Hi and welcome to the second instalment of our blog! I cannot believe how fast a week has gone by since Esther was filling you in on the events of our first week in Uganda. I’m going to fill you in on the news from the last week, I hope you enjoy it!

We’ve been quite busy so thank goodness the heat seems to have subsided a little, although I’m not sure we were quite so positive during the various nighttimes where the thunder storms seemed to be shaking the whole house! I’ve never heard anything like it. The rain starts which is initially quite calming but then it increases at such a rate that you feel like you’re going to be washed away! Then the lightening lights up the whole room and the deafening thunder follows about a second later. I’m yet to enquire what the roof is made of…I’m not sure I want to know!

As far as the projects that we’re both getting involved with this week we’ve been creating action plans and timelines for our 4 months here. This has really helped to see whether we’ll be able to achieve everything and to think about the various ways that we’re going to carry out our proposals. I think we’re both a little overwhelmed with the scope for work that needs to be done but we’re trying to focus and realise that we don’t have to complete everything by the time we leave – that is what the following interns are coming for. It’s really good to know

that our work is going to go towards so much; everything that we are planning will really make a difference.

I’m really looking forward to getting quite heavily involved with the school as it looks like they need all the help they can get. The director of the school, Mary, seemed so excited that they were going to have a real English person teaching English! Apart from the teaching I’m hoping to set up a Young Enterprise scheme which should really help the children develop their business acumen and also give them a bit of fun making various products with the materials I’ll be giving them. As well as this I’ll be creating a brochure and hopefully a website to be able to create relationships for opportunities for fundraising both in Uganda and in the UK. As I said above – there’s so much to do so hopefully I’ll be able to complete at least a portion of it.

Esther has gone into Jinja today to start some market research for the Arts and Crafts jewellery project that she mentioned in last week’s blog. I think, again, this is a massive project and something that she can get really involved with. It will be so brilliant if it turns into an income generating project and they can contribute to their own school resources. She is aiming to market the jewellery in Jinja which could prove to be quite a challenge as there are already a few shops selling a similar type of product but she is the type of person who relishes a challenge so I’m sure she’ll be able to pull it off. There is also considerable potential to create a market in the UK so it seems like a really exciting project.

The street clinic aspect of our work seems to have also turned into quite an overwhelming assignment but something that will tie in really well with the Community Education Project - one of the main problems facing street children are people’s attitudes to them. We went on to the streets of Jinja this week and started talking to a few children who are facing this discrimination every minute of their lives. It was awful to see the ones who were quite obviously affected by drugs and the sleeping conditions that they have to en

dure every night. It was a really interesting process, however, and one that we’ll do every week in order to try and build relationships with these children before we can take them in to the S.A.L.V.E home.

We are still really enjoying living at the home and are getting on really well with everyone here. The children are all so fantastic and we’re really going to miss them when they go back to school. We’ve been making friendship bracelets, playing copious amounts of ‘Pick-Up Sticks’ which they seem to love, writing to their sponsors, and doing general reading/improving their English. Last night they all seemed in an incredibly hyper mood, singing and dancing for us after dinner in a style I can only describe as Michael Jackson meets Eminem. Once they eventually settled down talk turned to their lives on the street and we felt really privileged that they felt able to tell us all about their horrific experiences, even though it was quite disturbing to listen to. At first they were laughing about the ways the Police used to pick them up in the sacks they used to sleep in and beat them, and the various times that residents of Jin

ja would take all of their clothes and throw them in the lake. But when they started speaking about how the Police can put nails in the bottom of their shoes and stamp on their friends, killing a number of them, the mood wasn’t so jovial. This is why the Community Education Project is going to be so key – if we can begin to change people’s attitudes towards these children then it is going to make such a difference to the lives of these street kids, their situations having evolved through no fault of their own.

I’m sorry if this is totally depressing! I just think it’s important for everyone to know the horrors that these kids experience so that you can understand what brilliant work S.A.L.V.E does. The children that they have helped so far are so hard-working, happy and bright; they’re eating nutritious food and they have a safe, loving environment to live in.

Speaking of nutritious food we are still enjoying the food that we are being given here although the amount of carbohydrates that Ugandans eat isn’t really agreeing with us! So we decided to cook another English meal during the week and we were craving a massive amount of vegetables so much that we chose to make Chicken and Vegetable stew. We were so happy buying the huge amounts of vegeta

bles from the most amazing market in Jinja. It’s so vibrant and busy that you can get lost in the various alleys within it. Cries of “Muzungu!” follow you wherever you go and it’s diff

icult to decide which stall to buy veg from as there are so many that are pretty much exactly the same! But anyway, we bought our veg and eventually found the direction to the chicken. What we’d failed to remember when planning this meal is that in Uganda you can’t buy dead chickens cut up into nice lean breast meat. We found the huge cages of live chickens ready for us to take home and to kill ourselves! The kind men said that they’d do it for us so we quickly agreed and waited round to corner so as not to hear any of it in action! We were

given a feather-free dead chicken in all it’s entirety to take home and cut up. I urge people next time they are eating a chicken in England – appreciate the convenience please!! Anyway, the meal was a success with everyone here and it was lovely to have some good old English food!

I think I’ve rambled on for much too long already so I’ll sign off here. I’ve just been outside playing peek-a-boo behind the washing-line with the cutest little boy from next door who is permanently attached to the wooden stick he insists on carrying – he giggles at everything I do, probably thinking silly white girl! He is grinning at me through the window so I’m going to go and try and entertain him with my stupidity a bit further! Thanks for reading, and please come back next week for further news and events from Esther.

Caitlin xx