Uganda here I come!

I arrived all safe and sound - its a good job I left bangalore when I did, I only just got there in time beacause for some reason my plane left 45 mins early!!
Ok, the orphanage where I work and live has 23 kids, slightly more boys than girls, and links to 10 kids in foster care. Their mother tongue is Luanda but they all speak pretty good English. There are two boys’ dorms, one girls’ dorm, a large dining room, kitchen for cooking, kitchen for washing, a shower and toilet block, room for the uncles (Ugandan workers). Then there’s the volunteers building; you walk in and its a kind of art room/library with a table, this is where the kids (mainly the boys) come and draw or just muck about with us. On each side is a bedroom, one for me and the other for Marieke (Irish 27year old woman, really nice, she’s been here for a month and has another month left but she may stay in Uganda doing something else.) Mine has the medicine cabinet in and stuff like that, hers has the box of toys and clothes we haven’t given out yet (because they don’t need everything at once).

We have no running water and so the kids carry water from the well (about a five min walk away) to a large tank, which they fill up and the water is used for washing, boiled for cooking or filtered/ boiled for drinking. So no showers or taps!! Just a bucket for washing! There’s no electricity either except for the solar paneled batteries that are used for the light bulbs in each room.

Our main jobs are playing with the kids, checking on their health and hygiene (getting them all to brush there teeth, handing out multivitamins, cleansing and plastering up/ bandaging wounds, handing out paracetamol or other medicines they need, taking them to the doctor or dentist etc..), making afternoon snacks and drinks of squash, then when schools on we take reading lessons (which sound very similar to Christel house stuff, but its been Easter so I don’t really know) and PE. but in general the main help is really financial, its our money that pays for food, clothes, school fees etc... The item on uncle Ben’s wish list at the moment is a septic tank, so hopefully we'll raise enough for that.

In general Uganda is much more hard core than India! I was expecting it to be a lot more westernized in the capital but I think the effect of 80% unemployment in the country is that many things are in bad condition. The roads in particular are appalling!! They’re not even dirt tracks! In the area I live the roads are red dust but there’s not more than a metre width of proper flat road anywhere, they’re worn away by cars and rain. Our cars wouldn’t have a chance!! It’s also a lot cooler than I was expecting, it was hotter in India by far, particularly south India than it is here - which is great!! And I think that July is their winter - although it’s not a very noticeable change!

Internet connection here is abysmal so sorry if I don't keep in very good contact - it takes 15 mins to upload reading an email, let alone sending one!!