Rwamwanja refugee settlement.

Where to start……?

We have had such a week!! I am lying in bed in a place called Mbarara. It is 4.15 in the morning but despite the fact that we’re in a lovely, large, comfortable bed with room to move, electricity, a proper loo, warm(ish) water and no insects or lizards for company for the first time in about 10 days, I can’t sleep! My mind is on full alert and crammed with all of the things we have experienced, everything I take for granted and all of the circumstances I would love to improve.

After leaving Kampala on Saturday around midday we set out for Rwamwanja. There were 6 of us making the journey, three employees of Xavier Project – Ed (the founder of the project and the designated driver), Dexter and Chrissie, myself and Rob and one other volunteer, Katie – a young (and lovely) English teacher from near London. We had a great journey travelling right across Uganda from East to West and seeing so much of the country. The last hour however was blighted a little by some of the heaviest rain I have ever experienced.

We had a couple of stops for food and fuel and arrived at our destination, the grandly named Rwamwanja Country Resort around 7pm.

I’ll try not to dwell too much on our accommodation, were Rob awake I would let him give you his insight as, the way it worked out, he got to spend a lot more time in it than I did, suffice to say it was not really what you might expect when you hear, ‘Country resort’. As usual, Rob barely complained or mentioned the rooms shortcomings.🤔🤔

On Saturday we went to visit our place of volunteering. The project is called Tomorrow Vijana and is a twenty five minute drive through the refugee settlement along some of the bumpiest tracks which become lethally slippy after heavy rainfall. Rwamwanja Main Street.

Tomorrow Vijana is an initiative to help adult Congolese refugees learn English, tailoring and Computing skills in order to increase their prospects. They mostly speak local dialects such as Lingala or Bantu and French. In order to trade or gain employment outside of Rwamwanja they need to speak English. The initiative was first set up by Matthias who taught himself English before starting to teach others under a tree. It is now supported by Xavier Project who helped in the provision of the hub – a building consisting of two large classrooms, and two smaller rooms, one a library – in urgent need of new resources and the other used for various things including storage of the sewing machines.Outside of the hub with some of my level 2 English students.

Inside the main classroom

Rob with his Vincent Kompany lookalike in the smaller middle room.

On a Saturday the hub is opened up to younger children for various activities, we spent some time playing with the children before going to see a nearby farm where the Xavier project are hoping to buy some land in order to set up an agricultural training college alongside a working farm. On Sunday the three Xavier project workers were off to do some investigation of a sponsored event they are hoping to organise tracing the route the refugees must take to travel from Congo to Uganda. Katie, Rob and I decided to head in the same direction to explore Fort Portal and the beautiful, waterfalls, caves and crater lakes nearby. It was an amazing day with beautiful weather and some of the most stunning scenery imaginable. We also had the added bonus of meeting Baboons on the way as we drove through Kibale National park and finding a restaurant for dinner that just played Kenny Rogers. A perfect end to a perfect day!😊

Monday morning found us all at the hub and thrown in at the deep end to teach various lessons. We could not have asked for a better welcome from all of the staff but especially Eric who teaches computer skills and became our driver when Loy was exhausted after our day out on the Sunday.Katie outside the hub with Loy, Eric, Joseph and some students.

We also had the best welcome from all of the students. It was so amazing to have so many students, varying in age from young adults to over seventy, with so much intelligence and so many different life experiences, crammed into such a small space, sharing chairs and desks yet so eager to learn.I cant imagine what the students have gone through but when we were talking about the verb to run and asked them to make a sentence using the past tense, one student’s answer gave us a little insight.

‘When the soldiers came, me and my family ran.’

I was so glad to have Katie and Rob alongside me at first,especially as it is a long time since I’ve studied English grammar and Katie was the expert! Unfortunately Rob only lasted a day before he was struck down with a very bad dose of man flu, hence his spending three solid days in our room. His quote,

‘Still I did have the company of mosquitoes, ants and lizards!

Oh and the occasional dung beetle

Happy days!’

Katie was also only there for Tuesday’s lessons before she returned to Kampala. By then, after some rapid lesson planning on the Tuesday evening I felt more confident and was very happy to go it alone. Thank you so much Katie – I tried to include all of the different teaching methods/learning activities you suggested. I hope I did you justice.

All together, it was an absolutely amazing week, I would love to have stayed longer but had to return Rob to some creature comforts to restore his health and good humour.

I will return – probably with a different companion, (Ellie or Gill – you’re probably my first thoughts as I know you would both cope well with any adversity, be energetic and compassionate and embrace the experience) to hopefully continue where I have left off.

The people of Rwamwanja are amazing. Any time I thought about how I’d like a hot shower or electricity I had to pull myself up quickly as to everyone else around us our living conditions were absolute luxury. Despite their many hardships, wherever we went we were constantly greeted with waves, handshakes and welcoming smiles. We met more new friends on one trip into the village than I have ever met in my thousands of trips into local towns at home. The constant cries of Mzungo, howareyou? (Which is obviously the first words every child in Uganda is taught and yes howareyou? Does come as one word) were truly lovely (if a little exhausting after answering for the hundredth time) and we constantly felt like the most important and celebrated guests.

Thank you to everyone, especially Eric and Loy. Eric’s words about nobody being able to think about self improvement when they are so hungry or thirsty and their basic human needs are not being met, will stick with me. I know we need to do something to help but I’m not quite sure what yet. Following the massive amount of faith we saw from the refugees – May God guide us.

Sorry for such a long blog but it’s been a while. Rob has some video footage he will add later. Love to everyone at home. Xxxx