Day Three in Uganda

Exhaustion is pulling at me, but I really want to tell you all about my day… which started at 5.30am.

Teopista and I walked down through Mbikko, Jinja shortly after 6am and then peeled off the main road and onto a red earth track.  I love Teopista more and more… she is a good woman and a loving mother.  The light was barely with us and the air hung heavy with the first boiled foods of the day.  People squatted before their open-air stoves, fanning them with a distinctive wide-footed stoop.  Children waved at me.  I felt really happy to be walking to church.  The track continued, sloping gently downwards and soon reaching the edge of the forest.  It was a beautiful position for the church and, with all the doors wide open, I was able to attend Mass with the most exquisite view of the forest beneath us.  By the way, Jesus is black in Africa.  I actually think this colour suits him better.

After Mass I travelled to St Bernadette Primary School.  The headmistress introduced me to every class in turn.  Their songs of welcome were truly overwhelming for me.  The school clearly has the most exceptional discipline and respect.  It is beyond anything I have known in all the years of teaching in the UK.  Such a revelation has been upon me time and time again all day.  The children are grateful.  They listen with beautiful and soft eye contact.  They smile from the depths of their good hearts.  They move with elegant grace and ease.  They ask intelligent questions and have complete focus on improving themselves and learning.  This, I feel, is teaching at the most beautiful level imaginable.  These little people who don’t even have shoes have a life that is full of hope and determination.  What a gift it is to be able to meet them for this short time.

The teachers are patient and dedicated.  Many of them stayed beyond 6pm (when I left) with children who just wanted to learn more and more.  Much of the teaching is up in front of the class.  There are too many children in the room (up to 100) to be able to work in groups or to do any ongoing one-to-one work.  This is where I hope I might be able to help, but more of that later.

The classrooms are basic, but functional.  The new building is really good and has lovely light in the rooms… a far cry from classrooms for Primary 1, 2, 3 and 4.  Classes have a range of ages in them.  It much depends upon when the child started school.  Even if they start at 11 years old, they go into Primary 1 with the other 5 year olds starting.  This clearly makes for a very tricky dynamic within the classroom as you are differentiating work to also make it age-appropriate, not just for ability levels.  If children fail, they also repeat a year.  Many children have had to drop out of school because of their parents dying and come back later if/when they have the money to pay for fees.  The government give very little money to the education sector.  And the children have to pay for their schooling.  It is 70,000 Ugandan Shillings per month (£18) if you include the bean and rice lunch.  Fees rise by Primary 7 because the children need more resources, such as Maths sets and exercise books.  In the morning, half of the school children were sent home to collect school fees before they could resume studying.  The temptation of cash in hand was too great for many who stopped off at the shop on the way back into school, spending their fees on food.  We had to go and collect them!

Their syllabus is really hard!  Quite possibly too hard for little children to understand.  In Primary 7, it was certainly more GCSE level.  They do a great level of Social Studies and I think this may have helped the children to develop the extraordinary minds they have.  English is also the only language they use at the school by Primary 4.  I taught English to Primary 3 before lunch.  I also taught them Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.  They taught me a lovely song about a cooking pot and a fire, which I really loved (much better than Twinkle Twinkle!).  The children are all very musical and have beautiful voices, sense of pitch and rhythm.  It seems very natural to them, and I almost felt like an awkward Westerner around them… thank goodness that I also love to sing and dance!  They like this.

I spent my lunchtime with about 30 children under a tree.  They wanted to know about the Queen of England, about snow, about foods, about how the children in my school like to learn.  Honestly, I cannot imagine in a million years my school children in London having such an appetite to discover and to question.  This was something I spoke about with Lawrence (Teopista’s lovely husband) when I returned home.  He was touched that I had noticed it and remarked, “Their education depends on their own efforts and hard work.  If they don’t try, then they won’t be able to have success in their futures.”  I think he is right.  And these children take such control of their learning and they make it exciting.  How we could learn from this back home!  Oh my!

After lunch, I taught some more English and marked their books.  Then I listened to a singing lesson.  The children were practising for their School Mass tomorrow at midday.  Then I was scooped up by some very lovely Primary 6 girls to go to watch and play Netball.  I was then surrounded by some more little ones who enjoyed talking with me and asking questions.  I was incredibly happy to have a little book of Cornwall photos (thanks Mum!) to show them.  These photos captivated them.  They told me about life as a Ugandan child.  Some of them spoke of being orphans.  Many of them spoke of the corruption within their beautiful Country.

One of the Sisters at the school told me all about the troubles with witchcraft in the local area.  By all accounts, after the dictatorship ended, people were allowed to worship freely whatever belief system they preferred.  And many people reverted back to the familiar traditional superstitions which had long-standing roots within some communities.  They are shocking practices.  There is a belief amongst these devil-worshippers that taking a head of a child and burying it in the foundations of your home will bring you good fortune and money.  Although it would only constitute about 3% of the population practising witchcraft, it is a shock to know that this kind of evil is also on my doorstep.

It felt nice to come home to Teopista and Lawrence.  I will be very happy to stay in touch with them after I leave.  Their wisdom and kindness is beautiful, and I learn a lot from them.  Teopista already made a shirt using the overlocking sewing machine I gave to her.  It produces beautiful stitches and she is over the moon and kissed my hand in thanks.  I think I will sleep better tonight.