Music for Peaceful Minds
Newsletter Week One!
“Mzungu, why are you always in a hurry?”
African time is most definitely in a different time zone to Europe. “Obviously!” I hear you say. But my meaning is this: In Africa, one day has 48 hours. Yet in that 48 hours you can only get half the things done that would get done in a European 24! When you say to a friend “See you at 4” you must not expect them until at least 5! This being the case I have learned to chill out and let things happen at their own African pace.
The Suzuki Escudo
Those who know me know that I describe a car by its colour, not by its, er, engine stuff. But having been briefed and trained by the great Mr Dan Collins I now know that there is a filter that must be clean, brake fluid that must be kept full, a fan belt that should not squeak and I am now the proud owner of the knowledge of how to change a tire! I was therefore ready to purchase my first African vehicle. With the help of the Ugandan AA (yes it exists!) I was lent a valuer called Ray-Mond (not just Raymond…). He was surely sent by God as he took myself and Nicky around all the second-hand car yards in the area and did the talking for us, checking out the engine and asking all the things that needed asking apart from “what other colour do you have this in?” After a day at the car yards we settled on a Suzuki Escudo 1993 short chassis, manual, petrol model with a 1600cc engine, 4x4 and 2x4 facility, a new (well relatively!) set of tires (I had to bargain for these). It has 5-seats-with-sun-roof, and is now Christened Jerry 2! It set MPM back an amazingly HUGE price of 14.5 MILLION shillings! I have never spent a sum of money with eight figures! But alas, the exchange rate as it is, that comes to around £4,600. Not quite so daunting! The next problem was trying to finance this car. Banks can be complicated businesses when it comes to transferring money. After a whole afternoon and evening of calling/internetting banks/parents I managed to transfer the funds needed to purchase the car. I expect to pick it up from Kampala at the weekend… But who knows?
The House
Along a dusty road there is a little hut with a tin roof with the words “Commission Agents” written in painted letters above it. Inside there are three, four, or five men with a piece of sugar paper scrawled with descriptions of houses that are being rented in the area. There is a box with “2-bed self contained, 500,000/- per month” written in it. I went to ask if they can show me around and possibly rent it out to me. The man who does this was praying (it was Sunday) so I went back 6 hours later. The praying man was just back and took us to see a three-bed house nestled in the middle of life as it is in Gulu. There were children playing three inches from the ‘living-room’ window and the neighbours were an arm’s length away from the back door! The house was not yet finished, consisting mostly of concrete and dust. Believing that this was the only house on offer I reluctantly tried to imagine myself here. But then the praying man said “we go to the next house”. The second house was such a cute house I fell in love with it straight away! It is in a small walled compound shared by about three other families. It is on the first floor, the top two windows to the right of the picture: Don’t be put off by the scaffolding! It has no windows as yet, but we hope to move in next week, BRITISH TIME, not AFRICAN TIME! (next week African time, you guess correctly, means next month!) We have walked past it every day to check on the progress and it is slow but happening (still no window panes though). But a lot can happen between now and then, so I am praying that it all goes smoothly. I can’t wait to move in! The house is only a five minute walk from SOS where I will be working, and a fifteen minute walk to town. When Nicky (the current music therapist colleague) leaves I will have ten days before the next music therapist colleague (a Dutch girl) arrives. But God has also thought of this and there is a Canadian girl who needs somewhere to live so she is coming to stay with us! There are quite a few other westerners who are here so we have formed an ex-pat community!
And finally … the work!
The first time we arrived at SOS the conversation with the guard at the gate went like this:
Me: “Good afternoon. Is Charles here?”
Guard: Yes.
Me: May I speak with him?
Guard: He is not here, he has gone to Kampala.
Me: Oh. When will he back?
Guard: On Monday.
Monday comes…
Me: Good morning. Is Charles here?
Guard: Yes he is here.
Me: May I speak with him?
Guard: He is not yet back from Kampala.
Me: When do you expect him back?
Guard: He has gone for the weekend.
Guard: He has gone for the weekend.
Me; Today is Monday, he should be back now.
Guard: Yes.
Me: But he is not.
Guard: Yes he is coming.
Me: I’ll just come back later!
Later that Monday we arrived at SOS just as Charles was arriving in the gate. I grabbed him before he ran off to his next appointment. He is a very busy man. Charles Kiyimba is the director of the Gulu SOS Children’s Village. He is a very calm, quiet, yet authoritative man. He is being a huge help to us for setting up the work. He told us to go back the next day!
Next day:
Me: Good Morning. Is Charles here?
Guard: No he is not yet in.
Me: I will wait, he is expecting us.
One hour later and Charles was not yet back. I managed to find his next-in charge, the project co-ordinator, Anne. She was an amazing help and is now identifying people in the villages with whom we can work including female-headed-households, child-mothers, and disabled people. I then found an SOS ‘mother’ called Julien, who we found out later is invaluable for organising the work. We spoke with her asking her to arrange four groups of three-five children who need some psychological support (counselling). Expecting her to say “you come back next week” she said, yes, come back at 4.30 and you will have the first group! Well, still not expecting too much we turned up and found, to our disbelief, three children arriving home from school and being delivered to an open-sided tent where we were to hold the therapy sessions!
Our first African music therapy session! We were amazed at how it went and at how the children (there were three children in this group, and four ‘mothers’ who nosed their way in!) took so much joy from the musical games we played. I spoke with Julien afterwards and she told us a bit about the children. She is being a God-send for this project.
We also spoke with the day-care manager where the pre-school teenies go and we sat with them a while and arranged their music sessions on a Friday 9-10am. We also arranged with the clinic nurse that we will run music and music therapy sessions with a group of people from the municipality who suffer from HIV. We will offer them first music therapy, but we were also asked to help them to prepare a musical performance to go with their drama and art performances that they showcase around the villages highlighting the need for awareness of HIV/AIDS. This group meets only once a month.
That’s all folks! (Phew!)
So. The week holds for us sessions from 5-6pm with five children every day and a pre-school group on Friday. This may not sound like a lot to you, but considering that we are baby music therapists, we will be seeing a minimum of 21 children per week for therapy, one group of adults for therapy and musical training per month, 35 pre-schoolers per week, and a varying amount of villagers for various sessions!
That’ll keep us going! We also take the 6 hour trip to Kampala at the weekend to (hopefully) pick up our car. But a friendly Dane is driving us down so we do not need to catch the scary and very dangerous bus! Praise God!
Until next week our loyal supporters!
Bethan and Nicky
Newsletter Week Two!
The Work:
Groups have started four days a week in the evening, after the children return from school. Tuesday: 6 teenage girls, Wednesday: 6 teenage boys, Thursday: 6 younger girls, Friday: 6 younger boys. After ten weeks the groups will rotate, so we will see in total 48 children for therapy before I leave in December, with the possibility of starting a group on Mondays, therefore another 12 children can receive therapy. Amongst this work we will be training the SOS ‘mothers’ and ‘aunties’ in how to continue the music therapy work to meet the needs of all the 160 or so children who are in SOS.
It is difficult here – and this is where my research into working here begins – to siphon off a small group from the crowd for therapy. It is not usual in Africa for people to work in small groups, but I believe that this is where it can be beneficial for the children to receive some more focus rather than always being lost among the crowd. We are working with Charles, the director, and Fred, the administrator, to find a way of maintaining the small group focus.
We are also running a music group with the pre-school children on a Friday morning. We need a lot of new ideas for this group, as all the songs and rhymes that we have grown up with are already being used by the nursery teachers here! We are going to use our instruments (guitar and violin) to bring something new to the children, whilst building up the children’s self-confidence, as a lot of the teaching here is about singling out the children and having them perform to the class. This can be very humiliating for the children, since they are laughed at when they cannot perform their rhyme or song.
We are awaiting news from the community liaison officer to see if we can work with some other client groups in the villages near Gulu. We have also met some art therapists who are working in the villages with ex-child soldiers, and we are meeting them today to discuss the possibility of working alongside them.
The House:
I cannot even begin to explain my frustration, but … T.I.A. (This is Africa) so I need to be patient! I have sacked our “estate agent” as he is totally useless and cannot give us a straight answer and I am now following some leads from a local friend. At the moment we are staying in a sort of hostel with an American girl at a house that is dedicated to giving children a space to play (there is a sports and play therapist working with them here). However as you can imagine it is a very noisy and not at all private place to live so we are really hoping to move soon!
I have just this minute had news of an NGO that rents out spare rooms and this is where I hope to stay. I am getting in touch with the NGO this week to organise staying there. This would be perfect – more perfect than a house – as it will have furniture already, other people living in the house and a security guard. It also has a kitchen so we can cook for ourselves! I think God may have had this one up his sleeve all along but please keep this in your prayers.
The Car:
Amazing news about the car is that we have one! Jerry2 is sitting in the house grounds after having brought us safely up to Gulu. My first experience of driving in Kampala, (which I was NOT looking forward to since there seem to be no rules and thousands of vehicles,) was in a monsoon. The windscreens misted up and I could barely see anything. But Ray-Mond (the AA man) led us slowly from in front and took us to a hotel on the edge of town so that the next day we could make a quick escape, avoiding the madness of the Kampalan rush hour. I drove for 5 ½ hours on pot-holed roads, bumping about all the way! I was so nervous in the beginning as I have heard stories of the police stopping people for bribes, but praise God the police just waved us on at all the stops! I was also nervous about Jerry making it here as he started to make funny noises an hour into the trip. But this was his first time on Ugandan roads (he is a used import from Japan) and I think he was just complaining a little!
The Workers!
Nicky was sick last week (Thursday/Friday) and took two days’ bed rest. This meant that I was able to see what it will be like during the ten days I am here alone. It was fine to be walking around alone and it gave me a chance to meet some new people who I can call on when Nicky leaves. The only negative thing about walking around here is the unwanted attention that we receive. “Munu-spotting” seems to be a national sport and the children have competitions to see how many ‘munu’s they can spot, and they get extra ‘points’ for hearing us say something, and extra ‘points’ still for shaking our hands (a munu is a foreigner/white person). It gets very wearing after the first thirty or so times I hear it in a day! But otherwise we are now doing well, Nicky is better and has re-joined life. There was a HUGE African storm in the night (almost apocalyptic in magnitude) so the weather has cooled a little today, which offers some respite to the heat. Thanks for the emails, prayers etc. Keep them coming and don’t forget you can write to us at:
P.O.Box 1531
Gulu
Uganda
For photos of our trip, see my facebook album!
Bethan and Nicky
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Newsletter Week Three!
The Work:
We now have the director (Charles) and his administrator (Fred) onside so the groups are going a lot more smoothly. When we arrive we have to hunt around for the staff, then search for the children (who are usually at school until around 6pm) and then find a ‘mother’ or ‘aunty’ to shoo away the other children so that we can get on with the small group therapy. It is something to be considered here in Uganda that using sticks for discipline is all too common. I therefore find it difficult because the children who are not part of the day’s group are chased away with a stick, and I’m not sure this is particularly therapeutic! However, it is a common part of Ugandan culture to use a cane and no one actually gets hurt so it may be something to accept, or it may be something I can ‘have a word’ about!
We spoke with the American art therapists about their work and research and have got some referrals from them in a village called Laroo where there is a school for war-affected children. They have already siphoned off 30 abductees (children abducted to fight in the rebel army as soldiers) who they worked intensively with for a week, and they are keen that we continue working with them and keep them informed of any progress. I have downloaded an IES (impact Event Scale) questionnaire for PTSD (Post-traumatic Stress Disorder) so that I can assess the level of trauma that the children are suffering before starting music therapy, and compare it with their answers after a few months of therapy. I am so excited about what the results may uncover!
The House:
Last week I put 2 million shillings down on a house payment! We are waiting for it to be finished (nothing here gets done without money so we have to pay up front) and we hope to move in by the end of the month, if not before! I visited the house today to check on the progress and was absolutely gob-smacked to find that the house was a hub of activity, with mosquito nets being hammered into place, doors being hung on hinges and an electrician fiddling with some wires! I can’t believe that it is finally happening, I was preparing myself for a good month or so wait! It has three bedrooms and a living room and a (squat!-) toilet with shower head directly above it (that’s quite normal)! There is a kitchen but I may be cooking African-style using a coal stove outside! I have to practice my pyromania skills, but I’m sure that Gareth will have fun cooking when he comes! I feel so blessed to have found somewhere, because it is a huge problem in Gulu, and everyone I know is looking for somewhere to rent and mostly being unsuccessful.
The Car:
Our little Jerry has done wonders this weekend. A 90km drive to Murchison Falls taking four hours was all taken in his stride! The safari drive, however, was not without its dramas as a monsoon hit around 6.30pm, the sky blackened and the dirt roads became like oil slicks. I used all the knowledge Dan Collins had bestowed on me, but although I tried to keep the wheels straight on the downhill slope as directed, the road bent to the left so what was there to do? That was when the car slid sideways and slipped a little down the hill until we slipped slowly down the camber into the verge. Fortunately we were going slowly so there was no damage. I managed to reverse and get us out of the sticky situation, but I was a bit shaken and was so nervous for the rest of the drive! Jerry was a star, though, but he needs a clean now as he got filthy in the dusty muddy roads! Oh! It has just started raining (read: pouring!) again so Jerry will be clean in a few seconds!
The Workers!
Nicky is preparing to leave on Friday. We are driving down to Entebbe with some Irish people who have also been living in Gulu and are also flying out. I have hopefully managed to bribe one of my new American friends (one of two 20-something young men who are here running an NGO that crochets hats and exports them to USA!) to come with me to Entebbe airport so I will not be driving back alone. I am preparing myself for ten days of running groups on my own until Jantina gets here. However, I will not be living on my own because there is a Canadian girl who is moving in with us, and the two crochet guys may also join our happy house since they have waited for four months so far for their house to have power and water. The more the merrier is what I say!
Thanks for the emails, prayers etc. Keep them coming and don’t forget you can write to us at:
P.O.Box 1531
Gulu
Uganda
For photos of our trip, see my facebook album!
Bethan and Nicky
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Newsletter Week Four!
The Work:
I can’t believe I’m on newsletter number four! That means that we are on our fourth group with most of the children at SOS (some missed a group because I had to drive Nicky down to Kampala to go home and a group was missed because of the monsoon). That is incredible and I can’t believe that I am actually practicing as a music therapist… in Africa! I am having quite a few moments of “I can’t believe this is finally happening” after having this dream for so long. God seems to know what he’s doing!
I have a local helper called Prossy (short for Proscovia) who is a friend I met when I came in May. She is unemployed because she cannot read or write English. Her parents were killed during the war and she was sent to Kampala to live with an aunt who did not allow her to go to school. She has since moved back to Gulu but cannot get a job. She is trying to go to school in Kampala to learn to read and write but in the meantime I have been teaching her a few times a week at my house. She is accompanying me to the music therapy sessions, and has a youthful energy, a knowledge of the local language, (which is really helping to keep the surplus children at bay!) and a multitude of fresh ideas that seem to be along the right track! I am paying her a small wage in the hope that I can train her up to be my contact here so that the work can continue once I am back home.
So more news on the work front: I have spoken with Patricia, a teacher at a school in Laroo village for war-affected children. This is the school I had mentioned before as where the art therapists had worked and identified 32 children who were abducted during the rebel war. I have divided them into six groups, two groups per day, but will not start working with them until September as they are about to take exams and go for holidays. The staff there are so keen to learn about music therapy that I have also arranged the probability of running workshops for them so they can learn about arts therapies (as the art therapists are also going to train them) and continue the work themselves. I am absolutely bowled over by the enthusiasm that people have here about music therapy, and am on occasion struggling to cope with the demand they are attempting to put on me. I am being as sensible as I can, however, since I have been warned of burning myself out. I keep Saturday and Sunday as holiday, and Monday as a day of catching up with planning groups, writing case notes, organising the research notes and of course there’s the clothes to be hand washed, the house to be cleaned and the chickens to pluck! Just kidding about the chickens, but being a housewife in Uganda is a full time job so I think I may bring Gareth over here to be my house husband! Heheh! J
The day care children absolutely adored Nicky and her violin and we were always greeted by children shouting “Neeecky” (Bethan is too hard to say!). The children danced like crazy to the folky fiddly music and very much enjoyed the “elephant and mouse” game where they run or plod around the little hut chanting “woo woo!” (don’t ask me why, I didn’t know elephants said “woo woo!”) I hope I can be as exciting as Neeeecky when I turn up on Friday!
Finally, there is an opportunity to work with a female-headed family in Laroo village where this family has been identified as requiring support.
The House:
The house is taking shape and now I finally have pictures of my lovely husband and family up and feel very much at home. I have just ordered three beds, which will be ready as soon as there is power (electric- and man-) to do the work of building them. It could even be tomorrow but it rained today so they may be delayed.
The Car:
Jerry had some visitors at the weekend to take Nicky down to Kampala. We filled up the car with my Canadian housemate (sub-letting one of the rooms!) and two Gulu-ians who wanted a ride to Kampala. I shall be picking them up next week when I go down again to pick up Jantina. My housemate is also coming on that road trip so I have done well in not being alone for a single journey. Kampala offers a huge deal of respite when it comes to pretending that I am normal again and not just a white person (munu). I can walk around without being stared at or followed by hoards of children and I would travel the 200mile 5 ½ hour pot-holed road just to do this!
I just took an American friend home after a leaving dinner for another American friend and he expressed interest in buying Jerry from me in December, which will be a good investment for him since he’ll get it cheap, and me, since it will both save the hassle of selling it and allow me to use it when I return for shorter trips.
The Workers!
Nicky has now left L. I had a friend, Allison, with whom I had many slumber parties! She was staying alone so we took turns in sleeping over at each others’ houses, also so we didn’t have to go back in the dark (it gets dark at 7pm). Unfortunately, though, she is the American who just left. There are also two lads, Stu and Brad, who I usually eat lunch with. They both came round for cheesy beans on toast at my house as this seems to be an English phenomenon and they are not au fait with it in the states!
I will be going to pick up Jantina Bijpost from Entebbe airport (one hour south of Kampala) on 6th August to help me with the work, and life in general. I am very much looking forward to having her here.
Thanks for the emails, prayers etc. Keep them coming and don’t forget you can write to me at:
P.O.Box 1531
Gulu
Uganda
For photos of our trip, see my facebook album!
Bethan
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Newsletter Week Five!
The Work:
There is not so much to report this week as things are ticking along nicely. The groups are becoming a little more private as the children begin to understand that there are set groups and if they are not a part of the set groups then they should not be attending. It has helped to have Prossy with me as she has a good grip on translating. I was not able to see the older boys’ group last Wednesday as they had not returned from school by 6pm, and since it gets dark and the children have chores to do I worked instead with Thursday’s group, the younger girls, who were already home from school. I was not able to go to work on Thursday to see the boys’ group as a monsoon started just as I was about to leave. No one moves when it rains so it would have been futile for me to swim to work and find no children to work with, and then probably contract pneumonia! (yes it does get cold when it rains! Not as cold as UK though but relative to normal temperature here, it’s freezing!)
I am meeting Jimmy, Sos’s field worker, on Friday to discuss some family-based work in Laroo, a local village.
The House:
I HAVE MY BED! It is a spacious double with a blue mosquito net giving it the look of a luxurious four-poster bed! It’s just a shame that the only mattresses you can get in Uganda are ‘tuf-foam’ so I still wake up in the mornings feeling stiff and achy! But a swim at the pool always gets rid of those cricks in my neck!
The Car:
Jerry continues to live in the NGO ‘HEALS’ house grounds. (A joke for the Shrubsole children!)
The Workers!
I was not lonely at the weekend, as I had envisaged being. In fact I had a great weekend spent with the crochet-man Stewart and the Irish lad David. We rotated round each other’s houses, cooking for each other and watching movies on our laptops (I introduced American Stew to Blackadder, which he enjoyed!). Two out of the three nights we had to have a slumber party because the storms started just as we were about to leave each time. But the places we are all staying currently have spare beds and even spare bedrooms so it was all good fun!
The Pentecostal church where I have started to go (Kampala Pentecostal Church plant in Gulu, started by an American couple so services are in English) had its first anniversary celebrations on Sunday all day so I was in the sun dancing to the Gospel choir worship band with its catchy African beats. Then the internationally renowned Watoto Children’s Choir sang a gig in the afternoon including… Wii Polo Bot Obanga! Yay! I have it recorded so I will be showing the On Board Choir how it’s done when I get back! So all in all the weekend was a good one.
I am travelling once again on that dreadful road to Kampala and Entebbe airport to pick up Jantina on Wednesday morning so put your prayers up for those angels to hang on to Jerry as he negotiates those pot holes!
Thank you Judy and Duncan, Dad, Gareth, Bella and Lynda for the letters! They do get through eventually so keep them coming:
P.O.Box 1531
Gulu
Uganda
For photos of our progress, see my facebook album!
Bethan
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Newsletter Week six!
The Work:
“I will meet you on the road, I am driving a green jeep.” These were the last words I heard on the phone before a green jeep drove up alongside me in a non-descript little town called Katulikire. The rain was lashing upon Jerry making such a racket, and the condensation from the five people inside clung to the windows. The green jeep pulled up directly beside me and as I rolled down Jerry’s window the rain immediately soaked my face. “Follow me!” shouted the green jeep’s driver. I cautiously followed the jeep closely on a dirt road for the mud was slippy and Jerry wanted to divert into the camber. “Are we going for peace talks in Juba?” joked my Acholi passenger. “Maybe Kony will have a sniper waiting in the corn for us!” remarked the Acholi’s twin brother. It is a good thing that they can joke about the war, but as we drove on a narrow path through a corn field I did wonder about exactly what we were getting ourselves into! We arrived at a collection of what seemed to be derelict buildings and drove right up to the open door of a mud hut with a corrugated metal roof. I dived the metre from the car to the hut yet was instantly soaked and cold. “I am Okello” said Okello. I could barely hear him through the rain clattering on the roof and we had to shout at each other to hear. From what little I could hear, I found out that Okello is the director of the cultural centre in Kampala and is currently also running Hope North, a centre and school for children affected by the war, situated four hours from Kampala and 1 ½ hours from Gulu. That is where we were, those derelict buildings were classrooms and dormitories! He said that he had heard about me and had wanted to meet me to see if I could help him by training his staff in using music as therapy. I made an arrangement to return there when I had more time (I had only 1 ½ hours to get the final hundred or so km back to Gulu for work) and see how best I can offer my services to him and his staff. I will return next week for this appointment and expect to run a training day in September or October.
The groups at SOS are developing well and despite regular interruptions from on-looking children, we are getting to know the group members and they are enjoying the groups. They are really taking ownership of their little groups, making sure that everyone is present and correct.
Jantina enjoyed her first session at the day-care centre, and they enjoyed her guitar playing while they played musical bumps! The director has asked if I will run a short training session for her and her staff to direct them in how to use musical activities with the children. She has offered a proportion of her budget to buy instruments for them to use in the new school year. The schools are rounding up for the holidays but the groups at SOS will continue, since the children live at the centre.
The House:
The house is so full, friendly and welcoming! Our new additions of Jantina and Jacey (an American girl staying for a year) are making our house a lovely place to spend time. I have friends over regularly for dinner or to watch “Cold Feet” (I am giving the Americans in Gulu some British cultural education!) and we are just as I write having the final windows fitted and the bedroom door mended (it had expanded with the damp in the house).
The Car:
Jerry did a sterling job of taking myself and Prossy to the airport to pick Jantina. He saw lake Victoria for the first time, as did Prossy! It was the first time she had put her feet in a lake and she was so excited! I navigated myself and Jerry around the city safely but got caught in the morning traffic on our way back to Gulu.
The Workers!
The post office has for some inexplicable reason been closed for over a week now so there has been no post for me L I am hoping to find it open today although I won’t hold my breath. At least there is power so I can send this to you all by email!
Apart from missing my big red papasan nest-chair and of course my husband, I am content and perfectly happy being smelly and dusty all of the time!
P.O.Box 1531
Gulu
Uganda
For photos of our progress, see my facebook album!
Bethan
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The Work:
“You have come just at the time when I would take my lunch. I pray that this meeting will be brief for the sake of our stomachs.” This was the welcome I got from the unusually straight-talking Ugandan nun, Sister Margret as she sat in her office in the counselling department of Gulu University
“You do not shake your backside like this, you shake it like this: with your waist, side to side not up and down!” Well I have always been sure that African women have extra ligaments than us mere white women. They can move their backsides in a way that is unimaginable to us! This is what I found out as I was at Okello’s place, two hours south of Gulu. He runs a boarding school for war-affected children in the middle of nowhere (you remember Katulikire from the last newsletter? Of course you do!) and we were invited to go and join them for an evening of dancing. We thought we would be watching… but as you can imagine, those Acholi teenagers want to see the ‘munus’ dance. We were ‘encouraged’ (with the help of a beer… or two) to join the tribal group and strut our white stuff on the ‘dance floor’ (well really just floor. Well actually it was mud. Thick mud, thick squelchy mud by the time we were finished!) Well you have never seen so much comedy value in such a short space of time! Just how those girls move their feet twenty times faster than Fred Astaire, shake their booties more salaciously than Beyonce, poke their necks out further than a chicken’s and twirl an axe at the same time is beyond me. I was a bit nervous when our line of girls shimmied alongside the line of boys, paired up with the boys and shook our tushes at him while he put the axe around our shoulders, but it seemed to go off okay and no one was hurt! The only injury was the dull ache in my muscles the following day when they complained at having been asked to do things they should never have to do! But I can now dance like an Acholi and I am beginning to be able to talk like one too “Atima ber!” (roughly translated: “whasssssuuuup!”)
The House:
Well the water is not exactly on all the time. It’s more often off all the time. However, when it is on and you want a shower you have to stand directly under the shower head, close your eyes and think of British summertime: It’s cold, it’s unpredictable but at least it’s wet!
Our new housemate, Jacey, stayed in the house alone while we were dancing Acholi style with Okello and sleeping in a mud hut two hours away. She came to us the next day with wide eyes saying “well everything was going so well until …” Dreading what could possibly have happened to her at I tentatively asked “what was it?”. “I heard rats scurrying around the rafters!” Well, what a relief! I thought. At least they weren’t coming down from the rafters! What on earth was she complaining about?! I love our house with its rats, its leaky windows, cold sudden showers and children shouting ‘MUNU ‘BYE!’ through the not-quite-closed living room window!
The Workers!
The news that the post office in town is closed until further notice because ‘someone forgot to pay the rent’ was a bit disappointing, yet somehow not unsurprising for Gulu. However, it has meant that some of the post has not been getting through. I did receive a pile of eight letters though (Helen, Aby, dad, Gemma, Debs and obviously Gareth – no sign of my mars bar crunch cakes, mum!), which was very heart-warming!
The news that Gareth is going home a month early is rather more surprising, yet the reason for doing so apparently not so. I had not yet experienced his aptitude for getting admitted to hospital, so to hear the news that he is in hospital with a broken arm filled me with more alarm than it did his father and siblings, perhaps! It has to be said, though, that considering my pothole antics with Jerry-the-car, it appears that in our situation the female is a far better driver than the male, who managed to overturn a golf buggy whilst parking! Whilst ultimately relieved that the Iraq
Jantina had a fever last night but seems to be fine this morning, she will just rest until she is fully well. It really has been cold here, although not cold enough for us Europeans to warrant wearing the thick winter jackets that the locals wear!
Gulu
For photos of our progress, see my facebook album!
Bethan
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Newsletter Week Thirteen!
The Work:
“So you come every day next week at 2pm.” Commanded Sister Margret.
“No, I told you I cannot because I am going to England tomorrow.” I replied, some weeks ago.
“Okay. It’s okay. So you come every day next week at 2pm.”
“I cannot, like I said, I will be in UK.” I replied, desperately trying to keep my cool.
That conversation was before I came to UK. When I got back to Uganda I phoned Sister Margret again:
“Hello Sister Margret, Let’s arrange time for training.”
“Hello sister Bethan. 2pm every day this week is good for me.”
“I’m sorry, we cannot do that since we work every other day except Monday. Can we can come on Mondays to do the training?”
“So 2pm every day?”
“No,” I said, biting my tongue “we work……..” I explained again.
Eventually we arranged to meet at 9am on Monday morning of 6th and 13th for training. This is how the conversation on the phone went when we turned up for nun-music-therapy-training at 9am on Monday and Sister Margret was not there.
“Sister Margret, where are you?”
“I am here.”
“That doesn’t help, where are you? You are supposed to be at Gulu university to meet us at 9am. It is now 9.30.”
“I have a meeting at our place.”
“Yes,” I tried to keep my voice calm “A meeting with us. At 9am.”
“No, we arranged training at 2pm every day this week.”
“AAAARRRRGGGHH” I would have said, if I didn’t have hold of my frustration.
Eventually, again, we arranged 2pm for the next three Mondays. I was so cautious as we turned up at the Caritas counselling centre but my caution turned to amazement as I saw six or seven people (two nuns and the rest counsellors) come enthusiastically into a well-ventilated (it’s really quite hot at the moment) room where we began a 2 ½ hour training session. They are trained counsellors so they really knew some basis of what we were telling them. They asked us a heap of questions, which I was able to answer, and were so excited about the next session next Monday! They counsel all sorts of people from HIV counselling to trauma counselling to couples counselling so they really have scope to use music in their work.
Jantina and I have started work with two particular individuals at SOS who require attention, which is so far going well. The mothers are being a bit poor at turning up to their sessions. With no sense of time we often arrive to find the relevant mother at the market or in town. However, there is one particular aunty who is excelling and is really catching our drift. I hope that she will be the one who will be my point of contact when I leave.
Work at Laroo continues and we are running questionnaires next week for any of the 32 that want to take part (it is not compulsory). The questionnaire is about psychosocial adjustment and tells us how well socially adjusted the children are. Also at Laroo Gareth ran debate class and the chosen topic was “Europeans should leave Africa”! Of course Gareth was on the “Oppose” side and fought extremely hard. One of the reasons that Europeans should stay, according to one child, was that “Europeans have benefited us greatly by bringing the mini-skirt!” Teenagers will be teenagers! Gareth also used this sentence to explain the word ‘if’: “You need to wear a condom IF you don’t want to catch AIDS” So he is doing his own social/sex education in English classes!
Oh, we also arranged two training days at the boarding school for war-affected children in Katulikire, two hours south of Gulu.
The House:
Oh my word, where do I even start? After a night of epileptic-fit-enducing power surges we realised that the cable box that is attached to our outside wall is in fact sparking. We turned off the main power switch on Monday night and haven’t been able to put in on since. We have therefore been without power for two days and it looks set to continue. The toilet cistern (yes we have one!) cocked up too, at the time the power went off so Gareth and I were trying to prod sticks and use gaffa tape to fix the valvy-thing (highly technical) so the toilet stopped making a horrible “drowning man” noise. Along with this, in one day we set traps and caught two little mice in Jacey’s room. However, Jacey has a phobia of mice so when the second one was caught at 1am we had a knock on our door and heard her voice with suppressed desperation “Bethan, can you come here please” so a sleep Bethan got out of bed to see what was going on only to see the mouse and say “Gareth, can you come here please”! Of course Gareth came and together we disposed of the mouse while Jacey stood squealing on the other side of the house! However, the next day we found the mouse stuck to a piece of cardboard down our side alley where the kids were poking it and generally having fun at the dead mouse’s expense. Finally, and I apologise for the length of this section, after the mouse episode, we were woken again at 4am by a cockerel crowing DIRECTLY under our open window (bear in mind we are in a bungalow). The neighbours decided that he should be kept in the alley between our two houses, but he crowed for four f****ng hours! We were not a happy household this morning. I have been promised that the cockerel is here for a reason, that being the Independence Day celebrations on Thursday. I expect to sleep well on Thursday night, also with a full stomach!
The Car! (Jerry!)
Jerry had such a close shave this week. It seemed that my loving him very much and cheering him on at every pot-hole is not enough to keep him happy. We did not know how to open the bonnet so accosted another Suzuki Escudo driver in town, who let us in to the secret. There is a tiny lever in the glove compartment! After opening the bonnet we found that Jerry was dangerously low on oil in all parts of the engine. We topped up everything (using about four litres of engine oil!) and went on our way. SORRY JERRY! I promise to take care of him more from now on.
The Workers!
Oh dear. This week I have had to go for a blood and urine test at the Joint Research Clinic as I have a painful bladder. In UK I would have waited a few days to see if it goes away but Africa being full of so many yucky diseases, and having (stupidly) swam in Lake Victoria two weeks ago, Bilharzia was on my mind so I went for a test. Results should be in later today.
You can still write to me at:
P.O.Box 1531
Gulu
Uganda
For photos of our progress, see my facebook album!
Bethan
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Newsletter Week Fourteen!
The Work:
Jantina and I rushed home from the jazz festival in Kampala SOS and discussing them. However, the heavens opened and the rain hit the hot tin roof at such a pelt that we had to shout to be heard. After a few minutes of being huddled around within inches of each others’ faces we decided that this was not conducive to learning so we gave up and instead sang songs and played music together until it stopped and we could leave. Have you ever been held hostage by the rain? Yes? Well have you ever been held hostage by rain in a roomful of singing nuns and counsellors? It is certainly an experience everyone should have! It’s all very “Sister Act!”.
The groups at SOS are now in a private, contained room where the shutters on the windows can be closed to prying eyes. Because of this, and a few other reasons, the groups have more boundaries, the children are more expressive and far less distracted. I love my boundaries! (perhaps only therapists will truly understand that, but maybe the rest of you can get an idea!)
The work at Laroo continues with 32 children. Last week we had some interruptions for Independence day and this week we will be interrupted by Joyce Meyer (an American evangelist) speaking in Gulu. Apparently the schools take every opportunity to take a day off! We conducted our first set of psychosocial questionnaires with the first group of five girls. They were certainly eye-opening.
Gareth is now the proud owner of a bicycle and whizzes around on the dirt-bush-roads to and from his schools at a rate of knots that just isn’t African! He even overtakes motor-boda-bodas (the motorbike taxis)! He is teaching a total of 9 lessons a week in two schools.
The House:
The cockerels are mostly gone (there is one that sleeps under Jerry but I have in mind to drive over him one day) and I no longer sleep with ear plugs. The plate-washers outside our window have lost their front door key so they wash up by their back door which is far away from us! So basically we are at peace. However, despite one day of fixed electricity on Friday, the power has blown again so we have been in darkness for over a week now. The electrician was supposed to come at yesterday but turned up at and was only able to fix the problem temporarily.
We now have a mouse in the kitchen that lives under our gas hob and runs around when you try to cook! We ran out of water yesterday but it is now back. That’s all for the house news!
The Car! (Jerry!)
Jerry is cool and well ‘ard. No problemos. He made it to Kampala
The Workers!
I don’t have bilharzia, which is nice. I did, however, have a bacterial infection in my bladder. It’s all gone now with five days of anti-biotics. Now I have a cold and my voice is that deep and husky jazz voice that Alice Coulam has (remember she’s the one who sang at our wedding reception?!) when she sings!
I have been so inspired by the sewing women in the market as they pedal their sewing machines that I found a pedal machine on ebay that is being given away! I am excited that so far I am the winner! I will be able to whip up all sorts of joys as I pedal away under the skylights in our loft!
Jantina is enjoying a good social life around Gulu and is a very busy social butterfly! Today Gareth and I break a record of how long we have spent together in a row! Four weeks has always been the maximum since we met (five years ago!) and we are only half way through our time for this stint. We are still enjoying each other’s company, which bodes well for the future!!
You can still write to me at:
Gulu
For photos of our progress, see my facebook album!
Bethan
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Newsletter Week Fifteen!
The Work:
The bone-jangling road to Caritas training centre takes fifteen minutes on a good, dry day. Today it took somewhat over that, since it has rained heavily in the last few days. Jerry got his feet wet and we were on African time (that means, on this occasion, that we were running 45 minutes late). However, after arriving at Caritas and finding only Sister Beatrice there, we were pleased not to have rushed. We were not pleased, though, to find that none of the other counsellors were there and therefore the training was cancelled. The lack of communication in this country never ceases to amaze me, but I kept my cool when Sister Beatrice told me, simply saying “then we will have to reorganise.”
There was another day off last week (after Independence Day the previous week) as the children took themselves off to see Joyce Meyer (a very famous American Christian evangelist) in the town grounds. Wanting to know what the huge exodus was all about, Gareth, Jantina and myself all went and sat in the afternoon sun and listened to her preach. We met all the children from our music therapy groups and Gareth’s classes there. It seems that Ugandan schools take every opportunity to take a day off (especially considering that she did the same talk on Saturday afternoon!)
The second training day for the mothers and aunties at SOS took place today. Due to start at 9.30, Jantina and myself arranged (secretly) to turn up at and still the course did not start until 10.50. The mothers are so enthusiastic, though, throwing themselves into role plays and group activities, that it didn’t matter.
The House:
The mouse in the kitchen that was running around last week was found slowing dying on a glue-trap so Gareth put it out of its misery and put it out for the bin-men (I have never seen him but apparently he is an old man who comes round on a bicycle). However, this evening just as a power-cut started, I saw a large mouse/small rat scampering down my curtains and throw himself under our bed. There then started what can only be described as a ‘Tom and Jerry’ episode where Gareth and I tried our hardest to catch the little blighter. It took nearly two hours and we had to postpone our showers and dinner, but at 10pm we caught him and Gareth ‘dealt with’ this one too (he is not keen to be a serial killer but us girly housemates sure are pleased to have him around!)
The power and the water are mostly back on and we are preparing the house (de-mousing as much as possible) for the much awaited visit of my esteemed parents on Saturday.
The Car! (Jerry!)
Jerry received a wash this week by three local neighbouring children. However, the parents, worried that the children would throw a stone at the window and they would have to pay the damage of a smashed windscreen, told the children to stop. They were about to beat them when we came out and said that it was a nice gesture (despite the car being dirtier than before and the fact that now we could not see out of the windscreen) and perhaps the children should not be beaten for wanting to do something nice. Poor Jerry remains dirty but much loved by all who see him.
The Workers!
My cold is retreating and I am now back to being my normal non-sickness-induced amount of tiredness! The sun and the frustrations here sap me of any energy, but being with the children or the mothers at work brings everything I need for the sessions right back.
We took a trip to Lira (when I worked in 2004) on Saturday to visit one of the Laroo teachers in her home. A lot of people in Uganda
You can still write to me at:
Gulu
For photos of our progress, see my facebook album!
Bethan
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Newsletter Week Sixteen!
The Work:
The work continues frustratingly sporadically in schools where the teachers don’t teach, the mothers don’t turn up for their assigned music therapy sessions and the children turn up, when sent for, an hour late for their own music therapy sessions. The saving grace is that whenever we finally get the teachers teaching, the pupils in school and in sessions, the mothers together and the SOS kids in one room together, the 30-45 minutes we have in music therapy is well worth the hassle. There have been various things that are pretty inexplicable even if you know the local culture that have hindered our progress in all areas but we are not yet giving up and are thinking of strategies to overcome the apathy of the way people work here.
The House:
No more mice but we have a lizard stuck to the floor in the kitchen and our first cockroach in mum and dad’s bed, giving them a warm welcome to our house.
The Car! (Jerry!)
Jerry had many adventures this week including a journey that should have taken 1 ½ hours on a main road to Mityana (to visit some of my parents contacts there) taking 3 ½ hours through the bush as we took the wrong road! We amused many mzees (old men) along the way who hadn’t seen a white person for some time, it seems, and were wondering how we were going to get our car through the mud and dirt that constituted the road. Since mum and dad were with us the car was full to burst so Jerry had a heavy load to carry. Jerry’s other adventure was the 300km road from Kampala to Gulu. Gareth had to take a detour as there was a crashed lorry and a tailback of lorries for several miles. He followed a Toyota diving into the bush off the main road and we headed for some time through the bush (literally at some points!), nearly losing our bearings and having to live there for some days. It’s a good job I watched Ray Mears’ Survival programme before I left! But alas, Gareth and Jerry found their way back to the main road and we continued our journey northwards and homewards.
The Workers!
The workers are many! We have mum working 9am – 1pm in the day care and there are fears that she may try to abduct one or two of the children. She is having fun there and today she is seeing them face paint! Gareth is taking dad under his wing to his lessons and tomorrow they have a debate at Laroo school, which is always interesting. I am fine but sometimes get a bit dragged down by the unfathomable logic of Guluans. Jantina and Jacey (colleague and housemate respectively) are coming with us on safari at the weekend to celebrate my birthday (23 again!) so Jerry and the rest of us will hopefully have fun and not be bombarded by heffalumps!
You can still write to me at:
P.O.Box 1531
Gulu
Uganda
For photos of our progress, see my facebook album!
Bethan
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Newsletter Week Seventeen!
(Post-traumatic accident)
The Work:
We are now thinking of strategies to ensure that the music therapy groups continue after we leave, because every day we are reminded of the apathy and resistance to work that seems prevalent here. For example the primary year 7s are having their leaving exams at the moment and because of this none of the other years have lessons while the exams are going on! There seems to be any excuse not to work. We are going to talk with the various trainees about their expectations and ours, match them up and then find a way of implementing a programme and a supervision strategy (those who play buzz-word bingo are having a field day!)
We sometimes become very downhearted about the work. Today we waited for two hours at Laroo school for a group to arrive for their session, even stopping for lunch because we were there so long. We then waited for the next group for one hour before finding out that they were not coming. It is so frustrating. So much more could be achieved if only the teachers instilled a bit of time discipline!
The House:
Mum and dad have moved into a hotel which is far more comfortable for them considering the way dad is moving at the moment. No more mice since Jacey put ground cinnamon around the doors (mice don’t like cinnamon) and Tina moved the lizard that was stuck to the floor.
The Car! (Jerry!)
May he rest in peace and be successfully towed to be restored back to usage (but not by us) since Ugandan vehicles seem to follow the Hindu/Buddhist belief in reincarnation!
The Workers!
Mum and dad have had to take a break from work in their second week here to nurse dad back to health. Mum will go back to the day care to say goodbye and leave some learning aids and games for them. Tina, Gareth and I are recovering from whip lash and Gareth has a sore head wound but we are all trying to move on from the crash. We are all having some flashbacks to the accident but are here to support each other, and at least Tina and I now have some minute idea of the PTSD symptoms our clients are experiencing.
You can still write to me at:
Gulu
For photos of our progress, see my facebook album!
Bethan
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P.O.Box 1531Uganda
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P.O.Box 1531Uganda
P.O.Box 1531Uganda
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Newsletter Week Eighteen and Nineteen!
The Work:
We have started to tell our groups that our time is coming to an end, which is upsetting some of the Laroo students (the boarding school for war-affected children), but it is useful for us to help them experience ‘good’ endings since they are used to sudden and very painful ones. Tina is considering staying in Gulu for three more months, since she has no desperate need to return home straight away. This is good because there are a lot of loose ends to tie up that won’t be done by the time I leave in December.
We are meeting with a special needs teacher this morning about the possibility of setting up work in their school with their children. There is (apparently) a class of children with special needs within a mainstream school. This is the third time of trying to work with people with special needs so we shall see how it works out!
Tina has been key in implementing a move to find a music student from Kampala UK
The House:
The water is leaking and there is a promise that the landlord is coming to fix it. We have a permanently flooded ‘bathroom’ but since the water runs straight down the toilet (remember our toilet is a latrine on the floor!) it will never be a serious problem. The gate does not lock so we have children taunting us day and night through our back door and no amount of shouting or persuading in Acholi or English gets them to go home so we have to run out with a long stick. However, we never catch them so we have never had to have a good beating! We understand that we will be pointed and laughed at outside our home, but we do consider it a nuisance that we cannot relax and be ‘normal’ inside it.
The Car! (Jerry!)
I had a meeting with the insurance people on Monday when I was in Kampala Kampala
The Workers!
Speaking of Jerry protecting us, dad went home and saw his doctor who told him that after a major brain insult he was extremely lucky to be alive. He has a slipped/displaced disc in the upper part of his spine so is finding movement difficult. He has been signed off from work until Christmas so now I think I will advertise that if you want time off from work you should come and visit me!
Gareth, Jacey, Jacey’s boyfriend and myself enjoyed a beautiful weekend down in the south west of Uganda Lake Mburo
So, we are all doing fine although Gareth is preparing to leave early tomorrow morning on the post bus back to Kampala so I am feeling a bit dejected since I have to get used to the Navy wife’s lifestyle again after enjoying his company for so long. I am also planning for interviews (one the day after I arrive home!) for jobs starting in January. I have two set up so I would appreciate prayers for finding work when I get home especially as it is difficult to adjust so having a job would help a lot.
Please do not send any parcels (if you were planning to!) since they will arrive after I leave. As for letters, you may have another week or two to get them in!
Gulu
For photos of our progress, see my facebook album!
Bethan-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsletter Week Twenty!
The Work:
We have found something this week that we had thought did not exist: a special needs unit in a primary school! We went to visit the class of 37 students within a mainstream primary school where a teacher set up a SEN unit in 1997 for the children in the area that are otherwise hidden away out of view. Children in villages or IDP camps with special needs are often hidden away, even being sent to eat in another part of the village when it is meal time. Many people are ashamed of them but now awareness is very very slowly being raised and these children can somehow start to come out of the woodwork. We have arranged to run two one-hour music therapy sessions with the whole class for two weeks until the children go for their end of year holidays (summer hols, as Dec and Jan are the hottest months!) then we will refer the most severely disabled children to Tina to run two small groups from January. They are very welcoming of us and are pleased to have us there.
Tina and I have overcome our lack of car and not wanting to spend too much money on boda-bodas and have come up with a new plan for transport. Tina has borrowed a bike from a friend and we take it in turns to cycle each other on the bike rack on the back! This is entirely normal in Uganda
Saturday saw the most enthusiastic training day we have ever given for the music staff and student leaders at the boarding school in Hope North. We acquired a Mitsubishi Pajero and driver for the journey so we did not have to risk the death-trap matatus (bus/taxis). However, we woke up at on Sunday morning to find a flat tire and our driver did not carry a jack. T… I… A…, we sighed. At least the people we trained here are already talking about how they will use their new skills, which we will discuss in the training day next Saturday. Monday is a training day for the mothers and aunties at SOS and we will be sharing with them how to evaluate and keep notes so that I have some form of keeping check on them when I am home. We will also share together what our expectations are so that we are all on the same page.
The House:
Water is still leaking and now we have no boys in the house anymore we have rather less gadgets in the house than previously. We are now three girls and it feels rather quiet without Gareth and Greg, Jacey’s boyfriend, who was here for two weeks.
The Car! (Jerry!)
Amazing how Jerry can still have his own spot even after he has gone! I have been liasing with the police in Masindi (the town nearest the park where we got medical treatment for dad and Gareth) but they want to see the injured parties so that they can make their statement for the insurance company. It has been so hard to explain that that can never happen because they are both back in the UK
The Workers!
Gareth has now left L and is returning home via Kenya Mombasa
I have a cold that still feels ironic since it is near 30 degrees! I got sunburn on my nose (I imagine I will not get any sympathy from you at home with red noses from the wind and rain!) but other than that I am still excited to be here, especially with the new work at the special needs school. However, I am really frustrated with Laroo school, the boarding school for war-affected children, as there seems to be less and less actual teaching taking place as time goes on and our therapy loses value if the core necessities of safety, accommodation, food and education are not there.
Please do not send any parcels (if you were planning to!) since they will arrive after I leave. As for letters, you may have another week or two to get them in!
Gulu
For photos of our progress, see my facebook album!
Bethan
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Newsletter Week Twenty One!
The Work:
The training day at SOS for the mothers and aunties was postponed from Monday to Wednesday because of a burial in town that a lot of the mothers were attending. We therefore went on Wednesday morning at . The mothers had been told that it starts at so that they would be ready early, but we still did not kick off until 10.45. Not all the mothers were present, but the ones that were were enthusiastic and willing to participate in the multitude of role play exercises we had set for them! It was a very practical training, aimed at having the mothers lead the group of other mothers as though they were children. The feedback we got from the end of the group was as follows (it is paraphrased so that you can understand them rather than quoting directly in Ugandan-English!):
- Thank you for sharing this music therapy with us, at first we thought it was a joke but now we see that it is putting into practice all the theory that we had learned in the past. Now we are seeing how to use it in order to interact with our children.
- I think we will have regular music sessions with our families [each mother has 10-14 children in her family] so that we can bond and share problems and concerns.
Altogether I am pleased to say that I think SOS will continue using music therapy as part of their weekly routine, which is more than I imagined in the beginning. I even taught them how to keep brief notes and records of their work so I have something concrete to look at when I come back after some months.
Tina is staying for another 2-3 months and will train up a local person to work with her and then take over the project. We decided that the best thing to do would be to hire an employee to keep a track of the local projects we are setting up, so that I can have one central point of contact when I am back home rather than having to chase up three, four or five different organisations on the phone. We are therefore testing out certain individuals in the next two weeks, we will then give them a brief introductory training and set them off with Tina for a month probation. We have so far interviewed one teacher who is interested in counselling and we will visit a music centre just out of Gulu town to enquire about other interested musicians.
Our first session with the special needs children in a local school went well, the 34 children enjoyed dancing, singing and playing instruments as the WHOLE rest of the school seemed to be watching through the windows suddenly jealous that the munus had come to play with the special unit and not them!
The House:
Oh dear oh dear oh dear! Can you believe it! As if the mice, rat, crickets, cockroach and cockerels were not enough, we now have two new problems. Issue number one is easy to rectify but issue number two is rather more sinister. Firstly (and I really have to laugh so hard at this!), we have a termite mound in our bathroom! Yes, they are the mounds that ants make that can be as high as a few feet if left alone! We have one in our bathroom! Ha ha! Imagine! The second issue is that we found a local boy wandering around outside and inside our house trying to steal things. I was with a munu friend, David, when I saw a shadow moving around and I thought I was seeing things (the malaria drug, Larium, is known to give hallucinations) so I was a bit freaked out. However, David came out to the outside corridor with his torch and we found a boy hiding in a little cove just by our door. He grabbed him and we asked where his parents live. I had seen him about a lot before, hanging around our gate. He didn’t tell us, rather sent us on a wild goose chase around Gulu as we followed where he pointed. Eventually, (and by now we have half of Gulu wandering around with us) we decided that enough was enough, it was now 11pm so David took him to the police station where he stayed the night and was let out the next day. We have not seen him around again. It slightly pulls at my conscious to take a boy to the police, but it is quite creepy to have people wandering in and out of our house when we are just three girls together.
The Car! (Jerry!)
I now have only one document remaining from the police before I can get my claim in motion. The courier company never showed up to pick the documents and deliver them to Kampala
The Wandering Minstrels (workers)!
I have a cold, as does half of Gulu. The dry, hot season is coming and the sudden change in weather is causing illness. The dust is everywhere, (mostly in my nose!) and people are sneezing left, right and centre. Tina is making a list of comforts from Holland SOS , printing out ‘certificates of participation’ (a big thing here), leading a Christmas sing-song at SOS on Sunday (I can’t believe it’s December on Monday – it’s so hot and there are no Santas around!), preparing and wrapping 120 Christmas presents for the children at SOS , preparing 40 first aid kits for a village outside Gulu (Jacey is taking over this project)… oh dear, I hadn’t even realised there was this much to do before coming home and I also have to re-learn English for the interview I have the day after coming home! I don’t want to be speaking Ugandan-English when trying to impress someone!
As for the ‘wandering minstrels’ title for this section, it is because Tina and I now have a bike each (Gareth’s old one) and we like to sing as we cycle, thus giving the town something to laugh about, rather than our white-ness! The ‘Moulin Rouge’ soundtrack airs its voice a lot as we cycle!
Please do not send any parcels (if you were planning to!) since they will arrive after I leave. As for letters, you may have another week or two to get them in!
Gulu
For photos of our progress, see my facebook album!
Bethan
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Newsletter Week Twenty Two!
The Work:
The pen-ultimate training day at Hope North boarding school went off like a roller coaster. After thirty minutes three of the older girls (they are like student leaders/support for the younger children) were called to sit one of their end of year exams so that left us with only the boys. Surprisingly (considering the young males in Uganda
Gather together all the children in the village who are bored (that is all of them!) and start doing musical games and activities with them that encourage them to play peacefully, not with ‘guns’ and violence.
Start an open group at Hope North when the new term starts (Feb) where people who are not usually interested in the traditional dances can come and find a safe space for them to explore different aspects of themselves. Most of the children there are already teenagers so this is an important development
To make a drama about music therapy (kids here love their drama!) that raises awareness of the need to observe, wait, listen and respond to children and peers (that is our mantra as music therapists) in every day life.
We have met Betty, a potential employee for January. We have a meeting today with another man who may be able to put us in touch with more potential volunteers. We have posted an ad in the local teacher training school too.
We had a meeting with the director of War Child Holland
We have been given a donation to buy clothes for the children at SOS , through our unofficial charity-Christmas-presents scheme that got started by accident yesterday by my dad! We already have a small present for the children, now we are also going to add an item of clothing for the 120 children that are there. We also got a donation of small children’s musical instruments from Janet Farringdon (a member of On Board Gospel Choir) who came to visit with Sam yesterday. The children at SOS and Prison Primary very much enjoyed them. We had a delivery of nine drums (our house now smells of dead cow!), four harps, two xylophones and various shakers to give out to the places we have been in. I told them that they have come from donations made in the UK
We started (on request) one of two choir sessions at SOS for the mothers and older children as they want to learn some Christmas songs. I taught them a couple of regular hymns and added my personal favourite “little donkey” and my least favourite “away in a manger”, which went down well with the children and mothers!
This week we will be asking two of the six groups at Laroo boarding school about their experiences in music therapy in order to get somehow a therapist/client evaluation of how it is going here. In today’s Western climate our work is nothing without evaluation, so it will be good to get some insight into what the children have been gaining from our work.
Phew, that was a long section this week! I am in my last two weeks now and have so much to finish, I have also made tentative arrangements to come back if/when I have a holiday from my future job in order to come back and run trainings for the War Child Holland program employees and to return to Hope North where there is a team of three boys who are now helping us with how music therapy can be implemented there.
The House:
The water is running and running… I never thought we would have to complain about having permanently running water because it only ever came on twice a day for an hour each time! However, now we have a leak the water has decided to be on constantly and the landlord is on African time! We have had no more intruders since our boy was caught and taken to the police station and in fact we are given a lot more respect by the local children!
The Car! (Jerry!)
I somehow managed to chase up and collect (via a Peace Corps volunteer who I didn’t know!) a report from the Masindi police that enables me to put my insurance claim forward so hopefully I can reclaim the payment before I leave Uganda on 15th December. It ‘only’ cost me 120,000 shillings in bribes and four weeks of chasing!
The Wandering Minstrels (workers)!
Still full of cold and the dust here is bothering my throat so much that my glands seem to be up every morning in complaint! I can feel that I am coming to the end and have so much to do because I am exhausted! I am happy to be coming home for a rest since even relaxing here is tiring with all the noise and commotion about! Oh, I can’t wait to sit in my papasan chair with Moses (my rabbit) and a good cup of tea!
I also had the biggest compliment from someone yesterday who said I was very organised. My parents will wonder about that since I used to turn up to band practice without my clarinet!!!
Please do not send anything more (if you were planning to!) since it will arrive after I leave.
For photos of our progress, see my facebook album!
Bethan
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