Blue Canoe: Come good rain

After a long electioneering period fraught with police patrols, yellow shirts, holidays for voting, finger pointing, interesting ballots , accusations, the big man is back to make it an even thirty years, and calm prevails…..

Now. Well, here we are.

Waiting for the rainy season, which we are told changes many things, especially the roads and ease of transport. Can’t imagine how small transport trucks will manage. I saw one of these a couple of days ago. It was a regular sized pickup with large full sacks up to the sides of the box and piled into a pyramid. On top were seated 21 adults (I counted ) plus a few live chickens and a piece of baggage or two. The driver says it’s not a problem, but those big lorries which combine goats and cows with people sure are…..

The other day a very large Coke truck overturned cascading bottles on the bank. Lots of willing hands helped to remove the mess. Timely in this thirsty weather!

With rain creepy crawlies and critters will emerge they say.

Everywhere in Uganda, but especially here in the rural areas, the roads are now deeply potholed and consist of several inches of red dust.

Trucks fly past engulfed in thick clouds of the stuff, coating everything in their path. Rod and his motocycle included…..

When is that rain coming……

Everyday dawns bright and hot. Like the Okanagan hottest summer days, dry, and hot. Meanwhile, it’s –minus 21 degrees celcius in Calgary.

At the moment there is a significantly delayed start to the rain, and a dire warning for everyone to expect and prepare for famine. People are busily digging up remaining crops of cassava, peeling, slicing and drying it in the sun in preparation.

Daily food for many Ugandans is beans and posho, that is, ground cooked cassava….which looks and tastes a lot like thick cold cream of wheat to me. You just make a ball of posho in the palm of your hand, push in a little hole with your thumb….. presto, you have a handy dandy scoop for the beans. Why would anyone want cutlery?

Right now, lots of food is available, but the crops are usually planted by about the middle of February with the rains, and no one has anything planted yet.

Just another hurdle for everyday existence…. No gain without sweat as they say here.

Carol has been busy driving “deep”…. (that is to say, the driver is. She just sits there.) Aiming to visit many schools before the onslaught of mud, and water…. Everyday the driver carefully washes the vehicle after our return, only to coat it in red dust the next day.

Schools are eye opening, interesting, unbelievable…… imagine 800 pairs of curious eyes, all those minds wondering, does that skin colour rub off? Some tiny ones shriek and run at the sight of such ghostly creatures !

Uganda has a policy of universal primary education for all. This means schools around every corner, exploding with children bent on a better future through education. Small children are in the largest classes, and most unlikely to have desks.

The sight of a white face and everyone is immediately on their feet, crying “welcome, our visitor!”

You’ve got to love the spontaneous singing of hundreds of African children…

Often those basic brick and concrete rooms contain 5 times the number of children in a Canadian classroom, one teacher at the helm.

Unfortunately there is little money to support the schools…… with the result being overcrowded classrooms, missing teachers, little children sitting on floors, formal methods …. Chalk and chalkboard is the only supply many have. And tests. Tests.

So, my job, to observe, think, smile, collect the facts, talk with head teachers and teachers about ways to improve basic school systems and offer support to the Coordinating Tutors whose job it is to encourage change.

Sharing ways to make teaching reading and writing interesting and child friendly is easy, but never thought I’d be explaining the need to keep the goats and pigs away! Domestic animals are intruders in schools….

Rod……..running, repairing a motorcycle, hanging the washing, whacking down the grass with a panga, wearing a motorcycle helmet, putting flowers behind his ears to entertain the children, pothole rider… oops, dropping pineapples off his bike….

Western men are just plain weird! Sometimes even domestic.

He’s ferreting out ways to help out, making management plans for a borehole drilling ngo, talking with disabled people at their youth employment workshop, talking to forestry people who need help but have no money for programs, talking to universities who need a lecturer but have no money for programs…. So it goes.

Photos to tell the tale ……