Matooke

Anyone who has been to Uganda will know that matooke (big green bananas that you have to cook) is one of the favourite dishes. There is a particular way to peel, prepare and cook it, and it is generally the ladies job to do the preparing. I have been allowed to help in the cooking process before, but there is normally some level of surprise that a mzungu (white man/lady) can manage this particular task. It is a bit of a treat so we don't generally have it here with the IYs...and its also a bit of a fiddle to prepare! Cathie was my teacher/instructor on this occasion.

Steve in a dress......

Last week Steve went to a Ugandan 'introduction' ...the first part of the wedding ceremony in traditional weddings. The dress he is wearing is called a kanzu. It is worn over trousers and with a jacket (just a little warm in this climate it has to be said!). The young man he is with is Silver - one of the IYs. Quite a sight I am sure you will agree!

Another school trip!

Silas has been doing a topic about cars in school (his suggestion!), so a trip to the mechanics was in order! We have (sadly), got to know this particular garage quite well since our move to Kampala, as our car has had to have some substantial work done on it. Silas had a great time though .....with lots of pointing at crucial car parts .....Steve on the other hand had a slightly more frustrating visit... : our car has been making a strange squeaking sound since its last 'fixing' and Steve was going to check it out. He took it in to have a test drive so they could listen and make a diagnosis. Trouble was, there was no sound at all from the car ..(just steve trying to re-create the high itched 'eeeeessskkkkk' sound himself). The car behaved perfectly until it got to within sniffing distance of our house here and then the squeaking returned!

Saturday Morning

A pretty normal saturday here in the IY household. We generally do cleaning and jobs in the morning - today we sanded down benches than needed a coat of varnish - heavy work..but there were plenty of us.

Juliet is catching up on here washing - all by hand so fairly time consuming,....

and the two girls Zam Zam and Fiona had been invited out to an end of term party at a school where they have previously worked on their placement...so they were all dolled up and ready to party - at 9.30 in the morning which was quite a challenge for both of them!

Silas was caught developing a new lego creation - also a very important job.

The teenagers we live with do work hard, sometimes needing gentle -or less subtle(!) - reminders to get going, but mostly they are willing and very helpful. All of them do their own clothes washing, we have rotas for washing up etc, and at the weekend they also cook and do some general household cleaning.

We have grown to know them more closely with living all in the same space, and they have made it fairly easy to share 'our space' ...

Rainbow Day

Today at Joel and Anyas School it was 'Rainbow Day' in the primary section- they celebrate the great diversity of cultures represented within the school ..over 60. Children dress up in the colours of their nations flag, and there are various activities plus food tasting related to the different continents. Thanks to a masterful outfit made by her mum Anya got to be in the parade! Kathryn got involved in painting Henna on childrens' palms in the Asia section.

The school that Anya and Joel go to is an international school teaching the British curriculum, but most of the children are from East Africa - Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. Then there are many others from the other African nations, China, Russia, Canada, Germany, Wales etc etc... We are so grateful for the chance to send Joel and Anya to this school. They have made friends and so far have fitted in well.

Our Friend Judith.

We have a good friend here in Kampala - Judith - who has lived here in Uganda for over 30 years. She is a bit like an adopted granny for us out here. Well - she has recently bought and begun building on land near to Lake Victoria in Entebbe. We all went out to celebrate the work so far (feeble excuse for a bit of a picnic!). We ate under the little cook shelter and let off some chinese lanterns once it got dark. Anya even wrote a little poem to mark the occasion. There is still a long way to go as you can see - so time for plenty more celebratory picnics!!

On Saturday it was the boys on cooking lunch ...as you can see they really took the task to heart and made the most of their role serving us beautifully!! These two are James and Silver ..both are doing placements on construction sites. Where they got the ties from is anyones guess - certainly not Steves wardrobe! (the white stuff is the staple posho that we all eat a few times a week .... its kind of like stiff semolina!)

full house

One great advantage of having a house full with teenagers is that there are plenty of big 'brothers and sisters' for Joel, Anya and Silas. The house we are in is a typical city house here - not much outside space and walls surrounding what space there is. The children - of all ages - make full use of any available space, but it has been great for our three to have others around who are more able to play, apart from just their ageing parents! We are very grateful for these young people and the way they accept our own children.....

pancakes

One of Silas' first reading books is called 'The Pancake'....of course providing the perfect excuse to cook pancakes for morning snack. He certainly takes after Steve in his culinary expertise ... we are now looking forward to the day when he can create tasty breakfast dishes without any supervision by the parents! He is still enjoying being the only Brown child at home during the day. He is gradually learning to read, which I still find a bit miraculous!

..Uganda v Kenya

Saturday 8th October had a day all of us in Uganda had been looking for to in nervous anticipation. The reason? The last match of the qualifying for the 2012 African Nations, with Uganda needing a win (a draw could do? if Angola didn't win!). Who were they playing...Kenya! A local derby with so much at stake, i love football.

Uganda have not been to an African nations for 30 years, so surely this was the time?

Judith, Joel and me went, (like being back in South africa). We dressed and set off, fairly early as we knew it would be pretty busy, kick off was at 5pm so we left at 1pm....as we got closer to the ground, there were cars parked everywhere so following the crowd we turned up a dirt road and deposited the car and went the rest of the way on foot.

The colour and noise was stunning, i don't know if i have ever been anywhere noisier, we joined the never ending queue to get and after not moving for seemingly hours, we gave up and wandered round to another entrance where we got easily. It was 2:45pm so we thought we go up and find a seat and then maybe get a drink etc...as we found the section of the stadium we were in, it was totally full except for the back two rows, (2 hours before kick off) which we quickly grabbed and settled down to a long wait and the pre match entertainment! As we waited for kick off, people kept coming in, though we were already full. In the end it was 2 to a seat, all the stairwells and passageways were full, so we were stuck in our seat until the end.

The game was fantastic, with Uganda piling on pressure for most of it, desperately searching for the 1 goal they would need....as the 2nd half progressed, everyone knew in the stadium that Angola had won and so Uganda needed a goal, and so for the last 20 mins Uganda threw everything at the Kenya goal, but the ball would just not enter the net....at the final whistle the Ugandan players sank to the turf while the kenyan players celebrated stopping their neighbours getting to the finals....Disappointing but what a day, great fun and everyone should experience watching a football match in Africa, nothing like it....and of course there is always next time!!

Life...

Time to play and relax is welcomed. There isnt that much space outside the house we are in, and no parks really to go to in the city, but at least there is room to kick a ball, read stories, and hang out with friends. We are liking the rented house we are in a lot, and it suits the needs we have - with us and the IY students. It isnt the long term plan but we reckon we will be here for at least a year. Joel is here playing out at the front of the house - kicking against the wall and the gate ...its all pretty enclosed as you can see, not much grass, but enough space nevertheless.

IYs at work

Chapattis for sunday lunch has become a good tradition - the challenge is getting teenagers up early enough to cook enough for 13 of us before leaving for church at 10.!

The Investment year students who are living with us have to do a lot of general work. With no washing machine and no electric iron, clothes washing takes up quite a bit of time at the weekends or spare moments during the week. Everything generally gets ironed to get rid of the mango fly eggs (mango flies like to lay their eggs on damp clothing...the eggs then stay in the clothes and wait for some nice warm skin to burrow in to ..mmmmm - we should say we have never suffered from such choice african bugs!!)

We spend some part of saturday mornings cleaning the house together, everyone has to get involved before being able to choose what to do with the rest of the day. There are 8 teenagers living with us at the moment...or is it us living with them. Things are working well at the moment, and despite the odd confrontation or misunderstanding we are all adjusting to being around each other.

Ugandas Independence

The 9th October was Independence Day for Uganda. Joel and Anya had a non-uniform day at school, having to dress up in the colours of the Ugandan flag : black, red and yellow. Here, with the IYs our main way of celebrating was to make and eat cake...of course, for the Investment Year students - celebrating freedom from the British is done with tongue in cheek as we are holding them to account and they are under our charge!!

...first wobbly tooth....

Well Silas has lost his first tooth : at the age of 5 and a half. We all thought this was a bit early, but out it came without very much encouragement. He of course was very excited, and proud to show off the gap. In uganda there is the tradition of a 'tooth rat'! - who comes to get the tooth. We preferred the tooth fairy story, so did Silas!..., so he was expectant and happy to find some coins under his pillow the next morning.

...school trip

i remember my first school trip, it was a long time ago when i was in primary school and the trip was to the natural history museum in London. Though it was a lifetime ago i still remember it so well, and remains a fantastic memory....Silas has been doing school for the last few weeks and focusing on animals and so a trip to the zoo was needed. Both of us were very excited and so this morning we headed off to Entebbe to the Zoo. We arrived at 10am and had the run of the place, Silas was very keen on seeing Giraffes, and as we headed off towards them, they were the furthest animals away, we got distracted by the monkeys. As we left the monkeys we wandered over to the lions who as normal were sleeping, so we thought!! There is a viewing point which overlooks the lions and as we studied them, i noticed that one of the lionesses was following Silas with her eyes, wherever he went so did her eyes. After quite a while we descended from the viewing platform and went across to the peacocks opposite the lion pen, after a couple of minutes i turned round to see that the lioness had moved and was now creeping and stalking towards Silas!! As we moved back towards her she was obviously taking great interest in Silas, thankfully there was fence between us, though was it thicker enough? I don't think i have been so close to a lion..

The adventures didn't finish there as a young camel also took interest in and decided to chase us!! Zoo's boring......Never!!

This could be a school trip Silas would never forget.....