Africa Team - week 1



		Daily Diary Week 1
	Day 1
On the steps of Christchurch Bray before we left for the airport			Monday July 19^th So we arrived ok and safely, and thank you everyone so much for all the support you’ve given us all in the last year. We got our transfers ok to terminal 4 Heathrow and had a little time to look around the shops. The flight was long, the food was genuinely great, the movies were awful….’Dirty dancing – Havana Nights’ and of course groans from the guys who thought it was a chick flick!…It WAS a chick flick…and a bad one at that! We arrived into Entebbe airport on time, Alex had to queue up separately from us as he had to get a Visa for entry and we went off to get the bags. We had two lost bags…..my rucksack …of course! And one of the extra bags. Still please God they’ll come in on the next flight on Wednesday. Moses our driver and Kennedy the ‘Fields of Life’ worker met us at the airport and by the time I got out of the endless lost property forms I had to fill in the rest of the gang were out in the car park kicking around a football with some monkeys! The guesthouse we’re staying in is called ‘Adonai House 2’. It’s a really beautiful villa in the Kampala suburbs….I mean a REALLY beautiful villa! And it has every facility we could possible want for (except an internet connection….ah well!). On the way from the airport Moses took us down a ‘short cut’ to avoid a traffic jam (he’s obviously never seen the rock road on a Friday evening) so we ended up driving through some parts of Kampala that I’m glad we saw early on…..it puts things in perspective when you see the poverty here. But it’s all so beautiful too. Red clay everywhere and lush green banana trees growing from every roadside and garden, children playing everywhere and Ladies carrying the contents of my garden shed on their heads!! We got to the house about 7.30, the guys got settled and straight away we were given breakfast…fresh pineapple and these really tiny sweet bananas, toast, cereal, coffee etc. Rachel is the lady who runs this house and she was most helpful to us in getting us settled. Kennedy came back at 11 to take us to change money and meet Deo and Annette who are the pastors of the church who has sponsored the ‘Fields of Life’ primary school. It’s a lovely new building and tomorrow we will get stuck in painting it. Deo introduced us to a load of initially very shy children who were fascinated by our whiteness! The area around the school is very poor with a lot of Sudanese refugees living there and education seems to be a big part of Ugandan society… Rachel says people love to read. We then went to buy paint and a few things for me to wear and haggled for both ( Dad you’d be proud!!) Then back to the house, dinner at 7 was delicious and Deo came over to organise a work schedule with us. And after that most people took an early night. We are all amazed that we fitted so much into one day, already it feels like we’ve been here much longer than 24 hours. Lynne
Our new friend at the airport!
the school we will be painting
inside the school
	Day 2
Aran and some new friends			So today we got stuck in painting, we only have the cream paint at the moment the blue is on order for Thursday. It's a thinner paint then at home so it goes on easy, but we'll have to do a few coats. The kids from the area have started hanging out in curiosity...only a few at the moment..no doubt word will get out that there are some lunatic white people painting in the area! Football and music are definitely the universal languages...and we do both, so I think we'll get on fine! Moses our very kind driver ( and long suffering) dropped the gang off at the swimming pool after the work and they had a blast, although Sarah B and Amy's hair have gone a nice shade of green from the chlorine!! The food served us at our new home 'adonai house' is really lovely, far too much for us all usually, although Stuart has a good try every night to finish everything!
	Day 3
Trad session?			What can I say....more painting, more swimming, more games of Taboo! Generally we have breakfast about 7.30 am and are at the school for about 9. We had loads more children today and we played games for longer, but it was great fun. One little girl called Maureen has some English and she translates a lot for us! Pastor Deo took 4 of the gang visiting some of the homes of the people who attend the church (the school doubles as a church on Sunday and the plan is to build the church as 'phase 2'). I think it was quite an eye opener for everyone who went...there is such poverty here.
	Day 4
Teaching us some dancing			Today we got the blue paint, but when we started using it found it to be too thick and too dark, so we're quite proud of ourselves 'cause we mixed it 1 in 4 with the cream and got the perfect shade!. The room is split blue on the bottom half and cream on the top, all the colours and design were at the suggestion of Pastor Deo and his wife Annette. They are such nice people here and they are helping with a lot of the work too. We didn't play as much with the kids today, we had too much work to do, but we did get the blue undercoat done....eventually! After dinner we had a time of worship and that turned into a session and a game of Uno....again!