Dodie October 25 visit report #2

Sept 30th – Oct 2nd

Back in Mityana and then the teaching began. We had 17 the first day, ten of whom I knew from last year’s visits to their homes. During the course of the week the numbers are rising. Some haven’t arrived because the families are planting in their gardens and they stay to help. The rainy season is very close and we have had dramatic storms and enormous downpours. Water tanks are full again and people are looking much happier. Now the maize and beans (these are the staples) will grow like mad.

The markets are full to overflowing with tomatoes and there is a place near the main road when men and women wait to be selected for tomato picking each morning around 7.30 – 8 am. Then, if you turn up at the market at 7pm, they are selling the tomatoes ready for the following day. It is amazing to hear them haggling and arguing about the costs and the amounts.

With the teaching we have begun with what a lay reader does and they all listed lots of ideas. Then we looked at a couple of things they felt were important. By the end of each session, I ask what they have learnt and it seems they have really appreciated the open discussion and all the time we have been able to Iisten to others. Each afternoon I stop to give them something to eat, and they are often very hungry.

Yesterday it was pineapple and water melon, then it was more of the same with bread and jam, and hard-boiled eggs, bread and bananas.

Sleep has been disturbed with people talking on their phones until 2.30 am! And talking very loudly… Then something set the dogs in the area off and they all bark like mad.
Each of the mornings I go out to visit schools and Monday I went to Ashford Hill’s link called Kabuwambo. My dentist wanted to make a donation so she bought ten geometry sets and the candidates for the end of primary school exams were so thrilled. They were all beaming from ear to ear.

I popped into Ecchinswell’s links school, Butega. There is a new head there and things looks as if they are on the improve, numbers are rising which is great.

For the last 2 to 3 weeks teachers have been striking over pay. They want an increase of 10%. They get so little. About £100 a month and the government seems to be taking no notice of them, yet because the next election is very close, they are promising financial help to groups of families. But the teachers are saying, ‘if you have money to give away to families then you can increase our pay.’ Of course, the promises made by the government will never be fulfilled, but the people live in hope! The government officials are visiting each district calling all headteachers in to ask them to convince their teachers to return. With critical exams beginning in 4 weeks parents are worried and angry.

One evening in the dining area there was a group of ten or twelve men and one woman. They were having serious conversations and signing documents and then someone would go to a car and come back with an envelope. Out of the envelope would come wads of 50,000 UGS notes (about £10 per note). They were selling a piece of family land worth about 100,000,000 (£22,000) – that gives you an idea about how many envelopes were being passed around. Each family member received their share.

In the early morning between 6.30 and 7am all the staff arrive – cleaners, waiters and waitresses and laundry girls. They get changed out of their home clothes into uniforms. I think they get one day off a week. Very often I hear them singing as they arrive. It is a lovely sound….