my return to Africa – bringing the kids to school

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

Taban showed us his latest drawings

everyone’s ready for school

public school with a typical class size of 50 pupils

at the end of the dry season the roads can be pretty dusty

we soon arrived at the private school

some curious pupils watching us from their class room’s doorway

a last photo of our kids with the principal

funny signs they had…

cool rooms and small classes… seems helpful for proper education

back at the hotel for breakfast before we left Masindi

my return to Africa – excursion to the swimming pool

After breakfast we took off by boda heading for our orphanage "The Children's Home of Joy". The children were already waiting for us to arrive. So was the bus driver that we had hired. Stefan sponsored an excursion to a swimming pool and we were all invited! The bus was a bit funny and would have never gotten permission to drive in Switzerland but it was going to be fun anyways. The kids and staff were all excited and hopped the bus with a smile on their faces. Off we went! I was very much wondering how that swimming pool would be like. I had never seen such a place during my stay in Uganda, except for a few hotel pools during my safari trips. Next to me sat Mildred who was one of the first six kids who we had moved from the old place to Masindi. I played a little game with her. We challenged each other spotting and naming the plants we saw alongside the road. So we shouted “banana”, “maize”, “cassava”, “pineapple” and so on during the whole trip. It was a nice trip which allowed us to get to see the surroundings of Masindi a bit. The farther we drove, the more sugarcane we spotted. We soon approached a sugar refinery. We soon realised that this pool was built and run by this sugar company who was told to employ over 1’500 people. We soon arrived at the gates of the pool facility and entered. They didn’t ask for an admission charge for the club but we had to pay a small fee for using the pool which seemed fair. Soon after changing their clothes the first kids jumped into the pool. The first one to hop into the cooling water was Stefan though. As I’m not too keen on spending time in the water I made myself useful by taking lots of pictures. It really cheered me up to see how much they all enjoyed the pool. Stefan tought some of the staff how to swim and so did Claudia to some kids. While taking pictures I also chatted with some of the kids. With the oldest one I discussed his future plans. He is a clever young man and a very talented artist. Man, he can draw! I already rack my brains finding a way to support him developing his skills in the future! Any ideas welcome! ;-) As always, the kids were fascinated by my camera so I tried to teach them how to use it.

After a few hours in the water we prepared ourselves for lunch. Even though we had ordered the food on time it took a lot longer than we had expected. While some of the kids ran around some waited on some of the many sofas where they almost fell asleep. I played with one of the boys and a girl who I had to chase in the garden. Finally the meals arrived: chips and chicken. It was amazing to see how the kids managed the whole meal without batting an eye whereas I struggled. They really behaved well ant it was quite cute to watch them how they tried to eat the chicken using fork and knife. I told them to using their hands and demonstrated that I did it also like this. Other than that we might still be there! It’s been already late when they all finished and we had to bring them back to the "The Children's Home of Joy". After fooling around at the pool and enjoying such a wonderful meal most of them fell asleep soon after departure. Mildred, who again sat next to me tilted sidewards as she fell asleep so I reached out supporting her head for the rest of the ride, later I crumpled my shirt to form kind of a pillow for her. I was pleased watching all those sleeping kids and recalling the day.

We soon arrived at "The Children's Home of Joy" where the kids had to be woken up. Some of the kids were so tired that they disappeared in their rooms and fell asleep immediately. We said goodbye to the remaining staff and kids and took off with the bus that brought us safely to the hotel. Siesta time!


In the afternoon we had another meeting with our project leader, Newton. We had to discuss a few details and wanted to get to know him better as we had met him the first time during the meeting with the Bishop the day before. We had also invited him for supper and thus were a bit surprised when he seemed to want to leave after the meeting. We felt a bit embarrassed when we realised that his wife was waiting in the car during the whole meeting. We apologised and asked her to join us for supper which she did. After a nice meal we said goodbye to them. Then we reviewed the day and discussed the next day’s schedule before we went to bed… A fantastic day was over...

our bus







Swimming instructor Claudia...

and swimming instructor Stefan... must be kind of a family gene...







he reminded me a bit of Gollum posing like this



enjoy your meal!

Mildred the dangerous lioness

Ups, I mean Mildred the sleeping lioness

back at "The Children's Home of Joy"

meeting with our project leader Newton

supper

my return to Africa – meeting the Bishop and the kids

It was pretty hot in my room but fortunately they had installed fans since my last visit, so it was bearable. I got up early in the morning, took a nice shower and made some notes about the topics we had discussed the night before. We then met for breakfast where we developed the most promising strategy for the meeting with the Bishop and the project coordinator of our orphanage project "Children's Home of Joy". The Bishop soon arrived with his staff and after he said a prayer we started the meeting. It was my turn to explain a few things about the purpose and the projects of our foundation Light for forgotten children. We wanted to make clear that it takes a lot of work to raise all the money needed to support our projects. We also wanted to make sure that they become aware of the fact that – over the year – more than 300 people were usually involved in our fundraising activities where our friends and families spend hundreds of hours of their spare time in order to make these projects possible. We then continued discussing all the topics that we had prepared that included organisational requirements, current and future investments and the children’s education. I think it was a good meeting, very constructive, even though we also had some tougher things to discuss. After struggling with our previous projects in Uganda, we feel quite confident to having found the right partner this time. I mean there will always be things arising from time to time, but we generally found ourselves in line with the Bishops picture of what this place ought to become. After another prayer the Bishop left with his staff. We discussed the meeting, had lunch and went back to our rooms for a siesta. After that we were going to visit the kids, yeah!

final preparation of the meeting with the bishop

I couldn’t wait to meet the children again and therefore was early prepared for our short travel. We soon took off by Boda. Even Claudia took one which I had never seen her doing before. It only took a few minutes to get to the "Children's Home of Joy". I became a bit nervous when I got to see one of the houses from afar. The drivers stopped at the roadside where they were paid their fare.

We headed towards the main house where I spotted a distant but well-known face. The place looked pretty tidy as they had slashed most of the fields where they used to grow cassava, maize and other stuff. As we approached the kids left their rooms to welcome us. It was so good to see all those familiar faces and to get to know the new staff and children. We started out with six that we had brought from our old project in November 2014. In the meantime we count responsible for 18 children. You couldn’t believe how relieved and happy I was when I realised that the children looked very healthy. Some of them were very sick, suffered from skin problems and malnutrition but they all seemed to be fine now.

We took a short tour and checked all the improvements to the site. It looked a lot more cosy compared to my last visit and it was pretty obvious what still needed to be done in the future. We then returned to the kids who had brought plenty of chairs to the veranda and waited for us. Stefan brought coloured pencils, felt pens and Swiss Toblerone chocolate which he handed to the kids. How fun it was to watch them suck the molten chocolate out of the wrapping! After they had finished the sweets they sang and danced for us which was very cute. Then Stefan showed them a movie that Ellen, who volunteered at the "Children's Home of Joy", made during her stay last year. The movie showed a typical day at the orphanage. The kids amused themselves very much as well as we did watching them watching the movie about them. After chatting, playing and taking lots of pictures we left the orphanage in the late afternoon. This time we decided to walk back to the hotel. We were shown a typical short-cut which took us even longer to reach our destination than it would have had we taken the main road. But anyway, it’s always very interesting to walk a bit off the track as we got to see how the local people lived their lives.

Back at the hotel we had supper, reviewed the day and previewed the next day’s program. We wanted to surprise the kids with an excursion to a swimming pool nearby. But now: Bedtime!

Boda ride to our orphanage "Children's Home of Joy"

how tidy it was at our orphanage "Children's Home of Joy"

the kids welcoming us

checking the site

Immaculate preparing bread with vegetables

The kids were already waiting for us

Yummy! Molten Toblerone

I guess he will become President of our orphanage "Children's Home of Joy"

we enjoyed a lot watching Ellen’s movie

photoshooting

walking back to the hotel