Day Two in Fort Portal:
6.40am and I’m happily in a deep sleep dreaming away and five minutes later I was awoken by the incredibly loud sound of rain hammering down on the corrugated metal roofs of our hotel rooms, a natural alarm clock you could say. This rain was louder than any I’d ever heard before, I could barely have a conversation with SJ in the bed next to me as we could barely hear our voices over the noise and for SJ to hardly hear my voice really says how loud it was as everyone knows I’m the loudest. It wasn’t a just little shower either.
With a delayed start likely the team embarked on tackling the incredible breakfasts available at the hotel, with Tom especially taking full advantage of it and having pancakes, sausages and bacon covered in maple syrup followed by another order of eggs, bacon and sausages as well as enjoying an array of bread and fruit, but he’s a growing man and of course breakfast is the most important meal of the day especially here where lunches are few and far between and the heat is beating down on us all day long.
Unfortunately the rain did not stop until 10am and so did cause a slight delay to our programme. After a great day of teacher training yesterday we had asked the teachers how many students they would be bringing along, from our estimations we were expecting around 240 young people. With the rain that morning, I then began to doubt that we would get that may there, however as the bus turn into the sports ground we could see hundreds of eyes staring back at us, a sea of young smiling children, excited to play sports. After setting up our stations and a warm up, it was my turn today to do the introductions to CWB and our work.
We had 396 young people today and hearing them all in chorus repeating their ABC’s back was spectacular. Today Ross and I were coaching fielding and our 2nd group consisted of 140 young people, never have I tried “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes” with such a big group, my voice was definitely fading towards the end of that session. After lunch we all played rapid fire, one girl, Martha, started talking with me. I asked if she played cricket and she said she could not play but she scored. I told her she has played nonstop cricket today and she had said she loved it.
Seeing each group end their sessions with big grins was amazing and hearing them tell us all the ABC’s at the end of the day left me speechless, seeing 396 people having learnt HIV awareness from us, truly summed up what this trip was all about. Plus today had such a high number of girls in attendance which for me as a girl was incredibly positive.
After such a great day we took a trip to the Rwenzori Special Needs Foundation, a charity we had come across by chance yesterday on a shopping trip in town. Here we were introduced to a number of young people with learning difficulties and physical disabilities that attend the foundation to learn skills and trades which will help them to gain work in their communities. We ran some coaching with the young people and one particular boy with Downs Syndrome, Joseph loved batting and hitting the ball hard. At the end of the session we gave out the rest of our pencils we had bought with us to donate to everyone we had met at the Foundation and Joseph in particular had the biggest smile ever, he was so proud holding onto everything we had donated.
Overall today was a day that melted my heart in many ways and truly proved just how important the work we are doing out here is, the messages we are spreading are priceless and ones that we have seen are changing lives before our eyes. A sad moment hit me writing this as tomorrow is our last day. Uganda has been a trip I’ll never forget.
Beth Evans