Chapel

Since Timothy Girls College is a boarding school, we have the opportunity to meet together on Sunday mornings for our weekly chapel service. We have had two such meetings since the school opened, and I've really enjoyed joining the students in the worship service. The girls lead the singing with local drums as the only accompaniment and everyone joins in very enthusiastically.

It is very hard to convey the mood of an African worship service in words and photos alone; even video doesn't quite capture the atmosphere. The girls in the chapel services sing at the top of their lungs, dance, pound the drums, clap their hands and shout; it is really very fun to be a part of it all. I can't join in the Luganda songs, and it's sometimes difficult to recognize the ones in English, but I can't help but be touched by the excitement all around.

You'll just have to visit sometime and experience it for yourself!

some students presenting a "special"--a song they prepared to perform at the service

the cooks left lunch preparations and joined in and provided the drum accompaniment

Floors

The dining hall/multi-purpose building is nearly ready for tables and benches to be moved in, but first the very dusty floor needed to be swept and mopped. It is a huge floor, so it took all of our cleaners plus a few of the workers to get the job done.

The method: Spray water all over the concrete floor with a hose and then have other people use brushes to scrub the floor and squeegees to push the excess water out the door. Labour intensive? Yes, but it got the job done.

The floor looked white with dust before this process, now the colour shows.

Students!

February 21st was the date we'd set for students to report. However, the presidential elections were held on the 18th, so people were travelling to their home areas to vote, some were lying low in case there was violence and basically everything slowed down over the weekend. Thankfully, it was very peaceful electoral process and things have returned to normal very quickly. However, all this meant delays for school openings. We were unsure how many students would actually arrive and when they might turn up.

We had 2 girls show up yesterday and 8 more came today. 7 of these are girls who finished their O-Level at our Kibaale project. It was very cool to see them here, as they are the first ones to go through both of our schools. It was also really great to see parents who heard about the school through word of mouth be willing to take a risk and send their daughters to a brand new school.

We're hopeful that more girls will come throughout the rest of the week, but for the time being, it's just great to feel like we're actually starting our programme with actual students!

The students from Kibaale arrive and head off for some lunch

Awhile ago we took some promo shots of Kibaale students in TGC uniforms--this girl was one of our "cover girl" for the brochure and posters we had made.

Boarding school students in Uganda take these metal boxes (filled with their personal effects) to school with them. You see them on the top of taxis and stuffed into car trunks everywhere at this time of year.

getting organized

looking very smart in their new uniforms!

The first 10 Timothy Girls College students!

Registration

This week, the Uganda National Examination Board finally released the Senior 4 exam results that determine whether or not a student can move onto the Advanced Level of secondary school. As the Timothy Girls College is specializing in the A-Level program, we've been waiting very impatiently for these results to be published so we can actively recruit students.

In order to target the demographic most likely to send their daughters/nieces/cousins/sisters to our school, we arranged to set up a table at the entrance to Garden City Mall in Kampala for this week. We've spent 3 long days there and many people have stopped and expressed interest in what we're doing.

Garden City is where the well-to-do Ugandans as well as many expats do their shopping and there is also a cinema and an entertainment centre there as well. It's a very busy place and we've had a variety of interesting things happen in the three days we've spent there. Here is a taste:

• the wife of the national Leader of the Opposition walked by the booth, but I have to admit, I noticed her Prada bag before I noticed her. I assumed it was a knock-off until one of our staff told me who she was. (she didn't stop to chat)
• one of the President's daughters was shopping for a while (again, someone had to tell me who she was, and she didn't stop either)
• I recognized one of my former students from Canada as he entered the mall. We were very surprised to see one another!
• Our school logo has a key depicted on it, and as Uganda anticipates presidential elections next week, people are really noticing our logo. Turns out that one of the major parties uses almost the identical image as the symbol for their party. We are quick to reassure people that it's a coincidence and that we definitely are not making a political statement in our logo!
• We wondered why a couple of British tourists were taking photos beside the banner advertising our school, until we gathered that one of the guys' names was Tim...
• The national Commissioner for Agricultural Planning stopped and talked to us for quite awhile and gave us lots of farming advice. Most helpful!
• A lovely, vivacious woman was so impressed by our project that she took extra brochures to put up at her very large church and said she'd also promote the school on their radio station for free.

We still have about a day and a half to go, and we're hoping for lots of registrations to come in during that time. However, I'm sure that as we continue to sit at the table there will be many more interesting people to meet.

our banner (I apologize for the problemmatic apostrophe!)

A scene from an African mall. Cleaners filling jerrycans from the decorative fountain.

We asked for a power connection in order to plug in the laptop...
this is what was rigged up for us.

some of our staff manning the booth

The hard-working promotions team! 3 of our teachers, our headmistress and an intern who is majoring in Public Relations at university have spent the last few days convincing people to enroll students. Thank you team!

Cairo

Just over a month ago, I was in Cairo enjoying a wonderful holiday and touring a fascinating and historically important city. Here is a photo I took from my hotel balcony on Friday, December 24, 2010. The view is of Tahrir Square in downtown Cairo.

This morning, I was reading about the protests in Cairo and looking at the various images that have been posted online; I came across the following photo dated Friday, January 28, 2011: (the photo credit is Peter Macdiarmid, Getty Images)

Notice the tower that is visible in both photos. I figure this photo could have been taken from a balcony at the same hotel I stayed in. It is hard to believe the changes to the city in such a short time, and my recent visit to Cairo makes the reality of what is happening there right now feel very close. The people we met there are on my mind today. I am praying for their safety and that peace and order will be restored to Cairo soon.

Firewood

Since most people rely on charcoal fires to cook their food and boil their water, it is necessary for them to have a regular supply of firewood. They can either buy it, grow their own eucalyptus trees if they have the resources to do so, or find it wherever they can. This last practice often causes problems, as was demonstrated by a small drama we encountered this morning.

I have mentioned before that the wetland on our property is a place where some of our neighbours have started fires in order to make charcoal for themselves. Burning the wetland is illegal since it is protected by NEMA (the National Environmental Management Agency) and it is also private property (ours!), so we try to discourage it whenever we can. Between June and October last year, we had three major fires in our wetland and some of the brush there is still blackened and damaged as a result. Our security guards keep an eye on this area and even caught some of the people responsible for starting one of the fires; they were given very strong warnings not to repeat the practice.

Earlier this week, we noticed some people chopping down some of the small, blackened trees in the wetland, so our guards (once again!) went down and chased them off the property. However, this morning, about 10 or so people were down there hacking at the saplings. The dogs were barking at them, we were on our front porches watching, and they knew they weren't supposed to be there, but they still continued to collect the firewood. When I walked to the edge of the retaining wall in front of my house to take the photos below, some of the people ran off because they knew they might get in trouble.

Paul called the guards to take care of the issue, but meanwhile, Arleen set off on her morning run around the compound. The dogs always follow her on these runs, and so the folks in the wetland saw her and the dogs coming towards them and they took off running. There is a chainlink fence between our compound and the wetland, and Arleen wasn't going to do anything to them, but they weren't taking any chances. By this time the guards had also made their way down to that area to chase them away.

As we watched the scene from our porches, we heard all the workers down at the building site cheering and hollering as they also watched these folks running away. It was quite the event!

While we are sympathetic to the problem--the difficulty of finding firewood for people who can't afford to buy it--we still want to uphold the law and protect our beautiful wetland. I think this is probably something we'll be dealing with for years to come.

a rather faraway look at the people chopping firewood in the wetland this morning

you can only see 2 people in this shot, as most of the group ran away

when they saw me come to the retaining wall to take the photo

Bread

I made a rather major decision fairly recently: I decided to avoid buying bread from the bakery in town. When I am in Kampala, I will purchase a loaf or two from the supermarket bakeries--there is usually more variety there and the loaves are of a better quality. Generally,however, I am not a big fan of the bread found in most of the local stores.

It can be rather difficult to find whole wheat or even "brown" bread and the loaves tend to be dry and go stale very quickly.

There are also some definite cultural differences between what I expect a loaf of bread to be and what people here prefer. Note the selling feature of the loaf below:

Yes, that's right...it's "enriched with extra fat and sugar"...

The result of not buying much bread, is that I make my own more frequently and I do enjoy this process. The warm temperatures here ensure that the dough rises beautifully every time and there really is nothing nicer than the smell (and taste!) of freshly baked bread. I'm enjoying experimenting with different ingredients and have even gotten to the point where I don't have to follow a recipe every time. My homemade bread may lack the benefits of extra sugar and fat, but somehow, I don't seem to notice.