#actionsitaru

[littlebigafrica]

Bukhura Placement - Week One

When we first arrived in the village we were greeted by the community – the WHOLE community! There was a never ending line of community members who were helping us with all of our belongings, marching up and down the hills in Bukhura. A helpful but eccentric lady helped Astrid cross the river by giving her a piggy back. Unfortunately said lady and Astrid both fell face first in the river – what a great start to village life! 

We danced with people at our house as they joyfully welcomed us and had a good laugh at our dance moves which broke any tension. Soon we visited the water source that we will be protecting, this was little more than a trickle of water over some rocks. However, we can't wait to see the finished product! Although we are aware how much hard work this will require, we are very ready for the hard graft! All of the kids then shyly introduced themselves to us. We introduced ourselves to our new community too, but our names have been slightly altered: Ass-breed (Astrid), Orrie (Ollie), Jay-moose (James), Heleni (Helen) and Justine (Kirsty)!

Making the bricks for our water tank was tough. We were the first group to do it and it was harder than we had first anticipated. James took one Big Bang to the head from the brick machine and Ollie was covered in blisters from pulling the handle down to compress our bricks. We powered through, with the help of the engineer. The bricks came out really well and we are so proud of our team effort!

[littlebigafrica]

Day 4 of Volunteer Training (Group 1 written by BVDA)

We began the day with a traditional Ugandan breakfast. Training started with the basics of WASH teaching, comparing the behavioural changes to that of attitudes towards alcohol in the UK. 

Each placement group made an action plan for the village about how and when to wash your hands. We were given the challenge of constructing a tippy tap with a jerry can, string and other natural resources- ours was a thing of beauty that swept the competition away (we carved our initials in it as a permanent reminder) and we won a tube of Pringles. 

At lunch we tried creamy avocado and a bamboo stew with a gnut sauce, and watermelon. And Tim and Jack attempted hand washing their clothes, which was a success. We also had some maize which we were given after building the stove yesterday. 

After lunch we put our artistic skills to the test with a play about saving time by washing your hands featuring Laura as a dog and Lucy as an unhygienic villager. Then came the now infamous tippy tap rap starring MC Shillings and DS Dirty Hands. We concluded our training learning about different methods of water purification including moringa seeds and SODIS and enjoyed a refreshing soda break.

[littlebigafrica]

The Volunteer Journal 2016: Day 2 of Training (written by SID)

The first activity of the day was to continue learning Lugisu. We learnt how to properly enter someone’s house and introduce ourselves: Visitor- Ko-dee! Host- Karibu! We think our Ugandan language skills are coming along nicely ☺ and we have been practising with any locals that we have met. 

Our next lesson was in health and safety. This was a lot to taken in! After learning about several ways to die on placement, we now want to wash our hands all the time. 

We then learned all the steps, processes and equipment we needed in order to build two types of stove. This was hard to understand from the written instructions but we are now very excited to try it tomorrow in one of the local villages.

Photography was the last lesson of the day and everyone described is as “controversial”. We had to look at pictures of volunteers and decide if the picture was appropriate for social media. This really split the group because some pictures included children, churches etc and people were still discussing their different opinions later. Debs tricked us into thinking we were on a Ugandan persons Facebook and gauged our reactions- and the pictures she put up were not flattering! 

Our night time entertainment was “mafia”- a game where you had to uncover secret identities given to players. We had a good team bond. 

James’ highlight- the controversial debate surrounding photography. 

Kirstie’s highlight- getting to the end of Mafia before being “killed”

Astrid- SID winning the quiz relating to culture in Uganda and winning a chocolate bar that we enjoyed later ☺ 

Ollie- After being pretty hungover from my 21st birthday celebrations the night before I missed dinner and spent the rest of the day after training sleeping - had a great sleep

Helen- playing Mafia was a really good way to come together and see how people interacted with each other, and Astrid was an amazing police woman. I also really liked the debate about the photos, it was a great way to see how people’s personalities came through.

[littlebigafrica]

The Volunteer Journal: Day 1 of Volunteer Training Group 1 2016 (written by BVDA)

We woke up in the morning and had a breakfast of samosas and pineapple. Our first training activity was a role play, followed by a debate titled “International volunteers cause more harm than good” which was very interesting. 

After lunch we had our first Lugisu lesson, in which we learnt greetings. Liam continually addressed Ollie as a woman. We then did a quiz with some surprising facts about water and sanitation in Uganda which ended with a relay race to get the answers, carrying a 20 kg jerrycan of water!! It started pouring with rain so we relocated to inside the training room, which was very funny. 

Flo then wowed us with an amazing Ugandan accent when we were reading out the answers, Anna also impressed with South African. We had spaghetti, chilli, rice and jackfruit for dinner, then we played “card games” and enjoyed Ollie’s 21st birthday.

Siraaj highlight- Flow, Ruby and Annas sassy women in our roleplay, dismissing Lottie and Liams’s failed scientific creation.

Anna’s highlight- Astrid (very Scottish) doing a posh Queen’s English accent to read out an answer to the quiz. 

Liam’s highlight- learning some Lugisu!


Flo’s highlight- so enthusiastic that she can’t choose thing.

Ruby’s highlight- learning the Lugisu greetings and experiencing some hilarious handshakes.

Lottie’s highlight- not so tactically spilling the majority of the 20l jerrycan over myself during the struggle to carry it and run in the relay.