At the Grail

I have moved from Pastor Paul’s house to the Grail, very close to the Lubaga (also called Rubaga) Cathedral.  The convent is surrounded by lovely gardens with fruit trees such as banana and pawpaw.  When I asked if I could stay I was warned that I might find their accommodation too uncomfortable.  Uncomfortable?  I have a lovely room looking out on a lush hillside garden.  I have my own toilet and shower right next door to my room.  The meals are basic by European standards, but luxurious by South Sudanese.  There is delicious fruit to accompany every meal.  The Grail community is very welcoming and congenial.  I am free to come and go as I please.  What more could I ask for?

I asked to be allowed to work while staying with them.  They suggested that I could help in the kindergarten in the Lubaga Hospital grounds, which is run by the Grail.  Each morning I take a 5 minute walk to assist in the kindergarten.  The kindergarten is a world away from the nursery and school in Nimule.  There are around 70 children.  Although the area is small, it has been well planned so that there is an outdoor area with play equipment and a proper indoor classroom with displays on the walls.  There are seats for all the children.  As at Cornerstone, the children practise drawing and writing on slates to avoid wasting precious paper.

Although the child/teacher ratio would not meet western requirements the teachers cope very well.  The children get individual teacher time to practise writing numbers and letters in exercise books.  I am helping with this task each morning.  I had forgotten how difficult it is for small children to hold a pencil and form letters correctly.  It is very time-consuming work.  While the individual sessions are going on the other children have free play; otherwise it would be impossible with so many children.  

Apart from helping with the individual writing sessions I have also introduced some counting songs.  ‘Ten Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed’ is a hit.

The kindergarten is divided into three classes.  I have been amazed by the level of English in the top class’s English lesson.  The teachers are clearly very well trained.  There is lots of repetition to help the children absorb new concepts.  Towards the end of each morning some of the younger children start to collapse and are put on mattresses to sleep.

On my first day, the Grail sister who introduced me was embraced around the knees by a very tearful two year old girl.  The child’s mother died during the holidays and this was only her second day back at school.  She is a very pitiful sight, very solitary and unsmiling.  At her young age she has no understanding of death and keeps asking for her mother.  She is clearly feeling very fragile.  Every small thing is enough to set her weeping.  Her father is a doctor in the hospital.  He works long hours, so each day she is looked after by kindly staff and Grail sisters until her father has finished work.  The little girl often shares our supper at the Grail.  

Late last week she smiled at me for the first time.  It was like seeing a glimmer of sunlight through very dark clouds.  Then the poor little thing fell down and hurt her arm and was in the depths of despair for the rest of the day.  

The next day I found her lying on a mattress weeping.  I picked her up and sat her on my lap, rocking and singing to her.  She calmed down and snuggled into me for a large part of the morning.  I noticed that she was scratching at her arm, which had a bandage on it from the previous day’s accident.  (The bandage was only put on as a placebo.)  When I unwrapped the bandage I saw a large insect bite.  I nipped back to the Grail to get my tea tree lotion which I use for my own insect bites and find very effective to relieve itching.  A short while after putting the tea tree lotion on she suddenly perked up and joined the other children who were playing outside.  Two slightly older girls adopted her.  Today (Monday) she seems to be completely her own self, playing with the other children and not needing adult attention. What a relief it was to see her  getting back to normal at such a fast rate.  I

Exploring Kampala

I had expected to be helping out at Pastor Paul’s orphanage during my time here, but I am not needed.  This has left me with nothing to do for the whole time I am waiting for my new passport.  The pastor and his wife are too busy to show me the town, so I decided to start looking around by myself.  As far as I know there is no organised tourist route in Kampala, so I had no idea where to begin.  I had been recommended by an American friend to go to a particular shopping mall in town which has an excellent bookshop, called Garden City Mall, so I decided to make that my starting point.  I walked down to the main road and hailed a boda.

Boda drivers waiting for customers

It was quite a long trip and certainly the most hair-raising so far.  To those of you who are thrill-seeking theme park fans, you would love bodas, particularly in Kampala.  We dodged all over the place, within centimetres of other fast moving bodas and other traffic.  I was looking around the whole time, trying to spot landmarks to remember the route and gradually get my bearings.  This is very difficult as the town is built on hills which are very similar in shape and height and with similar buildings for the most part.

We eventually arrived at Garden City, which is right in the centre of town near the government buildings and up-market hotels.  It is a slice of Western life, including Pizza Hut and various other chains.  I saw more westerners than I have seen in my whole time in Uganda or South Sudan so far, all presumably homesick for a bit of western civilisation.  I can’t say I feel the same.  I have no hankerings in that direction at all, which is just as well as the prices are way beyond my means.

The bookshop was very good.  It is similar to Waterstones but with a very large religious section.  I could see why my missionary friends like it.  I spent a long time browsing and then bought a very cheap guide to Kampala and a mathematics text book to take back for my class in Nimule.  As I was not expecting to teach maths when I came, I only brought English books with me, so this will fill a very necessary gap.  Although the shops and restaurants in the shopping mall are too pricey for me, it is a very useful place to know about for the rest of my time here as it has toilets.  Generally, public toilets are very hard to come by and extremely unhygienic, so this is a very important thing to know about.

I sat and looked at the guide and saw that lower down the hill there are cheap eating placesI found a very nice café serving a variety of local dishes and chose a beef pilau.  It came with a delicious but rich sauce in a side bowl.  It was a very good, but heavy meal.  .  I decided to take another boda and visit the Catholic Cathedral after lunch.  

The cathedral was built by French missionaries in the Romanesque style and is the largest church I have seen in Africa so far.  The missionaries were invited to come by the king of the Buganda tribe, the majority tribe of southern Uganda.  Many died on their way here.  A guide took me around.  He told me the terrible story of the UgandanMartyrs whose history is very much linked to the local area.  

Catholic Cathedral

Original Epistle, present from the Pope

I walked around the outside of the Cathedral and found a small handwritten sign pointing to the Cathedral Museum.  I am so glad I spotted it, as it was very easy to miss.  The museum is small but fascinating.  I highly recommend it to anyone visiting Kampala.  It is essential to be guided around as the displays are chaotic and everything needs explanation.  It is the most disorganised museum I have ever visited, more like somebody’s lumber room than anything else.  The items range from complete trivia to really serious treasures.  There are vestments worn by Pope Paul VI on his visit, a half-finished bottle of coke drunk by Pope (now Saint) John Paul II and many, many more things.  To me the prize of the collection was a present from St John Paul II of an original parchment copy of one of St Peter’s epistles.  What a generous gift!  It says a lot about the importance of his visit.  If Popes make a habit of giving away such important treasures, there will be nothing of value left in the Vatican.

The next day I visited the Kasubi Tombs (tombs of the royal family of the Buganda) and the Anglican Cathedral.  This was pot luck, as I had boarded my first Kampala minibus with no idea where I would end up.  My plan to get off when I saw something interesting paid off when I saw the Cathedral looming above the road.  The guide book very misleadingly said that they were close together, but in fact they are a couple of kilometres apart, requiring another boda.  The Anglican Cathedral was closed due to major restoration work in the interior, so I was only able to see the outside.  Like the Catholic Cathedral it is built at the top of a hill with fantastic views.  

Ceremonial Drum store made of reeds

The royal family of the Buganda are still very much alive and a source of great pride to their tribe.  Their Kabaka (king) has his own government and runs a country within a country.  He even has his own police force.  The tombs are listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.  A few years ago there was a catastrophic fire which claimed the most important of the tombs, that of the Kabakas themselves.  Under supervision from UNESCO and with international funds, it is being completely rebuilt.  The other buildings are equally fascinating though.  I entered through the Guard House, which is beautifully made of reeds and thatch.  Next to it is a Drum Hut, where the ceremonial drums are kept.  In the grounds is a cemetery for royal relatives, looking much like any western cemetery.  Traditionally widows of previous Kabakas live here and look after the tombs.  Past generations of Kabakas were polygamous, so there are many widows.  I saw several of these women and their extended families who also live there.  They grow crops in the same compound to support themselves.  My guide showed me an exhibition of traditional pictures, done on paper made from sheets of fig tree bark.  If I were a tourist, they would have made excellent presents.

I ate lunch in the Catholic Cathedral café before relaxing in a shady spot in the grounds.  It was the hottest day since I came to Kampala and I had been fooled by the weather of the past week into expecting cloud cover.  I got badly burnt as I had left my hat and suncream behind.  I won’t make that mistake again.

There are still more places to visit, which I will do over the next few days.  I must definitely visit Lake Victoria and the National Museum.  I am saving the National Museum till last as it is right next to the British High Commission where I will be fetching my passport.

My journey to Uganda and first impressions of Kampala

Due to needing to send my passport back to the UK for replacement, I am visiting Uganda for about a month.  This is because South Sudan is not a safe place to stay without a passport in the current situation.  I am staying with a pastor who runs an orphanage on the outskirts of Kampala called Caring Hearts.

I spent my last day of term in Nimule in school, hurriedly marking the maths paper for a Primary 3 class in the absence of the class teacher, who had decided to start her holiday earlier without bothering to mark her classes’ papers. 

Then, in the early afternoon I took a boda boda (motorcycle taxi) from Cornerstone to the border checkpoint.  I got my visa for Uganda from a particularly friendly official, who gave me a two month visa for the price of one month and asked about life in Nimule.  He declared that we were neighbours because Nimule is so close to Uganda.  Then I ate a very good chicken and chips at a stall before walking to the bus stand for the minibus to Gulu.  Unfortunately a bus had recently left so that I had quite a long wait on an almost empty bus.  Minibuses in this part of the world, whether in Sudan, South Sudan or Uganda never leave until packed full of passengers.  I was seated next to a Ugandan man who was very impatient with the delay.  I have fully adjusted to the expectation that everything takes a long time so just sat quietly like a true local.  My fellow passenger complained and tried to get the driver to leave in a most un-African manner.  Finally another passenger said that complaining was not helpful and to just wait, which quietened him.

The road from the border to Gulu has improved out of all recognition since my last trip two months ago.  The road is much smoother, less dusty and faster so that we arrived while it was still light at about 5pm in spite of the late start. I went to my regular hotel, made full use of their complementary business centre to make sure I had all the necessary paperwork for my passport application and checked my emails, ate a delicious fish stew and went to bed. 

On Saturday morning I ate breakfast and then headed straight for the bus stop for Kampala, buying some samosas for lunch on the way.  Unlike the previous day, the bus was almost ready to go.  We left at 8am, making several stops where people could buy food and drink from vendors who came to the bus windows.  It was a tarmacked road passing through mainly farmed land, villages and towns.  One area had a big sign saying ‘Welcome to Rhino Country’, which was a bit surprising as the land seems so populated and cultivated.  The most impressive part of the journey was when we crossed the Nile on a bridge over a very dramatic gorge.  It looked a good spot for white water sports (assuming people were willing to risk the crocodiles and hippos). 

We arrived in Kampala at about 4.30pm and Pastor Paul fetched me very efficiently following mobile conversations with my neighbouring passenger, who told me where to get off. 

What I didn’t expect is the hills.  The whole of Kampala is built up on quite steep hills, often with important buildings at the top of them.  It is also very green.

How does Kampala compare to Nimule?

I have arrived during the rainy season, which is a great deal rainier than it is in South Sudan.  In South Sudan I have become used to heavy bursts of thunder showers preceded by very dramatic winds.  It is all over very quickly and then the weather is hot and sunny again.  Here in Kampala the rain has a more persistent character, so we go through days and nights of rain.  There is a lot of mud outside in consequence.  It is a lot cooler than South Sudan and I find myself wishing I had warmer clothes with me.  It is wonderful to be able to sleep straight through the night without being covered in sweat and needing a drink.  I even sometimes use a cover. 

People are much better off than in South Sudan.  A paunch is not necessarily a sign of a corrupt official.  I have become used to women constantly pumping water at the bore hole and carrying it home on their heads, while carrying a baby on their backs.  This does not happen at all in Kampala.  Babies are carried in people’s arms.  Water is piped.  Women have the time to become educated, even to university level.

Food is a great deal more plentiful, more varied in type and much cheaper than in South Sudan.  I bought a huge avocado for only 500 Ugandan Shillings.  The currency in South Sudan doesn’t have an equivalent that low in value.

Because Uganda has a stable government and has been independent for far longer than South Sudan, things are far more efficiently regulated than in South Sudan.  For example, people are not allowed to hawk their wares in the centre of town.  The roads are kept clean.  The Caring Hearts orphanage is expected to comply with government regulations, so that during the holidays children must go to foster homes to get a taste of family life.  They are also supposed to have proper beds and accommodation rather than mattresses on the floor.

Much as it might be a more comfortable existence in Kampala, I look forward very much to getting back to Nimule.  Comfort is not nearly as satisfying as being needed.  I had a call from the matron at Cornerstone saying the children are missing me.