18/02 - 24/02 Mazi or Mazzi??

So right now, I'm experiencing typical Ugandan time keeping (arranging to meet someone who just texted me saying they were going to be 2 hours late...), so this is my time filler for now!

So last Thursday and Monday I taught my first S1 class along with S2 just after. For some reason this particular S1 class all seem to be very old, more like 14 or 15 year olds rather than 12 year olds, and there's a white kid (!!), I think he's part Asian but there's some definate whiteness about him! But I must say, they are the most unresponsive class you could ever imagine. They won't even answer yes or no to me. They're just dull. SO MY PLAN is to get them out of their shells...somehow! My S2 class are a bit more entertaining, I've got this cheeky 17 year old who sits on the front row and repeats EVERYTHING I say mimicking my accent so I need to find a way to mock him back, any suggestions?! But at least they're not scared of answering my questions, but I did find myself in a sticky situation last lesson when one kid asked me how a cameleon changes colour to camouflage... Let's just say I was not smooth about getting out of that one!

Valley View didn't happen on Friday but it is this Friday...for 8am lessons...meaning I have to get up at STUPID o'clock as it's fairly far away.
The weekend was fairly uneventful, no stolen phones or anything this weekend! We went to see a Kiwi friend DJ at Sombreros on Friday night and it ended up being a club full of white people and about ten Ugandans! It was pretty weird actually. But a good night as we're getting to know the other gap year AVs (although they're not the most exciting bunch!) but there're 5 of them who are very cool - Brook is actually a friend of the Hampton boys we live with and he's a nutter, Hannah, Abbie and Rob are living in the same house in a little village with no running water (the guest house is apparently a palace in comparison!) and they're lovely, along with Mark who is your typical Irish man! Sunday was spent at the pool again :)

Tuesday was an INCREDIBLE day! For starters it was Sophie's birthday so we decided to go all out for her celebrations! At midnight Monday night, everyone stormed into our room with twenty pink and silver balloons, followed by Soph and Rach deciding to play crazy golf using balloons and jack fruit as golf balls (jack fruit are THE BIGGEST FRUIT I HAVE EVER SEEN!!). (Rach is another nutter in the group as displayed last Saturday night when she attempted to climb on the DJ podium four times while I was being told by the security guards that she will get her head chopped off by a fan on the ceiling if she continues, and attempted crowd surfing at least twice!).
In the morning, Soph, Connor, Ollie and I went with a lady called Fishy (yes, no joke, she's about 50 and her name is FISHY) to a HIV clinic in Bukeeka, about a 45 minute matatu ride out of Jinja, and we visited her clinic. Fishy is a trained nurse, midwife and missionary and her clinic is part of an international project called YWAM. We bumped into her on a matatu last week and after we got chatting, it turns out she's been here 9 years, is hosting 6 gap year students in Jinja for three months and their office is on the same road as us! Ollie spent most of the morning in the clinic lab and learnt how to test for malaria and HIV, and how to find malaria parasites in a blood sample. I spent my morning counting out pills into 'packets' which wasn't thrilling but I get to see them being distributed in the afternoon at an antenatal outreach programme! Connor, Soph and I followed Fishy to a mango tree in the village where they do their outreach. We were equipped with a blood pressure kit, a tape measure, a baby weigher, some vaccinations, contraceptives, and not much else. We saw about ten ladies with their babies so that involved checking the baby was a healthy weight for his age, checking the mothers' blood pressure and looking for anaemia. Usually everything was ok, it was very much a basic health check but if anything was unusual they were referred to a doctor in the local town. When were waiting for the women to arrive we were taught how to count in either Lusogan or Lugandan (I can't remember to save my life the differences in language!) and the differences between asking for mazi (water) or mazzi (poo). Not a good one to get wrong I feel. Whilst Connor entertained the local school children, Soph learnt how to take blood pressure and is a natural! I however am terrible but hopefully with a bit of practice I'll work it out! Connor and Soph had to go back into Jinja after lunch so I was left with Fishy and ten pregnant women. One of the women lends her home (a room with a bed) for the afternoon so at first I was watching Fishy check these ladies - finding out the position of the baby, finding the hearbeat, and measuring the bump to predict how far along they are (often the women don't know or pay attention to when their last period was). Fishy was explaining and teaching me the whole time and I ended up doing all this on five women (obviously being checked by Fishy)! IT WAS AWESOME. Everything was so simple, done manually with no machines and they've had to find ways with graphs etc. to replace what a computer program could do automatically. It makes you wonder how much they miss if something was wrong, or whether back to basics is actually all they need. They've asked us to back and help out on their busy outreach days.

As for the evening birthday celebrations, the twelve Guest Housers and the 5 AVs went to dinner at Gately on the Nile (the best restaurant in town) and it was AMAZING. For Ugandan standards it's expensive, but the food was so good (sweet and sour talapia with veg and rice, YUM) and actually, my main course was 16,000USh, about a fiver, and then drinks and desert ('Never Say Die Chocolate and Banana cake) was another 10,000USh, 3 pounds! Then the TAORP house had a party for Soph which was really lovely!

Anyway, time for my meeting...2 hours on! Love to all!