1. What Season of the year is it now?
Uganda has only two seasons, the rainy season and the dry season. Each of them happen twice per year, or are supposed to but sometimes the rains don’t come and it is at those times that you hear the scary word ‘drought’. Right now we are in the rainy season and at times are experiencing heavy thunder storms with much rain but up north in Uganda and Sudan there seems to be a drought. When that happens, crops won’t grow and people are starving. Please, pray for them; that God will send the right kind of rains so crops can grow.
2. What do they wear?
I think you want to know what kind of clothes the students wear. All students have to wear uniforms to school and each school has its own color. So if you see a child in a green uniform you know which school he attends. Those that wear the grey shirts and brown pants seem to be from the school where you don’t have to pay anything to attend, where only poor children go.
3. Is it a poor country? How can you tell?
Yes, this is a poor country; probably not as poor as some but it is very poor. How can I tell? Many ways, let me start this way: we are living in the best area of the city but the streets, everyone of them, are just awful. They are full of pot holes, very deep holes and drivers try to go around them. So if you get a ride in a car sometimes the driver will go to the wrong side of the street or off on the berm to avoid the holes. You never have a smooth ride.
The road to the farm where my husband has to go is about 9 miles from our home here, ½ of that is very bumpy blacktop, the other half is a dirt road that is almost impassable during times of heavy rains. I sometimes say that my insides have churned to cottage cheese on the road to the farm.
You also have to be very careful when you walk on the sidewalks in town. There are many loose stones, or none at all, and a lot of places have garbage strewn all around. Dogs, goats and even cows come to eat the garbage.
Another way to tell is by all the times the electricity and water gets shut off; and no one seems to know why, it is just a way of life here and we are thankful when everything works. There also is no garbage collected here.
I’m going to finish this with an interview I did with a 9 year old boy named Chris. I met him during the lunch hour; students have 1 ½ hrs to go home for lunch each day and, yes, they walk.Chris goes to his mother’s little restaurant during the noon hour. Since it is not far for him to walk he had time to talk to me. His English is very good.
Chris is 9 years old and in grade Primary 3, or as they say, P3. He walks to North Road Primary School and has to be there by 8 am; he goes without breakfast. (He didn’t even know what the word meant.) His uniform is grey and brown. His mother gives him a coin, 1000 shilling, to buy a snack at school. He calls it a samosa, something like a donut.
His school did go on a field trip but his mother could not afford the 5000 shilling (about $ 2.65) it would cost for him to go.
His favorite book is "My Little Bible" which he reads a lot and looks at the pictures; he ran to show it to me. The book is a gift from his aunt. He also has a 4 year old sister named Wendy, she stays with her grandpa while mom works. Chris’ dad died a few years ago; he is happy that grandpa can help them. Grandpa has a farm with 6 cows and he makes yoghurt and cheese from the milk. He also grows green bananas, called matoki, and pineapple.
The afternoon classes at Chris’ school are from 2 – 4, after that he likes to play soccer with his friends, before he goes home. Dinner usually is rice or matoki with some kind of sauce, most often peanut sauce. If mom had a good day in the shop he might have a meat sauce. Bedtime for Chris is 9 pm.
I found Chris to be a happy and friendly boy who loves the Lord. He told me that he used to have a teacher who would tell them Bible stories but she moved away and the new teacher does not like to tell those stories. That makes Chris sad but now his grandpa and auntie teach him about the Lord Jesus; they also take him to church.
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