Volunteering
Well, I've now been here for a month and a half and have so much to tell. I'll have to break it down into smaller sections so as not to bore you all. I guess I should start with some of the volunteering activities that I have been doing.
Currently the children are off from school for a month, so there is a new classroom being built and I have been doing some plastering around the windows and doors, painting walls and removing the scaffolding after the builders had finished building the new classroom. The bricks are made of a mixture of mud, sand and cement and are not as long standing as bricks in the UK. They have a life of about twenty years and then any structures tend to be repaired using mud, sand and cement or demolished and rebuilt.
I have also been doing computer classes with teenagers. At the high schools they learn how to use a computer from a book, but they rarely get the opportunity to actually use one as the schools often can't afford them. When they arrive on the first day of training, they struggle to use the mouse and can't find the correct key on the keyboard. But they pick it up very quickly, so that by the second or third day they are managing to use the mouse properly and use 2 hands to type.
I have also created enrollment forms, register and school accounts to help the school manager and teachers run the school better. Since I have arrived, the number of pupils has risen rapidly from about 60 to over 100 and they were struggling to monitor what children had enrolled, what they were supposed to be paying and what had already been paid. The standard fee for a term is 25,000 shilling (Less then £10) which includes posho (maize) porridge at about 10am and a free school uniform, although some of the poorer families and orphans are paying less or being sponsored. You can check on the Uganda Lodge website if you are interested in sponsoring.
The most fun though has been playing with the children. The age range is about 4 – 7 although some are older including a 12 year old. A few times I've taken a football and tried to organise a game where I'm the goalkeeper and they've got to try and score past me, although this usually ends in chaos as they seem more intent on climbing all over me and swinging on my arms, I think at one point and had about 6 swinging on me!
Some of the tasks for the next few weeks includes building some playground furniture, completing the school enrollment policy, more painting, some general repairs and computer classes.
