photos at last Hurrah!

At last I have uploaded these photos, I have found the secret, which is extreme patience, approx half hour per picture, I haven't worked out how to order them so excuse the ramdomness of the selection

They are of the project compound, where I am living.  We do have running water but you can see in one of thephoto it is delivered by bicycle and carried up to the water tank.  We have electricity most of the time, and when we don't it is very dark.  The food is pretty good, I have even developed a liking for goat curry!  there is plenty of delivered at regular intervals and the fruit is fantastic.  It can get chilly but there is a fire every night where we can sit, watch telly and play pool, and guess what I came pretty close to beating the 2nd best player in Kenya!  I know he was very good, because he set up all my shots so I could keep up with him; there are some real gentlemen still in the world, thank you Patrick

The work shop where I do my sewing classes

my walk to school

the water delivery with one of the tanks to be filled

my room, the loos are at the rear , you can see the 'hand basin' on the left

my lunch time view, beats Pathfinder house any day, you can just about see the hills behind, at last my room with a view

the evening fire

photos at last Hurrah!

At last I have uploaded these photos, I have found the secret, which is extreme patience, approx half hour per picture, I haven't worked out how to order them so excuse the ramdomness of the selection

They are of the project compound, where I am living.  We do have running water but you can see in one of thephoto it is delivered by bicycle and carried up to the water tank.  We have electricity most of the time, and when we don't it is very dark.  The food is pretty good, I have even developed a liking for goat curry!  there is plenty of delivered at regular intervals and the fruit is fantastic.  It can get chilly but there is a fire every night where we can sit, watch telly and play pool, and guess what I came pretty close to beating the 2nd best player in Kenya!  I know he was very good, because he set up all my shots so I could keep up with him; there are some real gentlemen still in the world, thank you Patrick

The work shop where I do my sewing classes

my walk to school

the water delivery with one of the tanks to be filled

my room, the loos are at the rear , you can see the 'hand basin' on the left

my lunch time view, beats Pathfinder house any day, you can just about see the hills behind, at last my room with a view

the evening fire

settling into school

I have had four working days now, and I know why I had to stop helping at Meldreth PS, my back is killing me. I am now doing mornings only and am setting up classes in the tailoring workshop.  I have managed to get all the machines going, there is one electric, Jones machine, relatively easy to start; the next is a hand singer machine of relatively  modern design but still took me two days to work out how to thread it as it had been left in reverse, and the last was also a singer of the old shuttle spool, which I do vaguely remember using probably with my grandmother, which I eventually got going too.  There is also a treddle machine.  (OK non sewing readers can wake up now) Save to know this was a major achievement.  I plan to start the classes to teach the women to sew,  making school bags for the children who are currently using any flimsy plastic bag to carry their lunch and books in, multi practical me thinks..

I went to the weekly market in Ntungamo to get fabric, needles and thread to teach the women to sew.  It is a weekly market of everything, I didn't take my camera as we were told it was full of theives, I think referring to the ned to haggle rather than mugging, so I will next time, hopefully let you see.  This local town appears to have most of what we might need and it is fun poking around all the various stalls to find things.

I will write later about teaching methods but the children are incredibly well behaved considering they do a 7.45am-4pm day, they have little in resources and every thing has to be laboriously copied from the board in english.

I wanted to upload some photos of my lunchtime view and walk to school through the plantation as well as my room and the rest of the centre, unfortunately it keeps failing to upload possibly because the files are too big, I try to compress them but still not having much success, all ideas of a solution welcome.

thanks again for all your comments, I have to go now to play volley ball, yes this is a hand eye ball coordination sport, I even played badminton yesterday!

I have arrived and made internet connection

I had a good journey to Kampala, appropriately saw Eat Pray Love on the plane. Arrived at guest house at 1am and told I would be picked up at 6am sharp for bus at 6.30am, so arranged wake up call at 5am.  No wake up call but had time to make use of shower, at 6 I went out to wake up my wake up caller, but had no means of contacting my driver in order to get to bus station, eventually blagged a phone to contact project manager who contacted driver and suprisingly caught the bus at 7am as it was late, I learned later from fellow travellers in fact I had been very lucky to get out so soon, most buses are delayed by 3-4 hours, no wonder the driver thought he could grab more sleep!  This is the way things appear to be, things happen when they happen sometimes and sometimes not, unless you know who to ask or pay.
However, The community project is located in a very beautiful area, surrounded by big hills, banana plantations and pasture.  The school has six classes and they are building another one, I only had a quick tour around but will start to help tomorrow.
We went for a walk yesterday morning, it was a clear day and the views from the top were amazing, we had an interesting conversation with a local with a panga, who demanded money from us as we were on his land, he was followed by several others, who said that we were in fact very welcome to admire the views of Uganda as they went on their way; the first man return to try and sell us cocaine, and was very insistent that it was (a green leafy sample of the wormwood family) and then said that it was actually Ugandan cocaine, we declined politely and so he took the cigarette from one of my companions mouth!  I saw where they have constructed the water catchment tank and the pool that the villagers are currently getting water from.  Things can only get better... (I will try to post some photos when I can but the internet connection is very slow here and it would take about half an hour today)
There are 5 other volunteers here at the moment and a family has just left having done a couple of weeks touring and safari.
We took a trip to some hot springs today, the water was coming out at 95C and we had to go some way away for it to be cool enough to get into, I went in twice and so I should now live forever!
There is so much more to describe, but I will leave here for now before your Sunday snooze turns into a period of hibernation, thanks for the comments so far I appreciate them and will try to reply when I get a better connection

And the final goodbye

Thank you to Tim and Joan for a super lunch at the BQ.
All packed and ready to go, enjoyed a final long hot shower and a last episode of neighbours.
see you all in July

and Goodbye to the rest of you

It was a great evening, thank you for all your good wishes and contributions, I will be back...
please keep checking  this blog if you want to know when;  if you want to make a comment, you need to sign in and if necessary create a google (gmail) account.  I look forward to keeping up with you all

goodbye to my girlies

Thank you for a marvellous day