Tag Archives: education

Degrading Undegradable

Posted on by
Reply

Plastic,plastic,plastic..
everywhere,everywhere, everywhere .
It’s  a mess. It’s cheap and it’s careless. It’s bags,it’s bottles it’s water cans and broken chairs.Rubbish with a price…    and with a value.

image

Plastic bags

The road has been remade recently and the plastic bags are now half  embedded in the road.
On the path home, the pigs and chickens scratch amongst the debris.,the plastic. We have the knowledge on food chain contamination but no will to care.We know that water sitting on a plastic bag is a great place for breeding mosquitoes.We know there is a lot of malaria here.No will to clear up, no will to educate. No will to afford large scale recycling.The fall in oil prices is bad for recycling.
A worldwide problem and A We Don’t Care problem.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-31432515

But a ray of hope.Fazzi  with his broken plastic jerry cans

image

Eeking a living out of collection and nurturing the infant recycle.
I like this guy, he wants to collect metal but for now he wants the plastic monopoly. On the back of research into the process of collection and recycle,  a trip around the main plant for plastic recycling looms.Should be interesting even if not on my original Uganda agenda. Might stop my scream of frustration at this degrading undegradable mess.

Slaughter of the Innocents

Posted on by
Reply

My host here,laughs a lot. And likes to understand people.He’s seen a lot and laughed a lot and been perplexed by people at times.I think he got it that loose rats might make me scream. Anyway, he’s kind.So he locked the school rats in a cupboard. Just for me. So it was I agreed to take the dissection class.A Rat and I.
The class mentioned before are a great group and we had a lot of fun and overstayed the lesson time.
So.
Mrs Ratty… No,I cannot say I liked you .But you were skinny and much smaller than the giant rats of my imagination. Alas, a skinny expectant one.

image

Mrs.Ratty

image

Four fetuses

So we learnt a lot.Four amniotic sacs to open,four fetuses to handlens. Limbs, eyes, umbilical cords and placentae with a 1cm crown rump length.
And the class did so much work on the five. We saw kidneys,liver, lungs pancreas,heart and then the budding neurosurgeon stepped in and explored spine and brain

image

Oh! Mrs Ratty. You will not be forgotten. And neither will your babies. Six young scientists learning and questioning and curious. A high in their academia will be kept for you five.
Nevertheless, Mrs Ratty did raise a paradoxical emotion. Five less rats in the world = good. Killing before the very first breath of such intimately developed fetuses = bad. And the city of York came to mind….in a land with free contraception we abort the fetuses that could populate a city  the size of York, every year.Nearly 200,000.Remember the city of York as an annual memorial for those not with us and may we strive harder for wanted and loved pregnancies.

Youth is wasted in the inequality.

Posted on by
1

I took up the challenge to join the sixth formers. They are a lively group,hungry for education, for success at exams and seeking a bright future. This group all  want to study medicine  and they want to be my friends on Facebook. They want to write e mails to me and they want to know how to find funding grants for higher education.They are bright and they deserve a great future. Who knows? Will inequality rob them?  rob their families, rob their communities, rob Uganda? or will the cuddle of inequality and dependency slacken into the orgasm of empowerment?

image

Here they are ( with permission)  with self made Dorcas who can pump fluid around her circulation

Education Sunday

Posted on by
Reply

1st February  2015

image

It’s Sunday!
In many Christian churches in the UK,today, education is talked
about and schools staff and pupils prayed for. Education Sunday. This is an education Sunday for me, as was last Sunday and as every Sunday can be.

I didn’t like the cockrel this morning.. All that loud flapping of wings before his virile pride burst forth into a dark hot 5 o’clock morning. Shhh and go away!

But education Sunday had begun and out of the darkness came harmonious rich beautiful singing. I’m not able to understand the words but the gentleness of the singing was a much better alarm clock than Mr.Cock.African singing at its best.

Lesson one : the local church can be
deeply devotional and not tied to a Sunday lie in.Jesus comes first.

Lesson two: corperate harmonious worship can enrich a community and it’s ok to let the neighbours hear.

At 7am, still behind the mosquito net snoozing I heard my host, the pastor, leaving for the first service. I didn’t want to get up.Too comfortable. Others of our household were sweeping floors and tending to small children. I didn’t want to get up just then,either.

Lesson 3: There’s a lot of work to be done. Lying in bed doesn’t get it done.

I attended the third church service of the day at 1100.  What joy!
Music already in full swing with over two hundred  gathered for worship. Singing, drums, dancing and lots of small children everywhere. It’s loud but the amplifier makes it very loud. It’s welcoming and joyful and controlled. It’s a performance only to an observer not to those interested in worship,but it is hard not to feel stiff.Everyone’s smiling and that soon includes me.

Lesson four: don’t be so self conscious. Noone ‘s watching you. Worship.

The photo attaching this post is all about help for shoes punning the good news.

The preacher’s job is to point to real help for souls. I’ve never experienced so much applause in a sermon as this one  progressed. Spontaneous  congregation participation. Real anguish healing and forgiveness from God is the experience of the congregation here.They know it and are believing and very very grateful.

Lesson five:
Jesus died for you and can heal your soul and bring healing in your life.The cobbler gets it and it’s up to your answer to the question Jesus asked Peter. “Who do you say I am? ” See Matthew ‘s gospel chapter sixteen verses15-19

I’m sort of bilingual.. I can get by.Spontaneous translation is quite another art. They have sermon translation down to a fine art. Fast and fiery at times, the preacher changes language and so must the interpreter. It’s slick and professional.And the occasional untranslatable word or saying

Lesson 6:
Uganda and so much of Africa is a bank full of credit for the world. The world sits staring like a miser at a pile of gold.

Lesson 7 : Man’s inhumanity to man is a worldwide phenomenon not an African one.

Education Sunday… So much to learn, so much to be thankful for and so much to respond to.

Welcome

Posted on by
Reply

21 JAN 2015

And so we arrived in Uganda. My luggage and I. The beautiful bicycle all in the box.A big thank you to KLM for waiving the fee as a charitable gift. And to the packer.

(Just for the record re the “dwellers all in time and space ” post,  my plane neighbour was upgraded and left me to enjoy a seat for two.Not complaining that his penchant for a violent film didn’t distract my reading)
Uganda is a place of warmth. Not just the equatorial sunshine, but the kindness of her people. So many people   give such heartfelt greetings and
” Welcome ” is their word. It’s  hard not to take a step back and feel undeserving of their words,smile and kindness.

image

Some have invited me into their houses in the few days I have been here and whatever the home style, the welcome has been humbling. “Welcome” tumbles off the lips of strangers as I struggle with quelling a sense of intrusion into their privacy.The  visits are deeply appreciated as the pastor of the church  his team and I call in on neighbours in the community just saying what  a church is about. And they have a lot on offer.Caring, feeding  educating, healing,medicines,support and salvation. Whatever the worldview of the folks we have seen there has never not been an active “Welcome “.  Europe. Let’s learn.