I recently spent a week in Uganda at the Jinja International Youth Meeting for English and Ugandan students in Jinja, Uganda. It was an experience that I will never forget and this is just a bit about what we got up to whilst there.
23 October 2012
2:45am - leave for Heathrow airport. Flight to Entebbe via Brussels
We arrived in Uganda in the late evening after being delayed slightly on the plane. As Entebbe is three hours away from Jinja, all the UK students stayed at a motel some five minutes away from the airport. This was the first time everyone had met everyone there.
24 October 2012
Wednesday morning we left Entebbe with Richard (JIYM organiser) and headed off to Jinja. It was a long journey! We did stop off at a supermarket briefly to exchange money (you can't exchange in England) and buy a couple of things. One of the weirdest things though was seeing the guards outside the bureau de change with AK47's and the guards outside the supermarket searching your bags before you went in.
We got to the Discovery Centre that afternoon about four-ish. The Discovery Centre was very hostel like; rooms down corridors on both sides of the building with around six to eight beds (they were bunkbeds) and a space in between used as the dining area.
Something we also learnt about this place was that they had young people lvingthere who had been orphaned.
That evening one of the workers at the Discovery Centre and a local man took us to one of the nearby villages. It was completely different to anything I've seen in the UK. Everyone that lived there had a part of the land they would farm on. It was a walk from the town so it was very secluded, but the people were some of the friendliest people I have ever met. Especially considering we had basically gone to their homes to take photos, you could never do that in the UK. We st down with some fo the locals and found out about how they made their living and related topics and ended up getting invited to a graduation party that weekend for two of the kids that had just finished school. Again, unlikely this would happen in the UK!
25 October 2012
Thursday we went out to Kingfisher resort which is one of the big tourist places to stay. It was a very nice hotel. After having lunch there we stopped in the town and went to the little market stools on either side of the road to buy any souviners. Something else that struck me - the price. Everything was so cheap (4000 Ugandan shillings to the pound). I bought a Uganda football shirt for my brother for 25,000 shillings which is about six pounds. That was the most expensive thing I bought on the whole trip. Altogether I ended up spending about £23 in Uganda and for the amount I bought it would have been over double if I had bought the same things in the UK.
26 October 2012
Friday morning we visited some primary schools and another village. One of the most amazing things I will take from the trip is how happy everyone was with the simplist of things, like viewing a photo of themselves on a digital camera. It makes you realise how much of a consumerism driven country we are. The Ugandan students taking part in the conference arrived in the afternoon. The William Parker girls and I ended up sharing a room with three of them. They were all some of the nicest people I have ever met, especially considering what some of them had been through. One of the boys had been orphaned as both his parents were mrudered back in the 90s during civil unrest. He boarded at his school most of the time and lived at the Discovery Cenre who were subsidising his school fees.
27 October 2012
The conference started on Saturday. Luckily my group wasn't until Sunday so we had more time to prepare. We heard speeches on topics like global citizenship and sustainable development. Some of the Ugandans were some of the best speakers I've heard of our age. In the afternoon we did a challenge course, (which was entertaining to say the least!). But it was a real chance to bond with everyone, not just a few people.
28 October 2012
The second day of the conference, meaning we had to do our presentation. The Sunday speeches were on conflict resolution, social justice and mine, restorative justice. One of the most interesting but horrific things I learnt about that week was Joseph Kony and the LRA by a Ugandan girl. Kony was a rebel fighter in Northern Uganda who committed some awful acts. One of the questions that was raised from our restorative justice topic was whether Kony should have a international court or traditional hearing. It was really interesting to hear what the Ugandan students had to say on the issue.
We visited Iganga falls in the afternoon. That was an eventful journey. It had been raing that morning and the dusty and clay like roads had turned to sludge, meaning we were basically drving on ice. The bus nearly tipped over and there is plenty of video evidence from us watching the bus!
29 October 2012
The Ugandan students left on Monday. There were some tears by a number of people. Meeting them and saying goodbye to them seemed to come so fast. Although I will definately be keeping in contact with as many of them as possible via Facebook. We also left the Discovery Centre that day to go back to Entebbe.
30 October 2012
We left the motel at 7:30am to go to an island in Lake Victoria to vist the chimpanzee sanctury. I don't think anyone was happy with the early start, but once we were there and actually got to see them it was alright. We also went to another island to visit a groups of people and a school. We also met some of the women that make the Ugandan bracelets made out of bits of old paper. Its amazing what you can do with scrap material, I bought one myself and another for my sister.
Our flight to Brussels was scheduled for 11:55pm.
31 October 2012
9:20am - back in the UK!
Uganda was absolutely amazing and if I ever get the chance I will definately go back. It really does make you open your eyes to a developing country. Its all well and good your parents telling you how lucky you are etc., but until you actually see it and see the poverty you have no idea.
I will never forget it.
