Some of the VOLSET Family (and friends)

03 March

I hope I’m able to post photos today. There is Gloria, Deborah cooking in the hut over a wood fire (she doesn’t have a gas stove) and then the local children after I handed out sickers. For some reason they love to stick them on their heads! I learned more about Deborah today. Deborah was one of the VOLSET children who graduated from high school thanks to a sponsor and now hopes to attend hotel/restaurant management school in Mukono. It is very expensive so she’ll need to find a sponsor to do so.

I’ll need to think of a new goal for the month- Gloria not only smiled today she giggled and clapped her hands with me. I think she must have been petrified on Monday seeing a muzungo woman for the first time. And this particular muzungo woman is really muzungo (white) after a cold new england winter.

Today I went to the school started by VOLSET in the village. There are two classes one with children 4 and 5 years old, the other has boys and girls 6 and 7. These children were not stunned by whiteness exticating myself from their graps was a work out. While they know very little english now, they will be fluent by grade 6. At this age they speak mostly in Lugunda, the local language for this part of Uganda. Most people converse in Lugunda but they will switch to English once they realize they’re in the presence of an Muzungo dolt who smiles a lot but doesn’t understand a word.

I will help out at the school during Monday and Tuesday mornings. Tomorrow I meet with the teachers there to determine what they’d like me to do. The teachers will have to translate any lessons I teach- not sure this is really helping them but we’ll see. Monday and Tuesday afternoons I work with Mary, a nurse and Festus’ wife , who goes on home visits to women living with HIV who have recently given birth. The purposes of these visits is to asses the health of the mother and baby as well as the cleanliness of the home and the nutrition of both. It is not inevitable that the AIDS virus will be transmitted to the child (for example the virus is not transmitted through breast milk unless the breast is bruised and blood gets into the milk or if the mother has a cracked and bleeding nipple) so these visits are a means to help prevent the spread of the disease.

Wednesdays and Thursdays I will work with Zach, the peace corps volunteer, doing school visits in the village. Zach has been giving first aid talks and I think I’ll focus on women’s health for the high school girls (rerproductive health, pregnancy, AIDS transmission as well as some exercises in assertiveness). For the high school boys and primary aged children I’m not sure what lessons I will teach. When setting up the visits with the teachers I will ask them what they think would be best for the students or what they’d like to cover but are unable to. Let’s hope it’s not mathmatics. If so, the lesson will be for the students to teach me!

Fridays are a day of rest at VOLSET, Saturday is for church (Festus is a 7^th Day Adventist and takes the children living at VOLSET to church with- the service lasts almost all day) and then Sunday another day of rest. That gives me long weekends to travel about or return to the Mukono guesthouse (I call it the Mukono roadhouse since it sits on the busy route in and out of Kampala). There are some other GVN volunteers who live at the guesthouse and walk to their assignments. While Mukono has restaurants and the hotel where there is a pool I’m not sure I can expect any sleep while I’m there. I hope to make a few trips while here- there is an overnight river rafting trip in Jinja, a three day safari in the north and then several beautiful National parks in the southern region.

And I’ll end with my favorite topic, food. Dinner last night was delicious- chappatis, rice and beans, plantains