…and hello from Esther! Here I am again after a whole week (almost) since you heard from Caitlin and getting on for a month since we arrived - well three weeks to be exact – wow! Time is going very fast indeed and as clichéd as it may sound a lot has happened even since last week. It’s going to be difficult to give you the tiniest glimpse into it all!
So here I am sitting in the sitting room with a thankfully overcast sky today ahead of me and a faint breeze flowing through the open window with Ronald sitting beside me busily writing up a thank you letter to his sponsors. Laughs and clatters are coming from all directions as everyone else runs around and gossips enthusiastically (something the girls are very good at) over washing the dishes after a late lunch of fried potatoes and greens.
But how can I be writing from the SALVE home some of you may be wondering after what happened earlier this week? Well, after some sneaky thief managed to find the laptop opportunely sitting beside the window (curtained and closed from the inside) and cleverly managed to open the latch, reach through impossibly close-together bars and lift the laptop through plus cable which was firmly attached to it’s socket, we have suffered a couple of days or so using the internet cafe up the track and yesterday a friend of Mike’s turned up to kindly drop off his laptop for us to use for the next few days until we get more sorted.
The kids coped amazingly well, grouping together the following day with excited chatter about the happenings of the night and thought it very funny that the burglar took my toiletry bag containing toothpaste and a few other mazungu oddities I cant imagine he’ll find much of a use for through my open window where I’d stupidly left it very opportunely placed… I’d loved to have seen his face when he discovered it wasn’t stuffed with the cash and valuables as he’s presumably imagined.
Anyway, that all feels a while ago now and life continues as normal. We’ve moved everything of consequence away from the windows and are being extra specially careful to keep the borrowed laptop locked away so I’m sure nothing of the sort could happen again. The house is so securely bared and locked at night it would take a lot of sawing to do much harm…
Moving on… the following day got better with a swim in a beautiful pool that overlooks the Nile (this is fast becoming a Saturday routine) and lunch also overlooking the Nile where we came close to a baby crocodile who hurried away into the undergrowth as we arrived.
The week has been a busy one and I feel that we have achieved a lot, if only the beginnings of many things which are yet to become. Amongst the most exciting was a journey by boda boda (motorbike taxi) over the Nile to a remote village some distance into banana plantations. Our mission was to find the aunt of an eighteen year old boy, Moses, who we discovered was living on the streets and we felt was unsuitable to support directly through the SALVE home but knew of this aunt with whom he may be reunited.
We were greeted by hoards of children of all sizes, stunned and excited to see mazungus on motorbikes. Needless to say, the aunt who we had no means of contacting was away working in the fields but one of her relatives kindly went off in search of her and shortly (in which time we were ushered into a round, mud and thatch hut and shown proudly to the only piece of furniture, a plank bench) returned with the aunt. The children by this time had surrounded the hut to the extent that the ventilation was all but blocked off and it became a little stuffy as Mike explained the situation to the aunt who listened solemnly along with the older male relatives who had turned up and sat watching on from a discreet distance.
Sadly, the feeling was that they feared for their safety and that of the neighborhood in taking in someone who had lived on the streets for some period of time. Moses was sure to have picked up thieving behavior, they believed, and they felt they could not take this risk. We hope that we may find another source of help or that in time their attitudes may change.
For the meantime we resolved to find Moses and discuss his own thoughts with him. Our problem was solved with a phone call from the police as we returned to Jinja, explaining that Moses had been rounded up with all the other street children that the police could handle the night before and had been taken into jail.
After waiting some time in an office crowded with women and babies who were presumably visiting inmates, we were shown into an officer’s office where we were informed that the police didn’t have the resources to contain the street children and had shepherded them to the local large-scale street child rescue centre. Unsurprisingly Moses had already returned to the streets and we didn’t manage to find him that day but we did have an interesting conversation with a jovial police officer.
How he was jovial I can’t imagine or perhaps this is how he copes with the daily stress he must be living through. Or perhaps not. I’m sure I shouldn’t be saying this but I am thoroughly appalled at Ugandan police’s ignorance and short sightedness, or at least that which we witnessed. Who could appoint someone to deal with street children, someone with such responsibility and influence in the local community, and yet with no idea about the reality of the situation at hand? I am yet to discover.
The jovial police officer assumed that the children were free to return home to their families and that their pestilence in the streets could be controlled solely by their eradication, if not from periodical roundups into the prison, by some other equally immediate measure.
What I imagine accounts for the vast majority of children living on the streets coming from backgrounds of poverty, neglect and abuse, searching for their only chance of a livelihood, was entirely overlooked. Evidently the idea of providing opportunities to help the children out of their situation had not been considered as a plausible option.
This along with the children’s horrific reenactments of the police’s and other violent people’s behaviour towards them on the streets has given me the idea of collecting info on all the children we can reach on the streets on why they are there and how they are making a living, that we can use to educate and challenge misconceptions about their situation.
The idea is to create links with other community based organizations with whom we can share ideas, gain more info and strengthen our efforts to this end.
After some rather frustrating attempts to organise a meeting with the local street child centre that I mentioned earlier with which we hope to partner, we are none the wiser but hope that this will eventually happen sometime next week.
More optimistically we have begun the process of registering SALVE locally as a community based organisation on top of it’s UK registration status. This will give us the recognition required at the local level to create the links and partnerships that will be so important in expanding our work as an organisation.
Quickly the rest of our endeavors this week… Caitlin has at last managed to make contact with the Joy school in which she will be giving a lot of her time and energies. Yesterday she met some of her fellow teachers at a resource-making session before term starts on Monday and was able to discuss arrangements for Drama and English teaching which she is now well underway with planning.
The beads making project is doing great – had a wonderful reaction from everyone I spoke to in the tourist crafts shops in town, all of whom were interested in potentially selling the products and many of whom were very willing to give me private tutorials in bead making techniques – for which they wouldn’t allow me to pay!
Although it has been quite literally heartbreaking to come so close to the hardship and abuse of those on the streets, devastating to witness the cruelty of those who instigate it and frustrating to say the least to find those who are unwilling to help - the generosity of others and the open smiles that greet us everyday are enough to make it all worth it.
I think we’ve both learned a lot this week and are looking forward to seeing what the next one holds… we hope you’ll be back for Caitlin’s account!
Esther xxx
So here I am sitting in the sitting room with a thankfully overcast sky today ahead of me and a faint breeze flowing through the open window with Ronald sitting beside me busily writing up a thank you letter to his sponsors. Laughs and clatters are coming from all directions as everyone else runs around and gossips enthusiastically (something the girls are very good at) over washing the dishes after a late lunch of fried potatoes and greens.
But how can I be writing from the SALVE home some of you may be wondering after what happened earlier this week? Well, after some sneaky thief managed to find the laptop opportunely sitting beside the window (curtained and closed from the inside) and cleverly managed to open the latch, reach through impossibly close-together bars and lift the laptop through plus cable which was firmly attached to it’s socket, we have suffered a couple of days or so using the internet cafe up the track and yesterday a friend of Mike’s turned up to kindly drop off his laptop for us to use for the next few days until we get more sorted.
The kids coped amazingly well, grouping together the following day with excited chatter about the happenings of the night and thought it very funny that the burglar took my toiletry bag containing toothpaste and a few other mazungu oddities I cant imagine he’ll find much of a use for through my open window where I’d stupidly left it very opportunely placed… I’d loved to have seen his face when he discovered it wasn’t stuffed with the cash and valuables as he’s presumably imagined.
Anyway, that all feels a while ago now and life continues as normal. We’ve moved everything of consequence away from the windows and are being extra specially careful to keep the borrowed laptop locked away so I’m sure nothing of the sort could happen again. The house is so securely bared and locked at night it would take a lot of sawing to do much harm…
Moving on… the following day got better with a swim in a beautiful pool that overlooks the Nile (this is fast becoming a Saturday routine) and lunch also overlooking the Nile where we came close to a baby crocodile who hurried away into the undergrowth as we arrived.
The week has been a busy one and I feel that we have achieved a lot, if only the beginnings of many things which are yet to become. Amongst the most exciting was a journey by boda boda (motorbike taxi) over the Nile to a remote village some distance into banana plantations. Our mission was to find the aunt of an eighteen year old boy, Moses, who we discovered was living on the streets and we felt was unsuitable to support directly through the SALVE home but knew of this aunt with whom he may be reunited.
We were greeted by hoards of children of all sizes, stunned and excited to see mazungus on motorbikes. Needless to say, the aunt who we had no means of contacting was away working in the fields but one of her relatives kindly went off in search of her and shortly (in which time we were ushered into a round, mud and thatch hut and shown proudly to the only piece of furniture, a plank bench) returned with the aunt. The children by this time had surrounded the hut to the extent that the ventilation was all but blocked off and it became a little stuffy as Mike explained the situation to the aunt who listened solemnly along with the older male relatives who had turned up and sat watching on from a discreet distance.
Sadly, the feeling was that they feared for their safety and that of the neighborhood in taking in someone who had lived on the streets for some period of time. Moses was sure to have picked up thieving behavior, they believed, and they felt they could not take this risk. We hope that we may find another source of help or that in time their attitudes may change.
For the meantime we resolved to find Moses and discuss his own thoughts with him. Our problem was solved with a phone call from the police as we returned to Jinja, explaining that Moses had been rounded up with all the other street children that the police could handle the night before and had been taken into jail.
After waiting some time in an office crowded with women and babies who were presumably visiting inmates, we were shown into an officer’s office where we were informed that the police didn’t have the resources to contain the street children and had shepherded them to the local large-scale street child rescue centre. Unsurprisingly Moses had already returned to the streets and we didn’t manage to find him that day but we did have an interesting conversation with a jovial police officer.
How he was jovial I can’t imagine or perhaps this is how he copes with the daily stress he must be living through. Or perhaps not. I’m sure I shouldn’t be saying this but I am thoroughly appalled at Ugandan police’s ignorance and short sightedness, or at least that which we witnessed. Who could appoint someone to deal with street children, someone with such responsibility and influence in the local community, and yet with no idea about the reality of the situation at hand? I am yet to discover.
The jovial police officer assumed that the children were free to return home to their families and that their pestilence in the streets could be controlled solely by their eradication, if not from periodical roundups into the prison, by some other equally immediate measure.
What I imagine accounts for the vast majority of children living on the streets coming from backgrounds of poverty, neglect and abuse, searching for their only chance of a livelihood, was entirely overlooked. Evidently the idea of providing opportunities to help the children out of their situation had not been considered as a plausible option.
This along with the children’s horrific reenactments of the police’s and other violent people’s behaviour towards them on the streets has given me the idea of collecting info on all the children we can reach on the streets on why they are there and how they are making a living, that we can use to educate and challenge misconceptions about their situation.
The idea is to create links with other community based organizations with whom we can share ideas, gain more info and strengthen our efforts to this end.
After some rather frustrating attempts to organise a meeting with the local street child centre that I mentioned earlier with which we hope to partner, we are none the wiser but hope that this will eventually happen sometime next week.
More optimistically we have begun the process of registering SALVE locally as a community based organisation on top of it’s UK registration status. This will give us the recognition required at the local level to create the links and partnerships that will be so important in expanding our work as an organisation.
Quickly the rest of our endeavors this week… Caitlin has at last managed to make contact with the Joy school in which she will be giving a lot of her time and energies. Yesterday she met some of her fellow teachers at a resource-making session before term starts on Monday and was able to discuss arrangements for Drama and English teaching which she is now well underway with planning.
The beads making project is doing great – had a wonderful reaction from everyone I spoke to in the tourist crafts shops in town, all of whom were interested in potentially selling the products and many of whom were very willing to give me private tutorials in bead making techniques – for which they wouldn’t allow me to pay!
Although it has been quite literally heartbreaking to come so close to the hardship and abuse of those on the streets, devastating to witness the cruelty of those who instigate it and frustrating to say the least to find those who are unwilling to help - the generosity of others and the open smiles that greet us everyday are enough to make it all worth it.
I think we’ve both learned a lot this week and are looking forward to seeing what the next one holds… we hope you’ll be back for Caitlin’s account!
Esther xxx
PS It's been lovely to hear that so many of you are enjoying this! :)
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