6. Uganda - Wednesday 7th October

I had the best night's sleep so far last night; maybe I'm becoming acclimatised to the heat. At breakfast time we got to try Ugandan porridge, which is made with maize flour, rice and sugar. I liked it, it's quite thin but the rice gives it a bit of texture. We went back to the primary for the morning; unfortunately one of the teachers took ill at break time and had to go to hospital, which left the two youngest nursery classes with only only one teacher going between the two rooms. So I ended up doing my first "please take" in Africa! The four pupils who were helping out in the two classes were absolute stars, because the wee ones are only three or four years old and it was very difficult even keeping them in their seats because they were so excited. Eventually the teacher took both classes out to the grassy area for a sing song which was much better! Naturally we obliged with British songs like Old Macdonald had a Farm, with the children joining in the actions. In return the children sang us African songs like Shake Shake the Mango Tree.

We were very hot and tired after this, but revived by lunch we all went down to the football field where George and the pupils played volleyball. When school finished we were joined by an interested crowd of spectators who soon joined in. I took photos and played with some wee children on the sidelines. There was some thunder and even a few drops of rain, but it didn't come to anything - the rainy season has been kind to us so far with only that one rainstorm on Monday. Sports of various varieties continued all afternoon. A wee girl cut her toe badly during the volleyball and one of our pupils got blood on her trousers so Deborah showed me how to wash it out using "Veep", a lemon scented bleach that she tells me can get stains out of anything, even the very sticky residue from banana trees leaves, which apparently is very hard to shift from clothes. As with the washing up, I was amazed at how little water we used; it's so precious here and they waste none of it. I was chatting to Bush again about literature, we have many very similar tastes, she is such a lovely girl. I would say that our evening was chatty and fun, which it was, but I could say that for every evening, because with no television or computers we are all having a very sociable time.