Well our first full week is now over and it can not be exactly be described as the most productive week but it has at least given us a taste of what is to come of our remaining time in Uganda.

On the Monday we visited the school where we will be teaching in the morning. The headmaster seemed to think we were going to teach there and then but after a few lethargic attempts at 'head shoulders knees and toes' Marte and I made the executive decision to play some football instead, always a winner. My steroetypes of Africa keep being confirmed and the school was no exception. The classrooms were totally open on one side, mud floored, and the structure wouldn't even pass for a shed in England. Half the kids didn't even have pencils to write with. In the afternoon we went to the other project wich we will help with which is situated in the centre of town. The project is much the same but with both adults and children. We decided to leave the children songs for another occasion on this visit and opted to just ask a few questions.

On the Tuesday we started to teach properly. I took the slightly older kids as we both thought they would respect such a strong authoritarian manly figure like myself. If this lesson had been conductred in England I would currently be writing to you from jail and not or the Gary Glitter type of reasons. The pencils I gave out needed sharpening and in the absence of a health and safety regulated sharpener the headmaster produced a set of razor blades which he distributed to the kids. Now we all know what happened next. Pete stood at the front of the clas thinking 'mmmmm, I don't know if this is such a good idea....' and before you could say 'please be careful with with those potentially very harmful objects' two of the kids had managed to gash their forearms. I was just waiting for those healt ad safety officials to come rushing through the door and arrest me! Instead the headmaster patched them up with some paper and rags and off I went teaching my distinctive south bucks twang to these unsuspecting refugees. It is actually very hard and duating teaching them because they all speak at different levels and whilst many of them can speak relatively good English they have real trouble writing and reading it. We bought for the school about 15 pounds worth of books as they liturally have nothing. When I handed around some of the exercise books to the children you would have thought I had just given them a plate full of chocolate. When Marte got the crayons out in her class I'm sure the gasps of excitement could be heard on Zanzibar. They are so keen to learn but have so little to learn with.

Thats where the teaching expolits for the week kind of stop. Wednesday morning saw Marte waking up and informing me she felt sick and by the afternoon I too was parting company with my breakfast of yellow bread and peanut butter (it was not pretty.) We were very sick! I actually managed to find some backbone for once in my life and after being sick didn't feel sorry for myself and just told Albert we needed to go to the doctor. We took a taxi to an international clinic where we got tested for Malaria and various gut infections and it turned out we had the latter. As I was a few hours behind Marte in my illness I still felt pretty shocking by the time we left the doctors and I insisted we splash the cash and stay the night in a nice aircon hotel. It was very expensive but worth every penny as we are now on our way back to full health although I stil feel guilty for spending so much money on a hotel.

So, the outcome of the week. A couple of congolese refugees have scares on their arms, I never want to have the taste of peanut butter in my nose again and a nice hotel room in Kampala has a faint smell of vomit.

Hope you are all well at home and I apologise for not checking the spelling and grammar as my internet time is just about to run out.

Go on the Wanderers.

Pete