Eating British style!

I.Y. AT PALM RESTAURANT

“Investment Year is an institution of its own” said one of the IY members during the public speaking practice. This greatly struck and I agree with it. Many people have joined different institutions but if you critically follow what is behind all this is to get training about the life coming or what is going on.

This business dinner was prepared long before we got to know about it by our teachers as they know what food it is to us. We had to pick from a list of 15 careers they had chosen (e.g. Doctor, lawyer, film producer, agriculturist etc.) and we were to act as that person through the dinner.

The day which seemed too far came closer and closer up to when it happened. It was amazing seeing how beautifully all the business people showed up at the ‘Palm Restaurant’. Men putting on full suits and ladies as well not forgetting the risky high heels which made them taller for a moment!

‘Palm Restaurant’ was opened at 7pm as the senior chef welcomed us in and we had to interact with each other getting to know about where different ones of us were coming from and what job we did. The restaurant had good customer care services as the staff seemed to know what they were doing. (The IY staff served)

This time has been really a training of its own because however much we credit schools as being training centres, no teacher will ever come to class with a knife and fork and teach you how to use it! We need these skills if we are to interact publically.

As we were taking our last course which was coffee and chocolate cake, we heard from our guest speaker, Aunty Judith Goddard. Her speech was so strong but easy for some one with little faith and slow to responding to Gods call. For many of us fear failure but we were encouraged to hear about Aunty Judith has dealt with them in her life and kept going. There were many lessons to learn from her words and one of them is knowing and clearly following what the Lord requires of you, persistence being the key. Remember he who started a good work in you will fulfil it.

Zam-zam. IY student 2011.

BUSINESS DINNER

Among the million activities that are done in Investment Year, there stands this wonderful adventurous opportunity given to taste different foods, notably the ‘British foods!’ I never imagined of how the whites feel like when they taste African food like matooke which they are not used too, but it became clear to me when we tasted their foods like salads. It really was bizarre for many of us, it was like tasting herbs! I remember when every body took the first bite we looked at each other in wonderment thinking “what on earth is this thing we are eating?”

It was a wonderful night and we learned the new skills of using a knife and fork (British style!), and I now know that when I am in the UK I will not look out of place.

Mitala Isaac. IY student 2011.

Day in the City.

I remember the first time I visited my capital city (many years ago!) I think I wandered around wide eyed and stunned at the amount of people, all seemingly going somewhere very important and in a rush. Part of Investment Year is helping our children to develop life skills and to be able to live and operate in different settings. As we live in the village it is important to be able to move around the city safely and confidently, so this week as a group we travelled to Kampala (Capital City). We split them into 4 groups and gave them a map, a phone with a camera and a list of useful buildings, sites and monuments (eg. Taxi park, post office, parliament, independence monument etc) that they had to find with the final place being the leaders with lunch! As each team drifted off into the chaos of a busy city, there was nervous excitement from each of our children as they headed, for most of them into the unknown! We went to the final meeting place, hoping that no one would get too lost…80 minutes later the team who headed off last reached their destination after successfully finding all their places. TThe other teams were not far behind. It was a fun day and I believe our children learnt a lot about themselves, working as a team, asking for help, reading maps and being in Kampala. A few of them also learnt how to deal with being stuck in a lift (elevator) for 15 minutes!!

We left Kasana with 15 of our children and happily returned with 15!

school days

I remember the 1st day of the school year...for me at least filled with dread! Suddenly the holidays didn't seem half long enough. This week after a couple of months of it being very quiet here at Kasana, the sound of school returned and to be honest it was great to see and hear again. We enjoyed seeing the childrens enthusiasm for school and the desire to learn. Joel, Anya and Silas also went to school, Silas was very excited and was quite prepared to go by himself, we did remind him he was 4 years old and at least for the 1st day we would like to escort him to school. They all will do some school at the Kasana School as well as with Kathryn. We were excited to see how keen they were to get back to be with their friends at school. Joel is also working with a distance learning Year 7 package which looked very exciting and the science equipmet was better than what i had school!