Tororu (think that is correct spelling)

Well we have just returned from a 3/4 day trip to Tororu or rather a rural area north of there. The journey took about 5 hours. Wellspring have close connections with two or three communities and we went to offer help in education and health. We were a team of seven with me offering education, David, the physiotherapist Ronald and the midwife offering health provision and two children's workers plus Herbert (who runs wellspring with his wife Eve). The people speak a different language in this part of Uganda and people walk several miles to school or church. To see a vehicle caused people to line the tracks (not quite roads as we understand them) and to have white people caused them to come out their homes to view us even where there was a village center! The communities are very rural with a nursery school in one and tiny classes in the other. The school is in the process of being built and two classes held under trees. There is a blackboard for all but nursery and plan international sponsor the education. We were told that the local government school has 150 children PER CLASS!  On Thursday morning David held clinics with Ronald under the trees and once I had taught the nursery class (thereby showing teachers how one could teach number) I helped with dispensing medicine provided free of charge thanks to donations which you (our friends) have made. There is no running water so people travel to nearby bore holes with large jerry cans and yet each community prepared a lovely lunch on each day and we were given the only chairs available.The clinics were vastly over full with insufficient time to see everyone. In the afternoon we went to another community and we played games with the children. Due to lack of daylight (and no electricity) all finish by 6pm. Friday saw me training teachers (most are untrained) while David and others continued in a 3rd community. They were due back by 1pm and patients started arriving at 12. There were games for the children and then each was given a drink of squash and two biscuits - a real party. By 4pm the queue for the clinic was enormous and I had been teaching phonics for two hours to the infant staff surrounded by fascinated ladies. The clinic ( with the midwife and I dispensing once more) began with only children being seen till nearly 6pm.
Sunday began with the most amazing service of worship -fabulous singing without musical accompaniment and the children doing an amazing music and action presentation. David was the preacher.
The journey home began well until our fan belt went! Oh for the RAC! Pius and Ronald went for help and found a highway policeman who contacted a mechanic who came on his bicycle and sorted us out. Two hours later - flat tyre (wrong jack) but Pius got under the van (in the dark on a busy highway) and managed to get it to work. The traffic on the main roads is hairy to say the least and the only rule appears to be that if you can get past another vehicle on left or right then you do ! After over 6 hours we turned onto side roads (nowhere is tarmac apart from the very major highways) and after an 8 hour journey we got back. Herbert had driven all the way back!

Medicine

Outreach clinics at a community called Kito have been a challenge  because resources are limited. The local pastor and his wife have been extremely supportive. They have allowed us to use a corner of their church which as yet is only partially constructed, it has a roof and walls giving shade from the equatorial sunshine. The rest of the building is used for Lynne , Harriet and Jackie's adult literacy classes, so before starting the morning surgery a couple of pastors and I have to construct a separate surgery area using nails, a ladder and several spare beams from the construction site. This is then separated using some curtain material , we have pair of benches and a drum doubles up as table. I don't yet have an examination couch, but no doubt the ingenuity of the locals will come up with something!
We've also started an health promotion volunteers team who identify a local health need for example, malaria, then we discuss the basic health promotion message and they produce a short drama to illustrate the issue. When  I was in Malawi with the LINKs team, it worked very well, here's hoping and praying.

On a different note, Lynne and I did our first open the book presentation for about fifty children yesterday. We used a lot of children as mime actors, ably directed by Lynne while I read the story, which was about Jonah. We had plenty of props provided by Cathy and Teresa, and the spectators were enthralled. We also played games during the afternoon, tennis balls were highly useful so thanks Maidenhead tennis club, Sue  and Stella. Bean bags were in abundance thanks to Fran and Teresa.

Forgot to mention

We went shopping to a shopping center and bought lots of necessary items like bucket and mop, washbasket, beer, juice, cheese and other necessities and decided to get a couple of garden style chairs. Little did we realize how difficult these last two items would be! First we needed a docket so the staff could take them the 50 yards to the counter. We showed the docket at the cashout but it needed approval by customer service. Off to customer service who stamped it. Back to checkout to pay. Back to customer service to prove payment, back to checkout where the assistant called someone from customer service to bring the chairs to the checkout. Then they got someone else to carry the chairs the 10 feet to the door. Total cost  of chairs was about 12pounds so less than many other items. Could they potentially be dangerous or is there something about garden chairs which we do not know? We welcome your thoughts on this!

Third week

We are beginning to have a routine (of sorts now).  I spend part of my week in the secondary department where the 4 pupils are following an English curriculum working English school hours and terms. I am also doing some special needs work with various primary aged children some of whom have missed school due to illness. It is a very knowledge based curriculum with two sets of exams per term and league tables in year 7. Wellspring school was 304th out of 6000 schools. Unlike many schools they accept children with special needs (sound familiar?). One parent was so excited about finding a school for his son that he arrived a day early to register as he had been unable to sleep and was prepared to wait all day if necessary! School day is 7.15am until 5pm.
We go into a very deprived community twice a week to teach English and some basic literacy. We have two groups _ one of whom have had primary education and one of whom have not! We have lots of fun and in the church ( a partial roof and partial corrugated iron walls) we have learned the okey cokey and heads, shoulders, knees and toes as part of our curriculum. David does health promotion and a basic surgery behind a makeshift curtain. On two days a week when I am in school, David does physiotherapy in another community where these children rarely see daylight. One has now got his splints and we are about to deliver two standing frames and a seat specially designed for them from us.
We were asked to explain the term 'unwanted present' as there is no concept of receiving something which one does not want. Everything is so precious here so how can anything not be wanted. Makes you think.
Everyone has been having fun making pom POM's. We are completing the bean bags for community day on Saturday so no time to be bored. As we have had 24 hours without electricity, it is lucky we have solar lights!

One week on

School has not yet commenced, but during the past week we have begun to see some of the items ,time and money that people so generously gave beginning to be used. The heat is taking a bit of getting used to, but generally a very pleasant 27 deg. Everyone here is so friendly , and we were welcomed back very warmly. Today is  Sunday, so I went for a short afternoon walk. I took the alternative route home and now realize I would have gone the wrong way had I not met a member of Wellspring to guide me back! Lynne stayed at home very sensibly and stitched bean bags (as you do).