First Weekend

Heyhey all you lovely people how goes it?

I am currently sat in the internet cafe/shack listening to mega loud african music coming from a float which just rocked up outside haha gota love it! Oh before I start my chatter I would like to appologise for any spelling mistakes or typos.. its really bad connection here and I type this thing as fast as I can as I never know when connection will fail and/or whether it will send.. plus the keyboards here are well confusing! Hopefully you can work out most of it!

So my weekend has been pretty good.. Saturday was more of a chill out day.. we found a local pool which we relaxed by and soaked up a bit of sun... its actually not as hot as i thought it would be.. its more like a british summer day but the wind is warm and I catch the sun mega quick because of the malaria tablets I am taking. Its going into rainy season next month though.. which will make things interesting considering their roads are just mud tracks ..its gunna be real messy in the slums! I forgot to say before that they have goats just wandering about like dogs..its well amusing.. and often you would see a random line of cows or bulls with huuuuuuuuge I MEAN HUGE horns just stroll past you on the road. Oh and they paint their chickens bright colours so the people can identify which ones are theirs!

Some of the muslim girls in our team made friends with a taxi man on friday who recommended an african dance show.. so on Saturday night we all hurled into this taxi with blacked out windows and went to the show.. although when we got there we found out the taxi man got it wrong and it was actually on sunday night haha so we went into Kampala to a restaurant with live music instead. It was well fun! The food here generally consists of meat and rice or potoato with banana..looooads or carbs haha im learning to calm down on the carbs! We later found out that the taxis with blacked out windows can be dodgey as they are often used to take white people to a random place, steal their stuff and leave them there.. which Mike (my brother) kindly reminded me of before I came here by making me watch 'Taken'!!!.. so I was very weary of the whole thing as did my research before hand.. although, our taxi man didnt usually have the big blacked out car, he just needed to borrow a 7 seater. He was actually really sound and the Hope ladies said we could trust him so we have taken his number and will only be using him from now on!

However, I did get a Budabuda motorbike the next day haha its got to be done.. its such a common way of transport even though it looks mental as they all ride about with no helmets and no mirrors (!!) but i made sure i got a good price and not a white persons price and actually I really enjoyed it! The wind in your hair n all that jazz haha. I went to meet Joyce who took me to her local church. The church was on fire everyone was so passionate about God and so faithful. The worship was awesome...they had a choir dressed in purple robes dancing all funky african style and going for it with their singing! The service was well long though.. they have a first service at 7 and then second service at 10.30 til 2!

After church I went to Joyces home.. it was pretty basic.. just simply one room with a piece of material seperating the lounge/kicthen from the bedroom, which was just a single bed. She shares it with her brother but is hoping to find a new place soon. She was so welcoming and made me spaghetti on a tiny little stove and cooked loads of fresh vegetables right in front of me, as well as making freshly squeezed passion fruit, it was sooo nice. We talked about the differences between African and English culture..... in Africa they cook A LOT of food and expect you to eat a good meal or they think you are ill. They also really embrace the fuller figure which is a breathe of fresh air from the size zero shinizzle goin down in the west at the mo.

As we walked through her village loads of kids came out of their houses shouting 'Masungu.' I duno how to spell it or where the speech marks or anything is on this keyboard ... they properly see white people as really really wealthy.. which we definately are in comparison to these guys.. although I would say less content.

We then met the rest of the team back in Kampala and saw some street children do a charity performance in traditional african dance.. the men have these big wooden ball bead things round their ankles and they do this mad stamping and jumping dance, which is mega fast and they make music from their feet! The women wore big feathers around their hips and then shook their hips and bum really really fast to the beat, making the feathers move.. its amazing! They called us up to dance haha we gave the bum shaking thing a go haha i wanna buy some feathers haaaaa I've filmed it on my camera so can show you when i get back!

Today we went to the special needs residential school.. its actually got quite a bit of land in comparison to the other projects.. they cater for those which special needs and disabilities from 8yr til about 40.. they have a ferral child there, who when his parents found out was mentally ill chucked him in the forest area and he grew up for 5yrs with monkeys.. thats like something we would see on channel 5 or something! They have a good structure.. with night care assistance for those who are epileptic, a school, a pig farm and large garden area as well as a place where they can make candles to sell on to raise money for the centre. The kids are lovely.. many have cerebral palsy and autism but most can speak even quite good english. Its still very basic.. they really need some decent wheelchairs and hoists out here... can anyone help maybe we can send some out.. i dont know how to get a question mark up lol....

Anyways Im off to get some munch.. I will start work in the school tomorrow for the week with Colin and Mia.. the team is getting split up into three's and then we are rotating projects each week. Cant wait to get stuck in!

Right I am actually going now..hope this sends x love uuuuuuuuuuuu xx