Hello There, Duncan here!
So we just had an awesome week starting in Kampala and ending in Kabale. In Kampala the first night back from Rhino Fund Uganda, we saw a pretty cool open mic drumming/concert night at the National Theater. The next day Becca and Becky got some pretty sick looking dreadlocks, Fred, Lilly, Mia, Natalie, and myself went touring around the local market and visited the National Mosque. Our entire Africa group also saw a ballet at the National Theater of Uganda, which turned out to be some crazy screaming, psycho, druggie style version of explaining child soldiers through drumming and dance, lets just say maybe we’ve all been taking way too much malaria medicine before seeing that performance. After our 3 days in Kampala we traveled to Kabale to our next destination where we would all volunteer with Edirisa U.K. at SNEC (Special Needs Education Center) which is located at Kitanga Primary School. On our way to the school we went through some of the most beautiful mountains ever and kept on seeing jaw dropping landscape along the way. Once we arrived at the school we were greeted by all the children and began our process of setting up the beds, mosquito nets, living space, food, and cooking space. We set a plan for how things would go and how to accomplish our two tasks: create shirts that have the children’s name, school logo, and SNEC on it, and “smoothin’ out the bumps on the path”, a.k.a. digging a huge pathway that lead from the top of the dorm area to the classroom and bathroom area for children that use wheelchairs. We accomplished both tasks on time in 6 days since our group is so beast and does a great job working and planning on goals. During the week a lot of us heard the stories of these special education and needs children and became very close to so many of the kids. some key kids that stuck out were Hapold, who constantly says only one word,”Hapo!” and is an alcoholic when school is not in session because locals of Kabale find it amusing when he is drunk. When school is back in session (The children board at the school), Hapo is on detox and back to his special, wonderful self. Jasper is a child that has extreme ADHD, but is a very funny and loving character. He has a bit of a learning problem which is why he is at SNEC. He calls everything sexy (thanks most likely to some Muzungu who taught him that word), like “sexy shoes, sexy P5 class, sexy gloves!” There are many other children there that touched our hearts and will forever change us (Tracy, Rebecca, Simon, “Jole”, and many more). But now we are about to embark on our 3 day, 2 night canoeing trek at Lake Bunyonyi. We have had a magical, long, amazing week and can’t wait for what is in store next!
