhu.

That cut short a visit to Buwaya (Emily's placement) which is a lot more rural than my own but they can't complain!! They're put up in an outhouse to a boarding school where they've a brand new computer lab, electricity aaand Emily's just waiting for them to install wireless...village life ey ? ;) ! It was good fun though. All of us headed out there and Megs n Em had baked a cake & cookies for our arrival.

Otherwise we're picking up well work-wise. Been working so so hard over the last month mainly with help from Edgar and we've hit our targets early. Just over hitting now. I set up a Music competition where the kids compose a song in any language/style about 'problems facing the youth'. Poems are allowed and I've been told that a Primary 6 kid is coming over to recite his poem today! cuuuuuuuuuuuute! We've got a lot of interest and frankly a lot of wasted talent so it should be good fun hearing and recording the entries at next weeks Talent Show which we've also set up at the school!! Music, Dance and Drama and as it will be on my birthday I think we'll get some visitors tooo!! Then I've also set up an Art competition for the kids interested in Art. We'll pin up the winners in our Youth Resource Corner (where kids come to chat/relax/learn about health etc...) Entries are based on three topics chosen by the teachers:

(1) Something for Something Love - giving sex for phones/money/school fees etc..
(2) Cross Generational Sex - a huge problem inUganda in general but the teachers say it's rife in our community.
(3) Teenage Pregnancy - also causes a lot of problems out here with children dropping out of school and not having the knowledge, money, time to care for a child or go back to school etc...

They can design a poster, paint, draw...whatever they want. We're hoping for entries and we'll see how it all goes down. Winners of the music competition should appear on the next 'Shpops Uganda edition CD'..For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about basically my fundraising to come out here was done by making a CD with a load of friends (all styles, languages...) and I'm hoping to raise more funds by creating a Ugandan edition of the same types of project. All the art work, design, music, promo etc is done by young people and all free of charge to get maximum profits to donate back to a worthwhile project. It was a lot of work but great fun so I hope the Ugandan CD will be up to scratch! I've recorded quite a bit so far and Thursday should bring some good tracks too!!

Hope you are all well back home. Give us a call if you're ever feeling that way! WARNING: When you call you'll hear music (ugandan music)...that means it's ringing through! Instead of hearing a dialtone you now hear music - one of the many fantastic pointless Ugandan inventions. Love it! It'll either be Bebe Cool - Bogola Ko or Chameleon - Basiimo Ogenze. Enjoy! +256 785 899 485

World Cup craic is savage in the videohall! I spend my time in a wooden, bin bag lined shack sweating from the heat and general smells of other men's sweat, rubbish and farts. But the craic is mighty and we're all backing the African teams. Portugal got lucky to take the draw I reckon...Good to see France getting nowhere to, I wish them all the worst this year :) Off to watch Spain tonight I think and I'd better be getting back to hear some little cute kid's poem! Can't wait!!

All the best!

The end of an era...and plenty of news

Been away from the internet for quite a long while now despite not having been stuck in the village. I've just finished my 2week holiday, mid-placement top up training and had a great weekend and am now ready to head back to the village and try to get looooaaadds of work done within the next few months. I've had the best time over the last few weeks..so much has happened that I won't be able to sum it all up here in one post but highlights have included :
- Dad & Cian coming out for a brilliant 10 day break!! They arrived in Entebbe & I picked them up in true Ugandan fashion, 3 of us on the back of the same bike. Both were in flying form and we headed to the Botanical Gardens & Wildlife Centre along with some of the other volunteers - Joyce, Christy, Herbert and Edgar. Megan's sisters were around too so we all met up and I got Sharon & Allen and a few other up to the backpackers for a meal so they could meet my family. Everyone was reaaally excited to meet Liamo - they'd heard so much - and of course, Da's chat didn't disappoint! We had a really great night.

The next day we headed out to Bwindi to start our Gorilla Trek! It was incredible!! I'll stick some photos up but there's no real way of describing it, just soo cool it's unreal!! An added extra was the fact that our guide, James, had been a coach at the special olympics in Ireland - he wore his Ireland T-Shirt for us - and had met Westlife & Arnold Schwarzenegger and also like to burst into random bouts of Irish dancing every now and then. For those of you volunteering out here it looked like a version of Joel's erection impression mixed with mental footwork. Needless to say, James was a legend! After Gorilla trekking we visit pygmys and had an aul dance with the little people. A little like Darby O'Gill except in real life...no seriously, it was quite sad to see how they're treated and outcast by society at large. They live in probably the worst poverty I've seen. The guide we went with had been working with them for a long time and was forming a group to support them financially and lobby for rights for pygmy communities - they were kicked out of the forest when tourism & logging started and are now total outcasts.

The day after Gorillas we got back to Jinja & had a great meal for Megan's birthday - Happy Birthday again! Cian couldn't join us but we'd already pre-ordered steaks so we picked a lucky random drunk from the bar nxt door to come and eat the steak. His name was Steve, from Dublin. He was hilariiiiiiouuuss!! We'd great chats & dad, despite having done a huge gorilla trek, travelled from Europe and been lugged around on bikes in the blazing heat stayed up with the youth drinking until about 4am.
We'd 2 or 3 hours sleep and then I woke the lads up to come and visit Nawanyago. We packed in visits to my school, my neighbours, George Kinosa the farmer (who both Dad & Cian agreed lived up to his legendary status), bought a chicken for my neighbour, visited Igumyamoyo farmer's group, ate at Herbert's house, sang tunes with some of the kids I'm doing the music project with and greeted the entire trading centre!! AAAAaaaalll done with a crew of about 30 very needy, cute, energetic, playful, crying 4-6 years olds!! It was a little wearing but again, we had the best day and headed back to Jinja that night suitably tired ready for bed in our awesome hotel & ready to fly to Tanzania the next day!!

- Tanzania involved a 4 day safari which was absolutely mindblowingly great, and, to put it in the words of the great Gap Yah poms, I chundered everywhere on the plains of the serengeti - have that nature! 40 degree fever and cold sweats, great craic! But we saw cheetahs, leopards, lions, giraffes, wildbeast, zebras....you name it, we dsaw millions of them!! We also met up with Nico who's working out there and his family were visiting too so we had an awesome trip. On the last night we were back at Maama Makari's house where Cian volunteered a few years ago in Arusha - we were well looked after!!

- Back in Entebbe I went to chill at a pool with Megan, her sisters, Emily and none other than Colonel Gadafi...yes, the mental Libyan. He turned up (or at least him or his brother) turned up at a hotel they own, so I made sure he watched me dive from the massive diving board. He was proud of me, I saw it in his beady eyes. He actually looked like a film star...a mental one, but a film star nonetheless..!!

We then had a few nights out, crazy ugandan club style. Fantastic! I was dancing away and out of nowhere this huuuuuuuuge woman starts trying to grind me.I was pretty wasted so i kept dancing at which stage she turns and goes ' I am veerrry fat..but verrryy flexible' HAHAHA Epic! Only in Uganda!

After our big night & a gig by Radio & Weasel (two big names in uganda) we went biking in the Mabira forest...it was more like Mountaineering in a tropical rain forest covered in safari ants (which reaaally bite hard) with a mountain bike on my back!! Probably the best thing I've done in Uganda so far..although I don't know if Emily and Megs would agree given the state of their hangovers that day!! I got a weird infected ankle after it all what with the wading through mud, sticks, rivers and whatever the feck lives in that forest!!

We also saw Bebe Cool & Chameleon, two of Uganda's hottest superstars...the gig started with a gorgeous woman dancing and singing as the warm up act. Out of nowhere a little midget ran on stage and starts properly going at it, dancing his heart out, clinging to her thighs, caressing her knees and all sorts! It was so surreal!! He'd be hired by the band to dance for the entire gig!!
Bebe Cool, who was recently shot in both legs by police, came out to rock Jinja in his wheelchair. It was soooo ghetto!! Brilliant!! Chameleon was bad either, he was in red suit pants, a red tux, white shirt & a dickee bow! Grand shtuff!!!


Since all of that I've had 4 days of training most of which I spent in bed recovering from the TZ fever. It was great to see everyone again and get back into the mood of SPW work before heading back to the village & starting work again. We also took the ugandans out which was hilarious. It was like being twelve again. In the club they were all soooo gone they were just falling about the dance floor taking half the crowd with them...great times!! I went back for a day and then I requested permission to get back to Jinja to send off an American friend of mine - Lansing....

... for the occassion, I cut myself a mullet!! Played a charity crazy golf with the mullet and then went for beers with Lansing. Last night up at backpackers, where it all began, we set up a table with decorations and had waaaaaaay toooooo much fun drinking & chatting all night. Great craic!! I'm really sad to see him leave but with the 4 cheesy valentine's day cards we gave him at random intervals I'm sure he'll be safe & sounds back in the States. Hopefully I'll see him in Vegas at some stage...'The Hangover' style!!! Take it easy Mr Lancelot, it's been a pleasure having you around and I know you'll be sorely missed...or you'll miss those sores...?! what...?! WHO ARE YOU>?!!

Rightio, well I'm off back to the village...ooooooooooohhhh I almost forgot..I went to a reggae night & met Kaz, my flatmate from Leeds...well, his Ugandan counterpart!! We got into a Uganda music video too, which i'll post once it's out!! AAAAnnnnd I also met a girl who babysat me in Wezembeek-Oppem when I was about 4 years old!! She lives in Congo now but grew up a few doors down from us at home!! Mental.......oooooooooh, aaaannndd please please check out my Dutch friend's project (Kees & Arthur - two great guys ) - School in a Can. I think you can google it. THey're setting up school made from Cargo containers and they are absolutely incredible at what they do! Best of luck lads,!!

Right, that really is it...i need to get back to my posho & beans, pit latrine, newly born baby rats on my floor and bucket showering...aaahh the joys of village life!! Take care!! Tschuuuusss!!!!

Indians & Crocodiles, Easter Pigs & Lovely People

I can’t quite remember when I was last in Jinja and what’s been going on since but the main event of the past few weeks was getting a long weekend off for Easter & heading out to Murchison Falls National Park. I had drunkenly agreed to go along on a trip to Murchison Falls with random American dude, Lansing Lee. We bonded over the fact that we had weird names, anchor man, excitement at meeting Peter Griffin at Bujugali Falls and far too many beers. A few days after that night out I got a call from Lansing seeing if I was still up for the trip. Having no real recollection of who he was but remembering the night was pretty good and he seemed cool, I agreed to head out with him. My bank card expired on the 31^st March so I had to head up to Kamuli to withdraw cash for the last time. I left class promptly and headed up nervous of whether I’d get any cash out, thinking the machine might just swallow my card and then I’d be, well…fecked! I got in to Kamuli on the matatu and went straight to the ATM. There was a queue of about 20 people because it was pay day for teachers and they were all withdrawing cash for the Easter break. The queue got longer, nobody got any closer to the cash machine...the only ATM in town was broken – Technical Problem, please wait while we get this fixed. Everyone was pretty confident it would be fixed, just nobody knew when – 10 minutes or 5 hours, ‘You wait!!’. I ended up going to the internet café where I’m pretty good friends with one of the guys working there. He told me it’d work in a few hours but that the teachers would all be there queuing for hours so best wait til eight-ish. I did just that and just as I left the café a huuuuuge storm broke out! Bad weather – power cut..power cut – no ATM…no ATM – no Murchison falls & no money! I ran off with Edgar to get shelter where we met a crazy homeless, shirtless scruffy man with a gun. He wanted to start boxing with us so we swiftly left him behind and sheltered at the bank. Once the rain stopped power came back and the machine started working so all the teachers started to withdraw money. As the line got shorter I was about to get to the machine…second power cut…! “Don’t worry, you wait, you wait. It will come.” “Are you suuuurree it will come back because I have to get home tonight and it’s late, taxis won’t be around all night.” “Somehow yes. Oh but you are right, it is late, but maybe you will possibly get a taxi. But it is late mister, it is late”. I gambled and waited. Power came back and I got my turn at the machine. Stuck in my card, pressed in my pin and bingo I got my cash. I turned around to leave and then got the bright idea of trying my Fortis card for money. Popped the card in, and then the screen froze as I was pressing my pin in. 10 people waiting behind me and the bank was shut!! My card was in there with the pin pressed so I wasn’t going anywhere. To cut a loooooong story short, after several conversations which went absolutely nowhere some guy turned up who knew the manager. Luckily he wasn’t far away so he came to the bank. “Come back on Monday..” I couldn’t so I chatted for ages and convinced him to go inside for 2 minutes, walk about 3 metres and get my card back to me – pretty tough to do out here! A taxi came, I had my cash & Murchison was back on!!

I was going to leave in the morning on Thursday but I got a panicked phone call from Herbert while I was teaching “Eeeemmm Cathal, I need you to come to the sub-county now, there are visitors.” I was teaching and not really in the mood to dash off to the sub-count HQ so I waited til class ended before I made my way over. Nawanyago was buzzing, the kids were going crazy and I found out why. Dance 4 Life, The Netherlands office had come over for a visit. They had brought a class of school kids from Sitard wo fundraised a load of money last year and won a trip to see D4L & SPWs work in Uganda. There was a bus load full of Dutch teenagers, one of which was projectile vomiting on to a random Ugandan’s lawn. I bet she loves the white kids now ey! The kids went off and I was in a taxi with a bunch of Dutch people. One or two from the D4L office and others making a documentary for D4L publicity etc. t was pretty cool and apart from being a good 4 hours late and delaying the whole trip to Murchison by a while I really enjoyed it! I met a killer photographer. I think he’s pretty famous. He’d been taking photos all over the place for around 15 years now and has worked in some crazy projects. He took the South Africa pictures for the exhibition when Nelson Mandela visited The Netherlands. We all ate out, free dinner and free beer with Dutch people – I couldn’t refuse!! There was a power cut in the restaurant so dinner was delayed. I hadn’t eaten and was pretty starving but food was coming out. After a 2h wait the Dutch got their food…I still hadn’t got mine..another 2 hours later, when everybody had finished and was leaving, I finally got my food! Worth the wait!! They dropped me off at a petrol station and I headed off to Kampala to meet Lansing ready for the Murchison trip.

We set off in the morning. It’s a fair drive from Kampala but we had a cool crew of people in the car. A Dutch couple from Amsterdam who were working in an orphanage in Torroro in the East, Lansing (who turned out to be just as awesome as he was at bujugali), Rupter Rana (an Indian LEGEND!!) and a couple of Americans who live in Cairo (the girl was half Egyptian) and study there. The American guy was from Alaska. We chatted loads and had a great trip up and then I realized i'd forgotten my socks and a hat so I grabbed a few pairs quickly & bought killer hat which makes you feel like bill&ben the flowerpot men, good times!

Murchison was aamaaaaaaaazing!!I went with Red Chili on a standard tour - see the falls, game drive, boat ride etc..We saw elephants, antelope, Uganda Kob, warthogs, crocs, hippos, hippo being eaten by a croc, giraffes, jacksons hartbeest, baboons, a lioness...sooo much cool stuff. I though it would be a little touristy and feel very fake, a little like visiting a zoo again or something but it was amazing. It's incredible to drive along a path and out of nowhere a huuuuge elephant bull just walks out from the bush. You really do feel like you're visiting animal territory. The hippos sometimes even wander up to the campsite at night, warthogs will come into your tent and eat food if you're not careful, and while chatting up late an african wild cat just strutted straight through the camp. It's pretty incredible to think that given any reason to, any of these animals could kill you. It was awesome though!! We had a great crew. Within about 30 seconds of crossing the Nile to where the game drive starts Rupter left the van for a pee. On his way back the baboon cut him off from getting back to the van. Instead of slowly making his way back to the van Rupter decided to go as close as he could to the angry baboon, sit and mimic his every move whilst SCREAMING 'TAKE A PHOTO, TAKE A PHOTO' (in the best indian accent ever). It was hilarious!! Obviously the baboon wasnt too happy and chased Rupter for a while narrowly missing a swipe at his legs!! In our close encounter with the croc, Rupter got over excited when trying to get his camera and knocked his glasses into the river. We were about 1m from the croc, the glasses in between us and the croc. The crocodile was chilling out and the guide told us to be reaaaally quiet..so what does Rupter do?? He was persuaded the croc was dead because he wasnt moving much so he yelled 'It's dead, It's dead!!!' At which stage he tried to get his glasses...bad move!! The croc turned his head pretty casually and showed Rupter his set of teeth! He freaked hahaha, ran off going, 'It is ok, no problem crrrroc, no problems, I vill sacrifice dose glasses for mister crrroc!! ' Needless to say he provided us all with a lot of entertainment!!

There were a group of cool american students there who are studying in Mukono for a semester so we chilled out with them a little and in the morning we all headed up to the Falls. They're pretty powerful!! Not a full drop but broken into 2 or 3 smaller drops but it's really cool when you get up close and see how powerful the waterfall is! I wouldn't like to get stuck in there..it's making me realize how crazy the white water rafting will get!!!

The day before yesterday Anna, Megan and Emily came over to Nawanyago for the night. They'd had Easter out at Megan's placement where Emily killed a chicken and they had a big meal with cakes , chicken and loads of cool stuff! They came by for the night to play Scrabble and relax and then the next morning we visited Herbert's pigs accompanied by aaaallll the kids in the village which was really cool!! They loved having visitors!! After that we all went to Jinja and stayed over. It's been a reaaallly good weekend again and I think there might be many more to come. April is exam time for most and runs up to the end of the term for lots of the classes so Im not sure how busy it will be compared to last month but I'm having a great time and looking forward to working & travelling!! Trying to upload photos to Facebook but it always fails so I'll give it a last shot and then I've got to run off!! Take care!! xx

Lariam

To avoid having to chat to eveerryone and letting you know why I was mental last time you saw me I thought I'd say something about the Lariam I had to take before heading out here. It's an anti-malarial a lot of people take when they travel. In Belgium, all the doctors I saw told me it'd be fine to take, first just to test it and see if things were alright. In the UK, most doctors don't prescribe it. Check out the side effects online - mental. I actually went insane! Thanks goes to the mammy for changing my prescription the morning before I left to Uganda! I was pretty depressed, nervous and scared off it but I thought it was just normal given that I was heading on a big trip. I also couldn't sleep much or make any decisions which was extremely irritating!! Some of the other weird and wonderful things it made me do was stress about packing my bag, bring a 90s see-through pink toiletries bag, bring a ski jacket with me (ye never know like, the weather and that...it does make a decent pillow though! ) and I didn't really chat to people because it felt really weird talking to people!

So, sorry about that ! All good since I came off it and changed medication! Oooh, and huuuuuuggggggeee thanks to Alicia, Claire, Laura, Ellie and all of the others who organized my 'leaving party'!! I was a little mental that day but it was reaaaaaaallly fun!! I was super happy to see all of you before leaving and I'll pay back the favour when I'm home! Hows about an African dinner & I can show you my photos n that, aaall 50682412 of them!! And I loved that video you all made..absolute wasters:)!!! byyyyyeee!!

Jinja - beer, burgers, psychos and good views

Last weekend was technically our weekend off but given that we worked uuuuuuber hard we all decided to take this weekend off instead. So myself and 5 of the internationals headed to Jinja. I think I wrote a little bit about this place before but basically Jinja is a town an hour away from my placement. It feels like a midwest town in the States. They have craaaazzzy looking birds straight out of Jurrasic Park!! Seriously scary looking things called Maribou Storks. I'll try to get a picture with one. They have big dangly skin that hangs from their necks, they're about a metre and a half tall and have maaasssiiivve beaks!! So we headed to Jinja. We're staying at a hostel, compfy beds, water, electricity, free internet, pool and goooooood food. It's 2euro50 a night for us...and the beer is under a euro...good times:)! I came down on Thursday night and met up with the others. I brought Herbert and Edgar along (the community volunteers in Nawanyago) dso everyone was really happy to see each other again and to chill out after what have been some really intense months in the community! The beer flew like wine ! After Herbert's "only" beer, I offered him a second one. Needless to say he happily accepted the offer and I could see he was loving it chilling with everyone again. He looked pretty upset about leaving so I convinced him to stay over with us!! We went out for a reaaaally good Chinese meal - Herbert's first EVER! The restaurant was really good too. So nice to have good meat again!! Shredded chili beef with veggie fried rice. It was deliiiishhhh. Then we headed back for beers and chats and stayed up for ages, way past our usual 10 o'clock bedtime!!! In Nawanyago once it gets dark there's not that much to do, especially at home without lights and we're usually knackered after a day of work and messing around with the kids so staying up late is pretty exciting! It's like being a kid again!

I had an exciting delivery! I got the package the parentes sent out! Thanks for that! Sun cream, vitamins, rehydrating salts, a few shpops cds, a mini disc & mic to try to record people (which I realized won't work with that particular mini disc player but I'll find someway of getting around it!! ) and sweets!! It was really nice to get a package, felt like a birthday present! Aaaaand I have it on good authority that the oral rehydration salts are killer hangover cures!! Cheers for that one Sims, I think you saved my life!! Which brings me on to last night....what . a . night!

We headed up to the second campsite up at a place called Bujugali Falls. The hostel overlooks the Nile and there are stunning panoramic views everywhere you look...except if you turn your attention to the stage where a Canadian dude whose having his 'leaving gig' is topless, wearing tight red leather trousers fancying himself as God's gift to live performance. God's gift to being an absolute sack! Haha, it was pretty awesome though. You have to understand that we havn't been out in about 3 months so getting to a hostel bar full of white people is really quite a scary experience. Not only is it scary under normal circumstances, but it's made that much more scary given that tonight is rock star themed fancy dress night and the Brits & South Africans have flocked in their dozens and made a huge effort! I chatted to The Edge, Jimi Hendrix, Mick Jagger (the eejit in the red pants), Janice Joplin annnd PETER GRIFFIN!! He wasn't in costume though. He's just a man from North London who IS Peter Griffin off Family Guy. He made my night! Anyway, in keeping with the rockstar theme the singer made an entry on the back of a motorbike driving through the bar to the terrace where the stage was set up. There were flares going off, bottles being broken in large quantities..mainly by Megan, who was incapable of being near a bottle without it falling and smashing! I brought my new friend along too. He's called Blazeon. I saw him walking around in town with a guitar so I started up a chat about music and where I could get guitars, how much and all of that. He's really nice. A Ugandan rastaman and he writes loads of tunes so I was talking about the Shpops project. He's really up for us recording and gigging if we can! I spent most of the night jamming with him and the other half chatting nonsensically to randomers. I think most of the SPW crew have lost the ability to chat about normal things. We live in the constant company of STIs, rape, teenage pregnancy, reproductive organs, HIV & AIDS. All of us except Christy that is who is a livelihoods volunteer and complains that her topics are boring - Micro Credit, Entrepreneurship, Poultry Keeping etc..to be fair, if I was to choose between a chat about Paedophilia with Peter Griffin or chatting micro credit lending with Tarquin Wilson-Myles I'd be with Griffin every time. What a man! So Christy joined in the STI banter and we were happy to have her! It was great catching up on all the news from other placements and getting a chance to kick back with everyone. We stayed up until 6 with a bunch of mental South Africans. Scarily mental..they didn't sleep, and when we woke at 10 or 11 they were still up drinking just about to start a round of centurion. I didn't feel bad at all though thnaks to my Rehydration magic sachets! Lads (Kiely and the birthday weekend crew), thanks for bringing that one up! They work a treat!!
Today was spent sitting around all day eating and relaxing and I don't think there are many better spots to do it in! We're also planning the white water rafting trip for next month! Should be really really really cooool!! I can't wait!

I swapped my iPod with Anna (a volunteer in Busede) last week so I've been listening to BBC podcasts of 'Just A Minute' and 'I'm sorry I havn't a clue!'. It's been refreshing hearing jokes, wit, sarcasm and well spoken English again. Also, keep the link posts coming on my facebook. Thomas sent the funniest video I've ever seen! 'Gap Yah'. It took me an age to load but it was worth it. I almost wet my pants! Brought back the many memories of Leeds and yahs in general. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKFjWR7X5dU

Not too sure what the plans are for tonight, taking it easier than last night, although that's not too hard to do!! Might watch a film. The girls have bought 'New Moon'. If it's anything as shite as Twilight it might be difficult to watch! Alternatively one of the guys in the hostel said he'd bring us out to town if we want so we'll see what happens. Having an absolute blast anyway!! Keep the texts, emails and video links coming! Tot ziens!!

More emails!! Paddy's day & events

Paddy's day wasn't the usual pub ritual I'm used to. I taught four classes on teenage pregnancy and was knee high in work organizing a big free Voluntary Counselling and Testing (HIV) for the community. I did wear green, told people about Paddy & the snakes and finished up having a warm beer from a shack whilst sat on a bench in a small mud road..! The first beer for a good month so needless to say it was well deserved!

I visited the Source of the Nile. It's just outside a town called Jinja, about an hour away from my village - Nawanyago. I don't know why a trip to the source sounds great...when you get there it dawns on you that it's just a load of water in a lake. Beautiful views though and Jinja is a great little town!! It looks like something out of a Clint Eastwood film only the cowboys have been swapped with Africans! Plenty of Indians around, just no cowboys..a few of the lads do walk around in cowboy hats alright though!

Having a well deserved break this weekend in Jinja so I'll get electricity, running water and a hot shower (the first in two months! can't wait! ) Luxury! I've been a slave to the aul bucket and sponge & paraffin lamp up until now. Getting used to it though, and I don't miss too much. I could do with a little bit of variety in food! Can't wait to get my hands on a good steak n vegetables. Doing alright for food but its the all carbs and all the same! Matoke (a banana mash type thing), rice, posho (stodge). We get beans and tomatoes but that's about all we eat.

We've been really busy these past few weeks. All the usual teaching in 3 schools (2 secondary and 1 primary) and some farmers groups, then we had a load of events on top of that. Started with the sports event We had five village football teams battle it out all day for the grand prize....a goat! I've never seen so much excitement over a goat! Screaming & shouting, 2 fights and people too happy to talk, instead they just ran all over the place flapping their arms about screaming! Great craic! I wonder if that'd go down well back home! We then had a video day in a village showing a DVD on HIV, domestic violence and all of that. Terrible, terrible acting but the lads loved it! We brought the TV, DVD and electricity generator for a 3 pm start. The first generator didn't work, nor did the second or third..and we're talking about a little place in the middle of nowhere. 5 hours later we tracked down another generator and got the gig going. 9pm start...African time..no one battered an eyelid! Hundreds of people showed up to our field in the middle of nowhere to watch the video. It went down really well!
We then had a big free HIV testing day. We got 265 people tested and counseled. Headed with our farmers groups to model farms to show them how to get things up and running. That was a great day out! Saw piggeries, poultry projects, banana and coffee plantations, mangoes, passion fruits...you name it! The man leading the visit also fancied himself as a bit of a farming preacher. He had decked out his barn with what can only be described as an alter , complete with fake flowers on it and purple, white and red satin in the backdrop. A makeshift St Anthony's! We didn't quite get the 7 deadly sins but he got a few of them in!! Father Vinny watch your back!

I've started to get to know many more people in the village and I spend my free time relaxing at the videohall watching the footy or Lusoga dubbed versions of Rambo, Snakeman or any other film the guys get their hands on! Power can be scarce but there's great craic to be had sitting in that bin bag lined wooden shack!

No real move on the music as yet - I've been so busy with other things but I should be starting that very soon. I've met a few keen youth and I'm planning to record The Aids Support Organization (TASO) who have a drama group who perform around Uganda. So I should get a few tunes done!!

All in all it's going well. It can drag a little when you're not up for teaching or when you're on time for a meeting and no one shows up at all...or even worse, they show up 5 hours late and all you can do is sit there, smile and wait for the next people to come. But you get used to it all somehow!!
Weather-wise it's been very hot. We're into the wet season now so we get a day or two of rain or a few hours a day but then it's hot again. I'm lucky with our community because they seem pretty welcoming of SPW and the work which is better than in some of the other placements!

Think I'm headed to Madrid when I get back to do a TEFL Course & find some work out there teaching English. Henri and Jeje will be out there too so it should be a great laugh! Don't think I'll make it to South Africa for the World Cup but now that Ireland aren't there I'd rather watch it from here! Looking forward to Dad and Cian coming over for a visit which includes a trip to see gorillas in the wild and a Safari in Tanzania! Got a close friend doing an internship out in Tanzania so I'll be able to meet up with him too!

In the meantime there's a load of teaching and looking forward to playing in the teacher vs. students football match! They're all keen to watch the Muzungu (white man) play!

Catch up emails copied to the blog...

Things are going really well out here . I think I've been out about 5-6 weeks at this stage. Spent the first month in a training centre in a place called Mbalala. Pretty small place on a main road between Kampala & Jinja (big-ish town). The training was pretty hilarious, fun, scary and retarded all at the same time! It was like going back to second year secondary and being taught sex ed all over again. A load of the guys out here had no clue about half of it though ..it would literally take from 9-17h to explain a few basic facts about how AIDS spreads and then the next day after chatting to all their friends the national & community volunteers would be back in square one confused about things like - does aspirin stop girls getting pregnant..can I get AIDS/ get pregnant if I'm standing up while having sex (believing that sperm cant travel upwards...) etc... so yeah, veeery slow but obviously needed for a lot of the Ugandan team and it gave the internationals a chance to chat to everyone and settle in. Had some funny characters out there. Dennis Bob was a particular favourite starting every sentence with eeeeh-yyyeeeesss (like that hotel owner in Little Britain!! ) too good! He'd ask very revealing question such as - is it normal that when I have sex with someone they cry, I mean a friend of mine told me and I once knew a girl who did said it could happen...oh poor Dennis Bob!

Since training I've moved to a place called Nawanyago which is where my placement is. We've been meeting all the people in the community we're going to work with and setting up different projects & all that jazz. Unfortunately the music project doesn't look too good. We've got so much work that we have to cover for SPW and also they're not too keen on buying instruments & bringing them into schools because it basically means that when other volunteers come they're expected to buy things for the kids etc and SPW are pretty big on their minimum cost, investing in people & skills and sustainability...but we'll see how we fare! I've had a cool few weeks setting up here though. We've been doing tests at the schools checking out how much the kids already know and what last years volunteers achieved. We also meet with in-school clubs&Groups like environmental club, AIDS Action lcub & Dance 4 Life so we'll be working with them helping them out and giving them tutoring n stuff. We work in a primary and a secondary school and the moment and this week we've to find two more schools to work with. Then outside school there are two main farmers groups, Nalimawa & Igumyamoyo. We meet with them and help them forming business plans, checking what type of crops they should focus on growing, bring them to visit model farms etc..it's really good fun. Those places are far off the beaten track. Had the first meeting in a little mud hut with 30 typs crammed in and chickens running about. Good fun! Then there's other groups around the place and we have to have a minimum of two more farmers groups so we're just finding out which ones we'll pick & checking how that all goes.

On top of that we're organizing a big sports event sometime in March. Should be sweet, footy tournament just getting the whole community together to introduce ourselves to them and get them motivated about our work. They play footsy with platsic bags all rolled up n tied together, been practicing my skills! Looking forward to that man..and we're also organizing a big Voluntary Counselling&Testing day (HIV testing)..aparently over 400 people showed up last year so got a lot of work for that and looking forward to it too.

As far as the place is concerned I was put in one of the less rural placements which basically means I'm around an hour away from town. It's pretty cool actually because it means that where I live has a few shops selling food & necessities but then go 5 mins off and you're in really rural "villages"..basically a hut with a few people around. So I'm pretty lucky! The house the community lets us live in is pretty sweet. Clean and quite big, I got my own room which is cool. No electricity but there is some in the town so there's a place you can charge your phone and I got my solar charger so it's all good!

All in all I really like it so far and I'm looking forward to really starting up work in March! Had malaria which sucks a bit but hope I won't get it again too soon!! Then the one thing I reaaaally miss is music. I need to find a guitar but they're really hard to come by and very expensive when you do..sucks! BUT, Edgar ( the community volunteer i work with) said that one of the priest around has a few instruments in a school somewhere so I might be able to get access to them that way! Fingers crossed!!!