Dirks fabulous adventures in Uganda: my return to Africa

This was already going to be our last day in Masindi. Our plan was to bring our kids to school so we could firstly spend a little more time with all of them and secondly examine the private school to which they recently switched to. Stefan and I left the hotel early in the morning before breakfast. Surprise, surprise, there was no boda driver around where they used to be. It’s obviously been too early in the morning. But we soon found two young men to bring us to the orphanage.

The kids weren’t ready yet but we were a bit early. We spent some time chatting with the staff before we said goodbye to them. and had to say goodbye to the staff. More and more of the kids left their rooms and played a bit outside. Taban, the oldest of our kids, brought his sketch book and showed us some of his drawings. He even got better since the last time I had the pleasure to get to see them. When all the kids were ready to leave, I asked them to pose for a final picture and to record a short video message to Ellen, who had volunteered at the orphanage for a couple of months. Then we had to leave, along with the kids, Susan and Jane. It only took us a few minutes to reach the kid’s former primary school where we brought Taban, who didn’t want to change to the private school. We checked his classroom and said hi to the teacher and Taban’s approximately 50 classmates. Then the principal appeared and complained about the fact that we had taken the rest of our kids to a new place, which she didn’t appreciate. We understood that this was a problem for her but – on the other hand – we wanted to enable our kids the best education possible. We then had to leave in order to bring the rest of the kids to their private school. We walked alongside the main road which was pretty dusty as this was the end of the dry season. After another few minutes we reached the gates of the private school an entered a tidy patio. There were couple of buildings with obviously much smaller rooms compared to what we had seen at the public school. Soon many curious kids watched us from their classrooms doorways. Then an older man, who introduced himself as the principal welcomed us. After a quick photo session he asked us to follow him to his office… I joked that it was usually a bad sign if one was asked to the principal’s office. He offered to have a seat and then thanked us for bringing our kids to his school. Before we left he asked to sign his guest book which we were pleased to do. Back in the yard we took a last picture with the kids and the staff including the principal. We then brought our kids to their rooms. The class sizes were from probably six to 15 children at most and it was cooler in the rooms. Only from a first glance one could tell that the standards were higher here. As we didn’t want to disturb the classes too much we only stayed for a few moments in each room before we left and walked back to the hotel to have breakfast with Claudia.

the kids preparing for school