Today I did my situps and pushups, brushed my teeth, and set out for the school. On the way to the school Barbara pointed out a kid who had a sponsor in Canada that sent money every month for school. But he wasn't going to school, because he was at home. That really made me angry. Some people are sending money from the other side of the globe to help this kid get an education. And what does he do? He doesn't even make the effort to go to school, and he probably just pockets the money. It just teaches bad work ethic, and it really doesn't help the kid in the end. You'd think that they would be happy to be helped, but they make it really hard. Anyway, when we got to the school, we had an assembly. We were introduced, and the school kids sang some Ugandan songs for us, so we returned with Land of the Silver Birch. They had all this amazing rhythm, percussion, and harmonies, and we were pretty weak, to tell you the truth. Afterwards, I was given a job as . . .
Local Ugandans make carrying water on their heads look very easy
CARRYING WATER . . . a thankless job done mainly by women and children
a water carrier. A forty five minute walk though sugar cane plantations, jungle, and across a river, over a hill, and to well. We filled up our jerry cans, and went back to the school. I tried to carry the twenty litres on my head like the locals, but after about ten seconds, my skull started hurting, my back started hurting, and my neck started hurting. So I started carrying it on my shoulder, and that worked for ten minutes, but, my shoulder was aching, so I switched shoulders, and sloshed water all over myself. All the big black guys who were with us found this hysterical. One of them didn't speak english very well, said "you make me happy happy." which made me laugh more, and slosh more water. By the time we got back we were all laughing, and my twenty litres had become fifteen litres.
Here I am looking down into the depths of the latrine hole that I helped dig
After that we had tea and chapatti, and I asked Robert what else I could do. He said that I should level the gravel piles around the back of the school, so I did that for about three hours in the hot sun. Once, a local came up to me and saw how hard I was working, and asked how much I was being paid, and I told him I was a volunteer. He didn't seem to know what that was, so I said "free, no money" he seemed to find this extremely funny, and stood there laughing for like, five full minutes, then he ran over to his buddies digging the latrine and said something I couldn't understand, pointed at me, and they all cracked up! I think white people are very amusing to them. We Introduced ourselves, and soon I was digging the latrine. I enjoyed it though. It was a solid day of good, hard work. It feels good! Can you believe it?
Birch
Birch
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