hey all! not much has happened since my last post, but i'll fill you in anyway.
the kids were meant to arrie yesterday at 1pm for the summer programme, which is basically free babysitting where we do games and fun activities with them. two kids turned up with their parents, who informed us that the kids wanted a break from school, so nobody will be coming until wednesday. that was a bit dissapointing, as i was starting to miss school since i havent done a full day for quite a while (many trips to hospital, and then gorillas) but at least i'll see them tomorrow.
yesterday afternoon i came into town for the internet and stuff, and then we went again in the evening for dinner at sky blue. we came early bacause they are evry slow there, but i was still full of chapattis from afternoon tea! (the decision to go to sky blue was spur of the moment) i had a small meal and it was so nice to have a change from the lodge food! when we had finished it was pitch black but also absolutely pissing down, so we got soaked trying to hail a cab. there was a driver at sky blue who offered to take us but he wanted 5000 per person! (it should be 1000, and thats the mzungu price!)
that morning when we had gone into town, 3 of us crammed onto a boda boda but on the way back i didnt want to do that because i always think it feels waaaay more unsafe, especially if you're at the back, i said i would get my own and follow the other 2 girls back. we both got bikes, and set off. my driver looked a bit funny, but i didnt think anything of it. about 30 seconds in, he named some town that i've never heard of, and i said no, its in ruhanga. (he had previously said he knew where he was going) on hearing this, he doubled the agreed price. i argued, but he wouldnt back down, so i told him to stop and i would find someone else. he refused to stop. i was bricking it. i shouted at him to stop NOW, as firmly as i could, but he laughed at me and kept going. we were still int he middle of town, and i was well prepared to make a fuss, but only as a last resort. i had an idea; i was holding onto his waist. i started pinching him. he stopped pretty quick. i jumped off and tried to hail another boda, while he shouted obscenities and gibberish at me. it was then that i came to the conclusion that he was a complete nutter. i got on the back of the other girls boda boda. it was definitely safer than my guy!
when we got back to the lodge after dinner last night, we were plunged into darkness by a power cut, which was very annoying. most of us went to bed really early just because there was nothing else to do.
not much else to say, except that some people are going on a 'hospital tour' this afternoon, which i think is a bit wrong, a bit like going on a slum tour in india, a bit too much like 'poorism' for me, and i've had enough experience of that place anyway. so many kids at school are ill, particularly with a fungal infection on their scalps, which turns out to be ringworm. i've caught it, i have it on my face and arm, it looks so gross. i feel like people are judging me in the street (more than they were already, that is!) but i got some stuff for it so hopefully it should go soon.
also, my shoes are missing. it's very annoying. i brought 2 pairs on new leather sandals with me that i like a lot, one brown, one black. the black pair have been missing for about a week. the brown pair, i wore yesterday, didnt even know they had gone, but today i saw restay, (the woman who cooks for us at the lodge) wearing them. i asked her where she got them, and she gestured vaugely in the direction of the bandas, and when i told her they were mine, and she noticed i wasnt wearing any shoes, she reluctantly handed them over. i'm a bit hurt that she did that, especially as she and the other staff regularly get donated clothes and stuff when people leave, and people often bring donations too. i'd happily give her my brown sandals when i leave, but while i'm here i need them! i thought i must have just been careless with my brown ones but now i'm starting to wonder if they have found their way home with a member of staff too. i now have the uncomfortable job of trying to track them down. they are my favourite shoes!
see you all in 2 weeks!!
Love, Lucy xxx
Showing posts with label hospital. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hospital. Show all posts
Tuesday, 16 August 2011
Monday, 15 August 2011
marriage and mad men
hey all!
not that much to tell today, a lot of people have left the lodge and i'm now alone in my room, which is nice on one level but crap on another level.
yesterday we attended a bit marriage ceremony which was held in the school playing fileds. its was beautiful and very posh. there were twelve wedding cakes! the family were clearly quite well off. there were fairy lights everywhere, and a bubble machine, and a dj. all of that was running off a very small generator! there were also several entertainers who were hilariously crap. there was a gospel choir (who mimed to a CD), two different solo singers (who mimed to CD's) and an 'acrobat' who was good but ran out of material after about 5 minutes.
the food was great, the 3 cows seemed so good after 5 weeks of not eating meat! there was not cutlery though, and it is considered rude to eat with both hands, you use your right hand for eating and your left hand for 'other things'. eating rice and mea and stuff with just one hand is hard work. perhaps the most difficult item were the chappatis, which needed to be torn into smaller bit and could then be used as a scoop for the rice. try tearing a piece of paper with one hand. its bloody impossible. had to use a sneaky finger on my left hand for that one, but i eventually got the hang of it.
they also served the disgusting millet drink that i had a georges engagement party, and some of the volunteers accepted a glass without knowing what it was. it was hilarious. there were a couple of hundred people at the wedding, so we didnt really have to worry about people noticing us daring eachother to drink it.
the little girl i took to hospital the other day is home now, after 2 nights on the childrens ward. one of the boys has been to visit her while i was seeing the gorillas and reported she seemed loads better which is good, and also brian's parents took him to hospital for an HIV test. i dont know the results, but i geuss it's not my business anymore.
yesterday at the wedding one of the girls brought me a child with a huge gash on his leg and asked me to take a look. he said he'd got it a week ago but it was still open and really looked like it needed stitches. it turns out he's the son of a member of staff at the lodge, but i doubt he'll ever get treatment for it. he's not a student at school, so he's not in my care, and so i have no right to take him for treatment. i find that sort of thing immensely frustrating. i'm told that here ilness is still sometimes thought to be the work of the devil, or may be a punishment for sins, so people are reluctant to seek treatment, fearing gods wrath. they also may relate it to witchcraft which is so ridiculous, but is still a crime here and is serverely punished. i'm told a child with HIV may be cast out of the family because they are blamed for bringing the disease on the family, despite the fact they would have caught it form the mother.
the summer programme at school starts today, so were arent allowed to use the blackboards (its illegal to educate the children during the holidays), or get them to write anything. it doesnt start till 1pm though, so we have a our mornings free from now on.
oh and the title... the local mad man turned up at the wedding. it was tragically funny.
love, Lucy xx
not that much to tell today, a lot of people have left the lodge and i'm now alone in my room, which is nice on one level but crap on another level.
yesterday we attended a bit marriage ceremony which was held in the school playing fileds. its was beautiful and very posh. there were twelve wedding cakes! the family were clearly quite well off. there were fairy lights everywhere, and a bubble machine, and a dj. all of that was running off a very small generator! there were also several entertainers who were hilariously crap. there was a gospel choir (who mimed to a CD), two different solo singers (who mimed to CD's) and an 'acrobat' who was good but ran out of material after about 5 minutes.
the food was great, the 3 cows seemed so good after 5 weeks of not eating meat! there was not cutlery though, and it is considered rude to eat with both hands, you use your right hand for eating and your left hand for 'other things'. eating rice and mea and stuff with just one hand is hard work. perhaps the most difficult item were the chappatis, which needed to be torn into smaller bit and could then be used as a scoop for the rice. try tearing a piece of paper with one hand. its bloody impossible. had to use a sneaky finger on my left hand for that one, but i eventually got the hang of it.
they also served the disgusting millet drink that i had a georges engagement party, and some of the volunteers accepted a glass without knowing what it was. it was hilarious. there were a couple of hundred people at the wedding, so we didnt really have to worry about people noticing us daring eachother to drink it.
the little girl i took to hospital the other day is home now, after 2 nights on the childrens ward. one of the boys has been to visit her while i was seeing the gorillas and reported she seemed loads better which is good, and also brian's parents took him to hospital for an HIV test. i dont know the results, but i geuss it's not my business anymore.
yesterday at the wedding one of the girls brought me a child with a huge gash on his leg and asked me to take a look. he said he'd got it a week ago but it was still open and really looked like it needed stitches. it turns out he's the son of a member of staff at the lodge, but i doubt he'll ever get treatment for it. he's not a student at school, so he's not in my care, and so i have no right to take him for treatment. i find that sort of thing immensely frustrating. i'm told that here ilness is still sometimes thought to be the work of the devil, or may be a punishment for sins, so people are reluctant to seek treatment, fearing gods wrath. they also may relate it to witchcraft which is so ridiculous, but is still a crime here and is serverely punished. i'm told a child with HIV may be cast out of the family because they are blamed for bringing the disease on the family, despite the fact they would have caught it form the mother.
the summer programme at school starts today, so were arent allowed to use the blackboards (its illegal to educate the children during the holidays), or get them to write anything. it doesnt start till 1pm though, so we have a our mornings free from now on.
oh and the title... the local mad man turned up at the wedding. it was tragically funny.
love, Lucy xx
Thursday, 11 August 2011
gorillas and getting admitted
just a very quick post today to elt you all know that i'm leaving for gorilla ntracking tonight, and i will be tracking tomorrow! so excited, and this was quite unexpected and sudden that we are going so soon!
i ended up at hospital today again, with a poor child who was so ill i'm not sure she'll make it through the night. she had a temperature of 40 degrees, a racing pulse, she was shaking and said she had a headache. she was breathing really shallowly and fast, and she refused to eat. her mother insisted she was fine, as did several other staff at the school. i took her to hospital and she was admitted fairly sharpish. i still fear she wont be there when i get back tomorrow.
her mother eventually came after a bit of persuading and being given the money for transport. she said she would come quickly to try and persuade the hospital to let her daughter out! its so frustrating that the parents of these children dont ever bring them for treatment, even when they are at deaths door.
that is all thats really being happening at my end, i'll post as soon as i get back from the gorillas and i've been to visit her a the hospital.
love, lucy xxxx
i ended up at hospital today again, with a poor child who was so ill i'm not sure she'll make it through the night. she had a temperature of 40 degrees, a racing pulse, she was shaking and said she had a headache. she was breathing really shallowly and fast, and she refused to eat. her mother insisted she was fine, as did several other staff at the school. i took her to hospital and she was admitted fairly sharpish. i still fear she wont be there when i get back tomorrow.
her mother eventually came after a bit of persuading and being given the money for transport. she said she would come quickly to try and persuade the hospital to let her daughter out! its so frustrating that the parents of these children dont ever bring them for treatment, even when they are at deaths door.
that is all thats really being happening at my end, i'll post as soon as i get back from the gorillas and i've been to visit her a the hospital.
love, lucy xxxx
Wednesday, 10 August 2011
Hospitals and HIV testing
hey all. i've had a fairly uneventful couple of days, but i'll fill you in on the details anyway.
yesterday i was ten minutes in to teaching a class (which was going very well, by the way!)when a child was shoved at me with the declaration 'he is sick. take to hospital.'
i was somewhat taken aback and also pretty pissed off with this development, but i took him anyway - what choice did i have?they were convinced he had malaria, and he did have a skin complaint which looked a bit like scabies on his wrists.
when we got to the hospital it seemed unlikely that he had malaria but the drugs were prescribed for him anyway. he had a blood test which was negative (though not very high tech. they put the blood on a slide and look for 'bugs' under a microscope.)when i got him back to school i tried to persuade his teacher who is a bit of a dragon to let him take it easy for the rest of the day, but she wasn't having any of it. one of the teachers took all of the tablets from him and said she was taking him home. whether or not the drugs made it home with him is another matter.
that evening me and one of the other girls from the lodge, rachel, went out for dinner to sky blue, which was really nice. i had a rolex and chips, which was waaay better than what was on offer at the lodge.
today i went over to school for break, where i noticed that brian, who has been absent for several days, had conjunctivitis symptoms again. since he had it less than a month ago and still hasn't managed to shake it off, i was worried, so i walked through the mountains back to his house to ask the mother if the drops had been helping. she told me that she'd been putting them in religeously but it wasn't making a difference. i tentatively enquired if they would allow me to get him tested for HIV, and the parents agreed to this. i took him back down the mountain and we headed off to hospital. i have had a child tested for HIV before and it was no issue, i asked and they did it. well not today. dr moses wouldn't budge. he wanted to the parents o be there, despite the fact they had agreed to the test but declined to accompany us. it was very frustrating,. but he did at least provide some alternative treatment which will hopefully be more effective.
i have to take him home later and ask one of the parents to accompany me to the hospital, so he can have the test, though both parents refuse to be tested themselves.
tonight is sophia's birthday, so we are going out to a concert by some ugandan pop sensation, which should be a laugh, i'll repot back in a couple of days!
love, Lucy xxx
yesterday i was ten minutes in to teaching a class (which was going very well, by the way!)when a child was shoved at me with the declaration 'he is sick. take to hospital.'
i was somewhat taken aback and also pretty pissed off with this development, but i took him anyway - what choice did i have?they were convinced he had malaria, and he did have a skin complaint which looked a bit like scabies on his wrists.
when we got to the hospital it seemed unlikely that he had malaria but the drugs were prescribed for him anyway. he had a blood test which was negative (though not very high tech. they put the blood on a slide and look for 'bugs' under a microscope.)when i got him back to school i tried to persuade his teacher who is a bit of a dragon to let him take it easy for the rest of the day, but she wasn't having any of it. one of the teachers took all of the tablets from him and said she was taking him home. whether or not the drugs made it home with him is another matter.
that evening me and one of the other girls from the lodge, rachel, went out for dinner to sky blue, which was really nice. i had a rolex and chips, which was waaay better than what was on offer at the lodge.
today i went over to school for break, where i noticed that brian, who has been absent for several days, had conjunctivitis symptoms again. since he had it less than a month ago and still hasn't managed to shake it off, i was worried, so i walked through the mountains back to his house to ask the mother if the drops had been helping. she told me that she'd been putting them in religeously but it wasn't making a difference. i tentatively enquired if they would allow me to get him tested for HIV, and the parents agreed to this. i took him back down the mountain and we headed off to hospital. i have had a child tested for HIV before and it was no issue, i asked and they did it. well not today. dr moses wouldn't budge. he wanted to the parents o be there, despite the fact they had agreed to the test but declined to accompany us. it was very frustrating,. but he did at least provide some alternative treatment which will hopefully be more effective.
i have to take him home later and ask one of the parents to accompany me to the hospital, so he can have the test, though both parents refuse to be tested themselves.
tonight is sophia's birthday, so we are going out to a concert by some ugandan pop sensation, which should be a laugh, i'll repot back in a couple of days!
love, Lucy xxx
Monday, 1 August 2011
today i had to take one of the children to hospital (again!!) he had a skin infection in his eyelid, nose and all over his body, and septic wounds on his legs. when we got to hospital they told us he also had worms, so we departed with a large coctail of drugs.
yesterday there was a huge intake of new volunteers, 8 people arrived at once, and another 8 are due to arrive on tuesday. the lodge doesnt seem too packed though, as 7are on safari and i am due to join them in jinja on wednesday for white water rafting! some of the girls are also doing a bungee jump but i will just be taking pictures, definitely not jumping!
this afternoon i've been invited to go to steven's (the last child i took to hospital before today) house, his family are so so grateful for what i did, its almost embarassing. when they picked him up they gave me some bread to say thankyou, and now they are inviting me into their home. i'm excited to see though.
we have a new roommate to replace suzi, who left last week. her name is lauren and she is a dental student she's 28 and really lovely. she came to the hospital with me today as she wanted to meet the dentist, but he wasnt there.
i have to go, the niterna=et cafe has a huge queue!!
love, lucy xx
yesterday there was a huge intake of new volunteers, 8 people arrived at once, and another 8 are due to arrive on tuesday. the lodge doesnt seem too packed though, as 7are on safari and i am due to join them in jinja on wednesday for white water rafting! some of the girls are also doing a bungee jump but i will just be taking pictures, definitely not jumping!
this afternoon i've been invited to go to steven's (the last child i took to hospital before today) house, his family are so so grateful for what i did, its almost embarassing. when they picked him up they gave me some bread to say thankyou, and now they are inviting me into their home. i'm excited to see though.
we have a new roommate to replace suzi, who left last week. her name is lauren and she is a dental student she's 28 and really lovely. she came to the hospital with me today as she wanted to meet the dentist, but he wasnt there.
i have to go, the niterna=et cafe has a huge queue!!
love, lucy xx
Monday, 25 July 2011
Haven't I met you before?
hey all! its been a bit of an emotional couple of days, but i'm hoping things will start to turn around.
yesterday it was emilys birthday so we went for an evening out in ntungamo, at a pub called the Kama inn. it was fun but drinking there was somewhat difficult, as here you can't just buy a spirit and mixer, you ahve to buy the bottle of spirits!! this was fine until they started to run out of the things we wanted to drink!
thismorning i was invidulating exams in baby 1, (which is bloody hard, you have to stop the teacher from helping them, and stop the kids from copying eachother)and at break time i noticed this poor child with these horribkle black crusted sores all around his mouth and chin, which were ooznig fluid and just looking totally horrible for him. i wasn't sure what it was, (at first i thought he had black paint or something on his face!) so i took him to jameel, who said it was 'a disease' that his parents had attempted to treat using tradition healing methods and herbs. it was pretty clear to me that the herbs were doing more harm than good. jameel suggested i take him to hospital, so off i went again.
at the hospital i saw the same doctor as last time, but he was much nicer to me this time, and i made sure i didnt go alone. the experience of taking steven to hospital though, was thouroghly distressing. i was told that it had to come off, which i was prepared for, but i wasnt prepared for how they were going to take it off. this huge nurse wrapped a rubber apron around him, soaked some gauze in alcohol, and just started ripping the scabs and crusted herb paste off his face. it was horrendous. he screamed the place down. he was so scared he wet his pants all over nouf's (the volunteer who came with me) lap. he was completely inconsolable, i was crying, he was crying, all the africans were crying laughing at me.
eventually when it was all cleaned up, it did look a lot better, but we had one miserable kid on our hands, who we then had to take for a blood test to check for HIV and malaria. he wasn't a fan of that one either. when we eventually got him back top the lodge though, he seemed much brighter and was eager to play. his mother came to pick him up so i was able to explain to her about his medicines and tell her how important it was not to put herbs on it. she was very grateful and gave me a loaf of bread to say thankyou :)
this afternoon i'm not really doing anything,. just trying to recover and be positive. its so hard to stay positive when there are terrible things happening all around me, and sometimes there's nothing i can do to help.
sorry to leave it on a miserable note, but there have been good things going on as well, like an epic boda boda race the other day, that have really been making me happy.
love, lucy xx
yesterday it was emilys birthday so we went for an evening out in ntungamo, at a pub called the Kama inn. it was fun but drinking there was somewhat difficult, as here you can't just buy a spirit and mixer, you ahve to buy the bottle of spirits!! this was fine until they started to run out of the things we wanted to drink!
thismorning i was invidulating exams in baby 1, (which is bloody hard, you have to stop the teacher from helping them, and stop the kids from copying eachother)and at break time i noticed this poor child with these horribkle black crusted sores all around his mouth and chin, which were ooznig fluid and just looking totally horrible for him. i wasn't sure what it was, (at first i thought he had black paint or something on his face!) so i took him to jameel, who said it was 'a disease' that his parents had attempted to treat using tradition healing methods and herbs. it was pretty clear to me that the herbs were doing more harm than good. jameel suggested i take him to hospital, so off i went again.
at the hospital i saw the same doctor as last time, but he was much nicer to me this time, and i made sure i didnt go alone. the experience of taking steven to hospital though, was thouroghly distressing. i was told that it had to come off, which i was prepared for, but i wasnt prepared for how they were going to take it off. this huge nurse wrapped a rubber apron around him, soaked some gauze in alcohol, and just started ripping the scabs and crusted herb paste off his face. it was horrendous. he screamed the place down. he was so scared he wet his pants all over nouf's (the volunteer who came with me) lap. he was completely inconsolable, i was crying, he was crying, all the africans were crying laughing at me.
eventually when it was all cleaned up, it did look a lot better, but we had one miserable kid on our hands, who we then had to take for a blood test to check for HIV and malaria. he wasn't a fan of that one either. when we eventually got him back top the lodge though, he seemed much brighter and was eager to play. his mother came to pick him up so i was able to explain to her about his medicines and tell her how important it was not to put herbs on it. she was very grateful and gave me a loaf of bread to say thankyou :)
this afternoon i'm not really doing anything,. just trying to recover and be positive. its so hard to stay positive when there are terrible things happening all around me, and sometimes there's nothing i can do to help.
sorry to leave it on a miserable note, but there have been good things going on as well, like an epic boda boda race the other day, that have really been making me happy.
love, lucy xx
Saturday, 23 July 2011
crafting and cuts....
hey guys!
the last couple of days have been fairly eventful, so i'll give you a little bit of a run down.
on thursday we made bunting with middle and top class, getting them to tie dye thier own triangle, and then decorate it with sequins, paint and glitter. they absolutely loved it, but thought it was very strange that we would 'waste' glitter by sticking it onto an inanimate object. they thought it could be put to far better use by sprinkling it all over themselves!
dan also took two kids to hospital on thursday, with suspected malaria. they both had it and both were supremely miserable.
on friday i was planning to help with the other class making bunting but i noticed that one of the children, named claudius, had a cut on his lip that looked really infected and oozy and just generally gross. we covered it up but it really didnt look good and it's been there for ages and seems to be getting worse, so i took him to hospital. i went to the hospital by myself because i've done it before and everyone thought it wouold be fine, but i think because i was alone, because i was a woman and because i was white, the doctor was determined to make a fool of me. it was quite an upsetting experience (though going to the hospital full stop is upsetting, even if people are really nice to you) and i was hurt that my efforts to help this poor child were being mocked. he did give him some antibiotics though, and some painkillers, so he should be on the mend soon.
after i got back from hospital i got stuck back into the craft lessons, which cheered me up considerably! one of the teachers has a baby that she brings to school (i say one, i actually mean they all do), so i was playing with him and he isvery cute, but you have to be very careful that the babies dont wee on you!
today most people have gone to the lake but i didnt really feel like it, and when i get back to the lodge restay is going to give me a chapatti making lesson :)
thats all i really have to tell you, i hope to post again in the naxt couple of days!!
love, Lucy xx
the last couple of days have been fairly eventful, so i'll give you a little bit of a run down.
on thursday we made bunting with middle and top class, getting them to tie dye thier own triangle, and then decorate it with sequins, paint and glitter. they absolutely loved it, but thought it was very strange that we would 'waste' glitter by sticking it onto an inanimate object. they thought it could be put to far better use by sprinkling it all over themselves!
dan also took two kids to hospital on thursday, with suspected malaria. they both had it and both were supremely miserable.
on friday i was planning to help with the other class making bunting but i noticed that one of the children, named claudius, had a cut on his lip that looked really infected and oozy and just generally gross. we covered it up but it really didnt look good and it's been there for ages and seems to be getting worse, so i took him to hospital. i went to the hospital by myself because i've done it before and everyone thought it wouold be fine, but i think because i was alone, because i was a woman and because i was white, the doctor was determined to make a fool of me. it was quite an upsetting experience (though going to the hospital full stop is upsetting, even if people are really nice to you) and i was hurt that my efforts to help this poor child were being mocked. he did give him some antibiotics though, and some painkillers, so he should be on the mend soon.
after i got back from hospital i got stuck back into the craft lessons, which cheered me up considerably! one of the teachers has a baby that she brings to school (i say one, i actually mean they all do), so i was playing with him and he isvery cute, but you have to be very careful that the babies dont wee on you!
today most people have gone to the lake but i didnt really feel like it, and when i get back to the lodge restay is going to give me a chapatti making lesson :)
thats all i really have to tell you, i hope to post again in the naxt couple of days!!
love, Lucy xx
Saturday, 16 July 2011
Classes and Clubbing...
hey all, sorry about the extremely short post yesterday that i just re read and was a bit of a nonsense post really.
yesterday after i took little brian to hospital we came ino town and i bought a few things and used the internet at the internet cafe. i also bought some gin, whihc seems to be the drink of choice around here, and is ludicrously cheap. it comes in sachets, rather than bottles, and each one is 100ml. you can buy a pack of 12 sachets for 5500 shillings, which is less than 1.50 in england! we came back from town on a boda boda, which is basically a motorbike that you can hire as a taxi. i was bricking it but it was actually ok, i'd had to ride one earlier in the day anway to take brian home from hospital. we had races and we came second, and the people who were in the lead broke down and had to be collected by anther one of the drivers!
when we got back the goat was being barbequed african style on sticks which were shoved into a log on the fire.it was really yummy and nice to have some meat! after the goat we had a few drinks and the headed out to the sal geusthouse, which is a local club. it was a good laugh though some of the african mens dance moves were questionable! the africn women were very keen to dance with us because they arent alowed to refuse a man if he wantes to dance with her or even if he wants to tae her off for a quickie, so they like to dance with us because we can get rid of the men, or turn it into a group dancing experience rather than a sexual couples dancing thing. one girl i was talking to was only 14 and she was absolutely terrified that a man would drag her off at any moment. i spent the night pointing at my ring (which i wear on my wedding finger but on the wrong hand) and telling people i was married!! it worked well...
a big group of volunteers went off to rwanda fr a couple of days thismorning, so the lodge is a lot quieter, but we did have 2 new people arrive, who have moved into my room, so i wont be alone as molly and sarah have gone on the rwanda trip.
as tomorrow is sunday and there is no school, i think some of us are going to church with the kids in the morning to see the singing, and then we are all going to 'the beach' which is actually the shore of nikaboko lake, so that should be interesting!!
yesterday after i took little brian to hospital we came ino town and i bought a few things and used the internet at the internet cafe. i also bought some gin, whihc seems to be the drink of choice around here, and is ludicrously cheap. it comes in sachets, rather than bottles, and each one is 100ml. you can buy a pack of 12 sachets for 5500 shillings, which is less than 1.50 in england! we came back from town on a boda boda, which is basically a motorbike that you can hire as a taxi. i was bricking it but it was actually ok, i'd had to ride one earlier in the day anway to take brian home from hospital. we had races and we came second, and the people who were in the lead broke down and had to be collected by anther one of the drivers!
when we got back the goat was being barbequed african style on sticks which were shoved into a log on the fire.it was really yummy and nice to have some meat! after the goat we had a few drinks and the headed out to the sal geusthouse, which is a local club. it was a good laugh though some of the african mens dance moves were questionable! the africn women were very keen to dance with us because they arent alowed to refuse a man if he wantes to dance with her or even if he wants to tae her off for a quickie, so they like to dance with us because we can get rid of the men, or turn it into a group dancing experience rather than a sexual couples dancing thing. one girl i was talking to was only 14 and she was absolutely terrified that a man would drag her off at any moment. i spent the night pointing at my ring (which i wear on my wedding finger but on the wrong hand) and telling people i was married!! it worked well...
a big group of volunteers went off to rwanda fr a couple of days thismorning, so the lodge is a lot quieter, but we did have 2 new people arrive, who have moved into my room, so i wont be alone as molly and sarah have gone on the rwanda trip.
as tomorrow is sunday and there is no school, i think some of us are going to church with the kids in the morning to see the singing, and then we are all going to 'the beach' which is actually the shore of nikaboko lake, so that should be interesting!!
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