Apologies for the length of time since my last blog but with so little time left I've been trying to concentrate on the project and rounding off my year at Lwakhakha nicely. There's been plenty of good times and useful work to be done. At Seed Time primary, my favourite pupil, little P3 Esther, got the shock of her life when I shouted at her in class - the cheeky girl is so self-confident that she shouted out the door at the last period's teacher informing him that I'd just disposed of his stick out of the window (yes, I'm still brazenly attempting to undermine cane-wielding teachers) and then she giggled. She thought she was cute enough to get away with it but no - 'Back of the class, Esther, NOW!' and she sobbed loudly for the next ten minutes. In P1 I had asked the class to answer questions on themselves and after the teacher and class tried to convince a tiny Miriam that she wasn't '25' as she'd written, she became very indignant saying 'But my mama told me...' I got my hands very dirty in June, more than once, working with a very special kind of Ugandan building material - MUD! For Finn's community report he wanted to replicate the local traditional building technique and so I got involved (mostly distracting him from the task with mud fights that I started) plastering slopping mud to a stick frame to build a 10' by 10' mud hut outside our accommodation. Later we helped a local volunteer to build a 'rocket lorena' stove, again out of mud. These fuel-efficient stoves save women a lot of money on firewood by preventing heat loss, while also helping to protect the environment from further deterioration due to deforestation.
For yet another volunteers birthday I got to take part in a national event - the Africa cup of Nations qualifier - Uganda Cranes vs. Guinea Bissau at the enormous Mandela Stadium in Kampala. Clutching our tickets close, the 18 PT volunteers headed into the queue at the gate which slowly moved around the corner to reveal an enormous crowd of people waiting to be allowed in. When I say 'queue' I mean it in the slightest sense since Africans have no concept of queueing and the thousands of impatient spectators simply got herded down an alley like cattle with the pushing from the back creating a less and less funny crushing. Before reaching the ticket gate I began to have visions of the headlines - 'Hundreds killed in stadium crush' - as I got lifted off my feet by the tightness against my neighbours and the sway of the people. The irony was that the ticket gate was often left waiting for the next person to step out of the packed crowd - things would have moved a lot quicker had an orderly queue been arranged. After surviving the mayhem, the match was great fun with dancing and vevuzelahs - Uganda Cranes won 2-0. I again found myself in a situation where impatience nearly led to death (what ever happened to the 'laid back African attitude'?) a few weekends later where I was unfortunately trapped in a riot at a concert, but that's a story for another time...
Throughout the year I've been fairly healthy (forgetting the odd upset tummy and lot of bilharzia) but three weeks back I took the day off school with a fever and headache. As the day went on I felt worse and worse, laying in bed sweating and shivering. By evening my temperature was at 39.5 degrees and I was disorientated, feeling overwhelming panicked by nothing and failing to understand what Finn was saying. Project Trust was phoned and they told me to get to Kampala (an 8-hour bus journey) as early as possible, tomorrow. I had the worst night I've ever had, unable to sleep and when I did wake up I was in delirious panic-attack. Next morning we headed to Kampala and I began to feel a lot, lot better. By the time I reached 'The Surgery' I was practically fine with a mild headache but after blood tests I was diagnosed with malaria. They explained that the malarial fevers happen in worsening 'waves' - one day fine, the next much worse and then fine again - and monitored me for a few hours as I rehydrated and took a cup of rainbow pills. I stayed with an expat family I'd met on holiday who looked after me so well, letting me mope about feeling sorry for myself, watching DVDs and eating western food as I got better. 3 days later and it was as if nothing had happened - I'd been lucky and caught it early, as I'd seen first hand how badly malaria can leave you bed-ridden and in severe cases clinging to life. (NB - thanks for all the well-wishing. The word 'malaria' seems to exaggerates the seriousness of the situation - it really wasn't that bad, Mum and Dad do worry!)
This is going to be my last blog before I'm home with only a few days left at project and then a few more before I board my home-ward bound flight. Things are really coming to their conclusion here as I've begun to say my goodbyes and the neighbours have started to realise that we're really not coming back any time soon (Neighbour Scovia named her newborn baby boy, 'Ben' after me). I've had an unbelievable year so far and I've still got a little bit of time left to make the most of it. See you all soon!
Signing off for the last time in Uganda,
Ben
