As I did not enjoy hanging around most of the time, I tried to start a few projects to keep me busy:

1. Football teacher

While teaching my classes at Starlight School every day, I quickly realised that all students were spending their two hour break either kicking and throwing a football around or just hanging around, chatting and talking. There were not really organised sports lesson or other kind of activities within the break time. That´s why the Starlight´s sports teacher and me figured it would be helpful and good for the kids to organise proper sport lessons on a daily basis, as it keeps especially the guys with lots of energy busy, exhausted, but happy.

For almost two weeks now we have been taking all the boys, who are willing to and know how to play football, to a local sports ground and conducted (thanks to the sport teacher´s experience) a really good and productive training.

After 45 minutes of running, stretching and fitness training, we start practising passes, dribblings and general control of the ball. If they do well and practise properly, we use the last 30 minutes for a game.

punishment for poor passes

As I imagined, all the guys are really enjoying the training and especially the game at the end. Of course, we always have some complainers and I can see a lot of sad looking faces when fitness training and running starts; but in general it is obvious that they like the training far more than hanging around in the school for two hours every day.

The highlight of our football training was the sixth of July as we had a big football tournament for whole Kawempe with over thirty participating schools. Thanks to the good training during the last weeks and to some real talents in our team, we managed to get the third place at the end

2. Swimming lesson

I went to one of the few swimming pools a few weeks ago and it was brought to my attention that almost nobody knows how to swim. Even I, as a very normal swimmer without great experience or knowledge, was better in swimming than the responsible person for safety and he was asking me with shining eyes to teach him they way I swim.

While talking to some adults and showing them the basic moves, I became the centre of attention – especially for all the little kids that were watching me as though I was Brad Pitt or another celebrity.

As the swimming pools are all very expensive, no school can provide and afford swimming lessons for their students. That´s why most of the kids as well as the adults can´t swim or even fear water.

So I decided to share my very limited knowledge of how to swim with the few children I could afford to get into the swimming pool.

I was surprised how fast and eager they learned and copied everything I showed them. Even if they still don´t know how to swim and it might take a few weeks more (probably caused by my lack of experience and knowledge of how to teach swimming;), all of them had a lot of fun – especially swimming on the Muzungu´s back became quickly the highlight of the week.

3. Donations to Starlight School

me with the football on my head

I have already mentioned in an article before that the school is missing almost everything. Sometimes I even have to write with a stick on the floor if they can´t afford to buy chalk.

If I had to make a list of what the school needs to survive, it would be a very long one. Until recently, most teachers (including me) didn´t even have a book or anything similar as a guideline for what to teach our students to pass the exams.

me in the assembly dance

teacher showing me how to dance

But thanks to some very generous donations from Europe, I was able to buy a lot of urgently needed books as well as enough chalk for a full term (3 months), manilla paper (wall papers which we need to draw maps of Africa or the periodical system of elements) and most importantly for my football team: a proper sized leather football.

The kids were so happy that they invited me to join them for the assembly dance. It was a lot of fun to be surrounded by some hundred kids, dancing “face to face, baka to baka” . The teachers were really grateful and thanked Mawanda and me a lot for our help.

me with the chalk on my head

headmistress handing over the donations

It was incredible to see how many things I could purchase with these

all donations lined up

donations. 150 Euro were enough to buy some thirty school books, a football, chalk for three months, sixty manilla papers and additionally there was enough money left to pay Zairu for five more HIV seminars with a total oftwo hundred attending students.

4. Cultural Awareness

For three weeks now, I have been using the last ten minutes of my lessons to talk about cultural differences between Europe and Uganda and my student´s were having a lot of fun when I talked about the Western attitude towards marriage, number of children and targets in life, which could not be more different;). More topics were average income, prices of food, flats, transport and social behaviour.

Although the government makes some half-hearted attempts to promote monogamic relationships, it is still common for men in villages to have up to six wives and some forty or fifty children                                                                             Zairu, a good friend of mine, invited me recently to his village and introduced me to his family. His father was proud to tell me that he owns three houses, has four wives and above all, “produced” some 35 children. Indeed, when it comes to children, they don´t use phrases like “to get a child” or “to bear a child” – wherever you are, it is always “producing a child”.                              When I told him that men in my country are only allowed to have one wife and normally don´t have more than two or three children, he was laughing loudly and said that he cannot believe how we can live like this.

While money, power and influence are the criteria of evaluating the importance of a person in our countries, it is number of children and wives, size of the estate and amount of hours which one spends working every day in Uganda                     You heard correctly, people don´t compete with their salary or position, but rather with the numbers of hours per day or days per year, which they work on the fields.

To impress me, Zairu´s brothers did not tell me how much they earn or how great their fruits are (and the reason is not that they knew that I cannot be impressed by money as Western people earn more. Even among each other they compete only in these fields), but rather that they work 360 days a year for at least 14 hours a day.

It is funny that not the money you make, but the time you work is important for people´s appreciation. A rich guy, who is not working more than 10 hours a day, is simply not respected, although he has a lot of money.                                                    Some more things to learn for me were the differences in relationships and physical contact, which are quite contradictory. While Ugandan people are strictly opposed to every kind of fondness like kissing, hugging or holding hands between couples in the public, it is absolutely common to hold a stranger´s hand for five minutes when talking to him.

In fact it is nothing unusual that same sex people are holding hands when they have a conversation and sometimes you even see them walking down the street hand in hand. Another thing that felt unpleasant at the beginning was the lengthy hand shaking. As far as I was used to it, a hand shake takes a second, but not more. In Uganda it can take up to five minutes or easily turn into holding hands.

Last week I invited all of my students to my Host´s place in Kazo to teach them German language, dancing and habits. In exchange, they showed me how to perform the Assembly Dance in the morning and some typical Ugandan hip-shaking-moves.        On top, we were cooking some macron (noodles) with tomatoes and cheese, which they ate in an incredible speed.                                                           They were so happy to have been to my place, eating and dancing the whole day, that they put all their money together to buy me a little cake as reward – the best cake I have ever had in my life;).

I will publish some articles tonight and especially some information about the bombing attacks from yesterday night.

Try to imagine what a good restaurant in a Western country should have to attract customers: a friendly, fast and efficient service, tasty food which comes at the same time for everyone, cold drinks, a menu with prices – that´s just a few things. Now, just imagine the opposite of what I described and welcome to a restaurant in Uganda.                                                                                                                                       This is a brief description of what normally happens when having lunch in Uganda:

me eating a fish head

Although the restaurant is absolutely empty and the waiting stuff is sitting around, chatting about something, you will have to wait for about ten minutes until they just can´t pretend any longer to have not seen you and need to come to the table in “turtle speed”. There is no “hello, what would you like to drink?”, or “would you like to see the menu?”; the only thing you get is an annoyed or even angry look as though as you should feel terribly sorry to have dared to enter the restaurant and disturbed the utterly important conversation. If you are unfamiliar with the restaurant and the food they serve you will unfortunately have to ask for the menu, which will earn you an angry look from the waitress and another 10 minutes of waiting – that´s why it is always better to already know what you want before entering;).

“The more decisions to make, the more difficult is life” – that could easily be the slogan of most restaurants. Especially for people who always struggle to make a decision for a dish, Uganda would be the paradise. You have the choice between: matoke, fish head, chips, some snacks and if you are lucky, chicken. To be honest, I have learned to love it as it saves you the time and frustration of reading through a thirty-page menu in order to choose one out of a hundred possibilities.                                                                             I fell EVEN MORE in love with the Ugandan way of responding to questions or special requests: they are simply being ignored. To exaggerate a bit;), I hate people who go to restaurants and just can´t stick to what is being served, but rather start asking extra questions, demanding carrots instead of potatoes or making a big fuzz around everything – to keep it short: people that wouldn´t agree to the philosophy “be happy with what you get or leave”.                                                                                                         If you ask a Ugandan waitress for anything that is different to the way it normally is, you will most probably witness one of these reactions:

First, especially when facing inexperienced or young waitresses, you will get an absolutely helpless look as though as it would impossible for her to understand what the hell you want from her. From here, it is up to you: as a friendly person, you should just forget whatever you asked for and take the meal as it is OR as a (to describe it nicely) persistent and rude person you can spend the next five minutes explaining what you wanted until you finally get it, but embarrass the waitress in front of everyone.                                                                                                                                            Out of experience, for your and everyone´s sake and just to make life easier, I highly recommend the first way. I have only tried once to explain that it is not very great if the main dishes come at different times to one table as some people have to wait and watch others eating. But after five minutes of explanation I could see that she wouldn´t get my message and I quietly got back to my meal.                                                                  Second, if the waitress is simultaneously the owner or has been working for a very long time in this business, you will simply be overheard, ignored or told that whatever you asked for is impossible to realise.

matoke with ground nut

As just mentioned, if you are having lunch together with some people, it is not only highly likely, but 100% certain that everyone gets his meal at different times. In the average, at least one or two people have already finished eating when others are about to start. The reason is fairly obvious. There are dishes that take longer to cook like chicken or matoke and others, which are already prepared and just need to be reheated like fish-head-soup. To bridge these differences in time and to be able to bring all orders simultaneously, the kitchen needs organisation – something that is impossible for members of staff and even the owner.

Really annoying is if the restaurant runs out of some ingredients and can´t serve certain dishes. What one could expect when ordering a dish, which can´t be served this very day is to get informed about it. But most of the time, the waitress doesn´t even know what dishes are or are not available as there is no communication between kitchen and service team. The only way for a customer to find that out is to order, wait and see what happens. If your ordered chicken doesn´t come after some twenty minutes you will know it was already over and you can either leave or choose something else.

AND most importantly, you´ll have to keep fingers and legs crossed before entering a restaurant that you won´t have a power cut during your visit.                                         Finally, you pay the bill, go for some shopping and come back after half an hour to get your change as you NEVER get it faster than 15 minutes after payment.                              But how can someone complain when two or three euros are enough for a decent and quite tasty meal in a restaurant.

Food

a bunch of matoke

The majority in the slum can´t afford a great variety of food; so it is mostly matoke for breakfast, matoke for lunch and ….. what´s your guess?? If it was matoke for dinner, than you were absolutely right.                                                   Although meat, fish and fruits are theoretically available their prices lie far beyond peoples spending power. The same accounts for juice, milk and other groceries that are considered to be essential in Western countries.                                  The World Food Programme estimated the malnutrition rate in some areas to over 18% in some areas in August 2004.

Out of my limited view and experience, these numbers appear to be far too low as almost all of my pupils show clear signs of food related problems and diseases. On the average, I would dare to claim that their stage of development is up to three years behind Western standards and seventeen-year-old, mature pupils look according to height, weight and general physique like our fourteen-year-old kids.

more matoke bananas

matoke bananas on the streets

But back to matoke;): They sell it either as a big bunch, which is enough for about a week for a whole family, or as single bananas for a single meal. A matoke bag, which contains around five kilos, costs 1000 Ugandan Shilling (30 Cents) and is enough to get three to four people full – a really fair price.

example of a butcher

If you get sick of matoke but still want to eat cheaply, you can buy chapatti (like our pancakes, just thinner and with onions or carrots), samosa (little Teigtaschen filled with peas), bagaluga (a fried pastry of onions) or macron (spaghetti).

It is even possible to buy meat or fish, but as already mentioned, it is very expensive and terribly unsafe due to two reasons:

First, the meat lies completely uncovered or unprotected on some wooden boxes and hundreds of flies, other insects and sometimes even cockroaches are crawling all over it.    Second, the butchers are very poor – that´s why they often sell meat which can be one or two weeks old as they can´t afford to throw it away.                                                                             Even bottled water can be dangerous if you don´t check the expiry date. Out of my personal and quite painful experience, I can confirm: many people do sell expired water; so one always needs to be careful and vigilant when it comes to food or drinks. The safest way is to stick with matoke, noodles or rice to get the stomach full an plenty of coke for the calories.

sugar cane peeled and cut

Interesting is the most famous snack: sugar cane. It looks like and has almost the same consistency as a bamboo stick. After peeling the flesh tastes very fresh, juicy and sweat. Only disadvantage, it is hard as a stone and you need very good teeth to chew it.

a friend of mine cooking matoke

what everyone uses for cooking

view over the old taxi park in Kampala on a quiet day

Traffic is a major headache in and around Kampala. The streets (if you can call them like that) are extremely narrow, covered by uncountable potholes and generally in a very poor condition. There are no footpaths or anything similar, which means that all cyclists and pedestrians have to move on the side or directly on the street together with cars and trucks – a highly dangerous mixture.

view over a side street of the taxi park in Kampala

Furthermore, many streets don´t consist of concrete, but rather of loam or plain soil which is being washed away during the rain time. In every road there are about five to ten potholes (as deep as 30 centimetres) per 100 meter; so cars sometimes just change to the opposite lane when facing a deep pothole in order to avoid damages to the car or slowing down. But if they don´t check the oncoming traffic thoroughly, which happens very often, accidents are almost unavoidable.

the quite well dressed Transport Police. It is a miracle how they can keep their white uniform clean despite all the dust and dirt on the streets.

To complete the picture, there are neither rules, traffic lights nor any similar concept of controlling the traffic that anyone is following or abiding (traffic lights exist in some areas, but are being ignored by almost everyone), except of the “Transport Police”, whose authority is unquestionable. Although they occasionally make attempts to regulate the traffic or care for safety, their main, but obviously unofficial function seems to be to stop vehicles, check them for violations against transport safety in order to get some “extra money” out of it and not to actually improve or keep the level of safety. If you thought of the “Transport Police” as an honest and fair regulator or responsible to assure a fluent and accident-free traffic, you were wrong.

boda bodas and taxis close to the footbal stadion

Average bribes, excuse me, I wanted to say fees, are 10.000/3€ for not having a spare tire in the back, 50.000/15€ for a damaged or not properly working indicator and up to 150.000/50€ for driving without a valid drivers licence.      On top, there are so many guys driving either without a licence or if they have one like maniacs. Even in streets with barely enough space for two lines, which are additionally narrowed by uncountable cyclists and pedestrians, cars are driving as fast as 70km/h. Almost everywhere motorcyclists are trying to get through the tiniest gap between cars and often cause accidents as the car driver can´t see them approaching.

bicycle carrying sugar canes

As a pedestrian it is a sheer nightmare and sometimes a matter of minutes to cross a street since there are no traffic lights and cars are neither stopping nor at least slowing down.

A friend of mine recently shared his experiences with deadly accidents in the outskirts of Kampala with me; in the following paragraph I tried to describe the accident with some explanations as he told me it occurred.                                                                                                    It was a narrow street, absolutely overcrowded with pedestrians and a couple of motorcycles. In Europe the speed limit would probably have been 30km/h or even less, but all the guys were driving with 60km/h and even more. Instead of slowing down and passing the pothole on the left side as it should be done, the driver decided to simply change the lane in order to avoid the slowing down. Unfortunately, there was a motorcyclist on this very lane which he didn´t see; so the guy hit the breaks in the last second, turned the steering wheel around and crashed almost unbraked in a girl, which was standing on the side of the street. The girl got hit by the bonnet, flew some five metres through the air and crashed against a little hut. She laid motionless on the side, but the driver just looked out of the window at her, got back on the street and kept on driving as though as nothing had happened. No one made an attempt to stop him or write down the number plate, just a few people approached the girl and had a look whether she was still alive or not.                                                                                                                                 Although I cannot confirm the truth of the story, it sounds quite believable, especially if you have witnessed the way people drive and behave for a few weeks.                        Furthermore, I was told and read in the newspapers that deadly accidents happen several times a week and are nothing uncommon – apparently and typical for here, no one can be bothered to change the system or tighten the security.

Public Transport

taxi got stuck in the mud during a rainy day. The driver and conductor are trying to get the car out. It took them five minutes.

Well, now to the public transport: Unlike in Europe, there is no major private or state-owned company that provides public transport in form of buses, trams or trains. It is rather a huge assembly of little, privately run businesses with one or two vans (have a look at the pictures) that provide transport services to other people. Only in Kawempe there are already some 200 operators in business, who basically all offer the same service for more or less similar prices. But as far as I know, there is no communication between the single operators. Nor do they seem to have an interest or will in forming an effective collaboration in order to lower the costs or to operate certain routes together to avoid half full taxis – again, organising seems to be the barrier. In case there is a collaboration that I am not aware of, it is definitely malfunctioning!

the interior of a half full taxi. The picture was taken from the back seat.

In general, there are three ways of transportation within short distances; all of them need to be registered and approved by the government, but are being operated independently.

First are the local mini buses which have about the same size as a VW-Bus, but they fit up to 20 people in there (although it is officially only approved to carry 14 passengers) as soon as the police is not around. Especially in remote areas the mini buses are terribly full and it is nothing unusual – even in Kampala – to have a stranger sitting on your lap. If you complain or want more space they will happily offer you to leave the taxi. Average fares (from Kawempe to Kampala which is about 7 kilometres) are just 500-1000 Shillings (20-40 Cents), but it can take up to 40 minutes thanks to the poor condition of the streets and an absolutely chaotic traffic regulation system.

boda boda carrying wood

Second are the so called boda-bodas, which are nothing else than motorcycles with a comfortable seat cushion at the back for carrying up to two or three people. But everyone advised me to avoid them if possible as they are very dangerous and many people get killed or seriously hurt thanks to their suicidal way of driving. Nevertheless, I have to use them from time to time if I am in a hurry or fed up of being squeezed into a tiny taxi. And I do agree, using boda-bodas is extremely unsafe.

regular day: cyclists are coming up the main street at 7am.

Third are just ten-year-old bicycles whose carrier is covered with a comfortable pillow on which up to two people can take a seat. With different words it is a boda-boda without fuel, slower and even more dangerous.                                                                                    Additionally, there are plenty of guys on the streets with an own car, offering private car hire. As they can pretend just to sit in the car for pleasure, boredom or whatever and can always claim to carry a friend and no customer, they can avoid  taxation and registration. Nevertheless, they are really expensive and not really worth the money.



husband, wife and their children

Since I came to Uganda, Mawanda (my host) went almost every week to another               wedding and I was told that this is nothing unusual.                                                                            There are mainly three reasons for so many weddings here:

1. With an average age of 15, Uganda is the youngest country in the whole world (Germany´s inhabitants in comparison have an average age of around 42). Additionally, it is absolutely normal to be engaged way before 18 and marry as soon as the law allows it.
2. Ugandan families as well as the birth-rate in whole Africa, but especially in Uganda, are ridiculously enormous. Mawanda for example has 7 sisters, 6 brothers and each of them have some 10 to 15 children again. Counting all together only the close family is already most likely to consist of a hundred members.
3. The invitation system is completely different to the European. If the bridal couple invites a friend of them they automatically invite his entire family as well. On top of that the guest normally invites a few more friends or some distant relatives to the wedding. Therefore, a single guest often shows up with some twenty to thirty people more than expected. If you have a big family and many friends you definitely will be invited at least once or twice a week to a wedding and it doesn´t even matter that you don´t know the bride´s name.

bridal couple

However, Mawanda invited me and Giles on a Sunday to a wedding in a southern suburb of Kampala. The house itself and the garden were absolutely beautiful and standing on top of the little hill next to the house, I had an amazing view over Lake Victoria, which is the largest lake in Africa and more than 300 times the size of the “Bodensee”.

As expected, the organisation was pretty chaotic and we were waiting for about half an hour to get a table and seat. The worst part was that there was neither toilet paper nor soap in the loo, but apparently no one could be bothered to do something about it.

well dressed security guard;) who was following me all the time while taking pictures

The wedding was supposed to start at 12; we arrived around 3pm and almost half of the other people came even after us – again, no one seemed to be bothered by this. With regular African delay and after most of the people were seated, the moderation and shortly afterwards the lengthy speeches started. As I already explained in an article before, there is and probably will never be an event without at least five to ten people having the urge to stand up and say something utterly important. Unfortunately for Giles and me, all the speeches were in Ugandan; so we were sitting at the table for almost 4 hours, more or less listening and getting terribly bored.

bored and a bit upset Briton

As far as I can judge, thanks to Mawandas occasional translations and some English words within the Ugandan verbiage, not just the length of the speeches is different, the content is as well.

one of Mawandas sisters and me

To be honest, I don´t have much experience with German or English weddings, but I doubt that someone will seriously spend 25 minutes to explain the importance of this very marriage, because it connects two important families and will improve the business (the bride´s father is head of an African bank and the husband his senior partner or something) without saying even one word about love, happiness or at least the couple itself.

Further comments like “now, that you are married, you should refrain from watching pornographic materials” or funny comparisons such as “marriage is like heaven – wonderful; and even if there are some bad and rainy days in heaven you would never regret to be there” were the only highlights in the speeches. The last speaker of the day considered it to be important to tell the bridal couple that a divorce would be a shame for the whole family and probably cause bad press for the bank. I got the feeling and it seems to be true that a marriage here is rather an issue of interest and advantage than love or affection.

Ugandan bin

little girl dancing with the professionals

Fortunately, the talking was occasionally interrupted by some dancing or singing, which kept Giles and me alive (the … dancer was our highlight of the wedding as he came very close to me and presented his impressive tummy openly;)) until the food was ready to be served. The wedding would have been the perfect opportunity to take some pictures or even a video of how people eat in Uganda, but I figured it might a bit too offensive. It is so funny to see these quite wealthy and dressed up people loading their plates with mountains of food and stuffing it in their mouths using fingers instead of cutlery. As soon as they finished eating, they were just throwing the rubbish on the grass and piling up the plates to get a clean table again.

well, the special dancer;)

Unfortunately, my camera broke down and the so called “camera repair service” in Kampala didn´t really fix the problem. That´s why many pictures are unsharp. The best part came at the end: After the husband gave the final speech for the evening, the music started and really everyone, regardless of age or weight, went to the front to dance and Ugandan people know very well how to dance;).

All in all, it was – apart from the speeches – quite an interesting and nice experience, but I think one Ugandan wedding was enough for me;);).

The HIV/AIDS teacher Zeirau showing yummy pictures of STDs on my laptop

Unfortunately, HIV/AIDS is still a major problem in Uganda and especially in slum areas like Kawempe the infection rate is estimated to be almost around 50 percent.

The most important and obvious reason for this is a lack of education. While we are being taught biology, sexual awareness and everything related to our health in school or receive this knowledge through our parents (who have learned it in school as well), many people here can´t afford school. What HIV/AIDS is, how it is transmitted or even the simplest things like personal hygiene, cleanliness and simple metabolic processes in everyone´s body are simply unknown.

Zeirau talking in front of the local teenagers

If someone in the western world says “you can get rid of HIV by drinking a lot of gin”, it will sound absolutely ridiculous to us and we will probably laugh. But the only reason for our reasonable reaction is that we were blessed to get an education in school providing us with a profound knowledge in these fields.

To see how desperate the situation concerning HIV/AIDS was until some years ago, one just needs to look at common opinions in high political positions throughout Africa, whose opinion towards HIV/AIDS problems was that people can simply get rid of it by “taking a hot shower” or that HIV infection is solely a problem of the heterosexual and drug addicts.

everyone is listening carefully

That is why HCFA had the idea of hiring professional teachers in fields like HIV/AIDS, STDs (Sexually Transmitted Diseases) and personal hygiene in order to tackle the problem by raising the public awareness.                                                                                                    Last week we had the first seminar and the teacher was extremely good. Thanks to a lot of jokes and personal demonstrations (he demonstrated for example how boys try to scratch their private zone secretly without other people seeing it, like putting the hands in the pockets and start scratching inconspicuously;=);)), all the students had fun, overcame their shyness and even started to ask very private questions which they had on their minds. The best part is that all of them understood the dangers and problems, partly thanks to some very disgusting pictures about STD´s, and will tell their friends about what they have learned.

Rhamscha enjoying her new blanket

me during the distribution

Thanks to serveral donations all over the world, HCFA was able to finance this big meeting and the presents for the beneficieries.                                       On top, I have recently written two articles over HCFA´s work here in Kawempe, Kampala and send them out to some potential donors in England. Fortunately, I managed to get a couple  of donations which we used to buy some school books, a football and about 10 HIV seminares.

me surrounded by little beneficieries

All organisers lined up. From the left to the right: my headmistress, Mawanda, the Member of Parliament, me, the HIV seminar speaker, volunteer Giles

Mawanda organised a big meeting with all our beneficiaries and even the local Member of Parliament Richard showed up during the distribution and gave a good speech about the importance of education. We made a pretty good impression on him; that´s why he gave us his contact information and mailed us afterwards that we shall not hesitate to contact him in case we need anything – that´s great for the organisation as we can now advertise with having a Member of Parliament as supporter. I have had a few words and at the end of the distribution a brief interview with Richard. He seems like a very polite, honest and sincere person who stands up for his people in Kawempe North District. I was truly impressed by his life story: he grew up as a slum kid and worked 14 hours every day to save enough money in order to finance his primary and secondary education and finally even university. It was a long way for him to the Parliament and he knows exactly what these people here are missing tries everything to improve their life.

Rhamschas mother thanking me for the blanket

little kids go crazy and fight for the last pencils

me and Giles preparing the distribution

The meeting itself was typical Ugandan. People were supposed to come at 10am. At around 10:30 the main organiser was still not there and only 5 out of 60 people had shown up. It took some 2 hours more until everyone arrived and we could start the big show. In Uganda, people seem to love giving a lot and lengthy speeches. Only for distributing 20 blankets, some pencils and books, Mawanda, the co-organiser, the Member of Parliament and some other people had to give a speech – in the end it took almost two more hours of talking and giving speeches until we could finally start what we actually all came for. The parents were really happy to get the blankets and the children were so excited and eager to get a pencil that they were jumping in the air to even grab them out of my hands. It was a pretty rough competition as we did not have enough for everyone. One picture shows how I am surrounded by some 15 children who are all stretching their arms towards me to get the last donations. For the people here a pencil or a book means a lot; they already struggle to raise the school fees every term and for most parents the money for pencils and books is simply missing so that even in my school a few children need to borrow writing materials from “richer” neighbours.

Richard (the Member of Parliament), Giles and me during the interview

group photo of all our beneficieries with the three of us in the back

Fortunately and despite some problems (a few parents complaint very rudely afterwards because they considered our decision whom to give the blankets as unfair and demanded to get more for themselves; but we did have a fair system as families who got a blanket received less pencils and books and we didn´t have money for more. Well, poverty doesn´t mean that there is no greed), the meeting was a great success and we even managed to get an article about us in the local newspaper;). But most importantly the children were very happy about the “presents” and had a lot of fun. As soon as the next donation comes in we will be able to buy urgently needed teaching materials for the students (we are missing a lot of teaching books in my school so that neither the students nor me have any governmental guidance or information about what needs to be taught).

Richard the MP distributing books and pencils

me teaching P7

me teaching P7

head mistress, me, Mawanda and the headmaster

Fortunately, there are plenty of slum schools close to where I live, but I decided to go to one that is a bit further away (about half an hour walking) as I met the headmaster and he was a very friendly and organised man for Ugandan standards;).

The school is called Starlight Express Primary School and has currently around 250 pupils in classes ranging from baby class (around 3 years old) up to P7 (from 14-17 years old) – classes in Uganda are not organised by age but rather by ability.

my P4 class

me leaving my P4´s

classroom from inside

Regardless whether university or primary and secondary school – everything in Uganda costs money and that is the reason why most of the slum kids are not able to get an education. The average fee in Starlight express school for an educational year for a child is around 200 Euro. In relation to the parent´s monthly income of about 50 Euro this is a small fortune and very difficult to save.

The positive side is that both the children and the parents consider education as the most precious and important thing; that means the children actually love going to and want to go to school. They never want to leave earlier, always do their homework and even beg to get more the next time – they even use their break to finish some tasks. Incredible for me as a former pupil in Germany: the teacher is respected. I am being addressed as Sir or Mister Thess and if a pupil wants to say something, he stands up, if I ask them to do something it is being done immediately without any discussion and every time the board is filled with my notes one of my students stands up and cleans it for me. The most funny thing is that they even take my bag, book and everything I am carrying and ask whether they can do anything else for me.

I have never seen pupils studying so focused and concentrated and being so keen on learning more. But they are, of course, still little devils as soon as I leave the room;) and try to mess up everything or play tricks on each other.

By the way, in Uganda it is still common to beat pupils with a wooden stick or with the hand if they don´t obey. While the headmaster and some teachers do that all day long, me and some other teachers rather leave it with hard words – funnily, most of the pupils seem to enjoy the “punishment”.

assembly in the morning

kids dancing at the assembly

A regular school day starts at 7 in the morning and ends for P6 and lower classes at 4:30pm and for the higher classes at 6pm.     In the morning they have an assembly, which means all classes line up in the school ground and dance+sing for one hour. The assembly ends with a speech of the headmaster. But lately I have to give the speeches telling them how important education is and how grateful they should be for their parents+teachers for making education possible. After that the first lessons start and go until 10:30; than everyone gathers for breakfast. Some more lessons are from 11 until 1:30, followed by lunch and playtime. At around 2:30 the classes P6 and lower have their final lesson (finishing at around 4 to 4:30) while P7 and the exam class need to stay for at least an additional hour in order to prepare them for their final exam.

P2s having fun at the assembly

little kids havin fun

Rachel dancing the assembly dance

At the moment I am teaching P5 (my favourite class) in Math and English in the           morning and after break I am teaching P7 in Social Science (a mixture of History,          Philosophy and Geography) until 12:30. The kids learn amazingly fast and I have a lot  of fun with them. In case I get bored by teaching I am just chatting with them about     Ugandan and German life – is quite interesting to get to know Uganda out of their         views. While P7 is quite difficult to teach as there are about 5 boys in their troublesome  teens and always try to disturb the lesson or impress each other, P5 is my angel class      and it makes so much fun to teach them everyday.                                                             Yesterday 4 of my P5 students wrote me an amazing thank-you-letter and how they      enjoy the lessons – was very touching.

football team photo

in the middle of the game

Most of the pictures show the inside of the school, the assembly and the last pics depict me and Giles in a football match with our classes which we organised after school – my class won;);) more or less.

me about to kick the ball

Häuser gegenüber von meiner Unterkunft

Angry cow looking at Kenny

sheep walking along the street on my way to school

I am staying in the middle of the biggest slum around Kampala named Kawempe District. Most people here have neither access to clean water nor electricity and are living of about 2500 Ugandan Shillings(about 1 Euro) a day. The houses, if you could call them like that, are made of a mixture of wood, rusty metal and plastic bags and are being washed away as soon as rain time comes. All the life takes place along the “main street” and both garbage and small and big businesses are just being dumped along the street. The air is extremely thick and toxic thanks to the thousands of 30year old cars, the smell of the small and big businesses in the streets and the Slum way of waste disposal (making a fire and putting everything like plastic bags and bottles right into it). But frankly I have already gotten used to it – that can´t be healthy.

When crossing the streets you need to be extremely careful not to get killed by the cars, motorcycles or even bulls, cows and goats which are walking all over the streets and close to houses.

In comparison to the surrounding my accommodation is almost royal. I do have, except if the power and water supply crack down which happens about 4-5 hours every day, access to electricity and water. My room is very comfortable although I have to share it with ants, mosquitoes, cockroaches and other yummy insects.

local dumping ground - also called river

little kids having fun with Mzungu

Kenny in fron of our local neighbourhood

me walking along the "main road"

Mawanda leading us through Kawempe

girl posing in the streets for the Mzungus

The only problem is food. As meat and fish are too expensive for them they eat either     matoke(made of steamed green plantains) or rice with tomatoes. That´s why I woke     up with an empty and itchy stomach every morning. But now I know where we can      buy good and most importantly clean fish and chicken and some other things and the    hunger time is over. Although it is still difficult to eat properly as this store is far away    and fridges do not work properly. So most of the time we go back to matoke an  rice. By the time I come back I will probably have lost a few pounds.                                              Restaurants by the way are another story;).

]]> http://sebastianthess.wordpress.com/2010/06/10/the-area-and-accomodation/feed/ 0 sebastianthess local neighbourhood animals on the streets 3 animals on the streets 1 VLUU L100, M100 / Samsung L100, M100 local streetkids having fun with Muzungu kenny in front of our neighbourhood streets after rain local area 2 backyard with posing girl