Introducing June!

Fellow ILO-er June is a qualified psychiatric nurse who now runs counselling services at Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board helping people who are dependent on prescribed  medication  and primary mental health counselling across North Wales.

June is married to Simon and lives with daughters Debby and Jessica, cat Minnie and their horse Llinos in Llanferres, between Ruthin and Mold. 

Here in Mbale, June is working at Bushikori Christian Centre, and her minibus pick up drops me on the way. Similarly to BRDC, Bushikori is multifunctional, housing a primary school, medical centre and student accommodation on site. June is teaching what we would consider basic, but here essential, health messages to primary school children e.g. hand washing, brushing your teeth; as well as running a training programme with teachers and health centre staff of the importance of looking after our mental health and spotting signs of stress in each other or students and patients.

Posho, Matoke and Beans Oh My!

As you would probably guess food is relatively simple here and I've quickly come to realise that there are a few staples here that I will be unable to avoid during my stay.  Luckily I'm not an overly fussy eater or allergic to anything so I'm open to what lands on my plate - as long as its not still moving! That said, maybe I just haven't reached an avoidance phase yet, its more about portion control!

Posho, Beans, Greens and Matoke

Monday - Friday

Carbohydrates are definitely the order of the day with the main meal based around a generous serving of Posho - thickened maize; Matoke - steamed cooked banana; millet bread; rice or chapati. An option of the above is usually served with steamed greens and boiled beans as these are cheap and easy to cook for mass consumption e.g. schools or large families.

My lunch at BRDC each day consists of posho, greens and beans, with the posho swapped for rice on a Wednesday. 

Portion sizes can vary!

You guessed it...

Snacks

With mid morning tea break comes mid morning snacks. I am a fan of the mug of sweet tea each day then generally we have vegetable samosas or small Mandazi, small fried mixtures of egg milk and flour to nibble on. However the following Gonja arrived last week dosed in salt...

Mandazi

 

Out and about

I am trying the local food when I can. A firm favourite with the NGO volunteers seems to be the 'rolex' so called from a rolled egg in a chapati (think omelette), rolled together to make a pretty heavy but cheap meal/snack.  A light lunch the other day consisted of mushrooms in a local peanut sauce - with a choice of sides, so giving the posho/matoke options a swerve, a straightforward chapati was fine for me.

Rolex - Chapati and Omelette 

Mushrooms in Ground Nut Sauce with Chapati

Party Food

Last Wednesday we gatecrashed/were invited to a 60th birthday bash where the birthday buffet seemed to be all the usual lunch options put together rather that either/ors. New for me on this occasion was the millet bread...jury's still out on that one, and a rather dry yam. All being said though, I'm definitely not going hungry!

Party Food

Back to what we know

As you've seen from our now twice weekly forays to the market, we manage to cook for ourselves in the evenings (now its cooled down a little and we can manage more than one cooked meal a day) where we can mix up the vegetables and spices for a little variety in our diet!

First homemade effort!

Surprise Long Weekend

So Tuesday we heard a rumour that Friday was a public holiday. I say rumour because depending on who you talk to not everyone knew about it so it took us until Thursday to confirm that Friday was a day off!

Saturday, June and I arranged a hike at nearby Wanale with Martin who works at Mbale CAP.  To avoid the sun (we all now know how I cope with that!), we headed out at 8.30am and naively assumed a gentle walk to the base of the waterfall. Three hours later we were at the top of Wanale, beaten by many locals treading the well beaten path to the homes and villages dotted around and on top.

It was a pretty tough 'walk' that took in caves, tree ladders and as June put it some 'black runs' on the way back down! But the views were stunning, and we even managed to pick out landmarks in the town that we're starting to recognise.

Later (as if we hadn't burnt enough calories!) we decided to join an African Dance Exercise Class (!), a few other volunteers mentioned it to us as a fundraiser to support a local library so with two of our housemates in tow, off we went. Now think somewhere between street dancing and zumba with really loud african house music :) I'm not the most coordinated of people but an hour and a half later we were chilled out, dripping balls of sweat but there are more books making it to the library as a result of our efforts!

Tree Ladder

Made it to the top!

Back to the beginning...

Middle Class

Thursday morning was back to basics, spending the day in the nursery school – Esiteri Nursery, named after the local woman that donated the land for the site. Having primary school teacher parents, I spent many an hour sorting resources and helping in classes so it was interesting to see what happens in schools here. Nursery school here, ages 4 - 7, the classes are full with 25 - 30 children. However numbers are dropping in the junior classes so BRDC are working to understand this before committing to a new school building. 

There are quite the differences between the education system here and at home. 

• Uganda works in calendar years rather than academic years so as they’ve just had their long Christmas break through December and January, we’re right back at the start of a new year. 
• Parents pay school fees to go to private school rather than send them to the few and far between government schools, so if they can’t afford the fees - particularly for larger families - the children don’t go. 
• Moving up through the classes is on ability rather than age, so children don’t automatically move up a class each year.

Again, the children were pretty taken with having a ‘muzungu’ in class. There was a lot of handshaking, which I managed to graduate to high fives. Middle class is our equivalent of Reception so it was four-year olds learning letters, handwriting, drawing and colouring interspersed with singing songs about other general topics - days of the week, parts of the body, what to buy at market etc. The teacher was on her own in the class with 25 children so getting through the work was quite challenging with preparing the books, teaching the lesson, checking their work, managing the differing abilities as well as levels of concentration - even with my help checking their work and trying to keep some concentration! Its a world away from the resources and teaching assistants we have in primary schools at home.

Wall Charts

Vocational Training

I spent Wednesday morning with Michael who heads up the Vocational Training Department, more commonly known as Trade School. This involves overseeing admissions, checking previous school reports etc; liaising with exam boards and department planning and reporting. 

BRDC offer classes in Carpentry, Building & Construction, Tailoring, Hairdressing and Agriculture as these are all seen as marketable skills that address local needs within surrounding communities.  Students take exams through the Uganda Business and Technical Education Board or the Directorate of Industrial Training and then can either apply for jobs with their qualification or start their own businesses.

Similar to the Community Based Training and Tree Planting Teams, Michael talks to Community Leaders, Church Leaders and uses local radio to let people know what courses are run here and encourage student numbers.  The first week of February was results week so this month BRDC expect numbers to increase as students make decisions about their future.

I spent the next couple of hours with the hairdressing class. Madame Colletta explained that the course teaches hair care and styling as well as customer care, communication and health and safety etc. My braiding skills were definitely not up to scratch!

Learning to braid

Practising on each other

Plant! Talking trees...

BRDC is one of four partners in Mbale delivering Size of Wales' Ten Million Trees Project. Starting in 2010 with an initial target to plant one million trees, the project has now planted six million and hopes to reach its goal in 2020. If any of you have received a Plant! certificate for any children born or adopted in Wales since 2008, chances are their tree in Uganda is here! 

Sitting along the equator, Uganda is now seeing many direct effects of climate change. Planting trees is an important activity helping to reduce soil erosion that can lead to landslides and addressing poverty through providing sustainable sources of income, food and fuel.

Seedling Beds

Specifically BRDC oversees 12 tree nurseries, managing one directly on site, with others set up within community groups. The tree planting team - Jonathan, Godfrey and Emily - work with communities to find suitable areas of land to set up nurseries, advise what seedlings to grow and advise farmers on what should be planted where. The team also follow up on the seedlings to see how many were actually planted and if the desired outcomes are being met. 

Farmers are given the seedlings to plant for free however, the team encourage uses of different trees to give more sustainable options to look after their land and families. In planting agro-forestry areas, the taller trees provide shade for the shorter fast growing fruit trees and agricultural plants, both of which provide sources of income and alternative sources of fuel to chopping down the tall trees - and so the cycle and need to plant more trees in the first place! 

After getting the overview, it was off to see the action - I know trees grow very slowly, but there is still a lot of day to day work to get that to happen!

We headed out towards Manafwa District, South East of Mbale, to visit one of the other nurseries run by a community group. When we arrived Alice, a 70 year old grandmother greeted us and took us into her home to share some hot milk and sandwiches, which was most welcome after our morning mishap (car broke down en route)! As I've said, Ugandan's are so welcoming and friendly, in stark contrast to some of the situations we see at home today, it costs nothing to be polite.

Ready for sharing

After the welcome break it was off just down the hill to meet her husband Alex at nursery, Alex is retired from the military so is very proud of working for his community in his later years after his service.

The basic process is - plant the seeds, let them germinate while making up small potting bags. Once the seeds have sprouted, plant them in the bags and let them grow. Once they have reached small plants then they are handed out to farmers. Time to get my hands dirty!

Potting the seeds

Planting my avocado tree

Bungokho Rural Development Centre (BRDC)

So after initial introductions last Friday, Monday was off to work!

My main placement is at the Bungokho Rural Development Centre (BRDC), about three miles outside of Mbale. The land for this site was donated to the church by a local lady, and her British husband to benefit children and youth in the neighborhood. BRDC was formed in 1995 and is run by Church Army Africa.

Currently BRDC has four work areas to continue this vision:

-       -  Community based Training

-       -  Nursery and Primary School

-       -  Tree Planting

-       -  Vocational Training in Agriculture, Carpentry, Construction, Hairdressing and Tailoring

Captain Davis Manana is the Centre Manager overseeing the general running of the centre, liaising with donors and sponsors as well as with our programme.

Davis and I discussed on Friday the scope of my work while I'm here. I'm looking at the general governance of the organisation in order to review, update and document the procedures of how their Board works. The organisation has expanded since it began so its ways of working need to be reviewed from time to time to make sure they are controlling their resources effectively to meet their objectives.

This week I’ve arranged to spend a day with each department to get to know what they are doing, how they work etc. to build up my understanding of how BRDC fits together.

The school, main tree nursery and vocational training courses are on site however (rather obviously) the community-based training is the outreach part of the project that involves work in and around the parishes in Bukiende sub county - I'll update on these as I go!

🎶Its gonna take a lot to take me away from youuu! 🎶

Short post but when figuring out some laptop stuff the other night I needed to use the USB stick that was part of my leaving gift from my team. A hidden folder later I find my African Mixtape of songs they sent with me - thanks guys made me laugh so much!

Community in Action

So day one of getting to know BRDC I spent with their Community Based Training team - Jimmy, Beatrice and Immaculate. They began by explaining that the ethos behind BRDC is 'Helping others help themselves' which they do through coordinating the work with community groups to help address issues faced by children, youth and families. This generally focuses on education, healthcare, employment, nutrition and financial management. Currently they are working across seven parishes in and around Mbale.

So how does this work?
First, they establish Self Help Groups in communities to learn how to work together, save money and start small businesses that address their individual issues. In order to start these, there are meetings with council and community leaders to gather support for the training and benefits the group can bring. These groups typically meet once a week and are mostly the local women supporting each other and their families. Typically the groups will start saving schemes, enabling them to give loans to each other to start small businesses or put youth into training in skills needed within the community.


What next? 
Once the groups in an area are working well for approximately six months, eight to ten nearby groups form what is called a Cluster Level Association (CLA). These meet once a month and are when groups start to focus on issues facing the whole community, rather than individual needs. I was impressed that this structure is well established with two Group Members from each Group forming the main CLA with a set of sub committees looking at Formation of New Groups, Strengthening Existing Groups, Networks and Linkages and Resource Mobilisation (sharing money, people and skills for wider benefit). It also includes invited local council members and business leaders. Once the CLAs are established, they then seek to generate their own income to support their work. Although not all at this point yet, the early CLAs from 2012/13 have fundraised to buy sewing machines that they rent to tailors/seamstresses; and there is a plan for one of them to save and buy tents and chairs to hire to their community as it is very expensive if these needs to be hired from Mbale.

How do BRDC know what's going on?
There is a trained community facilitator within each group who reports back to the team on a monthly basis. This includes outlining issues they are dealing with as well as solutions or new ideas which can then be shared through the cluster network.  The team help coordinate this response.

Wednesday afternoon, I joined Immaculate on a visit to the Church of Uganda in Namilama, about half an hour outside of Mbale. My 'Ugandan watch' told me this 2pm meeting didn't start until 3.15pm as we waited for everyone to arrive. Luckily, my taxi also got lost so I didn't turn up until 2.30pm so my panic was unfounded! This was the first meeting of a new CLA so Immaculate was running a training session on the purpose and benefits of a CLA; the role and responsibilities of the group and individual roles required from the CLA. It was great to see a really engaged group of women come together to learn how they can start to pool their resources for the benefit of everyone. As I soon learned would be a come a custom, at the end of the meeting I signed their visitor book, I think they were quite taken that a Muzungu had travelled to join them.

Currently there are seven CLAs taking in about 70 groups in the Bukiende Sub County area.

 

What's an ILO-er?

So after the excitement and orientation of last week, how am I actually here (I know you're asking as I've seen the fb comments and texts!)?

Way back when I applied to Welsh Government's International Learning Opportunities (ILO) Programme, part of their wider Wales for Africa Programme. It gives people working in the welsh public sector an opportunity to travel to Africa for an eight week placement to work on development projects using our own professional skills from back home.

I was aware of this programme several years ago as Environment Agency colleagues had undertaken similar placements (and haven't they been useful in prepping for mine - thanks Dani and Ffion!) so being pretty fond of travelling and learning about different cultures it was always in the back of my mind to look into it at some point.

However this wasn't just a case of I fancy two months off work. The Programme is designed as a leadership development opportunity as it takes people out of their comfort zones, challenging their resilience and creativity to adapt to new surroundings (and there's plenty of that going on at the moment!). There is also a significant commitment from my own organisation, Natural Resources Wales, as conditions of the Programme ask that they agree to release me and still continue paying my salary. 

So with all of this in mind, I took a deep breath and started discussions with my line manager about whether this would be the right thing for my personal development and with his support - thanks Howard! - I submitted an application and prepped for the interview process. 

The last few months have been a bit of negotiating around what I'll actually be doing while I'm here but December came and the flights were booked - ILO here I am!

Bright bright bright sunshiny days!

Leaving a cold +2 degrees in Cwmbran I was all set for two months in warmer climes!

Its been pretty warm since arriving here. When I say pretty warm, I mean we've shot up the mercury scale to Uganda's hottest part of the year with a hot and dry +34 degrees and above each day.

So hot that someone decided it would be a good idea to faint during the tour of the CURE hospital! A glass of coke later and all was well again, bar an embarrassed Helen sliding off for a sit down indoors (no need to admit me!). Team NRW to the rescue though with their emergency stash of chocolate eclairs, a handful of which will now be kept with me to ward off future incidents!

Lesson definitely learned, water and food intake needs to be a priority especially when there's so much to see and learn while I'm taking all of this in!

Mental note - don't forget your lunch!

CURE Hospital

Our guesthouse is in the grounds of CURE hospital, a world leader in the treatment of hydrocephalus and spina bifida. I say world leader, as just this week there are international surgeons flying in for a conference here and I understand one form of treatment was actually invented here.

As we are staying on site, it seems rude not to find out more about the work here so Friday afternoon we asked our house manager if, in true British style, at some point during our stay we could take a look around and find out more. In true Ugandan style they were more than accommodating and ten minutes later we were in reception meeting Moses one of their Community and Research Liaison Officers.

Moses began by explaining that there is quite the stigma attached to these conditions across Eastern Africa. Children are considered 'possessed' or 'evil' and bring shame on the family so are often abandoned or even a parent can be thrown out by the other for having a child with these conditions. Its heartbreaking because following early treatment these children can lead fulfilled lives with the right support. Moses' job is liaising with the families and communities to help break the stigma attached to these children; helping identify children needing treatment as they are often hidden away and also monitoring follow up appointments to ensure the ongoing development of the children. With a smile on his face its a role he takes on with pride and purpose.


Earlier last week a group arrived bringing children from the Congo for treatment. We met Charity an eight month old absolute bundle of joy, happily sitting banging blocks together on her bed. She had been abandoned to the group when her mother realised she had spina bifida. Moses explained that one of the difficulties they faced was that the Congolese speak french and in Uganda they don't. To my own surprise, seconds later I was parlez-ing un peu de francais which brought great delight to the aid workers who had brought Charity in. Maybe the french degree wasn't a waste! #alwaysbringasmile

Now, when we asked for a tour / to find out more about the hospital, I was assuming maybe someone would point out the main buildings (and this is not a huge site by any means, for such specialised work it has the feel of a small community hospital) and give us the general gist of their work. How wrong was I? Ten minutes after meeting Moses we were walking through the main children's ward, followed by Intensive Care and most surprising of all, inside the Operating Theatres building! Following up with physiotherapy and explanation of the outpatient procedure, everyone was just so keen for us to see their work.

It was a privilege to witness the work they do here.

Home sweet home

The standard of accommodation was probably the thing that worried me most before this placement, and was probably the most debated in the office and at home before I left.  I'll be fair, I'm not one for roughing it or particularly outdoors-y, my back packing days are behind me but that was part of the challenge in coming here and I was ready (ish) for whatever was coming my way!


Well I think I've won the accommodation lottery! An ensuite room with flushing toilet, filtered drinking water and lockable space - they really have gone to the trouble to cater for western visitors.  It might sound rather extravagant but as I'm without these things when out and about during the day, it does make things a bit more comfortable knowing you're coming home to a clean, safe, good night's sleep.



Our accommodation is a guest house in the grounds of an american funded hospital who have many visiting doctors and nurses from all over the world - e.g. current housemates include photographer Chris from Hawaii and Joyce a trainee doctor from Lebanon - so they've provided a higher standard than I think I could have expected elsewhere. More to come on the hospital

Getting to know You-ganda!

So I've spent my first few days getting to know Mbale, for a small place, it does take a bit of getting to know! Luckily, we're not the first muzungus in town so there's plenty of help to navigate and negotiate!

Zebbe took us around the town briefly on Wednesday mainly for us to get some money and get a feel for the place. First impressions - busy! At around 5pm lots of people were heading home from work, cars, taxis, buses everywhere and motorbikes!  Lots and lots of motorbikes! We ended up at Endiro's Cafe for a meal - we'd worry about the shopping tomorrow!

Thursday afternoon it was back in to town to tackle it for real!  June and I were armed with our Ugandan shilling and shopping bags ready for the Central Market!  Now you'd think that buying some fruit and vegetables would be a fairly straight forward task but throw in finding out which stalls to go to, our not so quick exchange rate discussions and our rather rusty kg converters - it took a while! We reappeared with a healthy bag of carrots, green peppers, peas, avocado, oranges, tomatoes, watermelon and enough onion garlic and ginger to last our entire stay!

I will say an offer of 'Bitter Root' took us by surprise, but buoyed by our success so far, we looked at each other and agreed to give it a go. Five seconds later, two small beetroot landed in my hand!

June sorting out the chopping!

Saturday, Apollo took us out for a drive around the town as there are quite a few neighbourhoods surrounding Mbale. I've noted some of the names - its just going to take me a bit longer to plot them all on a map! It is quite humbling to drive through slum areas as well as the nicer wealthier suburbs, all of it in stark contrast to our lives back at home in the UK.

'Downtown'

Just some passing cattle

View towards Mount Elgon

Uganda Wildlife Education Centre

Even for the non animal fan here I was impressed!

With a few hours to kill before it was dark but not enough time to pass Kampala we decided to take the opportunity to visit the Uganda Wildlife Education Centre (UWEC) at Entebbe. This is the only centre like this in the country where they care for abandoned, injured and at risk species as well as offering conservation education and an at risk breeding programme to support species that are almost extinct.

Our guide Loy showed us around and within hours of stepping off a plane, I was inches away from cheaters, a leopard and lions as well as my unexpected favourites the white rhinos!

Loy had recently joined the centre having previously been working at the Queen Elizabeth National Park (in western Uganda bordering the Congo) and was clearly passionate about wildlife and conservation. He had stories and anecdotes about almost all the animals we saw - my favourite being a rather large nile crocodile who had arrived at the centre having eaten five PEOPLE in western Uganda!  Apparently, once they have eaten human meat they develop a taste for it and actively hunt humans, so now 'Eric' (my name for him) is now serving his life sentence at UWEC.

One for the twitchers - I was amazed at the number of different birds across the site and got my first look at the Grey Crowned Crane - Uganda's national bird and emblem on their flag. It was pretty majestic up close - Uganda may make an animal fan out of me after all!

The highlights:

White Rhinos

Eric the Nile Crocodile