Newsletter Number 31 August 2011

Newsletter No. 31! (from Western Uganda)

August 2011

I am currently in my house in Kasese, Western Uganda, preparing a program for MPM’s volunteer from Spain who will be working with Betty in Gulu from September until December.  You may remember from the last newsletter that her name is Ana.  I will be picking her up from Kampala and taking her to Gulu, along with our pastor in Kasese who wants to visit MPM to get an idea of how music therapy can work in the west.   I will stay with Ana for a week to help her settle into a house where I have rented a room for her (to be house-mates with a British girl).  I will introduce her to Betty and then after my week there Betty will take Ana under her wing and they will begin their program of working together.  Betty will provide Ana with experience of working in Uganda while Ana will teach Betty all she knows about Music Therapy!

The Work

I had a wonderful impromptu letter from Addra School (the one that has the unit for deaf children).  It is letters like this that make the work all worthwhile even if it seems as though we are only a drop in the enormous ocean.  When I am there in September I will also be doing some evaluation of Betty’s work and meeting the children to hear their experiences of MPM.

Betty

Betty has now finished her final exams or her masters and is awaiting her results.  Her masters in Guidance and Counseling will no doubt have helped her enormously with her work, but on the music side she is sometimes weak.  When Ana comes she is hoping to teach Betty to play a little on the guitar (and leave one for her) in order that Betty can have more musical experience and use that in her work.  It can be easy for Betty to use games and stories more than music and while that is still beneficial for the children, I don’t want the power that music has to offer being left out of the group-work.  I hope that Ana will reinvigorate Betty in her musical endeavors.

So, now it is time for me to get back to the chickens, Chui (‘leopard’ in Swahili) and Tangawizi (‘Ginger’ in Swahili), and our little Baluku (‘first born son’ in local Lukongho language!) and prepare the shamba (garden) for our new addition, a goat that will be called Mchomo (‘Kebab’ in Swahili!)

If you would like to donate please reply to this email and I will be more than happy to tell you MPM’s bank details.  Thank you for your continued support both moral and financial.  I will get photos and anecdotes from Gulu when I visit to put in the next newsletter.