This week we have had a completely different experience. On Sunday, Richard drove four of our team complete with training resources to the Focus Education Centre in rural Garuga. We were expecting about thirty participants, mostly medical students with a few representatives from non-governmental organisations, some from as far afield as Kenya. The guy with responsibility for leading the week has many skills but the ability to organise is not one of them, and so we were quite anxious as to how the five-day residential course would proceed.

There is a great need for menstrual hygiene education in Uganda due to a lack of accurate information and the existence of many myths and taboos.  In addition, many women and girls do not have access to proper sanitary protection and adopt unsafe practices. A significant number of girls fail to attend school during their period.  World Menstrual Hygiene Day takes place on 28^th May and the purpose of the week was to give the attendees the necessary knowledge and skills to run training and awareness-raising sessions in their own districts.  Irise is also very keen to promote the use of participatory teaching methods rather than the didactic approach normally adopted here.

I have already discovered that one’s natural characteristics, needs, tolerance levels and adaptability come into sharp focus when living abroad.  When we arrived at the centre, there was no sign of the manager, and there didn’t appear to be any running water or electricity. The pit latrines were without toilet paper and the stark dormitories had bunk beds without pillows or mosquito nets. Our hearts sank as we are meant to be promoting good menstrual hygiene. Chloe and I are both practical by nature and tend to come prepared for most eventualities but we don’t generally carry enough supplies for nearly forty people.  We were also concerned that the caterers were only providing hot drinks at set times and that we had somehow to maintain a supply of bottled water.  However, the idyllic setting lifted our spirits. Garuga is on a peninsula bordered by Lake Victoria and the grounds of the centre run right down to the shore.  It transpired that the centre has its own back-up electricity generator and that they had simply temporarily turned off the water supply. Nevertheless, a few of the participants were not enamoured with the accommodation.

From the moment that I begin to awake in the morning, it is evident that I am not in England due to the unfamiliar birdsong. As I strolled down to the shower block on the first morning at the centre, not only did an amazing chorus of birds greet me, but I was also treated to the wonderful sight of the sun rising over the lake, and I felt positively elated.

The practical difficulties caused by the lack of pre-planning were generally resolved during the week.  The participants were a really interesting group and entered whole-heartedly into the activities.   I did become a little frustrated at times by the lack of dorm etiquette with no attempt being made to minimise noise or turn out the lights at a reasonable hour.  Ugandans like to dress very smartly.  However, I thought it was taking it a step too far when, on one occasion, Susan produced a full-sized iron and started using it at around midnight with one of the other educators repeating the activity at six thirty the following morning.

We had a real opportunity to sample traditional Ugandan food during the week. Both lunch and supper were based around a range of starchy foods: posho, matoke (cooked plantain), millet bread, rice and sweet potatoes. Each meal, we typically received a large dollop of any three of these staples accompanied by a little meat stew, fish or beans.  There might also be some greens or a groundnut (peanut) sauce and the meals were very filling.  I don’t imagine that the average family would normally serve up several staples in one meal. I am delighted to say that matoke is perfectly pleasant and bears no resemblance whatsoever to banana. Breakfast took the form of bread and jam. Most bread is white and seems to contain added sugar although in Jinja, we have managed to find some brown bread, which is unsweetened.

It had been suggested that we might be interested in seeing a local fishing village and so one morning before breakfast, three of us took the thirty-minute walk.  We were too late to see the boats come in but they were still in the process of laying out piles of smaller fishes. The locals weren’t making any attempt to greet us and so we were hesitant to walk amongst the harvest or to take photos.  However, as luck would have it, two of the Ugandan course participants arrived shortly after us and entered into dialogue with one of the fisherman.  He was only too pleased to explain how they make their catch and to pose for a photo. 

Chloe and I knew that we would be tired at the end of the week and in need of some space so we decided to travel the relatively short distance to Entebbe on Friday afternoon and stay overnight. Chloe loves to swim and many of the larger hotels in Uganda allow non-residents to use the pool for a small charge and so we visited the Lake Victoria Hotel.  I have to say that I really didn’t like the place, as it seemed to have a slight feel of the old colonial days.  However, we then had a delightful evening meal at the Boma Hotel sitting on the veranda overlooking the candlelit tropical garden before returning to our more modest accommodation at the Entebbe Backpackers, which still seemed very luxurious after the basic facilities of the preceding week.

Having had the most glorious few days without even a storm at night, we were dismayed to wake up to heavy, continuous rain.  So we spent the morning relaxing in the hotel’s sitting room and caught our first glimpse of a TV programme since arriving in Uganda, which took the form of some inaccurate American commentary on the Royal Family. Sadly, I lost the end of one of my recently repaired teeth over lunch.  The rain finally stopped and we were able to walk across to the Botanical Garden situated on the shore of Lake Victoria. It contains a mixture of indigenous and non-native species and a central area of rain forest.   We were greeted by Rafiki, who proved to be a very knowledgeable and engaging guide. It was a very beautiful place to walk around and we were encouraged to stop, smell, touch and appreciate various plants and trees.  We were lucky to spot a family of black-and-white colobus monkeys high in the trees including a very young baby still with its all-white coat.  These monkeys have four digits, no thumb and tufted white tails.  I hope to return one morning when the birds are likely to be more in evidence.  Just after leaving the gardens we came across quite a large group of vervet monkeys, scavenging for food in a rubbish heap.  The male monkeys are very easily identified by their vivid blue scrotum!

Originally we had planned to catch a bus from Entebbe to Kampala and then try to find a coaster bus, which is larger than the minibuses and stops less frequently, to complete our journey to Jinja. However, it was already six o’clock and we had no idea how late transport runs in the evening. The only other option was to stay another night in Entebbe but, in the end, we decided to take a chance and begin the journey. It soon became apparent that there is no sense of anything closing down in the evenings. All the shopping areas that we passed along the way were positively teeming with life and Kampala itself was just amazing.   I don’t think that either Chloe or I were prepared for the scene that greeted us at the bus station and I don’t really have the words to describe it adequately.  Right in the centre were a few stallholders sitting on the ground with candles, selling their wares surrounded by dozens and dozens of buses all trying to go somewhere.  We wouldn’t have missed it for the world.  We asked the conductor where we might find a coaster to Jinja as there were no bus stops, zones or information displayed anywhere.  Thankfully, Ugandans are probably the most helpful people I have ever come across and the conductor simply left the bus and led us through the sea of buses to where the Jinja coaster was rapidly filling with people. It sped along the highway without stopping until it reached the outskirts of Jinja, at which point it seemed permissible to get off at any point, and so we were able to alight at the end of our road shortly before ten thirty.