We have been stuck in, and 'suffering', the very hospitable and comfortable Airport Guesthouse in Entebbe since Thursday 16th April, when we were expecting to fly back to the UK after a very wonderful and successful visit to Masindi, Uganda.
The manager Paul and his lovely staff Annet, Teddy, Medad, Abby, Florence, Jacob, Patrick, Nelson, 2 labradors, a cat and a marauding guinea fowl have made us so welcome and have cared for us all so kindly while we, Lynne and Ronnie, struggled and stressed about how to get everybody home.
The group has been 'interesting' in the most fortunate and happy ways; Mark 1, an ex-VSO specialist in English as a second language; Mark 2, a teacher visiting his linked school, Kirasa Muslim Primary School, Judith and Hazel, visiting their linked school Kisindizi 2; Jodie, a scenic artist and painter and her friend Sylvia, a dancer; Suresh, an educationalist from London Met. University; Fiona, a special needs specialist; Sheena and Lynn who run a children's centre in Greenwich; Di, ex-head and B&B queen from Shropshire; Annette, IT consultant + Ronnie and Lynne, advisory teacher of the deaf and headteacher respectively.
So how has our time been together?
While staying at the New Court View Hotel in Masindi, all have spent many days in schools, some following up the shared programmes with their linked schools, others supporting Redearth in its work, like Mark 1, who visited many schools where teachers who had been trained last year were being observed and monitored by Lynne, Ronnie and Di. His input and advice have been invaluable.
Fiona worked in a school, Kamurasi, with a significant proportion of children with severe special needs, both learning and physical, deaf and blind. Her contribution an reports are very helpful to us.
Jodie painted a whole school exterior,2 coulours (royal blue and gold!...you had to be there...chosen by the school to mimic the uniform colours) complete with educational graphic designs, biological AND geographic among others, on the outside walls, an amazing feat.
Sylvia bought the beauty and skills of contemporary dance to the children in a school, who were enthralled and tremendously enthuiastic to learn these new steps and routines. The video of their end-of-fornight performance needs to be seen to be believed...wonderful!
Sheena and Lynn visited nursery schools in and around Masindi Town accompanied by Joan, an excellent local CCT.
Everyone has been immersed and bathed in the warmth of the welcome and friendship of the people we met.
REDEARTH Programme
This visit has been extremely significant due to the impact and change we have seen in the schools of our trainees. Mark Smith (Educational Consultant) accompanied us as we observed the 18 teachers in the 9 schools. He commented how impressed he was at the level of active learning, engagement of pupils, group work, quality of pupil talk among other things. Fiona McRobbie, Special Needs specialist who visited schools both with and without REDEARTH trainees commented:
XXXX School has Red Earth trained teachers and the classes are used to working in groups and using dialogue to support and engage children in active learning. YYYY School has no Red Earth trained teachers and uses whole class drill and rote methods where the children are predominantly passive learners. It is my opinion that it was this difference in teaching methodology that enabled the children in XXXX School to readily access the use of non-fiction books for independent learning.
We ourselves were pleased with the progress teachers had made and the impact which was evident in some of their schools. This view is endorsed by the local CCT’s (Co-ordinating Centre Tutors) and the local inspectorate with whom Mark Smith had in depth discussions.
The following week we travelled by the LINK BUS to Kampala, some 31/2 hours away, a journey of extremely fast driving, swarms of food and drink sellers at every junction waving their wares at the bus windows and a video of TERMINATOR, not dubbed, but accompanied by a very loud and excitable narrator of the story line in the local language.
We were there to deliver a different programme in association with another NGO, Ka Tutandike, who had asked us to devise and run a programme, ‘Reading for Pleasure’, following their attendance at our training in Masindi last summer (2009). This entailed one day of observation and fact finding in the 3 schools involved. (These were based in Kampala). This was followed by an introductory day of training in the teaching of reading with reference to the thematic curriculum which has been introduced in Uganda in classes P1 to P3. The course was attended by 21 people comprising teachers, local teacher trainers, CCTs and Ka Tutandike representatives
The location was lovely, about an hour and a half from Kampala in a lush, rural setting at the end of a very bumpy ride through a tropical rainstorm! We prepared the hall, and ourselves, for the course, before relaxing, having dinner and sleeping overnight in beautifully appointed bandas.
We all enjoyed the training day immensely; Christine, the CEO and Esther, the project manager from the Ka Tutandike office in Kampala, were delighted with the way it went. We will be building on this day with further training in August and October, 2010.
And what else? Over the 2 weekends we spent here, Masindi, Uganda served us up feast of fantastic experiences.
Butiaba...... a fishing village on Lake Albert, where people eke out a life as they have for generations on the banks of this enormous body of water bordering the Congo. As we pulled up near the beach, a young man hurried out to us with the village visitors' book for us all to sign; it had not been signed since 2009.
The village rests in the Rift Valley, whose towering escarpment we slowly descended in our minibus, where the spectacular views of Africa at her most expansive and beautiful were laid at our feet. The fishermen were cleaning and drying their nets in preparation for the night fishing, while women and children collected water from the lake, some of the children unable to resist playing and splashing in the water.
Murchison falls...... where we first travelled by boat upstream on the majestic Nile, to within a few metres of wallowing families of hippopotomi, crocodiles, buffalo, elephants, numerous buck, warthogs, birds of a hundred varieties and astounding vegetation. Then when the falls were a distant misty image the entire intrepid 14 'lithely bounded'' off the boat's prow onto a rocky ledge that was the start of a hike to the top of the falls themselves.
Elf'n'safety? Naah
It was hot. It got hotter. Then there was a vocabulary shortage for how hot it was. The girls got pinker and redder, the boys became pinker and pretended all was well as we gradually climbed and neared the roaring, tumultuous torrent of water, the entire Nile, as it crashes through a 4m crack in the rocks before plummeting chaotically to the foot of the falls. At the top, we allowed ourselves to be soothed by the fine, cool spray that shone around the falls in the late afternoon sun.
Overnight camp..... in tents and thatched mud huts (bandas) under skies that were unimaginably starry, the milky way stretching like a celestial highway across the heavens. Awesome in every sense of the word. Wonderful food, traditional music and dancing by local children and adults, the sounds of the African night rustling, chirruping and grunting all around us. Wonderful. Not everyone slept. Many of the shrieks and night calls were obviously human and definitively European, eg. the lesser freckled giggling Londoner, or the shiny headed nocturnal snorer, but all agreed...wonderful, wonderful.
Up at 5, breakfast, into the vehicles and off to the Murchison Falls National Park for a 'game drive'.
The game drive.
I have been here many times but have never experienced the luck we all shared this time.
Within minutes of leaving the ferry across the River Nile, and entering the savannah grasslands north of the river, LION were spotted; they were still hunting and were stalking the beautiful Uganda cob, a deer, almost oblivious to our hushed presence nearby in their concentration. We continued and.....MORE lions, males and females, young and mature...in total we saw 9 lions in 4 different locations. Later, a leopard slipped down from its lair in a tree as we approached, before merging with the vegetation and long grass; a clear and very rare sighting. There were elephant, gorgeous 'forests' of giraffe gracefully grazing on the acacia, a snake coiled across the track in front of our car, bee-eaters, weaver birds, fish eagles, king fishers, herons, storks, hornbills...the list is endless; all of us were buzzing with the satisfaction that we had seen the wildlife we most wanted to see.
Back to the camp for lunch. elated and full of excited conversation.
The eventful journey to the salt pans and hot springs.....
It started out conventionally enough, a puncture for one of the 3 vehicles 30km from the nearest garage in the middle of a game park passed without much excitement; we were all hardened 'safari' types by now.
After about 4 hrs we re-entered Butiaba by Lake Albert. I had hinted to the others at the type of transport that would take us further where 4 wheel drive could not go.
But the mixture of anticipation, terror, uncertainty and excitement on my friends' faces as they saw 14 motorcycles roar up to where we were waiting...............
We mounted up and set of, helmeted, like so many hells angels, some of a certain age, and one bike immediately sprung a puncture. Somehow the message got to the front of the long line of bikes and we turned back.
1/2 an hour later it was fixed and we had acquired another bike as a 'spare', just in case!
Off again. Narrow goat tracks, through bushes, along elevated ridges, through ditches, over rocks and bumps, steep, short climbs, sudden drops over ledges...the expert riders threaded their way in single file across the parched and scrubby landscape.
After an hour or so we stopped by a river where it entered the lake, where I had been told a 'ferry' would transport us all across the river.
I was NOT told that it was one man and a leaky canoe that took either 2 motorcycles that had to be bodily lifted into the little boat, or 5 passengers not both, while the 'ferryman' physically PUSHED the canoe across the current , wading waist deep in the flowing water.
It was hot.
It took a long time
The river was a muddy turmoil of long horn cattle drinking and mooing, children running in and out, splashing and playing, shrieking and laughing, women washing clothes...like a medieval picture with motorcycles and helmets..surreal.
We were finally on our way again after about 45 minutes; weaving through villages that had never experienced such a sight, in the shadow of the sheer escarpment rising high above us.
Upon reaching our destination at the hot springs and removing our helmets, everyone, including the pristine Annette and elegant Sheena, were covered from head to foot in dust and grit, our faces masks of brown grime, a mix of dirt and sweat, that had collected under our helmets...and no one cared...we looked like a slightly suspect bunch of ageing dirt track riders who had brought Jodie and Sylvia along in case we became confused. The surprise and laughter lasted many minutes, it took some moments to recognise one another.
There is more, perhaps for another time +photos
Now we are here, in Entebbe.
Last night we celebrated Suresh's birthday at dinner, in the country of his birth.
He spent the entire day, apart from a short, compulsory attendance at a local inter-school cricket game, in the kitchen! teaching Medad and Abby to create the authentic Indian curry. It was delicious; chicken, aubergine boats, rice, chappattis, vegetables, a masterpiece!
He even went with me in the morning to the local market to buy all the ingredients.
Happy birthday, Suresh.
Throughout our time here together, a repeated refrain has been, 'Where's Suresh?' At least today we all knew exactly where he was.
I have just come back from the airport with Lynne where we hoped to speak to the BA, KLM, Brussels airways about alternative ways of getting home to UK, but it seems thay had such a busy day yesterday dealing with stranded passengers that they have gone for a nap. The time is 3.30pm.
Maybe they will be back later....or tomorrow?
The group has been 'interesting' in the most fortunate and happy ways; Mark 1, an ex-VSO specialist in English as a second language; Mark 2, a teacher visiting his linked school, Kirasa Muslim Primary School, Judith and Hazel, visiting their linked school Kisindizi 2; Jodie, a scenic artist and painter and her friend Sylvia, a dancer; Suresh, an educationalist from London Met. University; Fiona, a special needs specialist; Sheena and Lynn who run a children's centre in Greenwich; Di, ex-head and B&B queen from Shropshire; Annette, IT consultant + Ronnie and Lynne, advisory teacher of the deaf and headteacher respectively.
So how has our time been together?
While staying at the New Court View Hotel in Masindi, all have spent many days in schools, some following up the shared programmes with their linked schools, others supporting Redearth in its work, like Mark 1, who visited many schools where teachers who had been trained last year were being observed and monitored by Lynne, Ronnie and Di. His input and advice have been invaluable.
Fiona worked in a school, Kamurasi, with a significant proportion of children with severe special needs, both learning and physical, deaf and blind. Her contribution an reports are very helpful to us.
Jodie painted a whole school exterior,2 coulours (royal blue and gold!...you had to be there...chosen by the school to mimic the uniform colours) complete with educational graphic designs, biological AND geographic among others, on the outside walls, an amazing feat.
Sylvia bought the beauty and skills of contemporary dance to the children in a school, who were enthralled and tremendously enthuiastic to learn these new steps and routines. The video of their end-of-fornight performance needs to be seen to be believed...wonderful!
Sheena and Lynn visited nursery schools in and around Masindi Town accompanied by Joan, an excellent local CCT.
Everyone has been immersed and bathed in the warmth of the welcome and friendship of the people we met.
REDEARTH Programme
This visit has been extremely significant due to the impact and change we have seen in the schools of our trainees. Mark Smith (Educational Consultant) accompanied us as we observed the 18 teachers in the 9 schools. He commented how impressed he was at the level of active learning, engagement of pupils, group work, quality of pupil talk among other things. Fiona McRobbie, Special Needs specialist who visited schools both with and without REDEARTH trainees commented:
XXXX School has Red Earth trained teachers and the classes are used to working in groups and using dialogue to support and engage children in active learning. YYYY School has no Red Earth trained teachers and uses whole class drill and rote methods where the children are predominantly passive learners. It is my opinion that it was this difference in teaching methodology that enabled the children in XXXX School to readily access the use of non-fiction books for independent learning.
We ourselves were pleased with the progress teachers had made and the impact which was evident in some of their schools. This view is endorsed by the local CCT’s (Co-ordinating Centre Tutors) and the local inspectorate with whom Mark Smith had in depth discussions.
The following week we travelled by the LINK BUS to Kampala, some 31/2 hours away, a journey of extremely fast driving, swarms of food and drink sellers at every junction waving their wares at the bus windows and a video of TERMINATOR, not dubbed, but accompanied by a very loud and excitable narrator of the story line in the local language.
We were there to deliver a different programme in association with another NGO, Ka Tutandike, who had asked us to devise and run a programme, ‘Reading for Pleasure’, following their attendance at our training in Masindi last summer (2009). This entailed one day of observation and fact finding in the 3 schools involved. (These were based in Kampala). This was followed by an introductory day of training in the teaching of reading with reference to the thematic curriculum which has been introduced in Uganda in classes P1 to P3. The course was attended by 21 people comprising teachers, local teacher trainers, CCTs and Ka Tutandike representatives
The location was lovely, about an hour and a half from Kampala in a lush, rural setting at the end of a very bumpy ride through a tropical rainstorm! We prepared the hall, and ourselves, for the course, before relaxing, having dinner and sleeping overnight in beautifully appointed bandas.
We all enjoyed the training day immensely; Christine, the CEO and Esther, the project manager from the Ka Tutandike office in Kampala, were delighted with the way it went. We will be building on this day with further training in August and October, 2010.
And what else? Over the 2 weekends we spent here, Masindi, Uganda served us up feast of fantastic experiences.
Butiaba...... a fishing village on Lake Albert, where people eke out a life as they have for generations on the banks of this enormous body of water bordering the Congo. As we pulled up near the beach, a young man hurried out to us with the village visitors' book for us all to sign; it had not been signed since 2009.
The village rests in the Rift Valley, whose towering escarpment we slowly descended in our minibus, where the spectacular views of Africa at her most expansive and beautiful were laid at our feet. The fishermen were cleaning and drying their nets in preparation for the night fishing, while women and children collected water from the lake, some of the children unable to resist playing and splashing in the water.
Murchison falls...... where we first travelled by boat upstream on the majestic Nile, to within a few metres of wallowing families of hippopotomi, crocodiles, buffalo, elephants, numerous buck, warthogs, birds of a hundred varieties and astounding vegetation. Then when the falls were a distant misty image the entire intrepid 14 'lithely bounded'' off the boat's prow onto a rocky ledge that was the start of a hike to the top of the falls themselves.
Elf'n'safety? Naah
It was hot. It got hotter. Then there was a vocabulary shortage for how hot it was. The girls got pinker and redder, the boys became pinker and pretended all was well as we gradually climbed and neared the roaring, tumultuous torrent of water, the entire Nile, as it crashes through a 4m crack in the rocks before plummeting chaotically to the foot of the falls. At the top, we allowed ourselves to be soothed by the fine, cool spray that shone around the falls in the late afternoon sun.
Overnight camp..... in tents and thatched mud huts (bandas) under skies that were unimaginably starry, the milky way stretching like a celestial highway across the heavens. Awesome in every sense of the word. Wonderful food, traditional music and dancing by local children and adults, the sounds of the African night rustling, chirruping and grunting all around us. Wonderful. Not everyone slept. Many of the shrieks and night calls were obviously human and definitively European, eg. the lesser freckled giggling Londoner, or the shiny headed nocturnal snorer, but all agreed...wonderful, wonderful.
Up at 5, breakfast, into the vehicles and off to the Murchison Falls National Park for a 'game drive'.
The game drive.
I have been here many times but have never experienced the luck we all shared this time.
Within minutes of leaving the ferry across the River Nile, and entering the savannah grasslands north of the river, LION were spotted; they were still hunting and were stalking the beautiful Uganda cob, a deer, almost oblivious to our hushed presence nearby in their concentration. We continued and.....MORE lions, males and females, young and mature...in total we saw 9 lions in 4 different locations. Later, a leopard slipped down from its lair in a tree as we approached, before merging with the vegetation and long grass; a clear and very rare sighting. There were elephant, gorgeous 'forests' of giraffe gracefully grazing on the acacia, a snake coiled across the track in front of our car, bee-eaters, weaver birds, fish eagles, king fishers, herons, storks, hornbills...the list is endless; all of us were buzzing with the satisfaction that we had seen the wildlife we most wanted to see.
Back to the camp for lunch. elated and full of excited conversation.
The eventful journey to the salt pans and hot springs.....
It started out conventionally enough, a puncture for one of the 3 vehicles 30km from the nearest garage in the middle of a game park passed without much excitement; we were all hardened 'safari' types by now.
After about 4 hrs we re-entered Butiaba by Lake Albert. I had hinted to the others at the type of transport that would take us further where 4 wheel drive could not go.
But the mixture of anticipation, terror, uncertainty and excitement on my friends' faces as they saw 14 motorcycles roar up to where we were waiting...............
We mounted up and set of, helmeted, like so many hells angels, some of a certain age, and one bike immediately sprung a puncture. Somehow the message got to the front of the long line of bikes and we turned back.
1/2 an hour later it was fixed and we had acquired another bike as a 'spare', just in case!
Off again. Narrow goat tracks, through bushes, along elevated ridges, through ditches, over rocks and bumps, steep, short climbs, sudden drops over ledges...the expert riders threaded their way in single file across the parched and scrubby landscape.
After an hour or so we stopped by a river where it entered the lake, where I had been told a 'ferry' would transport us all across the river.
I was NOT told that it was one man and a leaky canoe that took either 2 motorcycles that had to be bodily lifted into the little boat, or 5 passengers not both, while the 'ferryman' physically PUSHED the canoe across the current , wading waist deep in the flowing water.
It was hot.
It took a long time
The river was a muddy turmoil of long horn cattle drinking and mooing, children running in and out, splashing and playing, shrieking and laughing, women washing clothes...like a medieval picture with motorcycles and helmets..surreal.
We were finally on our way again after about 45 minutes; weaving through villages that had never experienced such a sight, in the shadow of the sheer escarpment rising high above us.
Upon reaching our destination at the hot springs and removing our helmets, everyone, including the pristine Annette and elegant Sheena, were covered from head to foot in dust and grit, our faces masks of brown grime, a mix of dirt and sweat, that had collected under our helmets...and no one cared...we looked like a slightly suspect bunch of ageing dirt track riders who had brought Jodie and Sylvia along in case we became confused. The surprise and laughter lasted many minutes, it took some moments to recognise one another.
There is more, perhaps for another time +photos
Now we are here, in Entebbe.
Last night we celebrated Suresh's birthday at dinner, in the country of his birth.
He spent the entire day, apart from a short, compulsory attendance at a local inter-school cricket game, in the kitchen! teaching Medad and Abby to create the authentic Indian curry. It was delicious; chicken, aubergine boats, rice, chappattis, vegetables, a masterpiece!
He even went with me in the morning to the local market to buy all the ingredients.
Happy birthday, Suresh.
Throughout our time here together, a repeated refrain has been, 'Where's Suresh?' At least today we all knew exactly where he was.
I have just come back from the airport with Lynne where we hoped to speak to the BA, KLM, Brussels airways about alternative ways of getting home to UK, but it seems thay had such a busy day yesterday dealing with stranded passengers that they have gone for a nap. The time is 3.30pm.
Maybe they will be back later....or tomorrow?
