So hopefuly this blog entry will be a bit more interesting than the last one! I have actually written some stuff down that I want to tell you guys so here we gooooooo...

Education

Most schools in Uganda are the same system as we have at home: Primary 1-7 and then Secondary 1st year - 6th, so nothing too complicated there! However the difference with the education system here is at the end of every school year (Novemeber time) there are end of year exams, every pupil must take one of these in order to move up a year. So yeah, if a kid doesn't pass their exam they have to take the whole year again! That is why there are children who are 16 in P6 and what not, here, age isn't really an issue at school as there are huge age ranges in all of the years. Children have to pay for their education and some obviously can't afford it, however some children can go to school free of charge becasue there are some school which have been set up for the purpose of free education, this is the system at the school Molly and I work at.

Our Project - Kitega Pride School of Infants

So a bit about our project. Molly and I teach primary 1 - 6. There are around 15 children and apart from Molly and I there is only one other teacher which has meant that some classes have had to be made into one so p3-5 is one class and then there is p6. Our day is CRAZY long, starting at 8in the morning and ending at half 4 in the afternoon - I can never remember any of my teachers working that long haaaa! We had 3 lessons a day which meant they were around 3 hours long! So hating this, Molly and I made a brand new timetable which made our day more structured and we now have 6 periods at around 1hour each. We teach almost everything, raging from science to Social Studies. This week we played frisbee for PE which the kids loved and we did an art lesson where they had to draw what they could see, which also went pretty well - there were some very interesting drawings. Every Friday we do tests - i knowww how boring! But come on we are teachers heehee - just so we can check if we are actually teaching anything well, i have a wee peek at this weeks tests and they look pretty good which does wonder for our egos! Our pupils range from loud, out going and some times challenging to quiet, cat-got-your-tounge kids; but they are all hard working. Once the school day has finished Molly and I pretty much start again with planning next days lessons so we haven't got a lot of free time to explore as of yet but i'm sure we'll get to do more stuff soon!

Transport

Transport is literally the funniest thing ever! Molly and I walk to the village becuase it is so close to where we live. But if we want to go to Lugazi we get a 'bodaboda' which is pretty much an old style motorbike. So we hop on the back and hold on whilst we zoom in and out the insanly fast traffic. It's fun :) If we want to go further a field we can get a taxi. 'Taxi' in Uganda are not like the ones at home at aaaall, they are a mini bus which is meant to hold 14 people but you can pretty much get as much people, bags, chickens, sofas and shopping as you like crammed into one. A bodaboda costs 500USH (15p) but now there is apparently a fuel crisis to this has risen to 100USH - still prett cheap though!

Animals

No we haven't seen any lions, monkeys, hippos or girrafes unfortunatley! We have seen animals that lie a lot closer to home: chickens, cows and goats. However, instead of people walking their dogs, they walk theis goats which is a pretty funny sight! We've seen some massive birds - the same idea as a king fisher but with freaking werid necks and they are pretty much the same height as Molly.

Over the past week we have become good meals for mosquitos. On my legs I have a combined 11 bites and Molly has more bites than skin.

Thing that have happened this week:

• We went to the Lugazi market where we bought all our food and to our amazement there was carrots! Mmmm carrots.
• We have eaten every sort of street food imaginable - my rice belly is getting so big I'm pretty sure i'll be rolling soon rather that walking.
• Once again we washed our clothes and once again I have blisters on my wee hands.
• More white people have appeared! It's funny whenever we see white people we just say hello to each other - other white people is a serious novelty around here!
• When I was teachin adjectives to my p3-5 class one of the boys was suppose to stand up and act the adjective 'sniffing' but instead he farted...it was rather hillarous.
• We recieved lovely letters written by our only two pupils in P6, both whom want to become Project Trust Vols.
• When we were playing frisbee one of the kids threw it really far over the wall and then all of them went to find it and this lady came from behind the wall screaming in Lugandan...it turned out they had trampled all over her beans.

So yes, so far I am enjoying my time here. I think tomorrow we are going to Jinja with Finn and Ben. So that'll be good!

Hope everythings cool where you all are! Love you and miss you all!

Justine x