Welcome to Bajjo!

Wow, ok, 2.5 weeks have flown by, where do I start…

Let me set the scene by describing my home for the next 6 months... Our 'house' is part of a building, separated into 3 living blocks – each with two rooms. The first ‘block’ is a ‘clinic’ used by Justine, the local mid-wife (and only medically trained person in the village we are in), the second is her living quarters, and we have the third. We have rented the two rooms (each about 10ft by 10ft) for a total of 50,000 UG Shillings a month – about £17! We use a small store room (4ft by 3ft) out the back of the ‘house’ as a ‘shower room’ (i.e. a room where we strip and pour water over ourselves from a bucket!). We currently share a ‘toilet’ with Justine and her children - Benja (3yrs) and Martha (2yrs) – who are incredibly cute and cheeky in equal measure…to clarify, when I say toilet I mean ‘hole in the ground’ – it’s a long-drop, and pretty disgusting! I am still trying to get to terms with squatting over a small hole while the flies buzz overhead, the spiders sit in the corner, the gekos wait patiently on the wall and the cockroaches move over each other in ‘the hole’! Going to the toilet is definitely no longer a time to relax and reflect – it’s about getting in and getting out as fast I can!!

Bajjo, the village we are staying in, is near a town called Bombo in the Luwero district of Uganda (between 1-3 hours from the capital – depending on the traffic, how brave the driver is, and the number of pot holes on the road..) Bajjo has one main ‘road’ running through it (one of those classic single-track orange dirt roads you see in the films) and several tracks running off this main road…apparently there are close to 2000 people living in the village, but it feels more like 200! It really is a classic African village, with single room mud-huts being the norm. The contrast between rich and poor, however, even in the small village of Bajjo, is very apparent. Houses range from small one roomed mud huts – to quite substantial brick/concrete buildings (like ours) – some with intermittent electricity…and some with none at all…none of the houses have running water – this we have to collect from a well about 1km from our house…its uphill on the way back and is an absolute killer…we have already got into the habit of paying a local boy to fetch it for us (it’s not child labour – its spreading the wealth – they are grateful for the work!) The clothes that the villages wear range from what can only be described as rags – right through to pristine white shirts, trousers and shining black shoes!...how on earth people get their clothes clean here I will never know – I constantly feel dirty and have already rubbed the skin off my knuckles as I unsuccessfully try to scrub my clothes clean in a bucket!

And so, on to the people…wow, what can I say – incredible warmth – we have been welcomed into the village with open arms. We have held/attended several community meetings to talk about what we are here to do – and to ask what they would like/want. Every time I am humbled by the appreciation they show to us just for being here. The kids are incredible – full of life and happiness, finding joy in the simplest of things; a bottle top..an empty plastic bottle..a bike tyre (the kids run along keeping the tyre moving with a stick – just as you as have seen kids doing in pictures from the Victorian times in England!)… And what the kids may lack in academic education they certainly make up for in their creativity, resourcefulness and ‘practical living skills’. The average 3 year old in the village can survive on their own all day quite happily without adult supervision and even walk to the local market (1km away) and buy some eggs…the average 5 year old can beat a tune on a drum and walk to the well to fill up a jerry-can with water (1km away)…the average 7 year old can look after their younger siblings, feed them and care for them…the average 10 year old can start a fire, cook dinner and chop down a tree…Amazing!

The people have nothing and yet they still give and share food with us – the sense of community and togetherness is very strong. This was highlighted when we attended a funeral of an elderly gentleman who passed away last week. He was quite an important man in the village and the whole community turned out – people came from neighbouring villages and towns at very short notice (it is the custom to bury the dead within 24 hours) – there must have been over 3000 people at the funeral - an impressive feat in logistics and organisation in itself! But the thing that really impressed me was how people from different religions mixed. The guy that died was Muslim – but the Christians and Muslims (the two dominant religions in this region) mingled as one at the funeral, sitting next to each other – the Christians waiting patiently as their Muslim kin prayed next to them – it was quite moving (we could really learn from this in the UK).

So, I’ve covered the accommodation, the village and the people…now a quick word on what I have been doing! The wannabeamazin team - me, Anna, Karl and Vincent (our newest recruit – a local we have employed to help with translation) have been working hard kicking off the programmes we came hear to run – 2 weeks in and everything seems to be going well. We have registered close to 150 kids and are running programmes Mon-Sat, including football, netball and English lessons for the adults (the level of English varies considerably, from relatively fluent to non-existent..the latter being the norm!). I’m really enjoying teaching the Arts programme. I have barely picked up a pencil or paint brush since starting work so its really nice to have time to do it again and to try and pass on some of the knowledge from my Art A-Level. As well as running the programmes we have been working hard with the community constructing a volleyball pitch and clearing (and levelling) some ground to make a netball pitch (almost there!). Next step is to build some football goals for the boys and dig drainaige channels in the field we want to play football on (half the pitch is a boggy marsh at the moment)!

Ok, I think I’ll end it there – lots more to write but you have 6 months of this to wade through and this has already turned into an essay! In summary; I’m living in a classic African village in a basic 2-roomed house with no water, a shared long-drop, a (very) small charcoal ‘stove’, and intermittent electricity…and I’m loving it!