A Prelude to Scholarship…

G’day to my loyal followers! We have all been so busy lately, and are still having an amazing time out here in Uganda, so let me try and give you some of the highlights…

Yesterday I went and collected Paul from ASCO, because we were about to embark on an epic journey to show him around Lords Meade, and see if he likes it before my family sponsor him. He took me on a tour of the market as we bought him a new set of clothes for his tour – it makes a big difference, because the children feel very uncomfortable in their dirty clothes in any social situation other than with their friends (I guess we all count as their friends, because they have no qualms with jumping all over us, play-fighting and trying to detach our fingers from our hands). The kids all call us uncles and aunts, and I enjoyed being the magnanimous uncle as I took Paul to see Lords Meade. He was so proud as he paraded around the market with a growing pile of brand new clothes in his hands, and was grinning from ear to ear by the time I got him back to the guest house to take a shower and change. When I complimented his flip flops, he thanked me, then wordlessly took me on an adventure into some district of Jinja I’d never seen before to get me a matching pair! They’re made from recycled car tires, and I now feel like a local. For a while we hung out at the guest house and ate cookies, drank cokes, watched TV to make him feel comfortable, as I knew he’d be nervous about going to see a new school. When we eventually reached Lords Meade, he was initially apprehensive, but that soon faded away after we went and got a massive takeaway samosa order from the canteen and embarked on the tour… He was overawed by the football grounds, classrooms, assembly hall, and the sheer size of the place!!! I was able to get Thomas (Paul’s best friend, who Rachel sponsored last week to join Lords Meade) out of his lesson, (major uncle points there) to come on the tour with us, and the boys both chatted away happily as we checked out the rest of the school.

 

 

Paul admitted that before he saw the school, he thought it was not very good, but he was totally surprised by the reality of Lords Meade and would absolutely love to go! Hopefully we are going to get him enrolled on Saturday, and he will experience his first lesson next week on Monday. The whole project is proving to be such a success!

 

On Tuesday we had a majorly awesome choir rehearsal with the fledgling young voices of Lords Meade

 

 

The photo there shows about half of the choir members – we were in full flow with a four-part canon at the time, and the students are proving very responsive to our coaching! Many of them play african drums, which we are hoping to incorporate into a performance sometime, as well as some western contemporary & street dance coached by Marianne. Even the students are getting involved – a young man called Zachary had composed an amazing song, sung in Luganda (the local native language). He has begun teaching the song to the choir, and frankly, it put our “Frere Jacque” to shame – we’re going to have to step our game up!

 

Back at the guest house, we’ve been playing some rather amusing American Football… with a rugby ball, in a garden barely big enough to fit a car into… All part of the GI philosphy! The girls were all very keen to take on the lads, which didn’t end well for them. Although, of course, they did win, according to them. Why? Did they get more points? No. They JUST WON.

Here you can see our improvised goalposts, with Dom doing a traditional African dance in order to protect himself from the unpredictable kicking habits of the ladies.

 

 

In other news… The Busoga Trust Bistro is still operating at a premium level, churning out such delicacies as enchiladas, shepherds pie and risotto, as well as the slightly more adventurous/vomitworthy “At Ease” (Apples filled with cheese and topped with a mystery spice) and a “Fish & Chips” dinner which turned out to be the ultimate car crash – we squeezed the lemons Dom provided onto the fish and found out they were oranges, then discovered that the gas had run out halfway through the cooking and half the group woke up the next morning with food poisoning!!! Excellent!

 

More next time… peace out.