P4/5 Blog – We have formed a link with a school in Uganda through Miss Breton our music teacher. Amelia has written this blog for us.
An Interesting Visit to Uganda
Our Music Teacher, Miss Breton, came into our class after her visit to Uganda and told us all about it. It took her 31 hours to get there and it was hot.
She whisked us away to the hall and showed us the photographs. There were a lot of animals including dogs, antelope, lions, elephants and rabbits. But some of the animals were just for farming.
The maize plants were absolutely huge and taller than the African people in the photo. There were some small plants that produced oil. A photo showed a boy climbing a tree to pick some fruit.
They caught and cooked white ants! The student teacher, and the priest Miss Breton was staying with, finished their plates but Miss Breton couldn’t even manage a single mouthful of it. Miss Breton had eggs, bread and margarine for breakfast. The other foods she ate were beans, maize, avocados, peanuts, plantains, cassava and vile perch! On the table there were mangoes and something that looked like avocados. When the priest needed pepper he just reached for the pepper plant!
We saw a boy/girl drying out maize. It must have been blistering hot because it looked completely and utterly dry.
There was between 5 and 50 children in a class. The school was supposed to start at 8am and finish at 5pm but the timing and attendance was irregular because of all the children doing all sorts of chores for their parents. At break time the children could cut the grass with sickles. I don’t think my parents would let me near that! A lot of the chores were schoolwork like making mats and preparing fields. The unusually made toys were a football made out of a milk carton and some tree bark, and a doll made out of tree bark and straw. The school was one of the very few buildings made out of stone and not mud or twigs. It didn’t have any electricity and there were very few books. Miss Breton met teachers with the names Sylvester, Scovia, Simon, Betty, Rose, Alinda, Daflinson and John.
Most of the people worked on their own farms. Other jobs were shopkeepers, taxi drivers, teachers, builders and priests. The Ugandan money is shillings. The shops were 2 minutes away from the village and the hospital was 1 hour by car. Miss Breton didn’t need to go there!
The roads looked scary because they were terribly narrow and there was no lighting. There were very few cars.
Some families were big with 8 or 9 children but some were small. The people were mostly barefoot but some of the ladies had flip-flops. The children had short hair because of the heat. The ladies had very bright clothes and the children’s uniforms were black and pink. The boys had black shorts and pink tee-shirts and the girls had black skirts and pink tee-shirts. They mostly used cold water to wash but Miss Breton got 1 jerry-can of hot water at 7pm every evening. Instead of a toothbrush they used a stick which (surprisingly to me) made their teeth shining white!
I hope Miss Breton gets to go there again because she really wants to!
Thank you, Amelia, for that excellent report. Miss Breton’s visit certainly inspired the children and made them appreciate how lucky they are to live in Strichen! The P4 children drew pictures of their village and Miss Breton brought them back with her, so we are going to send back some information about Strichen. We have a wall display in the class which you are welcome to come and see. Mrs. Veitch